"That wouldn't make an insuperable barrier, would it? I don't suppose—love—notices whether we're married or single when it comes along."

Something in the quality of her voice filled him with a sudden sense of fear. Hitherto he had attributed the trouble between Nan and Roger entirely to the difference in their temperaments. Now, for the first time, a new light was flashed upon the matter. Her tone was so sharply bitter, like that of one chafing against some actual happening, that his mind leaped to the possibility that there might be some more tangible force arrayed against Roger's happiness. And if this were the case, if Nan's love were really given elsewhere, then, knowing her as he did, Sandy foresaw the likelihood of some rash and headlong ending to it all.

He was silent, pondering this aspect of the matter. She watched him curiously for a few moments, then, driven, by one of those strange impulses which sometimes fling down all the barriers of reserve, she broke into rapid speech.

"You needn't grudge me Maryon's friendship! I've lost everything in the world worth having—everything real, I mean. Sometimes I feel as though I can't bear it any longer! And Maryon interests me . . . he's a sort of mental relation. . . . When I'm with him I can forget even Peter for a little. . . ."

She broke off, pacing restlessly backwards and forwards, her hands interlocked, her face set in a white mask of tragedy. All at once she came to a standstill in front of Sandy and remained staring at him with an odd kind of surprise in her eyes.

"What on earth have I been talking about?" she exclaimed, passing her hand across her forehead and peering at him questioningly. "Sandy, have you been listening? You shouldn't listen to what other people are thinking. It's rude, you know." She laughed a little hysterically. "You must just forget it all, Sandy boy."

Sandy had been listening with a species of horror to the sudden outpouring. He felt as though he had overheard the crying of a soul which has reached the furthest limit of its endurance. In Nan's disjointed, broken sentences had been revealed the whole piteous truth, and in those two short words, "Even Peter!" lay the key to all he had found so difficult to understand. It was Peter Mallory she loved—not Roger, nor Maryon Rooke!

He had once met Mallory and had admired the man enormously. The meeting had occurred during the summer preceding that which had witnessed Nan's engagement to Roger. Peter had been paying a flying week-end visit to the Seymours, and Sandy had taken a boy's instinctive liking to the brilliant writer who never "swanked," as the lad put it, but who understood so well the bitter disappointment of which Duncan McBain's uncompromising attitude towards music had been the cause. And this was the man Nan loved and who loved her!

With instinctive tact, Sandy refrained from any comment on Nan's outburst. Instead, he pushed her gently into a chair, talking the while, so that she might have time to recover herself a little.

"I tell you what it is, Nan," he said with rough kindness. "You've overdone it a bit working at that concerto, and instead of giving yourself a holiday, you've been tiring yourself still more by sitting for your portrait. You may find Rooke mentally refreshing if you like, but posing for him hour after hour is a confounded strain, physically. Now, you take your good Uncle Sandy's advice and let the portrait slide for a bit. You might occupy yourself by making arrangements for the production of the concerto."

"I don't feel any interest in it," she said slowly. "It's funny, isn't it, Sandy? I was so keen about it when I was writing it. And now I think it's rotten."

"It isn't," said Sandy. "It's good stuff, Nan. Anyone would tell you so."

"Do you think so?" she replied, without enthusiasm.

He regarded her with an expression of anxiety.

"Oh, you mustn't drop the concerto," he protested. "That's always been your trick, Nan, to go so far and no further."

"It's a very good rule to follow—in some things," she replied enigmatically.

"Well, look here, will you hand the manuscript over to me and let me show it to someone?"

"No, I won't," she said with decision. "I hate the concerto now. It has—it has unpleasant associations. Let it rest in oblivion."

He shrugged his shoulders in despair.

"You're the most aggravating woman I know," he remarked irritably.

In an instant Nan was her own engaging self once more. It was instinctive with her to try and charm away an atmosphere of disapproval.

"Don't say that, Sandy," she replied, making a beseeching little moue. "You know it would be awfully boring if I always did just exactly what you were expecting me to do. It's better to be aggravating than—dull!"

Sandy smiled. Nan was always quite able to make her peace with him when she chose to.

"Well, no one can complain that you're dull," he acknowledged.



CHAPTER XXXI

TOWARDS UNKNOWN WAYS

The afternoon post had just been delivered and the postman was already whizzing his way down the drive on his scarlet-painted bicycle as Lady Gertrude unlocked the private post-bag appertaining to Trenby Hall. This was one of the small jobs usually delegated to her niece, but for once the latter was away on holiday, staying with friends at Penzance.

The bag yielded up some bills and a solitary letter, addressed in Isobel's looped and curly writing. It was not an easy hand to read, and Lady Gertrude produced her pince-nez to assist in deciphering it. For the most part it dealt with small incidents of her visit and dutiful enquiries concerning the progress of estate and domestic affairs at the Hall during her absence. But just before the end—where it might linger longest in the memory—came a paragraph which riveted Lady Gertrude's attention.

"And how about Nan's portrait?" Isobel had written. "I suppose by this time it is finished and adorning the picture gallery? That is, if Roger has really succeeded in persuading Mr. Rooke to part with it. It certainly ought to be an exceptional portrait, judging by the length of time it has taken to accomplish! Dear Aunt Gertrude, I cannot help thinking it was a mistake that Nan didn't give Mr. Rooke the sittings at his studio in town or, better still, have waited until after her marriage. People in the country are so apt to be censorious, aren't they? And there has been a good deal of comment on the matter, I know. I didn't wish to worry you about it, but I feel you and Roger really ought to know this."

"Letter from Isobel, mother? What's her news?"

Roger came striding into the room exactly as Lady Gertrude finished the perusal of her niece's epistle. She looked up with eyes that gleamed like hard, bright pebbles behind her pince-nez.

"The kind of news to which I fear we shall have to grow accustomed," she said acidly. "It appears that Nan is getting herself talked about in connection with that artist who is painting her portrait."

By the time she had finished speaking Roger's face was like a thundercloud.

"What do you mean? What does Isobel say?" he demanded.

"You had better read the letter for yourself," replied his mother, pushing it towards him.

He snatched it up and read it hastily, then stood silently staring at it, his face white with anger, his eyes as hard as Lady Gertrude's own.

"It's a great pity you ever met Nan Davenant," pursued his mother, breaking the silence. "There's bad blood in the Davenants, and Nan will probably create a scandal for us one day. I understand she strongly resembles her notorious great-grandmother, Angele de Varincourt."

"My wife will lead a very different kind of life from Angele de Varincourt," remarked Roger. "I'll see to that."

"It's a pity you didn't look nearer home for a wife, Roger," she observed. "I always hoped you would learn to care for Isobel."

"Isobel!"—with blank amazement. "I do care for her—she's a jolly good sort—but not in that way. Besides, she doesn't care for me in the slightest—except in a sisterly fashion."

"Are you sure of that? Remember, you've never asked her the question." And with this final thrust, Lady Gertrude left him to his thoughts.

No doubt, later on, the thought of Isobel in the new light presented by his mother would recur to his mind, but for the moment he was entirely preoccupied with the matter of Nan's portrait and his determination to put an end to the sittings.

It would be quite easy, he decided. The only thing that stood in the way of his immediately carrying out his plan, was the fact that he had promised to go away the following morning on a few days' fishing expedition, together with Barry Seymour and the two Fentons. The realisation that Maryon Rooke would probably spend the best part of those few days in Nan's company set the blood pounding furiously through his veins. His decision was taken instantly. The fishing party must go without him.

As a natural sequence to his engagement to Nan he had an open invitation to Mallow, and this evening he availed himself of it by motoring across to dinner there. The question of the fishing party was easily disposed of on the plea of unexpected estate matters which required his supervision. Barry brushed his apologies aside.

"My dear chap, it doesn't matter a scrap. We three'll go as arranged and you must join us on our next jaunt. Kitty'll be here to look after Nan," he added, smiling good-naturedly. "She hates fishing—it bores her stiff."

After dinner Roger made an opportunity to broach the matter of the portrait to Nan.

"When's Rooke going to finish that portrait of you?" he asked her. "He's taking an unconscionable time over it."

She coloured a little under the suspicion she read in his eyes.

"I—I think he'll finish it to-morrow," she stammered. "It's nearly done, you know."

"So I should think. I'll see him about it. I'm going to buy the thing."

"To—to buy it?"—nervously.

"Yes." His keen eyes flashed over her. "Is there anything extraordinary in a man's purchasing the portrait of his future wife?"

"No. Oh, no. Only I don't fancy Maryon painted it with any idea of selling it."

"And I didn't allow you to sit for it with any idea of his keeping it," retorted Roger grimly.

Nan remained silent, feeling that further discussion of the matter while he was in his present humour would serve no purpose. The curt, almost hectoring manner of his speech irritated her, while the jealousy from which it sprang made no appeal to her by way of an excuse, as it might have done had she loved him. She was glad when the evening came to an end, but she was still in a sore and angry frame of mind when she joined Rooke in the music-room the following day.

He speedily divined that something had occurred to ruffle her, and without endeavouring to elicit the cause—possibly he felt he could make a pretty good guess at it!—he set himself to amuse and entertain her. He was so far successful in his efforts that before very long she had almost forgotten her annoyance of the previous evening and was deep in a discussion regarding the work of a certain modern composer.

Engrossed in argument, neither Maryon nor Nan noticed, the hum of a motor approaching up the drive, and when the door of the room was thrown open to admit Roger Trenby neither of them was able to repress a slight start. Instantly a dark look of anger overspread Roger's face as he advanced into the room.

"Good morning, Rooke," he said, nodding briefly but not offering his hand. "So the portrait is finished at last, I see."

Nan glanced across at him anxiously. There was something in his manner that filled her with a quick sense of apprehension.

"Not quite," replied Rooke easily. "I'm afraid we've been idling this morning. There are still a few more touches I should like to add."

Roger crossed the room, and, standing in front of the picture, surveyed it in silence.

"I think," he said at last, "that I'm satisfied with it as it is. . . . It will look very well in the gallery at Trenby."

Rooke's eyes narrowed suddenly.

"The portrait isn't for sale," he observed.

"Of course not—to anyone other than myself," replied Roger composedly.

"Not even to you, I'm afraid," answered Rooke. "I painted it for the great pleasure it gave me and not from any mercenary motive."

Nan, watching the two men as they fenced, saw a sudden flash in Roger's eyes and his under jaw thrust itself out in a manner with which she was only too familiar.

"Then may I ask what you intend to do with it?" he demanded. There was something in the dead level of his tone which suggested a white-hot anger forcibly held in leash.

"I thought—with Nan's permission—of exhibiting it first," said Rooke placidly. "After that, there is a wall in my house at Westminster where it would hang in an admirable light."

The cool insolence of his manner acted like a lighted torch to gunpowder. Roger swung round upon him furiously, his hands clenched, his forehead suddenly gnarled with knotted veins.

"By God, Rooke!" he exclaimed. "You go too far! You will exhibit Nan's portrait . . . you will hang it in your house! . . . And you think I'll stand by and tolerate such impertinence? Understand . . . Nan's portrait hangs at Trenby Hall—or nowhere!"

Rooke regarded him apparently unmoved.

"I've yet to learn the law which compels a man to part with his work," he remarked indifferently.

Roger took an impetuous step towards him, his clenched hand raised as though to strike.

"You hound—" he began hoarsely.

Nan rushed between them, catching the upraised hand.

"Roger! . . . Roger!" she cried, her voice shrill with the fear that in another moment the two men would be at grips.

But he shook off her hand, flinging her aside with such force that she staggered helplessly backwards.

"As for you," he thundered, his eyes blazing with concentrated anger, "it's you I've to thank that any man should hold my future wife so cheap as to imagine he may paint her portrait and then keep it in his house as though it were his own! . . . But I'm damned if he shall!"

White and shaken, she leaned against the window frame, clutching at the wood-work for support and staring at him with affrighted eyes as he turned once more to Rooke.

In his big, brawny strength, doubled by the driving force of anger, he seemed to tower above the slim, supple figure of the artist, who stood leaning negligently against the side of the piano, watching him with narrowed eyes and a faintly supercilious smile on his lips.

"Take your choice, Rooke," he said shortly. "My cheque for five hundred and get out of this, or—" He paused significantly.

"Or? . . . The other alternative?" murmured Rooke. Roger laughed roughly, fingering something he held concealed in his hand.

"You'll know that later," he said grimly. "I advise you to close with the five hundred."

Rooke shook his head.

"Sorry it's impossible. I prefer to keep the picture."

"Oh, Maryon, give in to him! Do give in to him!"

The words came sobbingly from Nan's white lips, and Rooke turned to her instantly.

"Have I your permission to keep the picture, Nan?" he asked, fixing her with his queer, magnetic eyes.

An oath broke from Roger.

"You'll have the original, you see, Trenby," explained Rooke urbanely, glancing towards him.

Then he turned again to Nan.

"Have I, Nan?"

She opened her lips to reply, but no words came. She stood there silently, her eyes wide and terror-stricken, her cheeks stained with the tears that dripped down them unheeded.

Roger's glance swept her as though there were something distasteful to him in the sight of her and she flinched under it, moaning a little.

"Well," he said to Rooke. "Is the picture mine—or yours?"

"Mine," answered Rooke.

Roger made a single stride towards the easel. Then his hand shot out, and the next moment there was a grinding sound of ripping and tearing as, with the big blade of his clasp-knife, he slashed and rent and hacked at the picture until it was a wreck of split and riven canvas.

With a cry like that of a wounded animal Rooke leaped forward to gave it, but Roger hurled him aside as though he were a child, and once more the knife bit its way remorselessly through paint and canvas.

There was something indescribably horrible in this deliberate, merciless destruction of the exquisite work of art. Nan, watching the keen blade sweep again and again across the painted figure of the portrait, felt as though the blows were being rained upon her actual body. Distraught with the violence and horror of the scene she tried to scream, but her voice failed her, and with a hoarse, half-strangled cry she covered her eyes, rocking to and fro. But the raucous sound of rending canvas still grated hideously against her ears.

Suddenly Roger ceased to cut and slash at the portrait. Seizing it in both hands, he dragged it from the easel and flung it on the floor at Rooke's feet.

"There's your picture!" he said. "Take it—and hang it in your 'admirable light'!" And he strode out of the room.

A long silence fell between the two who were left. Then Rooke, who was staring at the ruin of his work with his mouth twisted, into an odd, cynical smile, murmured beneath his breath:

"Sic transit . . ."

Once more the silence wrapped them round. Wan-faced and with staring eyes, Nan drew near the heap of mangled canvas.

At last:

"I can't bear it! I can't bear it!" she whispered, and a shuddering sob shook her slight frame from head to foot. "Oh, Maryon—"

She stretched her hands towards him gropingly, like a child that is frightened in the dark.

. . . Half an hour later found them still together, standing with linked hands. In Rooke's eyes there was a quiet light of triumph, while Nan's attitude betrayed a kind of hesitancy, as of one driven along strange and unknown ways.

"Then you'll come, Nan, you'll come?" he said eagerly.

"I'll come," she answered dully. "I can't bear my life any longer."

"I'll make you happy. . . . I swear it!"

"Will you, Maryon?" She shook her head and the eyes she raised to his were full of a dumb, hopeless misery. "I don't think anything could ever make me—happy. But I'd have gone on . . . I'd have borne it . . . if Uncle David were still here. What we are going to do would have hurt him so"—and her voice trembled. "But he's gone, and now nothing seems to matter very much."

A sudden overwhelming tenderness for this pain-racked, desolate spirit surged up in Maryon's heart.

"You poor little child!" he murmured. "You poor child!"

And gathering her into his arms he held her closely, leaning his cheek against her hair, with no passion, but with a swift, understanding sympathy that sprang from the best that was in the man.

She clung to him forlornly, so tired and hopeless she no longer felt any impulse to resist him. She had tried—tried to withstand him and to go on treading the uphill path that lay before her. But now she had come to the end of her strength. She would go away with Maryon . . . go out of it all . . . and somewhere, perhaps, together they would build up a new and happier life.

Dimly at the back of her mind floated the memory of Peter's words:

"But there's honour, dear, and duty . . ."

She crushed down the remembrance resolutely. If she were going away into a new world with Maryon, the door of memory must be closed fast.



CHAPTER XXXII

THE GREEN CAR

The atmosphere still held the chill of early morning as Sandy emerged, vigorous and glowing and amazingly hungry, from his daily swim in the sea. He dressed quickly in a small tent erected on the shore and then, whistling cheerfully and with his towel slung over his shoulders, took his way up the beach to where his bicycle stood propped against a boulder.

A few minutes' pedalling brought him into St. Wennys, where he dismounted to buy a packet of "gaspers" dispensed by the village postmistress.

It was a quaint little village, typical of the West Country, with its double row of small houses climbing the side of a steep hill capped at the summit by an ancient church of weather-beaten stone. The bright June sunshine winked against the panes, of the cottage windows and flickered down upon the knobby surface of the cobbled pavements, while in the dust of the wide road an indiscriminate group of children and dogs played joyously together.

The warning hoot of a motor-horn sent them scuttling to the side of the road, and, as Sandy smilingly watched the grubby little crowd's hasty flight for safety, a big green car shot by and was swiftly lost to sight in a cloud of whirling dust.

But not before Sandy's keen eyes had noted its occupants.

"Nan and the artist fellow!" he muttered.

Then, remembering that Nan had promised to go with him that afternoon for a run in the "stink-pot," he stepped out into the middle of the street and stood staring up the broad white road along which the car had disappeared—the great road which led to London.

An ominous foreboding knocked at the door of his mind.

Where was Nan going with Rooke—driving at reckless speed at this hour of the day on the way to London, when, according to arrangement, she should have been ready later on to adventure herself in the "stink-pot"?

Of course it was just possible she had only gone out for a morning spin with Maryon and proposed returning in time to keep her appointment with him. But the hour was an unusually early one at which to make a start, and the green car was ripping along at a pace which rather precluded the idea of a pleasure jaunt.

Sandy was obsessed by a sense of misgiving that would not be denied. Wheeling his bicycle round, he mounted and headed straight for Mallow Court at break-neck speed.

He arrived to find Kitty composedly dividing her attention between her breakfast and an illustrated paper, and for a moment he felt reassured. She jumped up and greeted him joyfully.

"Hullo, Sandy! Been down to bathe? Come along and have some breakfast with me. Or have you had it already?"

He shook his head.

"No, I've not been home yet."

"Then you must be famished. I'll ring for another cup. I'm all alone in my glory. Barry and the Fentons departed yesterday on their fishing trip, and Nan—"

"Yes. Where's Nan?" For the life of him he could not check the eager question.

"She's gone off for the day with Maryon. He's driving her over to Clovelly—she's never been there, you know."

Sandy's heart sank. He knew the quickest route from St. Wennys to Clovelly—and the green car's nose had been set in quite a different direction.

"She's fixed up to go out with me this afternoon," he said slowly.

"Tch!" Kitty clicked her tongue sharply against her teeth and, crossing to the chimneypiece, took down a letter which, was resting there. "I'd forgotten this! She left it to be given to you when you called for her this afternoon. I wanted her to 'phone and put you off, but she said you would understand when you'd read the letter and that there was something she wanted you to do for her."

Sandy ripped open the envelope and his eyes flew down the page. Its contents struck him like a blow—none the less hard because it had been vaguely anticipated—and a half-stifled exclamation broke from him.

"Sandy dear"—it ran—"I'm going to vanish out of your life, but we've been such good pals that I can't do it without just a word of good-bye, not of justification—I know there's none for what I'm going to do. But I know, too, that there'll be a little pity in your heart for me, and that you, at least, will understand in a way why I've had to do this, and won't blame me quite so much as the rest of the world. I'm going away with Maryon, and by this afternoon, when you come to fetch me for our motor spin, I shall have taken the first step on the new road. Nothing you could have said would have altered my determination, so you need never think that, Sandy boy. I know your first impulse will be to put the 'stink-pot' along at forty miles an hour in wild pursuit of me. But you can spare your petrol. Be very sure that even if you overtook me, I shouldn't come back.

"I don't expect to find happiness, but life with Maryon can never be dull. There'd never be anything to occupy my mind at Trenby—except soup jellies. So it would just go running round and round in circles—with the memory of all I've missed as the pivot of the circle. I'm sure Maryon will at least be able to stop me from thinking in circles. He's always flying off at a tangent—and naturally I shall have to go flying after him.

"And now there's just one thing I want you still to do for me. Tell Kitty. I couldn't leave a letter for her, as it might have been found almost at once. You won't get this till you come over for me in the afternoon, and by that time Maryon and I shall be far enough away. Give Kitty all my love, and tell her I feel a beast to leave her like this after her angel goodness to me. And say to her, too, that I will write very soon.

"Good-bye, Sandy boy."

"Well? Well?" Kitty's patience was getting exhausted. Moreover there was something in the set look on Sandy's face that frightened her.

He handed her the letter.

"She's bolted with Maryon Rooke," he said simply.

When Kitty had absorbed the contents of the letter she looked up at him blankly. The shock of it held her momentarily speechless. Then, after what seemed to her an endless silence, she stammered out:

"Nan—gone! And it's too late to stop her!"

"It's not!" The words leapt from Sandy's lips. "We must stop her!"

The absolute determination in his voice infected Kitty. She felt her courage rising to the emergency.

"What can we do?" she asked quietly. She was as steady as a rock now.

Sandy dropped into a chair, absent-mindedly lighting one of the "gaspers" he had so recently purchased.

"We must work it out," he said slowly. "Rooke told you they were going to Clovelly, didn't he?"

"Yes."

"Well, they're not going anywhere near. That was just a blind. They took the London road."

"Even that mightn't mean they were going to London. They could branch off anywhere."

"They could," agreed Sandy, puffing thoughtfully at his cigarette. "But we've got to remember Rooke has a house in Westminster—nice little backwater. It's just on the cards they might go there first—wherever else they intended going on to afterwards—just to pick up anything Rooke might want, arrange about letters and so on."

"Yes?" There was a keen light in Kitty's eyes. She was following Sandy's thought with all a woman's quickness. "And you think you might overtake them there?"

"I must do more than that. I must be there first—to receive them."

"Can you do it in the time?"

"Yes. By train. They're travelling by car, remember."

Kitty glanced at the clock.

"It's too late for you to catch the early train from St. Wennys Halt. And there's no other till the afternoon."

"I shan't risk the afternoon train. It stops at every little wayside station and if it were ten minutes late I'd miss the express from Exeter."

"Then you'll motor?"

"Yes, I'll drive to Exeter, and catch the train that gets in to town about half-past seven. Maryon isn't likely to reach London till about an hour or so after that."

"That's settled, then. The next thing is breakfast for two," said Kitty practically. "I'd only just begun when you came, and I—I'll start again to keep you company. You must be absolutely starving by now."

She rang the bell and gave her orders to the servant who appeared in answer.

"What about Aunt Eliza?" she went on when they were alone again. "I'll 'phone her you're having breakfast here, shall I?"

"Yes. And, look here, we've got to make things appear quite ordinary. The mater knows I'm supposed to be taking Nan for a run this afternoon. You'd better say I'm coming straight back to fetch the car, as we're starting earlier."

Kitty nodded and hurried off to the telephone.

"It's all right," she announced, when she returned. "Aunt Eliza took it all in, and merely remarked that I spoilt you!" She succeeded in summoning up a faint smile.

"Then that coast's clear," said Sandy. "Who else? There's Roger. What shall you do if he comes over to-day?"

"He won't. Lady Gertrude had a heart attack yesterday, and as Isobel Carson's away, Roger, of course, has to stay with his mother. He 'phoned Nan last night."

"I think that safeguards everything this end, then," replied Sandy, heaving a sigh of relief. "Allah is very good!"

After that, being a man with a long journey in front of him, he sensibly applied himself to the consumption of bacon and eggs, while Kitty, being a woman, made a poor attempt at swallowing a cup of tea.

Half an hour later he was ready to start for home.

"It's the slenderest chance, Kitty," he reminded, her gravely. "They may not go near London. . . . But it's the only chance!"

"I know," she assented with equal gravity.

"And in any case I can't get her back here till the morning. . . . Good heavens!"—a new thought striking him. "What about the mater? She'll be scared stiff if I don't turn up in the evening! Probably she'll ring up the police, thinking we've had a smash-up in the car. That would settle everything!"

"Don't worry about it," urged Kitty. "I'll invent something—'phone her later on to say you're stopping here for the night."

Sandy nodded soberly.

"That'll do it, and I'll—Oh, hang! What about your servants? They'll talk."

"And I shall lie," replied Kitty valiantly. "Nan will be staying the night with friends. . . . Each of you stopping just where you aren't!"—with a short strained laugh. "Oh, leave things to me at this end! I'll manage, somehow. Only bring her back—bring her back, Sandy!"



CHAPTER XXXIII

KEEPING FAITH

It was not until Sandy was actually in the express heading for London that he realised quite all the difficulties which lay ahead. He was just a big-hearted, impulsive boy, and, without wasting time in futile blame or vain regrets, he had plunged straight into the maelstrom which had engulfed his pal, determined to help her back to shore.

But, assuming he was right in his surmise that Rooke would take Nan first of all to London, he doubted his own ability to persuade her to return with him, and even if he were successful in this, there still remained the outstanding fact that by no human means could she reach Mallow until the small hours of the morning. He could well imagine the consternation and scandal which would ensue should she arrive back at the Court about five o'clock A.M.!

In a place like Mallow, where there was a large staff of indoor and outdoor servants, it would be practically impossible to secure Nan's return there unobserved. And as far as the neighbourhood—and Roger Trenby—were concerned, she might just as well run away with Maryon Rooke as return with Sandy McBain at that ungodly hour! She would be equally compromised. Besides, Kitty would have informed her household that she was not expecting Miss Davenant back that night.

Sandy began to see that the plans which he and Kitty had hastily thrown together in the dire emergency of the moment might serve well enough by way of temporary cover, but that in the long run they would rather complicate matters. Lies would have to be bolstered up with other lies. For example, what was he to do with Nan if he succeeded in persuading her to return? Where was she really to spend the night? It looked as though a veritable tissue of deceit must be woven if she were to be shielded from the consequences of her mad act. And Sandy was not a bit of good at telling lies. He hated them.

Suddenly into his harassed mind sprang the thought of Mallory. Of all men in the world, surely he, who loved Nan, would find a way to save her!

From the moment this idea took hold of him Sandy felt as though part of the insuperable load of trouble and anxiety had been lifted from his shoulders. His duty was now quite simple and straightforward. When he reached down he had only to seek out Peter, lay the whole matter before him, and then in some way or other he believed that Nan's errant feet would be turned from the dangerous path on which they were set.

There was something rather touching in his boyish faith that Peter would be able, even at the last moment, to save the woman he loved.

With unwonted forethought, born of the urgent need of the moment, he despatched the following telegram to Peter:

"Coming to see you. Arrive London to-night seven-thirty. Very urgent. Sandy McBain."

"Well, young Sandy McBain?"

Peter looked up from a table littered with manuscript. His face, a moment before rather troubled and stern, relaxed into a friendly smile, although the fingers of one hand still tapped restlessly on a sheet of paper that lay beside him—a cablegram from India which had evidently been the subject of his thoughts at the moment of Sandy's arrival.

"What's the urgent matter? Have you got into a hole and want a friendly haul-out? If so, I'm your man."

Sandy looked down wretchedly at the fine-cut face with its kind eyes and sensitive mouth.

"Oh, don't!" he said hastily, checking the friendly welcome as though it hurt him. "It—it isn't me. . . . It's Nan."

Peter sat quite still, only the hand that held his pen tightened in its grip.

"Nan!" he repeated, and something in the tone of his voice as he uttered the little name seemed to catch at Sandy's heart-strings and sent a sudden unmanageable lump up into his throat.

"Yes, Nan," he answered. Then, with a rush: "She's gone . . . gone away with Maryon Rooke."

The penholder snapped suddenly. Peter tossed the pieces aside and rose quietly to his feet.

"When?" he asked tensely.

"Now—to-day. If they've come to London, they'll be here very soon. They were in his car—I saw them on the London road. . . . And she left a letter for me. . . . Oh, good God, Mallory! Can't you save her—can't you save her?" And Sandy grabbed the older man by the shoulder and stared at him with feverish eyes.

Throughout the whole journey from Exeter to London he had been revolving the matter in his mind, thinking . . . thinking . . . thinking . . . to the ceaseless throb and hum of the train as it raced over the metals, and now he felt almost as though his brain would burst.

Peter pushed him down into a chair.

"You shall tell me all about it in a minute," he said quietly. Crossing the room to a cupboard in the wall, he took down a decanter and glass and poured out a stiff dose of whisky.

"There—drink that," he said, squirting in the soda-water. "You'll be all right directly," he added.

In a few minutes he had drawn the whole story from Sandy's eager lips, and as he listened his eyes grew curiously hard and determined.

"So we've just one chance—the house in Westminster," he commented. "We'll go there, Sandy. At once."

They made their way quickly downstairs and out into the street. Hailing a passing taxi, Peter directed the man to drive to Maryon's house, where he enquired for Rooke in a perfectly ordinary manner, as though expecting to find him in, and was told by the maid who opened the door that Mr. Rooke had only just arrived and had gone out again immediately, but that she expected him back at any moment.

"Then I'll wait," said Peter, easily. "Miss Davenant's waiting here, too, isn't she?"

An odd look of surprise crossed the girl's face. She had thought—well, what matter what she had thought since it was evident there was really no secret about the lady's presence in her master's house. These people obviously expected to meet her there. Perhaps there were others coming as well, to an appointed rendezvous for a restaurant supper party or something of the sort.

"Yes, sir," she answered civilly, "Miss Davenant is in the studio."

Sandy heard Peter catch his breath at the reply as though some kind of tension had been suddenly slackened. Then the maid threw open the studio door and they saw Nan sitting in a chair beside a recently lit fire, her hands clasped round her knees.

She turned at the sound of their entrance and, as her eyes fell upon Peter, she rose slowly to her feet, staring at him, while every drop of colour drained away from her face.

"Peter!" she cried wonderingly. "Peter!" Her hands groped for the back of the chair from which she had risen and clung to it.

But her eyes never left his face. There was an expression in them as of the dawning of a great joy struggling against amazed unbelief, so that Sandy felt as though he had seen into some secret holy place. Turning, he stumbled out of the room, leaving those two who loved alone together.

"Peter, you're asking me to do the hardest thing in the world," said Nan at last.

She had listened in heavy silence while he urged her to return.

"I know I am," he answered. "And do you think it's—easy—for me to ask it? To ask you to go back? . . . If it were possible. . . . Dear God! If it were possible to take you away, would I have left it undone?"

"I can't go back—I can't indeed! Why should I? I've only made Roger either furious or wretched ever since we were engaged. It isn't as if I could do any good by going back!"

"Isn't it something good to have kept faith?" There was a stern note in his voice.

She looked at him wistfully.

"If it had been you, Peter. . . . It's easy to keep faith when one loves."

"And are you being faithful—even to our love?" he asked quietly.

"To our love?" she whispered.

"There is a faithfulness of the Spirit, Nan—the only faithfulness possible to those who are set apart as we are."

He broke off and stood silent a moment, looking down at her with hard, hurt eyes. Presently he went on:

"That was all we might keep, you and I—our faith. Honour binds each of us to someone else. But"—his voice vibrating—"honour doesn't bind you to Maryon Rooke! If you go with him, you betray our love—the part of it that nothing can touch or spoil if we so will it. You won't do that, Nan. . . . You can't do it!"

She knew, then, that she would have to go back, go back and keep faith with Roger—and keep that deeper faith which love itself demanded.

Her head drooped, and she stretched out her hands as though seeking something of which they might lay hold. Peter took them into his and held them.

After a while a slight tremor ran through her body, and she drew herself away from him, relinquishing his hands.

"I'll go back," she said. "You've won, Peter. I can't . . . hurt . . . our love."

To Sandy the time seemed immeasurably long as he waited on the further side of the closed door, but at last they came to him—Peter, stern and rather strained-looking, and Nan with tear-bright eyes and a face from which every vestige of colour had vanished.

"Get a taxi, will you, Sandy?" said Peter.

Perhaps Sandy's face asked the question his lips dared not utter, for Nan nodded to him with a twisted little smile.

"Yes, Sandy boy, I'm going back."

"Thank God!"

He wrung her hands and then went off in search of a taxi. Nan glanced round her a trifle nervously.

"Maryon may be here at any moment," she said. "Something's gone wrong with the car and he's taken it round to the garage to get it put right."

"We shall be off directly," answered Peter. "See"—he pointed down the street—"here comes Sandy with a taxi for us." He spoke reassuringly, as though to a frightened child.

In a few minutes they had started, the taxi slipping swiftly away through the lamp-lit streets. It had turned a corner and was out of sight by the time the parlourmaid, hearing the sound of the street door closing, had hurried upstairs only to find an empty studio. Nor could she give Rooke, on his return, the slightest information as to what had become of his guests—the lady, or the two gentlemen who, she told him, had called shortly afterwards, apparently expecting to find Miss Davenant there.

Meanwhile the taxi had carried them swiftly to Peter's house, where he hurried Nan and Sandy up to his own sanctum, instructing the taxi-driver to wait below.

"We've just time for a few sandwiches before we start," he said. He rang the bell for his servant and gave his orders in quick, authoritative tones.

Nan shook her head. She felt as though a single mouthful would choke her. But Peter insisted with a quiet determination she found herself unable to withstand, and gradually the food and wine brought back a little colour into her wan face, though her eyes were still full of a dumb anguish and every now and then her mouth quivered piteously.

She felt dazed and bewildered, as though she were moving in a dream. Was it really true that she had run away from the man she was to marry and was being brought back by the man who loved her? The whole affair appeared topsy-turvy and absurd. She supposed she ought to feel ashamed and overwhelmed, but somehow the only thing that seemed to her to matter was that she had failed of that high ideal of love which Peter had expected of her. She knew instinctively, despite the grave kindness of his manner, that she had hurt him immeasurably.

"And what are you going to do with me now?" she asked at last, with an odd expression in her face. She felt curiously indifferent about her immediate future.

Mallory glanced up at her from the time-table he was studying.

"There's a ten o'clock express which stops at Exeter. We're taking you home by that."

"There's no connection on to St. Wennys," remarked Nan impassively.

It didn't seem to her a matter of great importance. She merely stated it as a fact.

"No. But Sandy left his car in Exeter and we shall motor from there."

"We can all three squash in," added Sandy.

"We won't be able to keep Roger ignorant of the fact I've been away," pursued Nan.

"He will know nothing about it," said Peter quietly.

She looked dubious.

"I think," she observed slowly, "that you may find it more difficult than you expect—to manage that. Someone's sure to find out and tell him."

"Not necessarily," he answered.

"What about the servants?" persisted Nan. "They'll hardly allow my arrival at Mallow in the early hours of the morning to pass without comment! I really think, Peter," she added with a wry smile, "that it would have been simpler all round if you'd allowed me to run away."

His eyes sought hers.

"Won't you trust me, Nan?" he said patiently. "I'm not going to take you to Mallow to-night. I'm going to take you to Sandy's mother."

"To the mater!"

Sandy fairly gasped with astonishment.

Eliza, narrow-minded and pre-eminently puritanical in her views, was the very last person in the world whose help he would have thought of requisitioning in the present circumstances.

Peter nodded.

"Yes. I've only met her two or three times, but I'm quite sure she is the right person. I believe," he added, smiling gently, "that I know your mother better than you do, Sandy."

And it would appear that this was really the case. For when, in the small hours of the morning, the trio reached Trevarthen Wood and Sandy had effected an entry and aroused his mother, there followed a brief interview between Peter and Mrs. McBain, from which the latter emerged with her grim mouth all tremulous at the corners and her keen eyes shining through a mist of tears.

Sandy and Nan were waiting together in the hall, and both looked up anxiously as she bore down upon them.

To the ordinary eye she may have appeared merely a very plain old woman, arrayed in a hideous dressing-gown of uncompromising red flannel. But to Nan, as the bony arms went round her and the Scottish voice, harsh no longer but tender as an old song, murmured in her ears, she seemed the embodiment of beautiful, consoling motherhood, and her flat chest a resting-place where weary heads might gladly lie and sorrowful hearts pour out their grief in tears.

"Dinna greet, ma bairnie," crooned Eliza. "Ma wee bairnie, greet nae mair."



CHAPTER XXXIV

THE WHITE FLAME

It was not till late in the afternoon of the day following upon her flight from Mallow that Nan and Peter met again. He had, so Sandy informed her, walked over to the Court in order to see Kitty.

"I think he has some private affair of his own that he wants to talk over with her," explained Sandy.

"It's about his wife, I expect," answered Nan dully. "She's had sunstroke—and is ordered home from India."

"Poor devil!" The words rushed from Sandy's lips. "How rotten everything is!" he added fiercely, with youth's instinctive revolt against the inevitableness of life's pains and penalties.

"And I've hardly mended matters, have I?" she submitted rather bitterly.

He slipped a friendly arm round her neck.

"Don't you worry any," he said, with gruff sympathy. "Mallory's fixed up everything—and it all dovetails in neatly with Kitty's saying you were staying with friends for the night. You're staying here—do you see? And Mallory and the mater between 'em have settled that you're to prolong your visit for a couple of days—to give more colour to the proceedings, so to speak! You'll emerge without a stain on your character!" he went on, trying with boyish clumsiness to cheer her up.

"Oh, don't, Sandy!" Her lip quivered. "I—I don't think I mind much about that. I feel as if I'd stained my soul."

"Well, if there were no blacker souls around than yours, old thing, the world would be a darned sight nicer place to live in! And that's that."

Nan contrived a smile.

"Sandy, you're rather a dear!" she said gratefully.

And then Peter came in, and Sandy hastened to make himself scarce.

A dead silence followed his hurried exit. Nan found herself trembling, and for a moment she dared not lift her eyes to Peter's face for fear of what she might read there. At last:

"Peter," she said, without looking at him. "Are you still—angry with me?"

"What makes you think I am angry?"

She looked up at that, then shrank back from the bitter hardness in his face almost as though he had dealt her a blow.

"Oh, you are—you are!" she cried tremulously.

"Don't you think most men would be in the same circumstances?"

"I don't understand," she said very low.

"No? I suppose you wouldn't," he replied. "You don't seem to understand the meaning of the word—faithfulness. Perhaps you can't help it—you're half a Varincourt! . . . Don't you realise what you've done? You've torn down our love and soiled it—made it nothing! I believed in you as I believed in God. . . . And then you run away with Maryon Rooke! One man or another—apparently it's all the same to you."

She rose and drew rather timidly towards him.

"Has it—hurt you—like that?" she said whisperingly. "You didn't mind—about Roger. Not in the same way."

"Mind?"

The word came hoarsely, and his hands, hanging loosely at his sides, slowly clenched. All the anguish of thwarting, the torture of a man who knows that the woman he loves will be another man's wife, found utterance in that one short word. Nan shivered at the stark agony in his tone. She did not attempt to answer him. There was nothing she could say. She could only stand voiceless and endure the pain-racked silence which followed.

It seemed to her that an infinity of time dragged by before he spoke again. When he did, it was in quiet, level tones out of which every atom of emotion had been crushed.

"You were pledged to Trenby," he said slowly. "That was different. I couldn't ask you to break your pledge to him, even had I been free to do so. You were his, not mine. . . . But you had given no promise to Maryon Rooke."

The incalculable reproach and accusation of those last words seemed to burn their way right into her heart. In a flash of revelation the whole thing became clear to her. She saw how bitterly she had failed the man she loved in that mad moment when she had thrown up everything and gone away with Maryon.

Dimly she acquiesced in the fact that there were excuses to be made—the long strain of the preceding months, her illness, leaving her with weakened nerves, and, finally, Roger's outrageous behaviour in the studio that day. But of these she would not speak to Peter. Had he not saved her from herself she would have wrecked her whole life by now, and she felt that, to him, she could not make excuses—however valid they might be.

She had failed him utterly—failed in that faithfulness of the spirit without which love is no more than a sex instinct. She knew it must appear like this to him, although deep within herself she was conscious that it was not really so. In her heart there was a white flame that would burn only for Peter—an altar flame which nothing could touch or defile. And the men who loved her knew it. It was this, the knowledge that the inmost soul and spirit of her eluded him, which had kept Roger's jealous anger at such a dangerous pitch.

"There is only one thing." Peter was speaking again, still in the same curiously detached tones as before. It was almost as though he were discussing the affairs of someone else—affairs which did not concern him very vitally. "There's only one more thing to be said. You've made it easier for me to do—what I have to do."

"What you have to do?" she repeated.

"Yes. I've had a cable from India. My wife is no better, and I'm going out to bring her home."

"I'm sorry she's no better," said Nan mechanically.

He murmured a formal word of thanks and then once more the dreadful silence hemmed them round. A hesitating knock sounded on the door and, after a moment's discreet delay, Sandy's freckled face peered round the doorway.

"I'm afraid you must leave now, Mallory, if you're to catch the up train," he said apologetically. "Kitty is here, waiting to drive you to the station."

Together they all three went out into the drive where Kitty was sitting behind the wheel of the car, Eliza perched skittishly on the rubbered step, talking with her. Aunt Eliza's opinion of "that red-headed body" had altered considerably during the course of the last year.

"And mind an' look in on your way back," she insisted.

Kitty nodded.

"I will. I want to talk to Nan."

"Ye'll no' be too hard on her?" besought Eliza.

Kitty laughed.

"Aunt Eliza dear, you're the biggest fraud I know! Your severity's just a pretence,"—bending forward to kiss her—"and a very thin one at that."

Then she greeted Nan precisely as though nothing had happened since they had last met, and, with a handshake all round, Mallory stepped into the car beside her and was whirled away to the station.

"It seems years since yesterday morning," said Nan, when, after Kitty's return from the station, they found themselves alone together.

For once Kitty had diverged from her usual principle, and a little jar of red stuff was responsible for the colour in her cheeks. Her eyes still blenched at the remembrance of that day and night's anxiety which she had endured alone.

"Yes," she acquiesced simply. "It seems years." And then, bit by bit, she drew from Nan the whole story of her flight from Mallow and of the violent scene which had preceded it, when Roger had so ruthlessly destroyed the portrait.

"I don't think—Peter—will ever forgive me," went on Nan, with a quiet hopelessness in her voice that was infinitely touching. "He would hardly speak to me."

The coolly aloof man from whom she had parted an hour ago did not seem as though he could ever have loved her. He had judged and condemned her as harshly as might a stranger. He was a stranger—this new, stonily indifferent Peter who had said very little but, in the few words he had spoken, had seemed to banish her out of his life and heart for ever.

"My dear"—Kitty's accustomed vitality rose to meet the occasion. "He'll forgive you some day, when he understands. Probably only a woman could really understand what made you do it. In any case, as far as Peter's concerned, it was all so ghastly for him, coming when it did—last night! He must have felt as if the world were falling to pieces."

"Last night? Why should it have been worse last night?"

"Because he'd just had a cable from India—about ten minutes before Sandy arrived—telling him that his wife had gone mad, and asking him to fetch her home."

"Gone mad?" Nan's voice was hardly more than a whisper of horror.

"Yes. He'd had a letter a day or two earlier warning him that things weren't going right with her. You know, she's a frightfully restless, excitable woman, and after having sunstroke she was ordered to keep quiet and rest as much as possible until she was able to come home. She entirely declined to do either—rest, or come home. She continued to ride and dance and amuse herself exactly as if there were nothing the matter. Naturally, her brain became more and more excitable, and at the present moment she is practically mad. No one can manage her. So they've sent for Peter, and of course, like the angel he is, he goes. . . . I suppose it will end in his playing keeper to a half-crazed neurasthenic for the rest of his natural life. He'll be far too tender-hearted to put her in a home of any kind, however expensive and luxurious. He's—he's too idealistic for this world, is Peter!" And Kitty's voice broke a little.

Nan was silent. Her hands lay folded on her knee, but the slender fingers worked incessantly. Presently she got up very quietly and, without speaking, sought the sanctuary of her own room, where she could be alone.

She felt utterly crushed and despairing as she realised that just at the moment of Peter's greatest need she had failed him—spoiled the one thing that had counted in a life bare of happiness by robbing him of his faith and trust in the woman he loved.

If the Death-Angel had come at that moment and beckoned her to follow him, she would have gone gladly. But Death is not so kind. He does not come just because life has grown so hard and difficult to endure that we are asking for him.

Later on, when Nan came downstairs to dinner, she spoke and moved almost mechanically. Only once did she show the least interest in anything that was said, and that was when Eliza remarked with relish:

"Roger Trenby will be wishin' Isobel Carson back home! I hear Lady Gertrude keeps him dancing attendance on her from morn till night, declaring she's at death's door the while."

Sandy grinned.

"Yes, Roger 'phoned an hour ago and asked to speak to you, Nan—he'd heard you were staying here. I said you were taking a nap."

Nan smiled faintly across at him.

"Thank you, Sandy," she said. She had no wish either to see or speak to Roger just now. There was something that must be fought out and decided before he and she met again.

Aunt Eliza bustled her off early to bed that night and she went thankfully—not to sleep, but to search out her own soul and make the biggest decision of her life.

It was not till the moon-pale fingers of dawn came creeping in through the chinks betwixt blind and window that Nan lay back on her pillows knowing that for good or ill she had taken her decision.

Something of the immensity of love, its heights and depths, had been revealed to her in those tense silences she had shared with Peter, and she knew that she had been untrue to the love within her—untrue from the very beginning when she had first pledged herself to Roger.

She had rushed headlong into her engagement with him, driven by cross-currents that had whirled her hither and thither. Afterwards, when the full realisation of her love for Peter had overwhelmed her, her pride—the dogged, unyielding pride of the Davenants, whose word was their bond—had held her to her promise.

It had been a matter of honour with her. Now she was learning that utter loyalty to love involved a higher, finer honour than a spoken pledge given by a reckless girl who had thought to find safety for herself and happiness for her friend by giving it.

For Peter, that faithfulness of the spirit, of which he had spoken, alone was possible. The woman he had married had her claims upon him. But as far as she herself was concerned, Nan realised that she could yet keep her love pure and untouched, faithful to the mystic three-fold bond of spirit, soul, and body.

. . . She would never marry Roger now. To-morrow she would write and tell him so. That he would storm and rage and try to force her to retract this new decision she was well aware. But that would only be part of the punishment which she must be prepared to suffer. There would, too, be a certain amount of obloquy and gossip to be faced. People in general would say she had behaved dishonourably. But, whatever the result, she was ready to bear it. It would be a very small atonement for her sin against love!

* * * * * *

The following day she returned to Mallow Court to be greeted warmly by Kitty. Once or twice the latter glanced at her a trifle uneasily as though she sensed something different in her, but it was not until later on, over a fire lit to cheat the unwonted coolness of the evening, that Nan unburdened herself.

Kitty said very little. But she and Barry were as much lovers now as they had been the day they married, and she understood.

"I think you're right," she commented slowly.

"I know I am," answered Nan with quiet conviction. "I feel as though all this time I had been profaning our love. Now I want to keep it quite, quite sacred—in my heart. It wouldn't make any difference even if Peter ceased to care for me. It's my caring for him that matters."

"Shall you—do you intend to see Roger?"

"No. I shall write to him to-morrow. But if he still wishes to see me after that, of course I can't refuse."

"And Peter?"

"He will have gone."

Kitty shook her head.

"No. He sails the day after to-morrow. He couldn't get a berth before."

"Then"—very softly and with a quiet radiance in her eyes—"then I will write to him to-morrow—after I've written to Roger."

Nan fell silent, gazing absently into the fire. There was a deep sense of thankfulness in her heart that she would be able to heal the hurt she had done Peter before he went East to face the bitter and difficult thing which awaited his doing. A strange sense of comfort stole over her. When she had written her letter to Roger, retracting the promise she had given him, she would be free—free to belong wholly to the man she loved.

Though they might never be together, though their love must remain for ever unconsummated, still in her loneliness she would know herself utterly and entirely his.



CHAPTER XXXV

THE GATES OF FATE

The fishing party returned to Mallow the following morning. They were in high spirits, full of stories and cracking jokes about each other's prowess or otherwise—especially the "otherwise," although, both men united in praising Penelope's exploits as a fisherwoman.

"Beginner's luck, of course!" chaffed Barry. "It was your first serious attempt at fishing, wasn't it, Penny?"

"Yes. But it's not going to be my last!" she retorted. "And I'll take a bet with you as to who catches the most trout next time."

The advent of three people who were in complete ignorance of the happenings of the last few days went far to restore the atmosphere to normal. Amid the bustle of their arrival and the gay chatter which accompanied it, it would have been impossible for Kitty, at least, not to throw aside for the moment the anxieties which beset her and join in the general fun and laughter.

But Nan, although she played up pluckily, so that no suspicions were aroused in the minds of the returned wanderers, was still burdened by the knowledge of what yet remained for her to do, and when the jolly clamour had abated a trifle she escaped upstairs to write her letter to Roger. It was a difficult letter to write because, though nothing he could say or do would alter her determination, she realised that in his own way he loved her and she wanted to hurt him as little as possible.

"I know you will think I am being both dishonourable and disloyal," she wrote, after she had first stated her decision quite clearly and simply. "But to me it seems I am doing the only thing possible in loyalty to the man I love. And in a way it is loyal to you, too, Roger, because—as you have known from the beginning—I could never give you all that a man has a right to expect from the women he marries. One can't 'share out' love in bits. I've learned, now, that love means all or nothing, and as I cannot give you all, it must be nothing. And of this you may be sure—perhaps it may make you feel that I have behaved less badly to you—I am not breaking off our engagement in order to marry someone else. I shall never marry anyone, now."

Nan read it through, then slipped it into an envelope and sealed it. When she had directed it to "Roger Trenby, Esq.," she leaned back in her chair, feeling curiously tired, but conscious of a sense of peace and tranquillity that had been absent from her since the day on which she had promised to marry Roger. . . . And the next day, by the shattered Lovers' Bridge, Peter had carried her in his arms across the stream and kissed her hair. She had known then, known very surely, that love had come to her—Peter loved her, and his slightest touch meant happiness so poignantly sweet as to be almost unbearable. Only the knowledge had come too late.

But now—now she was free! Though she would never know the supreme joy of mating with the man she loved, she had at least escaped the prison which the wrong man's love can make for a woman. Just as no other man than Peter would ever hold her heart, so henceforth no kiss but his would ever touch her lips. But for Peter the burden would be heavier. It would be different—harder. Could she not guess how infinitely harder? And there was nothing in the world which might avail to lighten that burden. Only, perhaps, later on, it might comfort him to know that, though in this world they could never come together, the woman he loved was his completely, that she had surrendered nothing of herself to any other man.

She picked up her letter to Roger and made her way downstairs, intending to drop it herself into the post-box at the gates of Mallow. Once it had left her hands for the close guardianship of that scarlet tablet streaked against the roadside wall she would feel more at ease.

As she turned the last bend of the stairs she came upon an agitated little group of people clustering round Sandy McBain, who had apparently only recently arrived. Her hand tightened on the banister. Why had everyone collected in the hall? Even one or two scared-looking servants were discernible in the background, and on every face sat a strange, unusual gravity. Nan felt as though someone had suddenly slipped a band round her heart and were drawing it tighter and tighter.

Nobody seemed to notice her as with reluctant, dragging footsteps she descended the remainder of the staircase. Then Ralph caught sight of her and exclaimed: "Here's Nan!" and her name ran through the group in a shocked murmur of repetition, followed by a quick, hushed silence.

"What is it?" she asked apprehensively.

Several voices answered, but only the words "Roger" and "accident" came to her clearly out of the blur of sound.

"What is it?" she repeated. "What has happened?"

"There's been an accident," began Barry awkwardly. "Lady Gertrude—"

"Is she killed?"—in shocked tones.

"No, no. But she had another attack this morning—heart, or temper—and as the doctor was out when they 'phoned for him, she sent Roger rushing off post-haste in the car to find him and bring him along. And"—he hesitated a little—"I'm afraid he's had rather a bad smash-up."

Nan's face went very white, and half-unconsciously her grip tautened round the letter she was holding, crushing it together.

"Do you mean—in the car?" she asked in a queer, stiff voice.

"Yes." It was Sandy who answered her, "He'd just swerved to avoid driving over a dog and the next minute a kiddy ran out from the other side of the road, right in his path, and he swerved again, so sharply that the car ran up the side of the hedge and overturned.

"And Roger?"

Sandy's face twisted and he looked away.

"He was—underneath the car," he said at last, reluctantly.

Nan took a step forward and laid a hand on his arm. She had read the meaning of that quick contraction of his face.

"You were there!" She spoke more as though stating a fact than asking a question. "You saw it!"

"Yes," he acknowledged. "We got him out from under the car and carried him home on a hurdle. Then I found the doctor, and he's with him now."

"I'd better go right across and see if I can help," said Nan impulsively.

"No need. Isobel will be back this afternoon—I've wired her. And they've already 'phoned for a couple of trained nurses. Besides, Lady Gertrude's malady vanished the minute she heard Roger was injured. I think"—with a brief smile—"her illness was mostly due to the fact that Isobel was away, so of course she wanted to keep Roger by her side all the time. Lady G. must always have a 'retinue' in attendance, you know!"

A general smile acknowledged the truth of Sandy's diagnosis, but it was quickly smothered. The suddenness and gravity of the accident which had befallen Roger had shocked them all.

"What does the doctor say?" asked Penelope.

"He hasn't said anything very definite yet," replied Sandy. "He's afraid there's some injury to the spine, so he's wired for a Plymouth consultant. When he comes, they'll make a thorough examination."

"Ah!" Nan drew in her breath sharply.

"I suppose we shall hear to-night?" said Kitty. "The Plymouth man will get here early this afternoon."

"I'll come over and let you know the report," answered Sandy. "I'm going back to Trenby now, to see if I can do any errands or odd jobs for them. A man's a useful thing to have about the place at a time like this."

Kitty nodded soberly.

"Quite right, Sandy. And if there's anything we can any of us do to help, 'phone down at once."

A minute later Sandy was speeding back to the Hall as fast as the "stink-pot" could take him.

"It's pretty ghastly," said Kitty, as she and Nan turned away together. "Poor old Roger!"

"Yes," replied Nan mechanically. "Poor Roger."

A sudden thought had sprung into her mind, overwhelming her with its significance. The letter she had written to Roger—she couldn't send it now! Common humanity forbade that it should go. It would have to wait—wait till Roger had recovered. The disappointment, cutting across a deep and real sympathy with the injured man, was sharp and bitter.

Very slowly she made her way upstairs. The letter, which she still clasped rigidly, seemed to burn her palm like red-hot iron. She felt as though she could not unclench the hand which held it. But this phase only lasted for a few minutes. When she reached her room she opened her hand stiffly and the crumpled envelope fell on to the bed.

She stared at it blankly. That letter—which had meant so much to her—could not be sent! She might have to wait weeks—months even, before it could go. And meanwhile, she would be compelled to pretend—pretend to Roger, because he was so ill that the truth must be hidden from him till he recovered. Then, swift as the thrust of a knife, another thought followed. . . . Suppose—suppose Roger never recovered? . . . What was it Sandy had said? An injury to the spine. Did people recover from spinal injury? Or did they linger on, wielding those terrible rights which weakness for ever holds over health and strength?

Nan flung herself on the bed and lay there, face downwards, trying to realise the awful possibilities which the accident to Roger might entail for her. Because if it left him crippled—a hopeless invalid—the letter she had written could never be sent at all. She could not desert him, break off her engagement, if she herself represented all that was left to him in life.

It seemed hours afterwards, though in reality barely half an hour had elapsed, when she heard the sound of footsteps racing up the staircase, and a minute later, without even a preliminary knock, Kitty burst into the room. Her face was alight with joyful excitement. In her hand she held an open telegram.

"Listen, Nan! Oh"—seeing the other's startled, apprehensive face—"it's good news this time!"

Good news! Nan stared at her with an expression of impassive incredulity. There was no good news that could come to her.

"It seems horrible to feel glad over anyone's death, but I simply can't help it," went on Kitty. "Peter has just telegraphed me that Celia died yesterday. . . . Oh, Nan, dearest! I'm so glad for you—so glad for you and Peter!"

Nan, who had risen at Kitty's entrance, swayed suddenly and caught at the bed-post to steady herself.

"What did you say?" she asked huskily.

"That Peter's wife is dead. That he's free"—with great tenderness—"free to marry you." She checked herself and peered into Nan's white, expressionless face. "Nan, why don't you—look glad? You are glad, surely?"

"Glad?" repeated Nan vaguely. "No, I can't be glad yet. Not yet."

"You're not worrying just because Peter was angry last time he saw you?"—keenly.

"No. I wasn't thinking of that."

"Then, my dear, why not be glad—glad and thankful that nothing stands between you? I don't think you realise it! You're quite free now. And so is Peter. Your letter to Roger has gone—poor Roger!"—sorrowfully—"it's frightfully rough luck on him, particularly just now. But still, someone always has to go to the wall in a triangular mix-up. And though I like him well enough, I love you and Peter. So I'd rather it were Roger, since it must be someone."

Nan pointed to the bed. On the gay, flowered coverlet lay the crumpled letter.

"My letter to Roger has not gone," she said, speaking very distinctly. "I was on my way to post it when I found you all in the hall, discussing Roger's accident. And now—it can't go."

Kitty's face lengthened in dismay, then a look of relief passed over it.

"Give it to me," she exclaimed impulsively. "I'll post it at once. It will catch precisely the same post as it would have done if you'd put it in the post-box when you meant to."

"Kitty! How can you suggest such a thing!" cried Nan, in horrified tones. "If—if I'd posted it unknowingly and it had reached him after the accident it would have been bad enough! But to post it now, deliberately, when I know, would be absolutely wicked and brutal."

There was a momentary silence. Then:

"You're quite right," acknowledged Kitty in a muffled voice. She lifted a penitent face. "I suppose it was cruel of me to suggest it. But oh! I do so want you and Peter to be happy—and quickly! You've had such a rotten time in the past."

Nan smiled faintly at her.

"I knew you couldn't mean it," she answered, "seeing that you're about the most tender-hearted person I know."

"I suppose you will have to wait a little," conceded Kitty reluctantly. "At least till Roger is mended up a bit. It may not be anything very serious, after all. A man often gets a bad spill out of his car and is driving again within a few weeks."

"We shall near soon," replied Nan levelly. "Sandy said he would let us know the result of the doctor's examination."

"Well, come for a stroll in the rose-garden, then. It's hateful—waiting to hear," said Kitty rather shakily.

"Get Barry to go with you. I'd rather stay here, I think." Nan spoke quickly. She felt she could not bear to go into the rose-garden where she had given that promise to Roger which bade fair to wreck the happiness of two lives—her own and Peter's.

Kitty threw her a searching glance.

"Very well," she said. "Try to rest a little. I'll come up the moment we hear any news."

She left the room and, as the door closed behind her, Nan gave vent to a queer, hysterical laugh. Rest! How could she rest, knowing that now Peter was free—free to make her his wife—the great gates of fate might yet swing to, shutting them both out of lovers garden for ever!

For she had realised, with a desperate clearness of vision, that if Roger were incurably injured, she could not add to his burden by retracting her promise to be his wife. She must make the uttermost sacrifice—give up the happiness to which the death of Celia Mallory had opened the way—and devote herself to mitigating Roger's lot in so far as it could be mitigated. There was no choice possible to her. Duty, with stern, sad eyes, stood beside her, bidding her follow the hard path of sacrifice which winds upward, through a blurred mist of tears, to the great white Throne of God. The words of the little song which had always seemed a link betwixt Peter and herself came back to her like some dim echo from the past.

She sank on her knees, her arms flung out across the bed. She did not consciously pray, but her attitude of thought and spirit was a wordless cry that she might be given courage and strength to do this thing if it must needs be.

It was late in the afternoon when Kitty, treading softly, came into Nan's room.

"Have you been to sleep?" she asked.

"No." Nan felt as though she had not slept for a year. Her eyes were dry and burning in their sockets.

"There's very bad news about Roger," said Kitty, in the low tones of one who has hardly yet recovered from the shock of unexpectedly grave tidings. "His spine is so injured that he'll never be able to walk again. He"—she choked over the telling of it—"his legs will always be paralysed."

Nan stared at her vacantly, as though she hardly grasped the meaning of the words. Then, without speaking, she covered her face with her hands. The room seemed to be full of silence—a heavy terrible silence, charged with calamity. At last, unable to endure the burden of the intense quiet any longer, Kitty stirred restlessly. The tiny noise of her movement sounded almost like a pistol-shot in that profound stillness. Nan's hands dropped from her face and she picked up the letter which still lay on the bed and tore it into small pieces, very carefully, tossing them into the waste-paper basket.

Kitty watched her for a moment as though fascinated. Then suddenly she spoke.

"Why are you doing that? Why are you doing that?" she demanded irritably.

Nan looked across at her with steady eyes.

"Because—it's finished! That letter will never be needed now."

"It will! Of course it will!" insisted Kitty. "Not now—but later—when Roger's got over the shock of the accident."

Nan smiled at her curiously.

"Roger will never get over the consequences of his accident," she said, accenting the word "consequences." "Can you imagine what it's going to mean to him to be tied down to a couch for the rest of his days? An outdoor man, like Roger, who has hunted and shot and fished all his life?"

"Of course I can imagine! It's all too dreadful to think of! . . . But now Peter's free, you can't—you can't mean to give him up for Roger!"

"I must," answered Nan quietly. "I can't take the last thing he values from a man who's lost nearly everything."

Kitty grasped her by the arm.

"Do you mean," she said incredulously, "do you mean you're going to sacrifice Peter to Roger?"

"It won't hurt Peter—now—as it would have done before." Nan spoke rather tonelessly. "He's already lost his faith and trust in me. The worst wrench for him is over. I—I think"—a little unevenly—"that I'm glad now he thought what he did—that he couldn't find it in his heart to forgive me. It'll make it easier for him."

"Easier? Yes, if you actually do what you say you will. But—you're deliberately taking away his happiness, robbing him of it, even though he doesn't know he's being robbed. Good heavens, Nan!"—harshly—"Did you ever love him?"

"I don't think you want an answer to that question," returned Nan gently. "But, you see, I can't—divide myself—between Peter and Roger."

"Of course you can't! Only why sacrifice both yourself and Peter to Roger? It isn't reasonable!"

"Because I think he needs me most. Just picture it, Kitty. He's got nothing left to look forward to till he dies! Nothing! . . . Oh, I can't add to what he'll have to bear! He's so helpless!"

"You'll have plenty to bear yourself—tied to a helpless man of Roger's temper," retorted "Kitty.

"Yes"—soberly—"I think—I'm prepared for that."

"Prepared?"

"Yes. It seems to me as though I've known all afternoon that this was coming—that Roger might be crippled beyond curing. And I've looked at it from every angle, so as to be quite sure of myself." She paused. "I'm quite sure, now."

The quiet resolution in her voice convinced Kitty that her mind was made up. Nevertheless, for nearly an hour she tried by every argument in her power, by every entreaty, to shake her decision. But Nan held her ground.

"I must do it," she said. "It's useless trying to dissuade me. It's so clear to me that it's the one thing I must do. Don't any anything more about it, Kitten. You're only wearing yourself out"—appealingly. "I wish—I wish you'd try to help me to do it! It won't be the easiest thing in the world"—with a brief smile that was infinitely more sad than tears—"I know that."

"Help you?" cried Kitty passionately. "Help you to ruin your life, and Peter's with it? No, I won't help you. I tell you, Nan, you can't do this thing! You shall not marry Roger Trenby!"

Nan listened to her patiently. Then, still very quietly:

"I must marry him," she said. "It will be the one decent thing I've ever done in my life."



CHAPTER XXXVI

ROGER'S REFUSAL

The next morning at breakfast only one letter lay beside Nan's plate. As she recognised Maryon Rooke's small, squarish handwriting, with its curious contrasts of heavy downstrokes and very light terminals, the colour deepened in her cheeks. Her slight confusion passed unnoticed, however, as everyone else was absorbed in his or her individual share of the morning's mail.

For a moment Nan hesitated, conscious of an intense disinclination to open the letter. It gave her a queer feeling of panic, recalling with poignant vividness the day when she and Maryon had last been together. At length, somewhat dreading what it might contain, she opened it and began to read.

"I've had a blazing letter from young Sandy McBain, which has increased my respect for him enormously," wrote Maryon. "I've come to the conclusion that I deserve all the names he called me. Nan, how do you manage to make everyone so amazingly devoted to you? I think it must be that ridiculously short upper lip of yours, or your 'blue-violet' eyes, or some other of your absurd and charming characteristics.

"I shall probably go abroad for a bit—to recover my self-respect. I'm not feeling particularly proud of myself just now, and it always spoils my enjoyment of things if I can't be genuinely pleased with my ego. Don't cut me when next we meet, if fortune is ever kind enough to me to let us meet again. Because, for once in my life, I'm really sorry for my sins.

"I believe that somewhere in the ramshackle thing I call my soul, I'm glad Sandy took you away from me. Though there are occasional moments when I feel murderous towards him.

"Yours

"MARYON."

Nan laid down the closely-written sheet with a half-smile, half-sigh—could one ever regard Maryon Rooke without a smile overtaken by a sigh? The letter somewhat cheered her, washing away what remained of bitterness in her thoughts towards him. It was very characteristic of the man, with its intense egotism—almost every sentence beginning with an "I"—and its lightly cynical note. Yet beneath the surface flippancy Nan could read a genuine remorse and self-reproach. And in some strange way it comforted her a little to know that Maryon was sorry. After all, there is something good even in the worst of us.

"Had a nice letter, Nan?" asked Barry, looking up from his own correspondence. "You're wearing a smile of sorts."

"Yes. It was—rather a nice letter. Good and bad mixed, I think," she answered.

"Then you're lucky," observed Kitty. There was a rather frightened look in her eyes. "We'll go into your study after breakfast, Barry. I want to consult you about one of my letters. It's—it's undiluted bad, I think."

Barry's blue eyes smiled reassuringly across at her. "All right, old thing. Two heads are generally better than one if you're up against a snag."

Half an hour later she beckoned him into the study.

"What's the trouble?" He slipped an arm round her shoulders. "Don't look like that, Kitten. We're sure to be able to put things right somehow."

She smiled at him rather ruefully.

"It's you who'll have to do the putting right, Barry—and it'll be a hateful business, too," she replied.

"Thanks," murmured Barry. "Well, what's in the letter that's bothering you?"

"It's from Peter," burst out Kitty. "He's going straight off to Africa—to-morrow! Celia, of course, will be buried out in India—her uncle has cabled him that he'll arrange everything. And Peter has had the chance of a returned berth in a boat that sails to-morrow, so he proposes to get his kit together and start at once."

"I should have thought he'd have started at once—in this direction," remarked Barry drily.

"He would have done, I expect, only he's so bitter over Nan's attempt to run away with Maryon Rooke that he's determined to bury himself in the wilds. If he only knew what she'd gone through before she did such a thing, he'd understand and forgive her. But that's just like a man! When the woman he cares for acts in a way that's entirely inconsistent with all he knows of her, he never thinks of trying to work backwards to find out the cause. The effect's enough for him! Oh!"—with a sigh—"I do think Peter and Nan are most difficult people to manage. If it were only that—just a lovers' squabble—one might fix things up. But now, just when every obstacle in the world is removed and they could be happily married, Nan must needs decide that it's her duty to marry Roger!"

"Her duty?"

"Yes." And Kitty plunged forthwith into a detailed account of all that had happened.

"Good old Nan! She's a well-plucked 'un," was Barry's comment when she had finished.

"Of course it's splendid of her," said Kitty. "Nan was always an idealist in her notions—but in practice it would just mean purgatory. And I won't let her smash up the whole of her own life, and Peter's for an ideal!"

"How do you propose to prevent it, m'dear?"

"I propose that you should prevent it."

"I? How?"

Kitty laid an urgent hand on his arm.

"You must go over to Trenby and see Roger."

"See Roger? My dear girl, he won't be able to see visitors for days yet."

"Oh, yes, he will," replied Kitty. "Isobel Carson rang up just now to ask if Nan would come over. It appears that, barring the injury to his back, he escaped without a scratch. He didn't even know he was hurt till he found he couldn't use his legs. Of course, he'll be in bed. Isobel says he seems almost his usual self, except that he won't let anyone sympathise with him over his injury. He's just savage about it."

Barry made no answer. He reflected that it was quite in keeping with all be knew of the man for him to bear in silence the shock of knowing that henceforward he would be a helpless cripple. Just as a wild animal, mortally hurt, seeks solitude in which to die, so Roger's arrogant, primitive nature refused to tolerate the pity of his fellows.

"Well," queried Barry grudgingly. "If I do see him, what then?"

"You must tell him that Peter is free and make him release Nan from her engagement. In fact, he must do more than that," she continued emphatically. "In her present mood Nan would probably decline to accept her release. He must absolutely refuse to marry her."

"And supposing he doesn't see doing that?"

Kitty's lip curled.

"In the circumstances, I should think that any man who cared for a woman and who wasn't a moral and physical coward, would see it was the one and only thing he could do."

Her husband remained silent.

"You'll go, Barry?"

"I don't care for interfering in Trenby's personal affairs. Poor devil! He's got enough to bear just now!"

Sudden tears filled Kitty's eyes. She pitied Roger from the bottom of her heart, but she must still fight for the happiness of Nan and Peter.

"I know," she acquiesced unhappily. "But, don't you see, if he doesn't bear just this, too, Nan will have to endure a twofold burden for the rest of her life. Oh, Barry!"—choking back a sob—"Don't fail me! It's a man's job—this. No woman could do it, without making Roger feel it frightfully. A man so hates to discuss any physical disablement with a woman. It hurts his pride. He'd rather ignore it."

"But where's the use?" protested Barry. "If Peter is off to-morrow to the back of beyond, you're still no further on. You've only made things doubly hard for that poor devil up at the Hall without accomplishing anything else."