She stepped behind a bush and waited. In a moment the door of the cottage was thrown suddenly open, and the tall figure of a man stood in the entrance. For one moment he hesitated. Then with a sudden passionate gesture he raised his hands high above his head, and she heard a long deep moan burst from his quivering lips.

The pity which swelled up in her heart she kept back with a strong hand. A strange bewilderment was creeping over her. She had seen only the dark outline of the figure, but surely it was not the figure of her lover. And then she held her breath, and walking swiftly away, passing so close to her that she could look into his white, strained face, Sir Allan Beaumerville strode down the garden, and disappeared in the shadows of the plantation.



CHAPTER XXIX

THE SCENE CHANGES

The midday sun had risen into a sky of deep cloudless blue, and a silence almost as intense as the silence of night rested upon the earth. No one was abroad, no one seemed to have anything particular to do. Far away on the vine-covered slopes a few peasants were lazily bending over their work, the bright garments of their picturesque attire standing out like little specks of brilliant coloring against the dun-colored background. But in the quaint old-fashioned town itself no one was astir. One solitary Englishman made his way alone and almost unnoticed through the queer zig-zag streets, up the worn grey steps by the famous statute of Minerva, and on to the terraced walk, fronting which were the aristocratic villas of the little Italian town.

It was a solitude which was pleasing to him, for it was very evident that he was no curious tourist, or casual visitor of any sort. His eyes were full of that eager half-abstracted look which so clearly denotes the awakening of old associations, quickened into life by familiar surroundings; and, indeed, it was so. To Bernard Maddison, every stone in that quietly sleeping, picturesque old town spoke with a language of its own. The very atmosphere, laden with the sultry languorous heat of a southern sun, seemed charged with memories. Their influence was strong upon him, and he walked like a man in a dream, until he reached what seemed to be his destination, and here he paused.

He had come to the end of the terraced walk, the evening promenade of the whole town. Before him was a small orange grove, whose aromatic odor, faintly penetrating the still air, added one more to his stock of memories. On his right hand was a grey stone wall, worn and tottering with age, and overhung with green creepers and shrubs, reaching over and hanging down from the other side, and let into it, close to him, was a low nail-studded door of monastic shape, half hidden by a luxurious drooping shrub, from amongst the foliage of which peeped out star-like clusters of soft scarlet flowers.

For many moments he stood before that door, with his hand resting upon the rusty latch, lingering in a sort of apathy, as though he were unwilling to disturb some particular train of thought. Then a mellow-sounding bell from a convent in the valley below startled him, and immediately he lifted the latch before him. There was no other fastening, and the door opened. He stepped inside, and carefully reclosed it.

He was in a garden, a garden of desolation, which nature seemed to have claimed for her own and made beautiful. It was a picture of luxuriant overgrowth. The grass on the lawns had become almost a jungle. It had grown up over the base of the deep grey stone basins of exquisite shape and carving, the tiny statuettes tottering into ruin, and the worn old sun-dial, across which the slanting rays of the sun still glanced. Weeds, too, had crept up around them in picturesque toils, weeds which had started to destroy, but remained to adorn with all the sweet abandon of unrestrained growth. Some of them had put forth brilliant blossoms of many hues, little spots of exquisite coloring against the sombre hue of the stonework and the deep green of the leaves. Everywhere nature had triumphed over science and skill. Everything was changed, and nature had shown herself a more perfect gardener than man. The gravel paths were embedded with soft green moss, studded with clumps of white and purple violets, whose faint fragrance, mingled with the more exotic scent of other plants, filled the warm air with a peculiar dreamy perfume. Nowhere had the hand of man sought to restrain or to develop. Nature had had her own way, and had made for herself a fair garden.

A little overcome by the heat, and a little, too, by swiftly stirring memories, Bernard Maddison sank down upon a low iron seat, under the shade of a little clump of almond trees, and covered his face with his hands. And there came to him, as he sat there, something more vivid than an ordinary day-dream, something so real and minutely played out, that afterwards it possessed for him all the freshness and significance of a veritable trance. It seemed, indeed, as if some mysterious force had drawn aside the curtain of the past in his mind, and had bidden him look out once more upon the moving figures in a living drama.

* * * * *

The warm sunlight faded from the sky, the summer heat died out of the air, the soft velvety mantle of a southern night lay upon the brooding land. Many stars were burning in the deep-blue heavens, and the horned moon, golden and luminous, hung low down in the west.

Pale, and with the fever of a great anger burning in his dry eyes, a man sat at the open window of the villa yonder, watching. Around him were scattered all the signs of arduous brain labor, books, manuscripts, classical dictionaries, and works of reference. But his pen had fallen from his hand, and he was doing nothing. He sat there idle, gazing out upon the fantastic shapes and half-veiled gloom of this fair garden. Its rich balmy odors, and the fainter perfume of rarer plants which floated languidly in through the open window, were nothing to him. He was barely conscious of the sweet delights of the voluptuous summer night. He was watching with his eyes fixed upon the east, where morning would soon be breaking.

It came at last—what he was waiting for. There was a slight click of the latch from the old postern door in the wall, and the low murmur of voices—a man's, pleading and passionate, and a woman's, half gay, half mocking. Then the door opened and shut, and a tall fair lady walked leisurely up toward the villa.

She wore no hat, but a hooded opera-cloak was thrown loosely over her shoulders, and as she strolled up the path, pausing every now and then to carelessly gather a handful of the drooping lilies, whose perfume made faint the heavy night air, its folds parted, and revealed brief glimpses of soft white drapery and flashing jewels on her bosom and in her hair. Her feet, too, were cased in tiny white satin slippers, which seemed scarcely to press the ground, so lightly and gracefully she walked. Altogether she was very fair to look upon—the fairest sight in all that lovely garden.

Not so seemed to think the man who stood back in the shadow of the window, waiting for her. His white face was ghastly with passion, and his fingers were nervously interlaced in the curtains. It was only with a supreme effort that he at last flung them from him, and moved forward as though to meet her.

She saw him standing there, pale and rigid, like a carved statue, save for the passion which burned in his eyes, and for a moment she hesitated. Then, with the resigned air of one who makes up her mind to face something disagreeable, she shrugged her shoulders, and throwing away the handful of lilies she had gathered, advanced toward him.

They neither of them spoke until they stood face to face. Then, as his motionless form prevented her stepping through the window, and barred her further progress, she came to a standstill, and addressed him lightly.

"Yours is a strange welcome home, mon ami," she said. "Why do you stand there looking so fierce?"

He pointed with shaking fingers away toward the east, where a faint gleam of daylight was lightening the sky.

"Where have you been?" he asked harshly. "Can you not see that it is morning? All night long I have sat here watching for you. Where have you been?"

"You know very well where I have been," she answered carelessly. "To the ball at the Leon d'Or. I told you that I was going."

"Told me! You told me! Did I not forbid it? Did I not tell you that I would not have you go?"

"Nevertheless, I have been," she answered lightly. "It was an engagement, and I never break engagements."

"An engagement? You, with no chaperon, to go to a common ball at a public room! An engagement. Yes, with your lover, I presume."

She looked at him steadily, and yawned in his face.

"You are in a bad temper, I fear," she said. "At least, you are very rude. Let me pass, will you? I am tired of standing here."

He was beside himself with passion, and for a second or two he did not speak. But when at last the words came, they were clear and distinct enough.

"Into this house you shall never pass again," he said. "You have disregarded my wishes, you have disobeyed my orders, and now you are deceiving me. You are trifling with my honor. You are bringing shame upon my name. Go and keep your assignations from another roof. Mine has sheltered your intrigues long enough!"

The hand which had kept together her opera-cloak relinquished its grasp, and it fell back upon her shoulders. The whole beauty of her sinuous figure, in its garb of dazzling white, stood revealed. The moonlight gleamed in her fair hair, bound up with one glittering gem, shone softly upon her white swelling throat and bare arms, and flashed in her dark eyes, suddenly full of passion. Her right hand was nervously clasped around a little morsel of lace handkerchief which she had drawn from the folds of her corsage, and which seemed to make the air around heavy with a sweet perfume.

"You are angry, and you do not know what you are saying," she said. "It is true that you forbade me to go to-night—but you forbid everything. I cannot live your life. It is too dull, too triste. It is cruel of you to expect it. Let me go in now. If you want to scold, you can do so to-morrow."

She stepped forward, but he laid his hands upon her dainty shoulders and pushed her roughly back.

"Never!" he cried savagely. "Go and live what life you choose. This is no home for you. Go, I say!"

She looked at him, her lovely eyes turned pleadingly upwards, and her lips trembling.

"You are mad!" she said. "Am I not your wife? You have no right to keep me here. And my boy, too. Let me pass."

He did not move, nor did he show any sign of yielding. He stood there with his hand stretched out in a threatening gesture toward her, his face pale and mute as marble, but with the blind rage still burning in his dark eyes.

"What is the boy, or what am I to you?" he cried hoarsely. "Begone, woman!"

Still she did not seem to understand.

"Where would you have me go?" she asked. "Is not this my home? What have I——"

"Go to your lover!" he interrupted fiercely. "Tell him that your husband is no longer your tool. He will take you in."

A burning color streamed into her delicate cheeks, and a sudden passion blazed in her eyes. She drew herself up to her full height and turned upon him with the dignity of an empress.

"Listen to me one moment," she said. "Ask yourself whether you have ever tried to make my life a happy one. Did I ever pretend to care for books and solitude? Before I married you I told you that I was fond of change and gaiety and life, and you promised me that I should have it. Ask yourself how you have kept that promise. You deny me every pleasure, and drive me to seek them alone. I am weary of your jealous furies, and your evil temper. As God looks down upon us at this moment, I have been a faithful wife to you; but if you will add to all your cruelties this cowardly, miserable indignity, then I will never willingly look upon your face again, and what sin I do will be on your head, not mine. Will you stand aside and let me pass?"

"Never!" he answered. "Never!"

She drew her mantle round her shoulders, and turned her back upon him with a contemptuous gesture.

"You have made me what I shall be," she said. "The sin be with you. For several weary years you have made me miserable. Now you have made me wicked."

She walked away into the perfumed darkness, and presently he heard the gate close behind her. He listened frantically, hoping to hear her returning steps. It was in vain. All was silent. Then he felt his limbs totter, and he sank back on a couch, and buried his face amongst the cushions.



CHAPTER XXX

BENJAMIN LEVY RUNS HIS QUARRY TO EARTH

The slumberous afternoon wore slowly away. A slight breeze rustled amongst the cypresses and the olive trees, and the air grew clearer. The sun was low in the heavens, and long shadows lay across the brilliant patches of flowers, half wild, half cultivated, and on the moss-grown walks.

Still Bernard Maddison made no movement. It may have been that he shrunk from what was before him, or it may have been that he had some special purpose in thus calling up those broken visions of the past into his mind. For, as he sat there, they still thronged in upon him, disjointed and confused, yet all tinged with that peculiar sadness which seemed to have lain heavy upon his life.

Again the memory of those long lonely days of his boyhood stole in upon him. He thought of that terrible day when his father stood by his bedside, and had bidden him in an awful voice ask no more for his mother, and think of her only as dead; and he remembered well the chill of cold despair with which he had realized that that fair, sweet woman, who had called him her little son, and who had accepted his devoted boyish affection with a sort of amused pleasure, was gone from him for ever. Henceforth life would indeed be a dreary thing, alone with that cold, silent student, with whom he was almost afraid to speak, and whom he scarcely ever addressed by the name of father.

A dreary time it had indeed been. His memory glanced lightly over the long monotonous years with a sort of shuddering recoil. He thought of his father's frequent absences, and of his return from one of them in the middle of a winter's night, propped up in an invalid carriage, with a surgeon in attendance, and blood-stained bandages around his leg. And he thought of a night when he had sat up with him while the nurse rested, and one name had ceaselessly burst from those white feverish lips, laden with fierce curses and deep vindictive hate, a name which had since been written into his memory with letters of fire. Further and further on his memory dragged him, until he himself, a boy no longer, had stood upon the threshold of man-hood, and on one awful night had heard from his father's lips that story which had cast its shadow across his life. Then for the first time had sprung up of some sort of sympathy between them, sympathy which had for its foundation a common hatred, a common sense of deep, unpardonable wrong. The oath which his father had sworn with trembling lips the son had echoed, and in dread of the vengeance of these two, the man against whom they had sworn it cut himself off from his fellows, and skulked in every out-of-the-way corner of Europe, a hunted being in peril of his life. There had come a great change over their lives, and they had drifted farther apart again. He himself had gone out into the world something of a scholar and something of a pedant, and he had found that all his ideas of life had lain rusting in his country home, and that he had almost as much to unlearn as to learn. With ample means, and an eager thirst for knowledge, he had passed from one to another of the great seats of learning of the world. But his lesson was not taught him at one of them. He learned it not amongst the keen conflict of intellect at the universities, not in the toils of the great vague disquiet which was throbbing amongst all cultured and artistic society, but in the eternal silence of Mont Blanc and her snow-capped Alps, and the whisperings of the night winds which blew across the valleys. At Heidelberg he had been a philosopher, in Italy he had been a scholar, and in Switzerland he became a poet. When once again he returned to the more feverish life of cities he was a changed man. He looked out upon life now with different eyes and enlarged vision. Passion had given place to a certain studied calm, a sort of inward contemplativeness which is ever inseparable from the true artist. Life became for him almost too impersonal, too little human. Soon it threatened to become one long abstraction, accompanied necessarily with a weakened hold on all sensuous things, and a corresponding decline in taste and appreciation. One thing had saved him from relapsing into the nervous dreamer, and the weaver of bright but aimless fancies. He had loved, and he had become a man again, linked to the world and the things of the world by the pulsations of his passion and his strong deep love. Was it well for him or ill, he wondered. Well, it might have been save for the deadly peril in which he lived, and which seemed closing fast around him. Well, it surely would have been....

Lower and lower the sun had sunk, till now its rim touched the horizon. The evening breeze stealing down from the hills had gathered strength until now it was almost cold. The distant sound of footsteps, and the gay laughing voices of the promenaders from the awakening town broke the deep stillness which had hung over the garden and recalled Bernard Maddison from thoughtland. He rose to his feet, a little stiff, and walked slowly along the path towards the villa. At that same moment, Mr. Benjamin Levy, tired and angry with his long waiting, stole into the garden by the postern-gate.



CHAPTER XXXI

BENJAMIN LEVY WRITES HOME

"June 10th.

"MY DEAR DAD:—

"I wired you yesterday afternoon, immediately on our arrival at this outlandish little place, to write to me at the hotel Leon d'Or, for it seems that we have reached our destination—by we, of course, I mean Mr. Maddison and myself, though he has not the least idea of my presence here. Well, this is a queer old crib, I can tell you, and the sooner we are on the move again the better I shall be pleased. The fodder is odious, not fit for a pig, and the wine is ditto. What wouldn't I give for a pint of Bass like they draw at the Blue Boar? Old England for me is my motto!

"And now to biz! So far all's well. I'm on the right tack and no mistake. We got here middle day, yesterday—came over the hills from the railway in a regular old bone-shaker of a coach. My tourist get-up is quite the fig, and though I caught Mr. M—— eyeing me over a bit supercilious like once, he didn't recognize me if ever he did see me down at Thurwell Court, which I don't think he did. Well, directly we got here, off started Mr. M—— through the town, and after a bit I followed. Lord! it was hot and no mistake, but he didn't seem to notice it, though the perspiration was streaming down my back like anything. About a mile out of town we came to a great high wall with a door in it, and before I could say 'Jack Robinson' or get anywhere near him, in he went. Well, I hung round a bit, and soon I found a sort of opening in the wall where I could just see in, and there he was sitting down on a seat in a regular howling wilderness of a garden, as though the whole place belonged to him, if you please. All right! I thought, I'm agreeable to a rest, and I sat down too, little thinking what was in store for me. Four mortal hours passed before he stirred, and jolly stiff and tired I was, I can tell you. But it was a lucky thing for me all the same, for when he got up and made for the house it was almost dark, so without more ado I just opened the door and walked in myself. There was no end of shrubs and trees about the place, and though I followed him on another path only a few yards away, he couldn't see me, and there was no chance of his hearing, for the moss had grown over the gravel like a blooming carpet, which was all lucky for me again.

"Well, we were just close to the house, when we both of us got a start, and I nearly yelled out. Round the corner of his path, thank goodness! came a tall, white-haired old lady, in a long black dress, with an ivory cross hanging down, and looking as dignified as possible. She no sooner saw him than she stopped and cried out, 'Bernard! Bernard!' and seemed as though she were going to faint. She pulled herself together, however, and things became very interesting for me, I can tell you.

"Mr. M—— he was going to take her hands and kiss her, but she drew them away and stood back. Lord! how awful her face did look! It gave me a regular turn just to look at her.

"'Bernard!' she cried out in a low, shaking voice, 'I know all—all!'

"'What do you mean, mother?' he asked.

"Then she stretched her arms up, and it was dreadful to look at her.

"'I had a dream!' she cried, 'a dream which kept me shuddering and sleepless from midnight to daybreak. I dreamed I saw him—dead—cold and dead!'

"He said nothing, but he seemed fearfully upset. I kept crouched down behind a shrub and listened.

"'In the morning I sent for a file of English newspapers,' she went on. 'One by one I searched them through till I came to August last year. There I found it. Bernard, it was at Thurwell Court. I had a letter in my pocket from you with the postmark Thurwell. Don't come near me, but speak! Is there blood upon your hands?'

"And now, dad, the most provoking things happened. It seemed just as though it were done to spite me. He had his mouth open to answer, and I had my ears open, as you may guess, to listen, and see what happens, and tell me if it wasn't a rare sell! Off the old woman goes into a faint all of a sudden. He catches hold of her and sings out for help. Down I ran to the door as hard as I could, slammed it as though I had just come in, and came running up the path. 'Anything the matter?' I called out, as though I didn't know my way. 'A lady fainted,' he shouts; 'come and help me carry her into the house;' so up I went, and together we carried her inside and laid her on a couch in one of the queerest-furnished rooms I ever saw. There was servants with lighted lamps running about, and another woman who seemed to be a relation, and such a fuss they all made, and no mistake. However, Mr. M—— cooled them all down again pretty soon, for he could see that it was only an ordinary faint, and then he began to look at me curiously. I had made up my mind to stay until the old woman came round, but he was too many for me, for he got up and took me to the door himself. Of course, he was awfully polite and all that, and was very much obliged for my help, but I twigged it in a moment. He wanted me gone, so off I skedaddled.

"Well, back I went to the inn, and began to make a few cautious inquiries about the lady of the Villa Fiorlessa, for that was the name of the house where I had left Mr. M——. I could not get on at all at first, not understanding a word of the blessed lingo, but by good luck I tumbled across an artist chap who turned out a good sort, and offered to interpret for me. So we had the landlord in, and I ordered a bottle of his best wine—nasty greasy stuff it was—and we went at it hammer and tongs. Pretty soon I had found out everything I wanted to.

"Nearly twenty years ago the lady—Mrs. Martival she was called—had come to the Villa Fiorlessa with her husband and one little boy. They were, it seems, one of the worst-matched couples that could be imagined. Mr. Martival was a gloomy, severe man, who hated going out, and worked at some sort of writing day and night. His wife, on the other hand, who was a Frenchwoman, was passionately fond of travel, and change, and gaiety. Her life was consequently very like a prison, and it is stated, too, that besides denying her every whim and forcing her to live in a manner she utterly disliked, her husband ill-treated her shamefully. Well, she made a few friends here and went to see them pretty often, and just at that time an English milord—you can guess who he was—came here to see the statue, and met Mrs. Martival, whom he seems to have known before her marriage. The exact particulars are not known, but it is supposed that Mrs. Martival would have been married to this young Englishman, Sir Geoffrey Kynaston, but for some deep scheming on the part of Mr. Martival. Anyhow, there was a desperate quarrel between Mr. and Mrs. Martival, when she charged him with duplicity before this marriage, and he forbade her to meet Sir Geoffrey Kynaston again. Quite properly she refused to obey him, and they met often, although every one seems quite sure that at that time they met only as friends. Mr. Martival, however, appears to have thought otherwise, for one night, after what they call their carnival dance here, which every one in the neighborhood had attended, Mr. Martival had the brutality to close his doors against her, and refuse to let her enter the house. It was the crowning piece of barbarism to a long course of jealous cruelties. Mrs. Martival spent that night with some friends, and seems even then to have hesitated for a long time. Her married life had been one long disappointment, and this brutal action of her husband had ended it. Sir Geoffrey Kynaston was madly in love with her, and she was one of those women who must be loved. In the end she ran away with him, which seemed a very natural thing for her to do.

"The queerest part of it is to come, though. Sir Geoffrey was devoted to her, and would have married her at once if Mr. Martival would have sued for a divorce. He showed her every kindness, and he lavished his money and his love upon her. But it seems that she was a devout Roman Catholic, and the horror of what she had done preyed upon her so, that in less than a month she left Sir Geoffrey, and entered one of the lower sort of nunneries as a menial. From there she went to the wars as a nurse, and did a great deal of good. When she returned, of all places in the world she came back to the Villa Fiorlessa, partly from a curious notion of penance, that she might be continually reminded of her sin. The queerest part of it is, however, that the people round here behaved like real Christians, and jolly different to what they would have done at home. They knew all her history, and they welcomed her back as though that month in her life had never been. That's what I call charity, real charity, dad! Don't know what you think about it. Well, there she's lived ever since with her sister, who had lots of money (she died last year), and the poor people all around just worshipped them.

"Now, to go back a bit. Mr. Martival, although he had been such a brute to his wife, no sooner found out that she was with Sir Geoffrey Kynaston than he swore the most horrible oaths of vengeance, and went off after them. He was brought back in a fever, with a pistol shot in his leg, which served him d——d well right, I think. No sooner was he better than he started off again in pursuit, but Sir Geoffrey dodged him, and they never met. Meanwhile the young cub, whom you will recognize as Mr. M——, had grown up, and what must his father do when he returned but tell him as much of the story as suited him, with the result that he too swore an oath of vengeance against Sir Geoffrey Kynaston. Time goes on, and Mr. Martival and his son both leave here. Mr. Martival is reported to have died in Paris, his son goes to England, and is lost sight of. We can, however, follow the story a little further. We can follow it down to its last scene, and discover in the Mr. Brown who had taken a small cottage near Sir Geoffrey's seat, within a week of his return home, and whom soon afterwards we discover bending over Sir Geoffrey's murdered body, the boy who, fired with what his father had thundered into his ears as his mother's ruin, had sworn that oath of vengeance against Sir Geoffrey.

"All this looks very simple, doesn't it? and I dare say, my dear dad, you're wondering why I don't come straight away home, and cause a sensation at Scotland Yard by clearing up the Kynaston murder. Simply because that isn't quite my game. I didn't come over here to collect evidence against Mr. M——, for I could have laid my hand on plenty of that at home. There is something else at the back of it all, which I can only see very dimly yet, but which will come as a crasher, I can tell you, when it does come. At present I won't say anything about this, only keep your eyes open and be prepared. Ta-ta!

"Your obedient son, "BEN.

"P.S. Don't worry about Xs. They won't come out of your pocket in the long run, I can tell you.

"P.S. 2. Wednesday evening. Here's a pretty pickle! You remember the artist I told you about. I'm d——d if he isn't a regular from S.Y., and he's got his pocket-book pretty full, too. The game is serious now and no mistake. Mind you, I think we stand to win still, but I can't be quite sure while this chap's on the lay. Look out for telegrams, and don't be surprised if I turn up at any moment. It may come to a race between us. D——n, I wonder how he got on the scent!"



CHAPTER XXXII

A STRANGE TRIO OF PASSENGERS

Before the open window of her room, looking out upon the fair wilderness below, and over its high stone walls to the dim distant line of hills vanishing in an ethereal mist, lay Mrs. Martival, and by her side stood Bernard Maddison, looking down into her white suffering face.

Sorrow and time together had made strange havoc with its beauty, and yet the lines had been laid on with no harsh hand. There was a certain dignity which it had never lost, which indeed resigned and large-minded sadness only enhances, and her simple religious life had given a touch of spirituality to those thin, delicate features so exquisitely carved and moulded. The bloom had gone from her cheeks for ever, and their intense pallor was almost deathlike, matching very nearly her snow-white hair, but her eyes seemed to have retained much of their old power and sweetness, and the light which sometimes flashed in them lent her face a peculiar charm. But now they were full of a deep anxiety as she lay there, a restless disquiet which showed itself also in her nervously twitching fingers.

Far away down the valley the little convent clock struck the hour, and at its sound she looked up at him.

"You go at nine o'clock, Bernard?"

"At nine o'clock, mother, unless you wish me to stay."

She shook her head.

"No, I shall be better alone. This thing will crush me into the grave, but death will be very welcome. Oh, my son, my son, that the sin of one weak woman should have given birth to all this misery!"

He stooped over her, and held her thin fingers in his strong man's hand.

"Do not trouble about it, mother," he said. "I can bear my share. Try and forget it."

Her eyes flashed strangely, and her lips parted in a smile which was no smile.

"Forget it! That is a strange speech, Bernard. Have I the power to beckon to those hills yonder, and bid them bow their everlasting heads? Can I put back the hand of time, and live my life over again? Even so futile is my power over memory. It is my penance, and I pray day and night for strength to bear it."

Her voice died away with a little break, and there was silence. Soon she spoke again.

"Tell me—something about her, Bernard."

His face changed, but it was only a passing glow, almost as though one of those long level rays of sunlight had glanced for a moment across his features.

"She is good and beautiful, and all that a woman should be," he whispered.

"Does she know?"

He shook his head.

"She trusts me."

"Then you will be happy?" she asked eagerly. "Happy even if the worst come! Time will wipe out the memory."

He turned away with a dull sickening pain at his heart. The worst he had not told her. How could he? How could he add another to her sorrows by telling her of the peril in which he stood? How could he tell her what he suspected to be true—that in that quiet little Italian town English detectives were watching his every movement, and that at any moment he might be arrested? With her joyless life, and with this new misery closing around her, would it not be well for her to die?

"It is farewell between us now, Bernard, then?" she said softly. "God grant that you may be going back to a new and happier life. May I, who have failed so utterly, give you just one word of advice?"

He bowed his head, for just then he could not have spoken. She raised herself a little upon her couch, and felt for his hand.

"Bernard, you are not as your father was," she said; "yet you, too, have something of the student in you. Don't think that I am going to say anything against learning and culture. It is a grand thing for a man to devote himself to; but, like everything else, in excess it has its dangers. Sometimes it makes a man gloomy and reserved, and averse to all change and society, and intolerant toward others. Bernard, it is bad for his wife then. A woman sets so much store by little things—her happiness is bound up in them. She is very, very human, and she wants to be loved, and considered, and feel herself a great part in her husband's life and thoughts. And if it is all denied to her, what is she to do? Of necessity she must be miserable. A man should never let his wife feel that she is shut out from any one of his great interests. He should never let those little mutual ties which once held them together grow weak, and fancy because he is living amongst the ghosts of great thoughts that little human responsibilities have no claim upon him. Bernard, you will remember all this!"

"Every word, mother," he answered. "Helen would thank you if she had been here."

A horn sounded from outside, and he drew out his watch hastily.

"The diligence, mother!" he exclaimed; "I must go."

He took her frail form up into his arms, and kissed her.

"If all goes well," he said in a low tone, "I will bring her to you."

"If she will come, I shall die happy," she murmured. "But not against her will or without knowing all. Farewell!"

That night three men were racing home to England as fast as express train and steamer could bear them. One was Bernard Maddison, another Mr. Benjamin Levy, and the third his artist friend.



CHAPTER XXXIII

VISITORS FOR MR. BERNARD MADDISON

In an ordinary case, with three men starting from a given point in North Italy at the same time, the odds seem in favor of their all reaching their destination at the same time. As it happened, however, there was another factor to be considered, which had its due result. Bernard Maddison was rather more at home on Continental railroads than he was on English ones, whereas neither of the other two had ever before left their own country save under the wing of "Cook." The consequence was that by the aid of sundry little man[oe]uvres, which completely puzzled his would-be companions, Bernard Maddison stood on the platform of Waterloo while they were still in the throes of seasickness. As a further consequence two telegrams were dispatched from Ostend, and were duly delivered in England. The first was from Benjamin Levy to his father.

"Meet all boat trains at Waterloo, and try to recognize B. M. King will do to shadow. Ascertain Miss Thurwell's address. Home early to-morrow."

The second was from his acquaintance, the artist, to Scotland Yard.

"Bernard Maddison ahead of us. Meet all trains. Tall, dark, thin, pale, brown check traveling ulster. Photograph for sale in Regent Street if can get to shop."

Both telegrams were conscientiously attended to, and when Bernard Maddison drove out of the station his hansom was followed by two others. There was nothing very suspicious about his movements. First of all he was set down at his club, which meant a wait of an hour and a half for his watchers. At the end of that time he reappeared with all the traces of his journey effaced, and in a fresh suit of clothes, carrying now a smaller portmanteau. He lit a cigarette, and sent for a hansom. This time he was set down at King's Cross, and took a ticket for a small town on the Yorkshire coast. Hereupon the employee of Messrs. Levy & Son retired, having ascertained all that he was required to ascertain. The other myrmidon, however, having dispatched his subordinate to headquarters with particulars of his destination, took up the chase.

It was late in the afternoon before they reached their journey's end, but Bernard Maddison was quite unconscious of any fatigue, and marching straight out of the station, turned toward Mallory. The man who was following him, however, hired a carriage, and drove down to the hotel. He knew quite well where the other was going to, and as nothing could be done that night, he determined to enjoy as much as he could of his seaside trip, and, after making up for his day's fasting by a satisfactory tea, he spent the evening on the jetty listening to the town brass band.

* * * * *

That was a strange walk for Bernard Maddison. Two sensations were struggling within him for the mastery, fear and despair at the terrible crisis which seemed to yawn before his feet, and that sweet revolution of feeling, that intense, yearning love, which had suddenly thrown a golden halo over his cold barren life. But as he left the road and took the moorland path along the cliff, the battle suddenly came to an end. Before him stretched the open moor, brilliant with coloring, with dark flushes of purple, and bright streaks of yellow gorse, and the sunlight glancing upon the hills. There was the pleasant murmuring of the sea in his ears, a glistening, dancing, silver sea, the blue sky above, and the fresh strong breeze full of vigorous, bracing life. Something of a glad recklessness stole over him and lightened his heart. This was no scene, no hour for sad thoughts. Where was the philosophy of nursing such, of giving them a home even for a moment? Joy and sorrow, what were they but abstract states of the mind? Let him wait until the ashes were between his teeth. The future and the past no man could command, but the present was his own. He would claim it. He would drink deep of the joy which lay before him.

And as he walked on over the soft springy turf, with the tall chimneys of Thurwell Court in the valley before him, life leaped madly through his veins, and a deep joy held memory in a torpor, and filled his heart with gladness. The whole passionate side of his nature had been suddenly quickened into life by his surroundings, and by the thought that down yonder the woman whom he loved was waiting for him. Once again, come what may, he would hold her in his arms and hear her voice tremble with joy at his return. Once more he would hold her face up to his, and look into her dim, soft eyes, full of that glowing lovelight which none can fail to read. Once again he would drink deep of this delicious happiness, a long sweet draught, and if life ended after that moment he would at least have touched the limits of all earthly joys.

And suddenly he stood face to face with her. He had passed Falcon's Nest, dismantled and desolate, with scarcely a careless glance, and had entered the long pine grove which fringed the cliff side. Already he was close to the spot where they had stood once before, and with all the subtle sweetness of those memories stealing in upon him he had turned aside to look through the tree tops down into the sea, as they had done together. Thus he was standing when he heard light firm footsteps close at hand, and a little surprised cry which rang in his ears like music, for it was her voice.

They stood face to face, their hands clasped. In that first moment of tremulous joy neither of them spoke. Each was struggling for realization, for even an inward expression of the ecstasy of this meeting. For them there was a new glory in the sunny heavens, a new beauty in the glistening sea and the softly waving pine trees, even in the air they breathed. The intensity of this joy filled their hearts, their fancy, their imagination. Everything was crowned with a soft golden light; new springs of feeling leaped up within them, bringing glowing revelations of such delight as mocked expression. For them only at that moment the sun shone, and the summer winds whispered in the trees, and the birds sang. The world was theirs, or rather a new one of their own creation. The past and the future emptied their joys into the overflowing bowl of the present. Life stood still for them. There was no horizon, no background. Oh, it is a great thing, the greatest thing upon this earth, to love and be loved!

Each dreaded speech. It seemed as though a single word must drag them down from a new heaven to an old earth. Yet those murmured passionate words of his, as he drew her softly into his arms, and her head sank upon his shoulder—they were scarcely words. And then again there was silence.

It lasted long. It seemed to him that it might have lasted forever. But the sun went down behind the hills, and a dusky twilight stole down upon the earth. Then she spoke.

"My love, my love! you must listen to me. I have a confession to make."

"A confession? You!" he echoed.

Her cheeks burned with a fire which seemed to her like the fire of shame. Her tongue seemed hung with sudden weights. She had doubted him. The hideousness of it oppressed her like a nightmare; yet her voice did not falter.

"You remember those dying words of Rachel Kynaston?"

"I have never forgotten them," he answered simply.

"They laid a charge upon me. I told myself that it was a sacred charge. Listen, my love—listen, and hate me! I have been to detectives. I paid them money to hunt you down; I have done this, I who love you. No, don't draw your arms away. I have done this. It was before I knew. Oh, I have suffered! God! how I have suffered! It has been an agony to me. You will forgive me! I will not let you go unless you forgive me."

He looked down at her in silence. His cheeks were pale and his eyes were grave. Yet there was no anger.

"I will forgive you, Helen," he whispered—"nay, there is nothing to forgive. Only tell me this: you do not doubt me now?"

"Never again!" she cried passionately. "God forgive me that I have ever doubted you! It is like a horrible dream to me; but it lies far behind, and the morning has come."

He kissed her once more and opened his arms. With a low happy laugh she shook her tumbled hair straight, and hand in hand they walked slowly away.

"You have been long gone," she whispered reproachfully.

He sighed as he answered her. How long might not his next absence be!

"It has seemed as long to me as to you, sweetheart," he said. "Every moment away from you I have counted as a lost moment in my life."

"That is very pretty," she answered. "And now you are here, are you going to stay?"

"Until the end," he said solemnly. "You know, Helen, that I am in deadly peril. The means of averting it which I went abroad to seek, I could not use."

She thought of those letters, bought and safely burnt, and she pressed his fingers. She would tell him of them presently.

"They shall not take you from me, Bernard, now," she said softly. "Kiss me again, dear."

He stooped and took her happy upturned face with its crown of wavy golden hair between his hands, looking fondly down at her. The thought of all that he might so soon lose swept in upon him with a sickening agony, and he turned away with trembling lips and dim eyes.

"God grant that they may not!" he cried passionately. "If it were to come now, how could I bear it to the end?"

They walked on in silence. Then she who had, or thought she had, so much more reason to be hopeful than he, dashed the tears away from her eyes, and talked hopefully. They would not dare to lay a finger upon Bernard Maddison, whatever they might have done to poor Mr. Brown. His great name would protect him from suspicion. And as he listened to her he had not the heart to tell her of the men who had followed him abroad, that he was even then doubtless under surveillance. He let her talk on, and feigned to share her hopefulness.

The time came when they passed into the grounds of the Court, and then she thought of something else which she must say to him.

"We have a visitor, Bernard—only one; but I'm afraid you don't like him."

Something told him who it was. He stopped short in the path.

"Not Sir Allan Beaumerville?"

She nodded.

"Yes. I'm so sorry. He invited himself; and there is something I must tell you about him."

His first instinct was to refuse to go on, but it was gone in a moment, after one glance into Helen's troubled face.

"Don't look so ashamed," he said, smiling faintly. "I'm not afraid of him. What is it you were going to tell me about him?"

"He went out the other day alone, to do some botanizing," she said. "Do you know where I saw him?"

He shook his head.

"No. Where?"

"In your cottage. I saw him sitting at your table, and I saw him come out. He looked terribly troubled, just as though he had found out something."

He seemed in no wise so much disturbed as she had feared.

"It's astonishing how many people are interested in my affairs," he said with grim lightness.

"No one so much as I am," she whispered softly. "Bernard, I must tell you something about papa. I had almost forgotten."

"Yes. Has he been exercising a landlord's privilege, too?"

"Of course not, sir. But, Bernard, people have been talking, and he has heard them, and——"

Her face grew troubled, and he stood still.

"He suspects, too, does he? Then I certainly cannot force him to become my host."

She took hold of both of his hands, and looked up at him pleadingly.

"Don't be stupid, Bernard, dear, please. I didn't say that he suspected. Only people have been talking, and of course it leaves an impression. You must make friends with him, you know. Won't you have something to ask him—some day—perhaps?"

She turned away, blushing a little, and he was conquered.

"Very well, love, I will come then," he said. "Only, please, you must go and tell him directly we get there; and if he would rather not have me for a guest, you must come and let me know. I will sit at no man's table under protest," he added, with a sudden flush of pride.

"He'll be very pleased to have you," she said simply. "A few words from me will be quite enough."

"Your empire extends further than over my heart, I see," he said, laughing. "There is your father coming round from the stables. Suppose we go to him."

They met him face to face in the hall. When he saw who his daughter's companion was he looked for a moment grave. But he had all the courtly instincts of a gentleman of the old school, and though outside he might have acted differently, the man was under his own roof now, and must be treated as a guest. Besides, he had implicit faith in his daughter's judgment. So he held out his hand without hesitation.

"Glad to see you, Mr. Maddison. We began to fear that you had deserted us," he said.

"I have been away longer than I intended," Bernard Maddison answered quietly.

"Of course you dine here," Mr. Thurwell continued, moving away. "You'll find Beaumerville in the library or the smoke room. You know your way about, don't you? My gamekeeper wants to speak to me for a moment. I shan't be long."

He crossed the hall, and entered his own room. Helen slipped her arm through her lover's, and led him away in the opposite direction, down a long passage to the other end of the house.

"Consider yourself highly favored, sir," she said, pausing with her hand upon one of the furthest doors. "You are the only male being, except my father, who has ever been admitted here."

She led him into a daintily furnished morning room, full of all those trifling indications of a woman's constant presence which possesses for the man who loves her a peculiar and almost reverent interest. There was her fancy work lying where she had put it down on the little wicker table, a book with a paper knife in it, one of his own; by its side an open piano, with a little pile of songs on the stool, and a sleek dachshund blinking up at them from the hearthrug. The appointments of the room were simple enough, and yet everything seemed to speak of a culture, a refinement, and withal a dainty feminine charm which appealed to him both as an artist and a lover. She drew an easy chair to the fire, and when he was seated, came and stood over him.

"I expect you to like my room, sir," she said softly. "Do you?"

"It is like you," he answered; "it is perfect."

They were together for half an hour, and then the dressing bell sounded. She jumped up at once from her little low chair by his side.

"I must go and give orders about your room," she said. "Of course you will stop with us. I have made up my mind where to put you. Roberts shall come and take you to your room in a few moments."

"Dressing will be a farce for me," he remarked. "I have no clothes."

"Oh, we'll forgive you," she laughed. "Of course you were too anxious to get here to think about clothes. That was quite as it should be. Good-by! Don't be dull."

He was alone only for a few minutes. Then a servant knocked at the door and took him to his room. He looked around him, and saw more evidences of her care for him. In the sitting room, which opened on one side, was a great bowl of freshly cut flowers, a pile of new books, and a photograph of herself. The rooms were the finest in the house. The oak paneled walls were hung with tapestry, and every piece of furniture was an antique curiosity. It was a bedchamber for a prince, and indeed a royal prince had once slept in the quaint high four-poster with its carved oak pillars and ancient hangings.

To Bernard Maddison, as he strolled round and examined his surroundings, it all seemed like a dream—so delightful, that awakening was a thing to be dreaded indeed. The loud ringing of the second bell, however, soon brought him back to the immediate present. He hastily made such alterations in his toilet as were possible, and descended. In the hall he met Helen, who had changed her dress for a soft cream-colored dinner gown, and was waiting for him.

"Do you like your room?" she asked.

"Like it? It is perfect," he answered quietly. "I had no idea that Thurwell was so old. I like you, too," he added, glancing approvingly at her and taking her hand.

"No time for compliments, sir," she said, laughing. "We must go into the drawing-room; Sir Allan is there alone."

He followed her across the hall, and entered the room with her. Sir Allan, with his back to them, was seated at the piano, softly playing an air of Chopin's to himself. At the sound of the opening door, he turned round.

"Sir Allan, you see we have found another visitor to take pity on us," Helen said. "You know Mr. Maddison, don't you?"

The music, which Sir Allan had been continuing with his right hand, came to a sudden end, and for the space of a few seconds he remained perfectly motionless. Then he rose and bowed slightly.

"I have that pleasure," he said quietly. "Mr. Maddison is a neighbor of yours, is he not? I met him, you know, on a certain very melancholy occasion."

"Will you go on playing?" she asked, sinking down on a low settee; "we should like to listen."

He sat down again, and with half-closed eyes recommenced the air. Helen and Bernard Maddison, sitting side by side, spoke every now and then to one another in a low tone. There was no general conversation until Mr. Thurwell entered, and then dinner was announced almost immediately.

There was no lack of conversation then. At first it had lain chiefly between Mr. Thurwell and Sir Allan Beaumerville, but catching a somewhat anxious glance from Helen, her lover suddenly threw off his silence. "When Maddison talks," one of his admirers had once said, "everyone else listens"; and if that was not quite so in the present case, it was simply because he had the art of drawing whoever he chose into the conversation, and making them appear far greater sharers in it than they really were. What was in truth a monologue seemed to be a brilliantly sustained conversation, in which Maddison himself was at once the promoter and the background. On his part there was not a single faulty phrase or unmusical expression. Every idea he sprang upon them was clothed in picturesque garb, and artistically conceived. It was the outpouring of a richly stored, cultured mind—the perfect expression of perfect matter.

The talk had drifted toward Italy, and the art of the Renaissance. Mr. Thurwell had made some remark upon the picturesque beauties of some of the lesser-known towns in the north, and Bernard Maddison had taken up the theme with a new enthusiasm.

"I am but just come back from such a one," he said. "I wonder if I could describe it."

And he did describe it. He told them of the crumbling palaces, beautiful in their perfect Venetian architecture, but still more beautiful now in their slow, grand decay, in which was all the majesty of deep repose teeming with suggestions of past glories. He spoke of the still, clear air, the delicate tints of the softened landscape, the dark cool green of the olive trees, the green vineyards, and the dim blue hills. He tried to make them understand the sweet silence, the pastoral simplicity of the surrounding country, delicate and airy when the faint sunlight of early morning lay across its valleys and sloping vineyards, rich and drowsy and languorous when the full glow of midday or the scented darkness of the starlit night succeeded. Then he passed on to speak of that garden—the fairest wilderness it was possible to conceive—where the violets grew like weeds upon the moss-grown paths, and brilliant patches of wild geraniums mingled their perfume with the creamy clematis run wild, and the clustering japonica.

"She who lives there," he went on more slowly, turning from Helen toward Sir Allan, "is in perfect accord with everything that is sweet and stately and picturesque in her surroundings. I see her now as she met me in the garden, and stretched out her hands to greet me. It is the face, the form of a martyr and an angel. She is tall, and her garb is one of stately simplicity. Her hair is white as snow, and the lines of her face are wasted with sorrow and physical decay. Yet there is sweetness and softness and light in her worn features—aye, and more almost than a human being's share of that exquisite spirituality which is the reward only of those who have triumphed over pain and suffering and sin. Guido would have given the world for such a face. Little does an artist think at what cost such an expression is won. Through the fires of shame and bitter wrong, of humiliation and heart-shattering agony, the human cross has fallen away, and the gold of her nature shines pure and refined. God grant to those who have wronged her, those at whose door her sin lies, as happy a deathbed as hers will be. Sir Allan, I am boring you, I fear. We will change the subject."

"Not at all. I have been—very interested," Sir Allan answered in a low tone, pouring himself out a glass of wine, and raising it to lips as white as the camellia in his buttonhole.

"We are all interested," Helen said softly. "Did you stay with her?"

"For three days," he answered. "Then, because I could not bring myself to tell her the news which I had gone all that way to impart, I came away."

There was a moment's silence. A servant who had just entered the room whispered in Mr. Thurwell's ear.

"Two gentlemen wish to speak to you, Mr. Maddison," he said, repeating the message. "Where have you shown them, Roberts?—in the library?"

"I wished to do so, sir," the man replied, "but——"

He glanced over his shoulder. Every one looked toward the door. Just outside were two dark figures. To three people at the table the truth came like a flash.

Sir Allan sat quite still, with his eyes fixed upon Bernard Maddison, who had risen to his feet, pale as death, with rigidly compressed lips, and nervously grasping his napkin. Helen, too, had risen, with a look of horror in her white face, and her eyes fastened upon her lover. Mr. Thurwell looked from one to the other, not comprehending the situation. The whole scene, the glittering table laden with flowers and wine, the wondering servant, the attitude and faces of the four people, and the dark figures outside, would have made a marvelous tableau.

Suddenly the silence was broken by a low agonized cry. Helen had thrown her arms with a sudden impulsive gesture around her lover's neck.

"My love, my love!" she cried, "it is I who have done this thing. They shall not take you from me—they shall not!"



CHAPTER XXXIV

ARRESTED

As is often the case, the person most concerned in the culmination of this scene was apparently the least agitated, and the first to recover his self-possession. Gently loosening Helen's arms from around him, Bernard Maddison walked steadily toward the door, and confronted his visitors. One was his fellow-passenger from London, the other a tall, wiry-looking man, who was standing with his hat under his arm, and his hands in the pocket of a long traveling coat.

"I am Bernard Maddison," he said quietly. "What is your business with me?"

"I am sorry, sir, that it is rather unpleasant," the man answered, lowering his voice. "It is my duty to arrest you under this warrant, charging you with the murder of Sir Geoffrey Kynaston on the 12th of August last year. Please do not make any answer to the charge, as anything that is now said by you or anyone present, in connection with it, can be used in evidence against you."

"I am ready to go with you at once," he answered. "The sooner we get away the better. I have no luggage here, so I do not need to make any preparations."

He felt a hand on his arm, and turned round. Mr. Thurwell had recovered from his first stupefaction, and had come to his side. Close behind him, Sir Allan Beaumerville was standing, pale as death, and with a curious glitter in his eyes.

"Maddison, what is this?" Mr. Thurwell asked gravely.

"I am arrested on a charge of murdering Sir Geoffrey Kynaston at your shooting party last year," Bernard Maddison answered quietly. "I make no reply to the charge, save that I am not guilty. I am sorry that this should have occurred at your house. Had I received any intimation of it, I would not have come here. As it is, I can only express my regret."

Although in some respects a plain man, there was a certain innate dignity of carriage and deportment which always distinguished Bernard Maddison among other men. Never had it been more apparent than at that moment. There was unconscious hauteur in his manner of meeting this awful charge, in his tone, and in the perfect calm of his demeanor, which was more powerful than any vehement protestations could have been. Mr. Thurwell had long had his doubts, and very uneasy doubts, concerning this matter, but at that moment he felt ashamed of them. He made up his mind on impulse, but what he said he meant and adhered to.

"I believe you, Mr. Maddison," he said cordially, holding out his hand. "I think that the charge is absurd. In any case, please reckon me amongst your friends. If there is no one else whom you would prefer to see, I will go and get Dewes down from town in the morning."

For the first time Bernard Maddison showed some slight sign of emotion. He took Mr. Thurwell's hand, but did not speak for a moment. Then, as they stood there in a little group, Helen glided up to them with a faint smile on her lips, and a strange look in her white face.

"Father," she said, "thank God for those words!"

Then she turned to her lover, and gave him both her hands, looking up at him through a mist of tears, but still with that ghostly smile upon her parted lips.

"Bernard," she said softly, "you know that I have no doubts. You must go now, but it will not be for long. You will come back to us, and we shall be glad to see you. You need not trouble about me. See, I am quite calm. It is because I have no fear."

He stooped and kissed her hands, but she held up her face.

"Kiss me, Bernard," she said softly. "Father," she added, turning half round toward him, "I love him. We should have told you everything to-morrow."

Mr. Thurwell bowed his head, and turned away to speak to the detectives, who had remained discreetly outside the door. Sir Allan returned to his seat, and poured himself out a glass of wine. For a moment they were all alone, and he held her hands tightly.

"This will all come right, love," she whispered softly; "and it will make no difference, will it? Promise me that when it is over you will come straight to me. Promise me that, and I will be brave. If you do not, I shall break my heart."

"Then I promise it," he answered, with a slight tremble in his voice.

But looking at him anxiously, she was not satisfied. His white face, firm and resolute though it was, had a certain despair in it which chilled her. The hopefulness of her words seemed to have found no echo in his heart.

"Dearest," she whispered, "it will all come right."

His expression changed, but the effort of it was visible. His smile was forced, and his words, light though they were, troubled her.

"We must hope so. Nay, it will come right, dear. Wish me good-by now, or rather, au revoir. My guardians will be getting impatient."

They were virtually alone, and he drew from her lips one long, passionate kiss. Then, with a few cheerful words, he turned resolutely away. Mr. Thurwell, who had been waiting outside, came to him at once.

"The brougham is at the door," he said, with an anxious glance at Helen, who was leaning back against a chair, her hands locked in one another, ghastly pale, and evidently on the point of fainting. "These men have only an open trap, and it is a cold drive across the moor. To-morrow you go to York to be brought before the magistrates. I shall be there."

"You are very good," Bernard Maddison said earnestly; "but, so far as defence is concerned, I will have no lawyer's aid. What little there is to be said, I will say myself."

Mr. Thurwell shook his head.

"It does not do," he said. "But there will be time to consider that. The magistrates will be sure to commit you for trial. They must have evidence enough for that, or Mr. Malcolm would never have signed the warrant against anyone in your position."

"I am quite prepared for that," he answered. "Let us go."

They left the room at once. Helen had fainted in her chair. Sir Allan Beaumerville had apparently disappeared.

They stood on the doorstep for a moment while the carriage, which had been driven a little way down the avenue to quiet the mettlesome horses, returned, and Mr. Thurwell spoke a few more encouraging words.

"Jenkins has packed some things of mine, which may be useful to you, in a portmanteau," he said. "You will find it in the carriage, and also an ulster. Keep up your spirits, Maddison. All will be well."

"At any rate, I shall never forget your kindness," Bernard Maddison answered, grasping his hand. "Good-by, Mr. Thurwell!"

"Good night, Maddison, good night! I shall see you to-morrow."

The impatient horses leaped forward, and Mr. Thurwell turned back into the hall, and made his way back into the dining room. Helen had recovered sufficiently to be able to go to her room, he was told. Sir Allan was still sitting at the table, quietly sipping a cup of coffee. His legs were crossed, and he was smoking one of his favorite Egyptian cigarettes.

"Has he gone?" he said, looking round languidly.

Mr. Thurwell frowned. He was a man of somewhat imperturbable manners himself, but he was far from being unfeeling, and Sir Allan's silence and non-expression of any sympathy toward Bernard Maddison annoyed him not a little.

"Yes, he's gone," he answered shortly. "I can't believe that there's the slightest vestige of truth in that ridiculous charge. The man is innocent; I'm sure of it."

Sir Allan shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't believe he's guilty myself," he answered; "but one never knows."



CHAPTER XXXV

COMMITTED FOR TRIAL

Early on the following morning Mr. Thurwell ordered his dog cart, and drove into Mallory. The arrest of Bernard Maddison had been kept quite secret, and nothing was known as yet of the news which was soon to throw the little town into a state of great excitement. But in the immediate vicinity of the courthouse there was already some stir. The lord lieutenant's carriage was drawn up outside, and there was an unusual muster of magistrates. As a rule the cases brought before their jurisdiction were trivial in the extreme, consisting chiefly of drunkenness, varied by an occasional petty assault. There was scarcely one of them who remembered having sat upon so serious a charge. Lord Lathon came over to Mr. Thurwell directly he entered the retiring room.

"You have heard of this matter, I suppose?" he inquired, as they shook hands.

"Yes," Mr. Thurwell answered gravely. "He was arrested at my house last night."

"I can't believe the thing possible," Lord Lathon continued. "Still, from what I hear, we shall certainly have to send it for trial."

"I am afraid you will," Mr. Thurwell answered. "I shall not sit myself; I am prejudiced."

"In his favor or the reverse?" his lordship inquired.

"In his favor, decidedly," Mr. Thurwell answered, passing out behind the others, and taking a seat in the body of the room.

The general impatience was doomed to be aggravated. The first prisoner was an old man charged with assaulting his wife. The bench listened for a few minutes to her garrulous tale, and managed to gather from it that a caution from their worships was what she chiefly desired. Having arrived at this point, Lord Lathon ruthlessly stopped her, and dismissed the case, with a few stern words to the elderly reprobate, who departed muttering threats against his better half which, for her bodily comfort, it is to be hoped that he did not put into execution.

Then there was a few minutes' expectation, at the conclusion of which Bernard Maddison was brought in between two policemen, very calm and self-possessed, but very pale. Directly he appeared Mr. Thurwell rose and shook hands with him, a friendly demonstration which brought a faint glow into his cheeks.

He was offered a chair, and the services of the solicitor of the place, the latter of which he declined. Then the chief constable, a little flurried and nervous at the unwonted importance of his office, rose, and addressed the bench.

The case against the prisoner was, he said, still altogether incomplete, and he had only one witness, whose evidence, however, he felt sure, would be such as to justify their sending the matter to be decided before a judicial tribunal. No doubt they all remembered the painful circumstances of Sir Geoffrey Kynaston's death, and the mystery with which it was surrounded. That death took place within a stone's throw of the cottage where the prisoner was then living, under an assumed name, and more than three miles away from any other dwelling place or refuge of any sort. He reminded them of the speedy search that had been made, and its extraordinary non-success. Under those circumstances a certain amount of suspicion naturally attached itself to the prisoner, and a search warrant was duly applied for, and duly carried out. At that time nothing suspicious was discovered, owing in some measure, he was bound to say, to the scrupulous delicacy with which the magistrate who had signed it—looking toward Mr. Thurwell—had insisted upon its being carried out. Subsequently, however, and acting upon later information, Detective Robson of Scotland Yard was appointed to look into the case, and the result of his investigation was the issuing of the warrant under which the prisoner stood charged with the murder of Sir Geoffrey Kynaston. Their worships would hear the evidence of Detective Robson, who was now present.

Detective Robson stepped forward, and was sworn. On the 15th of June last, he said, he searched the prisoner's cottage on the Thurwell Court estate. He there found in the secret recess of a cabinet, which had apparently not been opened for some time, a dagger, produced, in a case evidently intended to hold two, and which was an exact facsimile of the one, also produced, with which the murder was committed. He found also a towel, produced, which was stained with blood, and several letters. With regard to the towel, he here added, that in one corner of the room was fixed a small basin, and on the floor just beneath, covered over by a carpet, and bearing several signs of attempted obliteration, was a large blood stain. The woman who had cleaned the cottage prior to Mr. Maddison's occupation, was in court, and would swear that the stain in question was not there at that time. He mentioned these details first, he went on to say, but the more important part of his evidence had reference to these letters, and his subsequent action with regard to them. He would call attention to one of them, he remarked, producing it, and allow the bench to draw their own conclusions. He would read it to them, and they could then examine it for themselves.

The thin rustling sheet of foreign notepaper, which he held in his hand, was covered closely with delicate feminine handwriting, and emitted a faint sweet perfume. For the first time during the hearing of the case Bernard Maddison showed some slight emotion as the letters were handed about. But he restrained it immediately.

The sentence which Detective Robson read out was as follows:—

"Bernard, those who have sinned against their fellow creatures, and against their God, may surely be left to His judgment. The vengeance which seeks to take life is a cruel bloodthirsty passion which no wrong can excuse, no suffering justify. Forgive me if I seem to dwell so much upon this. That terrible oath which, at his bidding, I heard you swear against Sir Geoffrey Kynaston rings ever in my ears!"

There were other sentences of a somewhat similar nature. As Mr. Thurwell listened to them he felt his heart sink. What could avail against such evidence as this?

There was no hesitation at all on the part of the magistrates. Bernard Maddison had pleaded "not guilty," but had declined to say another word. "Anything there is to be said on my behalf," he remarked quietly, in answer to a question from the bench, "I will say myself to the jury before whom I presume you will send me."

While the committal was being made out, Mr. Thurwell leaned over and whispered to him.

"Helen sends her love. I will arrange about the defence, and will try and see you myself before the trial."

"You need send no lawyer to me," he answered. "I shall defend myself."

Mr. Thurwell said no more. He was a little dazed by those letters, but he was not going to allow himself to be influenced by them, for his daughter's sake, as well as his own. He did not like to admit himself in the wrong, and he had made up his mind that this man was innocent. Innocent he must therefore be proved. As to his defending himself, that was all nonsense. He would see to that. Dewes should be instructed.

The committal was read out, and Bernard Maddison was removed from the court. On the following day he was to be taken to York, there to be tried at the forthcoming assizes. Mr. Thurwell bade him keep up his courage in a tone which, though it was intended to be cheerful, was not particularly sanguine. There was but one opinion in the court, and despite all his efforts its influence had a certain effect upon him. But Bernard Maddison never carried himself more proudly than when he bowed to Lord Lathon, and left the court that morning.

At home Helen was eagerly waiting for the news. She had no need to ask, for her father's face was eloquent.

"Is it—very bad?" she whispered.

He looked away from her with a queer feeling in his throat. To see his daughter, who had always been so quiet, and self-contained, and dignified—his princess, he had been used to call her—to see her trembling with nervous fear, was a new and terrible thing to him, and to be able to offer her no comfort was worse still. But what could he say?

"The evidence was rather bad," he admitted, "and only a portion of it was produced. Still, we must hope for the best."

"Please tell me all about it," she begged, very quietly, but with a look in her white face which made him turn away from her with a groan. But he obeyed, and told her everything. And then there was a long silence.

"How did he look?" she asked, after a while.

"Very pale; but he behaved in a most dignified manner throughout," he told her. "He must be well born. I wonder what or where his people are? I never heard of any of them. Did you?"

She shook her head.

"He told me once that he had no friends, and no relations, and no name save the one which he had made for himself," she said. "I don't know whether he meant that Maddison was not his real name, or whether he meant simply his reputation."

"There must be people in London who know all about him," Mr. Thurwell remarked. "A man of his celebrity can scarcely conceal his family history."

Helen had walked a little away, and was standing before the window, looking out with listless eyes.

"Father, I wonder whether Sir Allan Beaumerville has anything to do with this?" she said. "Has he ever hinted to you that he suspected Mr. Maddison?"

"Certainly not," he answered. "Why do you ask?"

"Because one afternoon last week I saw him come out of Falcon's Nest. It was the afternoon he went botanizing."

Mr. Thurwell shook his head.

"The detective mentioned the date of his visit and search," he said. "It was a month ago."

She wrung her hands, and turned away in despair.

"It must have been through those dreadful people I went to," she sobbed. "Oh, I was mad—mad!"

"I scarcely think that," Mr. Thurwell said thoughtfully. "They would not have kept altogether in the background and let Scotland Yard take the lead, if it had been so. What is it, Roberts?"

The servant had entered bearing an orange-colored envelope on a salver, which he carried towards Helen.

"A telegram for Miss Thurwell, sir," he said.

She took it and tore it open. It was from the Strand, London, and the color streamed into her cheeks as she read it aloud.

"We must see you at once in the interests of B. M. Can you call on us to-morrow morning? Levy & Son."

"When are the assizes at York, father?" she asked quickly.

"In ten days."

"And you are going to London to-day, are you not, to see Dewes?"

"Yes."

"Then I will go with you," she said, crumpling up the telegram in her hand.



CHAPTER XXXVI

MR. LEVY PROMISES TO DO HIS BEST

Once more Mr. Benjamin Levy trod the pavement of Piccadilly and the Strand, and was welcomed back again amongst his set with acclamations and many noisy greetings. One more unit was added to the vast army of London youth who pass their time in the fascinating but ignominious occupation of aping the "man about town" in a very small way. And Benjamin Levy, strange to say, was happy, for the life suited him exactly. He had brains and money enough to be regarded, in a certain measure, as one of their leaders, and to be looked up to as a power amongst them, and it was a weakness of his disposition that he preferred this to being a nonentity of a higher type.

Certain of his particular cronies had organized a small supper at a middle-class restaurant on the previous night in honor of his return, and as a natural consequence Mr. Benjamin Levy walked down the Strand at about half-past ten on the following morning, on his way to the office, a little paler than usual, and with a suspicion of a "head." It would have suited him very much better to have remained in bed for an hour or two, and risen towards afternoon; but business was business, and it must be attended to. So he tried to banish the effects of the bad champagne imbibed on the previous night with a stiff glass of brandy and soda, and lighting a fresh cigarette, turned off the Strand and made his way to the office.

"Guv'nor in?" he inquired of the solitary clerk, a sharp-featured, Jewish-looking young man, who was sitting on a high stool with his hands in his pockets, apparently unburdened with stress of work.

The youth nodded, and jerked his head backwards.

"Something's up!" he remarked laconically; "he's on the rampage."

Mr. Benjamin passed on without remark, and entered the inner office. It was easy indeed to see that something had gone wrong. Mr. Levy was walking restlessly up and down, with a newspaper in his hand, and muttering to himself in a disturbed manner. At his son's entrance he stopped short, and looked at him angrily.

"Benjamin, my boy," he said, rustling the paper before his face, "you've been made a fool of. Scotland Yard have licked us!"

Mr. Benjamin yawned, and tilted his hat on the back of his head.

"What's up now, guv'nor?" he inquired.

His father laid the paper flat on the desk before him, and pointed to one of the paragraphs with trembling fingers.

"Read that! Read that!" he exclaimed.

His obedient son glanced at it, and pushed the paper away in contempt.

"Stale news," he remarked shortly.

Mr. Levy looked at him amazed.

"Maybe you knew all about it," he remarked a little sarcastically.

"May be I did," was the cool reply.

"And yet you have let them be beforehand with us!" Mr. Levy exclaimed angrily. "If this was to be done, why did we not do it?"

"Because we've got a better game to play," answered the junior partner of the firm, with a hardly restrained air of triumph.

Mr. Levy regarded his son with a look of astonishment, which speedily changed into one of admiration.

"Is this true, Benjamin?" he asked. "But—but——"

"But you don't understand," Benjamin interrupted impatiently. "Of course you don't. And you'll have to wait a bit for an explanation, too, for here's the very person I was expecting," he added, raising himself on his stool, and looking out of the window. "Now, father, just you sit quiet, and don't say a word," he went on quickly. "Leave it all to me; I'll pull the thing through."

Mr. Levy had only time to express by a pantomimic sign his entire confidence in his son's diplomacy before Miss Thurwell was announced. She was shown in at once.

"I had your telegram," she began hurriedly. "What does it mean? Can you do anything?"

Mr. Benjamin placed a chair for her, and took up his favorite position on the hearthrug.

"I hope so, Miss Thurwell," he said quietly. "First of all, of course you are aware that Mr. Maddison's arrest was as much of a surprise to us as to any one. We neither had any hand in it, nor should we have dreamed of taking any step of the sort."

"I thought it could not be you," she answered. "How do you think it came about?"

Mr. Levy, junior, shrugged his shoulders.

"Quite in the ordinary course," he answered. "So I should think. The police have never let the matter really drop, and I should imagine that he had been watched for some time. How it came to pass, however, it is not worth while discussing now. The question with you, I presume, is—can he be saved?"

"Yes, that is it," Helen answered quietly, but with deep intensity. "Can he be saved? Do you know anything? Can you help?"

Mr. Benjamin Levy cleared his throat, and appeared to reflect for a moment or two. Then he turned towards Helen, and commenced speaking earnestly.

"Look here, Miss Thurwell," he said, "your interest in this matter is, of course, a personal one. Mine, on the other hand, is naturally a business one. You understand that?"

She nodded.

"Yes, I understand that," she said.

"Let us put it on a business basis, then," he went on. "The question is, what will you give us to get Mr. Maddison off? That's putting it baldly; but we've no time to waste mincing matters."

"I will give you one—two thousand pounds, if you can do it," she said, her voice trembling with eagerness. "Will that be enough?"

"Two thousand five hundred—the five hundred for expenses," Mr. Benjamin said firmly. "Father, make out a paper, and Miss Thurwell will sign it."

"At once," she answered, drawing off her glove. "Mr. Levy, you have some hope! You know something. Tell me about it, please," she begged.

"Miss Thurwell," he said, "at present I can tell you no more than this. I really think that I shall be able in a short time to upset the whole case against Mr. Maddison. I can't tell you more at present. Let me have your address, and you shall hear from me."

She had signed her name to the document which Mr. Levy had drawn up, and she now wrote her address. Mr. Benjamin copied the latter into his pocket-book, and prepared to show his visitor out.

"I really don't think that you need be very anxious, Miss Thurwell," he said hopefully. "At present things look bad enough, but I think that when the time comes, I shall be able to throw a different light upon them."

"Thank you," she answered, dropping her veil. "You will let me know immediately you have definite news?"

"Immediately, Miss Thurwell. You may rely upon that. Good-morning!"

He closed the door after her, and, returning to his seat, scribbled something on a piece of paper. Then he rang the bell.

"Is Morrison about?" he asked the boy.

"Been in and gone. Round at the Golden Sun, if wanted."

"Take him this slip of paper," ordered Benjamin, "and tell him to keep a keen watch on the person whose name and address are there. Understand?"

The boy nodded, and withdrew. Then Mr. Benjamin looked across at his father.

"Well, guv'nor?" he remarked laconically.

"Benjamin," his fond parent replied with enthusiasm, "you are indeed a jewel of a son."

"I think I am," Benjamin replied modestly. "Come out and have a drink."



CHAPTER XXXVII

BERNARD A PRISONER

The arrest and committal of Bernard Maddison on a charge of murder created the most profound sensation in every circle of English society. His work, abstruse and scholarly though some of it was, had appealed to a great reading public, and had made his name like a household word. That long deep cry for a larger and sweeter culture which had been amongst the signs of this troubled generation, had found its most perfect and adequate expression in his works. He had been at once its interpreter and its guide. There were thoughtful men and women, a great mixed class, who, in their own minds, reckoned themselves as his apostles, and acknowledged no other intellectual master. Some were of the highest rank of society, others of the very lowest. It was a literary republic of which he had been the unacknowledged dictator, containing all those whose eyes had been in any way opened, who had felt stirring even faintly within them that instinct of mind-development and expansion to which his work seemed peculiarly fitted to minister. And so, although his career as an apostle of culture had been but a short one, he was already the leader of a school whose tenets it would have been a heresy to modern taste to doubt or question.

The news of this tragical event, therefore, fell like a thunderbolt upon society, eclipsing every other topic in the newspapers, in conversation, and general interest. The first instinct of every one appeared to be to look upon the whole affair as a ludicrous piece of mismanagement on the part of the police, and Scotland Yard came in for a good deal of scathing criticism, as is usual in such cases. But when the evidence before the magistrates was carefully read, and sundry other little matters discussed, men's tongues began to run less glibly. Of course it was impossible that it could be true; and yet the evidence was certainly strong. In the country generally the first impulse of generous disbelief was followed by a period of pained and reserved expectancy. In clubdom, where neither fear of the devil nor love of God had yet been able to keep the modern man of the world from discussing freely any subject interesting to him, a gradual but sure reaction against the possibilities of his innocence set in.

There were plenty of men about still who remembered Sir Geoffrey Kynaston, and the peculiar manner of his life. During his long absence from England there had been many rumors about, concerning its reason, and now these were all suddenly revived. The breach of a certain commandment, a duel at Boulogne, and many other similar adventures were freely spoken of. After all, this story, improbable though it sounded, was far from impossible. It had always been reckoned a little mysterious that nothing whatever had been known of Bernard Maddison's antecedents, great though had been his fame, and assiduous his interviewers. As all these things began slowly to fit themselves together, men commenced to look grave, and to avoid the subject in the presence of their woman-kind, who were one and all unswerving in their loyalty to that dear, delightful Bernard Maddison, who had written those exquisite books. But in the smoking-room and among themselves views were gradually adopted which it would have been heresy to avow in the drawing-room.

No man appeared to take less interest in the event and the discussion of it than Sir Allan Beaumerville. Known generally amongst his acquaintances as a cynic and pessimist, men were pretty sure what his opinion would be. But he never expressed it. Whenever he strolled up to any group in the smoking-room or library of the club, and found them discussing the Maddison murder case, he turned on his heel and walked another way. If it were broached in his presence it was the signal for his retirement, and any question concerning it he refused point-blank to answer. Gradually the idea sprang up, and began to circulate, that Sir Allan Beaumerville had formed an idea of his own concerning the Maddison murder, and that it was one which he intended to keep to himself. Every one was curious about it, but in the face of his reticence, no one cared to ask him what it was.

* * * * *

A plain whitewashed cell, with high bare walls and tiny window, through which the sunlight could only struggle faintly. Only one article of furniture which could justly be called such, a rude wooden bedstead, and seated on its end with folded arms and bent head, like a man in some sort of stupor, sat Bernard Maddison.

He was in that most pitiable of all states, when merciless realization had driven before it all apathy, all lingering hope, all save that deadly cold sea of absolute, unutterable despair. There had been moments on his first arrival here, when he had fallen into a dozing sleep, and had leaped up from his hard bed, and had stretched up his hands above his head, and had called out in agony that it must be a dream, a hideous nightmare from which he would awaken only to look back upon it with horror. And then his glazed, fearful eyes had slowly taken in his surroundings—the stone walls, the cold floor, the barred window—and pitiless memory had dragged back his thoughts amongst the vivid horrors of the last forty-eight hours. It was all there, written in letters of fire. He shrunk back upon his mattress and buried his face in his hands, whilst every instinct of manliness fought against the sobs which seemed as though they would rend to pieces his very frame.

Once more the morning light had come, and the burning agony of the hours of darkness was exchanged for the cold, crushing despair of the weary day. They had brought his breakfast, which he had loathed and left untasted. And then, as he sat there, so worn out with physical and mental exhaustion, something of a dull miserable apathy acted like opium on his wearied nerves and brain. He sat there thinking.

The great passions of the world are either our sweetest happiness or our most utter misery. Not unfrequently the one becomes the other. Circumstances may change, but the force remains, sometimes, after yielding us the most exquisite pleasure, to lash us with scorpion-like whips. The love of Bernard Maddison had thrilled through heart and soul—it had become not a thing of his life, but his whole life. Every impulse and passion of his being had yielded itself up to it. Ambition, intellectual visions, imaginative fancies, all these had been not indeed driven out by this passion, but more fatal still, they had opened their arms to receive it, they had bidden it welcome, and heart and brain and imagination had glowed with a new significance and a new-born power. A lesser love would have had a lesser effect; it would have made rivals of these other parts of himself. Not so the love of Bernard Maddison. Every fiber of his deep, strong nature was strengthened and beautified by this new-kindled fire. At that moment, had he been free to write, he would have been conscious of a capacity beyond any which he had ever before possessed. For a great nature is perfected by a great love, as the blossoms of spring by the April showers and May sun. The dry dust of scholarship sometimes chokes up the well of fancy. The perfect humanity of love acts like a sweet, quickening impulse upon it, breathing sweet soft life into dry images, and rich coloring into pallid visions. Such love, which is at once spiritual and passionate, of heaven and of the earth, absorbing and concentrative, widening and narrowing, is to a man's nature, if he be strong enough to conceive and appreciate it, the very food, the essence of sublimated life.

To Bernard Maddison it had been so. To its very depths he realized it as he sat in his prison cell with something of the deep passive resignation of the man who stands with one foot in the grave. The latter part of his life—nay, the whole of it—had been full of noble dreams and pure thoughts. His genius had never run riot over the whole face of nature, to yield its fruits in a sickly sweet realism with only faint flashes of his deeper power. Always subordinated by the innate and cultured healthiness of his mind, he had sent it forth a living power for good. Great joy had been his as he had watched his message to the world listened to, and understood, and appreciated. Another age might witness its fruits, it was sufficient for him that the seed was rightly planted.