← catalogue

The Swindler and Other Stories

by Ethel M. Dell · English · Gutenberg #18644 · 571,894 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Swindler and Other Stories
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: The Swindler and Other Stories

Author: Ethel M. Dell


        
Release date: June 21, 2006 [eBook #18644]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18644

Credits: E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SWINDLER AND OTHER STORIES ***


E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg
Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/)



THE SWINDLER AND OTHER STORIES

by

ETHEL M. DELL

Author of the Hundredth Chance, Etc.







Grosset & Dunlap Publishers New York
Made in the United States of America

This edition is issued under arrangement with the publishers
G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London
The Knickerbocker Press, New York

The stories contained in this volume were originally published in the
_Red Magazine_.




CONTENTS


The Swindler

The Swindler's Handicap

The Nonentity

Her Hero

The Example

The Friend who Stood By

The Right Man

The Knight-Errant

A Question of Trust

Where the Heart Is




       *       *       *       *       *




                             The Swindler


"When you come to reflect that there are only a few planks between you
and the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, it makes you feel sort of
pensive."

"I beg your pardon?"

The stranger, smoking his cigarette in the lee of the deck-cabins,
turned his head sharply in the direction of the voice. He encountered
the wide, unembarrassed gaze of a girl's grey eyes. She had evidently
just come up on deck.

"I beg yours," she rejoined composedly. "I thought at first you were
some one else."

He shrugged his shoulders, and turned away. Quite obviously he was not
disposed to be sociable upon so slender an introduction.

The girl, however, made no move to retreat. She stood thoughtfully
tapping on the boards with the point of her shoe.

"Were you playing cards last night down in the saloon?" she asked
presently.

"I was looking on."

He threw the words over his shoulder, not troubling to turn.

The girl shivered. The morning air was damp and chill.

"You do a good deal of that, Mr.--Mr.--" She paused suggestively.

But the man would not fill in the blank. He smoked on in silence.

The vessel was rolling somewhat heavily, and the splash of the drifting
foam reached them occasionally where they stood. There were no other
ladies in sight. Suddenly the clear, American voice broke through the
man's barrier of silence.

"I know quite well what you are, you know. You may just as well tell me
your name as leave me to find it out for myself."

He looked at her then for the first time, keenly, even critically. His
clean-shaven mouth wore a very curious expression.

"My name is West," he said, after a moment.

She nodded briskly.

"Your professional name, I suppose. You are a professional, of course?"

His eyes continued to watch her narrowly. They were blue eyes,
piercingly, icily blue.

"Why 'of course,' if one may ask?"

She laughed a light, sweet laugh, inexpressibly gay. Cynthia Mortimer
could be charmingly inconsequent when she chose.

"I don't think you are a bit clever, you know," she said. "I knew what
you were directly I saw you standing by the gangway watching the people
coming on board. You looked really professional then, just as if you
didn't care a red cent whether you caught your man or not. I knew you
did care though, and I was ready to dance when I knew you hadn't got
him. Think you'll track him down on our side?"

West turned his eyes once more upon the heaving, grey water, carelessly
flicking the ash from his cigarette.

"I don't think," he said briefly. "I know."

"You--know?" The wide eyes opened wider, but they gathered no
information from the unresponsive profile that smoked the cigarette.
"You know where Mr. Nat Verney is?" she breathed, almost in a whisper.
"You don't say! Then--then you weren't really watching out for him at
the gangway?"

He jerked up his head with an enigmatical laugh.

"My methods are not so simple as that," he said.

Cynthia joined quite generously in his laugh, notwithstanding its hard
note of ridicule. She had become keenly interested in this man, in spite
of--possibly in consequence of--the rebuffs he so unsparingly
administered. She was not accustomed to rebuffs, this girl with her
delicate, flower-like beauty. They held for her something of the charm
of novelty, and abashed her not at all.

"And you really think you'll catch him?" she questioned, a note of
honest regret in her voice.

"Don't you want him to be caught?"

He pitched his cigarette overboard and turned to her with less of
churlishness in his bearing.

She met his eyes quite frankly.

"I should just love him to get away," she declared, with kindling eyes.
"Oh, I know he's a regular sharper, and he's swindled heaps of
people--I'm one of them, so I know a little about it. He swindled me out
of five hundred dollars, and I can tell you I was mad at first. But now
that he is flying from justice, I'm game enough to want him to get away.
I suppose my sympathies generally lie with the hare, Mr. West. I'm sorry
if it annoys you, but I was created that way."

West was frowning, but he smiled with some cynicism over her last
remarks.

"Besides," she continued, "I couldn't help admiring him. He has a
regular genius for swindling--that man. You'll agree with me there?"

A sudden heavy roll of the vessel pitched her forward before he could
reply. He caught her round the waist, saving her from a headlong fall,
and she clung to him, laughing like a child at the mishap.

"I think I'll have to go below," she decided regretfully. "But you've
been good to me, and I'm glad I spoke. I've always been somewhat
prejudiced against detectives till to-day. My cousin Archie--you saw him
in the cardroom last night--vowed you were nothing half so interesting.
Why is it, I wonder, that detectives always look like journalists?" She
looked at him with eyes of friendly criticism. "You didn't deceive me,
you see. But then"--ingenuously--"I'm clever in some ways, much more
clever than you'd think. Now you won't cut me next time we meet, will
you? Because--perhaps--I'm going to ask you to do something for me."

"What do you want me to do?"

The man's voice was hard, his eyes cold as steel, but his question had
in it a shade--just a shade--of something warmer than mere curiosity.

She took him into her confidence without an instant's hesitation.

"My cousin Archie--you may have noticed--you were looking on last
night--he's a very careless player, and headstrong too. But he can't
afford to lose any, and I don't want him to come to grief. You see, I'm
rather fond of him."

"Well?"

The man's brows were drawn down over his eyes. His expression was not
encouraging.

"Well," she proceeded, undismayed, "I saw you looking on, and you looked
as if you knew a few things. So I thought you'd be a safe person to ask.
I can't look after him; and his mother--well, she's worse than useless.
But a man--a real strong man like you--is different. If I were to
introduce you, couldn't you look after him a bit--just till we get
across?"

With much simplicity she made her request, but there was a tinge of
anxiety in her eyes. Certainly West, staring steadily forth over the
grey waste of tumbling waters, looked sufficiently forbidding.

After several seconds of silence he flung an abrupt question:

"Why don't you ask some one else?"

"There is no one else," she answered.

"No one else?" He made a gesture of impatient incredulity.

"No one that I can trust," she explained.

"And you trust me?"

"Of course I do."

"Why?" Again he looked at her with a piercing scrutiny. His eyes held a
savage, almost a threatening expression.

But the girl only laughed, lightly and confidently.

"Why? Oh, just because you are trustworthy, I guess. I can't think of
any other reason."

West's look relaxed, became abstracted, and finally fell away from her.

"You appear to be a lady of some discernment," he observed drily.

She proffered her hand impulsively, her eyes dancing.

"My, that's the first pretty thing you've said to me!" she declared
flippantly. "I just like you, Mr. West!"

West was feeling for his cigarette case. He gave her his hand without
looking at her, as if her approbation did not greatly gratify him. When
she was gone he moved away along the wind-swept deck with his collar up
to his ears and his head bent to the gale. His conversation with the
American girl had not apparently made him feel any more sociably
inclined towards his fellow-passengers.

       *       *       *       *       *

Certainly, as Cynthia had declared, young Archibald Bathurst was an
exceedingly reckless player. He lacked the judgment and the cool brain
essential to a good cardplayer, with the result that he lost much more
often than he won. But notwithstanding this fact he had a passion for
cards which no amount of defeat could abate--a passion which he never
failed to indulge whenever an opportunity presented itself.

At the very moment when his cousin was making her petition on his behalf
to the surly Englishman on deck, he was seated in the saloon with three
or four men older than himself, playing and losing, playing and losing,
with almost unvarying monotony, yet with a feverish relish that had in
it something tragic.

He was only three-and-twenty, and, as he was wont to remark, ill-luck
dogged him persistently at every turn. He never blamed himself when rash
speculations failed, and he never profited by bitter experience. Simply,
he was by nature a spendthrift, high-spirited, impulsive, weak, with
little thought for the future and none at all for the past. Wherever he
went he was popular. His gaiety and spontaneity won him favour. But no
one took him very seriously. No one ever dreamed that his ill-luck was a
cause for anything but mirth.

A good deal of money had changed hands when the party separated to dine,
but, though young Bathurst was as usual a loser, he displayed no
depression. Only, as he sauntered away to his cabin, he flung a laughing
challenge to those who remained:

"See if I don't turn the tables presently!"

They laughed with him, pursuing him with chaff till he was out of
hearing. The boy was a game youngster, and he knew how to lose.
Moreover, it was generally believed that he could afford to pay for his
pleasures.

But a man who met him suddenly outside his cabin read something other
than indifference upon his flushed face. He only saw him for an instant.
The next, Archie had swung past and was gone, a clanging door shutting
him from sight.

When the little knot of cardplayers reassembled after dinner their
number was augmented. A short, broad-shouldered man, clean-shaven, with
piercing blue eyes, had scraped acquaintance with one of them, and had
accepted an invitation to join the play. Some surprise was felt among
the rest, for this man had till then been disposed to hold aloof from
his fellow-passengers, preferring a solitary cigarette to any amusements
that might be going forward.

A New York man named Rudd muttered to his neighbour that the fellow
might be all right, but he had the eyes of a sharper. The neighbour in
response murmured the words "private detective" and Rudd was relieved.

Archie Bathurst was the last to arrive, and dropped into the place he
had occupied all the afternoon. It was immediately facing the stranger,
whom he favoured with a brief and somewhat disparaging stare before
settling down to play.

The game was a pure gamble. They played swiftly, and in silence. West
seemed to take but slight interest in the issue, but he won steadily and
surely. Young Bathurst, playing feverishly, lost and lost, and lost
again. The fortunes of the other four players varied. But always the
newcomer won his ventures.

The evening was half over when Archie suddenly and loudly demanded
higher stakes, to turn his luck, as he expressed it.

"Double them if you like," said West.

Rudd looked at him with a distrustful eye, and said nothing. The other
players were disposed to accede to the boy's vehement request, and after
a little discussion the matter was settled to his satisfaction. The game
was resumed at higher points.

Some onlookers had drawn round the table scenting excitement. Archie,
sitting with his back to the wall, was playing with headlong
recklessness. For a while he continued to lose, and then suddenly and
most unexpectedly he began to win. A most rash speculation resulted in
his favour, and from that moment it seemed that his luck had turned.
Once or twice he lost, but these occasions were far outbalanced by
several brilliant _coups_. The tide had turned at last in his favour.

He played as a man possessed, swiftly and feverishly. It seemed that he
and West were to divide the honours. For West's luck scarcely varied,
and Rudd continued to look at him askance.

For the greater part of an hour young Bathurst won with scarcely a
break, till the spectators began to chaff him upon his outrageous
success.

"You'd better stop," one man warned him. "She's a fickle jade, you know,
Bathurst. Take too much for granted, and she'll desert you."

But Bathurst did not even seem to hear. He played with lowered eyes and
twitching mouth, and his hands shook perceptibly. The gambler's lust was
upon him.

"He'll go on all night," murmured the onlookers.

But this prophecy was not to be fulfilled.

It was a very small thing that stemmed the racing current of the boy's
success--no more than a slight click audible only to a few, and the
tinkle of something falling--but in an instant, swift as a thunderbolt,
the wings of tragedy swept down upon the little party gathered about the
table.

Young Bathurst uttered a queer, half-choked exclamation, and dived
downwards. But the man next to him, an Englishman named Norton, dived
also, and it was he who, after a moment, righted himself with something
shining in his hand which he proceeded grimly to display to the whole
assembled company. It was a small, folding mirror--little more than a
toy, it looked--with a pin attached to its leathern back.

Deliberately Norton turned it over, examining it in such a way that
others might examine it too. Then, having concluded his investigation of
this very simple contrivance, he slapped it down upon the table with a
gesture of unutterable contempt.

"The secret of success," he observed.

Every one present looked at Archie, who had sunk back in his chair white
to the lips. He seemed to be trying to say something, but nothing came
of it.

And then, quite calmly, ending a silence more terrible than any tumult
of words, another voice made itself heard.

"Even so, Mr. Norton." West bent forward and with the utmost composure
possessed himself of the shining thing upon the table. "This is my
property. I have been rooking you fellows all the evening."

The avowal was so astounding and made with such complete _sang-froid_
that no one uttered a word. Only every one turned from Archie to stare
at the man who thus serenely claimed his own.

He proceeded with unvarying coolness to explain himself.

"It was really done as an experiment," he said. "I am not a card-sharper
by profession, as some of you already know. But in the course of certain
investigations not connected with the matter I now have in hand, I
picked this thing up, and, being something of a specialist in certain
forms of cheating, I made up my mind to try my hand at this and prove
for myself its extreme simplicity. You see how easy it is to swindle,
gentlemen, and the danger to which you expose yourselves. There is no
necessity for me to explain the trick further. The instrument speaks for
itself. It is merely a matter of dexterity, and keeping it out of
sight."

He held it up a second time before his amazed audience, twisted it this
way and that, with the air of a conjurer displaying his smartest trick,
attached it finally to the lapel of his coat, and rose.

"As a practical demonstration it seems to have acted very well," he
remarked. "And no harm done. If you are all satisfied, so am I."

He collected the notes at his elbow with a single careless sweep of the
hand, and tossed them into the middle of the table; then, with a brief,
collective bow, he turned to go. But Rudd, the first to recover from his
amazement, sprang impetuously to his feet. "One moment, sir!" he said.

West stopped at once, a cold glint of humour in his eyes. Without a sign
of perturbation he faced round, meeting the American's hostile scrutiny
calmly, judicially.

"I wish to say," said Rudd, "on behalf of myself, and--I think I may
take it--on behalf of these other gentlemen also, that your action was a
most dastardly piece of impertinence, to give it its tamest name.
Naturally, we don't expect Court manners from one of your profession,
but we do look for ordinary common honesty. But it seems that we look in
vain. You have behaved like a mighty fine skunk, sir. And if you don't
see that there's any crying need for a very humble apology, you've got
about the thickest hide that ever frayed a horsewhip."

Every one was standing by the time this elaborate threat was uttered,
and it was quite obvious that Rudd voiced the general opinion. The only
one whose face expressed no indignation was Archie Bathurst. He was
leaning against the wall, mopping his forehead with a shaking hand.

No one looked at him. All attention was centred upon West, who met it
with a calm serenity suggestive of contempt. He showed himself in no
hurry to respond to Rudd's indictment, and when he did it was not
exclusively to Rudd that he spoke.

"I am sorry," he coolly said, "that you consider yourselves aggrieved by
my experiment. I do not myself see in what way I have injured you.
However, perhaps you are the best judges of that. If you consider an
apology due to you, I am quite ready to apologise."

His glance rested for a second upon Archie, then slowly swept the entire
assembly. There was scant humility about him, apologise though he might.

Rudd returned his look with open disgust. But it was Norton who replied
to West's calm defence of himself.

"It is Bathurst who is the greatest loser," he said, with a glance at
that young man, who was beginning to recover from his agitation. "It was
a tom-fool trick to play, but it's done. You won't get another
opportunity for your experiments on board this boat. So--if Bathurst is
satisfied--I should say the sooner you apologise and clear out the
better."

"We will confiscate this, anyway," declared Rudd, plucking the mirror
from West's coat.

He flung it down, and ground his heel upon it with venomous intention.
West merely shrugged his shoulders.

"I apologise," he said briefly, "singly and collectively, to all
concerned in my experiment, especially"--he made a slight pause--"to Mr.
Bathurst, whose run of luck I deeply regret to have curtailed. If Mr.
Bathurst is satisfied, I will now withdraw."

He paused again, as if to give Bathurst an opportunity to express an
opinion. But Archie said nothing whatever. He was staring down upon the
table, and did not so much as raise his eyes.

West shrugged his shoulders again, ever so slightly, and swung slowly
upon his heel. In a dead silence he walked away down the saloon. No one
spoke till he had gone.

       *       *       *       *       *

A black, moaning night had succeeded the grey, gusty day. The darkness
came down upon the sea like a pall, covering the long, heaving swell
from sight--a darkness that wrapped close, such a darkness as could be
felt--through which the spray drove blindly.

There was small attraction for passengers on deck, and West grimaced to
himself as he emerged from the heated cabins. Yet it was not altogether
distasteful to him. He was a man to whom a calm atmosphere meant
intolerable stagnation. He was essentially born to fight his way in the
world.

For a while he paced alone, to and fro, along the deserted deck, his
hands behind him, the inevitable cigarette between his lips. But
presently he paused and stood still close to the companion by which he
had ascended. It was sheltered here, and he leaned against the woodwork
by which Cynthia Mortimer had supported herself that morning, and smoked
serenely and meditatively.

Minutes passed. There came the sound of hurrying feet upon the stairs
behind him, and he moved a little to one side, glancing downwards.

The light at the head of the companion revealed a man ascending,
bareheaded, and in evening dress. His face, upturned, gleamed deathly
white. It was the face of Archie Bathurst.

West suddenly squared his shoulders and blocked the opening.

"Go and get an overcoat, you young fool!" he said.

Archie gave a great start, stood a second, then, without a word, turned
back and disappeared.

West left his sheltered corner and paced forward across the deck. He
came to a stand by the rail, gazing outwards into the restless darkness.
There seemed to be the hint of a smile in his intent eyes.

A few more minutes drifted away. Then there fell a step behind him; a
hand touched his arm.

"Can I speak to you?" Archie asked.

Slowly West turned.

"If you have anything of importance to say," he said.

Archie faced him with a desperate resolution.

"I want to ask you--I want to know--what in thunder you did it for!"

"Eh?" said West. "Did what?"

He almost drawled the words, as if to give the boy time to control his
agitation.

Archie stared at him incredulously.

"You must know what I mean."

"Haven't an idea."

There was just a tinge of contempt this time in the words. What an
unconscionable bungler the fellow was!

"But you must!" persisted Archie, blundering wildly. "I suppose you knew
what you were doing just now when--when----"

"I generally know what I am doing," observed West.

"Then why----"

Archie stumbled again, and fell silent, as if he had hurt himself.

"I don't always care to discuss my motives," said West very decidedly.

"But surely--" Archie suddenly pulled up, realising that by this
spasmodic method he was making no headway. "Look here, sir," he said,
more quietly, "you've done a big thing for me to-night--a dashed fine
thing! Heaven only knows what you did it for, but----"

"I have done nothing whatever for you," said West shortly. "You make a
mistake."

"But you'll admit----"

"I admit nothing."

He made as if he would turn on his heel, but Archie caught him by the
arm.

"I know I'm a cur," he said. And his voice shook a little. "I don't
wonder you won't speak to me. But there are some things that can't be
left unsaid. I'm going down now, at once, to tell those fellows what
actually happened."

"Then you are going to make a big fool of yourself to no purpose," said
West.

He stood still, scanning the boy's face with pitiless eyes. Archie
writhed impotently.

"I can't stand it!" he said, with vehemence. "I thought I was blackguard
enough to let you do it. But--no doubt I'm a fool, as you say--I find I
can't."

"You can't help yourself," said West. He planted himself squarely in
front of Archie. "Listen to this!" he said. "You know what I am?"

"They say you are a detective," said Archie.

West nodded.

"Exactly. And, as such, I do whatever suits my purpose without
explaining why to the rest of the world. If you are fortunate enough to
glean a little advantage from what I do, take it, and be quiet about it.
Don't hamper me with your acknowledgments. I assure you I have no more
concern for your ultimate fate than those fellows below that you've been
swindling all the evening. One thing I will say, though, for your
express benefit. You will never make a good, even an indifferently good,
gambler. And as to card-sharping, you've no talent whatever. Better give
it up."

His blue eyes looked straight at Archie with a stare that was openly
supercilious, and Archie stood abashed.

"You--you are awfully good," he stammered at length.

West's brief laugh lived in his memory for long after. It held an
indescribable sting, almost as if the man resented something. Yet the
next moment unexpectedly he held out his hand.

"A matter of opinion," he observed drily. "Good-night! Remember what I
have said to you."

"I shall never forget it," Archie said earnestly.

He wrung the extended hand hard, waited an instant, then, as West turned
from him with that slight characteristic lift of the shoulders, he moved
away and went below.

       *       *       *       *       *

"I'd just like a little talk with you, Mr. West, if I may." Lightly the
audacious voice arrested him, and, as it were, against his will, West
stood still.

She was standing behind him in the morning sunshine, her hair blown all
about her face, her grey eyes wide and daring, full of an alert
friendliness that could not be ignored. She moved forward with her
light, free step and stood beside him. West was smoking as usual. His
expression was decidedly surly. Cynthia glanced at him once or twice
before she spoke.

"You mustn't mind what I'm going to ask you," she said at length gently.
"Now, Mr. West, what was it--exactly--that happened in the saloon last
night? Surely you'll tell me by myself if I promise--honest Injun--not
to tell again."

"Why should I tell you?" said West, in his brief, unfriendly style.

Cynthia was undaunted. "Because you're a gentleman," she said boldly.

He shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know what reason I have given you to
say so."

"No?" She looked at him with a funny little smile. "Well then, I just
feel it in my bones; and nothing you do or leave undone will make me
believe the contrary."

"Much obliged to you," said West. His blue eyes were staring straight
out over the sea to the long, blue sky-line. He seemed too absorbed in
what he saw to pay much attention to the girl beside him.

But she was not to be shaken off. "Mr. West," she began again, breaking
in upon his silence, "do you know what they are saying about you
to-day?"

"Haven't an idea."

"No," she said. "And I don't suppose you care either. But I care. It
matters a lot to me."

"Don't see how," threw in West.

He turned in his abrupt, disconcerting way, and gave her a piercing
look. She averted her face instantly, but he had caught her unawares.

"Good heavens!" he said. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing," she returned, with a sort of choked vehemence. "There's
nothing the matter with me. Only I'm feeling badly about--about what I
asked you to do yesterday. I'd sooner have lost every dollar I have in
the world, if I had only known, than--than have you do--what you did."

"Good heavens!" West said again.

He waited a little then, looking down at her as she leaned upon the rail
with downcast face. At length, as she did not raise her head, he
addressed her for the first time on his own initiative:

"Miss Mortimer!"

She made a slight movement to indicate that she was listening, but she
remained gazing down into the green and white of the racing water.

Unconsciously he moved a little nearer to her. "There is no occasion for
you to feel badly," he said. "I had my own reasons for what I did. It
doesn't much matter what they were. But let me tell you for your comfort
that neither socially nor professionally has it done me any harm."

"They are all saying: 'Set a thief to catch a thief,'" she interposed,
with something like a sob in her voice.

"They can say what they like."

West's tone expressed the most stoical indifference, but she would not
be comforted.

"If only I hadn't--asked you to!" she murmured.

He made his peculiar, shrugging gesture. "What does it matter? Moreover,
what you asked of me was something quite apart from this. It had nothing
whatever to do with it."

She stood up sharply at that, and faced him with burning eyes. "Oh,
don't tell me that lie!" she exclaimed passionately. "I'm not such a
child as to be taken in by it. You don't deceive me at all, Mr. West. I
know as well as you do--better--that the man who did the swindling last
night was not you. And I'm sick--I'm downright sick--whenever I think of
it!"

West's expression changed slightly as he looked at her. He seemed to
regard her as a doctor regards the patient for whom he contemplates a
change of treatment.

"See here," he abruptly said. "You are distressing yourself all to no
purpose. If you will promise to keep it secret, I'll tell you the facts
of the case."

Cynthia's face changed also. She caught eagerly at the suggestion.
"Yes?" she said. "Yes? I promise, of course. And I'm quite trustworthy."

"I believe you are," he said, with a grim smile. "Well, the fact of the
matter is this. The man we want is on board this ship, but being only a
private detective, I don't possess a warrant for his arrest. Therefore
all I can do is to keep him in sight. And I can only do that by throwing
him as far as possible off the scent. If he takes me for a card-sharper,
all the better. For he's as slippery as an eel, and I have to play him
pretty carefully."

He ceased. Cynthia's eyes were growing wider and wider.

"Nat Verney on board this ship?" she gasped.

He nodded.

"Yes. You wanted him to get away, didn't you? But I don't think he will,
this time. He will probably be arrested directly we reach New York. But,
meantime, I must watch out."

"Oh!" breathed Cynthia. "Then"--with sudden hope dawning in her
eyes--"it really was your doing, that trick at the card-table last
night?"

West uttered his brief, hard laugh.

"What do you take me for?"

She heaved a great sigh of relief.

"And it wasn't Archie, after all? I'm thankful you told me. I thought--I
thought--But it doesn't matter, does it? Tell me, do tell me, Mr. West,"
drawing very close to him, "which--which is Mr. Nat Verney?"

West seemed to hesitate.

"Oh, do tell me!" she begged. "I know I'm only a woman, but I always
keep my word. And it's only two days more to New York."

He looked closely into her eyes and yielded.

"I'm trusting you with my reputation," he said. "It's the stout,
red-faced man called Rudd."

"Mr. Rudd?" She started back. "You don't say? That man?" There followed
a short pause while she digested the information. Then, as on the
previous morning, she suddenly extended her hand. "Well, I hate that
man, anyway. And I believe you're really clever. If you like, Mr. West,
I'll help you to watch out."

"Thanks!" said West. He took the little hand into a tight grip, still
looking straight into her eyes. There was a light in his own that shone
like a blue flame. "Thanks!" he said again, as he released it. "You're
very good, Miss Mortimer. But you mustn't be seen with me, you know.
You've got to remember that I'm a swindler."

The girl laughed aloud. It pleased her to feel that this taciturn man
had taken her into his confidence at last. "I shall remember," she said
lightly.

And she went away, not only comforted, but gay of heart.

       *       *       *       *       *

During the remainder of the voyage, West was treated with extreme
coolness by every one. It did not seem to abash him in the least. He
came and went in the crowd with the utmost _sang-froid_, always
preoccupied, always self-contained. Cynthia observed him from a distance
with admiration. The man had taken her fancy. She was keenly interested
in his methods, as well as in his decidedly unusual personality. She
observed Rudd also, and noted the obvious suspicion with which he
regarded West. On the night before their arrival she saw the latter
alone for a moment, and whispered to him that Mr. Rudd seemed uneasy. At
which information West merely laughed sardonically. He was holding a
small parcel, to which, after a moment, he drew her attention.

"I was going to ask you to accept this," he said. "It is nothing very
important, but I should like you to have it. Don't open it before
to-morrow."

"What is it?" asked Cynthia, in surprise.

He frowned in his abrupt way.

"It doesn't matter; something connected with my profession. I shouldn't
give it you, if I didn't know you were to be trusted."

"But--but"--she hesitated a little--"ought I to take it?"

He raised his shoulders.

"I shall give it to the captain for you, if you don't. But I would
rather give it to you direct."

In face of this, Cynthia yielded, feeling as if he compelled her.

"But mayn't I open it?"

"No." West's eyes held hers for a second. "Not till to-morrow. And, in
case we don't meet again, I'll say good-bye."

"But we shall meet in New York?" she urged, with a sudden sense of loss.
"Or perhaps in Boston? My father would really like to meet you."

"Much obliged," said West, with his grim smile. "But I'm not much of a
society man. And I don't think I shall find myself in Boston at
present."

"Then--then--I sha'n't see you again--ever?" Cynthia's tone was
unconsciously tragic. Till that moment she had scarcely realised how
curiously strong an attraction this man held for her.

West's expression changed. His emotionless blue eyes became suddenly
more blue, and intense with a vital fire. He leaned towards her as one
on the verge of vehement speech.

Then abruptly his look went beyond her, and he checked himself.

"Who knows?" he said carelessly. "Good-bye for the present, anyway! It's
been a pleasant voyage."

He straightened himself with the words, nodded, and turned aside without
so much as touching her hand.

And Cynthia, glancing round with an instinctive feeling of discomfiture,
saw Rudd with another man, standing watching them at the end of the
passage.

       *       *       *       *       *

In the dark of early morning they reached New York. Most of the
passengers decided to remain on board for breakfast, which was served at
an early hour in the midst of a hubbub and turmoil indescribable.

Cynthia, with her aunt and Archie, partook of a hurried meal in the
thick of the ever-shifting crowd. She looked in vain for West, her grey
eyes searching perpetually.

One friend after another came up to bid them good-bye, stood a little,
talking, and presently drifted away. The whole ship from end to end
hummed like a hive of bees.

She was glad when at length she was able to escape from the noisy
saloon. She had not slept well, and her nerves were on edge. The memory
of that interrupted conversation with West, of the confidence unspoken,
went with her continually. She had an almost feverish longing to see him
once more, even though it were in the heart of the crowd. He had been
about to tell her something. Of that she was certain. She had an
intense, an almost passionate desire to know what it was. Surely he
would not--he could not--go ashore without seeing her again!

She had not intended to open the packet he had given her till she was
ashore herself, but a palpitating curiosity tugged ever at her
resolution till at length she could resist it no longer. West was
nowhere to be seen, and she felt she must know more. It was intolerable
to be thus left in the dark. Through the scurrying multitude of
departing passengers, she began to make her way back to her cabin. Her
progress was of necessity slow, and once in a crowded corner she was
stopped altogether.

Two men were talking together close to her. Their backs were towards
her, and in the general confusion they did not observe her futile
impatience to pass.

"Oh, I knew the fellow was a wrong 'un, all along," were the first words
that filtered to the girl's consciousness as she stood. "But I didn't
think he was responsible for that card trick, I must say. Young Bathurst
looked so abominably hangdog."

It was the Englishman, Norton, who spoke, and the man who stood with him
was Rudd. Cynthia realised the near presence of the latter with a
sensation of disgust. His drawling tones grated upon her intolerably.

"Waal," he said, "it was just that card trick that opened my eyes--I
shouldn't have noticed him, otherwise. I knew that young Bathurst was
square. He hasn't the brains to be anything else. And when this chap
butted in with his thick-ribbed impudence, I guessed right then that we
hadn't got a beginner to deal with. After that I watched for a bit, and
there were several little things that made me begin to reflect. So the
next evening I got a wireless message off to my partner in New York, and
I reckon that did the trick. When we came up alongside this morning, the
vultures were all ready for him. I took them to his cabin myself. There
was no fuss at all. He saw it was all up, and gave in without a murmur.
They were only just in time, though. In another thirty seconds, he would
have been off. It was a clever piece of work, I flatter myself, to net
Mr. Nat Verney so neatly."

The Englishman began to laugh, but suddenly broke off short as a girl's
face, white and quivering, came between them.

"Who is this man?" the high, breathless voice demanded. "Which--which is
Mr. Nat Verney?"

Rudd looked down at her through narrowed eyes. He was smiling--a small,
bitter smile.

"Waal, Miss Mortimer," he began, "I reckon you have first right to
know----"

She turned from him imperiously.

"You tell me," she commanded Norton.

Norton looked genuinely uncomfortable, and, probably in consequence, he
answered her with a gruffness that sounded brutal.

"It was West. He has been arrested. His own fault entirely. No one would
have suspected him if he hadn't been a fool, and given his own show
away."

"He wasn't a fool!" Cynthia flashed back fiercely. "He was my friend!"

"I shouldn't be in too great a hurry to claim that distinction,"
remarked Rudd. "He's about the best-known rascal in the two
hemispheres."

But Cynthia did not wait to hear him. She had slipped past, and was
gone.

In her own cabin at last, she bolted the door and tore open that packet
connected with his profession which he had given her the night before.
It contained a roll of notes to the value of a hundred pounds, wrapped
in a sheet of notepaper on which was scrawled a single line: "With
apologies from the man who swindled you."

There was no signature of any sort. None was needed! When Cynthia
finally left her cabin an hour later, her eyes were bright with that
brightness which comes from the shedding of many tears.




       *       *       *       *       *


The Swindler's Handicap

A SEQUEL TO "THE SWINDLER"

_Which I Dedicate to the Friend Who Asked for it._




I


"Yes, but what's the good of it?" said Cynthia Mortimer gently. "I can
never marry you."

"You might be engaged to me for a bit, anyhow," he urged, "and see how
you like it."

She made a quaint gesture with her arms, as though she tried to lift
some heavy weight.

"I am very sorry," she said, in the same gentle voice. "It's very nice
of you to think of it, Lord Babbacombe. But--you see, I'm quite sure I
shouldn't like it. So that ends it, doesn't it?"

He stood up to his full height, and regarded her with a faint, rueful
smile.

"You're a very obstinate girl, Cynthia," he said.

She leaned back in her chair, looking up at him with clear, grey eyes
that met his with absolute freedom.

"I'm not a girl at all, Jack," she said. "I gave up all my pretensions
to youth many, many years ago."

He nodded, still faintly smiling.

"You were about nineteen, weren't you?"

"No. I was past twenty-one." A curious note crept into her voice; it
sounded as if she were speaking of the dead. "It--was just twelve years
ago," she said.

Babbacombe's eyebrows went up.

"What! Are you past thirty? I had no idea."

She laughed at him--a quick, gay laugh.

"Why, it's eight years since I first met you."

"Is it? Great heavens, how the time goes--wasted time, too, Cynthia! We
might have been awfully happy together all this time. Well"--with a
sharp sigh--"we can't get it back again. But anyhow, we needn't squander
any more of it, if only you will be reasonable."

She shook her head; then, with one of those quick impulses that were a
part of her charm, she sprang lightly up and gave him both her hands.

"No, Jack," she said. "No--no--no! I'm not reasonable. I'm just a
drivelling, idiotic fool. But--but I love my foolishness too well ever
to part with it. Ever, did I say? No, even I am not quite so foolish as
that. But it's sublime enough to hold me till--till I know for certain
whether--whether the thing I call love is real or--or--only--a sham."

There was passion in her voice, and her eyes were suddenly full of
tears; but she kept them upturned to his as though she pleaded with him
to understand.

He looked down at her very kindly, very steadily, holding her hands
closely in his own. There was no hint of chagrin on his clean-shaven
face--only the utmost kindness.

"Don't cry!" he said gently. "Tell me about this sublime foolishness of
yours--about the thing you call--love. I might help you, perhaps--who
knows?--to find out if it is the real thing or not."

Her lips were quivering.

"I've never told a soul," she said. "I--am half afraid."

"Nonsense, dear!" he protested.

"But I am," she persisted. "It's such an absurd romance--this
of mine, so absurd that you'll laugh at it, just at first. And
then--afterwards--you will--disapprove."

"My dear girl," he said, "you have never entertained the smallest regard
for my opinion before. Why begin to-day?"

She laughed a little, turning from him to brush away her tears.

"Sit down," she said, "and--and smoke--those horrid strong cigarettes of
yours. I love the smell. Perhaps I'll try and tell you. But--mind,
Jack--you're not to look at me. And you're not to say a single word till
I've done. Just--smoke, that's all."

She settled herself on the low fender-cushion with her face turned from
him to the fire. Lord Babbacombe sat down as she desired, and took out
and lighted a cigarette.

As the scent of it reached her she began to speak in the high, American
voice he had come to love. There was nothing piercing about it; it was a
clear, sweet treble.

"It happened when I was travelling under Aunt Bathurst's wing. You know,
it was with her and my cousin Archie that I first did Europe. My! It was
a long time ago! I've been round the world four times since then--twice
with poor dear Daddy, once with Mrs. Archie, after he died, and the last
time--alone. And I didn't like that last time a mite. I was like the man
in _The Pilgrim's Progress_--I took my hump wherever I went. Still, I
had to do something. You were big-game shooting. I'd have gone with you
if you'd have had me unmarried. But I knew you wouldn't, so I just had
to mess around by myself. Oh, but I was tired--I was tired! But I kept
saying to myself it was the last journey before--Jack, if you don't
smoke your cigarette will go out. Where was I? I'm afraid I'm boring
you. You can go to sleep if you like. Well, it was on the voyage back.
There was a man on board that every one said was a private detective. It
was at the time of the great Nat Verney swindles. You remember, of
course? And somehow we all jumped to the conclusion that he was tracking
him. I remember seeing him when we first went on board at Liverpool. He
was standing by the gangway watching the crowd with the bluest eyes on
earth, and I took him for a detective right away. But--for all
that--there was something about him--something I kind of liked, that
made me feel I wanted to know him. He was avoiding everybody, but I made
him talk to me. You know my way."

She paused for a moment, and leaning forward, gazed into the heart of
the fire with wide, intent eyes.

The man in the chair behind her smoked on silently with a drawn face.

"He was very horrid to me," she went on, her voice soft and slow as
though she were describing something seen in a vision, "the only man who
ever was. But I--do you know, I liked him all the more for that? I
didn't flirt with him. I didn't try. He wasn't the sort one could flirt
with. He was hard--hard as iron, clean-shaven, with an immensely
powerful jaw, and eyes that looked clean through you. He was one of
those short, broad Englishmen--you know the sort--out of proportion
everywhere, but so splendidly strong. He just hated me for making
friends with him. It was very funny."

An odd little note of laughter ran through the words--that laughter
which is akin to tears.

"But I didn't care for that," she said. "It didn't hurt me in the least.
He was too big to give offence to an impudent little minx like me.
Besides, I wanted him to help me, and after a bit I told him so.
Archie--my cousin, you know; he was only a boy then--was mad on
card-playing at that time. And I was real worried about him. I knew he
would get into a hole sooner or later, and I begged my surly Englishman
to keep an eye on him. Oh, I was a fool! I was a brainless, chattering
fool! And I'm not much better now, I often think."

Cynthia's hand went up to her eyes. The vision in the fire was all
blurred and indistinct.

Babbacombe was leaning forward, listening intently. The firelight
flickered on his face, showing it very grave and still. He did not
attempt to speak.

Nevertheless, after a moment, Cynthia made a wavering movement with one
hand in his direction.

"I'm not crying, Jack. Don't be silly! I'm sure your cigarette is out."

It was. He pitched it past her into the fire.

"Light another," she pleaded. "I love them so. They are the kind he
always smoked. That's nearly the end of the story. You can almost guess
the rest. That very night Archie did get into a hole, a bad one, and the
only way my friend could lift him out was by getting down into it
himself. He saved him, but it was at his own expense; for it made people
begin to reflect. And in the end--in the end, when we came into harbour,
they came on board, and--and arrested him early in the morning--before I
knew. You see, he--he was Nat Verney."

Cynthia's dark head was suddenly bowed upon her hands. She was rocking
to and fro in the firelight.

"And it was my fault," she sobbed--"all my fault. If--if he hadn't done
that thing for me, no one would have known--no one would have
suspected!"

She had broken down completely at last, and the man who heard her
wondered, with a deep compassion, how often she had wept, in secret and
uncomforted, as she was weeping now.

He bore it till his humanity could endure no longer. And then, very
gently, he reached out, touched her, drew her to him, pillowed her head
on his shoulder.

"Don't cry, Cynthia," he whispered earnestly. "It's heart-breaking work,
dear, and it doesn't help. There! Let me hold you till you feel better.
You can't refuse comfort from an old friend like me."

She yielded to him mutely for a little, till her grief had somewhat
spent itself. Then, with a little quivering smile, she lifted her head
and looked him straight in the face.

"Thank you, Jack," she said. "You--you've done me good. But it's not
good for you, is it? I've made you quite damp. You don't think you'll
catch cold?"--dabbing at his shoulder with her handkerchief.

He took her hand and stayed it.

"There is nothing in this world," he said gravely "that I would so
gladly do as help you, Cynthia. Will you believe this, and treat me from
this stand-point only?"

She turned back to the fire, but she left her hand in his.

"My dear," she said, in an odd little choked voice, "it's just like you
to say so, and I guess I sha'n't forget it. Well, well! There's my
romance in a nutshell. He didn't care a fig for me till just the last.
He cared then, but it was too late to come to anything. They shipped him
back again you know, and he was sentenced to fifteen years' penal
servitude. He's done nearly twelve, and he's coming out next month on
ticket-of-leave."

"Oh, Cynthia!"

Babbacombe bent his head suddenly upon her hand, and sat tense and
silent.

"I know," she said--"I know. It sounds simply monstrous, put into bald
words. I sometimes wonder myself if it can possibly be true--if I,
Cynthia Mortimer, can really be such a fool. But I can't possibly tell
for certain till I see him again. I must see him again somehow. I've
waited all these years--all these years."

Babbacombe groaned.

"And suppose, when you've seen him, you still care?"

She shook her head.

"What then, Jack? I don't know; I don't know."

He pulled himself together, and sat up.

"Do you know where he is?"

"Yes. He is at Barren Hill. He has been there for five years now. My
solicitor knows that I take an interest in him. He calls it
philanthropy." Cynthia smiled faintly into the fire. "I was one of the
people he swindled," she said. "But he paid me back."

She rose and went across the room to a bureau in a corner. She unlocked
a drawer, and took something from it. Returning, she laid a packet of
notes in Babbacombe's hands.

"I could never part with them," she said. "He gave them to me in a
sealed parcel the last time I saw him. It's only a hundred pounds. Yes,
that was the message he wrote. Can you read it? 'With apologies from the
man who swindled you.' As if I cared for the wretched money!"

Babbacombe frowned over the writing in silence.

"Why don't you say what you think, Jack?" she said. "Why don't you call
him a thieving scoundrel and me a poor, romantic fool!"

"I am trying to think how I can help you," he answered quietly. "Have
you any plans?"

"No, nothing definite," she said. "It is difficult to know what to do.
He knows one thing--that he has a friend who will help him when he comes
out. He will be horribly poor, you know, and I'm so rich. But, of
course, I would do it anonymously. And he thinks his friend is a man."

Babbacombe pondered with drawn brows.

"Cynthia," he said slowly, at length, "suppose I take this matter into
my own hands, suppose I make it possible for you to see this man once
more, will you be guided entirely by me? Will you promise me solemnly to
take no rash step of any description; in short, to do nothing without
consulting me? Will you promise me, Cynthia?"

He spoke very earnestly. The firelight showed her the resolution on his
face.

"Of course I will promise you, Jack," she said instantly. "I would trust
myself body and soul in your keeping. But what can you do?"

"I might do this," he said. "I might pose as his unknown friend--another
philanthropist, Cynthia." He smiled rather grimly. "I might get hold of
him when he comes out, give him something to do to keep his head above
water. If he has any manhood in him, he won't mind what he takes. And I
might--later, if I thought it practicable--I only say 'if,' Cynthia, for
after many years of prison life a man isn't always fit company for a
lady--I might arrange that you should see him in some absolutely casual
fashion. If you consent to this arrangement you must leave that entirely
to me."

"But you will hate to do it!" she exclaimed.

He rose. "I will do it for your sake," he said. "I shall not hate it if
it makes you see things--as they are."

"Oh, but you are good," she said tremulously--"you are good!"

"I love a good woman," he answered gravely.

And with that he turned and left her alone in the firelight with her
romance.




II


It was early on a dark November day that the prison gate at Barren Hill
opened to allow a convict who had just completed twelve years' penal
servitude to pass out a free man.

A motor car was drawn up at the side of the kerb as he emerged, and a
man in a long overcoat, with another slung on his arm, was pacing up and
down.

He wheeled at the closing of the gate, and they stood face to face.

There was a moment's difficult silence; then the man with the motor
spoke.

"Mr. West, I think?"

The other looked him up and down in a single comprehensive glance that
was like the flash of a sword blade.

"Certainly," he said curtly, "if you prefer it."

He was a short, thick-set man of past forty, with a face so grimly lined
as to mask all expression. His eyes alone were vividly alert. They were
the bluest eyes that Babbacombe had ever seen.

He accepted the curt acknowledgment with grave courtesy, and made a
motion toward the car.

"Will you get in? My name is Babbacombe. I am here to meet you, as no
doubt you have been told. You had better wear this"--opening out the
coat he carried.

But West remained motionless, facing him on the grey, deserted road.
"Before I come with you," he said, in his brief, clipped style, "there
is one thing I want to know. Are you patronising me for the sake of
philanthropy, or for--some other reason?"

As he uttered the question, he fixed Babbacombe with a stare that was
not without insolence.

Babbacombe did not hesitate in his reply. He was not a man to be lightly
disconcerted.

"You can put it down to anything you like," he said, "except
philanthropy."

West considered a moment.

"Very well, sir," he said finally, his aggressive tone slightly
modified. "In that case I will come with you."

He turned about, and thrust his arms into the coat Babbacombe held for
him, turned up the collar, and without a backward glance, stepped into
the waiting motor.

Babbacombe started the engine, and followed him. In another moment they
had glided away into the dripping mist, and the prison was left behind.

Through mile after mile they sped in silence. West sat with his chin
buried in his coat, his keen eyes staring straight ahead. Babbacombe, at
the wheel, never glanced at him once.

Through villages, through towns, through long stretches of open country
they glided, sometimes slackening, but never stopping. The sun broke
through at length, revealing a country of hills and woods and silvery
running streams. They had been travelling for hours. It was nearly noon.

For the first time since their start Babbacombe spoke.

"I hope I haven't kept you going too long. We are just getting in."

"Don't mind me," said West.

Babbacombe was slackening speed.

"It's a fine hunting country," he observed.

"Whose is it?" asked West.

"Mine, most of it." They were running smoothly down a long avenue of
beech trees, with a glimpse of an open gateway at the end.

"It must take some managing," remarked West.

"It does," Babbacombe answered. "It needs a capable man."

They reached the gateway, passing under an arch of stone. Beyond it lay
wide stretches of park land. Rabbits scuttled in the sunshine, and under
the trees here and there they had glimpses of deer.

"Ever ridden to hounds?" asked Babbacombe.

The man beside him turned with a movement half savage.

"Set me on a good horse," he said, "and I will show you what I can do."

Babbacombe nodded, conscious for the first time of a warmth of sympathy
for the man. Whatever his sins, he must have suffered infernally during
the past twelve years.

Twelve years! Ye gods! It was half a life-time! It represented the whole
of his manhood to Babbacombe. Twelve years ago he had been an
undergraduate at Cambridge.

He drove on through the undulating stretches of Farringdean Park, his
favourite heritage, trying to realise what effect twelve years in a
convict prison would have had upon himself, what his outlook would
ultimately have become, and what in actual fact was the outlook and
general attitude of the man who had come through this long purgatory.

Sweeping round a rise in the ground, they came into sudden sight of the
castle. Ancient and splendid it rose before them, its battlements
shining in the sun--a heritage of which any man might be proud.

Babbacombe waited for some word of admiration from his companion. But he
waited in vain. West was mute.

"What do you think of it?" he asked at last, determined to wring some
meed of appreciation from him, even though he stooped to ask for it.

"What--the house?" said West. "It's uncommonly like a primeval sort of
prison, to my idea. I've no doubt it boasts some very superior
dungeons."

The sting in the words reached Babbacombe, but without offence. Again,
more strongly, he was conscious of that glow of sympathy within him,
kindling to a flame of fellowship.

"It boasts better things than that," he said quietly, "as I hope you
will allow me to show you."

He was conscious of the piercing gaze of West's eyes, and, after a
moment, he deliberately turned his own to meet it.

"And if you find--as you probably soon will--that I make but a poor sort
of host," he said, "just remember, will you, that I like my guests to
please themselves, and secure your own comfort?"

For a second, West's grim mouth seemed to hesitate on the edge of a
smile--a smile that never developed.

"I wonder how soon you will tell me to go to the devil?" he said
cynically.

"Oh, I am a better host than that," said Babbacombe, with quiet humour.
"If you ever prefer the devil's hospitality to mine, it won't be my
fault."

West turned from him with a slight shrug of the shoulders, as if he
deemed himself to be dealing with a harmless lunatic, and dropped back
into silence.




III


Silence had become habitual to him, as Babbacombe soon discovered. He
could remain silent for hours. Probably he had never been of a very
expansive nature, and prison discipline had strengthened an inborn
reticence to a reserve of iron. He was not a disconcerting companion,
because he was absolutely unobtrusive, but with all the good-will in the
world Babbacombe found it well-nigh impossible to treat him with that
ease of manner which came to him so spontaneously in his dealings with
other men.

Grim, taciturn, cynical, West baffled his every effort to reach the
inner man. His silence clothed him like armour, and he never really
emerged from it save when a fiendish sense of humour tempted him. This,
and this alone, so it seemed to Babbacombe, had any power to draw him
out. And the instant he had flung his gibe at the object thereof, he
would retreat again into that impenetrable shell of silence. He never
once spoke of his past life, never once referred to the future.

He merely accepted Babbacombe's hospitality in absolute silence, without
question, without gratitude, smoked his cigarettes eternally, drank his
wines without appreciation, rode his horses without comment.

The only point in his favour that Babbacombe, the kindliest of critics,
could discover after a fort-night's patient study, was that the animals
loved him. He conducted himself like a gentleman, but somehow Babbacombe
had expected this much from the moment of their meeting. He sometimes
told himself with a wry face that if the fellow had behaved like a beast
he would have found him easier to cultivate. At least, he would have had
something to work upon, a creature of flesh and blood, instead of this
inscrutable statue wrought in iron.

With a sinking heart he recalled Cynthia's description of the man. To a
certain extent it still fitted him, but he imagined that those twelve
years had had a hardening effect upon him, making rigid that which had
always been stubborn, driving the iron deeper and ever deeper into his
soul, till only iron remained. Many were the nights he spent pondering
over the romance of the woman he loved. What subtle attraction in this
hardened sinner had lured her heart away? Was it possible that the
fellow had ever cared for her? Had he ever possessed even the rudiments
of a heart?

The message he had read in the firelight--the brief line which this man
had written--was the only answer he could find to these doubts. It
seemed to point to something--some pulsing warmth--which could not have
been kindled from nothing. And again the memory of a woman's tears would
come upon him, spurring him to fresh effort. Surely the man for whom she
was breaking her heart could not be wholly evil, nor yet wholly callous!
Somewhere behind those steely blue eyes, there must dwell some answer to
the riddle. It might be that Cynthia would find it, though he failed.
But he shrank, with an aversion inexpressible, from letting her try, so
deeply rooted had his conviction become that her cherished girlish fancy
was no more than the misty gold of dreams.

Yet for her sake he persevered--for the sake of those precious tears
that had so wrung his heart he would do that which he had set out to do,
notwithstanding the utmost discouragement. An insoluble enigma the man
might be to him, but he would not for that turn back from the task that
he had undertaken. West should have his chance in spite of it.

They were riding together over the crisp turf of the park one frosty
morning in November, when Babbacombe turned quietly to his companion,
pointing to the chimneys of a house half-hidden by trees, ahead of them.

"I want to go over that place," he said. "It is standing empty, and
probably needs repairs."

West received the announcement with a brief nod. He never betrayed
interest in anything.

"Shall I hold your animal?" he suggested, as they reached the gate that
led into the little garden.

"No. Come in with me, won't you? We can hitch the bridles to the post."

They went in together through a rustling litter of dead leaves. The
house was low, and thatched--a picturesque dwelling of no great size.

Babbacombe led the way within, and they went from room to room, he with
note-book in hand, jotting down the various details necessary to make
the place into a comfortable habitation.

"I daresay you can help me with this if you will," he said presently. "I
shall turn some workmen on to it next week. Perhaps you will keep an eye
on them for me, decide on the decorations, and so forth. It is my
agent's house, you know."

"Where is your agent?" asked West abruptly.

Babbacombe smiled a little. "At the present moment--I have no agent.
That is what keeps me so busy. I hope to have one before long."

West strolled to a window and opened it, leaning his arms upon the sill.

He seemed about to relapse into one of his interminable silences when
Babbacombe, standing behind him, said quietly, "I am going to offer the
post to you."

"To me?" West wheeled suddenly, even with vehemence. "What for?" he
demanded sharply.

Babbacombe met his look, still faintly smiling. "For our mutual
benefit," he said. "I am convinced that you have ample ability for this
sort of work, and if you will accept the post I shall be very pleased."

He stopped at that, determined for once to make the man speak on his own
initiative. West was looking straight at him, and there was a curious
glitter in his eyes like the sparkle of ice in the sun.

When he spoke at length his speech, though curt, was not so rigorously
emotionless as usual.

"Don't you think," he said, "that you have carried this tomfoolery of
yours far enough?"

Babbacombe raised one eyebrow. "Meaning?" he questioned.

West enlightened him with most unusual vigour.

"Meaning that tomfoolery of this sort never pays. I know. I've done it
myself in my time. If I were you, I should pull up and try some less
expensive hobby than that of mending broken men. The pieces are always
chipped and never stick, and the chances are that you'll cut your
fingers trying to make 'em. No, sir, I won't be your agent! Find a man
you can trust, and let me go to the devil!"

The outburst was so unexpected and so forcible that at first Babbacombe
stared at the man in amazement. Then, with that spontaneous kindness of
heart that made him what he was, he grabbed and held his opportunity.

"My dear fellow," he said, not pausing for a choice of words, "you are
talking infernal rot, and I won't listen to you. Do you seriously
suppose I should be such a tenfold ass as to offer the management of my
estate to a man I couldn't trust?"

"What reason have you for trusting me?" West thrust back. "Unless you
think that a dozen years in prison have deprived me of my ancient skill.
Would you choose a man who has been a drunkard for your butler? No! Then
don't choose a swindler and an ex-convict for your bailiff."

He swung around with the words and shut the window with a bang.

But again Babbacombe took his cue from that inner prompting to which he
had trusted all his life. For the first time he liked the man; for the
first time, so it seemed to him, he caught a glimpse of the soul into
which the iron had been so deeply driven.

"Look here, West," he said, "I am not going to take that sort of refusal
from you. We have been together some time now, and it isn't my fault if
we don't know each other pretty well. I don't care a hang what you have
been. I am only concerned with what you are, and whatever that may be,
you are not a weak-kneed fool. You have the power to keep straight if
you choose, and you are to choose. Understand? I make you this offer
with a perfectly open mind, and you are to consider it in the same way.
Would you have said because you had once had a nasty tumble that you
would never ride again? Of course you wouldn't. You are not such a fool.
Then don't refuse my offer on those grounds, for it's nothing less than
contemptible."

"Think so?" said West. He had listened quite impassively to the oration,
but as Babbacombe ended, his grim mouth relaxed sardonically. "You seem
mighty anxious to spend your money on damaged goods, Lord Babbacombe.
It's a tom-fool investment, you know. How many of the honest folk in
your service will stick to you when they begin to find out what you've
given them?"

"Why should they find out?" asked Babbacombe.

West shrugged his shoulders. "It's a dead certainty that they will."

"If I can take the risk, so can you," said Babbacombe.

"Oh, of course, I used to be rather good at that game. It is called
'sand-throwing' in the profession."

Babbacombe made an impatient movement, and West's hard smile became more
pronounced.

"But you are not at all good at it," he continued. "You are almost
obtrusively obvious. It is a charm that has its very material
drawbacks."

Babbacombe wholly lost patience at that. The man's grim irony was not to
be borne.

"Take it or leave it!" he exclaimed. "But if you leave it, in heaven's
name let it be for some sounder reason than a faked-up excuse of moral
weakness!"

West uttered an abrupt laugh. "You seem to have a somewhat exalted
opinion of my morals," he observed. "Well, since you are determined to
brave the risk of being let down, I needn't quibble at it any further. I
accept."

Babbacombe's attitude changed in an instant. He held out his hand.

"You won't let me down, West," he said, with confidence.

West hesitated for a single instant, then took the proffered hand into a
grip of iron. His blue eyes looked hard and straight into Babbacombe's
face.

"If I let you down," he said grimly, "I shall be underneath."




IV


It was not till the middle of December that the new bailiff moved into
his own quarters, but he had assumed his duties some weeks before that
time, and Babbacombe was well satisfied with him. The man's business
instincts were unusually keen. He had, moreover, a wonderful eye for
details, and very little escaped him. It soon came home to Babbacombe
that the management of his estate was in capable hands, and he
congratulated himself upon having struck ore where he had least expected
to find it. He supervised the whole of West's work for a time, but he
soon suffered this vigilance to relax, for the man's shrewdness far
surpassed his own. He settled to the work with a certain grim relish,
and it was a perpetual marvel to Babbacombe that he mastered it from the
outset with such facility.

Keepers and labourers eyed him askance for awhile, but West's
imperturbability took effect before very long. They accepted him without
enthusiasm, but also without rancour, as a man who could hold his own.

As soon as he was installed in the bailiff's house, Babbacombe left him
to his own devices, and departed upon a round of visits. He proposed to
entertain a house-party himself towards the end of January. He informed
West of this before departing, and was slightly puzzled by a certain
humourous gleam that shone in the steely eyes at the news. The matter
went speedily from his mind. It was not till long after that he recalled
it.

West wrote to him regularly during his absence, curt, businesslike
epistles, which always terminated on a grim note of irony: "Your
faithful steward, N. V. West." He never varied this joke, and Babbacombe
usually noted it with a faint frown. The fellow was not a bad sort, he
was convinced, but he would always be more or less of an enigma to him.

He returned to Farringdean in the middle of January with one of his
married sisters, whom he had secured to act as hostess to his party. He
invited West to dine with them informally on the night of his return.

His sister, Lady Cottesbrook, a gay and garrulous lady some years his
senior, received the new agent with considerable condescension. She
bestowed scant attention upon him during dinner, and West presented his
most impenetrable demeanour in consequence, refusing steadily to avail
himself of Babbacombe's courteous efforts to draw him into the
conversation.

He would have excused himself later from accompanying his host into the
drawing-room, but Babbacombe insisted upon this so stubbornly that
finally, with his characteristic lift of the shoulders, he yielded.

As they entered, Lady Cottesbrook raised her glasses, and favoured him
with a close scrutiny.

"It's very curious," she said, "but I can't help feeling as if I have
seen you somewhere before. You have the look of some one I knew years
ago--some one I didn't like--but I can't remember who."

"Just as well, perhaps," said Babbacombe, with a careless laugh, though
a faint flush of annoyance rose in his face. "Come over here, West. You
can smoke. My sister likes it."

He seated himself at the piano, indicated a chair near him to his guest,
and began to play.

West, with his back to the light, sat motionless, listening. Lady
Cottesbrook took up a book, and ignored him. There was something
unfathomable about her brother's bailiff to which she strongly objected.

An hour later, when he had gone, she spoke of it.

"That man has the eyes of a criminal, Jack. I am sure he isn't
trustworthy. He is too brazen. Where in the world did you pick him up?"

To which Babbacombe made composed reply:

"I know all about him, and he is absolutely trustworthy. He was
recommended to me by a friend. I am sorry you thought it necessary to be
rude to him. There is nothing offensive about him that I can see."

"My dear boy, you see nothing offensive in a great many people whom I
positively detest. However, he isn't worth an argument. Only, if you
must ask the man to dine, for goodness' sake another time have some one
else for me to talk to. I frankly admit that I have no talent for
entertaining people of that class. Now tell me the latest about Cynthia
Mortimer. Of course, she is one of the chosen guests?"

"She has promised to spend a week here," Babbacombe answered somewhat
reluctantly. "I haven't seen her lately. She has been in Paris."

"What has she been doing there? Buying her trousseau?"

"I really don't know." There was a faint inflection of irritation in his
voice.

"Doesn't her consenting to come here mean that she will accept you?"
questioned Lady Cottesbrook. She never hesitated to ask in plainest
terms for anything she wanted.

"No," Babbacombe said heavily. "It does not."

Lady Cottesbrook was silenced. After a little she turned her attention
to other matters, to her brother's evident relief.




V


It was on a still, frosty evening of many stars that Cynthia came to
Farringdean Castle. A young moon was low in the sky, and she paused to
curtsey to it upon descending from the motor that had borne her thither.

She turned to find Babbacombe beside her.

"I hope it will bring you luck, Cynthia," he said.

She flashed a swift look at him, and gave him both her hands.

"Thank you, old friend," she said softly.

Her eyes were shining like the stars above them. She laughed a little
tremulously.

"I couldn't get to the station to meet you," he said. "I wanted to. Come
inside. There is no one here whom you don't know."

"Thank you again," she said.

In another moment they were entering the great hall. Before an immense
open fireplace a group of people were gathered at tea. There was a
general buzz of greeting as Cynthia entered. She was always popular,
wherever she went.

She scattered her own greetings broadcast, passing from one to another,
greeting each in her high, sweet drawl--a gracious, impulsive woman whom
to know was to love.

Babbacombe watched her with a dumb longing. How often he had pictured
her as hostess where now she moved as guest! Well, that dream of his was
shattered, but the glowing fragments yet burned in his secret heart. All
his life long he would remember her as he saw her that night on his own
hearth. Her loveliness was like a flower wide open to the sun. He
thought her lovelier that night than she had ever been before. When she
flitted away at length, he felt as if she took the warmth and brightness
of the fireside with her.

There was no agreement between them, but he knew that she would be down
early, and hastened his own dressing in consequence. He found her
waiting alone in the drawing-room before a regal fire. She wore a
splendid star of diamonds in her dark hair. It sparkled in a thousand
colours as she turned. Her dress was black, unrelieved by any ornament.

"Cynthia," he said, "you are exquisite!"

The words burst from him almost involuntarily. She put out her hand to
him with a gesture half of acknowledgment, half of protest.

"I may be good to look at," she said, with a little whimsical smile.
"But--I tell you, Jack--I feel a perfect reptile. It's heads I win,
tails you lose; and--I just can't bear it."

There was a catch in the high voice that was almost a sob. Babbacombe
took her hand and held it.

"My dear," he said, "it's nothing of the sort. You have done me the very
great honour of giving me your full confidence, and I won't have you
abusing yourself for it."

She shook her head. "I hate myself--there! And--and I'm frightened too.
Jack, if you want me to marry you--you had better ask me now. I won't
refuse you."

He looked her closely in the eyes. "No, Cynthia," he said very gravely.

"I am not laughing," she protested.

He smiled a little. "It would be easier for me if you were," he said.
"No, we will go through with this since we have begun. And you needn't
be scared. He is hardly a ladies' man, according to my judgment, but he
is not a bounder. I haven't asked him to meet you to-night. I thought it
better not. In fact, I----"

He broke off at the sound of a step behind him. With a start Cynthia
turned.

A short, thick-set man in riding-dress was walking up the room.

"I beg your pardon," he said formally, halting a few paces from
Babbacombe. "I have been waiting for you in the library for the last
hour. I sent you a message, but I conclude it was not delivered. Can I
speak to you for a few seconds on a matter of business?"

He spoke with his eyes fixed steadily upon Babbacombe's face, ignoring
the woman's presence as if he had not even seen her.

Babbacombe was momentarily disconcerted. He glanced at Cynthia before
replying; and instantly, in her quick, gracious way, she came forward
with extended hand.

"Why, Mr. West," she said, "don't you know me? I'm Cynthia Mortimer--a
very old friend of yours. And I'm very glad to meet you again."

There was a quiver as of laughter in her words. The confidence of her
action compelled some species of response. West took the outstretched
hand for a single instant; but his eyes, meeting hers, held no
recognition.

"I am afraid," he said stonily, "that your memory is better than mine."

It was a check that would have disheartened many women; not so Cynthia
Mortimer.

She opened her eyes wide for a second, the next quite openly she laughed
at him.

"You are not a bit cleverer than you used to be," she said. "But I
rather like you for it all the same. Come, Mr. West, I'm sure you will
make an effort when I tell you that I want to be remembered. You once
did a big thing for me which I have never forgotten--which I never shall
forget."

West was frowning. "You have made a mistake," he said briefly.

She laughed again, softly, audaciously. There was a delicate flush on
her face, and her eyes were very bright.

"No, Mr. Nat Verney West," she said, sinking her voice. "I'm a lot
cleverer than you think, and I don't make mistakes of that sort."

He shrugged his shoulders, and was silent. She was laughing still.

"Why can't we begin where we left off?" she asked ingenuously. "Back
numbers are so dull, and we were long past this stage anyway. Lord
Babbacombe," appealing suddenly to her host, "can't you persuade Mr.
West to come to the third act? I always prefer to skip the second. And
we finished the first long ago."

Babbacombe came to her assistance with his courteous smile. "Miss
Mortimer considers herself in your debt, Mr. West," he said. "I think
you will hurt her feelings if you try to repudiate her obligation."

"Yes, of course," laughed Cynthia. "It was a mighty big debt, and I have
been wondering ever since how to get even with you. Oh, you needn't
scowl. That doesn't hurt me at all. Do you know you haven't altered a
mite, you funny English bulldog? Come, you know me now?"

"Yes, I know you," West said. "But I think it is a pity that you have
renewed your acquaintance with me, and the sooner you drop me again the
better." He spoke briefly and very decidedly, and having thus expressed
himself he turned to Babbacombe. "I am going to the library. Perhaps you
will join me there at your convenience."

With an abrupt bow to Cynthia, he turned to go. But instantly the high
voice arrested him.

"Mr. West!"

He paused.

"Mr. West!" she said again, her voice half-imperious, half-pleading.

Reluctantly he faced round. She was waiting for him with a little smile
quivering about her mouth. Her grey eyes met his with perfect composure.

"I want to know," she said, in her softest drawl, "if it is for my sake
or your own that you regret this renewal of acquaintance."

"For yours, Miss Mortimer," he answered grimly.

"That's very kind of you," she rejoined. "And why?"

Again he gave that slight lift of the shoulders that she remembered so
well.

"You know the proverb about touching pitch?"

"Some people like pitch," said Cynthia.

"Not clean people," threw back West.

"No?" she said. "Well, perhaps not. Anyway, it doesn't apply in this
case. So I sha'n't drop you, Mr. West, thank you all the same!
Good-night!"

She offered him her hand with a gesture that was nothing short of regal.
And he--because he could do no less--took it, gripped it, and went his
way.

"Isn't he rude?" murmured Cynthia; and she said it as if rudeness were
the highest virtue a man could display.




VI


The early winter dusk was falling upon a world veiled in cold, drifting
rain. Away in the distance where the castle stood, many lights had begun
to glimmer. It was the cosy hour when sportsmen collect about the
fireside with noisy talk of the day's achievements.

The man who strode down the long, dark avenue towards the bailiff's
house smiled bitterly to himself as he marked the growing illumination.
It was four days since Cynthia Mortimer had extended to him the hand of
friendship, and he had not seen her since. He was, in fact, studiously
avoiding her, more studiously than he had ever avoided any one in his
life before. His daily visits to the castle he now paid early in the
morning, before Babbacombe himself was dressed, long before any of the
guests were stirring. And his refusal either to dine at the castle or to
join the sportsmen during the day was so prompt and so emphatic that
Babbacombe had refrained from pressing his invitation.

Not a word had passed between them upon the subject of Cynthia's
recognition. West adhered strictly to business during his brief
interviews with his chief. The smallest digression on Babbacombe's part
he invariably ignored as unworthy of his attention, till even
Babbacombe, with all his courtly consideration for others, began to
regard him as a mere automaton, and almost to treat him as such.

Had he realised in the faintest degree what West was enduring at that
time, his heart must have warmed to the man, despite his repellent
exterior. But he had no means of realising.

The rust of twelve bitter years had corroded the bolts of that closed
door behind which the swindler hid his lonely soul, and it was not in
the power of any man to move them.

So grimly he went his silent way, cynical, as only those can be to whom
the best thing in life has been offered too late; proud, also, after his
curious, iron-clad fashion, refusing sternly to bear a lance again in
that field which had witnessed his dishonour.

He knew very well what those twinkling lights denoted. He could almost
hear the clatter round the tea-table, the witless jests of the
youngsters, the careless laughter of the women, the trivial, merry
nonsense that was weaving another hour of happiness into the golden
skein of happy hours. Contemptible, of course! Vanity of vanities! But
how infinitely precious is even such vanity as this to those who stand
outside!

The rain was beginning to patter through the trees. It would be a wet
night. With his collar turned up to his ears, he trudged forward. He
cared little for the rain. For twelve long years he had lived an outdoor
life.

There were no lights visible in his own abode. The old woman who kept
his house was doubtless gossiping with some crony up at the castle.

With his hand on the garden gate, he looked back at its distant, shining
front. Then, with a shrug, as if impatient with himself for lingering,
he turned to walk up the short, flagged pathway that led to his own
door.

At the same instant a cry of pain--a woman's cry--came sharply through
the dripping stillness of the trees. He turned back swiftly, banging the
gate behind him.

A long slope rose, tree-covered, from the other side of the road. He
judged the sound to have come from that direction, and he hurried
towards it with swinging strides. Reaching the deep shadow, he paused,
peering upwards.

At once a voice he knew called to him, but in such accents of agony that
he hardly recognised it.

"Oh, come and help me! I'm here--caught in a trap! I can't move!"

In a moment he was crashing through the undergrowth with the furious
recklessness of a wild animal.

"I am coming! Keep still!" he shouted as he went.

He found her crouched in a tiny hollow close to a narrow footpath that
ran through the wood. She was on her knees, but she turned a deathly
face up to him as he reached her. She was sobbing like a child.

"They are great iron teeth," she gasped, "fastened in my hand. Can you
open them?"

"Don't move!" he ordered, as he dropped down beside her.

It was a poacher's trap, fortunately of a species with which he was
acquainted. Her hand was fairly gripped between the iron jaws. He
wondered with a set face if those cruel teeth had met in her delicate
flesh.

She screamed as he forced it open, and fell back shuddering,
half-fainting, while he lifted her torn hand and examined it in the
failing light.

It was bleeding freely, but not violently, and he saw with relief that
the larger veins had escaped. He wrapped his handkerchief round it, and
spoke:

"Come!" he said. "My house is close by. It had better be bathed at
once."

"Yes," she assented shakily.

"Don't cry!" he said, with blunt kindliness.

"I can't help it," whispered Cynthia.

He helped her to her feet, but she trembled so much that he put his arm
about her.

"It's only a stone's throw away," he said.

She went with him without question. She seemed dazed with pain.

Silently he led her down to his dark abode.

"I'm giving you a lot of trouble," she murmured, as they entered.

To which he made gruff reply:

"It's worse for you than for me!"

He put her into an easy chair, lighted a lamp, and departed for a basin
of water.

When he returned, she had so far mastered herself as to be able to smile
at him through her tears.

"I know I'm a drivelling idiot to cry!" she said, her voice high and
tremulous. "But I never felt so sick before!"

"Don't apologise," said West briefly. "I know."

He bathed the injury with the utmost tenderness, while she sat and
watched his stern face.

"My!" she said suddenly, with a little, shaky laugh. "You are being very
good to me, but why do you frown like that?"

He glanced at her with those piercing eyes of his.

"How did you do it?"

The colour came into her white face.

"I--was trying to spring the trap," she said, eyeing him doubtfully. "I
didn't like to think of one of those cute little rabbits getting
caught."

"Yes, but how did you manage to get your hand in the way?" said West.

She considered this problem for a little.

"I guess I can't explain that mystery to you," she said, at length. "You
see, I'm only a woman, and women often do things that are very foolish."

West's silence seemed to express tacit agreement with this assertion.

"Anyway," she resumed, making a wry face, "it's done. You are not vexed
because I made such a fuss?"

There was an odd wistfulness in her tone. West, busy bandaging, did not
raise his eyes.

"I don't blame you for that," he said. "It must have hurt you
infernally! If you take my advice, you will show it to a doctor."

She screwed her face up a second time.

"To please you, Mr. West?"

"No," he responded curtly. "As a sensible precaution."

"And if I don't happen to be remarkable for sense?" she suggested.

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Yes, I know," said Cynthia. "You say that to everything. It's getting
rather monotonous. And I'm sure I'm very patient. You'll grant me that,
at least?"

He turned his ice-blue eyes upon her.

"I am not good at paying compliments, Miss Mortimer," he said cynically.
"Twelve years in prison have rusted all my little accomplishments."

She met his look with a smile, though her lips were quivering still.

"My! What a pity!" she said. "Has your heart got rusty, too?"

"Very," said West shortly.

"Can't you rub it off?" she questioned.

He uttered his ironic laugh.

"There wouldn't be anything left if I did."

"No?" she said whimsically. "Well, give it to me, and let me see what I
can do!"

His eyes fell away from her, and the grim line of his jaw hardened
perceptibly.

"That would be too hard a job even for you!" he said.

She rose and put out her free hand to him. Her eyes were very soft and
womanly. A quaint little smile yet hovered about her lips.

"I guess I'll have a try," she said gently.

He did not touch her hand, nor would he again meet her eyes.

"A hopeless task, I am afraid," he said. "And utterly unprofitable to
all concerned. I am not a deserving object for your charity."

She laughed a trifle breathlessly.

"Say, Mr. West, couldn't you put that into words of one syllable? You
try, and perhaps then I'll listen to you, and give you my views as
well."

But West remained rigorously unresponsive. It was as if he were thinking
of other things.

Cynthia uttered a little sigh and turned to go.

"Good-bye, Mr. West!" she said.

He went with her to the door.

"Shall I walk back with you?" he asked formally.

She shook her head.

"No. I'm better now, and it's quite light still beyond the trees.
Good-bye, and--thank you!"

"Good-bye!" he said.

He followed her to the gate, opened it for her, and stood there watching
till he saw her emerge from the shadow cast by the overarching trees.
Then--for he knew that the rest of the journey was no more than a few
minutes' easy walk--he turned back into the house, and shut himself in.

Entering the room he had just quitted, he locked the door, and there he
remained for a long, long time.




VII


It was not till she descended to dinner that Cynthia's injured hand was
noticed.

She resolutely made light of it to all sympathisers but it was plain to
Babbacombe, at least, that it gave her considerable pain.

"Let me send for a doctor," he whispered, as she finally passed his
chair.

But she shook her head with a smile.

"No, no. It will be all right in the morning."

But when he saw her in the morning, he knew at once that this prophecy
had not been fulfilled. She met his anxious scrutiny with a smile
indeed, but her heavy eyes belied it. He knew that she had spent a
sleepless night.

"It wasn't my hand that kept me awake," she protested, when he charged
her with this.

But Babbacombe was dissatisfied.

"Do see a doctor. I am sure it ought to be properly dressed," he urged.
"I'll take you myself in the motor, if you will."

She yielded at length to his persuasion, though plainly against her
will, and an hour later they drove off together, leaving the rest of the
party to follow the hounds.

At the park gate they overtook West, walking swiftly. He raised his hat
as they went by, but did not so much as look at Cynthia.

A sudden silence fell upon her, and it was not till some minutes had
passed that she broke it.

"Shall I tell you what kept me awake last night, Jack?" she said then.
"I think you have a right to know."

He glanced at her, encountering one of those smiles, half-sad,
half-humorous, that he knew so well. "You will do exactly as you
please," he said.

"You're generous," she responded. "Well, I'll tell you. I was busy
burying my poor foolish little romance."

A deep glow showed suddenly upon Babbacombe's face. He was driving
slowly, but he kept his eyes fixed steadily upon the stretch of muddy
road ahead.

"Is it dead, then?" he asked, his voice very low.

She made a quaint gesture as of putting something from her.

"Yes, quite; and buried decently without any fuss. The blinds are up
again, and I don't want any condolences. I'm going out into the sun,
Jack. I'm going to live."

"And what about me?" said Babbacombe.

She turned in her quick way, and laid her hand upon his knee.

"Yes, I've been thinking about you. I am going back to London to-morrow,
and the first thing I shall do will be to find you a really good wife."

"Thank you," he said, smiling a little. "But you needn't go to London
for that."

"Oh, shucks!" said Cynthia, colouring deeply. "There's more than one
woman in the world, Jack."

"Not for me," he said quietly.

She was silent for a space. Then:

"And if that one woman is such a sublime fool, such an ungrateful little
beast, as not to be able to--to love you as you deserve to be loved?"
she suggested, a slight break in her voice.

He turned his head at that, and looked for an instant straight into her
eyes.

"She is still the one woman, dear," he said, very tenderly. "Always
remember that."

She shook her head in protest. Her lips were quivering too much for
speech.

Babbacombe drove slowly on in silence.

At last the hand upon his knee pressed slightly.

"You can have her if you like, Jack," Cynthia murmured. "She's going
mighty cheap."

He freed his hand for a moment to grasp hers.

"I shall follow her to London," he said, "and woo her there."

She smiled at him gratefully and began to speak of other things.

The doctor was out, to her evident relief. Babbacombe wanted to go in
search of another, but she would not be persuaded.

"I'm sure it will be all right to-morrow. If not, I shall be in town,
and I can go to a doctor there. Please don't make a fuss about it. It's
too absurd."

Reluctantly he abandoned the argument, and they followed the hounds in
the motor instead.




VIII


Babbacombe's guests departed upon the following day. Cynthia was among
the first to leave. With a flushed face and sparkling eyes she made her
farewells, and even Babbacombe, closely as he observed her, detected no
hint of strain in her demeanour.

Returning from the station in the afternoon after speeding some of his
guests, he dropped into the local bank to change a cheque. The manager,
with whom he was intimate, chanced to be present, and led him off to his
own room.

"By the way," he said, "we were just going to send you notice of an
overdraft. That last big cheque of yours has left you a deficit."

Babbacombe stared at him. He had barely a fortnight before deposited a
large sum of money at the bank, and he had not written any large cheque
since.

"I don't understand," he said. "What cheque?"

The manager looked at him sharply.

"Why, the cheque for two hundred and fifty pounds, which your agent
presented yesterday," he said. "It bore your signature and was dated the
previous day. You wrote it, I suppose?"

Babbacombe was still staring blankly, but at the sudden question he
pulled himself together.

"Oh, that! Yes, to be sure. Careless of me. I gave him a blank cheque
for the Millsand estate expenses some weeks ago. It must have been
that."

But though he spoke with a smiling face, his heart had gone suddenly
cold with doubt. He knew full well that the expenses of which he spoke
had been paid by West long before.

He refused to linger, and went out again after a few commonplaces,
feeling as if he had been struck a stunning blow between the eyes.

Driving swiftly back through the park, he recovered somewhat from the
shock. There must be--surely there would be!--some explanation.

Reaching West's abode he stopped the motor and descended. West was not
in and he decided to wait for him, chafing at the delay.

Standing at the window, he presently saw the man coming up the path. He
moved slowly, with a certain heaviness, as though weary.

As he opened the outer door, Babbacombe opened the inner and met him in
the hall.

"I dropped in to have a word with you," he said.

West paused momentarily before shutting the door. His face was in
shadow.

"I thought so," he said. "I saw the motor."

Babbacombe turned back into the room. He was grappling with the hardest
task he had ever had to tackle. West followed him in absolute silence.

With an immense effort, Babbacombe spoke:

"I was at the bank just now. I went to get some cash. I was told that my
account was overdrawn. I can't understand it. There seems to have been
some mistake."

He paused, but West said nothing whatever. The light was beginning to
fail, but his expressionless face was clearly visible. It held neither
curiosity nor dismay.

"I was told," Babbacombe said again, "that you cashed a cheque of mine
yesterday for two hundred and fifty pounds. Is that so?"

"It is," said West curtly.

"And yet," Babbacombe proceeded, "I understood from you that the
Millsand estate business was settled long ago."

"It was," said West.

"Then this cheque--this cheque for two hundred and fifty pounds--where
did it come from, West?" There was a note of entreaty in Babbacombe's
voice.

West jerked up his head at the sound. It was a gesture openly
contemptuous. "Can't you guess?" he said.

Babbacombe stiffened at the callous question. "You refuse to answer me?"
he asked.

"That is my answer," said West.

"I am to understand then that you have robbed me--that you have forged
my signature to do so--that you--great heavens, man"--Babbacombe's
amazement burst forth irresistibly--"it's incredible! Are you mad, I
wonder? You can't have done it in your sober senses. You would never
have been so outrageously clumsy."

West shrugged his shoulders.

"I am quite sane--only a little out of practice."

His words were like a shower of icy water. Babbacombe contracted
instantly.

"You wish me to believe that you did this thing in cold blood--that you
deliberately meant to do it?"

"Certainly I meant to do it," said West.

"Why?" said Babbacombe.

Again he gave the non-committal shrug, no more. There was almost a
fiendish look in his eyes, as if somewhere in his soul a demon leaped
and jeered.

"Tell me why," Babbacombe persisted.

"Why should I tell you?" said West.

Babbacombe hesitated for an instant; then gravely, kindly, he made
reply:

"For the sake of the friendship that has been between us. I had not the
faintest idea that you were in need of money. Why couldn't you tell me?"

West made a restless movement. For the first time his hard stare shifted
from Babbacombe's face.

"Why go into these details?" he questioned harshly. "I warned you at the
outset what to expect. I am a swindler to the backbone. The sooner you
bundle me back to where I came from, the better. I sha'n't run away this
time."

"I shall not prosecute," Babbacombe said.

"You will not!" West blazed into sudden ferocity. He had the look of a
wild animal at bay. "You are to prosecute!" he exclaimed violently. "Do
you hear? I won't have any more of your damned charity! I'll go down
into my own limbo and stay there, without let or hindrance from you or
any other man. If you are fool enough to offer me another chance, as you
call it, I am not fool enough to take it. The only thing I'll take from
you is justice. Understand?"

"You wish me to prosecute?" Babbacombe said.

"I do!"

The words came with passionate force. West stood in almost a threatening
attitude. His eyes shone in the gathering dusk like the eyes of a
crouching beast--a beast that has been sorely wounded, but that will
fight to the last.

The man's whole demeanour puzzled Babbacombe--his total lack of shame or
penitence, his savagery of resentment. There was something behind it
all--something he could not fathom, that baffled him, however he sought
to approach it. In days gone by he had wondered if the fellow had a
heart. That wonder was still in his mind. He himself had utterly failed
to reach it if it existed. And Cynthia--even Cynthia--had failed. Yet,
somehow, vaguely, he had a feeling that neither he nor Cynthia had
understood.

"I don't know what to say to you, West," he said at length.

"Why say anything?" said West.

"Because," Babbacombe said slowly, "I don't believe--I can't
believe--that simply for the sake of a paltry sum like that you would
have risked so much. You could have swindled me in a thousand ways
before now, and done it easily, too, with small chance of being found
out. But this--this was bound to be discovered sooner or later. You must
have known that. Then why, why in heaven's name did you do it? Apart
from every other consideration, it was so infernally foolish. It wasn't
like you to do a thing like that." He paused, then suddenly clapped an
urgent hand upon the swindler's shoulder. "West," he said, "I'll swear
that you never played this game with me for your own advantage. Tell the
truth, man! Be honest with me in heaven's name! Give me the chance of
judging you fairly! It isn't much to ask."

West drew back sharply.

"Why should I be honest with you?" he demanded. "You have never been
honest with me from the very outset. I owe you nothing in that line, at
all events."

He spoke passionately still, yet not wholly without restraint. He was as
a man fighting desperate odds, and guarding some precious possession
while he fought. But these words of his were something of a revelation
to Babbacombe. He changed his ground to pursue it.

"What do you mean by that?"

"You know very well!" West flung the words from between set teeth, and
with them he abruptly turned his back upon Babbacombe, lodging his arms
upon the mantelpiece. "I am not going into details on that point or any
other. But the fact is there, and you know it. You have never been
absolutely straight in your dealings with me. I knew you weren't. I
always knew it. But how crooked you were I did not know till lately. If
you had been any other man, I believe I should have given you a broken
head for your pains. But you are so damnably courteous, as well as such
an unutterable fool!" He broke off with a hard laugh and a savage kick
at the coals in front of him. "I couldn't see myself doing it," he said,
"humbug as you are."

"And so you took this method of making me suffer?" Babbacombe suggested,
his voice very quiet and even.

"You may say so if it satisfies you," said West, without turning.

"It does not satisfy me!" There was a note of sternness in the steady
rejoinder. "It satisfies me so little that I insist upon an explanation.
Turn round and tell me what you mean."

But West stood motionless and silent, as though hewn in granite.

Babbacombe waited with that in his face which very few had ever seen
there. At last, as West remained stubborn, he spoke again:

"I suppose you have found out my original reason for giving you a fresh
start in life, and you resent my having kept it a secret."

"I resent the reason." West tossed the words over his shoulder as though
he uttered them against his will.

"Are you sure even now that you know what that reason was?" Babbacombe
asked.

"I am sure of one thing!" West spoke quickly, vehemently, as a man
shaken by some inner storm. "Had I been in your place--had the woman I
wanted to marry asked me to bring back into her life some worthless
scamp to whom she had taken a sentimental fancy when she was scarcely
out of the schoolroom, I'd have seen him damned first, and myself
too--had I been in your place. I would have refused pointblank, even if
it had meant the end of everything."

"I believe you would," Babbacombe said. The sternness had gone out of
his voice, and a certain weariness had taken its place. "But you haven't
quite hit the truth of the matter. Since you have guessed so much you
had better know the whole. I did not do this thing by request. I
undertook it voluntarily. If I had not done so, some other
means--possibly some less discreet means--would have been employed to
gain the same end."

"I see!" West's head was bent. He seemed to be closely examining the
marble on which his arms rested. "Well," he said abruptly, "you've told
me the truth. I will do the same to you. This business has got to end. I
have done my part towards bringing that about. And now you must do
yours. You will have to prosecute, whether you like it or not. It is the
only way."

"What?" Babbacombe said sharply.

West turned at last. The glare had gone out of his eyes--they were cold
and still as an Arctic sky.

"I think we understand one another," he said. "I see you don't like your
job. But you'll stick to it, for all that. There must be an end--a
painless end if possible, without regrets. She has got to realise that
I'm a swindler to the marrow of my bones, that I couldn't turn to and
lead a decent, honourable life--even for love of her."

The words fell grimly, but there was no mockery in the steely eyes, no
feeling of any sort. They looked full at Babbacombe with unflickering
steadiness, that was all.

Babbacombe listened in the silence of a great amazement. Vaguely he had
groped after the truth, but he had never even dimly imagined this. It
struck him dumb--this sudden glimpse of a man's heart which till that
moment had been so strenuously hidden from him.

"My dear fellow," he said at last; "but this is insanity!"

"Perhaps," West returned, unmoved. "They say every man has his mania.
This is mine, and it is a very harmless one. It won't hurt you to humour
it."

"But--good heavens!--have you thought of her?" Babbacombe exclaimed.

"I am thinking of her only," West answered quietly. "And I am asking you
to do the same, both now and after you have married her."

"And send you to perdition to secure her peace of mind? A thousand
times--no!" Babbacombe turned, and began to pace the room as though his
feelings were too much for him. But very soon he stopped in front of
West, and spoke with grave resolution. "Look here," he said, "I think
you know that her happiness is more to me than anything else in the
world, except my honour. To you it seems to be even more than that. And
now listen, for as man to man I tell you the truth. You hold her
happiness in the hollow of your hand!"

West's face remained as a mask; his eyes never varied.

"You can change all that," he said.

Babbacombe shook his head.

"I am not even sure that I shall try."

"What then?" said West. "Are you suggesting that the woman you love
should marry an ex-convict--a notorious swindler, a blackguard?"

"I think," Babbacombe answered firmly, "that she ought to be allowed to
decide that point."

"Allowed to ruin herself without interference," substituted West,
sneering faintly. "Well, I don't agree with you, and I shall never give
her the opportunity. You won't move me from that if you argue till
Doomsday. So, in heaven's name, take what the gods offer, and leave me
alone. Marry her. Give her all a good woman ever wants--a happy home, a
husband who worships her, and children for her to worship, and you will
soon find that I have dropped below the horizon."

He swung round again to the fire, and drove the poker hard into the
coals.

"And find another agent as soon as possible," he said; "a respectable
one this time, one who won't let you down when you are not looking, who
won't call you a fool when you make mistakes--in short, a gentleman.
There are plenty of them about. But they are not to be found in the
world's rubbish heap. There's nothing but filth and broken crockery
there."

He ended with his brief, cynical laugh, and Babbacombe knew that further
discussion would be vain. For good or ill the swindler had made his
decision, and he realised that no effort of his would alter it. To
attempt to do so would be to beat against a stone wall--a struggle in
which he might possibly hurt himself, but which would make no difference
whatever to the wall.

Reluctantly he abandoned the argument, and prepared to take his
departure.

But later, as he drove home, the man's words recurred to him and dwelt
long in his memory. Their bitterness seemed to cloak something upon
which no eye had ever looked--a regret unspeakable, a passionate
repentance that found no place.




IX


"I have just discovered of whom it is that your very unpleasant agent
reminds me," observed Lady Cottesbrook at the breakfast-table on the
following morning. "It flashed upon me suddenly. He is the very image of
that nasty person, Nat Verney, who swindled such a crowd of people a few
years ago. I was present at part of his trial, and a more callous,
thoroughly insolent creature I never saw. I suppose he is still in
prison. I forget exactly what the sentence was, but I know it was a long
one. I should think this man must be his twin-brother, Jack. I never saw
a more remarkable likeness."

Babbacombe barely glanced up from his letter. "You are always finding
that the people you don't like resemble criminals, Ursula," he said,
with something less than his usual courtesy. "Did you say you were
leaving by the eleven-fifty? I think I shall come with you."

"My dear Jack, how you change! I thought you were going to stay down
here for another week."

"I was," he answered. "But I have had a line from Cynthia to tell me
that her hand is poisoned from that infernal trap. It may be very
serious. It probably is, or she would not have written."

That note of Cynthia's had in fact roused his deepest anxiety. He had
fancied all along that she had deliberately made light of the injury.
Soon after three o'clock he was in town, and he hastened forthwith to
Cynthia's flat in Mayfair.

He found her on a couch in her dainty boudoir, lying alone before the
fire. Her eyes shone like stars in her white face as she greeted him.

"It was just dear of you to come so soon," she said. "I kind of thought
you would. I'm having a really bad time for once, and I thought you'd
like to know."

"Tell me about it," he said, sitting down beside her.

Her left hand lay in his for a few moments, but after a little she
softly drew it away. Her right was in a sling.

"There's hardly anything to tell," she said. "Only my arm is bad right
up to the shoulder, and the doctor is putting things on the wound so
that it sha'n't leave off hurting night or day. I dreamt I was Dante
last night. But no, I won't tell you about that. It was too horrible.
I've never been really sick before, Jack. It frightens me some. I sent
for you because I felt I wanted--a friend to talk to. It was
outrageously selfish of me."

"It was the kindest thing you could do," Babbacombe said.

"Ah, but you mustn't misunderstand." A note of wistfulness sounded in
the high voice. "You won't misunderstand, will you, Jack? I only want--a
friend."

"You needn't be afraid, Cynthia," he said. "I shall never attempt to be
anything else to you without your free consent."

"Thank you," she murmured. "I know I'm very mean. But I had such a bad
night. I thought that all the devils in hell were jeering at me because
I had told you my romance was dead. Oh, Jack! it was a great big lie,
and it's come home to roost. I can't get rid of it. It won't die."

He heard the quiver of tears in her confession, and set his teeth.

"My dear," he said, "don't fret about that. I knew it at the bottom of
my heart."

She reached out her hand to him again. "I hate myself for treating you
like this," she whispered. "But I--I'm lonely, and I can't help it.
You--you shouldn't be so kind."

"Ah, child, don't grudge me your friendship," he said. "It is the
dearest thing I have."

"It's so hard," wailed Cynthia, "that I can give you so little, when I
would so gladly give all if I could."

"You are not to blame yourself for that," he answered steadily. "You
loved each other before I ever met you."

"Loved each other!" she said. "Do you really mean that, Jack?"

He hesitated. He had not intended to say so much.

"Jack," she urged piteously, "then you think he really cares?"

"Don't you know it, Cynthia?" he asked, in a low voice.

"My heart knows it," she said brokenly. "But my mind isn't sure. Do you
know, Jack, I almost proposed to him because I felt so sure he cared.
And he--he just looked beyond me, as if--as if he didn't even hear."

"He thinks he isn't good enough for you," Babbacombe said, with an
effort. "I don't think he will ever be persuaded to act otherwise. He
seems to consider himself hopelessly handicapped."

"What makes you say that?" whispered Cynthia.

He had not meant to tell her. It was against his will that he did so;
but he felt impelled to do it. For her peace of mind it seemed
imperative that she should understand.

And so, in a few words, he told her of West's abortive attempt to plunge
a second time into the black depths from which he had so recently
escaped, of the man's absolutely selfless devotion, of his rigid refusal
to suffer even her love for him to move him from this attitude.

Cynthia listened with her bright eyes fixed unswervingly upon
Babbacombe's face. She made no comment of any sort when he ended. She
only pressed his hand.

He remained with her for some time, and when he got up to go at length,
it was with manifest reluctance. He lingered beside her after he had
spoken his farewell, as though he still had something to say.

"You will come again soon," said Cynthia.

"To-morrow," he answered. "And--Cynthia, there is just one thing I want
to say."

She looked up at him questioningly.

"Only this," he said. "You sent for me because you wanted a friend. I
want you from now onward to treat me and to think of me in that light
only. As I now see things, I do not think I shall ever be anything more
to you than just that. Remember it, won't you, and make use of me in any
way that you wish. I will gladly do anything."

The words went straight from his heart to hers. Cynthia's eyes filled
with sudden tears. She reached out and clasped his hand very closely.

"Dear Jack," she said softly; "you're just the best friend I have in the
world, and I sha'n't forget it--ever."

He called early on the following day, and received the information that
she was keeping her bed by the doctor's orders. Later in the day he went
again, and found that the doctor was with her. He decided to wait, and
paced up and down the drawing-room for nearly an hour. Eventually the
doctor came.

Babbacombe knew him slightly, and was not surprised when, at sight of
him in the doorway, the doctor turned aside at once, and entered the
room.

"Miss Mortimer told me I should probably see you," he said, "and if I
did so, she desired me to tell you everything. I am sorry to say that I
think very seriously of the injury. I have just been persuading her to
go into a private nursing-home. This is no place to be ill in, and I
shall have to perform a slight operation to-morrow which will
necessitate the use of an anaesthetic."

"An operation!" Babbacombe exclaimed, aghast.

"It is absolutely imperative," the doctor said, "to get at the seat of
the poison. I am making every effort to prevent the mischief spreading
any further. Should the operation fail, no power on earth will save her
hand. It may mean the arm as well."

Babbacombe listened to further explanations, sick at heart.

"When do you propose to move her?" he asked presently.

"At once. I am going now to make arrangements."

"May I go in and see her if she will admit me?"

"I don't advise it to-night. She is excited and overstrung. To-morrow,
perhaps, if all goes well. Come round to my house at two o'clock, and I
will let you know."

But Babbacombe did not see her the next day, for it was found advisable
to keep her absolutely quiet. The doctor was very reticent, but he
gathered from his manner that he entertained very grave doubts as to the
success of his treatment.

On the day following he telephoned to Babbacombe to meet him at the home
in the afternoon.

Babbacombe arrived before the time appointed, and spent half an hour in
sick suspense, awaiting the doctor's coming.

The latter entered at last, and greeted him with a serious face.

"I am going to let you see Miss Mortimer," he said. "What I feared from
the outset has taken place. The mischief was neglected too long at the
beginning. There is nothing for it but amputation of the hand. And it
must be performed without delay."

Babbacombe said something inarticulate that resolved itself with an
effort into:

"Have you told her?"

"Yes, I have." The doctor's voice was stern. "And she absolutely refuses
to consent to it. I have given her till to-morrow morning to make up her
mind. After that--" He paused a moment, and looked Babbacombe straight
in the face. "After that," he said, with emphasis, "it will be too
late."

When Babbacombe entered Cynthia's presence a few minutes later, he
walked as a man dazed. He found her lying among pillows, with the
sunlight streaming over her, transforming her brown hair into a mass of
sparkling gold. The old quick, gracious smile welcomed him as he bent
over her. There were deep shadows about her eyes, but they were
wonderfully bright. The hand she gave him was as cold as ice, despite
the flush upon her cheeks.

"You have been told?" she questioned. "Yes, I see you have. Now, don't
preach to me, Jack--dear Jack. It's too shocking to talk about. Can you
believe it? I can't. I've always been so clever with my hands. Have you
a pencil? I want you to take down a wire for me."

In her bright, imperious way, she dominated him. It was well-nigh
impossible to realise that she was dangerously ill.

He sat down beside her with pencil and paper.

"Address it to Mr. West," said Cynthia, her eyes following his fingers.
"Yes. And now put just this: 'I am sick, and wanting you. Will you
come?--Cynthia.' And write the address. Do you think he'll come, Jack?"

"Let me add 'Urgent,'" he said.

"No, Jack. You are not to. Add nothing. If he doesn't come for that, he
will never come at all. And I sha'n't wait for him," she added under her
breath.

She seemed impatient for him to depart and despatch the message, but
when he took his leave her eyes followed him with a wistful gratitude
that sent a thrill to his heart. She had taken him at his word, and had
made him her friend in need.




X


"If he doesn't come for that, he will never come at all."

Over and over Cynthia whispered the words to herself as she lay, with
her wide, shining eyes upon the door, waiting. She was a gambler who had
staked all on the final throw, and she was watching, weak and ill as she
was after long suffering, watching restlessly, persistently, for the
result of that last great venture. Surely he would come--surely--surely!

Once she spoke imperiously to the nurse.

"If a gentleman named West calls, I must see him at once, whatever the
hour."

The nurse raised no obstacle. Perhaps she realised that it would do more
harm than good to thwart her patient's caprice.

And so hour after hour Cynthia lay waiting for the answer to her
message, and hour followed hour in slow, uneventful procession, bringing
her neither comfort nor repose.

At length the doctor came and offered her morphia, but she refused it,
with feverish emphasis.

"No, no, no! I don't want to sleep. I am expecting a friend."

"Won't it do in the morning?" he said persuasively.

Her grey eyes flashed eager inquiry up at him.

"He is here?"

The doctor nodded.

"He has been here some time, but I hoped you would settle down. I want
you to sleep."

Sleep! Cynthia almost laughed. How inexplicably foolish were even the
cleverest of men!

"I will see him now," she said. "And, please, alone," as the doctor made
a sign to the nurse.

He moved away reluctantly, and again she almost laughed at his
imbecility.

But a minute later she had forgotten everything in the world save that
upon which her eyes rested--a short, broad-shouldered man, clean-shaven,
with piercing blue eyes that looked straight at her with
something--something in their expression that made the heart within her
leap and quiver like the strings of an instrument under a master hand.

He came quietly to the bedside, and stood looking down upon her, not
uttering a word.

She stretched up her trembling hand.

"I'm very glad to see you," she said weakly. "You got my message?
It--it--I hope it didn't annoy you."

"It didn't," said West.

His voice was curt and strained. His fingers had closed very tightly
upon her hand.

"Sit down," murmured Cynthia. "No, don't let go. It helps me
some to have you hold my hand. Mr. West, I've got to tell you
something--something that will make you really angry. I'm rather
frightened, too. It's because I'm sick. You--you must just make
allowances."

A light kindled in West's eyes that shone like a blue flame, but still
he held himself rigid, inflexible as a figure hewn in granite.

"Pray don't distress yourself, Miss Mortimer," he said stiffly.
"Wouldn't it be wiser to wait till you are better before you go any
further?"

"I never shall be better," Cynthia rejoined, a tremor of passion in her
voice, "I never shall go any further, unless you hear me out to-night."

West frowned a little, but still that strange light shone in his steady
eyes.

"I am quite at your service," he said, "either now or at any future
time. But if this interview should make you worse----"

"Oh, shucks!" said Cynthia, with a ghostly little smile. "Don't talk
through your hat, Mr. West!"

West became silent. He was still holding her hand in a warm, close grasp
that never varied.

"Let's get to business," said Cynthia, with an effort to be brisk. "It
begins with a confession. You know better than any one how I managed to
hurt my hand so badly. But even you don't know everything. Even you
never suspected that--that it wasn't an accident at all; that, in fact,
I did it on purpose."

She broke off for a moment, avoiding his eyes, but clinging tightly to
his hand.

"I did it," she went on breathlessly--"I did it because I heard you in
the drive below, and I wanted to attract your attention. I couldn't see
you, but I knew it was you. I was just going to spring the trap with my
foot, and then--and then I heard you, and I stooped down--it came to me
to do it, and I never stopped to think--I stooped down and put my hand
in the way. I never thought--I never thought it would hurt so
frightfully, or that it could come to this."

She was crying as she ended, crying piteously; while West sat like a
stone image, gazing at her.

"Oh, do speak to me!" she sobbed. "Do say something! Do you know what
they want to do? But I won't let them--I won't let them! It--it's too
dreadful a thing to happen to a woman. I can't bear it. I won't bear it.
It will be much easier to die. But you shall know the truth first."

"Cynthia, stop!" It was West's voice at last, but not as she had ever
heard it. It came from him hoarse and desperate, as though wrung by the
extreme of torture. He had sunk to his knees by the bed. His face was
nearer to hers than it had ever been before. "Don't cry!" he begged her
huskily. "Don't cry! Why do you tell me this if it hurts you to tell
me?"

"Because I want you to know!" gasped Cynthia. "Wait! Let me finish! I
wanted--to see--if--if you really cared for me. I thought--if you
did--you wouldn't be able to go on pretending. But--but--you managed
to--somehow--after all."

She ended, battling with her tears; and West, the strong, the cold, the
cynical, bowed his head upon her hand and groaned.

"It was for--your own sake," he muttered brokenly, without looking up.

"I know," whispered back Cynthia. "That was just what made it so
impossible to bear. Because, you see, I cared, too."

He was silent, breathing heavily.

Cynthia watched his bent head wistfully, but she did not speak again
till she had mastered her own weakness.

"Mr. West," she said softly at length.

He stirred, pressing her hand more tightly to his eyes.

"I am going to tell you now," proceeded Cynthia, "just why I asked you
to come to me. I suppose you know all about this trouble of mine--that I
shall either die very soon, or else have to carry my arm in a sling for
the rest of my life. Now that's where you come in. Would you--would you
feel very badly if I died, I wonder?"

He raised his head at that, and she saw his face as she had seen it once
long ago--alert, vital, full of the passionate intensity of his love for
her.

"You sha'n't die!" he declared fiercely. "Who says you are going to
die?"

Cynthia's eyes fell before the sudden fire that blazed at her from his.
"Unless I consent to be a cripple all my days," she said, with a curious
timidity wholly unlike her usual dainty confidence.

"Of course you will consent," West said, sweeping down her half-offered
resistance with sheer, overmastering strength. "You'll face this thing
like the brave woman you are. Good heavens! As if there were any
choice!"

"There is," Cynthia whispered, looking at him shyly, through lowered
lids. "There is a choice. But it rests with you. Mr. West, if you want
me to do this thing--if you really want me to, and it's a big thing to
do, even for you--I'll do it. There! I'll do it! I'll go on living like
a chopped worm for your sake. But--but--you'll have to do something for
me in return. Now I wonder if you can guess what I'm hinting at?"

West's face changed. The eagerness went out of it. Something of his
habitual grimness of expression returned.

Yet his voice was full of tenderness when he spoke.

"Cynthia," he said very earnestly, "there is nothing on this earth that
I will not do for you. But don't ask me to be the means of ruining you
socially, of depriving you of all your friends, of degrading you to a
position that would break your heart."

A glimmer of amusement flashed across Cynthia's drawn face.

"Oh!" she said, a little quiver in her voice. "You are funny, you men,
dull as moles and blind as bats. My dear, there's only one person in
this little universe who has the power to break my heart, and it isn't
any fault of his that he didn't do it long ago. No, don't speak. There's
nothing left for you to say. The petition is dismissed, but not the
petitioner; so listen to me instead. I've a sentimental fancy to be able
to have 'Mrs. Nat V. West' written on my tombstone in the event of my
demise to-morrow. I want you to make arrangements for the same."

"Cynthia!"

The word was almost a cry, but she checked it, her fingers on his lips.

"You great big silly!" she murmured, laughing weakly. "Where's your
sense of humour? Can't you see I'm not going to die? But I'm going to be
Mrs. Nat V. West all the same. Now, is that quite understood, I wonder?
Because I don't want to cry any more--I'm tired."

"You wish to marry me in the morning--before the operation?" West said,
speaking almost under his breath.

His face was close to hers. She looked him suddenly straight in the
eyes.

"Yes, just that," she told him softly. "I want--dear--I want to go to
sleep, holding my husband's hand."




XI


"It's a clear case of desertion," declared Cynthia imperturbably, two
months later. "But never mind that now, Jack. How do you like my sling?
Isn't it just the cutest thing in creation?"

"You look splendid," Babbacombe said with warmth, but he surveyed her
with slightly raised brows notwithstanding.

She nodded brightly in response.

"No, I'm not worrying any, I assure you. You don't believe me, I see. So
here's something for you to read that will set your mind at rest."

Babbacombe read, with a slowly clearing face. The note he held was in
his agent's handwriting.

     "I am leaving you to-day, for I feel, now you are well again, that
     you will find it easier in my absence to consider very carefully
     your position. Your marriage to me was simply an act of impulse. I
     gave way in the matter because you were in no state to be thwarted.
     But if, after consideration, you find that that act was a mistake,
     dictated by weakness, and heaven knows what besides of generosity
     and pity, something may yet be done to remedy it. It has never been
     published, and, if you are content to lead a single life, no one
     who matters need ever know that it took place. I am returning to my
     work at Farringdean for the present. I am aware that you may find
     some difficulty in putting your feelings in this matter into words.
     If so, I shall understand your silence.

     Yours,

     "N. V. WEST."

"Isn't he quaint?" said Cynthia, with a little gay grimace. "Now do you
know what I'm going to do, Jack? I'm going to get a certain good friend
of mine to drive me all the way to Farringdean in his motor. It's
Sunday, you know, and all the fates conspire to make the trains
impossible."

"How soon do you wish to start?" asked Babbacombe.

"Right away!" laughed Cynthia. "And if we don't get run in for exceeding
the speed limit, we ought to be there by seven."

It was as a matter of fact barely half-past six when Babbacombe turned
the motor in at the great gates of Farringdean Park. A sound of
church-bells came through the evening twilight. The trees of the avenue
were still bare, but there was a misty suggestion of swelling buds in
the saplings. The wind that softly rustled through them seemed to
whisper a special secret to each.

"I like those bells," murmured Cynthia. "They make one feel almost holy.
Jack, you're not fretting over me?"

"No, dear," said Babbacombe steadily.

She squeezed his arm.

"I'm so glad, for--honest Injun--I'm not worth it. Good-bye, then, dear
Jack! Just drive straight away directly you've put me down. I shall find
my own way in."

He took her at her word as he always did, and, having deposited her at
the gate under the trees that led to his bailiff's abode, he shot
swiftly away into the gathering dusk without a single glance behind.

West, entering his home a full hour later, heavy-footed, the inevitable
cigarette between his lips, was surprised to discover, on hanging up his
cap, a morsel of white pasteboard stuck jauntily into the glass of the
hatstand. It seemed to fling him an airy challenge. He stooped to look.
A lady's visiting-card! Mrs. Nat V. West!

A deep flush rose suddenly in his weather-beaten face. He seized the
card, and crushed it against his lips.

But a few moments later, when he opened his dining-room door, there was
no hint of emotion in his bearing. He bore himself with the rigidity of
a man who knows he has a battle before him.

The room was aglow with flickering firelight, and out of the glow a high
voice came--a cheery, inconsequent voice.

"Oh, here you are at last! Come right in and light the lamp. Did you see
my card? Ah, I knew you would be sure to look at yourself directly you
came in. There's nobody at home but me. I suppose your old woman's gone
to church. I've been waiting for you such a while--twelve years and a
bit. Just think of it."

She was standing on the hearth waiting for him, but since he moved but
slowly she stepped forward to meet him, her hand impetuously
outstretched.

He took it, held it closely, let it go.

"We must talk things over," he said.

"Splendid!" said Cynthia. "Where shall we begin? Never mind the lamp.
Let's sit by the fire and be cosy."

He moved forward with her--it was impossible to do otherwise--but there
was no yielding in his action. He held himself as straight and stiff as
a soldier on parade. He had bitten through his cigarette, and he tossed
it into the fire.

"Now sit down!" said Cynthia hospitably. "That chair is for you, and I
am going to curl up on the floor at your feet as becomes a dutiful
wife."

"Don't, Cynthia!" he said under his breath. But she had her way,
nevertheless. There were times when she seemed able to attain this with
scarcely an effort.

She seated herself on the hearthrug with her face to the fire.

"Go on," she said, in a tone of gentle encouragement; "I'm listening."

West's eyes stared beyond her into the flames.

"I haven't much to say," he said quietly at length. "Only this. You are
acting without counting the cost. There is a price to pay for
everything, but the price you will have to pay for this is heavier than
you realise. There should be--there can be--no such thing as equality
between a woman in your position--a good woman--and a blackguard in
mine."

Cynthia made a little gesture of impatience without turning her head.

"Oh, you needn't treat me as if I were on a different plane," she said.
"I'm a sinner, too, in my own humble way. It's unreasonable of you to go
on like that, unkind as well. I may be only a sprat in your estimation,
but even a sprat has its little feelings, its little heartaches, too, I
daresay." She broke off with a sigh and a laugh; then, drawing
impulsively nearer to him, but still without turning: "Do you remember
once, ages and ages ago, you were on the verge of saying something to
me, of--telling me something? And we were interrupted. Mr. West, I've
been waiting all these years to hear what that something was."

West did not stir an eyelid. His face was stern and hard.

"I forget," he said.

She turned upon him then, raising a finger and pointing straight at him.

"That," she said, with conviction, "is just one of your lies!"

West became silent, still staring fixedly into the fire.

Cynthia drew nearer still. She touched his breast with her outstretched
finger.

"Mr. West," she said gravely, "I suppose you'll have to leave off being
a blackguard, and take to being an honest man. That's the only solution
of the difficulty that I can think of now that you have got a crippled
wife to look after."

He gripped her wrist, but still he would not look at her.

"This is madness," he said, grinding out the words through clenched
teeth. "You are making a fatal mistake. I am not fit to be your husband.
It is not in my power to give you happiness."

She did not shrink from his hold, though it was almost violent. Her eyes
were shining like stars.

"That," she said, with quaint assurance, "is just another of your lies."

His hand relaxed slowly till her wrist was free.

"Do you know," he said, still with that iron self-suppression, "that
only a few weeks ago I committed forgery?"

"Yes," said Cynthia. "And I know why you did it, too. It wasn't exactly
clever, but it was just dear of you all the same."

The swindler's face quivered suddenly, uncontrollably. He tried to
laugh--the old harsh laugh--but the sound he uttered was akin to
something very different. He leaned forward sharply, and covered his
face with his hands.

And in that moment Cynthia knew that the walls of the citadel had fallen
at last, so that it lay open for her to enter in.

She knelt up quickly. Her arm slipped round his neck. She drew his head
with soft insistence to her breast.

"My own boy, it's over; forget it all. It wasn't meant to handicap you
always. We'll have another deal now, please God, and start afresh as
partners."

There followed a pause--a silence that had in it something sacred. Then
West raised himself, and took her face between his hands. For a moment
he looked deep into her eyes, his own alight with a vital fire.

Then, "As lovers, Cynthia," he said, and kissed her on the lips.




       *       *       *       *       *




                            The Nonentity




I


"It is well known that those fight hardest who fight in vain," remarked
Lord Ronald Prior complacently. "But I should have thought a woman of
your intellect would have known better. It's such a rank waste of energy
to struggle against Fate."

He spoke in the easy drawl habitual to him. His grey eyes held the
pleasant smile that was seldom absent from them. Not in any fashion a
striking personality, this; his kindest friend could not have called him
imposing, nor could the most uncharitable have described him as anything
worse than dull. Enemies he had none. His invariable good temper was his
safeguard in this particular. The most offensive remark would not have
provoked more than momentarily raised eyebrows.

He was positively characterless, so Beryl Denvers told herself a dozen
times a day. How could she possibly marry any one so neutral? And yet in
his amiable, exasperatingly placid fashion he had for some time been
laying siege to her affections. He had shaved off his beard because he
had heard her say that she objected to hairy men, and he seemed to think
that this sacrifice on his part entitled him to a larger share of her
favour than the rest of the world, certainly much more than she was
disposed to bestow.

He had, in fact, assumed almost an air of proprietorship over her of
late--a state of affairs which she strongly resented, but was powerless
to alter. He had a little money, but no prospects to mention, and had
never done anything worth doing in all his five-and-thirty years. And
yet he seemed to think himself an eligible _parti_ for one of the most
popular women in the district. His social position gave him a certain
precedence among her other admirers, but Beryl herself refused to
recognise this. She thought him presumptuous, and snubbed him
accordingly.

But Lord Ronald's courtship seemed to thrive upon snubs. He was never in
the least disconcerted thereby. He hadn't the brains to take offence,
she told herself impatiently, and yet somewhere at the back of her mind
there lurked a vagrant suspicion that he was not always as obtuse as he
seemed.

She had been rude to him on the present occasion and he had retaliated
with his smiling speech regarding her intellect which had made her feel
vaguely uncomfortable. It might have been--it probably was--an effort at
bluff on his part, but, uttered by any other man, it would have had
almost a hectoring sound.

"I haven't the smallest notion what you mean," she said, after a decided
pause.

"Charmed to explain," he murmured.

"Pray don't trouble!" she rejoined severely. "It doesn't signify in the
least. Explanations always bore me."

Lord Ronald smiled his imperturbable smile and flicked a gnat from his
sleeve.

"Especially when they are futile, eh, Mrs. Denvers? I'm not fond of 'em
myself. Haven't much ability for that sort of thing."

"Have you any ability for anything, I wonder?" she said.

He turned his smooth, good-humoured countenance towards her. It wore a
speculative look, as though he were wondering if by any chance she could
have meant to be nasty.

"Oh, rather!" he said. "I can do quite a lot of things--and decently,
too--from boiling potatoes to taming snakes. Never heard me play the
cornet, have you?"

Beryl remarked somewhat unnecessarily that she detested the cornet. She
seemed to be thoroughly exasperated with him for some reason, and
evidently wished that he would take his leave. But this fact had not
apparently yet penetrated to Lord Ronald's understanding, for he was the
most obliging of men at all times, and surely would never have dreamed
of intruding his presence where it was unwelcome.

He sat on his favourite perch, the music-stool, and swung himself gently
to and fro while he mildly upheld the virtues of the instrument she had
slighted.

"I was asked to perform at a smoker the other night at the barracks," he
said. "The men seemed to enjoy it immensely."

"Soldiers like anything noisy," said Beryl Denvers scathingly.

And then--because he had no retort ready--her heart smote her.

"But it was kind of you to go," she said. "I am sure you wouldn't enjoy
it."

"Oh, but I did," he said, "on the whole. I should have liked it better
if Fletcher hadn't been in the chair, and so, I think, would they. But
it passed off very fairly well."

"Why do you object to Major Fletcher?" Beryl's tone was slightly
aggressive.

Lord Ronald hesitated a little.

"He isn't much liked," he told her vaguely.

She frowned.

"But that is no answer. Are you afraid to answer me?"

He laughed at that, laughed easily and naturally, in the tolerant
fashion that most exasperated her.

"Oh, no; I'm not afraid. But I don't like hurting people's
feelings--especially yours."

"I do not see how that is possible," she rejoined, with dignity, "where
my feelings are not concerned."

"Ah, but that's where it is," he responded. "You like Fletcher well
enough to be extremely indignant if anyone were to tell you that he is
not a nice person for you to know."

"I object to unpleasant insinuations regarding any one," she said, with
slightly heightened colour. "They always appear to me cowardly."

"Yes; but you asked, you know," Lord Ronald reminded her gently.

Her colour deepened. It was not often that he got the better of her; not
often, indeed, that he exerted himself to do so. She began to wish
ardently that he would go. Really, he was quite insufferable to-day.

Had he been a man of any perception whatever she would almost have
thought that he fathomed her desire, for at this point he rose in a
leisurely fashion as though upon the point of departure.

She rose also from behind the tea-table with a little inward pricking of
conscience for wishing him gone. She wondered if he deemed her
inhospitable, but if he did he disguised it very carefully, for his eyes
held nothing but friendliness as they met her own.

"Has it never occurred to you," he said, "that you lead a very
unprotected existence here?"

Something in his expression checked her first impulse to resent the
question. Her lip quivered unexpectedly.

"Now and then," she said.

"Are you a man-hater?" he asked deliberately.

She laughed a little.

"Why do you ask such an absurd question?"

He seemed to hesitate momentarily.

"Because--forgive me--wouldn't you be a good deal happier if you were to
marry again?"

Again her colour rose hotly. What did the man mean by assuming this
attitude? Was he about to plead his own cause, or that of another?

"I think it exceedingly doubtful," she replied stiffly, meeting his
steady eyes with a hint of defiance.

"You have never thought of such a thing perhaps?" he suggested.

She smiled a woman's pitying smile.

"Of course I have thought of it."

"Then you have not yet met the man to whom you would care to entrust
yourself?" he asked.

She took fire at this. It was an act of presumption not to be borne.

"Even if I had," she said, with burning cheeks, "I do not think I should
make Lord Ronald Prior my confidant."

"No?" he said. "Yet you might do worse."

Her eyes shot scorn.

"Can a man be worse than inept?" she asked.

"Yes," he answered. "Since you ask me, I think he can--a good deal
worse."

"I detest colourless people!" she broke in vehemently.

He smiled.

"In fact, you prefer black sheep to grey sheep. A good many women do.
But it doesn't follow that the preference is a wise one."

The colour faded suddenly from her face. Did he know how ghastly a
failure her first marriage had been? Most people knew. Could it be to
this that he was referring? The bare suspicion made her wince.

"That," she said icily, "is no one's affair but my own. I am not wholly
ignorant of the ways of the world. And I know whom I can trust."

"You trust me, for instance?" said Lord Ronald.

She looked him up and down witheringly.

"I should say you are quite the most harmless man I know."

"And you don't like me in consequence," he drawled, meeting the look
with eyes so intent that, half-startled, she lowered her own.

She turned away from him with an impatient gesture. He had never managed
to embarrass her before.

"I should like you better if you weren't so officious," she said.

"But you have no one else to look after you," objected Lord Ronald.

"Well, in any case, it isn't your business," she threw back, almost
inclined to laugh at his audacity.

"It would be if you married me," he pointed out, as patiently as if he
were dealing with a fractious child.

"If I----"

She wheeled abruptly, amazed out of her disdain. It was the most prosaic
proposal she had ever had.

"If you married me," he repeated, keeping his eyes upon her. "You admit
that I am harmless, so you would have nothing to fear from me. And as a
watch-dog, I think you would find me useful--and quite easy to manage,"
he added, with his serene smile.

Beryl was staring at him in wide astonishment. Was the man mad to
approach her thus?

"No," he said. "I am quite sane; eccentric perhaps, but--as you are kind
enough to observe--quite harmless. I never proposed to any woman before
in my life, or so much as wanted to, so that must be my excuse for doing
it badly. Really, you know, Mrs. Denvers, you might do worse than marry
me. You might indeed."

But at that her indignation broke bounds. If he were not mad, it made
him the more intolerable. Did he fancy himself so desirable, then, that
he had merely to fling her the handkerchief--to find her at his feet?
His impertinence transcended belief. But she would pay him back in his
own coin. He should never again imagine himself irresistible.

"Really, Lord Ronald," she said, "if I actually needed a
protector--which I do not--you are the very last person to whom I should
turn. And as to a husband----"

She paused a moment, searching for words sufficiently barbed to
penetrate even his complacency.

"Yes?" he said gently, as if desirous to help her out.

"As to a husband," she said, "if I ever marry again, it will be a man I
can respect--a man who can hold his own in the world; a man who is
really a man, and not--not a nonentity!"

Impetuously she flung the words. For all his placidity, he seemed to
possess the power to infuriate her. She longed intensely to move him to
anger. She felt insulted by his composure, hating him because he
remained so courteously attentive.

He made no attempt to parry her thrust, nor did he seem to be
disconcerted thereby. He merely listened imperturbably till she ceased
to speak. Then:

"Ah, well," he said good-humouredly, "you mustn't take me too seriously.
It was only a suggestion, you know." He picked up his hat with the
words. "A pity you can't see your way to fall in with it, but you know
best. Good-bye for the present."

Reluctantly, in response to his evident expectation, she gave him her
hand.

"I wish you to understand, Lord Ronald," she said stiffly as she did so,
"that my reply is final."

He lifted his eyebrows for a second, and she fancied--could it have been
mere fancy?--that the grey eyes shone with a certain steely
determination that was assuredly foreign to his whole nature as he made
deliberate reply:

"That is quite understood, Mrs. Denvers. It was awfully kind of you to
be so explicit. As you know, I am not good at taking hints."

And with that he was gone, unruffled to the last, perfectly courteous,
almost dignified, while she stood and watched his exit with a vague and
disquieting suspicion that he had somehow managed to get the best of it
after all.




II


When Beryl Denvers first came to Kundaghat to be near her friend Mrs.
Ellis, the Commissioner's wife, society in general openly opined that
she had come to the populous Hill station to seek a husband. She was
young, she was handsome, and she was free. It seemed the only reasonable
conclusion to draw. But since that date society had had ample occasion
to change its mind. Beryl Denvers plainly valued her freedom above every
other consideration, and those who wooed her wooed in vain. She
discouraged the attentions of all mankind with a rigour that never
varied, till society began to think that her brief matrimonial
experience had turned her into a man-hater. And yet this was hard to
believe, for, though quick-tempered, she was not bitter. She was quite
willing to be friendly with all men, up to a certain point. But beyond
this subtle boundary few dared to venture and none remained. There was a
wonderful fascination about her, a magnetism that few could resist; but
notwithstanding this she held herself aloof, never wholly forgetting her
caution even with those who considered themselves her intimates.

Having dismissed Lord Ronald Prior, with whom she was almost
unreasonably angry, she ordered her rickshaw and went out to cool her
hot cheeks. The recent interview had disquieted her to the depths. She
tried to regard his presumption as ludicrous, yet failed to do so. For
what he had said was to a large extent true. She was unprotected, and
she was also lonely, though this she never owned. She stifled a sigh as
she set forth. Hitherto she had always liked Lord Ronald. Why had he
couched his proposal in such impossible terms?

She went to the polo-ground to watch the practice, and here found
several friends in whose society she tried to forget her discomfiture.
But it remained with her notwithstanding, and was still present when she
returned to prepare for dinner. She was dining with the Ellises that
night, and she hoped ardently that Lord Ronald would not make one of the
party.

But she was evidently destined for mortification that day, for the first
thing she saw upon entering the drawing-room was his trim figure
standing by her hostess. And, "Lord Ronald will take you in, dear," said
Nina Ellis, as she greeted her.

Beryl glanced at him, and he bowed in his courtly way. "I hope you don't
mind," he murmured.

She did mind exceedingly, but it was impossible to say so. She could
only yield to the inevitable and rest the tips of her fingers upon his
sleeve.

It was with a decided sense of relief that she found Major Fletcher
seated on her other side. A handsome, well-mannered cavalier was Major
Fletcher, by every line of his figure a soldier, by every word of his
conversation a gentleman. Exceedingly self-possessed at all times, it
was seldom, if ever, that he laid himself open to a snub. It was
probably for this very reason that Beryl liked him better than most of
the men in Kundaghat, was less distant with him, and usually granted the
very little that he asked of her.

She turned to him at once with a random remark about the polo-players,
wondering if they would be able to hold their own against a native team
with whom a match had been arranged for the following week.

"Oh, I think so," he said. "The Farabad men are strong, but our fellows
are hard to beat. It won't be a walkover for either side."

"Where will the match be played?" she asked, nervously afraid of letting
the subject drop lest Lord Ronald should claim her attention.

"Here," said Major Fletcher. "It was originally to have been at Farabad,
but there was some difficulty about the ground. I was over there
arranging matters only this evening. The whole place is being turned
upside down for a native fair which is to be held in a few days, when
the moon is full. You ought to see it. It is an interesting sight--one
which I believe you would enjoy."

"No doubt I should," she agreed. "But it is rather a long way, isn't
it?"

"Not more than twelve miles." Fletcher's dark face kindled with a sudden
idea. "I could drive you down some morning early if you cared for it."

Beryl hesitated. It was not her custom to accept invitations of this
sort, but for once she felt tempted. She longed to demonstrate her
independence to Lord Ronald, whose suggestions regarding her inability
to take care of herself had so sorely hurt her pride. Might she not
permit herself this one small fling for his benefit? It would be so good
for him to realise that she was no incompetent girl, but a woman of the
world and thoroughly well versed in its ways. And at least he would be
forced to recognise that his proposal had been little short of an
absurdity. She wanted him to see that, as she wanted nothing else on
earth.

"You think it would bore you?" asked Fletcher.

"No," she said, flushing slightly; "I think I should like it."

"Well done!" he said, with quiet approval. "You are such a hermit, Mrs.
Denvers, that it will be quite a novelty for us both."

She met his eyes for an instant, assailed by a sudden memory of Lord
Ronald's vague remarks concerning him. But they were very level, and
revealed nothing whatever. She told herself indignantly that there was
nothing to reveal. The man had simply made her a friendly offer, and she
determined to accept it in a like spirit.

"It was kind of you to think of it," she said. "I will come with much
pleasure."

On her other side she heard Lord Ronald's leisurely tones conversing
with his neighbour, and wondered if aught of the project had reached
him. She hoped it had, though the serenity of his demeanour made her
doubtful. But in any case he would surely know sooner or later.




III


Major Fletcher was well versed in the ways of natives, and as they drove
in his high dog-cart to Farabad a few days later, he imparted to his
companion a good deal of information regarding them of which, till then,
she had been quite ignorant.

He succeeded in arousing her interest, and the long drive down the
hillside in the early morning gave her the keenest enjoyment. She had
been feeling weary and depressed of late, a state of affairs which could
not fairly be put down to the score of ill-health. She had tried hard to
ignore it, but it had obtruded itself upon her notwithstanding, and she
was glad of the diversion which this glimpse of native life afforded
her. Of Lord Ronald Prior she had seen nothing for over a week. He had
left Kundaghat on the day following the dinner-party, dropping
unobtrusively, without farewell, out of her life. She had told herself a
dozen times, and vehemently, that she was glad of it, but the
humiliating fact remained that she missed him--missed him at every turn;
when she rode, when she danced, when she went out in her rickshaw, and
most of all in her drawing-room.

She had grown so accustomed to the sight of the thick-set, unromantic
figure swinging lazily to and fro on her sorely tried music-stool,
watching her with serene grey eyes that generally held a smile. She
wished she had not been quite so severe. She had not meant to send him
quite away. As a friend, his attitude of kindly admiration was all that
could be desired. And he was so safe, too, so satisfactorily solid. She
had always felt that she could say what she liked to him without being
misunderstood. Well, he had gone, and as they finally alighted, and went
forward on foot through the fair, she resolutely dismissed him from her
mind.

She made one or two purchases under Fletcher's guidance, which meant
that she told him what she wanted and stood by while he bargained for
her in Hindustani, an amusing business from her point of view.

Undoubtedly she was beginning to enjoy herself, when he surprised her by
turning from one of these unintelligible colloquies, and offering for
her acceptance a beautifully wrought gold filigree bracelet.

She looked at him blankly, not without a vague feeling of dismay.

"Won't you have it?" he said. "Won't you permit me this small favour?"

She felt the colour go out of her face. It was so unexpected, this from
him--in a fashion, almost staggering. For some reason she had never
regarded this man as a possible admirer. She felt as if the solid ground
had suddenly quaked beneath her.

"I would rather not," she said at last, avoiding his eyes instinctively.
"Please don't think me ungracious. I know you mean to be kind."

"If you really believe that," said Fletcher, smiling faintly, "I don't
see your objection."

The blood rushed back in a burning wave to her face. She, who prided
herself upon being a woman of the world, blushed hotly, overwhelmingly,
like any self-conscious girl.

"I would rather not," she repeated, with her eyes upon the ground.

But Fletcher was not to be turned lightly from his purpose.

"I wouldn't distress you for the world, Mrs. Denvers," he said, "but
don't you think you are a trifle unreasonable? No one expects a woman in
your position to be a slave to convention. I would never have bought the
thing had I dreamed that it could be an offence."

There was a tinge of reproach in his voice, no more, but she felt
inexplicably ashamed as she heard it. She looked up sharply, and the
conviction that she was making herself ridiculous swept quickly upon
her. She held out her hand to him, and mutely suffered him to slip the
bangle on to her wrist.




IV


A curious rattling sound made them turn sharply the next moment, and
even though it proved to be the warning signal of an old snake-charmer,
Beryl welcomed the diversion. She looked at the man with a good deal of
interest, notwithstanding her repulsion. He was wrapped in a long, very
dirty, white _chuddah_, from which his face peered weirdly forth,
wrinkled and old, almost supernaturally old, she thought to herself. It
was very strangely adorned with red paint, which imparted to the eyes a
ghastly pale appearance in the midst of the swarthy skin. A wiry grey
beard covered the lower part of the face, and into this he was crooning
a tuneless and wholly unintelligible song, while he squatted on the
ground in front of a large, covered basket.

"He has got a cobra there," Fletcher said, and took Beryl's arm quietly.

She moved slightly, with a latent wish that he would take his hand away.
But natives were beginning to crowd and press about them to see the
show, and she realised that his action was dictated by necessity.

"Shall I take you away before we get hemmed in?" he asked her once.

But she shook her head. A nameless fascination impelled her to remain.

Even when the snake-charmer shot forth a dusky arm and clawed the basket
open, she showed no sign of fear, though Fletcher's hold upon her
tightened to a grip. They seemed to be the only Europeans in all that
throng, but that fact also she had forgotten. She could think of nothing
but the crouching native before her, and the basket in which some
living, moving thing lay enshrouded.

Closely she watched the active fingers, alert and sensitive, feeling
over the dingy cloth they had exposed. Suddenly, with a movement too
swift to be followed, they rent the covering away, and on the instant,
rearing upwards, she beheld a huge snake.

A thrill of horror shot through her, so keen that it stabbed every
pulse, making her whole body tingle. But there was no escape for her
then, nor did she seek it. She had a most unaccountable feeling that
this display was for her alone, that in some way it appealed to her
individually; and she was no longer so much as conscious of Fletcher's
presence at her side.

The charmer continued his crooning noise, and the great cobra swayed its
inflated neck to and fro as though to some mysterious rhythm, the native
with naked hand and arm seeming to direct it.

"Loathsome!" murmured a voice into Beryl's ear, but she did not hear it.
Her whole intelligence was riveted upon the movements of the serpent and
its master. It was a hideous spectacle, but it occupied her undivided
attention. She had no room for panic.

Suddenly the man's crooning ceased, and on the instant the cobra ceased
to sway. It seemed to gather itself together, was rigid for perhaps five
seconds, and then--swift as a lightning flash--it struck.

A sharp cry broke from Beryl, but she never knew that she uttered it.
All she was aware of was the ghastly struggle that ensued in front of
her, the fierce writhing of the snake, the convulsive movements of the
old native, and, curiously distinct from everything else, an impression
of some stringed instrument thrumming somewhere at the back of the
crowd.

It all ended as unexpectedly as it had begun. The great reptile became
suddenly inert, a lifeless thing; the monotonous crooning was resumed,
proceeding as it were out of the chaos of the struggle, and round his
neck and about his body the snake-charmer wound his vanquished foe.

The moment for _backsheesh_ had arrived, and Beryl, coming suddenly out
of her absorption, felt for her purse and awoke abruptly to the
consciousness of a hand that gripped her arm.

She glanced at Fletcher, who at once slackened his hold. "Don't you give
the fellow anything," he said, with a touch of peremptoriness, "I will."

She yielded, considering the matter too trivial for argument, and
watched his rupee fall with a tinkle upon the tin plate which the
snake-charmer extended at the length of his sinewy arm.

Fletcher speedily made a way for her through the now shifting crowd; and
after a little they found the _saice_, waiting with the mare under a
tree. The animal was tormented by flies and restless. Certainly in this
valley district it was very hot.

"We will go back by the hill road," Fletcher said, as he handed her up.
"It is rather longer, but I think it is worth it. This blaze is too much
for you."

They left the thronged highroad, and turned up a rutty track leading
directly into the hills.

Their way lay between great, glaring boulders of naked rock. Here and
there tufts of grass grew beside the stony track, but they were brown
and scorched, and served only to emphasise the barrenness of the land.

For a while they drove in silence, mounting steadily the whole time.

Suddenly Fletcher spoke. "We shall come to some shade directly. There is
a belt of pine trees round the next curve."

The words were hardly uttered when unexpectedly the mare shied, struck
the ground violently with all four feet together, and bolted.

Beryl heard an exclamation from the native groom, and half-turned to see
him clinging to the back with a face of terror. She herself was more
astonished than frightened. She gripped the rail instinctively, for the
cart was jolting horribly as the mare, stretched out like a greyhound,
fled at full gallop along the stony way.

She saw Fletcher, with his feet against the board, dragging backwards
with all his strength. He was quite white, but exceedingly collected,
and she was instantly quite certain that he knew what he was about.

There followed a few breathless moments of headlong galloping, during
which they swayed perilously from side to side, and were many times on
the verge of being overturned. Then, the ground rising steeply, the
mare's wild pace became modified, developed into a spasmodic canter,
became a difficult trot, finally slowed to a walk.

Fletcher pulled up altogether, and turned to the silent woman beside
him. "Mrs. Denvers, you are splendid!" he said simply.

She laughed rather tremulously. The tension over, she was feeling very
weak.

The _saice_ was already at the mare's head, and Fletcher let the reins
go. He dismounted without another word and went round to her side. Still
silent, he held up his hands to her and lifted her down as though she
had been a child. He was smiling a little, but he was still very pale.

As for Beryl, the moment her feet touched the ground she felt as if the
whole world had turned to liquid and were swimming around her in a
gigantic whirlpool of floating impressions.

"Ah, you are faint!" she heard him say.

And she made a desperate and quite futile effort to assure him that she
was nothing of the sort. But she knew that no more than a blur of sound
came from her lips, and even while she strove to make herself
intelligible the floating world became a dream, and darkness fell upon
her.




V


Gradually, very gradually, the mists cleared from Beryl's brain, and she
opened her eyes dreamily, and stared about her with a feeling that she
had been asleep for years. She was lying propped upon carriage-cushions
in the shade of an immense boulder, and as she discovered this fact,
memory flashed swiftly back upon her. She had fainted, of course, in her
foolish, weak, womanly fashion. But where was Major Fletcher? The heat
was intense, so intense that breathing in that prone position seemed
impossible. Gasping, she raised herself. Surely she was not absolutely
alone in this arid wilderness!

She was not. In an instant she realised this, and wonder rather than
fear possessed her.

There, squatting on his haunches, not ten paces from her, was the old
snake-charmer. His basket was by his side; his _chuddah_ drooped low
over his face; he sat quite motionless, save for a certain palsied
quivering, which she had observed before. He looked as if he had been in
that place and attitude for many years.

Beryl leaned her head upon her hand and closed her eyes. She was feeling
spent and sick. He did not inspire her with horror, this old man. She
was conscious of a faint sensation of disgust, that was all.

A few seconds later she looked up again, wondering afresh whither her
escort could have betaken himself. It seemed to her that the distance
between herself and the old native had dwindled somewhat, but she did
not bestow much attention upon him. She merely noted how fiercely the
sun beat down upon his shrouded head, and wondered how he managed to
endure it.

The next time she opened her eyes, there were scarcely three yards
between them. The instant her look fell upon him he began to speak in a
thin, wiry voice of great humility.

"Let the gracious lady pardon her servant," he said, in perfect English.
"He would not harm a hair of her head."

She raised herself to an upright position with an effort. Very curiously
she did not feel in the least afraid. By an abrupt intuition, wholly
inexplicable, she knew that the man had something to tell her.

"What is it?" she said.

He cringed before her.

"Let my gracious lady have patience. It is no boon that her servant
would desire of her. He would only speak a word of warning in the
_mem-sahib's_ ear."

Beryl had begun to give him her full attention. She had a feeling that
she had seen the man somewhere before, but where and under what
circumstances she could not recall. It was no moment for retrospection
and the phantom eluded her.

"What is it?" she said again, studying him with knitted brows.

He bowed himself before her till he appeared to be no more than a bundle
of dirty linen.

"Let the gracious lady be warned by her servant," he said. "Fletcher
_sahib_ is a man of evil heart."

Beryl's eyes widened. Assuredly this was the last thing she had expected
to hear from such a source.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

He grovelled before her, his head almost in the dust.

"_Mem-sahib_ he has gone for water, but he will soon return. And he will
lie to the gracious lady, and tell her that the shaft of the carriage is
broken so that he cannot take her back. But it is not so, most gracious.
The shaft is cracked, indeed, but it is not beyond repair. Moreover, it
was cracked by the _saice_ at his master's bidding, while the
_mem-sahib_ was at the fair."

He paused; but Beryl said nothing. She was listening to the whole story
in speechless, unfeigned astonishment.

"Also," her informant proceeded, "the _sahib's_ mare was frightened, not
by an accident, but by a trick. It was the _sahib's_ will that she
should run away. And he chose this road so that he might be far from
habitation, well knowing that for every mile on the lower road there are
two miles to be travelled on this. _Mem-sahib_, your servant has spoken,
and he prays you to beware. There is danger in your path."

"But--but," gasped Beryl, "how do you know all this? What makes you tell
me? You can't know what you are saying!"

She was thoroughly frightened by this time, and heat and faintness were
alike forgotten. Incredible as was the story to which she had listened,
there was about it a vividness that made it terrifying.

"But I don't understand," she said helplessly, as the snake-charmer
remained silent to her questions. "It is not possible! It could not be!"

He lifted his head a little and, from the depths of the _chuddah_, she
knew that piercing eyes surveyed her.

"_Mem-sahib_," he said, "your servant knew that this would happen, and
he came here swiftly by a secret way to warn you. More, he knows that
when Fletcher _sahib_ returns, he will speak lightly of the accident, so
that the _mem-sahib_ will have no fear. 'A broken shaft is soon mended,'
he will say. 'My servant has returned to Farabad--to a man he knows. We
will rest under the trees but a furlong from this place till he comes
back.' But, most gracious, he will not come back. There is no place at
Farabad at this time of the fair where the work could be done. Moreover,
the _saice_ has his orders, and he will not seek one. He will go back to
Kundaghat with the mare, but he will walk all the way. It is fifteen
miles from here by the road. He will not reach it ere nightfall. He will
not return till after the darkness falls, and then he will miss the
road. He will not find Fletcher _sahib_ and the gracious lady before the
sunrise."

Thus, in brief but telling sentences, the old native revealed to the
white-faced woman before him the whole abominable plot. She listened to
him in a growing agony of doubt. Could it be? Was it by any means
possible that Fletcher, desiring to win her, but despairing of lessening
the distance she maintained between them by any ordinary method, had
devised this foul scheme of compromising her in the eyes of society in
order to force her to accept him?

Her cheeks burned furiously at the intolerable suspicion. It made her
wholly forget that the man before her was an evil-looking native of whom
she knew nothing whatever.

With sudden impulse she turned and bestowed her full confidence upon
him, the paint-smeared face and mumbling beard notwithstanding.

"You must help me," she said imperiously. "You have done so much. You
must do more. Tell me how I am to get back to Kundaghat."

He made a deferential gesture.

"The _mem-sahib_ cannot depart before the major _sahib_ returns," he
said. "Let her therefore be faint once more, and let him minister to
her. Let her hear his story, and judge if her servant has spoken truly.
Then let the gracious lady go with him into the shade of the pine trees
on the hill. When she is there let her discover that she has left behind
her some treasure that she values--such as the golden bangle that is on
the _mem-sahib's_ wrist. Let her show distress, and Fletcher _sahib_
shall come back to seek it. Then let her listen for the scream of a jay,
and rise up and follow it. It will lead her by a safe and speedy way to
Kundaghat. It will be easy for the _mem-sahib_ to say afterwards that
she began to wander and lost her way, till at last she met an aged man
who guided her."

Yes, quite easy. She assimilated this subtle suggestion, for the first
time in her life welcoming craft. Of the extreme risk of the undertaking
she was too agitated to think. To get away was her one all-possessing
desire.

While she thus desperately reviewed the situation, the snake-charmer
began, with much grunting and mowing, to gather himself together for
departure. She watched him, feeling that she would have gladly detained
him had that been possible. Slowly, with palsied movements, he at length
arose and took up his basket, doubled himself up before her with an
almost ludicrous excess of deference, and finally hobbled away.




VI


There fell a step upon the parched earth, and with a start Beryl turned
her head. She had seated herself again, but it was impossible to feign
limpness with every pulse at the gallop. She looked up at Fletcher with
a desperate smile.

He wore a knotted handkerchief on his head to protect it from the sun,
and in his hat, which he balanced with great care in both hands, he
carried water.

"I am glad to see you looking better," he said as he reached her. "I am
afraid there isn't much more than a cupful left. I had to go nearly half
a mile to get it, and it has been running out steadily all the way
back."

He knelt down before her, deep concern on his sunburnt face.
Reluctantly, out of sheer gratitude, she dipped her handkerchief in the
tepid drain, and bathed her face and hands.

"I am so sorry to give you all this trouble," she murmured.

He smiled with raised brows.

"I think I ought to say that. You will never trust yourself to me again
after this experience."

She looked at him with a guilty sense of duplicity.

"I--scarcely see how you were to blame for it," she said, rather
faintly.

He surveyed her for a moment in silence. Then, "I hardly know how to
break it to you," he said. "I am afraid the matter is rather more
serious than you think."

She forced a smile. This delicate preparation was far more difficult to
endure than the actual calamity to which it paved the way.

"Please don't treat me like a coward," she said. "I know I was foolish
enough to faint, but it was not so much from fright as from the heat."

"You behaved splendidly," he returned, his dark eyes still intently
watching her. "But this is not so much a case for nerve as for
resignation. Mrs. Denvers, you will never forgive me, I know. That jump
of the mare's damaged one of the shafts. The wonder is it didn't break
altogether. I have had to send the _saice_ back to Farabad to try and
get it patched up, and there is very little chance of our getting back
to Kundaghat for two or three hours to come."

All the time that he was communicating this tragic news, Beryl's eyes
were upon his face. She paid no heed to his scrutiny. Simply, with
absolute steadiness, she returned it.

And she detected nothing--nothing but the most earnest regret, the most
courteous anxiety regarding her welfare. Could it all be a monstrous
lie, she asked herself. And yet it was to the smallest detail the story
she had been warned to expect.

"But surely," she said, at last, "we cannot be so very far from
Kundaghat?"

"No great distance as the crow flies," said Fletcher, "but a good many
miles by road. I am afraid there is nothing for it but to wait till the
mischief is repaired. My only comfort is that you will feel the heat
less in returning later in the day. There are some pine trees on the
other side of the rise where you can rest. If I had only brought
something to eat I should have less cause to blame myself. As it is, do
you think you will be able to hold out?"

She smiled at that.

"Oh, I am not starving yet," she said, with more assurance; "but I do
not see the use of sitting still under the circumstances. I am quite
rested now. Let us walk back to Farabad, and we might start on foot
along the lower road for Kundaghat, and tell your man to overtake us."

Notwithstanding the resolution she infused into her voice, she made the
proposal somewhat breathlessly, for she knew--in her heart she
knew--that it would be instantly negatived.

And so it was. His face expressed sharp surprise for a second,
developing into prompt remonstrance.

"My dear Mrs. Denvers, in this heat! You have not the least idea of what
it would mean. You simply have not the strength for such a venture."

But Beryl was growing bolder in the face of emergency. She coolly set
his assurance aside.

"I do not quite agree with you," she said. "I am a better walker than
you seem to imagine, and the walk into Farabad certainly would not kill
me. We might be able to hire some conveyance there--a _tonga_ or even a
bullock-cart"--she laughed a little--"would be better than nothing."

But Fletcher persistently shook his head.

"I am sorry--horribly sorry, but it would be downright madness to
attempt it."

"Nevertheless," said Beryl very quietly, "I mean to do so."

She saw his brows meet for a single instant, and she was conscious of a
sick feeling at her heart that made her physically cold. Doubt was
emerging into deadly conviction.

Suddenly he leaned towards her, and spoke very earnestly.

"Mrs. Denvers, please believe that I regret this mischance every whit as
much as you do. But, after all, it is only a mischance, and we may be
thankful it was no worse. Shall we not treat it as such, and make the
best of it?"

He was looking her straight in the face as he said it, but, steady as
was his gaze, she was not reassured. Quick as lightning came the
thought--it was almost like an inner voice warning her--that he must not
suspect the fact. Whatever happened she must veil her uneasiness, which
she feared had been already far too obvious.

Quietly she rose and expressed her willingness to go with him into the
shade of the trees.

They stood grouped on the side of a hill, a thick belt through which the
scorching sun-rays slanted obliquely, turning the straight brown trunks
to ruddiest gold. There was more air here than in the valley, and it was
a relief to sit down in the shade and rest upon a fallen tree.

Fletcher threw himself down upon the ground. "We can watch the road from
here," he remarked. "We should see the dog-cart about a mile away."

This was true. Barren, stony, and deserted, the road twisted in and out
below them, visible from that elevation for a considerable distance.
Beryl looked over it in silence. Her heart was beating in great
suffocating throbs, while she strove to summon her resolution. Could she
do this thing? Dared she? On the other hand, could she face the
alternative risk? Her face burned fiercely yet again as she thought of
it.

Furtively she began to study the man stretched out upon the ground close
to her, and a sudden, surging regret went through her. If only it had
been Lord Ronald lounging there beside her, how utterly different would
have been her attitude! Foolish and inept he might be--he was--but, as
he himself had comfortably remarked, a man might be worse. She trusted
him implicitly, every one trusted him. It was impossible to do
otherwise.

Had any one accused him of laying a trap for her, she would have treated
the suggestion as too contemptible for notice. A sharp sigh escaped her.
Why had he taken her so promptly at her word? He could never have
seriously cared for her. Probably it was not in him to care.

"You are not comfortable?" said Fletcher.

She started at the sound of his voice, and with desperate impulse took
action before her courage could fail her.

"Major Fletcher, I--have lost the bangle you gave me. It slipped off
down by that big rock when I was feeling ill. And I must have left it
there. Should you very much mind fetching it for me?"

She felt her face grow crimson as she made the request, and she could
not look at him, knowing too well what he would think of her confusion.
She felt, indeed, as if she could never look him in the face again.

Fletcher sat quite still for a few seconds. Then, "But it's of no
consequence, is it?" he said. "I will fetch it for you, of course, if
you like, but I could give you fifty more like it. And in any case we
can find it when Subdul comes with the dog-cart."

He was reluctant to leave her. She saw it instantly, and tingled at the
discovery. With a great effort she made her final attempt.

"Please," she said, with downcast eyes, "I want it now."

He was on his feet at once, looking down at her. "I will fetch it with
the greatest pleasure," he said.

And, not waiting for her thanks, he turned and left her.




VII


For many seconds after his departure Beryl sat quite rigid, watching his
tall figure pass swiftly downwards through the trees. She did not stir
till he had reached the road, then, with a sudden deep breath, she rose.

At the same instant there sounded behind her, high up the hillside among
the pine trees, the piercing scream of a jay.

It startled her, for she had not been listening for it. All her thoughts
had been concentrated upon the man below her. But this distant cry
brought her back, and sharply she turned.

Again came the cry, unmusical, insistent. She glanced nervously around,
but met only the bright eyes of a squirrel on a branch above her.

Again it came, arrogantly this time, almost imperiously. It seemed to
warn her that there was no time for indecision. She felt as though some
mysterious power were drawing her, and, gathering her strength, she
began impetuously to mount the hill that stretched up behind her,
covered with pine trees as far as she could see. It was slippery with
pine needles, and she stumbled a good deal, but she faltered no longer
in her purpose. She had done with indecision.

She had climbed some distance before she heard again the guiding signal.
It sounded away to her right, and she turned aside at once to follow it.
In that instant, glancing downwards through the long, straight stems,
she saw Fletcher far below, just entering the wood. Her heart leapt
wildly at the sight. She almost stopped in her agitation. But the
discordant bird-call sounded yet again, louder and more compelling than
before, and she turned as a needle to a magnet and followed.

The growth of pine trees became denser as she proceeded. It seemed to
close her in and swallow her. But only once again did fear touch her,
and that was when she heard Fletcher's voice, very far away but
unmistakable, calling to her by name.

With infinite relief, still following her unseen guide, at last she
began to descend. The ground sloped sharply downwards, and creeping
undergrowth began to make her progress difficult. She pressed on,
however, and at length, hearing the tinkle of running water, realised
that she was approaching one of the snow-fed mountain streams that went
to swell the sacred waters that flowed by the temple at Farabad.

She plunged downwards eagerly, for she was hot and thirsty, coming out
at last upon the brink of a stream that gurgled over stones between
great masses of undergrowth.

"Will the _mem-sahib_ deign to drink?" a deferential voice asked behind
her.

She looked round sharply to see the old snake-charmer, bent nearly
double with age and humility, meekly offering her a small brass
drinking-vessel.

His offer surprised her, knowing the Hindu's horror of a stranger's
polluting touch, but she accepted it without question. Stooping, she
scooped up a cupful of the clean water and drank.

The draught was cold as ice and refreshed her marvellously. She thanked
him for it with a smile.

"And now?" she said.

He bowed profoundly, and taking the cup he washed it very carefully in
the stream. Then, deprecatingly, he spoke.

"_Mem-sahib_, it is here that we cross the water."

She looked at the rushing stream with dismay. It was not very wide but
she saw at once that it was beyond a leap. She fancied that the swirling
water in the middle indicated depth.

"Do you mean I must wade?" she asked.

He made a cringing gesture.

"There is another way, most gracious."

She gazed at him blankly.

"Another way?"

Again he bent himself.

"If the _mem-sahib_ will so far trust her servant."

"But--but how?" she asked, somewhat breathlessly. "You don't mean--you
can't mean----"

"_Mem-sahib_," he said gently, "it will not be the first time that I
have borne one of your race in my arms. I may seem old to you, most
gracious, but I have yet the vigour of manhood. The water is swift but
it is not deep. Let the _mem-sahib_ watch her servant cross with the
snake-basket, and she will see for herself that he speaks the truth. He
will return for the _mem-sahib_, with her permission, and will bear her
in safety to the farther bank, whence it is but an hour's journey on
foot to Kundaghat."

There was a coaxing touch about all this which was not lost upon Beryl.
He was horribly ugly, she thought to herself, with that hideous red
smear across his dusky face; but in spite of this she felt no fear.
Unprepossessing he might be, but he was in no sense formidable.

As she stood considering him he stooped and, lifting his basket, stepped
with his sandalled feet into the stream. His long white garment trailed
unheeded upon the water which rose above his knees as he proceeded.

Reaching the further bank, he deposited his burden and at once turned
back. Beryl was waiting for him. For some reason unknown even to
herself, she had made up her mind to trust this old man.

"If the most gracious will deign to rest her arm upon my shoulder," he
suggested, in his meek quaver.

And without further demur she complied.

The moment he lifted her she knew that his strength was fully equal to
the venture. His arms were like steel springs. He grunted a little to
himself as he bore her across, but he neither paused nor faltered till
he set her upon the bank.

"The _mem-sahib_ will soon see the road to Kundaghat," he observed then.
"She has but three miles yet to go."

"Only three miles to Kundaghat!" she ejaculated in amazement.

"Only three miles, most gracious." For the first time a hint of pride
was mingled with the humility in his reedy voice. "The _mem-sahib_ has
travelled hither by a way that few know."

Beryl was fairly amazed at the news. She had believed herself to be many
miles away. She began to wonder if her friend in need would consider the
few rupees she had left adequate reward for his pains. Since she had
parted with Fletcher's gift, she reflected that she had nothing else of
value to bestow.

The way now lay uphill, and all undergrowth soon ceased. They came out
at last through thinning pine trees upon the crest of the rise, and from
here, a considerable distance below, Beryl discerned the road along
which she had travelled with Fletcher that morning.

White and glaring it stretched below her, till at last a grove of mango
trees, which she remembered to be less than a mile from Kundaghat,
closed about it, hiding it from view.

"The _mem-sahib_ will need her servant no more," said her guide, pausing
slightly behind her while she studied the landscape at her feet with the
road that wound through the valley.

She took out her purse quickly, and shook its contents into her hand. He
had been as good as his word, but she knew she had but little to offer
him unless he would accompany her all the way to Kundaghat. She stopped
to count the money before she turned--two rupees and eight annas. It did
not seem a very adequate reward for the service he had rendered her.

With this thought in her mind she slowly turned.

"This is all I have with me--" she began to say, and broke off with the
words half-uttered.

She was addressing empty air! The snake-charmer had vanished!

She stood staring blankly. She had not been aware of any movement. It
was as if the earth had suddenly and silently gaped and swallowed him
while her back was turned.

In breathless astonishment she moved this way and that, searching for
him among the trees that seemed to grow too sparsely to afford a screen.
But she searched in vain. He had clean gone, and had taken his repulsive
pet with him.

Obviously, then, he had not done this thing for the sake of reward.

A sense of uneasiness began to possess her, and she started at last upon
her downward way, feeling as if the place were haunted.

With relief she reached the road at length, and commenced the last stage
of the return journey. The heat was terrific. She was intensely weary,
and beginning to be footsore. At a turn in the road she paused a moment,
looking back at the pine-clad hill from which she had come; and as she
did so, distinct, though far away behind her, there floated through the
midday silence the curious note of a jay. It sounded to her bewildered
senses like a cracked, discordant laugh.




VIII


On the following afternoon Major Fletcher called, but he was not
admitted. Beryl was receiving no one that day, and sent him an
uncompromising message to that effect. He lingered to inquire after her
health, and, on being told that she had overtired herself and was
resting, expressed his polite regret and withdrew.

After that, somewhat to Beryl's surprise, he came no more to the
bungalow.

She remained in seclusion for several days after her adventure, so that
fully a week passed before they met.

It was while out riding one morning with Mrs. Ellis that she first
encountered him. The meeting was unexpected, and, conscious of a sudden
rush of blood to her cheeks, she bestowed upon him her haughtiest bow.
His grave acknowledgment thereof was wholly without effrontery, and he
made no attempt to speak to her.

"Have you quarrelled with the Major?" asked Nina, as they rode on.

"Of course not," Beryl answered, with a hint of impatience.

But she knew that if she wished to appear at her ease she must not be
too icy. She felt a very decided reluctance to take her friend into her
confidence with regard to the Farabad episode. There were times when she
wondered herself if she were altogether justified in condemning Major
Fletcher unheard, in spite of the evidence against him. But she had no
intention of giving him an opportunity to vindicate himself if she could
possibly avoid doing so.

In this, however, circumstances proved too strong for her. They were
bound to meet sooner or later, and Fate ordained that when this should
occur she should be more or less at his mercy.

The occasion was an affair of some importance, being a reception at the
palace of the native prince who dwelt at Farabad. It promised to be a
function of supreme magnificence; it was, in fact, the chief event of
the season, and the Anglo-Indian society of Kundaghat attended it in
force.

Beryl went with the Commissioner and his wife, but in the crowd of
acquaintances that surrounded her almost from the moment of her arrival
she very speedily drifted away from them. One after another claimed her
attention, and almost before she knew it she found herself moving
unattached through the throng.

She was keenly interested in the brilliant scene about her. Flashing
jewels and gorgeous costumes made a glittering wonderland, through which
she moved as one beneath a spell. The magic of the East was everywhere;
it filled the atmosphere as with a heavy fragrance.

She had withdrawn a little from the stream of guests, and was standing
slightly apart, watching the gorgeous spectacle in the splendidly
lighted hall, when a tall figure, dressed in regimentals, came quietly
up and stood beside her.

With a start she recognised Fletcher. He bent towards her instantly, and
spoke.

"I trust that you have now quite recovered from your fatigue, Mrs.
Denvers."

She controlled her flush before it had time to overwhelm her.

"Quite, thank you," she replied, speaking stiffly because she could not
at the moment bring herself to do otherwise.

He stood beside her for a space in silence, and she wondered greatly
what was passing in his mind.

At length, "May I take you to have some supper?" he asked. "Or would you
care to go outside? The gardens are worth a visit."

Beryl hesitated momentarily. To have supper with him meant a prolonged
_tete-a-tete_, whereas merely to go outside for a few minutes among a
host of people could not involve her in any serious embarrassment. She
could leave him at any moment if she desired. She was sure to see some
of her acquaintances. Moreover, to seem to avoid him would make him
think she was afraid of him, and her pride would not permit this
possibility.

"Let us go outside for a little, then," she said.

He offered her his arm, and the next moment was leading her through a
long, thickly carpeted passage to a flight of marble steps that led
downwards into the palace-garden.

He did not speak at all; and she, without glancing at him, was aware of
a very decided constraint in his silence. She would not be disconcerted
by it. She was determined to maintain a calm attitude; but her heart
quickened a little in spite of her. She saw that he had chosen an exit
that would lead them away from the crowd.

Dumbly they descended the steps, Fletcher unhesitatingly drawing her
forward. The garden was a marvel of many-coloured lights, intricate and
bewildering as a maze. Its paths were all carpeted, and their feet made
no sound. It was like a dream-world.

Here and there were nooks and glades of deepest shadow. Through one of
these, without a pause, Fletcher led her, emerging at length into a
wonderful fairyland where all was blue--a twilight haunt, where
countless tiny globes of light nestled like sapphires upon every shrub
and tree, and a slender fountain rose and fell tinkling in a shallow
basin of blue stone.

A small arbour, domed and pillared like a temple, stood beside the
fountain, and as they ascended its marble steps a strong scent of
sandalwood fell like a haze of incense upon Beryl's senses.

There was no light within the arbour, and on the threshold instinctively
she stopped short. They were as much alone as if miles instead of yards
separated them from the buzzing crowds about the palace.

Instantly Fletcher spoke.

"Go in, won't you? It isn't really dark. There is probably a couch with
rugs and cushions."

There was, and she sat down upon it, sinking so low in downy luxuriance
that she found herself resting not far from the floor. But, looking out
through the marble latticework into the blue twilight, she was somewhat
reassured. Though thick foliage obscured the stars, it was not really
dark, as he had said.

Fletcher seated himself upon the top step, almost touching her. He
seemed in no hurry to speak.

The only sound that broke the stillness was the babble of the fountain,
and from far away the fitful strains of a band of stringed instruments.

Slowly at length he turned his head, just as his silence was becoming
too oppressive to be borne.

"Mrs. Denvers," he said, his voice very deliberate and even, "I want to
know what happened that day at Farabad to make you decide that I was not
a fit escort for you."

It had come, then. He meant to have a reckoning with her. A sharp tingle
of dismay went through her as she realised it. She made a quick effort
to avert his suspicion.

"I wandered, and lost my way," she said. "And then I met an old native,
who showed me a short cut. I ought, perhaps, to have written and
explained."

"That was not all that happened," Fletcher responded gravely. "Of
course, you can refuse to tell me any more. I am absolutely at your
mercy. But I do not think you will refuse. It isn't treating me quite
fairly, is it, to keep me in the dark?"

She saw at once that to fence with him further was out of the question.
Quite plainly he meant to bring her to book. But she felt painfully
unequal to the ordeal before her. She was conscious of an almost
physical sense of shrinking.

Nevertheless, as he waited, she nerved herself at length to speak.

"What makes you think that something happened?"

"It is fairly obvious, is it not?" he returned quietly. "I could not
very easily think otherwise. If you will allow me to say so, your device
was not quite subtle enough to pass muster. Even had you dropped that
bangle by inadvertence--which you did not--you would not, in the
ordinary course of things, have sent me off post haste to recover it."

"No?" she questioned, with a faint attempt to laugh.

"No," he rejoined, and this time she heard a note of anger, deep and
unmistakable, in his voice.

She drew herself together as it reached her. It was to be a battle,
then, and instinctively she knew that she would need all her strength.

"Well," she said finally, affecting an assurance she was far from
feeling, "I have no objection to your knowing what happened since you
have asked. In fact, perhaps,--as you suggest,--it is scarcely fair that
you should not know."

"Thank you," he responded, with a hint of irony.

But she found it difficult to begin, and she could not hide it from him,
for he was closely watching her.

He softened a little as he perceived this.

"Pray don't be agitated," he said. "I do not for a moment question that
your reason for what you did was a good one. I am only asking you to
tell me what it was."

"I know," she answered. "But it will make you angry, and that is why I
hesitate."

He leaned towards her slightly.

"Can it matter to you whether I am angry or not?"

She shivered a little.

"I never offend any one if I can help it. I think it is a mistake.
However, you have asked for it. What happened was this. It was when you
left me to get some water. An old man, a native, came and spoke to me.
Perhaps I was foolish to listen, but I could scarcely have done
otherwise. And he told me--he told me that the accident to the dog-cart
was not--not--" She paused, searching for a word.

"Genuine," suggested Fletcher very quietly.

She accepted the word. The narration was making her very nervous.

"Yes, genuine. He told me that the _saice_ had cracked the shaft
beforehand, that there was no possibility of getting it repaired at
Farabad, that he would have to return to Kundaghat and might not,
probably would not, come back for us before the following morning."

Haltingly, rather breathlessly, the story came from her lips. It sounded
monstrous as she uttered it. She could not look at Fletcher, but she
knew that he was angry; something in the intense stillness of his
attitude told her this.

"Please go on," he said, as she paused. "You undertook to tell me the
whole truth, remember."

With difficulty she continued.

"He told me that the mare was frightened by a trick, that you chose the
hill-road because it was lonely and difficult. He told me exactly what
you would say when you came back. And--and you said it."

"And that decided you to play a trick upon me and escape?" questioned
Fletcher. "Your friend's suggestion, I presume?"

His words fell with cold precision; they sounded as if they came through
his teeth.

She assented almost inaudibly. He made her feel contemptible.

"And afterwards?" he asked relentlessly.

She made a final effort; there was that in his manner that frightened
her.

"Afterwards, he gave a signal--it was the cry of a jay--for me to
follow. And he led me over the hill to a stream where he waited for me.
We crossed it together, and very soon after he pointed out the
valley-road below us, and left me."

"You rewarded him?" demanded Fletcher swiftly.

"No; I--I was prepared to do so, but he disappeared."

"What was he like?"

She hesitated.

"Mrs. Denvers!" His tone was peremptory.

"I do not feel bound to tell you that," she said, in a low voice.

"I have a right to know it," he responded firmly.

And after a moment she gave in. The man was probably far away by this
time. She knew that the fair was over.

"It was--the old snake-charmer."

"The man we saw at Farabad?"

"Yes."

Fletcher received the information in silence, and several seconds
dragged away while he digested it. She even began to wonder if he meant
to say anything further, almost expecting him to get up and stalk away,
too furious for speech.

But at length, very unexpectedly and very quietly, he spoke.

"Would it be of any use for me to protest my innocence?"

She did not know how to answer him.

He proceeded with scarcely a pause:

"It seems to me that my guilt has been taken for granted in such a
fashion that any attempt on my part to clear myself would be so much
wasted effort. It simply remains for you to pass sentence."

She lifted her head for the first time, startled out of all composure.
His cool treatment of the matter was more disconcerting than any
vehement protestations. It was almost as though he acknowledged the
offence and swept it aside with the same breath as of no account. Yet it
was incredible, this view of the case. There must be some explanation.
He would never dare to insult her thus.

Impulsively she rose, inaction becoming unendurable. He stood up
instantly, and they faced one another in the weird blue twilight.

"I think I have misunderstood you!" she said breathlessly, and there
stopped dead, for something--something in his face arrested her.

The words froze upon her lips. She drew back with a swift, instinctive
movement. In one flashing second of revelation unmistakable she knew
that she had done him no injustice. Her eyes had met his, and had sunk
dismayed before the fierce passion that had flamed back at her.

In the pause that followed she heard her own heartbeats, quick and hard,
like the flying feet of a hunted animal. Then--for she was a woman, and
instinct guided her--she covered up her sudden fear, and faced him with
stately courage.

"Let us go back," she said.

"You have nothing to say to me?" he asked.

She shook her head in silence, and made as if to depart.

But he stood before her, hemming her in. He did not appear to notice her
gesture.

"But I have something to say to you!" he said. And in his voice, for all
its quietness, was a note that made her tremble. "Something to which I
claim it as my right that you should listen."

She faced him proudly, though she was white to the lips.

"I thought you had refused to plead your innocence," she said.

"I have," he returned. "I do. But yet----"

"Then I will not hear another word," she broke in. "Let me pass!"

She was splendid as she stood there confronting him, perhaps more
splendid than she had ever been before. She had reached the ripe beauty
of her womanhood. She would never be more magnificent than she was at
that moment. The magic of her went to the man's head like wine. Till
that instant he had to a great extent controlled himself, but that was
the turning-point. She dazzled him, she intoxicated him, she maddened
him.

The savagery in him flared into a red blaze of passion. Without another
word he caught her suddenly to him, and before she could begin to
realise his intention he had kissed her fiercely upon the lips.




IX


The moments that followed were like a ghastly nightmare to Beryl, for,
struggle as she might, she knew herself to be helpless. Having once
passed the bounds of civilisation, he gave full rein to his savagery.
And again and yet again, holding her crushed to him, he kissed her
shrinking face. He was as a man possessed, and once he laughed--a
devilish laugh--at the weakness of her resistance.

And then quite suddenly she felt his grip relax. He let her go abruptly,
so that she tottered and almost fell, only saving herself by one of the
pillars of the arbour.

A great surging was in her brain, a surging that nearly deafened her.
She was too spent, too near to swooning, to realise what it was that had
wrought her deliverance. She could only cling gasping and quivering to
her support while the tumult within her gradually subsided.

It was several seconds later that she began to be aware of something
happening, of some commotion very near to her, of trampling to and fro,
and now and again of a voice that cursed. These things quickly goaded
her to a fuller consciousness. Exhausted though she was, she managed to
collect her senses and look down upon the spectacle below her.

There, on the edge of the fountain, two figures swayed and fought. One
of them she saw at a glance was Fletcher. She had a glimpse of his face
in the uncanny gloom, and it was set and devilish, bestial in its
cruelty. The other--the other--she stared and gasped and stared
again--the other, beyond all possibility of doubt, was the ancient
snake-charmer of Farabad.

Yet it was he who cursed--and cursed in excellent English--with a
fluency that none but English lips could possibly have achieved. And the
reason for his eloquence was not far to seek. For he was being thrashed,
thrashed scientifically, mercilessly, and absolutely thoroughly--by the
man whom he had dared to thwart.

He was draped as before in his long native garment--and this, though it
hung in tatters, hampered his movements, and must 

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/18644