"Yes, just over there," indicated Geoffrey with his thumb. "You are to stop three days, I hear. You must both come to see me. You will be my first guests since I came back to my estate."

"You look as well as ever," said Featherstone. "But how we have made the running the wrong way, to be sure, since I last saw you."

Featherstone made a gesture with his left hand, and looked inquiringly at his friends; but Geoffrey, though he noticed the gesture, did not attach any significance to it.

He raised his glass of port over a carafe of water. "The King," he said.

All three drank, and Dacre whispered, "No more of this, Featherstone. I shall see Geoffrey this evening; he is not one of us yet."

"What an attractive woman Mrs. Oswald Carey is!" exclaimed Featherstone. "You knew her before, did you not, Geoffrey?"

"I was her father's pupil before I went to Oxford."

"And knew the goddess when she was budding into womanhood. I can see it all. You fell in love with her, of course, cherished a locket in your left-hand waistcoat pocket for some weeks after you left her father's tutelage. I don't blame you. I never saw a woman who made one's blood course faster."

Featherstone stretched out his long legs and arms and pulled away at his cigar, a queer smile playing over his mouth.

"She is a woman whom it is delightful to have been or be in love with," he continued; "but to marry—ah! I do not envy Oswald Carey. He simply gives his name up to have a Mrs. put before it. By the way, our hostess is an interesting girl. I like the old man, too. It is refreshing to see a man who has opened his oyster after living among such a broken-down lot as we all are. I wish that he could give me a point or two; they say that he can make a million by turning over his hand. Think of it. There are a lot of fellows who can lose one by the same simple process."

Geoffrey did not answer; he felt silent and depressed since the ladies had left the room, and his cigar seemed to him to be altogether too long. It is a bad sign when a man's cigar seems too long to him, and when he tells you that he never knew until lately how offensive the odor of tobacco was to a refined woman you may know that all is up with him. Featherstone, on the other hand, smoked his cigar, slowly and reverently, like a liberty-loving and untrammelled gentleman.

Geoffrey walked out to the great hall, where he found the ladies gathered around the fireplace. Mrs. Oswald Carey sat near the Duchess, and was talking with her. The old lady did not seem pleased with her new companion, and smiled pleasantly at Geoffrey, when she saw him approach. Miss Windsor was sitting in a low chair somewhat removed from the other two. Geoffrey, after a few words of greeting to the Duchess, approached Miss Windsor.

"You did not linger over your cigar like the rest, I see," she said to him, as he sat down by her. "Tobacco is a woman's most formidable rival, but the charms of Mrs. Oswald Carey are strong enough to draw you in here! Perhaps you will have a cup of coffee to make up for your deprivation."

"Thank you, Miss Windsor; one lump. But I did not come in to see Mrs. Oswald Carey. I had the pleasure of sitting next her at dinner."

"We are going to-morrow on a drive to the ruins of Chichester Cathedral. If you have nothing to prevent you, will you not join us?"

Geoffrey accepted the invitation.

"It is a pity that there are so few ladies," continued Miss Windsor; "we can make up a coach-load, however, and you may drive, if you wish it. Of course, you can then have Mrs. Oswald on the box-seat with you, and then you will be sure to have a good time."

"Oh, Featherstone can drive much better than I," answered Geoffrey; "I have not driven four-in-hand since I lived in this house. I should much prefer to be upon one of the seats with you."

The men trailed into the hall awkwardly, bringing a fine perfume of tobacco along with them. They stood around for a moment, getting themselves into the position of the social soldier.

Herr Diddlej seated himself before the piano, ran his fingers through his long hair, and was soon weeping over a sonata of his own composition.

Dacre, who was standing apart from the others, before a picture, in a dark recess of the hall, was approached by a footman, who made a quick sign to him, a sign such as Featherstone had made to Geoffrey a few moments before.

Sir John answered, and the servant, in handing him a cup of coffee, slipped a note into his hand. The footman went on handing the coffee, calm and unmoved.

Dacre, after glancing at the letter, thrust it into his waistcoat pocket, and furtively glanced at Geoffrey. The latter excused himself to Miss Windsor.

"I wish to have a long and private conversation with you," said Dacre to him, "and when you take your leave I will walk over with you to your house, where we can talk together."

Mrs. Carey, before the party broke up, excused herself on the grounds of a severe headache and retired to her room. She sat there for some time looking out upon the ocean and the moon-glade, glistening and twisting over the waves like a great serpent. Of a sudden she threw over her shoulders a thick cloak, and, by a dark back passage of the old house, stole out into the moonlight. She felt a desire to walk along the cliff and to soothe her nerves with the deep booming of the waves along its base. And, perhaps, she might meet Geoffrey on his way home, she thought, not forgetting the potency of moonlight and the great Love God, "Juxtaposition."



CHAPTER VI.

THE ROYALISTS.

It was a clear, cold night as the two strangely dissimilar friends, Dacre and Geoffrey, emerged from the shadow of Ripon Wood and stood for a moment on the cliff path looking down at the unquiet sea, which was still heaving and breaking from the force of the day's storm. From the horizon before them the full moon had risen about two hand-breadths, and the sky was all barred and broken with torn clouds moving rapidly, behind which the moonlight filled the sky. The white light fell on the black sea like spilled silver, and made a glittering road across the waves.

Dacre advanced to the very edge of the cliff and stood with folded arms, looking into the night as if it were a face or scroll to be read. But the eye, in truth, saw not, though the thoughtless sense perceived the shifting clouds and tossing sea. The vision was introspective wholly. It was turned on a wide inner field, where stood arrayed, like an order of battle, a strange array of Principles and Methods and Men.

Dacre was at work—at the work he loved and lived for. The enthusiast, like a general, was reviewing his spiritual and mental troops—proudly glancing along the lines before he removed the screen and called another eye to behold. He had drawn them up, with their banners, to fill Geoffrey, at once, with his own confidence and knowledge—for it was knowledge and certitude, not opinion or fantasy, that filled him.

John Dacre was a magnificent dreamer, and he saw and lived among magnificent visions. The spirit that had evoked Royalty and Aristocracy and made them a potent reality for twenty centuries burned in him as purely as in the old poet's picture of King Arthur.

No wrong that is all wrong can live for two thousand years and bind the necks of men. Royalty was the first wave of the rising tide of humanity; Aristocracy was the second. Both were necessary—perhaps natural. But the waves fall back and are merged when the risen sea itself laps the feet of the precipice.

It is hard to describe Dacre's face at this supreme moment, except by saying that it was visibly lighted with an inner light. Standing in the moonlight, with his pale features made paler, the shadows of the face darker, and his tall form straight and moveless as a statue, from the intensity of his thought, he almost startled the more prosaic Geoffrey, who had lingered to light a cigar before coming out on the breezy cliff path.

"Hey! old fellow; what do you see?" Geoffrey asked as he came up.

But he had to speak again, laying his hand on Dacre's shoulder before he got an answer, though Dacre had noted the question, as his answer showed when it came.

"See! I see a glorious panorama," and he turned and looked at Geoffrey, still with arms folded. "I have seen the history of our country stretched out like a map upon the sea. I saw thereon all those things which have made England famous forever among the nations—the kings, the nobles and the people, advancing like a host from the darkness to the light."

"Yes, to the light of other days. But you know that has faded," said Geoffrey, as he buttoned his overcoat and pulled down his hat.

"No; not the light of other days, but the light of to-morrow, which never fades."

"Well, then, I don't understand you, old man; that is all," said Geoffrey, contentedly, as he paced along, casting a satisfied, thoughtless glance at the shimmering waves below, in some such natural way as a sea-bird flying overhead might have done.

Geoffrey was of a placid and easy, perhaps lazy, disposition; but his placidity rested like the ice of a mountain lake on deep and dangerous water. It was hard to ruffle him or even to move him; but when moved he was apt not to return to the position he had left, nor to be quite natural to the new position.

"How far away is your house?" asked Dacre.

"Not far; there, you see the light over there. Old Reynolds is sitting up for me and keeping the kettle going. He sticks by me through thick and thin. I have tried to make him take a better place, but he will not go."

Dacre was silent, and they walked on, descending from the cliffs and following a path across the wide lawn-like fields, darkened by enormous heaps of shadow from scattered chestnut trees.

An hour before the young men crossed these fields another figure, a woman's, had travelled the same path. She was wrapped in a dark cloak, and though she had lingered and loitered on the cliff-walk, she hurried on the lower ground till she arrived near Geoffrey's lodge.

The speed with which she had walked proved that the woman was young, and when the strong wind tightened the light cloak on the outline of her tall figure, it could be seen, even in the moonlight, that she was lissome and beautiful.

She had, on leaving the cliff path, steered straight for the light in Geoffrey's house; but when she approached it she walked slowly, and at last stopped in the deep shade of a tree within fifty feet of the lodge. From this position she could look into Geoffrey's sitting-room, where a fire burned brightly and a light stood in the window facing the cliff.

"I shall wait here," she said, speaking to herself, as if to give herself courage by the whisper; "no one has seen me—no one but he shall ever know."

But the next moment she almost screamed with terror at a sound behind her. A bramble cracked, and she saw a man within a few yards of her. She was terribly frightened, and could not speak or move.

It was old Reynolds, Geoffrey's servant, who had seen her on the cliff walk, and had taken a night glass, with which his master often watched the ships, to see if this were not he returning from the house. Seeing a woman, Reynolds was surprised, for the cliff walk was lonely and not too safe. He was still more surprised to see her turn into the path to the lodge, and he had not lost sight of her for a moment till she stopped under the tree.

When she turned, even in her terror, she assumed a defiant attitude, and she held it still, facing the man.

Reynolds instinctively knew she was a lady, and with a touch of his hat, but a doubting sternness in his voice, he said:

"Who are you, please, and what do you want here at this hour of the night—or morning?"

She was reassured, knowing the voice to be that of a common man, and as quickly judging him to be Geoffrey's servant.

"I am an old friend of Lord Brompton's family," she said, steadily enough; "and as I return to London to-morrow, I have walked here to-night just to see where the head of a grand old line is forced to reside."

Reynolds was touched on his tender spot. The sternness left his voice, and with bare head he said sadly:

"Ay, ma'am, in truth it is a sad sight to see the Lord of Ripon living in the cottage that was once the home of his groom—for my father kept the gate here for forty years."

"Lord Brompton has not yet come home?" asked Mrs. Carey, for it was she, though she knew he had not.

"No, ma'am; he hasn't yet come out on the cliff walk. I can see him with this glass—as I saw you," he added, explaining his presence.

Mrs. Carey gave a grim little smile in the dark.

"You would like to see the lodge, perhaps, ma'am, inside as well as out?"

"Yes; I should like it very much; but I ought not to venture now. Lord Brompton might return, and I should not wish him to know I had been here for the world. I am overjoyed to know that he has at least one friend who is faithful to him," and she held out her white hand to the old man.

She said this so graciously that old Reynolds was carried off his feet. This fine patronage sent him back to his young manhood, when he was whipper-in to the old Earl's foxhounds, and heard such voices and saw such upright ladies in the hunting-field.

"Come in, my lady," he said, glancing at the cliff path; "he cannot reach here under half an hour. You can see all there is to be seen of the poor place in a few minutes."

The old man led, and she followed toward the lodge.

"Have a care of the steps, my lady; they are the worse for wear."

He entered before her, and threw open the door of the main room. The place was made cheery and comfortable by a blazing wood-fire on the great iron dogs, and a round copper kettle singing and steaming on one side of the hearth.

The lady entered and stood by the table, glancing keenly at every feature. In brief space she had taken an inventory of the room. Old Reynolds passed her and opened a side door which let in a flood of cool air from the field where she had been a few minutes before. The old man stood at the door a moment, watching the cliff path for his master.

"We do not use this door," he said, "for the boards out there are too old to be safe."

Mrs. Carey went to the door, the upper part of which had once contained squares of glass, but was now vacant, and saw that it opened on a short hall-way about four feet deep, with an outer door, also half of glass, which was closed. Through this door-window the old man had looked toward the cliff. Outside was an old piazza, deeply shadowed by overhanging trees.

When Mrs. Carey returned to the table, her eye rested on a photograph on the top of a heap of old letters. She reached her hand for it; but hesitated, glancing at the servant.

"May I look at this?" she asked, with a sweet smile; "I know almost all Lord Brompton's friends;" and she took up the photograph.

One glance was enough; it was a woman's face, but only some passing woman, whom no one could remember for a month. With a slight smile, she laid it down.

There was nothing more to be gathered, except by closer investigation of the tempting irregularity. She beamed on the old man as she turned to go.

"You will meet his lordship on your way to the house," he said. "He will come by the cliff path."

"Oh, no; I shall return by the lower walk, which is safer and shorter. What is your name?"

"Reynolds, my lady."

"Good-night, Reynolds; and please do not mention my visit to any one."

"Except to his lordship—"

"No; not even to him, Reynolds. It would only pain him to know that his friends were observing his changed estate. You understand?"

"I do, my lady, but—"

"But, Reynolds, I ask you to do this for my sake," and again the smile beamed, the white hand was extended, and the subtle seductiveness of beauty had its way once more. Men are never so old, so humble, or so ignorant as to be insensible to the charm. Faithful old Reynolds took the lovely soft hand in both of his, and bent his white head and kissed it.

"Even he shall not know," he said; and the next moment she was gone—this time not across the moonlit field path to the cliff, but into the dark shadows of the woods on the other side of the lodge.

Reynolds watched her till she was lost in the gloom, and then returned to the lodge, closed the door, and started toward the cliff walk. The old man was strangely excited over this first visit of his master to "his own house," and he could not rest till he had seen the end of it.

But, before he had crossed the first field leading to the cliffs his mysterious visitor had returned to the lodge. She had changed her mind as she walked toward Ripon House, had resolved to see Geoffrey that night, let old Reynolds learn what he might, and she had returned.

She called Reynolds in a low voice once or twice; then she opened the door and entered the lodge. The place was empty. She went to the side door of Geoffrey's sitting-room through the little hallway and stepped out on the disused piazza, and from there she saw the old servant on his way to the cliffs.

She was about to follow him but she checked herself suddenly.

"No! this is unexpectedly fortunate. The fates are in my favor—so far, at least. Ah me! what will they say presently?"

Turning from the window in a softened mood, she looked at the room with a new look. She saw across the chair, which she knew was Geoffrey's, his old shooting-jacket, and she took it in her hands with a tender feeling, hardly knowing what she did. Holding it within her arms she stood with lowered head and a dreamy look in her eyes. While in this mood her glance fell on the old sword which lay on the table, still with the slip of paper tied to the hilt. She took it up and read the scroll.

Holding the jacket and the sword, she sat in Geoffrey's chair and stared into the fire, with a smile, as if half enjoying her own audacity.

In a few minutes she heard a footstep, and presently the old servant entered the outer room, which was the kitchen of the lodge. She sat still, waiting till she saw him enter and start at her appearance, and ready to smile his impressionable old soul into quietude.

But the ancient Reynolds unconsciously avoided the danger. He remained in the outer room, and she heard him clatter among dishes and throw two logs on the fire. Then he went off into another room and did not return.

Reynolds, seeing that his master had company, was busy preparing the one "spare room" of the lodge for a possible guest.

Mrs. Carey grew tired of waiting. She went to the piazza door, opened it, and looked out. Crossing the moonlit field she saw Geoffrey, and he was not alone; but she did not recognize his companion. The beautiful face was anything but beautiful just then, and the exclamation that escaped her was as fierce as the stamp of her foot on the bare floor.

The two men were so close to the house that she could not escape by the front door, and she did not know any other way. Could she instantly find Reynolds she would then have asked him to conceal her till she could get away unseen. But Reynolds did not appear.

It was a terrible moment for Mrs. Carey. Discovery in such a place and at such a time was an appalling thought. Even with Geoffrey alone she would hardly have known how to meet the first surprised glance; but with another, and whom she knew not, the idea was intolerable, impossible.

The men came on slowly; she heard their voices as they passed near the window. Then she recognized Geoffrey's companion, and could she have leaped from the piazza and fled, she would have done so.

Of all the men she knew, the only man she feared, or perhaps respected, was Sir John Dacre. She did not understand him, while he seemed to read her very soul. His presence robbed her of self-confidence, and made her contemptibly conscious of her frivolity, or worse. He was like a touchstone to her—and she never cared to be tested.

As the outer door opened and Geoffrey and Dacre entered the kitchen of the lodge, Mrs. Oswald Carey stepped into the little passage opening on the veranda. She gently lifted the latch of the outer door, but kept the door closed. She carefully closed the inner door and crouched below the opening. If discovered by Geoffrey she would confess that fear of Dacre's presence had made her do this thing.

The conversation of the friends had been earnest, it was clear; and before they had been in the room five minutes Mrs. Carey's fears had given way to her curiosity, and instead of shrinking from the door she raised herself to a kneeling position, so as to be near the opening, and listened with breathless attention.

"The truth is, Dacre," said Geoffrey, "that I am not sure of myself. I don't know that I have any political principles whatever."

"This is not a question of politics, Ripon," answered Dacre, almost sternly; "it is a question, it is the question of the reorganization of the social life of England, which has been overturned and is in danger of being utterly destroyed."

"Well, even for that I am not particularly enlisted. It does not trouble me. Had you not told me about it, I should not have thought that anything very serious was the matter with England, except that we of the titled class have had a tumble and are as poor as the devil. But then some other class has—"

"Stop, Ripon! It is unworthy of you to slight the dignity of England's nobility, however poor we may be."

"We! Why, hang it, Dacre, do I not count myself in? And I do not speak slightingly. I fear I have no class, and therefore no prejudices. I was too young to be a conscious aristocrat before the Revolution, and now I am too old to be a thorough Communist. But go on, Dacre, I know you have something to propose."

Even Dacre's enthusiasm cooled for a moment before the odd calmness of Geoffrey, who was, as he himself surmised, a man almost without a class and undisturbed by the hopes, fears or prejudices of those who have one.

Dacre walked to and fro with folded arms, while Geoffrey, slipping into his old jacket, which he had been rather surprised to find wrapped round his ancestor's sword, busied himself with the kettle and a bottle he had taken from a cupboard.

"Listen, Ripon—" said Dacre.

"Hold on, hold on, mine ancient friend," said the preoccupied Geoffrey, pouring hot water on the sugar in two glasses; "there's nothing like Irish whiskey when you're talking treason."

"Ah, Geoffrey," said Dacre, sadly, as the friends clinked their glasses, "men can live treason as well as talk it."

"Is that confession or reproach?"

"Reproach, Ripon. The life you live is daily treason to your country. You sit idly by while England descends from the heights of her renown and is clothed in the rags of the banditti who have obtained power over her."

"Banditti—who? The Republicans?"

"Republicans or Anarchists, whatever they be called; the blind and immoral mob that has been misled by wretches to destroy their motherland."

"Look here, Dacre, do you really mean to say that Republicanism is immoral and unnatural?"

"Certainly; that is just what I mean."

"But look at America—the happiest, richest, most orderly and yet the most populous country in the world."

"I speak of Republicanism in England, not in America."

"But where is the difference?" persisted Geoffrey. "If the universal suffrage of the people be virtue in America, how can it be vice in England?"

"As the food of one life may be the poison of another," answered Dacre. "Human society has many forms, and all may be good, but each must be specially protected by its own public morality. England was reared into greatness and flourished in greatness for twenty hundred years on one unvarying order. America has developed under another order, a different but not a better one."

"That may be, but in less than two hundred years America has reached a point of wealth, order and peace that England has never approached in two thousand."

"America," continued Dacre, "had nothing to unlearn. Her people had no royal traditions—we have no democratic ones."

"There is something in that," said Geoffrey.

"There is everything in it. The Americans are true to their past, while we are false to ours. We are trampling on the glorious name and fame of our country. We are recreant to our position, intelligence, to our fathers' memories—or we shall be if we do not—"

"Do not what?" asked Geoffrey, as Dacre paused.

"If we do not unite and have another revolution!" answered Dacre, slowly and firmly.

There was a slight sound outside the room, which made Geoffrey raise his eyes and glance toward the window; but Dacre, now aflame with his subject, stood before him and arrested his look.

"Ripon, do you think that the nobles, the gentlemen of England, have lain down like submissive creatures to this atrocious revolt? Do you think nothing has been done?"

"In Heaven's name, what can be done?" asked Geoffrey.

"What did the Anarchists do when they wanted power?" asked Dacre fiercely. "They banded together in secret. They swore to be true to each other to the death. They armed and drilled and prepared their plans. They watched every avenue, and took advantage of every mistake of ours. They inflamed the masses against the Royal Family, the Court, the House of Peers, the landed aristocracy, and when their hour of opportunity came they raised the cry of revolution, and the government was changed in a day."

"Well?"

"Well!—we have learned their lesson. What they did we shall do. We have banded ourselves together. What is that?"

A noise like a creaking door had struck Dacre's ear, and he stopped. Geoffrey had heard it, too, and instantly jumped up and walked into the kitchen. Reynolds was not there; but Geoffrey heard him at work in another room. He returned smiling.

"Either an owl or a ghost, Dacre," he said, looking out on the field. "There is not a soul but old Reynolds within two miles of this place."

Dacre continued to pace the room, and as he walked he said in a low voice:

"I have said too much, or not enough, Ripon. Shall I proceed?"

"By all means, proceed."

"But you understand—you see the consequence? You know enough to know whether or not you want to hear more."

Geoffrey was silent, and sat looking at the fire. He was moved by Dacre's words; but he was not filled with any new resolution. At last he raised his eyes and was about to speak. Dacre was regarding him intently, and now came and bent toward him.

"Come with us, Ripon," he said earnestly, dropping each sentence slowly. "We want you. You are needed. It is your duty."

"I am not sure, Dacre, about that," answered Geoffrey, looking at his friend.

Dacre drew back, with a flush on his pale face.

"I am not sure of that," continued Geoffrey, unheeding the movement; "but I am sure of you, John Dacre, and I am ready to take your word for it, even when you tell me what is my duty. I am sure that if the gentlemen of England are in a league of your founding, or of your choice, they are banded for no dishonor, but for some noble purpose; and if you want me I am ready."

Dacre's mouth quivered as he grasped the hand his friend held out to him. Then he took another turn across the room.

"Now, go on with your talk," said Geoffrey. "If there is any oath, propose it."

"None for you," said Dacre.

"Thanks."

Dacre then unfolded the plan of the revolution which would restore the House of Hanover, the House of Peers, the titles, and all the old order of aristocratic classification which nearly twenty years before England had put behind her. He wanted to see Geoffrey an actual leader, knowing the qualities of the man; and to show him the position clearly he laid the whole scheme bare. It was a terrible enterprise, but on the whole not so formidable as a score of revolutions that have succeeded in Europe since the end of the nineteenth century.

"You say you will begin with the army?" asked Geoffrey. "How many regiments have you?"

"We have eleven colonels in England to-day," answered Dacre, "and six of these will be with their regiments at Aldershot on the day of the revolution."

"How are their men? Are the subalterns with them? and can they carry the soldiers?"

"Many of the subalterns are not with them; but there are some exceptions. When the Royal banner is raised and the King proclaimed, depend on it the common people will respond."

"How many men of note will be at Aldershot on that day?" asked Geoffrey.

"Here is a rough plan of the rising and a list of the gentlemen, which Colonel Arundel has drawn up," said Dacre, and he took from an inner pocket a paper containing about forty names, which he handed to Geoffrey, who glanced at it rapidly, recognizing nearly all the names, though he knew few of their owners. Half a score of dukes and earls and marquises headed the list, including old Bayswater and the unfortunate Royal Duke who had chosen to remain in England in poverty rather than share the King's exile in America. Lower down on the list were the names of simple gentlemen like Featherstone and Sydney.

While Geoffrey was looking at the scroll, Dacre had taken up the old sword and read the faded inscription tied to the hilt. Geoffrey saw him and smiled, as he laid the list on the table.

"It is true, Dacre," he said, laying his hand affectionately on his friend's shoulder. "I thought of the words of that scroll to-night when I saw you interested in that girl with the beautiful eyes, who sat beside you."

"Why think of these words?"

"Because she was a commoner's daughter, Dacre; but none the less a noble English girl, fit match for any aristocrat in Europe."

"Doubtless," answered Dacre, calmly, looking at the silver hilt of the old sword.

"You have met Miss Lincoln before to-day? Yes—Miss Windsor told me so."

"Yes; I have seen her several times at Arundel House."

"Her father is a good man, Dacre. How will he regard our revolution?"

"As we regarded his, no doubt—as a crime."

"God!" thought Geoffrey, pacing the floor, "how strange that two men so noble as these should look upon each other as traitors and enemies!"

"Were it not for Richard Lincoln the Monarchy would have been restored ten years ago. He is a powerful supporter of his class," said Dacre, slowly.

"Dacre!" said Geoffrey, stopping in front of him, "it is we who are class men. Richard Lincoln is a patriot!"

Dacre leaned his chin on the old sword, and looked silently into the fire.

"What will you do with such men as he, should this revolution succeed?" continued Geoffrey. "They will never submit."

"They must," said Dacre, with compressed lips, "or—" The sentence was left unspoken.

Geoffrey saw it was no use to argue. He had cast in his lot with Dacre, and there could be no drawing back.

"Stay with me to-night," said Geoffrey, as his friend was buttoning his coat. "Reynolds has prepared a room for you."

"No; I must see Featherstone, who returns to London early to-morrow. I should like to see you later in the day. I shall come here, I think."

"Yes; it is quiet here. Well, let me walk with you as far as the end of the cliff."

And lighting their cigars the two men struck across the field, Geoffrey having ordered old Reynolds to go to bed.

Mrs. Oswald Carey waited till the old man had left the kitchen and retired. Then she came from her hiding-place and at one glance saw what she wanted—the list of conspirators, which Geoffrey had laid open on the table. Her keen sense of hearing had followed this paper as if it were visible to her eyes, and she knew that it had not been returned to Dacre. With a firm hand she seized the document, and the next moment she had left the room, closing the two doors behind her. She kept close to the wall as she circled the lodge to the lower path, and then she started on a rapid walk for Ripon House.

As Geoffrey returned he was thinking of the list, and he looked for it, with something of alarm at its absence. When he realized that it was gone he walked through the kitchen and called up Reynolds.

"Were you in the room since I went out?" he asked.

"No, my lord."

"Is there any one else in the house?"

"No, my lord."

"Has there been any one else here to-night?"

The old man hesitated before he answered this time.

"No, my lord; no one has been here."

Geoffrey had not the slightest reason to doubt the faithful old man, but had asked the questions for reassurance. As he retired for the night, or rather morning, he said to himself that Dacre had no doubt taken the document, which was too precious and too dangerous to be left in any other hands.



CHAPTER VII.

A FOUR-IN-HAND AND ONE IN THE BUSH.

The four-in-hand which was drawn up in front of the great terrace of Ripon House the next morning reflected much credit upon Mr. Jawkins's savoir faire. The new harness glistened in the sunlight of the bright November morning; the grooms, in the nattiest of coats and the whitest and tightest of breeches, were standing at the horses' heads; and the horses themselves, beautifully matched, clean-limbed and glossy, were fresh from a toilet as carefully made as that of a professional beauty, or even Mrs. Oswald Carey's own. And that lady stood on the threshold of the Doric portal, her clinging driving-dress seeming loath to hide the grand curves of her figure, and her violet eyes drinking in the day. As she stood there, she seemed anything but the flower of a moribund civilization, the last blossom of an ancient regime; but there is a certain force which flourishes in anarchy, a life which feeds upon the decay of other lives, and grows but the more beautiful for it. Geoffrey looked upon her with a half-repelled, unwilling admiration, little knowing how near he had been to her the night before. Then Maggie Windsor came out, and he tried to look at her instead.

"Remarkably fine horses, those, Mr. Windsor," remarked the Duke, with a gravely approving nod of his polished head. "Remarkably fine horses," he repeated, as if one could not have too much of a good thing from a duke; and this time he threw in a wave of his patrician hand, gratis. Jawkins looked at him with admiration, and again felt that he was a prime investment. The strawberry-colored dome of his bald head was alone worth the money, not to mention the strawberry leaves.

"And does not your Grace admire the break?" asked Mr. Jawkins, with a preliminary bow and smirk. "It is a new pattern; and the panels picked out in cream color are thought to give a monstrous fine tone to the body. And as for the horses—they're from ex-President Rourke's state stables."

The Duke looked as if he deprecated the introduction of any such recent personage into the company, even by the mention of his name; and at that moment the Duchess arrived with Sir John Dacre. Sir John did not look much like the member of a coaching party; a close observer might have noted a slight mutual glance of intelligence passing between his eyes and Geoffrey's. Mrs. Oswald Carey was that close observer.

"A four-in-hand is all very well for those that like it," observed Mr. Windsor to the Duke, "but give me a box buggy and a span of long-tailed horses. Are you off to-day, Jawkins?"

"Yes; the Prince has sent telegrams at twenty-minute intervals all through the morning, and in the latest one he began to swear. The Prince is a natural linguist and can swear in fifteen different languages. I must be off to Brighton at once. I will return late at night. I have left one of my young men, who will take good care of you, you know. Good-by, Mr. Windsor—your Grace, I am your most obedient—" Jawkins bowed low and jumped into his little dog-cart. By this time the break had got fairly loaded; the horses were given their heads; the horn sounded; and in the wake of the great equipment provided for Mr. Jawkins's clients, Jawkins himself rattled contentedly along to the station.

A fine show made the paint and silver and the flowers and the gay cloaks and furs and the beautiful women among them. What is more dashing and brilliant than a coaching-party? What more inspiring to the eye, more light and careless; what fun more fast and furious? And many a man that morning, who felt his hand clothed with all the might of the people, looked curiously at the equipage of the Yankee millionaire and envied these gay people, the haughty beauty of the women, the gentlemen with their calm, unruffled exterior, and the light-heartedness, the carelessness of it all.

Now, upon this coach were six people; and as they bowled along in the crisp November morning they were thinking of many things. Let us fancy, if we can, what some of these gay thoughts were. On the inside seat was Mr. Sydney, the hired wit, the broken-down man-about-town; his health gone, his future gone, with no family, no friends, no faith in a hereafter and no joy in the present; and the day preceding, at dinner, he had eaten a vol-au-vent which had disagreed with him. Next Mr. Sydney came the Duchess, the gaunt and dignified lady who awed even Jawkins to repose. There was not a night of her life that she did not cry like any schoolgirl whose lover has forgotten her, at the shame of her life, and the bitterness and humiliation of her daily bread. She would rail at the old Duke, who had come to it so easily, and was willing to prostitute the honors of his race for gross creature comforts, his claret, his cigar; and every morning, when her old eyes opened, she hated the daylight that told her she was not yet dead.

Next the Duchess came Maggie Windsor. Come now (you might say), she, at least, is in her place upon a four-in-hand, with her young life, her happy lot, her pretty, pouting lips and laughing eyes? I do not know; I marked the quiver of those pretty lips, and the flush of her fresh face, as her eyes, no longer laughing, looked at Mrs. Carey, just in front. Beside her sits Sir John Dacre. His lips are closed firmly above the square blue chin, and his eyes, beneath a prematurely wrinkled brow, look straight before him out upon the road. Perhaps you would not call Sir John's face attractive; his expression does not change enough for charm, and there is not light enough in those still gray eyes. As you see it now, so his expression has been these twenty years, from his studious youth at Oxford on. The four horses break into a furious canter down the hill; the coach sways from side to side; and Dacre still looks far ahead and down the road. If there is no light in the eyes, there is no tremor of the lips; just so he looked when at the doorway, all unconscious that Mary Lincoln was looking at his eyes and finding them attractive. Dacre has never thought of women; his life has had but a single thought, a single hope, and that, perhaps, a forlorn one.

In front, on the box-seat, is Geoffrey Ripon, driving, and Ripon is miserable that Maggie Windsor is there, miserable that Eleanor Carey is there, so miserable about either that he half forgets he has promised his life to Dacre, and with him, so close that her full arm touches his, and troubles him as if it had some magnetic influence, sits the beautiful woman whose girlhood he had loved; she, now knowing this, now conscious of the might of love, and of the power that it gave her womanhood upon this man; and in her heart the madness of her misery, the scorning of her world, the courage and the passion of despair.

It is a gay coaching party, and many such another rattles through this world with the footmen and the shining trappings and the pomp of paint and varnish. Oddly enough, no one speaks for moments, while they whirl down the avenue beneath the stately trees. "Where shall I drive you to?" finally says Ripon to the company.

"Where you like," says Miss Windsor, after a pause. "You must know the prettiest place—you have known this country from your childhood."

Ripon drove them up to the highest crest of the down, where the long main wave of the green hills stretches eastward along the coast, and the faint blue sea sleeps glimmering in the south. Still no one spoke; Dacre's eyes were lost over the ocean; even Miss Windsor was grave and silent. Mrs. Carey tried to point out a sail to Geoffrey; he could not see it, and she leaned over close to him that he might follow the direction of her eye. Her breath seemed warm upon his face after the sea breeze.

"Your eyes are not so good as they used to be," said she. Geoffrey looked at her, and thought to himself that hers were deeper. He said so; but she only laughed the more and looked at him again. "Do you remember our rides in the pony-carriage?" she went on. "Poor Neddy!"

He did remember the rides in the pony-carriage only too well; when he sat beside the laughing girl, and she looked up at him as they drove through the leafy lanes when the shadows lengthened till the sunbeams crept under the old trees and touched her hair with gold. It was in one of these drives that he had vowed that he would always love her. He had broken a sixpence with her in earnest of their betrothal contract. But he did not like to have those drives recalled with Maggie Windsor sitting just behind them. The horses were conveniently restive just then, and perhaps Geoffrey did not put on quite so much brake going down the hill as was necessary. The heavy vehicle went down with a rush; Geoffrey and Mrs. Carey were not looking at the horses, the Duchess was indifferent, Sydney looked on dyspeptically, and Dacre was looking far ahead, as was his wont. Only Maggie Windsor gave a little scream and grasped the rail.

"It was not so hard to drive Neddy as that four," Mrs. Carey went on. "If I remember aright, the reins were often on the dash-board, and we were not always absorbed in the scenery, I fear." Mrs. Carey sighed, and looked away over the green hills and valleys.

"Poor old Neddy!" said Geoffrey, lightly. "I suppose he carries no such happy burdens now."

"Some people are happy yet," the woman answered. "I told you yesterday I had never blamed you for forgetting me after you went to Oxford. It was true. But I missed you very much." There was a little tremor in her voice as she said this. Geoffrey pricked his horses nervously.

"My heart gave a great leap when you came into the room—it should not leap, being Oswald's," she continued, in a more worldly tone, "but it did all the same. A woman's heart cannot forget its first possessor, you know; even now that you have lost it—with the rest of your estates," she added maliciously.

"With the rest of my estates," Geoffrey repeated, almost unconsciously. They had crossed the highest hill by this time, and were upon a lower ridge; before them a long green band of velvety turf stretched away over the billowy downs, the chalk shining through the bare places where the grass was worn away, like flecks of foam. Geoffrey had a sudden thought, and, leaving the road, he cannoned the four noble horses over the close, hard turf.

"Poor fellow!" said Mrs. Carey after a moment. "And are all your estates really gone? Can you get none of them back? But where is this—where are you going?"

"I say," said Sydney, "do you know where you are, Brompton? This used to be Goodwood Race-course." Goodwood Race-course; so it was. There was the track, stretching like a band of broad green ribbon over hill and dale; there was the glorious oak wood to the west, above the smooth bit of grass which used to be the lawn, where the ladies of the reign of Victoria had their picnics and showed their dresses, and book-makers used to jostle ministers in the betting-ring. "Ah," said Sydney, "my father has told me of great doings here—when King George's grandfather was the Prince of Wales."

The break rolled silently over the soft greensward, and Geoffrey feared Miss Windsor could overhear their every word, as Mrs. Carey spoke again.

"This is a glorious day—a glorious country," she said. "Do you know, I have not felt so happy since those old days?" She looked up again, and Geoffrey met the magic of her eyes, and lost himself in them. Suddenly she turned them from him. "You should be saying all this—not I," she said.

"When were you married to Mr. Oswald Carey?" asked Geoffrey, abruptly. He felt that he was slipping from his moral moorings and wished to lash himself to them again.

"I have been married four years," she said, coldly. "But you really must be careful of your driving, Lord Brompton. I distract you by talking."

"Not at all," said Geoffrey, half troubled that his parrying question had answered his purpose so well. Mrs. Carey turned round with an indifferent air.

"My dear Duchess, is not the view charming?"

The Duchess made so slight an inclination of her head that it was hardly an affirmative. She did not approve of Mrs. Oswald Carey. Not that her approval mattered anything nowadays. But she thought it bad enough to be a professional beauty and sell one's photograph; and worse still to rent one's face out to enliven dining-parties, and one's neck and shoulders to adorn dinners. True, she herself rented their great name, their ducal title; but then she never could get used to it in others.

If Mrs. Carey noticed the snub, she showed no sign in her face, but turned to Mr. Sydney. He also had found the Duchess rather thorny; and was ready as ever to pay the homage that one who is only a wit owes to beauty. And we know that beauty is more queen than ever in this material age. It is long since our grandfathers first found the folly of dreams and banished art and poetry from England—with opium and other idle drugs.

"Mr. Sydney, you look as fresh as a daisy. I am so glad the vol-au-vent agreed with you."

"My dear madam, you know not of what you speak. My night was terrible, and no such aurora as yourself was in my troubled dream at dawn." Sydney looked over at the Duchess, fancying this speech was rather nicely turned; but her Grace was quite impassive, and evidently maintaining a sort of conversational armed neutrality.

"Oh, Mr. Sydney, you should have more care of yourself, or I fear the day will come when you will dine no longer, but merely sit up and take nourishment. Now, we expect you to be so funny at luncheon."

Sydney began to be offended thinking this too flippant treatment of a man of his position. Meantime Maggie Windsor had been asking Dacre about the beauty. "She told me last night she was a very old friend of Lord Brompton's?"

"Yes, I believe she was. I fancy even there may have been some childish love affair between them." Dacre spoke bluntly, as usual. Love affairs had found no place in Dacre's mind; his only thought was his country and his King; and he spoke with little consciousness of the individual human life his words might wound.

"Look there!" cried Sydney, "there is Goodwood House." Geoffrey looked across the park (they had gone down the hill, through the wood, and were now in the open again) and saw a great, rambling house, the central part of white stone, with two semicircular bays. This part was evidently old, but long brick wings were added of more modern construction. "The county has bought it for a lunatic asylum, I hear from Jawkins," said the wit grimly.

"Where is the Duke of Richmond?" asked Geoffrey. "Still in Russia?"

"Giving boxing lessons," said Dacre.

The rest of the ride was made in silence. They went down through a valley naturally fertile. None of the large older houses seemed to be occupied, but were falling into waste. Early in the afternoon they drew up at Chichester Cathedral, among the ruins of which they were to lunch. The grooms took the horses off to an inn in the little village near by, and Jawkins's man proceeded to unpack the hampers.

For some reason, Miss Windsor avoided Geoffrey. The Duchess and Sir John sat silently beside one another; Ripon was left to Mrs. Carey. It was a pretty picnic; but the party did not seem to enjoy it very much. From the Chichester ruin the roof has quite disappeared, but the pointed arches of the nave still stand; and these and the flying buttresses of the choir make a half inclosure of the place, into which the sunlight breaks and slants like broken bars of music through the soft greensward. Here you may lose yourself among the arches and pillars, the broken altars, the overturned fonts, and the old tombs and marble tablets speaking of dead worthies long forgotten. And if you lose yourself with the right person, your loss may be (as these same epitaphs read) her eternal gain.

Geoffrey wandered in here with Mrs. Carey. He had been trying to find Miss Windsor; but he met the other first. He could not treat her rudely, perhaps he did not wish to; but to his speech she answered but in monosyllables or not at all. Finally they sat down on the grass, leaning on an old stone pillar overthrown in a corner, half sheltered by what had been an altar in the old days, before the church was disestablished. Geoffrey did not speak for some time, and when he looked at her he saw that she was crying. Great tears were in her eyes, and as he bent down they seemed tenfold even their usual depth.

"Mrs. Carey! Eleanor!" he cried in despair, "what can be so wrong with you! Pray tell me—please tell me—" She made no answer; her hand was cold and unresisting as he raised it with the soft white arm from the grass; the sleeve fell back, and the setting sunlight showed each little vein in her transparent skin. "Pray, tell me!" Geoffrey went on, and then, more softly, "You know I have never forgotten you!"

Her breast was rising and falling with her weeping; but only a single sigh escaped her lips. At his words a deep sob seemed to break from a full heart; half rising, on an elbow, she placed her hand on Geoffrey's shoulder and drew his head in the bend of her wrist down close to her as she lay. Her lips almost brushed his cheek as she poured into his ear a torrent of words. "I am so miserable! so miserable!" was all he could distinguish. Then she arose, sitting upright.

"Geoffrey Ripon, my life is a lie—a mean, unbroken lie. You know why I married Carey—he could give me position, eclat, fashion—fashion, which is all we moderns prize, who have killed our nobles and banished honor from the dictionary. I sold myself to him and I have queened it, there in London, among the lucky gamblers and the demagogues and the foreign millionaires. All that this world—all that the world can give I have had, Geoffrey Ripon. And I tell you that there is nothing but love, love, love. It is these things that are the lie, Geoffrey—not love and truth and honesty. Oh, forgive me, Geoffrey, but I do so crave for love alone."

Ripon looked at her, speechless. As she spoke the glorious lips had a curl that was above the earth, and the eyes a glory that was beyond it; and the grand lines of her figure formed and melted and new formed again as she leaned, restless, upon the fallen stone. She threw her arm about his neck, and drew him down to her.

"Geoffrey, did you ever love me? You never could have loved me, when you left me so. See, the broken sixpence you gave me. I have still got it. I have always kept it." And she tore her collar open, and showed him the broken silver, hanging on a ribbon of her hair about her neck. "Oh, Geoffrey, you never knew that I loved you so! See—" and she drew out the coin and ribbon, and placed it, still warm from her bosom, in his hand. "Geoffrey, I care for nothing but love—this world is a wreck, a sham, a ruin—all is gone—all is gone but love—dear love—"

She drew him closer to her breast. For a moment Geoffrey looked into her marvellous eyes. Then a faint shadow passed across them, and looking aside he thought he saw Miss Windsor, alone, passing one of the arches.

"Hush!" he cried; and throwing the ribbon down he rose and stepped a pace or so aside. "Forgive me, Eleanor," he said to her, as she looked at him, "I loved you once—God knows—but now—it is too late."



CHAPTER VIII.

SPRETAE INJURIA FORMAE.

Mrs. Oswald Carey rose the following morning before anybody was stirring. She passed down the staircase noiselessly and opened the front door, when, much to her annoyance, she found herself face to face with Mr. Jawkins, who was smoking a matutinal pipe on the front steps.

"Whither away so early, Mrs. Carey?"

Her first impulse was to tell a falsehood, but the keen, clever countenance of her interrogator convinced her of the futility of such a plan.

"To London," she said, simply; "can I be of service to you there?"

"You know I depend upon you to sing 'My Queen' after the dejeuner."

"A matter of imperative importance calls me away. I shall return to-morrow."

Jawkins looked inexorable, and declared that he could not afford to have her go. "You are the lodestone of my organization, the influence by which the various celebrities I chaperone are harmonized. If it is a question of pounds, I mean dollars—this new currency is very puzzling—dictate your own terms. I have a valuable diamond here which once belonged to our sovereign. I shall be happy to make you a present of it if you will give up your plan." He held up the gem as he spoke.

"What you ask is impossible. There are moments in a woman's life when even a diamond seems lustreless as your eyes, Mr. Jawkins, if you will pardon the simile." Her sleepless night had made her wrong burn so grievously that she could not refrain from sententiousness, even in the presence of this man whom she despised.

The undertaker scratched his head thoughtfully. "Has the Archbishop of Canterbury said anything to offend your irreligious scruples?"

"No."

"I trust the prim manners of her Grace have not wounded your feelings. She has old-fashioned notions regarding the sanctity of matrimonial relations. She does not approve, perhaps, of your appearing in public without your husband," said Mr. Jawkins, with an apologetic smile.

"I have no feelings. You forget I am a woman of the world. Besides I am revenged for any coldness on the part of the Duchess by her husband's affability. I got a guinea out of the Duke last evening."

"By what method?" asked the other, with unfeigned admiration.

"He kissed my hand. Perhaps you are now aware, Mr. Jawkins," continued Mrs. Carey, with a captivating swirl of her swan-like neck, "that I have established a personal tariff. My attractions are scheduled. To kiss a thumb or any but my little fingers costs two bob. The little fingers come at half a crown. To roam at will over my whole hand involves the outlay of a guinea. Am I not ingenious and at the same time reasonable in my terms, Mr. Jawkins? I will squeeze your hand for sixpence." She laughed charmingly. Go to London she must and would, but she hoped to accomplish her purpose by wheedling and to avoid a rupture with the manager.

"Madam," he replied, with polite coldness, "was not my attitude toward you what may be called fiduciary I should hasten to take advantage of your offer. But business is business, and I have made it a rule never to enter into social relations with any of my clients during the continuance of a contract. Excuse me for saying, Mrs. Carey, that if you persist in your design I shall feel obliged to withdraw your back pay."

Pitiful a menace as this may seem to well-to-do people, it affected Mrs. Carey disagreeably. She was dependent upon her engagement with Mr. Jawkins for her means of support. These wages and the royalty she derived from the sale of her photographs were her sole income. She could not afford to offend him, and she well knew he would keep his word. But her desire for revenge would not brook considerations of policy. Rather than abandon her plan she was resolved to break with him.

Such was the outcome of her reflections during the moment that she stood smiling at his threat before she made a reply. She looked at him in a fashion that would have melted the iron mood of any man but Jawkins. He had seen beauty world-wide in its most entrancing forms, and believed himself proof against feminine wiles.

"Is there no alternative?" she asked, beseechingly.

"Mrs. Carey, I will be frank with you. I suspect you of an intention of going to America for the purpose of carrying on an intrigue with the late King, one of whose cipher letters to you has chanced to come into my possession. To have you arrested would be very disagreeable to me, and I trust you will not force me to take that step."

Mrs. Carey's surprise was so great that she almost betrayed herself. This suspicion of his would be an admirable cloak for her real design could she only succeed in representing it to Mr. Jawkins in such a light that he would suffer her to go to London. Some months previous she had projected a journey to America, and letters had passed between her and the King, but the scheme had been laid aside as impracticable, as she had discovered that the royal family were in reduced circumstances. It was now well known in London that the King's banker kept him very short.

"Well," she said, with simulated distress, "you have pried into my secret, Mr. Jawkins. I have never injured you. What motive have you in standing between me and fortune? Why should you begrudge me the eclat of wearing the coronet of England's Queen?"

"I will be frank with you again, Mrs. Carey. I have rivals in America who would snap you up in the twinkling of an eye. A royal crown upon the brow of a professional beauty has not its equal on the globe as a great moral exhibition."

"But I would give you the contract," she said.

The manager shrugged his shoulders.

"Is my word of honor of no avail?" she asked.

"I once lost L100,000 on a similar insecurity, Mrs. Carey."

"You wish to ruin my prospects in life, Mr. Jawkins."

"I am obliged to consider my own."

"You are rich and prosperous already. I have nothing but my personal attractions, as you well know, and you seek to rob me of the prize when just within my grasp."

"You are unjust, madam." He shuffled his feet uneasily. It was against his grain as a man to see this peerless beauty in trouble and refuse her petition. Her arms apparent in all their white perfection of roundness, her exquisitely poised head and lovely face expressed the poignancy of dismay.

"Is there no security that you will accept, Mr. Jawkins?"

Jarley Jawkins looked at her, and felt the blood surge in his veins. Mrs. Carey had always exercised a powerful charm over him. He regarded her as the most beautiful woman of his acquaintance. Ordinarily the thought of suggesting anything compromising would not have occurred to him, but her marvellous beauty presenting itself in the same scale with her necessity, blinded him to prudence and every other consideration but passion. It was a contest between the cunning of a luscious beauty striving for a secret end and the self-interest of a mercenary man. The victory was hers, though scarcely by the means she had expected.

"Yes, Mrs. Carey, there is one." He leered at her a little.

"And that?"

"Yourself." He spoke distinctly and resolutely, for he was a man who faltered at nothing when his mind was made up, but she could see him tremble.

His speech was so astounding that she could scarcely believe that she heard him aright. She felt the blood rush to her cheeks in testimony to the audacity of the insult. Coming from this man such an avowal inspired her with rage and disgust. He, the society costermonger, sighing at her feet! Bah! It seemed too degrading to be true. It could not be true. And yet there he was and a response was necessary. A politic response, too, or all was lost. If she rejected him he would have her arrested. Her mind was made up.

"I know," he continued, as she did not speak, "that my proposition seems at first distasteful, but there is much to be said in its favor."

"Yes?" she queried, looking at the ground.

"I love you. If we fly to America, what is there to prevent our success? We are both clever. I am rich, and you are the most beautiful woman in the world."

"Your offer is so abrupt that I do not know what to answer. Give me time, Mr. Jawkins."

"No, no; now, at once. The steamer sails day after to-morrow," he uttered hoarsely, and he seized her hand and kissed it with passion.

"A guinea," she cried banteringly, and she looked into his face with her beautiful violet eyes, as she had into many another whose love, though nobly born, had been no less scorned in the days gone by.

"Guineas for such as you! You shall have millions. And you will go?"

"Yes," she whispered, "I will go."

He sought to embrace her, but she eluded his grasp. "Not yet—not yet. You must wait." So great was her disgust that she feared lest she should break out in rage and denounce him. Following after her scene with Geoffrey the very intensity of his passion wrought disagreeably upon her nerves. She felt the irony of fate. Yet the reflection steeled her purpose and gave her strength to smile and seem to accept his advances.

She placed her hand, glistening with rings, upon his sleeve. "I will meet you in town to-morrow, anywhere you select."

"No, you must not leave me now."

"It is absolutely necessary. I have my things to get ready."

"My servants will supply all that you need."

"Ah, you do not understand women's needs," she murmured, coquettishly, and she turned to get into the phaeton, which just then had driven up to the door. It had been ordered for Jawkins's morning airing, but it suited her convenience admirably.

He made a movement to follow her, but she turned and spoke to him in French. "Do you not understand that caution is necessary? We must not be seen together. I will meet you at noon to-morrow in South Kensington Gardens. Adieu." She smiled upon him, and her glance had all the sweetness of that which Vivien bent on Merlin. "To the station!" she said to the coachman.

It took her some time to collect her thoughts and realize the situation. The effrontery of Jawkins seemed so daring that she almost laughed aloud. She had escaped from his clutches for a moment, but it was only a respite, a breathing spell which would soon be over. It would be necessary to provide for the morrow. But that reflection disturbed her little. She was free to pursue the object of her journey and satisfy the desire for revenge which filled her heart. As the train whirled toward London she whetted the stiletto of vengeance upon the grindstone of her wounded feelings. That paper exhibited by Dacre would furnish the needed proof of conspiracy, and then good-by, Lord Brompton, to your cherished schemes for fortune. It made her wince to think that she had been discarded for an awkward hoyden of a girl, her equal in no particular. So she stigmatized her rival, as she chose to consider Maggie Windsor. "He loved me in the days of my green maidenhood," she said to herself, "but now that I am become the most beautiful woman in England he disdains me." Even Jawkins had spoken of her as the most beautiful woman in the world.

The thought of Jawkins recalled the incident of the morning, which, in the bitterness of her mood, she had forgotten. Somehow or other the idea of quitting the country in his company seemed less repulsive to her than at first. He was rich, and she would no longer be obliged to support herself by a degrading occupation. After the first buzz of scandal and excitement at her elopement the world would cease to prattle, or if it did she would be in America and safe from its strictures. The King was too poor in friends to refuse her recognition at his court. And, after all, there need be no scandal. She would go to America in the role of a professional beauty and Jawkins should be her manager. She would keep him at a respectful distance and squeeze money out of him by dint of promises. Once in America she would seek to fascinate the King. She was weary of England. She had exhausted its resources, and it would be amusing to visit the great ideal Republic, of whose magnificent prosperity she had read until her mouth watered. Yes, let this matter of a conspiracy be set at rest and Geoffrey lodged in prison, and she would go. Her glorious eyes sparkled with interest. She would have done with the platitudes and dreariness of private life. A grand career loomed up before her across the ocean, where men lavished millions at the dictate of imagination and put no limit upon enthusiasm. A fig for the dream of an absorbing love, such as for an hour yesterday had flitted through her brain. She would trample on its ashes after she had sated her vengeance.

In this mood she reached London. She took a four-wheel cab and told the man to drive her to Buckingham Palace. Shrouding her features she sank back from observation. Had she not preferred to screen her face she was free to enjoy the emotions of a celebrity. Her photograph was in the shop-window of every picture-dealer in town. Her sympathy with the Royalists had, it is true, lessened her popularity for a time, but supreme beauty is the one attribute which disarms prejudice and converts ill-will.

London at this period, like the rest of England, showed marks of the unhappy condition of its affairs. The thoroughfares, parks and public buildings looked dirty and uncared for. An atmosphere of gloom overhung Mayfair like a pall, as though the very fog had taken advantage of the situation and was clamoring for spoils. It was, in truth, a system of spoils that had been inaugurated in this former stronghold of constitutional liberty. The present government gave every facility to those who advocated popular principles with the aim of feathering their own nests. Under the influence of the social craze all that tended to promote external beauty of architecture or equipment was discountenanced, and a sodden rule of ignorant craft and vulgarity was settled upon the nation. Those at the helm were clever demagogues who were prepared to humor the people, provided they had the control of the public funds wherewith to indulge their licentious tastes. President Bagshaw had converted Buckingham Palace into a barracks, where he sat day in, day out, with boon companions. Entrance was forbidden to none. The dirtiest scavenger might there at any moment shake the hand of the people's chief representative.

Mrs. Carey alighted, and found herself exposed to the gaze of a group of rough, groggy-looking individuals who were hanging about the entrance to the once famous palace. All the way down Regent Street she had peeped out from the cab windows, hoping to catch sight of familiar faces or fascinating wares in the shopping paradise of the late nobility; but, though the stores still stood, few passers were to be seen, and the filthy, smoky aspect of the sidewalks told that anarchy was rampant even here. Revolution is silent in England. The people uprising in their might do not overturn monuments and lop the limbs from statues. They let the dust and the smoke and the fog do the work for them. Only one face was recognized by Mrs. Carey as the vehicle rumbled down to its destination. She caught sight of her husband leaning out of one of the windows of Fenton's Hotel smoking a pipe. The once famous hostelry had become a haunt for pothouse politicians. A sudden impulse of generosity seized her. "I will invite Oswald to dinner with me to-night," thought she.

As she walked into the palace the men made way for her in silence. They removed the pipes from their mouths and stared in mingled bewilderment and admiration. Despite her veil she was too striking looking not to fetter the attention of even the most listless, for the disgust with which these surroundings inspired her and the tenacity of her cruel design gave her a bearing such as Clytemnestra might have envied. She stalked through the corridor and up the stairs, disregarding the gilded hand and tin sign which read, "To the President's Room. Second Story. Take the Elevator." The idlers in the lobby had recognized her, and a whisper spread until it swelled into a buzz outside that she was the professional beauty.

"Can I see the President?" she asked of a policeman who alone guarded the door of the chief magistrate.

"Name, please," said the functionary, who still clung to this relic of the formality of the past.

"Say a lady," she said, haughtily, and the man, impressed by her mien, threw open the door.

Mrs. Carey found herself in the presence of a large, heavily built man, with a bald head and long, coal-black beard, who was sitting at a desk. He was smoking, and the spacious but bare room was thick with tobacco smoke. A table, on which were empty bottles and the remains of a lunch, stood in one corner. Several men, who also had cigars in their mouths, were sprawling on an enamel cloth lounge in the bay-window which commanded the street. At her entrance these latter arose, and, at a glance from their chief at the desk, shambled out of the room by a side door, casting, however, over their shoulders glances of curiosity and surprise. She waited until they had closed the door, then lifted her veil.

President Bagshaw rose and made a bow, which was an unusual act of homage on his part, for he was a woman-hater as well as an atheist. He even removed the cigar from his mouth.

"What can I do for you, madam?" he asked.

"I have important information for the government." She paused an instant. "Are we quite alone?"

The President went to the side door, and carefully bolted it. Then he resumed his seat, and, resting his ponderous, seamy jaw upon the flat of his hand, waited for her to begin. He was used to all sorts of devices as a prelude to requests for office or emolument, and his expression betokened little interest or expectation. Had not the serious character of the communication she was about to make rendered coquetry at the moment distasteful to Mrs. Carey, she would assuredly have been tempted to tamper with the indifference of this matter-of-fact personage, who even already had recovered from the trifling shock to his principles which her entrance had caused.

"I have proofs," said she in a low tone, "of a serious conspiracy among the Royalists."

His countenance changed a little, and a contracted brow of a business man became noticeable. "In what part of the Republic?" he asked.

"It is a widely concerted plot in which all the leading Royalists in the country are engaged. The King himself is privy to the affair. The outbreak is to occur at Aldershot on the 24th of November. Many of the troops have been suborned."

"Who are the leaders of this conspiracy?"

"The prime movers are Sir John Dacre and Lord Brompton. It was at the latter's house that I learned the particulars of the affair."

Clytemnestra never plied the sword more ruthlessly than this jealous woman doomed to destruction the man who had spurned her love.

The President was silent a moment. "Have you proofs of what you tell me?"

She took from her muff Colonel Arundel's letter and handed it to him. "You will find there, sir, a list of the leading rebels and the army officers implicated."

He scanned it eagerly. "H'm; yes, this speaks for itself. And what," he continued presently, with a politician's quick sense, "can I do for you in return?" The idea of being loyal for nothing would never have occurred to President Bagshaw.

"The time may come when I shall ask a favor of the government, but not to-day," said Mrs. Carey. "My only request is that my name shall not be mentioned in the matter. Is that agreed upon?"

"Certainly, if you desire it. But, madam," continued the demagogue, "the people are grateful to you for the service you have done them."

"You had better ascertain first, Mr. President, that my information is authentic," she said, rising and drawing about her comely shoulders the folds of her cloak, as though to silence the conflicting forces of love and vengeance working in her soul.

The great man opened the door for her himself. She bent him a stately, solemn courtesy, and covering her face passed slowly down the stairs.

A telegraph company had an office in the basement of the palace. Here she wrote a message to Jarley Jawkins, which was worded:

"Must postpone journey three weeks. Leave me alone until then. C."

When she had dispatched this she bade the driver stop at Fenton's, where she picked up her husband and took him to Greenwich for a quiet fish dinner. Oswald asked her, in the course of the meal, what business she had at Buckingham Palace.

"I was trying to have you reappointed to your old place in the Stamp and Sealing-wax Office, and I expect to succeed," was her reply.



CHAPTER IX.

"THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE."

When Geoffrey awakened on the morning after the coaching party, he lay for some minutes dreamily revolving in his head the events of the last two days. He felt that he had reached a crisis in his life, and as he stretched himself on his narrow bed he groaned inwardly at the perplexity and danger of the situation in which he found himself. After his lonely existence he was suddenly in the vortex of the whirlpool. He had promised his life to Sir John Dacre and to his country to be staked upon a hazard, which he thought to be hopeless, and knew to be desperate. He did not think of swerving from this promise, for he felt that he must be true to his order and to high patriotism.

He winced, too, as he thought of the scene with Mrs. Carey in the ruins of the Cathedral. He knew that he could not have averted it, for it had broken upon him with the suddenness of a summer shower. He had entered into a dangerous conspiracy, and had made a deadly enemy on the same day.

He was sure that Miss Windsor had seen the affair in the ruins. He had given the ribbons on the drive home to Dacre, and had taken his place by Maggie's side on the back seat, but she had been cold and constrained, and had answered his remarks with monosyllables. The party was so gloomy that it was a positive relief when a cold drizzling rain set in, and mackintoshes and cloaks covered up the faces of all, and made conversation difficult. But, after thinking of the dark side of the medal, Geoffrey gave a shrug of his shoulders, and cast off for a moment gloomy thoughts, as a duck shakes off water from its oily plumage.

"Mrs. Carey was right," he said; "love is the great thing, after all; and I love Maggie Windsor. I have little enough to offer her, not even my life, for that I promised to John Dacre, and the reversion is not worth much, I fear. My title! Ah, that is an offering indeed; a title by courtesy, in a democracy which at the same time sneers at and cringes to it. But I love her, and if a man comes to a woman with a sincere love he will at least be heard."

Then the thought of his promise to Dacre filled his mind and heart, and he groaned aloud.

"How can I speak to her of love, when I am on the verge of this emeute at Aldershot? And yet I cannot give up life without having had the satisfaction of its one joy, its one reality! I love Margaret Windsor, and there is a chance, a bare chance, of her loving me. Why did she pick out my old house, when she knew that I was living here, if she did not wish to see me again? Conspiracy or no conspiracy, my poverty, her riches, go hang. I shall ask for her love this very day."

He had finished a very elaborate toilet for him, and Reynolds appeared to summon him to his breakfast, which the faithful servitor cooked and served to him in the old sitting-room. As Geoffrey cracked his eggs and drank his coffee, Reynolds looked wistfully at his master's handsome face, for he saw a new expression there—a look bright with hope and the consciousness of an awakened soul—and the old servant wondered whether the beautiful woman, who had visited the house two nights before, had changed his master's face so. He noticed, too, that Geoffrey was smartly dressed, and that he had tied his neck-tie with great care, and had put on a coat from one of the crack New York tailors, so that when the old servitor disappeared to polish his master's boots he said to himself:

"The young earl is going courting, for a certainty, and a fine lady he will bring home as his bride. Will she buy back his house and lands for him, I wonder?" And Reynolds smiled to himself as he pictured the head of his beloved family restored to his own again and Ripon House under the faithful Reynolds, major-domo.

The dinner at Ripon House after the coaching-party had been dull indeed. Mrs. Carey had sent her excuses to Miss Windsor, and the latter, who had seen her head upon Geoffrey's shoulder in the Cathedral in the morning, was relieved at hearing them.

For within Maggie's tender heart a love for Geoffrey Ripon had gained the mastery since the interview in the secret chamber. Long had that love haunted her gentle heart, a shade at first, which flitted away for a while, only to return again and trouble her. But just as she had installed her love in the innermost sanctuary, fair and godlike, she had discovered, as she thought, that her idol had feet of clay; that the man whose lips and tongue told her that he loved her on the one day was on the next saying the same thing with the same lying lips to another woman.

Mrs. Carey had been Geoffrey's first love. Sir John had told her that, she remembered. "He loves her still and he pretends to care for me because I am rich," she said to herself as she lay tossing sleepless during the night, a dull pang racking her heart with a real physical pain. In the early morning she arose and looked out of the window over toward Geoffrey's house, down over the lawn and the cliff path and the leafy chestnut trees.

"He is false," she said to herself, thinking of our hero who was sleeping so soundly under the little roof in the valley. "He tried to talk with me on the drive home as if nothing had happened. He is an actor who plays at love, and his eyes and his tongue are under his control as if he were the walking gentleman in the comedy, who kisses the maid while he is waiting in the parlor for the mistress. He does not love Margaret Windsor; he loves her father's stocks and bonds, and he longs for riches, even with the encumbrance of a wife."

She smiled bitterly as she thought of the breaking up of her dream of love, and she almost cursed the riches which had weighed her down and had filled her with suspicion of all the men who had ever asked her hand in marriage. She had thought that Geoffrey had been prevented from asking for it two years before because he had felt that she was rich and he was poor. When he had bade her farewell in Paris he had hesitated and tried to say something to her, she remembered, but had compressed his lips into a forced smile and taken his leave of her.

As she looked out the window she heard a rumble of wheels and saw the phaeton rolling Mrs. Carey down to the station.

"What is that woman doing at this hour in the morning?" Maggie asked herself, looking with hot, jealous eyes at the beauty as she sat back in the phaeton. "It is dreadful to have such a person under one's roof. I hope that she is gone and that she will not return. I suppose, though, that she is to meet Lord Brompton somewhere."

And so it happened that at the moment that Geoffrey felt the first pulsing strength of his love for her, and vowed that he would, despite her riches and his entanglements, strive to gain her, Maggie was strangling her old love for him, and her heart was filled with jealous fears; and the woman whose wild passion had ruffled the current of their true love was speeding to London to work their ruin.

Breakfast at Ripon House was a straggling, informal meal, and the men came down in pink coats. They were going hunting on an anise-seed trail, and ordered what they wished, standing by the side-board and eating. Maggie, after the men had followed the hounds, left the other ladies gossiping together in the library before the fire.

She walked down the cliff path which led to the shingle beach, upon which the small craft of the fishermen in the little village were hauled up.

Against one of the boats a fisherman, dressed in oil-skins, was leaning. He had a paint-brush in his hand, and he was gazing out ruefully over the bay, which was lashed into white caps by the strong breeze. When he saw Maggie, he pulled at his forelock and set to work vigorously with his paint-brush on the stern of his boat, daubing with the black paint over the name of the craft. As the fisherman obliterated the name, Maggie noticed that his hand trembled and that he turned his head away from her that she might not see his face.

"What are you doing, my good man?" she asked, coming near him, for she saw that he was in distress.

"Painting and caulking my old boat, miss," answered the fisherman, blotting out the last letters with a long smear of paint.

"But you are painting out the name?" said Maggie, inquiringly.

"I have a new name for the craft, miss," he answered, in a hoarse voice: "the 'Lone Star'; and I am painting out the old name, the Mary Mallow, which I gave her after my wife; but, saving your presence, miss, she desarted me these six months ago; I was too rough and common for her, I suppose."

He put his rough hand over his eyes. "It goes against my heart to paint her name out; but, as things are now, the 'Lone Star' is better."

Maggie could not help smiling at the unconscious poetry of the poor fellow and at the likeness between her lot and his.

"I am sorry for you, my man," she said, and she slipped a coin into his hand. "Put in a gilt star on the stern with this. It will be a comfort to you to have your boat smart." The man took the coin and looked at it vacantly. Maggie left him and kept on her way over the beach, past the boats and the drying nets, and the great heaps of seaweed and kelp, to the headland which jutted out into the sea beyond the village. Once there she seated herself in a deep recess of the cliff which commanded a view of the bay.

"And now I am alone, entirely alone, and I cannot be disturbed," she said to herself.

Down below her the breakers rolled in over the seaweed-covered rocks, and dashed into a deep chasm in the rocks, cleft by the attrition of ages, breaking with a dull sough upon the farthermost end of the cleft.