The girl put her handkerchief to her eyes. "I'm afraid I don't understand," she said. "It all seems so mysterious. I only know that, one after another, you all seem to go the same way."

Lord Henry sighed. "Come," he said, offering her his arm again; "let me make myself clear to you."

But she was too convulsed with sobs to move. The situation was certainly difficult.

He waited, and looked for a while away from her.

"Besides," she cried at last, "you don't really know what I wanted to do, otherwise—otherwise—Oh! it's too dreadful!"

He swung round. "I know everything," he rejoined.

"You can't really want to keep me beside you then."

He smiled sadly. "And why not, in all conscience!"

She wiped her eyes quickly and frowned darkly at him.

"Lord Henry, are you fooling me?" she ejaculated. "Don't you know that a moment ago I was intent only on one thing, and that was——"

She choked and could go no further.

He walked up to her and laid a hand on her arm. "I tell you I know everything," he repeated.

"You pretend that you know," she sneered.

He smiled and bowed his head. "If you mean," he suggested, "that two hours ago you were firing from that ambush with the definite intention of doing Leonetta some mortal injury, I need hardly say——"

"Yes," she said fiercely, "I do mean that."

"Of course I knew that," he observed. "Don't imagine I had any doubt about that. When I first came up to you I was convinced of it. What else could you have been doing?"

She scrutinised him intently. "Well, then?" she stammered.

"If only you will be good enough to walk back to the inn with me," he said, again offering her his arm, "I'll explain everything to you."

"All right, walk on!" she said, declining his proffered assistance.

And then, as they walked, he began to unfold to her his reasons for his behaviour with Leonetta in the woods that morning. He explained how he had reckoned that he would be back in time to tell her first, and that had it not been for the fury of Denis's indignation, he would certainly have succeeded.

They reached the inn and repaired to the bar parlour, and over the frugal meal he continued his explanation. She listened intently, raised an objection from time to time, which he deftly parried, and thus gradually the whole story was made plain to her. She revived visibly under the effects of the refreshment, and the precise and convincing manner of his narrative; and when at last the complete chain of consequence had been revealed to her, he left her very much recovered while he went in search of some vehicle to convey them back to "The Fastness."

In about twenty minutes he returned with a broken-down old brougham—the only vehicle the village possessed,—and in a moment they were rattling away slowly in the direction of Brineweald.

"Then what made you look for me with such anxiety?" she enquired, once they were well on their way. "Why did you guess so positively that something tragic would happen? Why didn't you simply assume that my fainting fits had returned?"

He caught her hand in his.

"My dear Cleo," he replied, "perhaps I am disgustingly arrogant, perhaps I am quite unfit for decent society, but it occurred to me that your fainting fits had been, not the outcome of thwarted passion, but the result of mortified vanity. You never loved Denis. I felt somehow that in this instance, not your vanity alone, but your deepest passions were involved, and that when you would act from thwarted passion, either against yourself, against me, or against Leonetta, you would proceed to violence. Was I wrong? Was I hopelessly vain and foolish to imagine that in this instance, because I was concerned and not Denis, therefore something more tragic was to be expected?"

She looked away and a smile began to dawn on her tortured features.

"What about Baby?" she demanded after a while. "Did you consider her feelings?"

"Did I consider her feelings? How can you ask me that, seeing that I was leaving no stone unturned to save her from the toils of an arch-flappist?"

She almost laughed.

"But didn't you go unnecessarily far with the poor kid?"

"Only as far as I was obliged to go to effect my purpose. But do you suppose I am only the second man with whom she has flirted heavily? Do you suppose I am even the sixth? I took care that she should realise that it was only a rag. She is deep and she is passionate. She knows what a good rag is. And she will behave very differently, I can assure you, when she meets the man with whom she feels she cannot play without burning her pretty fingers. She won't accept his first overtures so readily, believe me. She will be too terrified, as all decent women are when they are truly and deeply moved. She won't even yield so very quickly to his repeated overtures. She will realise that the affair is too deep, too committing, too final for that."

"But didn't you kiss her?" Cleopatra enquired.

"Of course I did," replied Lord Henry, chuckling quite heartily now. "But is not a man entitled to kiss his future sister-in-law?"

Two tears rolled slowly down her face, and she fumbled hurriedly for her handkerchief.

"Come, come, my beloved Cleo," he exclaimed, taking her into his arms, "allow me to say that. Allow me to regard that kiss in that light. It makes it so perfectly innocent. Didn't you feel that that is what I was driving at? Oh, how easily I could have prevented all this if only Leonetta hadn't dragged so on the way home!"

And then, as they approached the outskirts of Brineweald, they quickly decided on their plan of action. It was settled that only Mrs. Delarayne, Leonetta, and Stephen should ever know the truth about the accident, and that, even so, Leonetta should not be told until she was sensible enough to see how inevitable and how "natural" it was. Meanwhile, everyone was to believe that Lord Henry had made a fool of himself,—a fact which, as both he and Cleopatra knew, would afford infinite satisfaction to Miss Mallowcoid, Denis, and the baronet.

* * * * *

Two months later, at about half-past eleven on a drizzly October morning, there was a small and fashionable-looking crowd assembled near the edge of one of the quays at the East India docks, and as the huge Oriental liner moved slowly out into the Thames, five people on its upper deck waved frantically towards this group. They were Cleopatra, Lord Henry, the Tribes, and young Stephen Fearwell.

Again and again Lord Henry waved his hat, and again and again, in the interval of putting it to her eyes, Mrs. Delarayne waved her tiny lace handkerchief back at him.

He noticed that the brave woman was surviving wonderfully the strain of losing for a while the beloved son that she had at last found; but as he turned to call Cleopatra's attention to this, he found that he was obliged to suppress the intended remark for fear of making an ass of himself.

The gigantic steamer grew smaller and smaller, the group on the quay still waved and waved, and then, at last, nothing more could be seen of the travellers.

"Is it a trying journey to China?" Leonetta asked of Aubrey St. Maur, jerking her arm which was enlocked in his, as they turned away from the sight of the oily harbour water.

"Hush!" said St. Maur, glancing ominously at Mrs. Delarayne, who was staggering along between Sir Joseph and Agatha Fearwell's father. "Poor Peachy seems very much upset, doesn't she?"

"Yes, you see," Leonetta replied, "Henry always was her star turn."



VISITORS BY NIGHT[2]

At that deep hour 'twixt midnight and the dawn, When silence and the darkness strive in vain For mastery, and Morpheus hath withdrawn His friendly ward, not to return again; Lo! Fancy's two-winged doorway wide doth yawn And uninvited guests arrive amain. A fateful suite they hover into sight— They are the soul's dread visitors by night.

First come brave Resolutions unfulfilled; With each his spouse, Ambition unattained. They have the furtive look of conscience skilled In palliating failures unexplained. Their lips are meek with pride that hath been killed And confidence that hath in sickness waned. Oh, steel thy heart, thou hapless, sleepless wight, Against these cheerless visitors by night.

Then come thy throng of petty sins and great, Their sordid secrets branded on their brow. Still apprehensive of their darksome fate And craving safe concealment as they bow. What faithfulness they have to come so late When thou hadst half-forgotten them by now. Oh, for a virtue great enough to affright This ugly brood of visitors by night.

But these are not the worst; there cometh last A green-clad lady, viperish and ill. Her bitter lips she biteth and right fast She grappleth with what spirit thou hast still. Her poisoned words transfix thee till aghast Thou marvellest such aching doth not kill. Her name is Jealousy, thou wretched wight; The cruellest of visitors by night.

Then Fancy's two-winged doorway slow doth close. The birds begin to twitter and to sing. All nature waketh and on pointed toes Young truant Morpheus stealeth gently in. Oh, happiness of reinstalled repose, And balsam for thy cold and sweated skin! 'Twas worse than all the nightmares, blessed wight; This vigil with these visitors by night.

[Footnote 2: First published in The New Age, October 23, 1919.]

THE END