"But what possible reason have you to throw doubt on it?" inquired Ronald, gravely.

"Oh, confound you!" burst out Billy at last; "I picked up the pieces!"

* * * * *

A very nervous white-faced young man sat in the green leather armchair in Dr. Brand's consulting-room. He had shown the telegram, and jerked out a few incoherent sentences; after which Sir Deryck, by means of carefully chosen questions, had arrived at the main facts. He now sat at his table considering them.

Then, turning in his revolving-chair, he looked steadily at Billy.

"Cathcart," he said, quietly, "what reason have you for being so certain of Lord Ingleby's death, and that this telegram is therefore a forgery?"

Billy moistened his lips. "Oh, confound it!" he said. "I picked up the pieces!"

"I see," said Sir Deryck; and looked away.

"I have never told a soul," said Billy. "It is not a pretty story. But I can give you details, if you like."

"I think you had better give me details," said Sir Deryck, gravely.

So, with white lips, Billy gave them.

The doctor rose, buttoning his coat. Then he poured out a glass of water and handed it to Billy.

"Come," he said. "Fortunately I know a very cute detective from our own London force who happens just now to be in Cairo. We must go to Scotland Yard for his address, and a code. In fact we had better work it through them. You have done the right thing, Billy; and done it promptly; but we have no time to lose."

* * * * *

Twenty-four hours later, the doctor called at Shenstone Park. He had telegraphed his train requesting to be met by the motor; and he now asked the chauffeur to wait at the door, in order to take him back to the station.

"I could only come between trains," he explained to Lady Ingleby, "so you must forgive the short notice, and the peremptory tone of my telegram. I could not risk missing you. I have something of great importance to communicate."

The doctor waited a moment, hardly knowing how to proceed. He had seen Myra Ingleby under many varying conditions. He knew her well; and she was a woman so invariably true to herself, that he expected to be able to foresee exactly how she would act under any given combination of circumstances.

In this undreamed of development of Lord Ingleby's return, he anticipated finding her gently acquiescent; eagerly ready to resume again the duties of wifehood; with no thought of herself, but filled with anxious desire in all things to please the man who, with his whims and fancies, his foibles and ideas, had for nine months passed completely out of her life. Deryck Brand had expected to find Lady Ingleby in the mood of a typical April day, sunshine and showers rapidly alternating; whimsical smiles, succeeded by ready tears; then, with lashes still wet, gay laughter at some mistake of her own, or at incongruous behaviour on the part of her devoted but erratic household; speedily followed by pathetic anxiety over her own supposed short-comings in view of Lord Ingleby's requirements on his return.

Instead of this charming personification of unselfish, inconsequent, tender femininity, the doctor found himself confronted by a calm cold woman, with hard unseeing eyes; a woman in whom something had died; and dying, had slain all the best and truest in her womanhood.

"Another man," was the prompt conclusion at which the doctor arrived; and this conclusion, coupled with the exigency of his own pressing engagements, brought him without preamble, very promptly to the point.

"Lady Ingleby," he said, "a cruel and heartless wrong has been done you by a despicable scoundrel, for whom no retribution would be too severe."

"I am perfectly aware of that," replied Lady Ingleby, calmly; "but I fail to understand, Sir Deryck, why you should consider it necessary to come down here in order to discuss it."

This most unexpected reply for a moment completely nonplussed the doctor. But rapid mental adjustment formed an important part of his professional equipment.

"I fear we are speaking at cross-purposes," he said, gently. "Forgive me, if I appear to have trespassed upon a subject of which I have no knowledge whatever. I am referring to the telegram received by you yesterday, which led you to suppose the report of Lord Ingleby's death was a mistake, and that he might shortly be returning home."

"My husband is alive," said Lady Ingleby. "He has telegraphed to me from Cairo, and I expect him back very soon."

For answer, Deryck Brand drew from his pocket-book two telegrams.

"I am bound to tell you at once, dear Lady Ingleby," he said, "that you have been cruelly deceived. The message from Cairo was a heartless fraud, designed in order to obtain money. Billy Cathcart had reason to suspect its genuineness, and brought it to me. I cabled at once to Cairo, with this result."

He laid two telegrams on the table before her.

"The first is a copy of one we sent yesterday to a detective out there. The second I received three hours ago. No one—not even Billy—has heard of its arrival. I have brought it immediately to you."

Lady Ingleby slowly lifted the paper containing the first message. She read it in silence.

Watch Cook's bank and arrest man personating Lord Ingleby who will call for draft of money. Cable particulars promptly.

The doctor observed her closely as she laid down the first message without comment, and took up the second.

Former valet of Lord Ingleby's arrested. Confesses to despatch of fraudulent telegram. Cable instructions.

Lady Ingleby folded both papers and laid them on the table beside her. The calm impassivity of the white face had undergone no change.

"It must have been Walker," she said. "Michael always considered him a scamp and shifty; but I delighted in him, because he played the banjo quite excellently, and was so useful at parish entertainments. Michael took him abroad; but had to dismiss him on landing. He wrote and told me the fact, but gave no reasons. Poor Walker! I do not wish him punished, because I know Michael would think it was largely my own fault for putting banjo-playing before character. If Walker had written me a begging letter, I should most likely have sent him the money. I have a fatal habit of believing in people, and of wanting everybody to be happy."

Then, as if these last words recalled a momentarily forgotten wound, the stony apathy returned to voice and face.

"If Michael is not coming back," said Lady Ingleby, "I am indeed alone."

The doctor rose, and stood looking down upon her, perplexed and sorrowful.

"Is there not some one who should be told immediately of this change of affairs, Lady Ingleby?" he asked, gravely.

"No one," she replied, emphatically. "There is nobody whom it concerns intimately, excepting myself. And not many know of the arrival of yesterday's news. I wrote to Jane, and I suppose the boys told it at Overdene. If by any chance it gets into the papers, we must send a contradiction; but no explanation, please. I dislike the publication of wrong doing. It only leads to imitation and repetition. Beside, even a poor worm of a valet should be shielded if possible from public execration. We could not explain the extenuating circumstances."

"I do not suppose the news has become widely known," said the doctor. "Your household heard it, of course?"

"Yes," replied Lady Ingleby. "Ah, that reminds me, I must stop operations in the shrubbery and plantation. There is no object in little Peter having a grave, when his master has none."

This was absolutely unintelligible to the doctor; but at such times he never asked unnecessary questions, for his own enlightenment.

"So after all, Sir Deryck," added Lady Ingleby, "Peter was right."

"Yes," said the doctor, "little Peter was not mistaken."

"Had I remembered him, I might have doubted the telegram," remarked Lady Ingleby. "What can have aroused Billy's suspicions?"

"Like Peter," said the doctor, "Billy had, from the first, felt very sure. Do not mention to him that I told you the doubts originated with him. He is a sensitive lad, and the whole thing has greatly distressed him."

"Dear Billy," said Lady Ingleby.

The doctor glanced at the clock, and buttoned his coat. He had one minute to spare.

"My friend," he said, "a second time I have come as the bearer of evil tidings."

"Not evil," replied Myra, in a tone of hopeless sadness. "This is not a world to which we could possibly desire the return of one we love."

"There is nothing wrong with the world," said the doctor. "Our individual heaven or hell is brought about by our own actions."

"Or by the actions of others," amended Lady Ingleby, bitterly.

"Or by the actions of others," agreed the doctor. "But, even then, we cannot be completely happy, unless we are true to our best selves; nor wholly miserable, unless to our own ideals we become false. I fear I must be off; but I do not like leaving you thus alone."

Lady Ingleby glanced at the clock, rose, and gave him her hand.

"You have been more than kind, Sir Deryck, in coming to me yourself. I shall never forget it. And I am expecting Jane Champion—Dalmain, I mean; why do one's friends get married?—any minute. She is coming direct from town; the phaeton has gone to the station to meet her."

"Good," said the doctor, and clasped her hand with the strong silent sympathy of a man who, desiring to help, yet realises himself in the presence of a grief he is powerless either to understand or to assuage.

"Good—very good," he said, as he stepped into the motor, remarking to the chauffeur: "We have nine minutes; and if we miss the train, I must ask you to run me up to town."

And he said it a third time, even more emphatically, when he had recovered from his surprise at that which he saw as the motor flew down the avenue. For, after passing Lady Ingleby's phaeton returning from the station empty excepting for a travelling coat and alligator bag left upon the seat, he saw the Honourable Mrs. Dalmain walking slowly beneath the trees, in earnest conversation with a very tall man, who carried his hat, letting the breeze blow through his thick rumpled hair. Both were too preoccupied to notice the motor, but as the man turned his haggard face toward his companion, the doctor saw in it the same stony look of hopeless despair, which had grieved and baffled him in Lady Ingleby's. The two were slowly wending their way toward the house, by a path leading down to the terrace.

"Evidently—the man," thought the doctor. "Well, I am glad Jane has him in tow. Poor souls! Providence has placed them in wise hands. If faithful counsel and honest plain-speaking can avail them anything, they will undoubtedly receive both, from our good Jane."

Providence also arranged that the London express was one minute late, and the doctor caught it. Whereat the chauffeur rejoiced; for he was "walking out" with Her ladyship's maid, whose evening off it chanced to be. The all-important events of life are apt to hang upon the happenings of one minute.



CHAPTER XXIV

MRS. DALMAIN REVIEWS THE SITUATION

"So you see, Jane," concluded Lady Ingleby, pathetically, "as Michael is not coming back, I am indeed alone."

"Loving Jim Airth as you do—" said Jane Dalmain.

"Did," interposed Lady Ingleby.

"Did, and do," said Jane Dalmain, "you would have been worse than alone if Michael had, after all, come back. Oh, Myra! I cannot imagine anything more unendurable, than to love one man, and be obliged to live with another."

"I should not have allowed myself to go on loving Jim," said Lady Ingleby.

"Rubbish!" pronounced Mrs. Dalmain, with forceful decision. "My dear Myra, that kind of remark paves the way for the devil, and is one of his favourite devices. More good women have been tripped by over-confidence in their ability to curb and to control their own affections, than by direct temptation to love where love is not lawful. Men are different; their temptations are not so subtle. They know exactly to what it will lead, if they dally with sentiment. Therefore, if they mean to do the right thing in the end, they keep clear of the danger at the beginning. We cannot possibly forbid ourselves to go on loving, where love has once been allowed to reign supreme. I know you would not, in the first instance, have let yourself care for Jim Airth, had you not been free. But, once loving him, if so appalling a situation could have arisen as the unexpected return of your husband, your only safe and honourable course would have been to frankly tell Lord Ingleby: 'I grew to love Jim Airth while I believed you dead. I shall always love Jim Airth; but, I want before all else to be a good woman and a faithful wife. Trust me to be faithful; help me to be good.' Any man, worth his salt, would respond to such an appeal."

"And shoot himself?" suggested Lady Ingleby.

"I said 'man,' not 'coward,'" responded Mrs. Dalmain, with fine scorn.

"Jane, you are so strong-minded," murmured Lady Ingleby. "It goes with your linen collars, your tailor-made coats, and your big boots. I cannot picture myself in a linen collar, nor can I conceive of myself as standing before Michael and informing him that I loved Jim!"

Jane Dalmain laughed good-humouredly, plunged her large hands into the pockets of her tweed coat, stretched out her serviceable brown boots and looked at them.

"If by 'strong-minded' you mean a wholesome dislike to the involving of a straightforward situation in a tangle of disingenuous sophistry, I plead guilty," she said.

"Oh, don't quote Sir Deryck," retorted Lady Ingleby, crossly. "You ought to have married him! I never could understand such an artist, such a poet, such an eclectic idealist as Garth Dalmain, falling in love with you, Jane!"

A sudden light of womanly tenderness illumined Jane's plain face. "The wife" looked out from it, in simple unconscious radiance.

"Nor could I," she answered softly. "It took me three years to realise it as an indubitable fact."

"I suppose you are very happy," remarked Myra.

Jane was silent. There were shrines in that strong nature too wholly sacred to be easily unveiled.

"I remember how I hated the idea, after the accident," said Myra, "of your tying yourself to blindness."

"Oh, hush," said Jane Dalmain, quickly. "You tread on sacred ground, and you forget to remove your shoes. From the first, the sweetest thing between my husband and myself has been that, together, we learned to kiss that cross."

"Dear old thing!" said Lady Ingleby, affectionately; "you deserved to be happy. All the same I never can understand why you did not marry Deryck Brand."

Jane smiled. She could not bring herself to discuss her husband, but she was very willing at this critical juncture to divert Lady Ingleby from her own troubles by entering into particulars concerning herself and the doctor.

"My dear," she said, "Deryck and I were far too much alike ever to have dovetailed into marriage. All our points would have met, and our differences gaped wide. The qualities which go to the making of a perfect friendship by no means always ensure a perfect marriage. There was a time when I should have married Deryck had he asked me to do so, simply because I implicitly trusted his judgment in all things, and it would never have occurred to me to refuse him anything he asked. But it would not have resulted in our mutual happiness. Also, at that time, I had no idea what love really meant. I no more understood love until—until Garth taught me, than you understood it before you met Jim Airth."

"I wish you would not keep on alluding to Jim Airth," said Myra, wearily. "I never wish to hear his name again. And I cannot allow you to suppose that I should ever have adopted your strong-minded suggestion, and admitted to Michael that I loved Jim. I should have done nothing of the kind. I should have devoted myself to pleasing Michael in all things, and made myself—yes, Jane; you need not look amused and incredulous; though I don't wear collars and shooting-boots, I can make myself do things—I should have made myself forget that there was such a person in this world as the Earl of Airth and Monteith."

"Oh spare him that!" laughed Mrs. Dalmain. "Don't call the poor man by his titles. If he must be hanged, at least let him hang as plain Jim Airth. If one had to be wicked, it would be so infinitely worse to be a wicked earl, than wicked in any other walk of life. It savours so painfully of the 'penny-dreadful', or the cheap novelette. Also, my dear, there is nothing to be gained by discussing a hypothetical situation, with which you do not after all find yourself confronted. Mercifully, Lord Ingleby is not coming back."

"Mercifully!" exclaimed Lady Ingleby. "Really, Jane, you are crude beyond words, and most unsympathetic. You should have heard how tactfully the doctor broke it to me, and how kindly he alluded to my loss."

"My dear Myra," said Mrs. Dalmain, "I don't waste sympathy on false sentiment. And if Deryck had known you were already engaged to another man, instead of devoting to you four hours of his valuable time, he could have sent a sixpenny wire: 'Telegram a forgery. Accept heartfelt congratulations!'"

"Jane, you are brutal. And seeing that I have just told you the whole story of these last weeks, with the cruel heart-breaking finale of yesterday, I fail to understand how you can speak of me as engaged to another man."

Instantly Jane Dalmain's whole bearing altered. She ceased looking quizzically amused, and left off swinging her brown boot. She sat up, uncrossed her knees, and leaning her elbows upon them, held out her large capable hands to Lady Ingleby. Her noble face, grandly strong and tender, in its undeniable plainness, was full of womanly understanding and sympathy.

"Ah, my dear," she said, "now we must come to the crux of the whole matter. I have merely been playing around the fringe of the subject, in order to give you time to recover from the inevitable strain of the long and painful recital you have felt it necessary to make, in order that I might fully understand your position in all its bearings. The real question is this: Are you going to forgive Jim Airth?"

"I must never forgive him," said Lady Ingleby, with finality, "because, if I forgave him, I could not let him go."

"Why let him go, when his going leaves your whole life desolate?"

"Because," said Myra, "I feel I could not trust him; and I dare not marry a man whom I love as I love Jim Airth, unless I can trust him as implicitly as I trust my God. If I loved him less, I would take the risk. But I feel, for him, something which I can neither understand nor define; only I know that in time it would make him so completely master of me that, unless I could trust him absolutely—I should be afraid."

"Is a man never to be trusted again," asked Jane, "because, under sudden fierce temptation, he has failed you once?"

"It is not the failing once," said Myra. "It is the light thrown upon the whole quality of his love—of that kind of love. The passion of it makes it selfish—selfish to the degree of being utterly regardless of right and wrong, and careless of the welfare of its unfortunate object. My fair name would have been smirched; my honour dragged in the mire; my present, blighted; my future, ruined; but what did he care? It was all swept aside in the one sentence: 'You are mine, not his. You must come away with me.' I cannot trust myself to a love which has no standard of right and wrong. We look at it from different points of view. You see only the man and his temptation. I knew the priceless treasure of the love; therefore the sin against that love seems to me unforgivable."

Mrs. Dalmain looked earnestly at her friend. Her steadfast eyes were deeply troubled.

"Myra," she said, "you are absolutely right in your definitions, and correct in your conclusions. But your mistake is this. You make no allowance for the sudden, desperate, overwhelming nature of the temptation before which Jim Airth fell. Remember all that led up to it. Think of it, Myra! He stood so alone in the world; no mother, no wife, no woman's tenderness. And those ten hard years of worse than loneliness, when he fought the horrors of disillusion, the shame of betrayal, the bitterness of desertion; the humiliation of the stain upon his noble name. Against all this, during ten long years, he struggled; fought a manful fight, and overcame. Then—strong, hardened, lonely; a man grown to man's full heritage of self-contained independence—he met you, Myra. His ideals returned, purified and strengthened by their passage through the fire. Love came, now, in such gigantic force, that the pigmy passion of early youth was dwarfed and superseded. It seemed a new and untasted experience such as he had not dreamed life could contain. Three weeks of it, he had; growing in certainty, increasing in richness, every day; yet tempered by the patient waiting your pleasure, for eagerly expected fulfilment. Then the blow—so terrible to his sensibilities and to his manly pride; the horrible knowledge that his own hand had brought loss and sorrow to you, whom he would have shielded from the faintest shadow of pain. Then his mistake in allowing false pride to come between you. Three weeks of growing hunger and regret, followed by your summons, which seemed to promise happiness after all; for, remember while you had been bringing yourself to acquiesce in his decision as absolutely final, so that the news of Lord Ingleby's return meant no loss to you and to him, merely the relief of his exculpation, he had been coming round to a more reasonable point of view, and realising that, after all, he had not lost you. You sent for him, and he came—once more aglow with love and certainty—only to hear that he had not only lost you himself, but must leave you to another man. Oh Myra! Can you not make allowance for a moment of fierce madness? Can you not see that the very strength of the man momentarily turned in the wrong direction, brought about his downfall? You tell me you called him coward and traitor? You might as well have struck him! Such words from your lips must have been worse than blows. I admit he deserved them; yet Saint Peter was thrice a coward and a traitor, but his Lord, making allowance for a sudden yielding to temptation, did not doubt the loyalty of his love, but gave him a chance of threefold public confession, and forgave him. If Divine Love could do this—oh, Myra, can you let your lover go out into the world again, alone, without one word of forgiveness?"

"How do I know he wants my forgiveness, Jane? He left me in a towering fury. And how could my forgiveness reach him, even supposing he desired it, or I could give it? Where is he now?"

"He left you in despair," said Mrs. Dalmain, "and—he is in the library."

Lady Ingleby rose to her feet.

"Jane! Jim Airth in this house! Who admitted him?"

"I did," replied Mrs. Dalmain, coolly. "I smuggled him in. Not a soul saw us enter. That was why I sent the carriage on ahead, when we reached the park gates. We walked up the avenue, turned down on to the terrace and slipped in by the lower door. He has been sitting in the library ever since. If you decide not to see him, I can go down and tell him so; he can go out as he came in, and none of your household will know he has been here. Dear Myra, don't look so distraught. Do sit down again, and let us finish our talk.... That is right. You must not be hurried. A decision which affects one's whole life, cannot be made in a minute, nor even in an hour. Lord Airth does not wish to force an interview, nor do I wish to persuade you to grant him one. He will not be surprised if I bring him word that you would rather not see him."

"Rather not?" cried Myra, with clasped hands. "Oh Jane, if you could know what the mere thought of seeing him means to me, you would not say 'rather not,' but 'dare not.'"

"Let me tell you how we met," said Mrs. Dalmain, ignoring the last remark. "I reached Charing Cross in good time; stopped at the book stall for a supply of papers; secured an empty compartment, and settled down to a quiet hour. Jim Airth dashed into the station with barely one minute in which to take his ticket and reach the train. He tore up the platform, as the train began to move; had not time to reach a smoker; wrenched open the door of my compartment; jumped in headlong, and sat down upon my papers; turned to apologise, and found himself shut in alone for an hour with the friend to whom you had written weekly letters from Cornwall, and of whom you had apparently told him rather nice things—or, at all events things which led him to consider me trustworthy. He recognised me by a recent photograph which you had shown him."

"I remember," said Myra. "I kept it in my writing-case. He took it up and looked at it several times. I often spoke to him of you."

"He introduced himself with straightforward simplicity," continued Mrs. Dalmain, "and then—we neither of us knew quite how it happened—in a few minutes we were talking without reserve. I believe he felt frankness with me on his part might enable me, in the future, to be a comfort to you—you are his one thought; also, that if I interceded, you would perhaps grant him that which he came to seek—the opportunity to ask your forgiveness. Of course we neither of us had the slightest idea of the possibility that yesterday's telegram could be incorrect. He sails for America almost immediately, but could not bring himself to leave England without having expressed to you his contrition, and obtained your pardon. He would have written, but did not feel he ought, for your sake, to run the risk of putting explanations on to paper. Also I honestly believe it is breaking his heart, poor fellow, to feel that you and he parted forever, in anger. His love for you is a very great love, Myra."

"Oh, Jane," cried Lady Ingleby, "I cannot let him go! And yet—I cannot marry him. I love him with every fibre of my whole being, and yet I cannot trust him. Oh, Jane, what shall I do?"

"You must give him a chance," said Mrs. Dalmain, "to retrieve his mistake, and to prove himself the man we know him to be. Say to him, without explanation, what you have just said to me: that you cannot let him go; and see how he takes it. Listen, Myra. The unforeseen developments of the last few hours have put it into your power to give Jim Airth his chance. You must not rob him of it. Years ago, when Garth and I were in an apparently hopeless tangle of irretrievable mistake, Deryck found us a way out. He said if Garth could go behind his blindness and express an opinion which he only could have given while he had his sight, the question might be solved. I need not trouble you with details, but that was exactly what happened, and our great happiness resulted. Now, in your case, Jim Airth must be given the chance to go behind his madness, regain his own self-respect, and prove himself worthy of your trust. Have you told any one of the second telegram from Cairo?"

"I saw nobody," said Lady Ingleby, "from the moment Sir Deryck left me, until you walked in."

"Very well. Then you, and Deryck, and I, are the only people in England who know of it. Jim Airth will have no idea of any change of conditions since yesterday. Do you see what that means, Myra?"

Lady Ingleby's pale face flushed. "Oh Jane, I dare not! If he failed again——"

"He will not fail," replied Mrs. Dalmain, with decision; "but should he do so, he will have proved himself, as you say, unworthy of your trust. Then—you can forgive him, and let him go."

"I cannot let him go!" cried Myra. "And yet I cannot marry him, unless he is all I have believed him to be."

"Ah, my dear, my dear!" said Mrs. Dalmain, tenderly. "You need to learn a lesson about married life. True happiness does not come from marrying an idol throned on a pedestal. Before Galatea could wed Pygmalion, she had to change from marble into glowing flesh and blood, and step down from off her pedestal. Love should not make us blind to one another's faults. It should only make us infinitely tender, and completely understanding. Let me tell you a shrewd remark of Aunt Georgina's on that subject. Speaking to a young married woman who considered herself wronged and disillusioned because, the honeymoon over, she discovered her husband not to be in all things absolutely perfect: 'Ah, my good girl,' said Aunt 'Gina, rapping the floor with her ebony cane; 'you made a foolish mistake if you imagined you were marrying an angel, when we have it, on the very highest authority, that the angels neither marry nor are given in marriage. Men and women, who are human enough to marry, are human enough to be full of faults; and the best thing marriage provides is that each gets somebody who will love, forgive, and understand. If you had waited for perfection, you would have reached heaven a spinster, which would have been, to say the least of it, dull—when you had had the chance of matrimony on earth! Go and make it up with that nice boy of yours, or I shall find him some pretty—' But the little bride, her anger dissolving in laughter and tears, had fled across the lawn in pursuit of a tall figure in tweeds, stalking in solitary dudgeon towards the river. They disappeared into the boathouse, and soon after we saw them in a tiny skiff for two, and heard their happy laughter. 'Silly babies!' said Aunt 'Gina, crossly, 'they'll do it once too often, when I'm not there to spank them; and then there'll be a shipwreck! Oh, why did Adam marry, and spoil that peaceful garden?' Whereat Tommy, the old scarlet macaw, swung head downwards from his golden perch, with such shrieks of delighted laughter, mingled with appropriate profanity, that Aunt 'Gina's good-humour was instantly restored. 'Give him a strawberry, somebody!' she said; and spoke no more on things matrimonial."

Myra laughed. "The duchess's views are always refreshing. I wonder whether Michael and I made the mistake of not realising each other to be human; of not admitting there was anything to forgive, and therefore never forgiving?"

"Well, don't make it with Jim Airth," advised Mrs. Dalmain, "for he is the most human man I ever met; also the strongest, and one of the most lovable. Myra, there is nothing to be gained by waiting. Let me send him to you now; and, remember, all he asks or expects is one word of forgiveness."

"Oh, Jane!" cried Lady Ingleby, with clasped hands. "Do wait a little while. Give me time to think; time to consider; time to decide."

"Nonsense, my dear," said Mrs. Dalmain, "When but one right course lies before you, there can be no possible need for hesitation or consideration. You are merely nervously postponing the inevitable. You remind me of scenes we used to have in the out-patient department of a hospital in the East End of London, to which I once went for training. When patients came to the surgery for teeth extraction, and the pretty sympathetic little nurse in charge had got them safely fixed into the chair; as one of the doctors, prompt and alert, came forward with unmistakably business-like forceps ready, the terrified patient would exclaim: 'Oh, let the nurse do it! Let the nurse do it!' the idea evidently being that three or four diffident pulls by the nurse, were less alarming than the sharp certainty of one from the doctor. Now, my dear Myra, you have to face your ordeal. If it is to be successful there must be no uncertainty."

"Oh, Jane, I wish you were not such a decided person. I am sure when you were the nurse, the poor things preferred the doctors. I am terrified; yet I know you are right. And, oh, you dear, don't leave me! See me through."

"I am never away from Garth for a night, as you know," said Mrs. Dalmain. "But he and little Geoff went down to Overdene this morning, with Simpson and nurse; so, if your man can motor me over during the evening, I will stay as long as you need me."

"Ah, thanks," said Lady Ingleby. "And now, Jane, you have done all you can for me; and God knows how much that means. I want to be quite alone for an hour. I feel I must face it out, and decide what I really intend doing. I owe it to Jim, I owe it to myself, to be quite sure what I mean to say, before I see him. Order tea in the library. Tell him I will see him; and, at the end of the hour, send him here. But, Jane—not a hint of anything which has passed between us. I may rely on you?"

"My dear," said Mrs. Dalmain, gently, "I play the game!"

She rose and stood on the hearthrug, looking intently at her husband's painting of Lord Ingleby.

"And, Myra," she said at last, "I do entreat you to remember, you are dealing with an unknown quantity. You have never before known intimately a man of Jim Airth's temperament. His love for you, and yours for him, hold elements as yet not fully understood by you. Remember this, in drawing your conclusions. I had almost said, Let instinct guide, rather than reason."

"I understand your meaning," said Lady Ingleby. "But I dare not depend upon either instinct or reason. I have not been a religious woman, Jane, as of course you know; but—I have been learning lately; and, as I learn, I try to practise. I feel myself to be in so dark and difficult a place, that I am trying to say, 'Even there shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right Hand shall hold me.'"

"Ah, you are right," said Jane's deep earnest voice; "that is the best of all. God's hand alone leads surely, out of darkness into light."

She put a kind arm firmly around her friend, for a moment.

Then:—"I will send him to you in an hour," she said, and left the room.

Lady Ingleby was alone.



CHAPTER XXV

THE TEST

The door of Myra's sitting-room opened quietly, and Jim Airth came in.

She awaited him upon the couch, sitting very still, her hands folded in her lap.

The room seemed full of flowers, and of soft sunset light.

He closed the door, and came and stood before her.

For a few moments they looked steadily into one another's faces.

Then Jim Airth spoke, very low.

"It is so good of you to see me," he said. "It is almost more than I had ventured to hope. I am leaving England in a few hours. It would have been hard to go—without this. Now it will be easy."

She lifted her eyes to his, and waited in silence.

"Myra," he said, "can you forgive me?"

"I do not know, Jim," she answered, gently. "I want to be quite honest with you, and with myself. If I had cared less, I could have forgiven more easily."

"I know," he said. "Oh, Myra, I know. And I would not have you forgive lightly, so great a sin against our love. But, dear—if, before I go, you could say, 'I understand,' it would mean almost more to me, than if you said, 'I forgive.'"

"Jim," said Myra, gently, a tremor of tenderness in her sweet voice, "I understand."

He came quite near, and took her hands in his, holding them for a moment, with tender reverence.

"Thank you, dear," he said. "You are very good."

He loosed her hands, and again she folded them in her lap. He walked to the mantelpiece and stood looking down upon the ferns and lilies.

She marked the stoop of his broad shoulders; the way in which he seemed to find it difficult to hold up his head. Where was the proud gay carriage of the man who swung along the Cornish cliffs, whistling like a blackbird?

"Jim," she said, "understanding fully, of course I forgive fully, if it is possible that between you and me, forgiveness should pass. I have been thinking it over, since I knew you were in the house, and wondering why I feel it so impossible to say, 'I forgive you.' And, Jim—I think it is because you and I are so one that there is no room for such a thing as forgiveness to pass from me to you, or from you to me. Complete comprehension and unfailing love, take the place of what would be forgiveness between those who were less to each other."

He lifted his eyes, for a moment, full of a dumb anguish, which wrung her heart.

"Myra, I must go," he said, brokenly. "There was so much I had to tell you; so much to explain. But all need of this seems swept away by your divine tenderness and comprehension. All my life through I shall carry with me, deep hidden in my heart, these words of yours. Oh, my dear—my dear! Don't speak again! Let them be the last. Only—may I say it?—never let thoughts of me, sadden your fair life. I am going to America—a grand place for fresh beginnings; a land where one can work, and truly live; a land where earnest endeavour meets with fullest success, and where a man's energy may have full scope. I want you to think of me, Myra, as living, and working, and striving; not going under. But, if ever I feel like going under, I shall hear your dear voice singing at my shoulder, in the little Cornish church, on the quiet Sabbath evening, in the sunset: 'Eternal Father, strong to save,' ... And—when I think of you, my dear—my dear; I shall know your life is being good and beautiful every hour, and that you are happy with—" he lifted his eyes to Lord Ingleby's portrait; they dwelt for a moment on the kind quiet face—"with one of the best of men," said Jim Airth, bravely

He took a last look at her face. Silent tears stole slowly down it, and fell upon her folded hands.

A spasm of anguish shot across Jim Airth's set features.

"Ah, I must go," he said, suddenly. "God keep you, always."

He turned so quickly, that his hand was actually upon the handle of the door, before Myra reached him, though she sprang up, and flew across the room.

"Jim," she said, breathlessly. "Stop, Jim! Ah, stop! Listen! Wait!—Jim, I have always known—I told Jane so—that if I forgave you, I could not let you go." She flung her arms around his neck, as he stood gazing at her in dumb bewilderment. "Jim, my beloved! I cannot let you go; or, if you go, you must take me with you. I cannot live without you, Jim Airth!"

For the space of a dozen heart-beats he stood silent, while she hung around him; her head upon his breast, her clinging arms about his neck.

Then a cry so terrible burst from him, that Myra's heart stood still.

"Oh, my God," he cried, "this is the worst of all! Have I, in falling, dragged her down? Now, indeed am I broken—broken. What was the loss of my own pride, my own honour, my own self-esteem, to this? Have I soiled her fair whiteness; weakened the noble strength of her sweet purity? Oh, not this—my God, not this!"

He lifted his hands to his neck, took hers by the wrists, and forcibly drew them down, stepping back a pace, so that she must lift her head.

Then, holding her hands against his breast: "Lady Ingleby," he said, "lift your eyes, and look into my face."

Slowly—slowly—Myra lifted her grey eyes. The fire of his held her; she felt the strength of him mastering her, as it had often done before. She could scarcely see the anguish in his face, so vivid was the blaze of his blue eyes.

"Lady Ingleby," he said, and the grip of his hands on hers, tightened. "Lady Ingleby—we stood like this together, you and I, on a fast narrowing strip of sand. The cruel sea swept up, relentless. A high cliff rose in front—our only refuge. I held you thus, and said: 'We must climb—or drown.' Do you remember?—I say it now, again. The only possible right thing to do is steep and difficult; but we must climb. We must mount above our lower selves; away from this narrowing strip of dangerous sand; away from this cruel sea of fierce temptation; up to the breezy cliff-top, up to the blue above, into the open of honour and right and perfect purity. You stood there, until now; you stood there—brave and beautiful. I dragged you down—God forgive me, I brought you into danger—Hush! listen! You must climb again; you must climb alone; but when I am gone, your climbing will be easy. You will soon find yourself standing, safe and high, above these treacherous dangerous waters. Forgive me, if I seem rough." He forced her gently backwards to the couch. "Sit there," he said, "and do not rise, until I have left the house. And if ever these moments come back to you, Lady Ingleby, remember, the whole blame was mine.... Hush, I tell you; hush! And will you loose my hands?"

But Myra clung to those big hands, laughing, and weeping, and striving to speak.

"Oh, Jim—my Jim!—you can't leave me to climb alone, because I am all your own, and free to be yours and no other man's, and together, thank God, we can stand on the cliff-top where His hand has led us. Dearest—Jim, dearest—don't pull away from me, because I must cling on, until you have read these telegrams. Oh, Jim, read them quickly! ... Sir Deryck Brand brought them down from town this afternoon. And oh, forgive me that I did not tell you at once.... I wanted you to prove yourself, what I knew you to be, faithful, loyal, honourable, brave, the man of all men whom I trust; the man who will never fail me in the upward climb, until we stand together beneath the blue on the heights of God's eternal hills.... Oh, Jim——"

Her voice faltered into silence; for Jim Airth knelt at her feet, his head in her lap, his arms flung around her, and he was sobbing as only a strong man can sob, when his heart has been strained to breaking point, and sudden relief has come.

Myra laid her hands, gently, upon the roughness of his hair. Thus they stayed long, without speaking or moving.

And in those sacred minutes Myra learned the lesson which ten years of wedded life had failed to teach: that in the strongest man there is, sometimes, the eternal child—eager, masterful, dependent, full of needs; and that, in every woman's love there must therefore be an element of the eternal mother—tender, understanding, patient; wise, yet self-surrendering; able to bear; ready to forgive; her strength made perfect in weakness.

At length Jim Airth lifted his head.

The last beams of the setting sun, entering through the western window, illumined, with a ray of golden glory, the lovely face above him. But he saw on it a radiance more bright than the reflected glory of any earthly sunset.

"Myra?" he said, awe and wonder in his voice. "Myra? What is it?"

And clasping her hands about his neck as he knelt before her, she drew his head to her breast, and answered:

"I have learnt a lesson, my beloved; a lesson only you could teach. And I am very happy and thankful, Jim; because I know, that at last, I—even I—am ready for wifehood."



CHAPTER XXVI

"WHAT SHALL WE WRITE?"

The hall at the Moorhead Inn seemed very homelike to Jim Airth and Myra, as they stood together looking around it, on their arrival.

Jim had set his heart upon bringing his wife there, on the evening of their wedding day. Therefore they had left town immediately after the ceremony; dined en route, and now stood, as they had so often stood before when bidding one another good-night, in the lamp-light, beside the marble table.

"Oh, Jim dear," whispered Myra, throwing back her travelling cloak, "doesn't it all seem natural? Look at the old clock! Five minutes past ten. The Miss Murgatroyds must have gone up, in staid procession, exactly four minutes ago. Look at the stag's head! There is the antler, on the topmost point of which you always hung your cap."

"Myra——"

"Yes, dear. Oh, I hope the Murgatroyds are still here. Let's look in the book.... Yes, see! Here are their names with date of arrival, but none of departure. And, oh, dearest, here is 'Jim Airth,' as I first saw it written; and look at 'Mrs. O'Mara' just beneath it! How well I remember glancing back from the turn of the staircase, seeing you come out and read it, and wishing I had written it better. You can set me plenty of copies now, Jim."

"Myra!——"

"Yes, dear. Do you know I am going to fly up and unpack. Then I will come out to the honeysuckle arbour and sit with you while you smoke. And we need not mind being late; because the dear ladies, not knowing we have returned, will not all be sleeping with doors ajar. But oh Jim, you must—however late it is—plump your boots out into the passage, just for the fun of making Miss Susannah's heart jump unexpectedly."

"Myra! Oh, I say! My wife——"

"Yes, darling, I know! But I am perfectly certain 'Aunt Ingleby' is peeping out of her little office at the end of the passage; also, Polly has finished helping Sam place our luggage upstairs, and I can feel her, hanging over the top banisters! Be patient for just a little while, my Jim. Let's put our names in the visitors' book. What shall we write? Really we shall be obliged eventually to let them know who you are. Think what an excitement for the Miss Murgatroyds. But, just for once, I am going to write myself down by the name, of all others, I have most wished to bear."

So, smiling gaily up at her husband, then bending over the table to hide her happy face from the adoration of his eyes, the newly-made Countess of Airth and Monteith took up the pen; and, without pausing to remove her glove, wrote in the visitors' book of the Moorhead Inn, in the clear bold handwriting peculiarly her own:

Mrs. Jim Airth

———————————————————————————————————

THE MASTER'S VIOLIN By MYRTLE REED

A Love Story with a musical atmosphere. A picturesque, old German virtuoso is the reverent possessor of a genuine Cremona. He consents to take as his pupil a handsome youth who proves to have an aptitude for technique, but not the soul of the artist. The youth has led the happy, careless life of a modern, well-to-do young American, and he cannot, with his meagre past, express the love, the longing, the passion and the tragedies of life and its happy phases as can the master who has lived life in all its fulness. But a girl comes into his existence, a beautiful bit of human driftwood that his aunt had taken into her heart and home; and through his passionate love for her, he learns the lessons that life has to give—and his soul awakens.

Founded on a fact well known among artists, but not often recognized or discussed.

If you have not read "Lavender and Old Lace" by the same author, you have a double pleasure in store—for these two books show Myrtle Reed in her most delightful, fascinating vein—indeed they may be considered as masterpieces of compelling interest.

Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, NEW YORK

———————————————————————————————————

THE PRODIGAL JUDGE By VAUGHAN KESTER

This great novel—probably the most popular book in this country to-day—is as human as a story from the pen of that great master of "immortal laughter and immortal tears," Charles Dickens.

The Prodigal Judge is a shabby outcast, a tavern hanger-on, a genial wayfarer who tarries longest where the inn is most hospitable, yet with that suavity, that distinctive politeness and that saving grace of humor peculiar to the American man. He has his own code of morals—very exalted ones—but honors them in the breach rather than in the observance.

Clinging to the Judge closer than a brother, is Solomon Mahaffy—fallible and failing like the rest of us, but with a sublime capacity for friendship; and closer still, perhaps, clings little Hannibal, a boy about whose parentage nothing is known until the end of the story. Hannibal is charmed into tolerance of the Judge's picturesque vices, while Miss Betty, lovely and capricious, is charmed into placing all her affairs, both material and sentimental, in the hands of this delightful old vagabond.

The Judge will be a fixed star in the firmament of fictional characters as surely as David Harum or Col. Sellers. He is a source of infinite delight, while this story of Mr. Roster's is one of the finest examples of American literary craftmanship.

Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, NEW YORK

THE END