"I understand," he answered quietly. "Go on."

"Well," she continued, "a few days afterwards I had just about as terrifying a specimen of a blackmailing letter as you can possibly imagine."

"From these people?" Rochester asked.

"No! From a firm who called themselves agents, and said that the letter had come into their possession, had been deposited with them, in fact, by someone who owed them some money," Lady Mary answered. "Of course, I was frightened to death. I don't know what made me think of Bertrand Saton as the best person to consult, but anyhow I did. He took the matter up for me, paid over some money on my account, and recovered the letter."

"The sum of money being?"

"Five hundred pounds," Lady Mary answered, with a sigh. "It was a great deal, but the letter—well, the letter was certainly very foolish."

Rochester was silent for several moments.

"Do you know," he asked at length, "what the natural inference to me seems—the inference, I mean, of what you have just told me?"

"You are not going to say anything disagreeable?" she asked, looking at him through the lace fringe of her parasol.

"Not in the least," he answered. "I was not thinking of the personal side of the affair—so far as you and I are concerned, I have accepted your declaration. I claim no jurisdiction over your correspondence. I mean as regards Saton."

"No! What?" she asked.

"It seems to me highly possible," he declared, "that Saton was in league with these blackmailers, whoever they may have been. Any ordinary man whom you had consulted would have settled the matter in a very different way."

"I was quite satisfied," Lady Mary answered. "I thought it was really very kind of him to take the trouble."

"Indeed!" Rochester remarked drily. "I must say, Mary, that I gave you credit for greater perspicuity. The man is an intriguer. Naturally, he was only too anxious to be of service to so charming a lady."

Lady Mary raised her eyebrows, but did not answer.

"I might add," Rochester continued, "that however satisfactory our present relations may seem to you, I still claim the privilege of being able to assist my wife in any difficulty in which she may find herself."

"You are very kind," she murmured.

"Further," Rochester said, "I resent the interference of any third party in such a matter. You will remember this?"

"I will remember it," Lady Mary said. "Still, the circumstances being as they are, you can scarcely blame me for having been civil to him to-day. Besides, you must admit that he is clever."

"Clever! Oh! I've no doubt that he is clever enough," Rochester answered, impatiently. "Nowadays, all you women seem as though you can only be attracted by something freakish—brains, or peculiar gifts of some sort."

Lady Mary laughed lightly.

"My dear Henry," she said, "you are not exactly a fool yourself, are you? And then you must remember this. Bertrand Saton's cleverness is the sort of cleverness which appeals to women. We can't help our natures, I suppose, and we are always attracted by the mysterious. We are always wanting to know something which other people don't know, something of what lies behind the curtain."

"It is a very dangerous curiosity," Rochester said. "You are liable to become the prey of any adventurer with a plausible manner, who has learned to talk glibly about the things which he doesn't understand. I'll get out here, if I may," he added, "and take a short cut across the Park to my club. Mary, if you want to oblige me, for Heaven's sake don't run this fellow! He gets on my nerves. I hate the sight of him."

Lady Mary turned towards her husband with a faint, curious smile as the carriage drew up.

"You had better talk to Pauline," she said. "He is more in her line than mine."

Rochester walked across the Park a little gloomily. His wife's last words were ringing in his ears. For the first time since he could remember, a little cloud had loomed over his few short hours with Pauline. She had resented some contemptuous speech of his, and as though to mark her sense of his lack of generosity, she had encouraged Saton to talk, encouraged him to talk until the other conversation had died away, and the whole room had listened to this exponent of what he declared to be a new science. The fellow was a poseur and an impostor, Rochester told himself vigorously. He knew, he was absolutely convinced that he was not honest.

He sat down on a seat for a few minutes, and his thoughts somehow wandered back to that night when he had strolled over the hills and found a lonely boy gazing downward through the tree tops to the fading landscape. He remembered his own whimsical generosity, the feelings with which he had made his offer. He remembered, too, the conditions which he had made. With a sudden swift anger, he realized that those conditions had not been kept. Saton had told him little or nothing of his doings out in the world, of his struggles and his failures, of the growth of this new enthusiasm, if indeed it was an enthusiasm. He had hinted at strange adventures, but he had spoken of nothing definite. He had not kept his word.

Rochester rose to his feet with a little exclamation.

"He shall tell me!" he muttered to himself, "or I will expose him, if I have to turn detective and follow him round the world."

He swung round again across the Park toward Mayfair, and rang the bell at Saton's new house. Mr. Saton was not at home, he was informed, but was expected back at any moment. Rochester accepted an invitation to wait, and was shown into a room which at first he thought empty. Then someone rose from an old-fashioned easy-chair, set back amongst the shadows. Rachael peered forward, leaning upon her stick, and shading her eyes as though from the sun.

"Who is that?" she asked. "Who are you?"

Rochester bowed, and introduced himself. As yet he could see very little of the person who had spoken. The blinds, and even the curtains of the room, were close drawn. It was one of Rachael's strange fancies on certain days to sit in the darkness. Suddenly, however, she leaned forward and touched the knob of the electric light.

"My name is Rochester," he said. "I called to see Mr. Saton for a few minutes. They asked me to wait."

"I am the Comtesse de Vestignes," Rachael said slowly, "and Bertrand Saton is my adopted son. He will be back in a few moments. Draw your chair up close to me. I should like to talk, if you do not mind this light. I have been resting, and my eyes are tired."

Rochester obeyed, and seated himself by her side with a curious little thrill of interest. It seemed to him that she was like the mummy of some ancient goddess, the shadowy presentment of days long past. She had the withered appearance of great age, and yet the dignity which refuses to yield to time.

"Come nearer," she said. "I am no longer a young woman, and I am a little deaf."

"You must tell me if you do not hear me," Rochester said. "My voice is generally thought to be a clear one. I am very much interested in this young man. Suppose, while we wait, you tell me a few things about him. You have no objection?"

Rachael laughed softly.

"I wonder," she said, "what it is that you expect to hear from me."



CHAPTER XVI

PLAIN SPEAKING

From the depths of her chair, Rachael for several moments sat and subjected her visitor to a close and merciless scrutiny.

"So you," she said at last, "were the fairy godfather. You were the man who trusted a nameless boy with five hundred pounds, because his vaporings amused you. You pushed him out into the world, you bade him go and seek his fortune."

"I was that infernal fool!" Rochester muttered.

The woman nodded.

"Yes, a fool!" she said. "No one but a fool would do such a thing. And yet great things have come of it."

Rochester shrugged his shoulders. He was not prepared to admit that Bertrand Saton was in any sense great.

"My adopted son," she continued, "is very wonderful. Egypt had its soothsayers thousands of years ago. This century, too, may have its prophet. Bertrand gains power every day. He is beginning to understand."

"You, too," Rochester asked politely, "are perhaps a student of the occult?"

"Whatever I am," she answered scornfully, "I am not one of those who because their two feet are planted upon the earth, and their head reaches six feet towards the sky, are prepared to declare that there is no universe save the earth upon which they stand, no sky save the sky toward which they look—nothing in life which their eyes will not show them, or which their hands may not touch."

Rochester smiled faintly.

"Materialism is an easy faith and a safe one," he said. "Imagination is very distorting."

"For you who feel like that," she answered, "the way through life is simple enough. We others can only pity."

"Comtesse," Rochester said, "such an attitude is perfectly reasonable. It is only when you attempt to convert that we are obliged to fall back upon our readiest weapons."

"You are one of those," she said, looking at him keenly, "who do not wish to understand more than you understand at present, who have no desire to gain the knowledge of hidden things."

"You are right, Comtesse," Rochester answered, with a smile. "I am one of those pig-headed individuals."

"It is the Saxon race," she muttered, "who have kept back the progress of the world for centuries."

"We have kept it backward, perhaps," he answered, "but wholesome."

"You think always of your bodies," she said.

"They were entrusted to us, madam, to look after," he answered.

She smiled grimly.

"You are not such a fool," she said, "as my adopted son would have me believe. You have spared me at least that hideous Latin quotation which has done so much harm to your race."

"Out of respect to you," he declared, "I avoided it. It was really a little too obvious."

"Come," she said, "you are a type of man I have not met with for years. You are strong and vigorous and healthy. You have color upon your cheeks, and strength in your tone and movements. In any show of your kind, you should certainly be entitled to a prize."

Rochester laughed, at first softly, and then heartily.

"My dear lady," he said, "forgive me. I can assure you that although my inclinations do not prompt me to sit at your son's feet and accept his mythical sayings as the words of a god, I am really not a fool. I will even go so far as this. I will even admit the possibility that a serious and religious study of occultism might result in benefit to all of us. The chief point where you and I differ is with regard to your adopted son. You believe in him, apparently. I don't!"

"Then why are you here?" she asked. "What do you want with him? Do you come as an enemy?"

Rochester was spared the necessity of making any answer. He heard the door open, and the woman's eyes glittered as they turned toward it.

"Bertrand is here himself," she said. "You can settle your business with him."

Rochester rose to his feet. Saton had just entered, closing the door behind him. Prepared for Rochester's presence by the servants, he greeted him calmly enough.

"This is an unexpected honor," he said, bowing. "I did not imagine that we should meet again so soon."

"Nor I," Rochester answered. "Where can we talk?"

"Here as well as anywhere," Saton answered, going up to Rachael, and lifting her hand for a moment to his lips. "From this lady, whose acquaintance I presume you have made, I have no secrets."

Rochester glanced from one to the other—the woman, sitting erect and severe in her chair, the young man bending affectionately over her. Yes, he was right! There was something about the two hard to explain, yet apparent to him as he sat there, which seemed in some way to remove them out of direct kinship with the ordinary people of the world. Was it, he wondered, with a sudden swift intuition, a touch of insularity, a sign of narrowness, that he should find himself so utterly repelled by this foreign note in their temperaments? Was his disapproval, after all, but a mark of snobbishness, the snobbishness which, to use a mundane parallel, takes objection to the shape of an unfashionable collar, or the cut of a country-made coat? There were other races upon the world beside the race of aristocrats. There was an aristocracy of brains, of genius, of character. Yet he reasoned against his inspiration. Nothing could make him believe that the boy who had held out his hands so eagerly toward the fire of life, had not ended by gathering to himself experiences and a cult of living from which any ordinary mortal would have shrunk.

"I am quite content," Rochester said, "to say what I have to say before this lady, especially if she knows your history. I have come here to tell you this. I have been your sponsor, perhaps your unwilling sponsor, into the society and to the friends amongst whom you spend your time. I am not satisfied with my sponsorship. That you came of humble parentage, although you never allude to the fact, goes for nothing. That you may be forgiven. But there are seven years of your past the knowledge of which is a pledge to me. I have come to insist upon your fulfilment of it. For seven years you disappeared. Where were you? How did you blossom into prosperity? How is it that you, the professor of a new cult, whose first work is as yet unpublished, find yourself enabled to live in luxury like this? You had no godmother then. Who is this lady? Why do you call her your godmother? She is nothing of the sort. You and I know that—you and I and she. There are things about you, Saton, which I find it hard to understand. I want to understand them for the sake of my friends."

"And if you do not?" Saton asked calmly.

"Well, it must be open war," Rochester declared.

"I should say that it amounted to that now," Saton answered.

"Scarcely," Rochester declared, "for if it had been open war I should have asked you before now to tell me where it was that you and Lord Guerdon had met. Remember I heard the words trembling upon his lips, and I saw your face!"

Saton did not move, nor did he speak for a moment. His cheeks were a little pale, but he gave no sign of being moved. The woman's face was like the face of a sphinx, withered and emotionless. Her eyes were fixed upon Saton's.

"You have spoken to me before somewhat in this strain, sir," Saton said. "What I said to you then, I repeat. The account between us is ruled out. You lent or gave me a sum of money, and I returned it. As to gratitude," he went on, "that I may or may not feel. I leave you to judge. You can ask yourself, if you will, whether that action of yours came from an impulse of generosity, or was merely the gratification of a cynical whim."

"My motives are beside the question," Rochester answered. "Do I understand that you decline to give me any account of yourself?"

"I see no reason," Saton said coldly, "why I should gratify your curiosity."

"There is no reason," Rochester admitted. "It is simply a matter of policy. Frankly, I mistrust you. There are points about your behaviour, ever since in a foolish moment I asked you to stay at Beauleys, which I do not understand. I do not understand Lord Guerdon's sudden recognition of you, and even suddener death. I do not understand why it has amused you to fill the head of my young ward, Lois Champneyes, with foolish thoughts. I do not understand why you should stand between my wife and the writers of a blackmailing letter. I do not ask you for any explanation. I simply tell you that these things present themselves as enigmas to me. You have declared your position. I declare mine. What you will not tell me I shall make it my business to discover."

The Comtesse leaned a little forward. Her face was still unchanged, her tone scornful.

"It is I who will answer you," she said. "My adopted son—for he is my adopted son if I choose to make him so—will explain nothing. He has, in fact, nothing more to say to you. You and he are quits so far as regards obligations. Your paths in life lie apart. You are one of the self-centred, sedentary loiterers by the way. For him," she added, throwing out suddenly her brown, withered hand, aflame with jewels, "there lie different things. Something he knows; something he has learned; much there is yet for him to learn. He will go on his way, undisturbed by you or any friends of yours. As for his means, your question is an impertinence. Ask at Rothschilds concerning the Comtesse de Vestignes, and remember that what belongs to me belongs to him. Measure your wits against his, to-day, to-morrow, or any time you choose, and the end is certain. Show your patron out, Bertrand. He has amused me for a little time, but I am tired."

Rochester rose to his feet.

"Madam," he said, "I am sorry to have fatigued you. For the rest," he added, with a note of irony in his tone, "I suppose I must accept your challenge. I feel that I am measuring myself and my poor powers against all sorts of nameless gifts. And yet," he added, as he followed Saton towards the door, "the world goes round, and the things which happened yesterday repeat themselves to-morrow. Your new science should teach you, at least, not to gamble against certainties."

He passed out of the room, and Saton returned slowly to where Rachael was sitting. Her eyes sought his inquiringly. They read the anguish in his face.

"You are afraid," she muttered.

"I am afraid," he admitted. "Given an inversion of their relative positions, I feel like Faust befriended by Mephistopheles. I felt it when he stood by my side on the hilltop, seven years ago. I felt it when he thrust that money into my hand, and bade me go and see what I could make of life, bade me go, without a word of kindness, without a touch of his fingers, without a sentence of encouragement, with no admonitory words save that one single diatribe against failure. You know what he told me? 'Go out,' he said,'and try your luck. Go out along the road which your eyes have watched fading into the mists. But remember this. For men there is no such thing as failure. One may swim too far out to sea on a sunny day. One may trifle with a loaded revolver, or drink in one's sleep the draught from which one does not awake. But for men, there is no failure.'"

The woman nodded.

"Well," she said harshly, "you remembered that. You did not fail. Who dares to say that you have failed!"

Saton threw himself into the easy-chair drawn apart from hers. His head fell forward into his hands. The woman rested her head upon her fingers, and watched him through the shadows.



CHAPTER XVII

THE GREAT NAUDHEIM

Naudheim had finished his address, and stood talking with his host.

"Do you mind," Saton asked, "if I introduce some of these people to you? You know many of them by name."

Naudheim shook his head. He was a tall man, with gray, unkempt hair, and long, wizened face. He wore a black suit of clothes, of ancient cut, and a stock which had literally belonged to his grandfather.

"No!" he said vigorously. "I will be introduced to no one. Why should I? I have spoken to them of the things which make life for us. I have told them my thoughts. What need is there of introduction? I shake hands with no one. I leave that, and silly speeches, and banquets, to my enemies, the professors. These are not my ways."

"It shall be as you wish, of course," Saton replied. "You are very fortunate to be able to live and work alone. Here we have to adapt ourself in some way to the customs of the people with whom we are forced to come into daily contact."

Naudheim suddenly abandoned that far-away look of his, his habit of seeing through the person with whom he was talking. He looked into Saton's face steadily, almost fiercely.

"Young man," he said, "you talk like a fool. Now listen to me. These are my parting words! There is stuff in you. You know a little. You could be taught much more. And above all, you have the temperament. Temperament is a wonderful thing," he added. "And yet, with all these gifts, you make me feel as though I would like to take you by the collar and lift you up in my arms—yes, I am strong though I am thin—and throw you out of that window, and see you lie there, because you are a fool!"

"Go on," Saton said, his face growing a little pale.

"Oh, you know it!" Naudheim declared. "You feel it in your blood. You know it in your heart. You truckle to these people, you play at living their life, and you forget, if ever you knew, that our great mistress has never yet opened her arms save to those who have sought her single-hearted and with a single purpose. You are a dallier, philanderer. You will end your days wearing your fashionable clothes. They may make you a professor here. You will talk learnedly. You will write a book. And when you die, people will say a great man has gone. Listen! You listen to me now with only half your ears, but listen once more. The time may come. The light may burn in your heart, the truth may fill your soul. Then come to me. Come to me, young man, and I will make bone and sinew of your flabby limbs. I will take you in my hands and I will teach you the way to the stars."

Silently, and without a glance on either side of him, Naudheim left the room, amidst a silence which was almost an instinctive thing—the realization, perhaps, of the strange nature of this man, who from a stern sense of duty had left his hermit's life for a few days, to speak with his fellow-workers.

It had been in some respects a very curious function, this. It was neither meeting nor reception. There was neither host nor hostess, except that Saton had shaken hands with a few, and from his place by the side of Naudheim had indicated the turn of those who wished to speak. Their visitor's peculiarities were well-known to all of them. He had left them abruptly, not from any sense of discourtesy, but because he had not the slightest idea of, or sympathy with, the manners of civilized people. He had given them something to think about. He had no desire to hear their criticisms. After he had gone, the doors were held open. There was no one to bid them stay, and so they went, in little groups of twos and threes, a curious, heterogeneous crowd, with the stamp upon their features or clothes or bearing, which somehow or other is always found upon those who are seekers for new things. Sallow, dissatisfied-looking men; women whose faces spoke, many of them, of a joyless life; people of overtrained minds; and here and there a strong, zealous, brilliant student of the last of the sciences left for solution.

Pauline would have gone with the others, but Saton touched her hand. Half unwillingly she lingered behind until they were alone in the darkened room. He went to the window and threw it wide open. The scent of the flowers in the window-boxes and a little wave of the soft west wind came stealing in. She threw her head back with an exclamation of relief.

"Ah!" she said. "This is good."

"You found the room close?" he asked.

Pauline sank into the window-seat. She rested her delicate oval face upon her fingers, and looked away toward the deep green foliage of the trees outside.

"I did not notice it," she said, "and yet, somehow or other the whole atmosphere seemed stifling. Naudheim is great," she went on. "Oh, he is a great man, of course. He said wonderful things in a convincing way. He made one gasp."

"This afternoon," Saton declared slowly, "marks an epoch. What Naudheim said was remarkable because of what he left unsaid. Couldn't you feel that? Didn't you understand? If that man had ambitions, he could startle even this matter-of-fact world of ours. He could shake it to its very base."

She shivered a little. Her fingers were idly tapping the window-sill. Her thoughtful eyes were clouded with trouble. He stood over her, absorbed in the charm of her presence, the sensuous charm of watching her slim, exquisite figure, the poise of her head, the delicate coloring of her cheeks, the tremulous human lips, which seemed somehow to humanize the spirituality of her expression. They had talked so much that day of a new science. Saton felt his heart sink as he realized that he was the victim of a greater thing than science could teach. It was madness!—sheer, irredeemable madness! But it was in his blood. It was there to be reckoned with.

"It is all very wonderful," she continued thoughtfully. "And yet, can you understand what I mean when I say that it makes me feel a trifle hysterical? It is as though something had been poured into one which was too great, too much for our capacity. It is all true, I believe, but I don't want it to come."

"Why not?" he asked.

"Oh! It seems somehow," she answered, "as though the whole balance of life would be disturbed. Of course, I know that it is feasible enough. For thousands of years men and women lived upon the earth, and never dreamed that all around them existed a great force which only needed a little humoring, a little understanding, to do the work of all the world. Oh, it is easy to understand that we too carry with us some psychical force corresponding to this! One feels it so often. Premonitions come and go. We can't tell why, but they are there, and they are true. One feels that sense at work at strange times. Experiments have already shown us that it exists. But I wonder what sort of a place the world will be when once it has yielded itself to law."

"There has never been a time," Saton said thoughtfully, "when knowledge has not been for the good of man."

She shook her head.

"I wonder," she said, "whether we realize what is for our good. Knowledge, development, culture, may reach their zenith and pass beyond. We may become debauched with the surfeit of these things. The end and aim of life is happiness."

"The end and aim of life," he contradicted her, "is knowledge."

She laughed.

"I am a woman, you see," she said thoughtfully.

"And am I not a man?" he whispered.

She turned her head and looked at him. The trouble in her eyes deepened. She felt the color coming and going in her cheeks. His eyes seemed to stir things in her against which her whole physical self rebelled. She rose abruptly to her feet.

"I must go," she said. "I have a thousand things to do this evening."

"To play at, you mean," he corrected her. "You don't really do very much, do you? The women don't in your world."

"You are polite," she answered lightly. "Please to show me the way out."

"In a moment," he said.

She was inclined to rebel. They had moved a little from the window, and were standing in a darker part of the room. She felt his fingers upon her wrist. She would have given the world to have been able to wrench it away, but she could not. She stood there submissively, her breath coming quickly, her eyes compelled to meet his.

"Stay for a moment longer," he begged. "I want to talk to you for a little while about this."

"There is no time now," she said hurriedly. "It is an inexhaustible subject."

"Inexhaustible indeed," he answered, with an enigmatic laugh.

She read his thoughts. She knew very well what was in his mind, what was almost on his lips, and she struggled to be free of him.

"Mr. Saton," she said, "I am sorry—but you must really let me go."

He did not move.

"It is very hard to let you go," he murmured. "Can't you—don't you realize a little that it is always hard for me to see you go—to see you leave the world where we have at least interests in common, to go back to a life of which I know so little, a life in which I have so small a part, a life which is scarcely worthy of you, Pauline?"

Again she felt a sort of physical impotence. She struggled desperately against the loss of nerve power which kept her there. She would have given anything in the world to have left him, to have run out of the room with a little shriek, out into the streets and squares she knew so well, to breathe the air she had known all her life, to escape from this unknown emotion. She told herself that she hated the man whose will kept her there. She was sure of it. And yet—!

"I do not understand you," she said, "and I must, I really must go. Can't you see that just now, at any rate, I don't want to understand?" she added, fighting all the time for her words. "I want to go. Please do not keep me here against my will. Do you understand? Let me go, and I will be grateful to you."

Somehow the strain seemed suddenly lightened. He was only a very ordinary, rather doubtful sort of person—a harmless but necessary part of interesting things. He had moved toward the door, which he was holding open for her to pass through.

"Thank you so much," she said, with genuine relief in her tone. "I have stayed an unconscionable time, and I found your Master delightful."

"You will come again?" he said softly. "I want to explain a little further what Naudheim was saying. I can take you a little further, even, than he did to-day."

"You must come and see me," she answered lightly. "Remember that after all the world has conventions."

He stepped back on to the doorstep after he had handed her into her carriage. She threw herself back amongst the cushions with something that was like a sob of relief. She had sensations which she could not analyze—a curious feeling of having escaped, and yet coupled with it a sense of something new and strange in her life, something of which she was a little afraid, and yet from which she would not willingly have parted. She told herself that she detested the house which she had left, detested the thought of that darkened room. Nevertheless, she was forced to look back. He was standing in the open doorway, from which the butler had discreetly retired, and meeting her eyes he bowed once more. She tried to smile unconcernedly, but failed. She looked away with scarcely a return of his greeting.

"Home!" she told the man. "Drive quickly."

Almost before her own door she met Rochester. The sight of him was somehow or other an immense relief to her. She fell back again in the world which she knew. She stopped the carriage and called to him.

"Come and drive with me a little way," she begged. "I am stifled. I want some fresh air. I want to talk to you. Oh, come, please!"

Rochester took the vacant seat by her side at once.

"What is it?" he asked gravely. "Tell me. You have had bad news?"

She shook her head.

"No!" she said. "I am afraid—that is all!"



CHAPTER XVIII

ROCHESTER'S ULTIMATUM

The Park into which they turned was almost deserted. Pauline stopped the carriage and got out.

"Come and walk with me a little way," she said to Rochester. "We will go and sit amongst that wilderness of empty chairs. I want to talk. I must talk to someone. We shall be quite alone there."

Rochester walked by her side, puzzled. He had never seen her like this.

"I suppose I am hysterical," she said, clutching at his arm for a moment as they passed along the walk. "There, even that does me good. It's good to feel—oh, I don't know what I'm talking about!" she exclaimed.

"Where have you been this afternoon?" he asked gravely.

"To hear that awful man Naudheim," she answered. "Henry, I wish I'd never been. I wish to Heaven you'd never asked Bertrand Saton to Beauleys."

Rochester's face grew darker.

"I wish I'd wrung the fellow's neck the first day I saw him," he declared, bitterly. "But after all, Pauline, you don't take this sort of person seriously?"

"I wish I didn't," she answered.

"He's an infernal charlatan," Rochester declared. "I'm convinced of it, and I mean to expose him."

She shook her head.

"You can call him what you like," she said, "but there is Naudheim behind him. There is no one in Europe who would dare to call Naudheim a charlatan."

"He is a wonderful man, but he is mad," Rochester said.

"No, he is not mad," she said. "It is we who are mad, to listen a little, to think a little, to play a little with the thoughts he gives us."

"I know of Naudheim only by reputation," Rochester said. "And so far as regards Saton, nothing will convince me that he is not an impostor."

She sighed.

"There may be something of the charlatan in his methods," she said, "but there is something else. Henry, why can't we be content with the things that we know and see and feel?"

He smiled bitterly.

"I am," he answered. "I thank God that I have none of that insane desire for probing and dissecting nature to discover things which we are not fit yet to understand, if, even, they do exist. It's a sort of spiritual vivisection, Pauline, and it can bring nothing but disquiet and unhappiness. Grant for a moment that Naudheim, and that even this bounder Saton, are honest, what possible good can it do you or me to hang upon their lips, to become their disciples?"

"Oh, I don't know!" she answered. "Yet it's hideously fascinating, Henry—hideously! And the man himself—Bertrand Saton. I can't tell what there is about him. I only know——"

She broke off in the middle of her sentence. Rochester caught her by the wrist.

"Pauline," he said, "for God's sake, don't tell me that that fellow has dared to make love to you."

"I don't know," she answered. "Sometimes I hate the very sight of him. Sometimes I feel almost as you do. And at others, well, I can't explain it. It isn't any use trying."

"Pauline," he said, "you see for yourself the state to which you have been reduced this afternoon. Tell me, is there happiness in being associated with any science or any form of knowledge the study of which upsets you so completely? There are better things in life. Forget this wretched little man, and his melodramatic talk."

"If only I could!" she murmured.

They sat side by side in silence. Strong man though he was, Rochester was struggling fiercely with the wave of passionate anger which had swept in upon him. For years he had treated this woman as his dearest friend. The love which was a part of his life lay deep down in his heart, a thing with the seal of silence set upon it, zealously treasured, in its very voicelessness a splendid oblation to the man's chivalry. And now this unmentionable creature, this Frankenstein of his own creation, the boy whom he had pitchforked into life, had dared to be guilty of this unspeakable sacrilege. It was hard, indeed, for Rochester to maintain his self-control.

"Pauline," he said, "I cannot stand by and see your life wrecked. You are too sane, too reasonable a woman to become the prey of such a pitiful adventurer. Won't you listen to me for a moment?"

"Indeed I am listening," she faltered.

"Give yourself a chance," he begged. "Leave England this week—to-morrow, if you can. Go right away from here. You have friends in Rome. I heard your cousin ask you not long ago to pay her a visit at her villa on the Adriatic. Start to-morrow, and I promise that you will come back a sane woman. You will be able to laugh at Saton, to see through the fellow, and to realise what a tissue of shams he's built of. You will be able to feel a reasonable interest in anything Naudheim has to say. Just now you are unnerved, these men have frightened you. Believe me that your greatest and most effectual safety lies in flight."

A sudden hope lit up her face. She turned towards him eagerly. She was going to consent—he felt it, he was almost conscious of the words trembling upon her lips. Already his own personal regrets at her absence were beginning to cloud his joy. Then her whole expression changed. Something of the look settled upon her features which he had seen when first she had stopped the carriage. Her lips were parted, her eyes distended. She looked nervously around as though she were afraid that some one was following them.

"I cannot do that, Henry," she said. "In a way it would be a relief, but it is impossible. I cannot, indeed."

She led the way to the carriage. They walked in absolute silence for nearly a minute. He felt that he had lost a great part of his influence over her and he was bitter.

"Tell me why you almost consented," he asked, abruptly, "and then changed your mind? In your heart you must know that it is for your good."

"I only know," she answered, slowly, "that at first I longed to say yes, and now, when I come to think of it, I see that it is impossible."

"You are going to allow yourself, then, to be the prey of these morbid fancies? You are going to treat this creature as a human being of your own order? You are going to let him work upon your imagination?"

"It is no use," she said wearily. "For the present, I cannot talk any more about it. I do not understand myself at all."

They stood for a moment by the carriage.

"We shall meet to-night," he reminded her.

She gave him a doubtful little smile.

"You are really coming to the Wintertons?" she asked.

"I have promised," he answered. "Caroline has bribed me. I am going to take you in to dinner."

"Will you drive home with me now?" she asked.

He shook his head.

"I have another call to make," he said, a little grimly.

Saton was still in the half darkened library, sitting with his back turned to the light, and his eyes fixed with a curious stare into vacancy, when the door opened, and Rochester entered unannounced. Saton rose at once to his feet, but the interrogative words died away upon his lips. Rochester's fair, sunburnt face was grim with angry purpose. He had the air of a man stirred to the very depths. He came only a little way into the room, and he took up his position with his back to the door.

"My young friend," he said, "it is not many hours since you and I came to an understanding of a sort. I am here to add a few words to it."

Saton said nothing. He stood immovable, waiting.

"Whatever your game in life may be," Rochester continued, "you can play it, for all I care, to the end. But there is one thing which I forbid. I have come here so that you shall understand that I forbid it. You can make fools of the whole world, you can have them kneeling at your feet to listen to your infernal nonsense—the whole world save one woman. I am ashamed to mention her name in your presence, but you know whom I mean."

Saton's lips seemed to move for a moment, but he still remained silent.

"Very well," Rochester said. "There shall be no excuse, no misunderstanding. The woman with whom I forbid you to have anything whatever to do, whom I order you to treat from this time forward as a stranger, is Pauline Marrabel."

Saton was still in no hurry to speak. He leaned a little forward. His eyes seemed to burn as though touched with some inward fire.

"By what right," he asked, "do you come here and dictate to me? You are not my father or my guardian. I do not recognize your right to speak to me as one having authority."

"It was I who turned you loose upon the world," Rochester answered. "I deserve hanging for it."

"I should be sorry," Saton said coldly, "to deprive you of your deserts."

"You have learned many things since those days," Rochester declared. "You have acquired the knack of glib speech. You have become a past master in the arts which go to the ensnaring of over-imaginative women. You have mixed with quack spiritualists and self-styled professors of what they term occultism. Go and practise your arts where you will, but remember what I have told you. Remember the person's name which I have mentioned. Remember it, obey what I have said, and you may fool the whole world. Forget it, and I am your enemy. Understand that."

"And you," Saton answered with darkening face, "understand this from me, Rochester. I do not for a moment admit your right to speak to me in this fashion. I admit no obligation to you. We are simply man and man in the world together, and the words which you have spoken have no weight with me whatever."

"You defy me?" Rochester asked calmly.

"If you call that defiance, I do," Saton answered.

Rochester came a step further into the room.

"Listen, my young friend," he said. "You belong to the modern condition of things, to the world which has become just a little over-civilized. You may call me a boor, if you like, but I want you to understand this. If I fail to unmask you by any other means, I shall revert to the primeval way of deciding such differences as lie between you and me, the differences which make for hate. I can wield a horse-whip with the strongest man living, and I am in deadly earnest."

"The lady whose name you have mentioned," Saton said softly—"is she also your ward? You are related to her, perhaps?"

"She is the woman I love," Rochester answered. "Our ways through life may lie apart, or fate may bring them together. That is not your business or your concern. When I tell you that she is the woman I love, I mean you to understand that she is the woman whom I will protect against all manner of evil, now and always. Remember that if you disregard my warning, in the spirit or in the letter, so surely as we two live you will repent it."

Saton crossed the room with noiseless footsteps. He leaned toward the wall and touched an electric bell.

"Very well," he said. "You have come to deliver an ultimatum, and I have received it. I understand perfectly what you will accept as an act of war. There is nothing more to be said, I think?"

"Nothing," Rochester answered, turning to follow the servant whom Saton's summons had brought to the door.



CHAPTER XIX

TROUBLE BREWING

Saton turned out of Bond Street, and climbed the stairs of a little tea-shop with the depressed feeling of a man who is expiating an offence which he bitterly repents. Violet was waiting for him at one of the tables shut off from the main room by a sort of Japanese matting hanging from the ceiling. He resigned his stick and hat with a sigh to one of the trim waitresses, and sat down opposite her.

"My dear Violet," he said, "this is an unexpected pleasure. I thought that Wednesday was quite one of your busiest days."

"It is generally," she answered. "To tell you the truth," she added, leaning across the table, "I was jolly glad to get away. I have a kind of fear, Bertrand, that we are going to be a little too busy."

"What do you mean?" he asked sharply.

She nodded her head mysteriously.

"There have been one or two people in, in the last few days, asking questions which I don't understand," she told him. "One of them, I am pretty sure, was a detective. He didn't get much change out of me," she added, in a self-satisfied tone, "but there's someone got their knife into us. You remember the trouble down in the Marylebone Road, when you——"

"Don't!" he interrupted. "I hate to think of that time."

"Well, I tell you I believe there is something of the sort brewing again," the woman said. "I'll tell you more about it later on."

The waitress brought their tea, which Violet carefully prepared.

"Two pieces of sugar," she said, "and no cream. You see I haven't forgotten, although it is not often we have tea together now, Bertrand. You are becoming too fashionable, I suppose," she added with a little frown.

"You know it isn't that," he answered hastily. "It's my work, nothing but my work. Go on with what you were telling me, Violet."

"You needn't look so scared," she said, glancing round to be sure that they were not overheard. "The only thing is that Madame must be told at once, and we shall all have to be careful for a little time. I shut up shop for the day as soon as I tumbled to the thing."

"I wonder if this is Rochester's doings," he muttered.

"The husband of the lady?" Violet enquired.

Saton nodded.

"He is my enemy," he said. "Nothing would make him happier than to have the power to strike a blow like this, and to identify us with the place in any way."

"I don't see how they could do that," she said meditatively. "I should be the poor sufferer, I suppose, and you may be sure I shouldn't be like that other girl, who gave you away. You are not afraid of that, are you, Bertrand? Things are different between us. We are engaged to be married. You do not forget that, Bertrand?"

"Of course I do not," he answered.

"Well," she said, "we won't talk about the past. You are safe so far as I am concerned—for the present, at any rate. But Madame must know, and your friends in Charing Cross Road."

"We will close the office to-morrow for a little time," Saton declared. "It's no use running risks like this."

"The old lady must have made a tidy pile out of it," Violet declared, flourishing an over-scented handkerchief. "If she takes my advice, she will go quiet for a little time. I can feel trouble when it's about, and I have felt it the last few days."

"It is very good of you, Violet, to have sent for me at once," he said. "I know you won't mind if I hurry away. It is very important that I see Madame."

"Of course," she agreed. "But when will you take me out to dinner? To-night or to-morrow night?"

"To-morrow night," he promised, eager to escape. "If anything happens that I can't, I'll let you know."

She laid her hand upon his arm as they descended the stairs.

"Bertrand," she said, "if I were you, I'd make it to-morrow night...."

He called a taximeter cab, and drove rapidly to Berkeley Square. In the room where she usually sat he found Rachael, looking through a pile of foreign newspapers.

"Well?" she said, peering into his face. "You have bad news. I can see that. What is it?"

"Helga has just sent for me," he answered. "She says that she has had one or two mysterious visitors to-day and yesterday. One of them she feels sure was a detective."

"Huntley has just telephoned up," Rachael said calmly. "Something of the same sort of thing happened at the office in the Charing Cross Road. Huntley acted like a man of sense. He closed it up at once, destroyed all papers, and sent Dorrington over to Paris by the morning train."

Saton sat down, and buried his face in his hands.

"Rachael," he said, "this must stop. I cannot bear the anxiety of it. It is terrible to feel to-day that one is stretching out toward the great things, and to-morrow that one is finding the money to live by fooling people, by charlatanism, by roguery. Think if we were ever connected with these places, if even a suspicion of it got about! Think how narrow our escape was before! Remember that I have even stood in the prisoner's dock, and escaped only through your cleverness, and an accident. It might happen again, Rachael!"

"It shall not," she answered. "I would go there myself first. It is well for you to talk, Bertrand, but you and I are neither of us fond of simple things. We must live. We must have money."

"We live extravagantly," he said.

"All my life I have lived extravagantly," she answered. "Why should I change now? I have but a few years to live. I cannot bear small rooms, or cheap servants, or bad cooking."

"We have some money left," he said. "Come with me into the country. We can live there for very little. Soon my book will be ready. Then the lectures will begin. There will be money enough when people begin to understand."

"No!" she said. "There is only one way. I have spoken of it to you before. You must marry that foolish girl Lois Champneyes."

"What do you know about her?" he asked, looking up, startled.

"I have made inquiries," Rachael answered. "It is the usual thing in the countries I know of. She will be of age in a short time, and she will have one hundred and seventy thousand pounds. Upon that you can live until our time comes, and you can afford to keep this house going."

"I do not want to marry," he said.

Her hand shot out towards him—an accusing hand; her eyes flashed fire as she leaned forward, gripping the arm of the chair with her other fingers.

"Listen," she said, "I took you from the gutter. I saved you from starvation. I showed you the way to ease and luxury. I taught you things which have set your brain working, which shall fashion for you, if you dare to follow it, the way to greatness. I saved your life. I planted your feet upon the earth. Your life is mine. Your future is mine. What is this sacrifice that I demand? Nothing! Don't refuse me. I warn you, Bertrand, don't refuse me! There are limits to my patience as there are limits to my generosity and my affection. If you refuse, it can be but for one reason, and that reason you will not dare to tell me. Do you refuse? Answer me, now, I will have no more evasions."

"She would not marry me," he said. "I have not seen her for days."

"Where is she?" Rachael demanded.

"In the country, at Beauleys," he answered. "The Rochesters have all left town yesterday or to-day, and she went with them."

"Then into the country we go," she declared. "It is an opportune time, too. We shall be out of the way if troubles come from these interfering people. I do not ask you again, Bertrand, whether you will or will not marry this girl. For the first time I exercise my rights over you. I demand that you marry her. Be as faithless as you like. You are as fickle as a man can be, and as shallow. Make love to her for a year, and treat her as these Englishmen treat their housekeepers, if you will. But marry her you must! It is the money we need—the money! What is that?"

The bell was ringing from a telephone instrument upon the table. Saton lifted it to his ear.

"There is a trunk call for you," a voice said. "Please hold the line."

Saton waited. Soon a familiar voice came.

"Who is that?" it asked.

"Bertrand Saton," Saton answered.

"Listen," the voice said. "I am Huntley. I speak from Folkestone. I am crossing to-night to Paris. Dorrington is already on ahead. Someone has been employing detectives to track us down. It commenced with that letter—the one for which you settled terms yourself. You hear?"

"I hear," Saton answered. "Was it necessary for you, too, to go?"

"I cannot tell," Huntley answered. "All I know is that I have done pretty well the last two years, and I am not inclined to figure in the police courts. If the thing blows over, I'll be back in a few weeks. Every paper of importance has been destroyed. I believe that you and Madame are perfectly safe. At the same time, take my tip. Go slow! I'm off. I've only a minute for the boat."

Saton laid down the receiver on the instrument.

"If it must be," he said, turning to Rachael, "I will go down to Blackbird's Nest to-morrow."



CHAPTER XX

FIRST BLOOD

Lois came walking down the green path that led to the wood, her head a little tilted back to watch the delicate tracery of the green leaves against the sky, her thoughts apparently far away. Suddenly she came to a standstill, the color rushed into her cheeks, her eyes danced with pleasure. Saton had come suddenly round the corner, and was already within a few feet of her.

"You?" she exclaimed. "Really you? I had no idea that you had left London."

He smiled as he took her hands.

"London was a desert," he said. "I have finished my work for a few days, and I have brought my writing down here."

"When did you come?" she asked.

"Last night," he answered. "I was just wondering how I could send a note up to you. Fortunately, I remembered your favorite walk."

"Did you really come to see me?" she murmured.

He laughed softly, and bent towards her. All her hesitation and mistrust seemed to pass away. She lay quietly in his arms, with her face upturned to his. He kissed her on the lips. All the time his eyes were watching the path along which he had come.

"Let us sit down," she said at last, gently disengaging herself from him. "There are so many things I want to ask you."

"And I too," he answered. "I have something to say—something I cannot keep to myself any longer."

He led the way to a fallen tree, a little removed from the footpath. They were scarcely seated, however, before he turned his head sharply in the direction from which he had come. His whole frame seemed to have become suddenly rigid with an intense effort of listening. He raised his finger with a warning gesture.

"Sit still," he whispered. "Don't say anything. There is someone coming."

Her hand fell upon his. They sat side by side in an almost breathless silence, safely screened from observation unless the passers-by, whoever they might be, should be unusually curious.

It was Pauline and Rochester who came—Pauline in a tailor-made gown of dark green cloth—Pauline, slim, tall and elegant. Rochester was bending toward her, talking earnestly. He wore a tweed shooting suit, and carried a gun under either arm.

"You see who it is?" Lois whispered.

Saton nodded. His face had darkened, his cheeks were almost livid. His eyes followed the two with an expression which terrified the girl who sat by his side.

"Bertrand," she whispered, "why do you look like that?"

"Like what?" he asked, without moving his eyes from the spot where those two figures had disappeared.

She shivered a little.

"You looked as though you hated Mr. Rochester. You looked angry—more than angry. You frightened me."

"I do hate him," Saton answered slowly. "I hate him as he hates me. We are enemies."

"Yet you were not looking at him all the time," she persisted. "You looked at Pauline, too. You don't hate her, do you?"

He drew a little breath between his clenched teeth. If only this child would hold her peace!

"No!" he said. "I do not hate Lady Marrabel."

"Is it because he has interfered between us," she asked timidly, "that you dislike Mr. Rochester so much? Remember that very soon I shall be of age."

"He has no right to interfere in my concerns at all," Saton answered, evasively. "Hush!"

The two had halted at a little wooden gate which led into the strip of field dividing the two plantations. Rochester was looking back along the footpath by which they had come. They could hear his voice distinctly.

"Johnson must have got lost," he remarked, a little impatiently. "I will leave my second gun here for him. It is quite time I took up my place. The beaters will be in the wood directly."

He leaned one of the guns against the stone wall, and with the other under his arm, opened the gate for Pauline to pass through. They crossed the field diagonally, and came to a standstill at a spot marked by a tiny flag.

All the time Saton watched them with fascinated eyes. The thoughts were rushing through his brain. He turned to Lois.

"Dear," he said, "I think that you had better run along home. I will come up to the shrubbery after dinner, if you think that you can get out."

"But there is no hurry," she whispered. "Can't we sit here and talk for a little time, or go further back into the wood? I know a most delightful little hiding-place just at the top of the slate pit—an old keeper's shelter."

Saton shook his head. He avoided looking at her.

"The beaters are in the other part of the wood already," he said. "Very likely they will come this way, too. If they see us together, they will tell Mr. Rochester. I don't want him to know that I am here just yet."

She rose reluctantly.

"Dear me," she said, sighing, "and I thought that we were going to have such a nice long talk!"

"We will have it very soon," he whispered, a little unsteadily. "We must, dear. Remember that I have only come down here so that we may see a little more of one another. I will arrange it somehow. Only just now I think that you had better run away home."

He kissed her, and she turned reluctantly away. She stole through the undergrowth back into the green path. Saton watched her with fixed eyes until she had turned the corner and disappeared. Then he seemed at once to forget her existence. He too rose to his feet, and stole gently forward, moving very slowly, and stooping a little so as to remain out of sight. All the time his eyes were fixed upon the gun, whose barrel was shining in the sunlight.

From the other side of the wood there commenced an intermittent fusilade. The shots were drawing nearer and nearer. Rochester stood waiting, his gun held ready. Pauline had retreated round the corner of the further wood, beyond any possible line of fire.

Saton had reached the gate now, and was within reach of the gun and the bag of cartridges, which were hanging by a leather belt from the gate-post. He turned his head, and looked stealthily along the path by which Rochester had come. There was no one in sight, no sound except the twittering of birds overhead, and the rustling of the leaves. He sank on one knee, and his hand closed upon the gun. The blood surged to his head. There was a singing in his ears. He felt his heart thumping as though he were suddenly seized with some illness. Rochester's figure, tall, graceful, debonair, notwithstanding the looseness of his shooting clothes, and his somewhat rigid attitude, seemed suddenly to loom large and hateful before his eyes. He saw nothing else. He thought of nothing else. It was the man he hated. It was the man who understood what he was, the worst side of him—the man whom his instincts recognised as his ruthless and dangerous enemy.

The rush of a rabbit through the undergrowth, startled him so that he very nearly screamed. He looked around, pallid, terrified. There was no one in sight, no sign of any life save animal and insect life in the wood behind.

The stock of the gun came to his shoulder. His fingers sought the trigger. Cautiously he thrust it through the bars of the gate. Bending down, he took a long and deliberate aim. The fates seemed to be on his side. Rochester suddenly stiffened into attention, his gun came to his shoulder, as with a loud whir a pheasant flew out of the wood before him. The two reports rang out almost simultaneously. The pheasant dropped to the ground like a stone. Rochester's arms went up to the skies. He gave a little cry and fell over, a huddled heap, upon the grass.

Saton, with fingers that trembled, tore out the exploded cartridge, seized another from the bag, thrust it in, and replaced the gun against the wall. His breath was coming in little sobs. Trees and sky danced before his eyes. Once he dared to look—only once—at the spot where Rochester was lying. His hands were outstretched. Once he half raised himself, and then fell back. From round the corner of the wood came Pauline. Saton heard her cry—a cry of agony it seemed to him. He bent low, and made his way back into the plantation, plunging through the undergrowth until he reached a narrow and little frequented footpath. He was deaf to all sounds, for the thumping in his ears had become now like a sledge-hammer beating upon an anvil. He was not sure that he saw anything. His feet fled over the ground mechanically. Only when he reached the borders of the wood, and crossed the meadow leading to the main road, he drew himself a little more upright. He must remember, he told himself fiercely. He must remember!

He paused in the middle of the field, and looked back. He was out of sight now of the scene of the tragedy. Nothing was to be seen or heard but the low, musical sounds of the late summer afternoon—the beat of a reaping-machine, the humming of insects, the distant call of a pigeon, the far-away bark of a farmhouse dog. The shooting had ceased. By this time they must all know, he reflected. He lit a cigarette, and inhaled the smoke without the slightest apprehension of what he was doing. He took a book from his pocket, held it before him, and glanced at the misty page of verse. Then he made his way out on to the highroad, sauntering like a man anxious to make the most of the brilliant sunshine, the clear air.

There was no one in sight anywhere along the white, dusty way. He crossed the road, and opened another gate. A few minutes' climb, a sharp descent, and he was safe within the gate of his own abode. He looked behind. Still not a human being in sight—no sound, no note of alarm in the soft, sunlit air. He set his teeth and drew a long breath. Then he closed the gate behind him, and choosing the back way, entered the house without observation.



CHAPTER XXI

AFRAID!

Saton wondered afterwards many times at the extraordinary nonchalance with which he faced the remainder of that terrible day. He wrote several letters, and was aware that he wrote them carefully and well. He had his usual evening bath and changed his clothes, making perhaps a little more careful toilet even than usual.

Rachael, who was waiting for him when he descended to dinner, even remarked upon the lightness of his step.

"The country suits you, Bertrand," she said. "It suits you better than it does me. You walk like a boy, and there is color in your cheeks."

"The sun," he muttered. "I always tan quickly."

"Where have you been to?" she asked.

"I have been walking with Miss Champneyes," he answered.

Rachael nodded.

"And your friend at Beauleys?" she asked, with a little sneer. "What if he had seen you, eh? You are very brave, Bertrand, for he is a big man, and you are small. I do not think that he loves you, eh? But what about the girl?"

A servant entered the room, and Saton with relief abandoned the conversation. She returned to it, however, the moment they were alone.

"See here, my son," she said, "remember what I have always told you. One can do without anything in this world except money. We have plenty for the moment, it is true, but a stroke of ill-fortune, and our income might well vanish. Now listen, Bertrand. Make sure of this girl's money. She is of age, and she will marry you."

"Her guardian would never give his consent," Saton said.

"It is not necessary," his companion answered. "I have been to Somerset House. I have seen the will. One hundred thousand pounds she has, in her own right, unalienable. For the rest, let her guardian do what he will with it. With a hundred thousand pounds you can rest for a while. We might even give up——"

Saton struck the table with his clenched fist.

"Be careful," he said. "I hate to hear these things mentioned. The windows are open, and the walls are thin. There might be listeners anywhere."

Her withered lips drew back into a smile. She was not pleasant just then to look upon.

"I forgot," she muttered. "We are devotees of science now in earnest. You are right. We must run no risks. Only remember, however careful we are, you are always liable to—to the same thing that happened before. It took a thousand pounds to get you off then."

Saton rose from his seat impatiently. He walked restlessly across the room.

"Don't!" he exclaimed. "Can't we live without mentioning those things? I am nervous to-night. Hideously nervous!" he added, under his breath.

He stood before the open window, his face set, his eyes riveted upon a spot in the distance, where the great white front of Beauleys flashed out from amongst the trees. Its windows had caught the dying sunlight, and a flood of fire seemed to be burning along its front. The flag floated from the chimneys. There was no sign of any disturbance. The quiet stillness of evening which rested upon the landscape, seemed everywhere undisturbed. Yet Saton, as he looked, shivered.

Down in the lane a motor-car rushed by. His eyes followed it, fascinated. It was one of the Beauleys cars, and inside was seated a tall, spare man, white-faced and serious, on whose knees rested a black case. Saton knew in a moment that it was one of the doctors who had been summoned to Beauleys, by telephone and telegraph, from all parts.

"You are watching the house of your patron," she said, drily.

"Patron no longer!" Saton exclaimed, rolling himself another cigarette. "We are enemies, declared enemies—so far as he is concerned, at any rate."

"You are a fool!" the woman said. "He might still have been useful. You quarrel with people as though it were worth the trouble. To speak angry words is the most foolish thing I know."

Saton glanced at the clock upon the mantelpiece.

"I am going out for an hour," he said.

"To Beauleys?" she asked, mockingly.

"Somewhere near there," he answered. "Good night!"

He strolled out, hatless, and with no covering over his thin black dinner-coat. He crossed the meadow, and climbed the little range of broken, rocky hills, from which one could see down even into the flower-gardens of Beauleys. He could see there no sign of disturbance, save that there were two motor-cars before the door. Slowly he made his way to the lodge gates, and passing through approached the house. There were many lights burning. A certain repressed air of excitement was certainly visible. Saton longed, yet dared not, to ask for news from the people at the lodge. At any rate, the blinds were still up, and the doctors there. Probably the man was alive. Perhaps, even, he might recover!

He struck off from the drive, and followed a narrow path, which led at first between two great banks of rhododendrons, and finally wound a circuitous way through an old and magnificent shrubbery. He reached a path whence he could command a view of the house, and where he was himself unseen. He looked at his watch. He was five minutes late, but as yet there was no sign of Lois. He composed himself to wait, watching the birds come home to roost, and the insects, whom the heat had brought out of the earth, crawl away into oblivion. The air was sweet with the smell of flowers. From a little further afield came the more pungent odor of a fire of weeds. The great front of the house, ablaze though it was with lights, seemed almost deserted. No one entered or issued from the hall door.

Half an hour passed. There was no sign of Lois. Then he saw her come, very slowly—walking, as it seemed to him, like one afraid of the ground upon which she trod. As she came nearer, he saw that her face was ghastly pale. Her eyes, which wandered restlessly to the right and to the left, were frightened, dilated. The thing had been a shock to her, of course.

He stepped a little way out from the shrubs, showing himself cautiously. She stopped short at the sight of him.

"Lois!" he called softly.

She looked at him, and a sudden wave of terror passed across her face. She made no movement towards him. He himself was wordless, struck dumb by her appearance. She gave a little cry. What the word was that she uttered, he could not tell. Then suddenly turning round, she fled away.

He watched her with fascinated eyes, watched her feet fly over the lawns, watched her, without a single backward glance, vanish at last through the small side door from which she had first issued. He wiped the moisture from his forehead, and a little sob broke from his throat. The vision of her face was still before him. He knew for a certainty what it was that had terrified her. She had started to keep her engagement, but she was afraid. She was afraid of him. Something that he had done had betrayed him. She knew! His liberty—perhaps his life—was in this girl's hands!

He crept out of the shrubbery and staggered down the drive, making his way homeward across the hills as swiftly as his uncertain footsteps would take him. It was dusk now, and he met no one. Yet his heart beat at every sound—the clanking of a chain, attached to the fetlock of a wandering horse, the still, mournful cry of an owl which floated out from the plantation, the clatter of the small stones which his own feet dislodged as he feverishly climbed the rocks. Above him, on the other side of the road, towered the hill where he had sat and dreamed as a boy, where Rochester had come and encouraged him to prate of his ambitions.

He looked away from its dark outline with a little groan. Up on the hillside flashed the lights of Blackbird's Nest. He stretched out his hands and groped onwards.



CHAPTER XXII

SATON REASSERTS HIMSELF

Rochester asked only one question during those few days when he lay between life and death. He opened his eyes suddenly, and motioned to the doctor to stoop down.

"Who shot me?" he asked.

"It was an accident," the doctor assured him, soothingly.

Rochester said no more, but his lips seemed to curl for a moment into the old disbelieving smile. Then the struggle began. In a week it was over. A magnificent constitution, and an unshattered nerve, triumphed. The doctors one by one took their departure. Their task was over. Rochester would recover.

"Who shot me?"

The doctor had seen no reason to keep silence, and this question of Rochester's had created something like a sensation as it travelled backwards and forwards. Rochester had been shot in the left side, in the middle of a field, where no accident of his own causing seemed possible. One barrel only of his gun had been fired, and to account for that a cock pheasant lay dead within a few feet of him. The shooting-party were all old and experienced sportsmen. The gun which Rochester had left leaning against the gate was discovered exactly as he had left it there, loaded in both barrels. There was not the ghost of a clue.

Only Lois kept to her room for three days, until she could bear it no longer. Then she walked out a little way toward the woods, and met Saton. He recognised her with a shock. He himself, especially now it was known that Rochester would live, had rapidly recovered from the fit of horrors which had seized him on that night. It was not so with Lois. Her cheeks were ghastly pale, and her eyes beringed. She walked like one recovering from a long illness, and when she saw Saton she screamed.

He held out his hand, and noticed with swift comprehension her first instinctive withdrawal.

"Bertrand!" she cried. "Oh, Bertrand!"

"What do you mean?" he asked, hoarsely.

"You know what I mean," she answered. "I don't want to touch you, but I must or I shall fall. Let me take your arm. We will go and sit down."

They sat side by side on the trunk of a fallen tree. A small stream rippled by at their feet. The meadow which it divided was dotted everywhere with little clumps of large yellow buttercups. She sat at a little distance from him, and she kept her eyes averted.

"Bertrand," she murmured, "what does it mean? Tell me what I saw that afternoon. You took up the gun. Was it an accident? But no," she added, "it is absurd to ask that!"

"You saw me?" he exclaimed quickly. "You believe that you saw me touch that gun?"

She nodded.

"I hated to go and leave you there," she said. "I waited about behind those thick blackthorn trees, hoping that you might come my way. I saw you creep up to the gun. I saw you raise it to your shoulder. Even then I had no idea what you were going to do. Afterwards I saw the smoke and the flash. I heard the report, and Mr. Rochester's cry as he fell. I saw you slip a fresh cartridge into the gun, and go stealing away. Bertrand, I have not slept since. Tell me, was it a nightmare?"

"It was no nightmare," he answered. "I shot him, and I wish that he had died!"

She looked at him with horror.

"Bertrand," she faltered, "you can't mean it!"

"Little Lois," he answered, "I do. You do not understand what hatred is. You do not understand all that it may mean—all that it may cause. He is my enemy, that man, and I am his. It is a duel between us, a duel to the death. The first blow has been mine, and I have failed. You will see that it will not be long before he strikes back."

"But this is horrible!" she muttered.

"Horrible to you, of course!" he exclaimed. "Hatred is a thing of which you can know nothing. And yet there it is. People might think that he was my benefactor. He gave me money to go out and find my level in the world, gave it to me with the bitter, cynical advice—advice that was almost a stipulation—that if I failed, I ceased to live. I did fail in every honest thing I touched," he continued, bitterly. "Then I tried a bold experiment. It was the last thing offered, the last wonderful chance. I took it, and I won. Then I returned. I paid him back the money which he had lent me—I did my best to seem grateful. It was of no use. He mistrusted me from the first. In his own house I was the butt for his scornful speeches. I was even bidden to leave. I ventured to speak to the woman with whom he is slavishly in love, and he came to me like a fury. If I had been a hairdresser posing as a duke, he could not have been more violent. He wanted me to promise never to speak to her again—her or you. I refused. Then he declared war, and, Lois, there are weak joints in my armor. You see, I admit it to you—never to him. When he finds his way there, he will thrust. That is why I struck first."

She shook her head sadly.

"Ah, but I do not understand!" she said. "He is very stern and very quiet, but he is a just man. I have never known him to find fault where there was none."

"There are faults enough in my life," Saton answered. "I have never denied it. But I have had to fight with my back to the wall. I shall win. I am not afraid of a thousand Mr. Rochesters. I am gathering to my hands—no, I will not talk to you about that! Lois, I am more anxious about you than Mr. Rochester. I am afraid that you will hate me for always now."

"No!" she said. "I cannot do that, I cannot hate you. But I do not wish to see you any more. As long as I live, I shall see you kneeling there, with your finger upon the trigger of that gun. I shall see the flash, I shall see him throw up his hands and fall. It was hideous!"

Saton passed his hand across his forehead. Her words had touched his keen imagination. The horror of the scene was upon him, too, once more.

"Don't!" he begged—"don't! Lois!"

"Well?" she asked.

"You will not speak of this to anyone?"

"No!" she answered, sadly, leaning a little forward, with her head resting upon her clasped hands. "I don't suppose that I shall. If he had died, it would have been different. Now that he is going to get well, I suppose I shall try to forget."

"To forget," he murmured, trying to take her hand.

She drew it away with a shiver.

"No!" she said. "That is finished. I had to see you. I had to talk to you. Go away, please. I cannot bear to see you any more. It is too terrible—too terrible!"

A born cajoler of women, he forced into play all his powers. He whispered a flood of words in her ear. His own voice shook, his eyes were soft. He pleaded as one beside himself. Lois—Lois whom he had found so sensitive, so easily moved, so gently affectionate—remained like a stone. At the end of all his pleadings she simply looked away.

"Do you mind," she asked, "leaving me? Please! Please!"

He got up and went. Defeat was apparent enough, although it was unexpected. Lois stole back to the house—stole back to her room and locked the door.

Saton walked home across the hills, with white face and set eyes. He looked neither to the right nor to the left, and when he arrived at Blackbird's Nest, he walked straight into the long, old-fashioned room on the ground floor, which he called his library, and where Rachael generally sat.

She was there, crouching over the fire, when he entered, and looked around with frowning face.

"Bertrand," she said, "I hate this country life. Even the sunshine mocks. There is no warmth in it, and the winds are cold. I must have warmth. I shall stay here no longer."

He threw a log on to the fire, and turned around.

"Listen," he said. "The girl Lois Champneyes—I have lost my hold of her. She knows something about the accident to Rochester."

"Bungler!" the woman muttered. "Go on. Tell me how you lost your power."

"I cannot tell," he answered. "I was in an unsettled mood. I think that I was a little afraid. She spoke of that afternoon. It all came back to me. I am sure that I was afraid," he added, passing his hand across his forehead.

She leaned toward him and her eyes glittered, hard and bright, from their parchment-like setting.

"Bertrand," she said, "you talk like a coward. What are you going to do?"

"To bring her here," he answered hoarsely. "She has gone back to Beauleys. She is passing up through the plantation, on her way to the house, perhaps, at this very moment. She wore white, and she carried her hat in her hand. There were rims under her eyes. She walks slowly. She is afraid—a little hysterical. You see her?"

He pointed out of the window. The woman nodded.

"Sit down," she muttered. "We shall see."

He sank into a low chair, with his face turned toward the window. No further words passed between them. They sat there till the sun sank behind the hills, and the dusk began to cast shadows over the land.

A servant came and said something about dinner. Rachael waved her away.

"In an hour, or an hour and a half," she said.

The shadows grew deeper. Rachael's face seemed unchanged, but Saton had grown so pale that his fixed eyes seemed to have become unnaturally large. Sometimes his lips moved, though the sounds which he uttered never resolved themselves into speech. At last Rachael rose to her feet. She pointed out of the window. Saton gave a little gasp.

"She is there?" he asked, breathlessly.

"She comes," Rachael answered. "See that you do not lose your power again. I am exhausted. I am going to rest."

She passed out of the room. Saton went and stood before the low window. Slowly, and with hesitating footsteps, Lois came up the path, lifted the latch of the little gate, and stood in the garden, close to a tall group of hollyhocks.

Saton went out to her.

"You have come to tell me that you are sorry?" he said.

"Yes!" she answered.

"You did not mean what you said?"

"No!"

"Come in," he whispered.

He laid his fingers upon her hand, and she followed him into the room. She was very pale, and she was breathing as though she had been running. He passed his arm around her waist.

"You are not angry with me any longer?" he whispered in her ear. "You will kiss me?"

"If you wish," she answered.

He looked into her eyes for a moment. Then he took her into his arms.

"Dear Lois," he whispered, "you must never be so unkind to me again."



CHAPTER XXIII

AN UNPLEASANT ENCOUNTER

Rochester and Pauline were driving through the country lanes in a small, old-fashioned pony carriage. Westward, the clouds were still stained by a brilliant sunset. The air was clear and brisk, chill with the invigorating freshness of the autumn evening. Already the stillness had come, the stillness which is the herald of night. The laborers had deserted the fields, the wind had dropped, a pleasant smell of burning weeds from a bonfire by the side of the road crept into the air. The silence was broken for a moment by the cry of a lonely bird, drifting homewards on wings that seemed almost motionless.

Rochester was quite convalescent now, and with the aid of a stick was able to walk almost as far as he chose. Pauline had remained at Beauleys, and her presence had divested those last few weeks of all their irksomeness. He stole a glance at her as she leaned back in the carriage. She was a little pale, perhaps, and her eyes were thoughtful, but the lines of her mouth were soft. There was no shadow of unhappiness in her face, none of that look which in London had driven him almost to madness.

His fingers closed upon hers. They were walking uphill, and the pony took little guiding.

"You are sure, Pauline," he asked, "that you are not bored yet with the country?"

"I am quite sure," she answered.

Something in her tone puzzled him. He looked at her again, long and fixedly. Her eyes met his, they answered his unspoken question.

"I suppose," she said, "that I should look happier. I have been content. I am content still. I suppose it is all one ought to expect from life."

"There are other things," he answered, "but not for us, Pauline—not yet."

"Life is a very perplexing matter," she declared.

He shook his head.

"There is no perplexity about it," he declared. "Its riddle is easily enough solved. The trouble is that the fetters which bind us are sometimes beyond our power to break."

"If we were free," she murmured, "you and I know very well whither we should turn. And yet, Henry, are you sure, are you quite, quite sure that there is nothing in life greater even than love?"

"If there is," he answered, "we will go in search of it, hand in hand, you and I together."

"Yes," she echoed simply, "we will go in search of it. But first of all we must find someone to light our torch."

He shook the reins a little impatiently, but they were not yet at the top of the hill, and the pony crawled on, undisturbed.

"Dear Pauline," he said, "sometimes lately I fancied that you have seemed a little morbid. I have lived longer than you. I have lived long enough to be sure of one thing."

"And that is?" she asked.

"That all real happiness," he said, "even the everyday forms of content, is to be found amongst the simple truths of life. Love is the greatest of them. Look at me, Pauline. Don't you think that even though we live our lives apart, don't you think that to me the world is a different place when you are near?"

She looked into his face a little wistfully. Then she let her hand rest on his.

"You are so steadfast," she said—"so strong, and so certain of yourself. Forgive me if I seem a little restless. One loses one's balance sometimes, thinking and thinking and wondering."

They were at the top of the hill, and the pony paused. Rochester stepped out.

"Come," he said, "I will take you for a little walk. We will leave Peter here."

He unlocked a gate with a key which he took from his pocket, and hand in hand they ascended a steep path which led between a grove of pine trees. Out once more into the open, they crossed a patch of green turf and came to another gate, set in a stone wall. This also Rochester opened. A few more yards, and they climbed up to the masses of tumbled rock which lay about on the summit of the hill.

"Turn round," he said. "You have seen this view many a time in the daylight. You can see it now fading away into nothingness."

They stood hand in hand, looking downwards. Mists rose from along the side of the river, and stood about in the valleys. The lights began to twinkle here and there. Afar off, like some nursery toy, they saw a train, with its line of white smoke, go stealing across the shadowy landscape.

Rochester's face darkened with a sudden reminiscence.

"It was here," he said, "that I first saw your friend the charlatan."

"My friend?" she murmured.

"More yours than mine, at any rate," he answered. "He sat with his back against that rock, and if ever hunger was written into a boy's face, it was there in his pale cheeks, burning in his eyes."

"He was very poor, then?" she asked.

"He was very poor," Rochester answered, "but it was not hunger for food, it was hunger for life that one saw there. He had been down at the Convalescent Home, recovering from some illness, and the next day he was going back to his work—work which he hated, which made him part of a machine. You know how many millions there are who live and die like that—who must always live and die like that. They are part of the great system of the world, and nine-tenths of them are content."

"You set him free," she murmured.

"I did," Rochester answered. "It was a mistake."

"You cannot tell," she said. "I know that you mistrust him. You are very, very English, dear Henry, and you have so little sympathy with those things which you do not understand—which do come, perhaps, a little near what you call charlatanism. Still, though you may deny it as much as you like, there are many, many things in the world—things, even, in connection with our daily lives, which are absolutely, wonderfully mysterious. There are new things to be learned, Henry. Bertrand Saton may be a self-deceiver. He may even deserve all the hard things you can say of him, but there are cleverer people than you and I who do not think so."

"Dear," Rochester answered, "I did not bring you here to talk of Bertrand Saton. To tell you the truth," he added, "I even hate to hear his name upon your lips."

There was no time for her to answer. From the shadow of the rock against which they leaned, he rose with a subtle alertness which seemed somehow a little uncanny—as though, indeed, he had risen from under the ground upon which they stood.

"I heard my name," he said. "Forgive me if I am interrupting you. I had no wish to play the eavesdropper."

Pauline took a quick step backwards. Even in that tense moment of surprise, Rochester found himself able to notice the color fading from her cheeks. He turned upon the newcomer, and there was something like fury in his tone.

"What the devil are you doing here, Saton?" he asked.

Saton's tone was almost apologetic.

"I did not know," he said, "that I was forbidden to walk upon your lands. I am often here, and this is my favorite hour."

Rochester laughed, a little harshly.

"You like to come back," he said. "You like to sit here, perhaps, and think. Well, I do not envy you. You sat here and thought, years ago. You built a house of dreams here, unless you lied. You come here now, perhaps, to compare it with the house of gewgaws which you have built, and in which you dwell."

Saton did not for a moment shrink. In his heart he felt that it was one of his inspired moments. There was confidence alike in his bearing and in his gentle reply.

"Why not?" he asked. "Why should you take it for granted that there is so much amiss in my life, that I have fallen so far away from those dreams? It may not be so," he continued. "Remember that the man who lives, and comes a little nearer toward knowledge, has nothing to be ashamed of. It is the man who lives, and eats and drinks and sleeps, and knows no more when his head presses the pillow at night than when the sun woke him in the morning, it is that man who is ignoble. You have spoken of the past," he added, turning face to face with Rochester. "Once more I will remind you of your own words. 'The only crime in life is failure. If the crash comes, and the pieces lie around you, swim out to sea too far, and sink beneath the waves forever!' Wasn't that your advice? Not your exact words, perhaps, but wasn't that what you told the boy who sat here and dreamed?"

Rochester shrugged his shoulders slightly.

"Youth," he said, "may be forgiven much. Manhood must accept its own responsibilities."

Saton smiled grimly.

"Always the same," he said. "All the time you play with the truth, Rochester, as though it were a glass ball committed into your keeping, and yours alone. Don't you know that the one inspired period of life is youth—youth before it is sullied with experience, youth which knows everything, fears nothing—youth which has the eyes of the clairvoyant?"

Rochester frowned.

"Your tongue goes glibly to-night," he remarked. "Talk to the shadows, my friend. Lady Marrabel and I are going."

"I did not bid you come," Saton answered. "This is my spot, and my hour. It was you who intruded."

"The fact that this is my property——" Rochester began, gently.

"Is of no consequence," Saton answered. "You may buy the earth upon which we stand, but you cannot buy the person whose feet shall press it, or the thoughts that rise up from it, or the words that are breathed from it, or the hopes and passions which go trembling from it to the skies. Go away and jog homeward behind your fat pony, but——"

"Well, sir?" Rochester asked, turning suddenly.

Saton's eyes did not meet his. They were fixed upon Pauline's, and Pauline was as white as death.

"Take her, too, if you will," Saton said slowly. "Take her, too, if she will go."

"I am going this instant," Pauline cried, with a sudden nervous passion in her tone. "Come, Henry, come away. I hate this place. Come away quickly."

Rochester caught her hand. It was cold as a stone. She was pale, and she commenced to tremble.

"Take her," Saton said, "if she will go. Take her, because you are strong and she is weak. Lead her by the arm, guide her as you will, only be sure that you leave nothing with me."

He sat down upon the rock, and with folded arms looked away from them—even as though they had not existed—across to the world of shadows and vague places. Rochester passed his arm through Pauline's, and led her down the hill. Her hands were cold. She seemed to lift her feet as though they had been of lead. She did not look at him. Always she looked ahead. She moved slowly and heavily. When he spoke, her lips answered him languidly. Rochester felt an intense and passionate anger burning in his veins. The vague disquiet of an hour ago had settled down into something definite. She was his no longer! Something had come between them! Even though he might take her into his arms, might hold her there, and dare anyone in the world to take her from him, it was her body only, the shadow of herself. Something—some part of her seemed to have flitted away. He asked himself with a sudden cold horror, whether indeed it had remained by the side of that silent figure, blotted out now from sight, who sat upon the rocks while the darkness fell about him!



CHAPTER XXIV

LOIS IS OBEDIENT

Lois and her companion stopped on the summit of the hill to look at the rolling background of woods, brilliant still with their autumn coloring. The west wind had blown her hair into disorder, but it had blown also the color back into her cheeks. Her eyes were bright, and her laughter infectious. Her companion stooped down and passed his arm through hers, looking into her face admiringly.

"Lois," he said, "this is the first day I have seen you like your old self. I can't tell you how glad I am."

She smiled.

"I wasn't aware, Maurice," she said, "that I have been very different. I have had headaches now and then, lately. Fancy having a headache an afternoon like this!" she added, throwing back her head once more, and breathing in the fresh, invigorating air.

"You ought to have seen a doctor," her companion declared. "I told Lady Mary so the other day."

"Rubbish!" Lois exclaimed, lightly.

"Nothing of the sort," Captain Vandermere replied. "I was beginning to worry about you. I almost fancied——"

"Well?"

"It almost seemed," he continued, a little awkwardly, "as though you had something on your mind. You seemed so queer every now and then, little girl," he added, "I do hope that if there was anything bothering you, you'd tell me all about it. We're old pals, you know."

She laughed—not quite naturally.

"My dear Maurice," she said, "of course there has been nothing of that sort the matter with me! What could I have on my mind?"

"No love affairs, eh?" he asked, stroking his fair moustache.

She shook her head thoughtfully.

"No!" she said. "No love affairs."

He tightened his grasp upon her arm. He had an idea that he was being very diplomatic indeed. And Lady Mary had begged him to find out whatever was the matter with poor dear Lois!

"Well," he said, "I am glad to hear it. To tell you the truth, I have been very jealous lately."

"You jealous!" she exclaimed, mockingly.

"Fact, I assure you," he answered.

"Captain Maurice Vandermere jealous!" she repeated, looking up at him with dancing eyes—"absolutely the most popular bachelor in London! And jealous of me, too!"

"Is that so very wonderful, Lois?" he asked. "We have been pretty good friends, you know."

She felt his hand upon her arm, and she looked away.

"Yes," she said, "we have been friends, only we haven't seen much of one another the last month or so, have we?"

"It hasn't been my fault," he declared. "I really couldn't get leave before, although I tried hard. I shouldn't have been here now, to tell you the truth, Lois," he went on, "but Lady Mary's been frightening me a bit."

"About me?" Lois asked.

"About you," he assented.

"What has she been saying?"

"Well, nothing definite," Captain Vandermere answered, "but of course you know she's an awful good pal of mine, and she did write me a line or two about you. It seems there's some young fellow been about down here whom she isn't very stuck on, and she seemed to be afraid——"

"Well, go on," Lois said calmly.

"Well, that he was making the running with you a bit," Captain Vandermere declared, feeling that he was getting into rather deeper waters. "Of course, I don't know anything about him, and I don't want to say anything against anybody who is a friend of yours, but from all that I have heard he didn't seem to me to be the sort of man I fancied for my little friend Lois to get—well, fond of."

"So you decided to come down yourself," Lois continued.

"I decided to come down and say something which I ought to have said some time ago," Captain Vandermere continued, "only you see you are really only a child, and you've got a lot more money than I have, and you are not of age yet, so I thought I'd let it be for a bit. But you know I'm fond of you, Lois."

"Are you?" she asked, artlessly.

"You must know that," he continued, bending over her. "I wonder——"

"Are you aware that we are standing on the top of a hill," Lois said, "and that everybody for a good many miles round has a perfectly clear view of us?"

"I don't care where we are," he declared. "I have got to go on now. Lois, will you marry me?"

"Is this a proposal?" She laughed nervously.

"Sounds like it," he admitted.

She was silent for several moments. Into her eyes there had come something of that look which had sent Lady Mary into her room to write to Captain Vandermere, and bid him come without delay. The color had gone. She seemed suddenly older—tired.

"Oh, I don't know!" she said. "I think I should like to, but I can't!—no, I can't!"

They began to descend the hill. He kept his arm in hers.

"Why not?" he asked. "Don't you care for me?"

"I—I don't know," she answered. "I don't know whether I care for anybody. Wait, please. Don't speak to me for several moments."

Their path skirted the side of a ploughed field, and then through a little gate they passed into a long, straggling plantation. Directly she was under the shelter of the trees, she burst into tears.

"Don't come near me," she begged. "Leave me alone for a moment. I shall be better directly."

He disregarded her bidding to the extent of placing his arm around her waist. He made no attempt, however, to draw her hands away from her face, or stop her tears.

"Little girl," he said, "I knew that there was some trouble. It is there in your dear, innocent little face for anyone to see who cares enough about you to look. When you have dried those eyes, you must tell me all about it. Remember that even if you won't have me for a husband, we are old enough friends for you to look upon me as an elder brother."

She dried her eyes, and looked up at him with a hopeless little smile.

"You are a dear," she said, "and I am very fond of you. I don't know what's happened to me—at least I do know, but I can't tell anyone."

"Is it," he asked gravely, "that you care about this person?"

"Oh, I don't know!" she answered. "I hope not. I don't know, I'm sure. Sometimes I feel that I do, and sometimes, when I am sane, when I am in my right mind, I know that I do not. Maurice," she begged, "help me. Please help me."

His face cleared.

"I'll help you right enough, little girl," he answered. "Just listen to me. I'm not going to see you throw yourself away upon an outsider. Just remember that. On the other hand, I'm not going to bother you to death. Here I am by your side, and here I mean to stay. If that—no, I won't call him names!" he said, stopping short in his sentence—"but if anyone tries to make you unhappy, well, I shall have something to say. Come along, let's finish our walk. We'll talk about something else if you like."

She drew a little sigh of relief.

"You are a dear, Maurice," she repeated. "Come along, we'll go down the lane and over the hills home. I do feel safe, somehow, with you," she added, impulsively. "You are not going away just yet, are you?"

"Not for a fortnight, at any rate," he answered.

"And you won't leave me alone?" she begged—"not even if I ask to be left alone? You see—I can't make you understand—but I don't even trust myself."

He laughed reassuringly.

"I'll look after you, never fear," he answered. "I'll be better than a watchdog. Tell me, what's your handicap at golf now? We must have a game to-morrow."

They walked down the lane, talking—in a somewhat subdued manner, perhaps, but easily enough—upon lighter subjects. And then at the corner, just as they had passed the entrance to Blackbird's Nest, they came face to face with Saton. Vandermere felt her suddenly creep closer to him, as though for protection, and from his six feet odd of height, he frowned angrily at the young man with his hat in his hand preparing to accost them. Never was dislike more instinctive and hearty. Vandermere, an ordinarily intelligent but unimaginative Englishman, of the normally healthy type, a sportsman, a good fellow, and a man of breeding—and Saton, this strange product of strange circumstances, externally passable enough, but with something about him which seemed, even in that clear November sunshine, to suggest the footlights.

"You are quite a stranger, Miss Champneyes," Saton said, taking her unresisting hand in his. "I hope that you are going in to see the Comtesse. Only this morning she told me that she was finding it appallingly lonely."

"I—I wasn't calling anywhere this afternoon," Lois said timidly. "Captain Vandermere has come down to stay with us for a few days, and I was showing him the country. This is Mr. Saton—Captain Vandermere. I don't know whether you remember him."

The two men exchanged the briefest of greetings. Saton's was civil enough. Vandermere's was morose, almost discourteous.

"Let me persuade you to change your mind," Saton said, speaking slowly, and with his eyes fixed upon Lois. "The Comtesse would be so disappointed if she knew that you had passed this way and had not entered."

Vandermere was conscious that in some way the girl by his side was changed. She drew a little away from him.

"Very well," she said, "I shall be pleased to go in and see her. You do not mind, Maurice?"

"Not at all," he answered. "If I may be allowed, I will come with you."

There was a moment's silence. Then Saton spoke—quietly, regretfully.

"I am so sorry," he said, "but the Comtesse de Vestinges—my adopted mother," he explained, with a little bow—"receives no one. She is old, and her health is not of the best. A visit from Miss Champneyes always does her good."