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The Master Mummer

by E. Phillips Oppenheim · English · Gutenberg #28161 · 434,856 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Master Mummer

Author: E. Phillips Oppenheim


        
Release date: February 23, 2009 [eBook #28161]
                Most recently updated: June 22, 2026

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MASTER MUMMER ***




                              The Master Mummer

                           By E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM

           Author of "Anna, the Adventuress," "A Prince of Sinners,"
                             "The Betrayal," Etc.


WITH FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS

_A. L. BURT COMPANY_
_Publishers New York_

_Copyright_, 1904,
BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.

_All rights reserved_




[Illustration: "Let the boy have his chance," said Allan.]




The Master Mummer




Book I




CHAPTER I


Sheets of virgin manuscript paper littered my desk, the smoke of much
uselessly consumed tobacco hung about the room in a little cloud. Many a
time I had dipped my pen in the ink, only to find myself a few minutes
later scrawling ridiculous little figures upon the margin of my
blotting-pad. It was not at all an auspicious start for one who sought
immortality.

There came a growl presently from the other side of the room, where
Mabane, attired in a disreputable smock, with a short black pipe in the
corner of his mouth, was industriously defacing a small canvas. Mabane
was tall and fair and lean, with a mass of refractory hair which was the
despair of his barber; a Scotchman with keen blue eyes, and humorous
mouth amply redeeming his face from the plainness which would otherwise
have been its lot. He also was in search of immortality.

"Make a start for Heaven's sake, Arnold," he implored. "To look at you
is an incitement to laziness. The world's full of things to write about.
Make a choice and have done with it. Write something, even if you have
to tear it up afterwards."

I turned round in my chair and regarded Mabane reproachfully.

"Get on with your pot-boiler, and leave me alone, Allan," I said. "You
do not understand my difficulties in the least. It is simply a matter of
selection. My brain is full of ideas--brimming over. I want to be sure
that I am choosing the best."

There came to me from across the room a grunt of contempt.

"Pot-boiler indeed! What about short stories at ten guineas a time, must
begin in the middle, scented and padded to order, Anthony Hopeish, with
the sugar of Austin Dobson and the pepper of Kipling shaken on _ad
lib._? Man alive, do you know what pot-boilers are? It's a perfect
conservatory you're living in. Got any tobacco, Arnold?"

I jerked my pouch across the room, and it was caught with a deft little
backward swing of the hand. Allan Mabane was an M.C.C. man, and a
favourite point with his captain.

"You've got me on the hip, Allan," I answered, rising suddenly from my
chair and walking restlessly up and down the large bare room. "The devil
himself might have put those words into your mouth. They are
pot-boilers, every one of them, and I am sick of it. I want to do
something altogether different. I am sure that I can, but I have got
into the way of writing those other things, and I can't get out of it.
That is why I am sitting here like an owl."

Mabane refilled his pipe and smoked contentedly.

"I know exactly how you're feeling, old chap," he said sympathetically.
"I get a dash of the same thing sometimes--generally in the springtime.
It begins with a sort of wistfulness, a sense of expansion follows, you
go about all the time with your head in the clouds. You want to collect
all the beautiful things in life and express them. Oh, I know all about
it. It generally means a girl. Where were you last night?"

I shrugged my shoulders.

"Where I shall be to-night, to-morrow night--where I was a year ago.
That is the trouble of it all. One is always in the same place."

He shook his head.

"It is a very bad attack," he said. "Your generalities may be all right,
but they are not convincing."

"I have not spoken a word to a woman, except to Mrs. Burdett, for a week
or more," I declared.

Mabane resumed his work. Such a discussion, his gesture seemed to
indicate, was not worth continuing. But I continued, following out my
train of thought, though I spoke as much to myself as to my friend.

"You are right about my stories," I admitted. "I have painted
rose-coloured pictures of an imaginary life, and publishers have bought
them, and the public, I suppose, have read them. I have dressed up
puppets of wood and stone, and set them moving like mechanical
dolls--over-gilded, artificial, vulgar. And all the time the real thing
knocks at our doors."

Mabane stepped back from his canvas to examine critically the effect of
an unexpected dash of colour.

"The public, my dear Greatson," he said abstractedly, "do not want the
real thing--from you. Every man to his _mêtier_. Yours is to sing of
blue skies and west winds, of hay-scented meadows and Watteau-like
revellers in a paradise as artificial as a Dutch garden. Take my advice,
and keep your muse chained. The other worlds are for the other writers."

I was annoyed with Mabane. There was just sufficient truth in his words
to make them sound brutal. I answered him with some heat.

"Not if I starve for it, Allan? The whole cycle of life goes humming
around us, hour by hour. It is here, there, everywhere. I will bring a
little of it into my work, or I will write no more."

Mabane shook his head. He was busy again upon his canvas.

"It is always the humourist," he murmured, "who is ambitious to write a
tragedy--and _vice versâ_. The only sane man is he who is conscious of
his limitations."

"On the contrary," I answered quickly, "the man who admits them is a
fool. I have made up my mind. I will dress no more dolls in fine
clothes, and set them strutting across a rose-garlanded stage. I will
create, or I will leave alone. I will write of men and women, or not at
all."

"It will affect your income," Mabane said. "It will cost you money in
postage stamps, and your manuscripts will be declined with thanks."

His gentle cynicism left me unmoved. I had almost forgotten his
presence. I was standing over by the window, looking out across a
wilderness of housetops. My own thoughts for the moment were sufficient.
I spoke, it is true, but I spoke to myself.

"A beginning," I murmured. "That is all one wants. It seems so hard, and
yet--it ought to be so easy. If one could but lift the roofs--could but
see for a moment underneath."

"I can save you the trouble," Mabane remarked cheerfully, strolling over
to my side. "Where are you looking? Chertsey Street, eh? Well, in all
probability mamma is cooking the dinner, Mary is scrubbing the floor,
Miss Flora is dusting the drawing-room, and Miss Louisa is practising
her scales. You have got a maggot in your brain, Greatson. Life such as
you are thinking of is the most commonplace thing in the world. The
middle-classes haven't the capacity for passion--even the tragedy of
existence never troubles them. Don't try to stir up the muddy waters,
Arnold. Write a pretty story about a Princess and her lovers, and draw
your cheque."

"There are times, Allan," I remarked thoughtfully, "when you are an
intolerable nuisance."

Mabane shrugged his shoulders and returned to his work. Apparently he
had reached a point in it which required his undivided attention, for he
relapsed almost at once into silence. Following his example, I too
returned to my desk and took up my pen. As a rule my work came to me
easily. Even now there were shadowy ideas, well within my mental
grasp--ideas, however, which I was in the humour to repel rather than to
invite. For I knew very well whither they would lead me--back to the
creation of those lighter and more fanciful figures flitting always
across the canvas of a painted world. A certain facility for this sort
of thing had brought me a reputation which I was already growing to
hate. More than ever I was determined not to yield. Mabane's words had
come to me with a subtle note of mockery underlying their undoubted
common-sense. I thrust the memory of them on one side. Certain gifts I
knew that I possessed. I had a ready pen and a facile invention.
Something had stirred in me a late-awakened but irresistible desire to
apply them to a different purpose than ever before. As I sat there the
creations of my fancy flitted before me one by one--delicate, perhaps,
and graceful, thoughtfully conceived, adequately completed. Yet I knew
very well that they were like ripples upon the water, creatures without
lasting forms or shape, images passing as easily as they had come into
the mists of oblivion. The human touch, the transforming fire of life
was wholly wanting. These April creations of my brain--carnival figures,
laughing and weeping with equal facility, lacked always and altogether
the blood and muscle of human creatures. The mishaps of their lives
struck never a tragic note; always the thrill and stir of actual
existence were wanting. I would have no more of them. I felt myself
capable of other things. I would wait until other things came.

The door was pushed open, and Arthur smiled in upon us. This third
member of our bachelor household was younger than either Mabane or
myself--a smooth-faced, handsome boy, resplendent to-day in frock-coat
and silk hat.

"Hullo!" he exclaimed. "Hard at work, both of you!"

Mabane laid down his brush and surveyed the newcomer critically.

"Arthur," he declared with slow emphasis, "you do us credit--you do
indeed. I hope that you will show yourself to our worthy landlady, and
that you will linger upon the doorstep as long as possible. This sort of
thing is good for our waning credit. I am no judge, for I never
possessed such a garment, but there is something about the skirts of
your frock-coat which appeals to me. There is indeed, Arthur. And then
your tie--the cunning arrangement of it----"

"Oh, rats!" the boy exclaimed, laughing. "Give me a couple of
cigarettes, there's a good chap, and do we feed at home to-night?"

Mabane produced the cigarettes and turned back to his work.

"We do!" he admitted with a sigh. "Always on Tuesdays, you know.
By-the-bye, are you going to the works in that costume?"

"Not likely! It's my day at the depôt, worse luck," Arthur answered,
pausing to strike a match. "What's up with Arnold?"

"Got the blues, because his muse won't work," Mabane said. "He wants to
strike out in a new line--something blood-curdling, you
know--Tolstoi-like, or Hall Caineish--he doesn't care which. He wants to
do what nobody else ever will--take himself seriously. I put it down in
charity to dyspepsia."

"Mabane is an ass!" I grunted. "Be off, Arthur, there's a good chap, and
don't listen to him. He hasn't the least idea what he is talking about."

Arthur, however, happened to be in no hurry. He tilted his hat on the
back of his head, and leaned upon the table.

"I have always noticed," he remarked affably, "that under Allan's most
asinine speeches there usually lurks a substratum of truth. Are you
really going to write a serious novel, Arnold?"

I lit a cigarette and leaned back in my chair resignedly. Arthur was a
most impenetrable person, and if he meant to stay, I knew very well that
it was hopeless to attempt to hurry him.

"I had some idea of it," I admitted. "By-the-bye, Arthur, you are a
person with a deep insight into life. Can't you give me a few hints? I
haven't even made a start."

Arthur considered the matter in all seriousness.

"It is a bit difficult for you, I daresay," he remarked. "You stop
indoors so much, and when you do go out you mope off into the country by
yourself. You want to knock about the restaurants and places to get
ideas. That's what Gorman always does. You see you get all your
characters from life in them, and they seem so much more natural."

"And who," I asked, "is Mr. Gorman? I do not recognize the name."

"Pal of mine," Arthur answered easily. "I don't bring him here because
he's a bit loud for you chaps. Writes stories for no end of papers.
_Illustrated Bits_ and the _Cigarette Journal_ print anything he cares
to send. I thought perhaps you'd know the name."

Mabane went off into a peal of laughter behind his canvas. The boy
remained imperturbable.

"Of course, I'm not comparing his work with Arnold's," he declared.
"Arnold's stuff is no end better, of course. But, after all, the chap's
got common-sense. If they want me to draw a motor I go and sit down in
front of it. If Arnold wants to write of real things, real men and
women, you know, he ought to go out and look for them. If he sits here
and just imagines them, how can he be sure that they are the real thing?
See what I mean?"

There was a short silence. Arthur was swinging his long legs backwards
and forwards, and whistling softly to himself. I looked at him for a
moment curiously. The words of an ancient proverb flitted through my
brain.

"Arthur," I declared solemnly, laying down my pen, "you are a prophet in
disguise, the prophet sent to lift the curtain which is before my eyes.
Which way shall I go to find these real men and real women, to look upon
these tragic happenings? For Heaven's sake direct me. Where, for
instance, does Mr. Gorman go?"

Arthur swung himself off, laughing.

"Gorman goes everywhere," he answered. "If I were you I should try one
of the big railway stations. So long!"

I rose to my feet, and taking down my hat commenced to brush it. Mabane
looked up from his work.

"Where are you off to, Arnold?" he asked.

Some curious instinct or power of divination might indeed have given me
a passing glimpse of the things which lay beyond, through the portals of
that day, for I answered him seriously enough--even gravely.

"The prophet has spoken," I said. "I must obey! I shall start with
Charing Cross."




CHAPTER II


Why the man should have spoken to me at all I could not tell. Yet it is
certain that I heard his simple and courteous inquiry with a thrill of
pleasure, not unmixed with excitement. From the first moment of my
arrival upon the platform I had singled him out, the only interesting
figure in a crowd of nonentities. Perhaps I had lingered a little too
closely by his side, had manifested more curiosity in him than was
altogether seemly. At any rate, he spoke to me.

"Do you know if the Continental train is punctual?" he asked.

"I have no idea," I answered. "This guard would tell us, perhaps."

"Signalled in, sir," the man declared. "Two minutes late only."

My new acquaintance thanked me and lit a cigarette. He seemed in no
hurry to depart, and I was equally anxious to engage him in
conversation. For although he was dressed with the trim and quiet
precision of the foreigner or man of affairs, there was something about
his beardless face, his broadly humorous mouth, and easy, nonchalant
bearing which suggested the person who juggled always with the ball of
life.

"Marvellous!" he murmured, looking after the guard. "Two minutes late
from Paris--and perhaps beyond. It is a wonderful service. Now, if I had
come to meet any one, and had a pressing appointment immediately
afterwards, this train would have been an hour late. As it is--ah, well,
one is foolish to grumble," he added, with a little shrug of the
shoulders.

"You, like me, then," I remarked, "are a loiterer."

He flashed a keen glance upon me.

"I see that I have met," he said slowly, "with someone of similar tastes
to my own. I will confess at once that you are right. For myself I feel
that there is nothing more interesting in this great city of yours than
to watch the people coming and going from it. All your railway stations
fascinate me, especially those which are the connecting links with other
countries. Perhaps it is because I am an idle man, and must needs find
amusement somewhere."

"Yet," I objected, "for a single face or personality which is
suggestive, one sees a thousand of the type which only irritates--the
great rank and file of the commonplace. I wonder, after all, whether the
game is worth the candle."

"One in a thousand," he repeated thoughtfully. "Yet think what that one
may mean--a walking drama, a tragedy, a comedy, an epitome of life or
death. There is more to be read in the face of that one than in the
three hundred pages of the novel over which we yawn ourselves to sleep.
Here is the train! Now let us watch the people together--that is, if you
really mean that you have no friends to look out for."

"I really mean it," I assured him. "I am here out of the idlest
curiosity. I am by profession a scribbler, and I am in search of an
idea."

Once more he regarded me curiously.

"Your name is Greatson, is it not--Arnold Greatson? You were pointed out
to me once at the Vagabonds' Club, and I never forget a face. Here they
come! Look! Look!"

The train had come to a standstill. People were streaming out upon the
platform. My companion laid his fingers upon my arm. He talked rapidly
but lightly.

"You see them, my young friend," he exclaimed. "Those are returning
tourists from Switzerland; the thin, sharp-featured girl there, with a
plaid skirt and a satchel, is an American. Heavens! how she talks! She
has lost a trunk. The whole system will be turned upside down until she
has found it or been compensated. The two young men with her are silent.
They are wise. Alone she will prevail. You see the man of commerce; he
is off already. He has been to France, perhaps to Belgium also, to buy
silks and laces. And the stout old gentleman? See how happy he looks to
be back again where English is spoken, and he can pay his way in
half-crowns and shillings. You see the milliner's head-woman, dressed
with obtrusive smartness, though everything seems a little awry. She has
been over to Paris for the fashions; in a few days her firm will send
out a little circular, and Hampstead or Balham will be much impressed.
And--what do you make of those two, my young friend?"

It seemed to me that my companion's tone was changed, that his whole
appearance was different. I was suddenly conscious of an irresistible
conviction. I did not believe any longer that he was, like me, an idle
loiterer here. I felt that his presence had a purpose, and that it was
connected in some measure with the two people to whom my attention was
so suddenly drawn. They were, in that somewhat heterogeneous crowd,
sufficiently noticeable. The man, although he assumed the jauntiness of
youth, was past middle-age, and his mottled cheeks, his thin, watery
eyes, and thick red neck were the unmistakeable hall-marks of years of
self-indulgence. He was well dressed and groomed, and his demeanour
towards his companion was one of deferential good humour. She, however,
was a person of a very different order. She was a girl apparently
between fifteen and sixteen, her figure as yet undeveloped, her dresses
a little too short. Her face was small and white, her mouth had a most
pathetic droop, and in her eyes--wonderful, deep blue eyes--there was a
curious look of shrinking fear, beneath which flashed every now and then
a gleam of positive terror. Her dark hair was arranged in a thick
straight fringe upon her forehead, and in a long plait behind, after the
schoolgirl fashion. Notwithstanding the _gaucherie_ of her years and her
apparent unhappiness, she carried herself with a certain dignity and
grace of movement which were wonderfully impressive. I watched her
admiringly.

"They are rather a puzzle," I admitted. "I suppose they might very well
be father and daughter. It is certain that she is fresh from some
convent boarding-school. I don't like the way she looks at the man, do
you? It is as though she were terrified to death. I wonder if he is her
father?"

My companion did not answer me. He was straining forward as though
anxious to hear the instructions which the man was giving to a porter
about the luggage; my presence seemed to be a thing which he had wholly
forgotten. The girl stood for a moment alone. More than ever one seemed
to perceive in her eyes the nameless fear of the hunted animal. She
looked around her furtively, yet with a strange, half-veiled wildness in
her dilated eyes. I should scarcely have been surprised to have seen her
make a sudden dash for freedom. Presently, however, the man, having
identified all his luggage, turned towards her.

"That's all right," he declared cheerfully. "Now I think that I shall
take you straight away for lunch somewhere, and then we must go to the
shops. Are you hungry, Isobel?"

"I--I do not know," she answered, so tremulously that the words scarcely
reached us, though we were standing only a few feet away.

"We will soon find out," he said. "Hansom, there! Café Grand!"

The cab drove off, and I realized then how completely for the last few
moments I had forgotten my companion. I turned to look for him, and
found him standing close to my side. He was apparently absorbed in
thought, and seemed to have lost all interest in our surroundings. His
hands were thrust deep in his overcoat pockets, and his eyes were fixed
upon the ground. The stream of people from the train had melted away
now, and we were almost alone upon the platform. I hesitated for a
moment, and then walked slowly off. I did not wish to seem discourteous
to the man with whom I had exchanged a few remarks more intimate than
those which usually pass between strangers, but he had distinctly the
air of one wishing to be alone, and I was unwilling to seem intrusive. I
had barely taken a dozen steps, however, before I was overtaken. My
companion of a few minutes before was again by my side. All traces of
his recent preoccupation seemed to have vanished. He was smoking a fresh
cigarette, and his bright, deep-set eyes were lit with gentle mirth.

"Well, Mr. Novelist," he exclaimed, "have you succeeded? Is your languid
muse stirred? Have you seen a face, a look, a gesture--anything to prick
your imagination?"

I shrugged my shoulders.

"I have seen one thing," I answered, "which it is not easy to forget. I
have seen fear, and very pathetic it was."

"You mean----?"

"In the face of that child, or rather girl, with that coarse-looking
brute of a man."

The light seemed to die out from my companion's face. Once more he
became stern and thoughtful.

"Yes," he agreed; "I too saw that. If one were looking for tragedy, one
might perhaps find it there."

We stood now together on the pavement outside the station. My companion
glanced at his watch.

"Come," he said; "I have a fancy that you and I might exchange a few
ideas. I am a lonely man, and to-day I am not in the humour for
solitude. Do me the favour to lunch with me!"

I did not hesitate for a moment. It was exactly the sort of invitation
which I had coveted.

"I shall be delighted," I answered.

"I myself," my companion continued, "have no gift for writing. My
talents, such as they are, lie in a different direction. But I have been
in many countries, and adventures have come to me of various sorts. I
may be able even to start you on your way--if, indeed, the author of
_The Lost Princess_ is ever short of an idea."

I smiled.

"I can assure you," I said, "that my pilgrimage this morning has no
other object than to find one. I begin to fear that I have written too
much lately. At any rate, the well of my inspiration, if I may use so
grandiloquent a term, has run dry."

He put up his stick and hailed a hansom.

"After all," he said, "it is possible--yes, it is possible that you may
succeed. Adventures wait for us everywhere, if only we go about in a
proper frame of mind. We will lunch, I think, at the Café Grand."

I followed my prospective host into the cab. Was it altogether a
coincidence, I wondered, that we were bound for the same restaurant
whither the man and the girl had preceded us a few minutes before?




CHAPTER III


Mr. Grooten, as my new acquaintance called himself, belied neither his
appearance nor his modest reference to himself. He proved at once that
he knew how to order a satisfactory luncheon, going through the _menu_
with the quiet deliberation of a connoisseur, neither seeking nor
accepting any advice from the dark-visaged waiter who stood by his side,
and finally writing out his few carefully chosen dishes with a special
postscript as to the coffee, which, by-the-bye, we were never to taste.
He then leaned over the table and began to talk.

Apparently my host had been in every country of the world, and mixed
with people of note in each. His anecdotes were always pungent, personal
without being egotistical, and savoured always with a certain dry and
perfectly natural humour. I found myself both interested and fascinated
by his constant flow of reminiscences, and yet at times my attention
wandered. For within a few yards of us were seated the man and the
child.

Everything that was noticeable in their demeanour towards one another at
the station was even more apparent here. A bottle of champagne stood
upon the table. The man had ordered such a luncheon that the head-waiter
was seldom far from his side, and the manager in person had come to pay
his respects. He himself was apparently doing full justice to it. His
cheeks were flushed, his eyes moist, and his little bursts of laughter
as he persevered in his attentions to his companion grew louder and more
frequent. But opposite to him, the child's face was unchanged. Her glass
was full of wine, but she seemed never to touch it. Her long white
fingers played with her bread, but she seemed to eat little or nothing.
Her face was pallid and drawn; there was terror--absolute, undiluted
terror--in her unnaturally large eyes. Often when the man spoke to her
she shivered. Her eyes seemed constantly trying to escape his gaze,
wandering round the room, the terror of a hunted animal in their soft,
luminous depths. Once they rested upon mine--I was seated in the corner
facing her--and it seemed to me that there was appeal--desperate,
frenzied appeal--in that long, tense look which thrilled all my pulses
with passionate sympathy. Yet she held herself all the while stiff and
erect. There was a certain sustaining pride in her close, firm-set
mouth. There was never any sign of tears, though more than once her lips
parted for a moment in a pitiful quiver.

The table at which we were sitting was just inside the door, in the
left-hand corner. The man and the girl were upon the opposite side, and
a few yards further in the room. My host, with his face to the door,
could see neither of them, therefore, without turning round, and owing
to our table being pushed far into the corner, only his back was visible
to the people in the restaurant. I, sitting facing him, had an excellent
view of the girl and her companion, and I was all the while a witness of
the silent drama being played out between the two. There came a time
when I felt that I could stand it no longer. I leaned over our small
table, and interrupted my companion in the middle of a story.

"Forgive me," I said, "but I wish you could see that child's face. There
is something wrong, I am sure. She is terrified to death. Look, that
brute is trying to force her to drink her wine. I really can't sit and
watch it any longer."

The man who was my host, and who had called himself Mr. Grooten, nodded
his head slightly. I knew at once, however, that he was in close
sympathy with me.

"I have been watching them," he said. "There is a mirror over your head;
I have seen everything. It is a hideous-looking affair, but what can one
do?"

"I know what I am going to do, at any rate," I said, laying my serviette
deliberately upon the table. "I don't care what happens, but I am going
to speak to the child."

Mr. Grooten raised his eyebrows. Beyond this faint expression of
surprise his face betrayed neither approval nor disapproval.

"What will you gain?" he asked.

"Probably nothing," I answered. "And yet I shall try all the same. I
dare not go away with the memory of that child's face haunting me. I
must make an effort, even though it seems ridiculous. I can't help it."

My companion smiled softly.

"As you will, my impetuous young friend," he said. "This promises to be
interesting. I will await your return."

I did not hesitate any longer. I rose to my feet, and crossed the space
which lay between the two tables. As I drew nearer to her I watched the
child's face. At first a flash of desperate hope seemed suddenly to
illumine it; then a fear more abject even than before took its place as
she glanced at her companion. She watched me come, reading without a
doubt the purpose in my mind with a sort of fascinated wonder. Her eyes
were still fastened upon mine when at last I paused before her. I leaned
over the table, keeping my shoulder turned upon the man.

"You will forgive me," I said to her in a low tone, "but I believe that
you are in trouble. Can I help you? Don't be afraid to tell me if I
can."

"You--you are very kind, sir," she began, breathlessly; "I----"

Her companion intervened. Astonishment and anger combined to render his
voice unsteady.

"Eh? What's this? Who the devil are you, sir, and what do you mean by
speaking to my ward?"

I disregarded his interruption altogether. I still addressed myself only
to the child, and I spoke as encouragingly as I could.

"Don't be afraid to tell me," I said. "Think that I am your brother. I
want to help you if I can."

"Oh, if you only could!" she moaned.

Her companion seized me by the arm and forced me to turn round. His face
was red almost to suffocation, and two thick blue veins stood out upon
his forehead in ugly fashion. His voice was scarcely articulate by
reason of his attempt to keep it low.

"Of all the infernal impertinence! What do you mean by it, sir? Who are
you? How dare you force yourself upon strangers in this fashion?"

"I am quite aware that I am doing an unusual thing," I answered, "and I
perhaps deserve all that you can say to me. At the same time, I am here
to have my question answered. You have a child with you who is
apparently terrified to death. I insist upon hearing from her own lips
whether she is in need of friends."

White and mute, she looked from one to the other. It was the man who
answered.

"If this were not a public place," he said, still struggling with his
anger, "I'd punish you as you deserve, you impudent young cub. This
young lady is my ward, and I have just brought her from a convent, where
she has lived since she was three years old. She is strange and shy, of
course, and I was perhaps wrong to bring her to a public place. I did
it, however, out of kindness. I wanted her to enjoy herself, but I
perhaps did not appreciate her sensitiveness and the fact that only a
few days ago she parted with the friends with whom she has lived all her
life. Now, sir," he added, with a sneer upon his coarse lips, "I have
been compelled to answer your questions to avoid a disturbance in a
public place; but I promise you that if you do not make yourself scarce
in thirty seconds I will send for the manager."

I looked once more at the child, from whose white, set face every gleam
of hope seemed to have fled.

"I can do nothing for you, then?" I asked.

Her eyes met mine helplessly. She shook her head. She did not speak at
all.

"Is it true--what he has told me?" I asked.

She murmured an assent so faint, that though I was bending over her, it
scarcely did more than reach my ears. I could do no more. I turned away
and resumed my seat. Grooten smiled at me.

"Well, Sir Knight Errant," he said lightly; "so you could not free the
maiden?"

"I was made to feel and look like a fool, of course," I answered, "but I
don't mind about that. To tell you the truth, I am not satisfied now.
The man says that he is her guardian, and that he has just brought her
from a convent, where she has lived all her life. He vouchsafed to
explain things to me to avoid a row, but he was desperately angry. She
has never been out of the convent since she was three years old, and she
is very nervous and shy. That was his story, and he told it plausibly
enough. I could not get anything out of her, except an admission that
what he said was the truth."

Mr. Grooten nodded thoughtfully.

"After all," he said, "she is only a child, fourteen or fifteen at the
most, I should suppose. I have paid the bill, and, as you see, I have my
coat on. Are you ready?"

"Directly I have finished my coffee," I answered. "It looks too good to
leave."

"Finish it, by all means," he answered. "I am in no particular hurry.
By-the-bye, I forget whether I showed you this."

He drew a small shining weapon, with rather a long barrel, from his
pocket, but though he invited me to inspect it, he retained it in his
own hand.

"I bought it in New York a few months ago," he remarked; "it is the
latest weapon of destruction invented."

"Is it a revolver?" I asked, a little puzzled by its shape.

"Not exactly," he answered, fingering it carelessly; "it is in reality a
sort of air-gun, with a wonderful compression, and a most ingenious
silencer; quite as deadly, they say, as any firearm ever invented. It
ejects a cylindrically-shaped bullet, tapered down almost to the
fineness of a needle. Now," he added, with a faint smile and a rapid
glance round the room, "if only one dared--" he turned in his chair, and
I saw the thing steal out below his cuff, "one could free the child
quite easily--quite easily."

It was all over in a moment--a wonderful, tense moment, during which I
sat frozen to my chair, stricken dumb and motionless with the tragedy
which it seemed that I alone had witnessed. For there had been a little
puff of sound, so slight that no other ears had noticed it. The seat in
front of me was empty, and the man on my right had fallen forwards, his
hand pressed to his side, his face curiously livid, patchy with streaks
of dark colour, his eyes bulbous. Waiters still hurried to and fro, the
hum of conversation was uninterrupted. And then suddenly it came--a cry
of breathless horror, of mortal unexpected agony--a cry, it seemed, of
death. The waiters stopped in their places to gaze breathlessly at the
spot from which the cry had come, a silver dish fell clattering from the
fingers of one, and its contents rolled unnoticed about the floor. The
murmur of voices, the rise and fall of laughter and speech, ceased as
though an unseen finger had been pressed upon the lips of everyone in
the room. Men rose in their places, women craned their necks. For a
second or two the whole place was like a tableau of arrested motion.
Then there was a rush towards the table across which the man had fallen,
a doubled-up heap. A few feet away, with only that narrow margin of
table-cloth between them, the girl sat and stared at him, still white
and panic-stricken, yet with a curious change in her face from which all
the dumb terror which had first attracted my attention seemed to have
passed away.




CHAPTER IV


The manager, who was very flurried, closed the door of the little room
into which the wounded man had been carried.

"Can you tell me his name, or shall we look for his card-case?" he
asked.

I glanced towards the child. She was by far the most composed of the
three. Only she remained with her back turned steadily upon the sofa.

"His name is Delahaye," she said; "Major Sir William Delahaye, I think
they called him."

"And where does he live--in London? Tell me his address. I will send a
cab there at once!"

"I do not know his address," the child answered. "I do not know where he
lives."

The manager stared at her.

"You were with him, were you not?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Then surely you must know something more about him than just his name?"

"He called himself my guardian. I believe that when I was very young he
took me to the convent where I have been ever since. Two days ago he
came to fetch me away."

"What is your name?"

"Isobel de Sorrens!"

"You are not related to him, then?"

She shuddered a little.

"I hope not," she said simply.

"Well, where was he taking you to?" the manager asked impatiently.
"Surely there must be someone I can send to."

"I believe that he has a house in London," the child said. "I really do
not know anything more. You could send to Madame Richard at the Convent
St. Argueil. I suppose she knows all about him. She told me that I was
to consider him my guardian."

The manager turned to me. I was an occasional customer, and he knew who
I was.

"Can you tell me anything about him, Mr. Greatson? The doctor will be
here in a moment, but I feel that I ought to be sending for some of his
friends. I am afraid that he is very ill."

"You were not in the room at the time it happened?" I remarked.

The manager shook his head.

"No, I was in the office."

"Have you sent for the police?" I asked.

"Police, no!" he exclaimed. "What have the police to do with it? It was
an ordinary fit, surely."

I felt that I had held my peace long enough.

"It was not a fit at all," I said gravely. "He was shot with a sort of
air-gun by a man sitting at my table. I think that you ought to send for
the police at once. The man's name was Grooten, but I know nothing else
about him."

The manager was for a moment speechless. The child looked at me eagerly.

"It was the little old gentleman who was sitting with you who did it,"
she exclaimed. "I saw him at Charing Cross."

"Yes, it was he!" I answered.

The child turned away.

"Perhaps after all, then," she murmured to herself, "I may have friends
in the world."

The manager, whose name was Huber, was inclined to be incredulous.

"An air-gun would have made as much noise as a revolver," he said. "Are
you sure of what you say, Mr. Greatson?"

"There is no doubt at all about it," I answered, "and you ought to
inform the police at once. This man--Grooten, he called himself--pulled
the pistol out of his pocket, and was pretending to show it to me when
he fired the shot. He told me that it was a new invention which he had
bought in America, and which was quite noiseless."

The manager hurried from the room. The child and I were alone, except
for the man on the couch. Every now and then he groaned--a sound I could
not hear without a shiver. The child, however, was unmoved. She fixed
her dark eyes on me.

"Do you think that he will get away?" she asked eagerly.

"You mean the man who shot Major Delahaye?"

"Yes."

"I think that it is very likely. He has a good start, and I expect that
he had made his arrangements."

"I hope he does," she murmured passionately. "I wish that I could help
him."

"You have no idea who he was?" I asked. "I do not believe that Grooten
was his real name."

She shook her head.

"I have never seen him before in my life," she said. "If I did know I
should not tell anyone."

The doctor came at last. In reality it was barely five minutes since he
had been sent for, but time dragged itself along slowly in that little
room. Directly afterwards Huber, the manager, returned, followed by a
sergeant of the police. We all waited for the doctor's examination. I
fetched a chair for the child, and she thanked me with a wan little
smile. Always she sat with her back to the sofa. There was something
terribly suggestive in her utter lack of sympathy with the wounded man.

The doctor finished his examination at last. He came towards us.

"The wound is a very curious one," he said, "and I am afraid that the
bullet will be difficult to extract, but it is not in itself serious. It
is really only a flesh wound, but the man is suffering from severe
shock, and I don't like the action of his heart. He can be removed quite
safely. If you like I will telephone for an ambulance and take him to
the hospital. Do you know anything about this affair, sergeant?"

"Very little as yet, sir," the man answered. "I want this gentleman's
description of the person who showed him the pistol. The commissionaire
saw him leave, I understand, and one of the waiters saw something in his
hand. Was he a friend of yours, sir?"

"I only know his name," I answered. "He called himself Mr. Grooten, and
I judged him to be a foreigner, though he spoke perfect English. He
seemed to be about fifty years old, clean-shaven, and of under medium
height."

"Too vague," the sergeant remarked. "Had he any peculiarity of feature
or expression, anything which would help towards identification?"

"None that I can remember," I answered.

"How was he dressed?"

"Quietly. I could not remember anything that he wore."

"Did he give you any idea of his intention? Did he speak of Major
Delahaye at all as though he knew him?"

I shook my head.

"We simply both remarked," I said slowly, "that this--young lady seemed
to be very frightened of her companion, and I do not think that we
formed a favourable impression of him. He gave me not the slightest
intimation, however, of his intention to interfere."

"It could not have been an accident, I suppose?" Mr. Huber suggested.

"I might have thought so," I answered, "if he had not immediately left
the place. He disappeared so quickly that I did not even see him go."

"You sat by accident at the same table?" the sergeant asked.

"No, we came together," I answered. "We met at Charing Cross, and he
spoke to me. He knew my name, and reminded me that we had once met at
the 'Vagabonds' Club.'"

"Did you remember him?"

"I cannot say that I did," I answered.

"And afterwards?"

"We talked together for some time, and when we left the station he asked
me to lunch here."

"Did he arrive by train, or was he meeting anyone at Charing Cross?" the
sergeant asked.

"Neither, so far as I could see," I answered. "He seemed to be simply
loitering. I ought to tell you, though, that we saw Major Delahaye and
this young lady arrive by the Continental train, and he seemed to be
interested in them."

The sergeant turned to Isobel.

"Did you know him?" he asked.

"No," she answered. "I did not notice him at the station at all. I saw
that he was sitting at the same table downstairs as this gentleman, but
I am quite sure that I have never seen him before in my life."

The sergeant put away his pocket-book.

"I am very sorry to trouble you," he said, "but I think it would be
better for you all to come to Bow Street and see the superintendent."

"I am quite willing to do so," I answered, "though I can tell him no
more than I have told you."

The child moved suddenly towards me. Her thin, shabbily gloved fingers
gripped my arm with almost painful force. Her eyes were full of
passionate appeal.

"I may go with you," she murmured. "You will not leave me alone?"

"The young lady will be required also," the sergeant remarked.

"We will go together, of course," I said gently. "Come!"




CHAPTER V


We crossed the road from the police-station, and found ourselves in one
of the narrow streets fringing Covent Garden. The air was fragrant here
with the perfume of white and purple lilac, great baskets full of which
were piled up in the gutter. The girl half closed her eyes.

"Delicious!" she murmured. "This reminds me of St. Argueil! You have
flowers too, then, in London?"

I bought her a handful, which she sniffed and held to her face with
delight.

"Ah!" she said a little sadly. "I had forgotten that there were any
beautiful things left in the world. Thank you so much, Mr. Arnold."

"At your age," I said cheerfully, "you will soon find out that the
world--even London--is a treasure-house of beautiful things."

She looked down the narrow, untidy street, strewn with the refuse from
the market waggons and trucks which blocked the way, making all but
pedestrian traffic an impossibility--at the piles of empty baskets in
the gutter, and the slatternly crowd of loiterers. Then she looked up at
me with a faint smile.

"London--is not all like this, then?" she remarked.

I shook my head.

"This is a back street, almost a slum," I said. "I daresay you have
lived in the country always, and just at first it does not seem possible
that there should be anything beautiful about a great city. When you get
a little older I think that you will see things differently. The beauty
of a great city thronged with men and women is a more subtle thing than
the mere joy of meadows and hills and country lanes--but it exists all
the same. And now," I continued, stopping short upon the pavement, "I
must take you to your friends. Tell me where they live. You have the
address, perhaps."

"What friends?" she asked me, with wide-open eyes.

"You told the superintendent of police that you had friends in London,"
I reminded her.

Then she smiled at me--a very dazzling smile, which showed all her white
teeth, and which seemed somehow to become reflected in her dark blue
eyes.

"But I meant you!" she exclaimed. "I thought that you knew that! There
is no one else. You are my friend, I know very well, for you came and
spoke kindly to me when I was terrified--terrified to death."

The shadow of gravity rested only for a moment upon her face. She
laughed gaily at my consternation.

"Then where am I to take you?" I asked.

"Stupid," she murmured; "I am going with you, of course. Why--why--you
don't mind, do you?" she asked, with a sudden catch in her throat.

I felt like a brute, and I hastened to make what amends I could. I
smiled at her reassuringly.

"Mind! Of course I don't mind," I declared. "Only, you see, there are
three of us--all men--and we live together. I was afraid----"

"I shall not mind that at all," she interrupted cheerfully. "If they are
nice like you, I think that it will be delightful. There were only girls
at the convent, you know, and the sisters, and a few masters who came to
teach us things, but they were not allowed to speak to us except to give
out the lessons, and they were very stupid. I do not think that I shall
be any trouble to you at all. I will try not to be."

I looked at her--a little helplessly. After all, though she was tall for
her years, she was only a child. Her dress was of an awkward length, her
long straight fringe and plaited hair the coiffure of the schoolroom.
The most surprising thing of all in connection with her was that she
showed no signs of the tragedy which had so recently been played out
around her. Her eyes had lost their nameless fear; there was even colour
in her cheeks.

"Come along, then!" I said. "We will turn into the Strand and take a
hansom."

She walked buoyantly along by my side, as tall within an inch or so as
myself, and with a certain elegance in her gait a little hard to
reconcile with her years. All the while she looked eagerly about her,
her eyes shining with curiosity.

"We passed through Paris at night," she said, with a little reminiscent
shudder, as though every thought connected with that journey were a
torture, "and I have never really been in a great city before. I hope
you meant what you said," she added, looking up at me with a quick
smile, "and that there are parts of London more beautiful than this."

"Many," I assured her. "You shall see the parks. The rhododendrons will
be out soon, and I think that you will find them beautiful, though, of
course, the town can never be like the country. Here's a hansom with a
good horse. Jump in!"

       *       *       *       *       *

I think that our arrival at Number 4, Earl's Crescent, created quite as
much sensation as I had anticipated. When I opened the door of the
large, barely-furnished room, which we called our workshop, Arthur
sprang from the table on which he had been lounging, and Mabane, who was
still working, dropped his brush in sheer amazement. I turned towards
the girl.

"These are my friends, Isobel, of whom I have been telling you," I said.
"This is Mr. Arthur Fielding, who is the ornamental member of the
establishment, and that is Mr. Allan Mabane, who paints very bad
pictures, but who contrives to make other people think that they are
worth buying. Allan, this young lady, Miss Isobel de Sorrens, and I have
had a little adventure together. I will explain all about it later on."

They both advanced with extended hands. The girl, as though suddenly
conscious of her position, gave a hand to each, and looked at them
almost piteously.

"You will not mind my coming," she begged, with a tremulous little note
of appeal in her tone. "I do not seem to have any friends, and Mr.
Arnold has been so kind to me. If I may stay here for a little while I
will try--oh, I am sure, that I will not be in anyone's way!"

The pathos of her breathless little speech was almost irresistible. The
child, as she stood there in the centre of the room, looking eagerly
from one to the other, conquered easily. I do not know if either of the
other two were conscious of the new note of life which she seemed to
bring with her into our shabby, smoke-smelling room, but to me it came
home, even in those first few moments, with wonderful poignancy. An
alien note it was, but a wonderfully sweet one. We three men had drifted
away from the whole world of our womenkind. She seemed to bring us back
instantly into touch with some of the few better and rarer memories
round which the selfishness of life is always building a thicker crust.
For one thing, at that moment I was deeply grateful--that I knew my
friends. My task was made a sinecure.

"My dear young lady," Mabane exclaimed, with unmistakeable earnestness,
"you are heartily welcome. We are delighted to see you here!"

"More than welcome," Arthur declared. "We are all one here, you know,
Miss de Sorrens; and if you are Arnold's friend, you must be ours."

For the first time tears stood in her eyes. She brushed them proudly
away.

"You are very, very kind," she said. "I cannot tell you how grateful I
am to you both."

Arthur rushed for our one easy-chair, and insisted upon installing her
in it. Mabane lit a stove and left the room swinging a kettle. I drew a
little sigh of relief, and threw my hat into a corner. Apparently she
had conquered my friends as easily as she had conquered me.

"Arthur," I said, "please entertain Miss de Sorrens for a few moments,
will you. I must go and interview Mrs. Burdett."

"I'll do my best, Arnold," he assured me. "Mrs. Burdett's in the
kitchen, I think. She came in just before you."

Mrs. Burdett was our housekeeper and sole domestic. She was a
hard-featured but kindly old woman, with a caustic tongue and a soft
heart. She heard my story unmoved, betraying neither enthusiasm or
disapproval. When I had finished, she simply set her cap straight and
rubbed her hands upon her apron.

"I'd like to see the child, as you call her, Mr. Arnold," she said. "You
young gentlemen are so easy deceived, and it's an unusual thing that
you're proposing, not to say inconvenient."

So I took Mrs. Burdett back with me to the studio. As we opened the door
the music of the girl's strange little foreign laugh was ringing through
the room. Arthur was mounted upon his hobby, talking of the delights of
motoring, and she was listening with sparkling eyes. They stopped at
once as we entered.

"This is Mrs. Burdett, Isobel," I said, "who looks after us here, and
who is going to take charge of you. She will show you your room. I'm
sorry that you will find it so tiny, but you can see that we are a
little cramped here!"

Isobel rose at once.

"You should have seen our cells at St. Argueil," she exclaimed, smiling.
"Some of us who were tall could scarcely stand upright. May I come with
you, Mrs. Burdett?"

Mrs. Burdett's tone and answer relieved me of one more anxiety. The door
closed upon them. We three men were alone.

"Is this," Mabane asked curiously, "a practical joke, or a part of your
plot? What does it all mean? Where on earth did you come across the
child? Who is she?"

I took a cigarette from my case and lit it.

"The responsibility for the whole affair," I declared, "remains with
Arthur."

The boy whistled softly. He looked at me with wide-open eyes.

"Come," he declared, "I like that. Why, I have never seen the girl
before in my life, or anyone like her. Where do I come in, I should like
to know?"

"It was you," I said, "who started me off to Charing Cross."

"You mean to say that you picked her up there?" Mabane exclaimed.

"I will tell you the whole story," I answered. "She comes with the halo
of tragedy about her. Listen!"

Then I told them of the things which had happened to me during the last
few hours.




CHAPTER VI


I certainly could not complain of any lack of interest on the part of my
auditors. They listened to every word of my story with rapt attention.
When I had finished they were both silent for several moments. Mabane
eyed me curiously. I think that at first he scarcely knew whether to
believe me altogether serious.

"The man who was with the girl," Arthur asked at last--"this Major
Delahaye, or whatever his name was--is he dead?"

"He was alive two hours ago," I answered.

"Will he recover?"

"I believe that there is just a bare chance--no more," I answered. "He
had a weak heart, and the shock was almost enough to kill him."

"And your friend--the man who shot him--where is he?" Mabane asked. "Is
he in custody?"

I shook my head.

"He disappeared," I answered, "as though by magic. You see, we were
sitting at the table next the door, and he had every opportunity for
slipping out unnoticed."

"It was at the Café Grand, you said, wasn't it?" Arthur asked.

I nodded.

"How about the commissionaire, then?"

"He saw the man come out, but he took no particular notice of him," I
answered. "He crossed the street at an ordinary walking pace, and he was
out of sight before the commotion inside began."

"It seems to me," Mabane remarked, "that you must have found yourself in
rather an awkward position."

"I did," I answered grimly. "Of course my story sounded a bit thin, and
the police made me go to the station with them. As luck would have it,
however, I knew the inspector, and I managed to convince him that I was
telling the truth, or I doubt whether they would have let me go. I
suppose," I added, a little doubtfully, "that you fellows must think me
a perfect idiot for bringing the child here, but upon my word I don't
know what else I could have done. I simply couldn't leave her there, or
in the streets. I'm awfully sorry--"

"Don't be an ass," Arthur interrupted energetically. "Of course you
couldn't do anything but bring her here. You acted like a sensible chap
for once."

"Have you questioned her," Mabane asked, "about her friends? If she has
none in London, she must have some somewhere!"

"I have questioned her," I answered, "but not very successfully. She
appears to know nothing about her relations, or even her parentage. She
has been at the convent ever since she can remember, and she has seen no
one outside it except this man who took her there and came to fetch her
away."

"And what relation is he?" Allan asked.

"None! He called himself simply her guardian."

Arthur walked across the room for his pipe, and commenced to fill it.

"Well," he said, "you are like the man in the Scriptures, who found what
he went out for to see. You've got your adventure, at any rate. All
owing to my advice, too. Hullo!"

We all turned round. The door of the room was suddenly opened and
closed. My host of a few hours ago stood upon the threshold, smiling
suavely upon us. He wore a low black hat, and a coat somewhat thicker
than the season of the year seemed to demand. Every article of attire
was different, but his face seemed to defy disguise. I should have known
Mr. Grooten anywhere.

His unexpected presence seemed to deprive me almost of my wits. I simply
gaped at him like the others.

"Great heavens!" I exclaimed. "You here!"

He stood quite still for a moment, listening. Then he glanced sharply
around the room. He looked at Mabane, and he looked at Arthur. Finally
he addressed me.

"I fancy that I am a fairly obvious apparition," he remarked. "Where is
the child?"

"She is here," I answered, "in another room with our housekeeper just
now. But----"

"I have only a few seconds to spare," Mr. Grooten interrupted
ruthlessly. "Listen to me. You have chosen to interfere in this concern,
and you must take your part in it now. You have the child, and you must
keep her for a time. You must not let her go, on any account.
Unfortunately, the man who sold me that pistol was a liar. Delahaye is
not dead. It is possible even that he may recover. Will you swear to
keep the child from him?"

I hesitated. It seemed to me that Grooten was taking a great deal for
granted.

"You must remember," I said, "that I have absolutely no legal hold upon
her. If Delahaye is her guardian it will be quite easy for him to take
her away."

"He is not her legal guardian," Grooten said sharply. "He has no just
claim upon her at all."

"Neither have I," I reminded him.

"You have possession," Grooten exclaimed. "I tell you that neither
Delahaye, if he lives, nor any other person, will appeal to the law to
force you to give the child up. This is the truth. I see you still
hesitate. Listen! This also is truth. The child is in danger from
Delahaye--hideous, unmentionable danger."

I never thought of doubting his word. Truth blazed out from his keen
grey eyes; his words carried conviction with them.

"I will keep the child," I promised him. "But tell me who you are, and
what you have to do with her."

"No matter," he answered swiftly. "I lay this thing upon you, a charge
upon your honour. Guard the child. If Delahaye recovers there will be
trouble. You must brave it out. You are an Englishman; you are one of a
stubborn, honourable race. Do my bidding in this matter, and you shall
learn what gratitude can mean."

Once more he listened for a moment intently. Then he continued.

"I am followed by the police," he said. "They may be here at any moment.
You can tell them of my visit if it is necessary. My escape is provided
for."

"But surely you will tell me something else about the child," I
exclaimed. "Tell me at least----"

He held out his hand.

"You are safer to know nothing," he said quickly. "Be faithful to what
you have promised, and you will never regret it."

With almost incredible swiftness he disappeared. We all three looked at
one another, speechless. Then from outside came the sound of light
footsteps, and a laugh as from the throat of a singing bird. The door
was thrown open, and Isobel entered.

"Such a funny little man has just gone out!" she exclaimed. "He had a
handkerchief tied round his face as though he had been fighting. What
lazy people!" she added, looking around. "I expected to find tea ready.
Will you please tell me some more about motor-cars, Mr. Arthur?"

She sat on a stool in our midst, and chattered while we fed her with
cakes, and screamed with laughter at Mabane's toast. The tragedy of a
few hours ago seemed to have passed already from her mind. She was all
charm and irresponsibility. The gaunt, bare room, which for years had
mocked all our efforts at decoration, seemed suddenly a beautiful place.
Easily, and with the effortless grace of her fifteen years, she laughed
her way into our hearts.




CHAPTER VII


"Arnold!"

I waved my left hand.

"Don't disturb me for a few minutes, Allan, there's a good chap," I
begged. "I'm hard at it."

"Found your plot, then, eh?"

"I've got a start, anyhow! Give me half an hour. I only want to set the
thing going."

Mabane grunted, and took up his brush. For once I was thankful that we
were alone. At last I saw my way. After weeks of ineffective scribbling
a glimpse of the real thing had come to me.

The stiffness had gone from my brain and fingers. My pen flew over the
paper. The joy of creation sang once more in my heart, tingled in all my
pulses. We worked together and in silence for an hour or more. Then,
with a little sigh of satisfaction, I leaned back in my chair.

"The story goes, then?" Mabane remarked.

"Yes, it goes," I assented, my eyes fixed absently upon the loose sheets
of manuscript strewn all over my desk. Already I was finding it hard to
tear my thoughts away from it.

There was a short silence. Then Mabane, who had been filling his pipe,
came over to my side.

"You heard from the convent this morning, Arnold?"

"Yes! The letter is here. Read it!"

Mabane shook his head.

"I can't read French," he said.

"They want her back again," I told him, thoughtfully. "The woman appears
to be honest enough. She admits that they have no absolute claim--they
do not even know her parentage. They have been paid, she says, regularly
and well for the child's education, and if she is now without a home
they would like her to go back to them. She thinks it possible that
Major Delahaye's relatives, or the people for whom he acted, might
continue the payments, but they are willing to take their risk of that.
The long and short of it is, that they want her back again."

"As a pupil still?" Mabane asked.

"They would train her for a teacher. In that case she would have to
serve a sort of novitiate. She would practically become a nun."

Mabane withdrew his pipe from his mouth, and looked thoughtfully into
the bowl of it.

"I never had a sister," he said, "and I really know nothing whatever
about children. But does it occur to you, Arnold, that this--young lady
seems particularly adapted for a convent?"

"I believe," I said firmly, "that it would be misery for her."

Mabane walked over to his canvas and came back again.

"What about Delahaye?" he asked.

"He is still unconscious at the hospital," I answered.

Mabane hesitated.

"I do not wish to seem intrusive, Arnold," he said, "but I can't help
remembering that a certain lady with whom you were very friendly once
married a Delahaye!"

I nodded.

"I should have told you, in any case," I said. "This is the man--Major
Sir William Delahaye, whom Eileen Marigold married."

"Then surely you recognized him in the restaurant?"

"I never met him," I answered. "This marriage was arranged very quickly,
as you know, and I was abroad when it took place. I called on Lady
Delahaye twice, but I did not meet her husband on either occasion."

Mabane fingered the loose sheets of my manuscript idly.

"Your story, Arnold," he said, "is having a tragic birth. Will Delahaye
really die, do you think?"

"The doctors are not very hopeful," I told him. "The wound itself is not
mortal, but the shock seems to have affected him seriously. He is not a
young man, and he has lived hard all his days."

"If he dies," Mabane said thoughtfully, "your friend Grooten, I think
you said he called himself, will have to disappear altogether. In that
case I suppose we--shall be compelled to send the child back to the
convent?"

"Unless----"

"Unless what?"

"Unless we provide for her ourselves," I answered boldly.

Mabane smoked furiously for a few moments. His hands were thrust deep
down in his trousers pockets. He looked fixedly out of the window.

"Arnold," he said abruptly, "do you believe in presentiments?"

"It depends whether they affect me favourably or the reverse," I
answered carelessly. "You Scotchmen are all so superstitious."

"You may call it superstition," Mabane continued. "Everything of the
sort which an ignorant man cannot understand he calls superstition. But
if you like, I will tell you something which is surely going to happen.
I will tell you what I have seen."

I leaned forward in my chair, and looked curiously into Allan's face.
His hard, somewhat commonplace features seemed touched for the moment by
some transfiguring fire. His keen, blue-grey eyes were as soft and
luminous as a girl's. He had actually the appearance of a man who sees a
little way beyond the border. Even then I could not take him seriously.

"Speak, Sir Prophet!" I exclaimed, with a little laugh. "Let my eyes
also be touched with fire. Let me see what you see."

Mabane showed no sign of annoyance. He looked at me composedly.

"Do not be a fool, Arnold," he said. "You may believe or disbelieve, but
some day you will know that the things which I have in my mind are
true."

I think that I was a little bewildered. I realized now what at first I
had been inclined to doubt--that Mabane was wholly in earnest.
Unconsciously my attitude towards him changed. It is hard to mock a man
who believes in himself.

"Go ahead, then, Allan," I said quietly. "Remember that you have told me
nothing yet."

Mabane turned towards me. He spoke slowly. His face was serious--almost
solemn.

"The man Delahaye will never claim the child," he said. "I think that he
will die. The man who shot him has gone--we shall not hear of him again,
not for many years, if at all. He has gone like a stone dropped into a
bottomless tarn. We shall not send the child back to the convent. She
will remain here."

He paused, as though expecting me to speak. I shrugged my shoulders.

"Come," I said, "I shall not quarrel with your prophecy so far, Allan.
The introduction of a feminine element here seems a little incongruous,
but after all she is very young."

Mabane unclasped his arms, and looked thoughtfully around the room.
Already there was a change since a few days ago. The ornaments and
furniture were free from dust. There were two great bowls of flowers
upon the table, some studies which had hung upon the wall were replaced
with others of a more sedate character. The atmosphere of the place was
different. Wild untidiness had given place to some semblance of order.
There was an attempt everywhere at repression. Mabane knocked the ashes
from his pipe.

"For five years," he said abstractedly, "you and I and Arthur have lived
here together. Are you satisfied with those five years? Think!"

I looked from my desk out of the window, over the housetops up into the
sunshine, and I too was grave. Satisfied! Is anyone short of a fool ever
satisfied?

"No! I am not," I admitted, a little bitterly.

"Tell me what you think of these five years, Arnold. Tell me the truth,"
Mabane persisted. "Let me know if your thoughts are the same as mine."

"Drift," I answered. "We have worked a little, and thought a little--but
our feet have been on the earth a great deal oftener than our heads have
touched the clouds."

"Drift," Mabane repeated. "It is a true word. We have gained a little
experience of the wrong sort: we have learnt how to adapt our poor
little gifts to the whim of the moment. Such as our talent has been, we
have made a servant of it to minister to our physical necessities. We
have lived little lives, Arnold--very little lives."

"Go on," I murmured. "This at least is truth!"

Mabane paused. He looked at his pipe, but he did not relight it.

"There is a change coming," he said, slowly. "We are going to drift no
longer. We are going to be drawn into the maelstrom of life. What it may
mean for you and for me and for the boy, I do not know. It will change
us--it must change our work. I shall paint no more guesses at
realism--after someone else; and you will write no more of princesses,
or pull the strings of tinsel-decked puppets, so that they may dance
their way through the pages of your gaily-dressed novels. And an end has
come to these things, Arnold. No, I am not raving, nor is this a jest.
Wait!"

"You speak," I told him, "like a seer. Since when was it given to you to
read the future so glibly, my friend?"

Mabane looked at me with grave eyes. There was no shadow of levity in
his manner.

"I am not a superstitious man, Arnold," he said, "but I come, after all,
of hill-folk, and I believe that there are times when one can feel and
see the shadow of coming things. My grandfather knew the day of his
death, and spoke of it; my father made his will before he set foot on
the steamer which went to the bottom on a calm day between Dover and
Ostend. Nothing of this sort has ever come to me before. You yourself
have called me too hard-headed, too material for an artist. So I have
always thought myself--until to-day. To-day I feel differently."

"Is it this child, then, who is to open the gates of the world to us?" I
asked.

"Remember," Mabane answered, "that before many months have passed she
will be a woman."

I moved in my chair a little uneasily.

"I wonder," I said, half to myself, "whether I did well to bring her
here!"

Mabane laughed shortly.

"It was not you who brought her," he declared. "She was sent."

"Sent?"

"Aye, these things are not of our choosing, Arnold. There is something
behind which drives the great wheels. You can call it Fate or God,
according to your philosophy. It is there all the time, the one eternal
force."

I looked at Mabane steadfastly. He did not flinch.

"Psychologically, my dear Allan," I said, "you appear to be in a very
interesting state just now."

Mabane shrugged his shoulders. He crossed the room for some tobacco, and
began to refill his pipe.

"Well," he said, "I have finished. To-morrow, I suppose, I shall want to
kick myself for having said as much as I have. Listen! Here they come."

Isobel came into the room, followed by Arthur in a leather jacket and
breeches. Her cheeks were pink, her eyes danced with excitement. She
threw off her tam-o'-shanter, and stood deftly re-arranging for a moment
her wind-tossed hair.

"Glorious!" she exclaimed. "Oh, it has been glorious! Mr. Arthur, how
can I thank you? I have never enjoyed myself so much in my life. If the
Sister Superior could only have seen me--and the girls!"

"Motoring, I presume," Mabane remarked, "is amongst the pleasures denied
to the young ladies of the convent?"

She laughed gaily.

"Pleasures! Why, there are no pleasures for those poor girls. One may
not even smile, and as for games, even they are not permitted. I think
that it is shameful to make such a purgatory of a place. One may not,
one could not, be happy there. It is not allowed."

She caught the look which flashed from Mabane to me, and turned
instantly around.

"Oh, Monsieur Arnold," she cried breathlessly, "you do not think--I
shall not have to return there?"

"Not likely!" Arthur interposed with vigour. "By Jove! if anyone shut
you up there again I'd come and fetch you out."

She threw a quick glance of gratitude towards him, but her eyes returned
almost immediately to mine. She waited anxiously for me to speak.

"If we can possibly prevent it," I said slowly, "you shall never return
there. I do not think that it is at all the proper place for you. But
you must remember that we are, after all, people of no authority.
Someone might come forward to-morrow with a legal right to claim you,
and we should be helpless."

[Illustration: "If we can possibly prevent it," I said slowly, "you
shall never return there."]

Slowly the colour died away from her cheeks. Her eyes became
preternaturally bright and anxious.

"There is no one," she faltered, "except that man. He called himself my
guardian."

"Had you seen him before he came to the convent and fetched you away?" I
asked.

"Only once," she answered. "He came to St. Argueil about a year ago. I
hated him then. I have hated him ever since. I think that if all men
were like that I would be content to stay in the convent all my life."

"You don't remember the circumstances under which he took you there, I
suppose?" Mabane asked thoughtfully.

She shook her head.

"I do not remember being taken there at all," she answered. "I think
that I was not more than four or five years old."

"And all the time no one else has been to see you or written to you?" I
asked.

"No one!"

She smothered a little sob as she answered me. It was as though my
questions and Mabane's, although I had asked them gently enough, had
suddenly brought home to her a fuller sense of her complete loneliness.
Her eyes were full of tears. She held herself proudly, and she fought
hard for her self-control. Arthur glanced indignantly at both of us. He
had the wit, however, to remain silent.

"There are just one or two more questions, Isobel," I said, "which I
must ask you some time or other."

"Now, please, then," she begged.

"Did Major Delahaye ever mention his wife to you?"

"Never."

"You did not even know, then, when you arrived in London where he was
taking you?"

"I knew nothing," she admitted. "He behaved very strangely, and I was
miserable every moment of the time I was with him. I understood that I
was to have a companion and live in London."

I felt my blood run cold for a moment. I did not dare to look at Mabane.

"I do not think," I said, "that you need fear anything more from Major
Delahaye, even if he should recover."

"You mean--?" she cried breathlessly.

"We should never give you up to him," I declared firmly.

"Thank God!" she murmured. "Mr. Arnold," she added, looking at me
eagerly, "I can paint and sing and play the piano. Can't people earn
money sometimes by doing these things? I would work--oh, I am not afraid
to work. Couldn't I stay here for a little while?"

"Of course you can," I assured her. "And there is no need at all for you
to think about earning money yet. It is not that which troubles us at
all. It is the fact that we have no legal claim upon you, and people may
come forward at any moment who have."

Arthur glanced towards her triumphantly.

"What did I tell you?" he exclaimed.

She looked timidly across at Mabane.

"The other gentleman won't mind?" she asked timidly.

Mabane smiled at her, and his smile was a revelation even to us who knew
him so well.

"My dear young lady," he said, "you will be more than welcome. I have
just been telling Arnold that your coming will make the world a
different place for us."

The girl's smile was illumining. It seemed to include us all. She held
out both her hands. Mabane seized one and bent over it with the air of a
courtier. The other was offered to me. Arthur was content to beam upon
us all from the background. At that precise moment came a tap at the
door. Mrs. Burdett brought in a telegram.

I tore it open, and hastily reading it, passed it on to Mabane. He
hesitated for a moment, and then turned gravely to Isobel.

"Major Delahaye will not trouble you any more," he said. "He died in the
hospital an hour ago."




CHAPTER VIII


"A shade more to the right, please. There, just as you are now! Don't
move! In five minutes I shall have finished for the day."

Isobel smiled.

"I think that your five minutes," she said, "last sometimes for a very
long time. But I am not tired--no, not at all. I can stay like this if
you wish until the light goes."

"You are splendid," Mabane murmured. "The best sitter--oh, hang it,
who's that?"

"There is certainly some one at the door," Isobel remarked.

Mabane paused in his work to shout fiercely, "Come in!" I too looked up
from my writing. A woman was ushered into the room--a woman dressed in
fashionable mourning, of medium height, and with a wealth of fair,
fluffy hair, which seemed to mock the restraining black bands. Mrs.
Burdett, visibly impressed, lingered in the background.

The woman paused and looked around. She looked at me, and the pen
slipped from my nerveless fingers. I rose to my feet.

"Eil--Lady Delahaye!" I exclaimed.

She inclined her head. Her demeanour was cold, almost belligerent.

"I am glad to find you here, Arnold Greatson," she said. "You are a
friend, I believe, of the man who murdered my husband?"

"You have been misinformed, Lady Delahaye," I answered quietly. "I was
not even an acquaintance of his. We met that day for the first time."

By the faintest possible curl of the lips she expressed her contemptuous
disbelief.

"Ah!" she said. "I remember your story at the inquest. You will forgive
me if, in company, I believe, with the majority who heard it, I find it
a trifle improbable."

I looked at her gravely. This was the woman with whom I had once
believed myself in love, the woman who had jilted me to marry a man of
whom even his friends found it hard to speak well.

"Lady Delahaye," I said, "my story may have sounded strangely, but it
was true. I presume that you did not come here solely with the purpose
of expressing your amiable opinion of my veracity?"

"You are quite right," she admitted drily. "I did not."

She was silent for a few moments. Her eyes were fixed upon Isobel, and I
did not like their expression.

"May I offer you a chair, Lady Delahaye?" I asked.

"Thank you, I prefer to stand--here," she answered. "This, I believe, is
the young person who was with my husband?"

She extended a sombrely gloved forefinger towards Isobel, who met her
gaze unflinchingly.

"That is the young lady," I answered. "Have you anything to say to her?"

"My errand here is with her," Lady Delahaye declared. "What is it that
you call yourself, girl?"

Isobel was a little bewildered. She seemed scarcely able to appreciate
Lady Delahaye's attitude.

"My name," she said, "is Isobel de Sorrens."

"You asserted at the inquest," Lady Delahaye continued, "that my husband
was your guardian. What did you mean by such an extraordinary
statement?"

Isobel seemed suddenly to grasp the situation. Her finely arched
eyebrows were raised, her cheeks were pink, her eyes sparkling. She rose
slowly to her feet, and, child though she was, the dignity of her
demeanour was such that Lady Delahaye with her accusing forefinger
seemed to shrink into insignificance.

"I think," she said, "that you are a very rude person. Major Delahaye
took me to the convent of St. Argueil when I was four years old, and
left me there. He visited me twelve months ago, and brought me to
England you know when. I was with him for less than twenty-four hours,
and I was very unhappy indeed all the time. I did not understand the
things which he said to me, nor did I like him at all. I think that if
he had left me out of his sight for a moment I should have run away."

Lady Delahaye was very pale, and her eyes were full of unpleasant
things. I found myself looking at her, and marvelling at the folly which
I had long since forgotten.

"You perhaps complained of him--to his murderer! It is you, no doubt,
who are responsible for my husband's death!"

Isobel's lips curled contemptuously.

"Major Delahaye," she said, "did not permit me to speak to anyone. As
for the man whom you call his murderer, I never saw him before in my
life, nor should I recognize him again if I saw him now. I do not know
why you come here and say all these unkind things to me. I have done you
no harm. I am very sorry about Major Delahaye, but--but--"

Her lips quivered. I hastily interposed.

"Lady Delahaye," I said, "I do not know what the immediate object of
your visit here may be, but----"

"The immediate object of my visit," she interrupted coldly, "is as
repugnant to me, Mr. Greatson, as it may possibly be disappointing to
you. I am here, however, to carry out my husband's last wish. This child
herself has asserted that he was her guardian. By his death that most
unwelcome post devolves upon me."

Isobel turned white, as though stung by a sudden apprehension. She
looked towards me, and I took her hand in mine. Lady Delahaye smiled
unpleasantly upon us both.

"You mean," I said, "that you wish to take her away from us?"

"Wish!" Lady Delahaye repeated coldly. "I can assure you that I am not
consulting my own wishes upon the subject at all. What I am doing is
simply my duty. The child had better get her hat on."

Isobel did not move, but she turned very pale. Her eyes seemed fastened
upon mine. She waited for me to speak. The situation was embarrassing
enough so far as I was concerned, for Lady Delahaye was obviously in
earnest. I tried to gain time.

"May I ask what your intentions are with regard to the child? You intend
to take her to your home--to adopt her, I suppose?"

Lady Delahaye regarded me with cold surprise.

"Certainly not," she answered. "I shall find a fitting position for her
in her own station of life."

"May I assume then," I continued, with some eagerness, "that you know
what that is? You are acquainted, perhaps, with her parentage?"

She returned my gaze steadily.

"I may be," she answered. "That, however, is beside the question. I
intend to do my duty by the child. If you have been put to any expense
with regard to her, you can mention the amount and I will defray it. I
have answered enough questions. What is your name, child--Isobel? Get
ready to come with me."

Isobel answered her steadily, but her eyes were filled with shrinking
fear.

"I do not wish to come with you," she said. "I do not like you at all."

Lady Delahaye raised her eyebrows. It seemed to me that in a quiet way
she was becoming angry.

"Unfortunately," she said, "your liking or disliking me makes very
little difference. I have no choice in the matter at all. The care of
you has devolved upon me, and I must undertake it. You had better come
at once."

Isobel trembled where she stood. I judged it time to intervene.

"Lady Delahaye," I said, "the duty of looking after this child is
evidently a distasteful one to you. We will relieve you of it. She can
remain with us."

Lady Delahaye looked at me in astonishment. Then she laughed, and it
seemed to all of us that we had never heard a more unpleasant travesty
of mirth.

"Indeed!" she exclaimed. "And may I ask of whom your household
consists?"

"Of myself and my two friends, Mabane and Fielding. We have a most
responsible housekeeper, however, who will be able to look after the
child."

"Until she herself can qualify for the position, I presume," Lady
Delahaye remarked drily. "What a delightful arrangement! A sort of
co-operative household. Quite Arcadian, I am sure, and so truly
philanthropic. You have changed a good deal during the last few years,
Mr. Arnold Greatson, to be able to stand there and make such an
extraordinary proposition to me."

I was determined not to lose my temper, though, as a matter of fact, I
was fiercely angry.

"Lady Delahaye," I said, "we are not prepared to give this child up to
you. It will perhaps help to shorten a--a painful interview if you will
accept that from me as final."

The change in Isobel was marvellous. The brilliant colour streamed into
her cheeks. Her long-drawn, quivering sigh of relief seemed in the
momentary silence which followed my pronouncement a very audible thing.
Lady Delahaye looked at me as though she doubted the meaning of my
words.

"You are aware," she said, "that this will mean great unpleasantness for
you. You know the law?"

"I neither know it nor wish to know it," I answered. "We shall not give
up the child."

I glanced at Mabane. His confirmation was swift and decisive.

"I am entirely in accord with my friend, madam," he said, with grim
precision.

"The law will compel you," she declared.

"We will do our best, then," he answered, "to cheat the law."

"I should like to add, Lady Delahaye," I continued, "that our
housekeeper, who has been in the service of my family for over thirty
years, has willingly undertaken the care of the child, and I can assure
you, in case you should have any anxieties concerning her, that she will
be as safe under our charge as in your own."

Lady Delahaye moved towards the door. On the threshold she turned and
laid her hand upon my arm. I was preparing to show her out. There was
meaning in her eyes as she leaned towards me.

"Mr. Greatson," she said, "we were once friends, or I should drive
straight from here to my solicitors. I presume you are aware that your
present attitude is capable of very serious misrepresentation?"

"I must take the risk of that, Lady Delahaye," I answered. "I ask you to
remember, however, that the law would also require you to prove your
guardianship. Do you yourself know anything of the child's parentage?"

She did not answer me directly.

"I shall give you," she said, "twenty-four hours for reflection. At the
end of that time, if I do not hear from you, I shall apply to the
courts."

I held the door open and bowed.

"You will doubtless act," I said, "according to your discretion."

The moment seemed propitious for her departure. All that had to be said
had surely passed between us. Yet she seemed for some reason unwilling
to go.

"I am not sure, Mr. Greatson," she said, "that I can find my way out.
Will you be so good as to see me to my carriage?"

I had no alternative but to obey. Our rooms were on the fifth floor of a
block of flats overlooking Chelsea Embankment, and we had no lift. We
descended two flights of the stone stairs in silence. Then she suddenly
laid her fingers upon my arm.

"Arnold," she said softly, "I never thought that we should meet again
like this."

"Nor I, Lady Delahaye," I answered, truthfully enough.

"You have changed."

I looked at her. She had the grace to blush.

"Oh, I know that I behaved badly," she murmured, "but think how poor we
were, and oh, how weary I was of poverty. If I had refused Major
Delahaye I think that my mother would have turned me out of doors. I
wrote and told you all about it."

"Yes," I admitted, "you wrote!"

"And you never answered my letter."

"It seemed to me," I remarked, "that it needed no answer."

"And afterwards," she said, "I wrote and asked you to come and see me."

"Lady Delahaye----" I began.

"Eileen!" she interrupted.

"Very well, then, if you will have it so, Eileen," I said. "You have
alluded to events which I have forgotten. Whether you or I behaved well
or ill does not matter in the least now. It is all over and done with."

"You mean, then, that I am unforgiven?"

"On the contrary," I assured her, "I have nothing to forgive."

She flashed a swift glance of reproach up on me. To my amazement there
were tears in her eyes.

"Mr. Greatson," she said, "I can find my way to the street alone. I will
not trouble you further."

She swept away with a dignity which became her better than her previous
attitude. There was nothing left for me to do but to turn back.




CHAPTER IX


Isobel was standing quite still in the middle of the room, her hands
tightly clenched, a spot of colour aflame in her cheeks. Arthur, who had
passed Lady Delahaye and me upon the stairs, had apparently just been
told the object of her visit.

"Oh, I hate that woman!" Isobel exclaimed as I entered, "I hate her! I
would rather die than go to her. I would rather go back to the convent.
She looks at me as though I were something to be despised, something
which should not be allowed to go alive upon the earth!"

Arthur would have spoken, but Mabane interrupted him. He laid his hand
gently upon her shoulder.

"Isobel," he said gently, "you need have no fear. I know how Arnold
feels about it, and I can speak for myself also. You shall not go to
her. We will not give you up. I do not believe that she will go to the
courts at all. I doubt if she has any claim."

"Why, we'd hide you, run away with you, anything," Arthur declared
impetuously. "Don't you be scared, Isobel, I don't believe she can do a
thing. The law's like a great fat animal. It takes a plaguey lot to move
it, and then it moves as slowly as a steam-roller. We'll dodge it
somehow."

She gave them a hand each. Her action was almost regal. It some way, it
seemed that in according her our protection we were receiving rather
than conferring a favour.

"My friends," she said, "you are so kind that I have no words with which
to thank you. But you will believe that I am grateful."

It was then for the first time that they saw me upon the threshold.
Isobel looked at me anxiously.

"She has gone?"

I nodded.

"I do not think that she will trouble us again just yet," I said. "At
the same time, we must be prepared. Tell me, whereabouts is this school
from which you came, Isobel?"

"St. Argueil? It is about three hours' journey from Paris. Why do you
ask?"

"Because I think that I must go there," I answered. "We must try and
find out what legal claims Major Delahaye had upon you. What is the name
of the Principal?"

"Madame Richard is the lay principal," Isobel answered, "but Sister
Ursula is really the head of the place. We girls saw her, though, very
seldom--only those who were going to remain," she added, with a little
shudder.

"And this Madame Richard," I asked, "is she a kindly sort of a person?"

Isobel shook her head doubtfully.

"I did not like her," she said. "She is very stern. She is not kind to
anyone."

"Nevertheless, I suppose she will tell me what she knows," I said. "Give
me the Bradshaw, Allan, and that old Continental guide."

I presently became immersed in planning out my route. When at last I
looked up, Mabane was working steadily. The others had gone. I looked
round the room.

"Where are Arthur and Isobel?" I asked.

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Like calling to like," he remarked tersely. "They have gone trailing."

I put the Bradshaw down.

"I shall leave for Paris at midnight, Mabane," I said.

He nodded.

"It seems to be the most sensible thing to do," he remarked. "There is
no other way of getting to the bottom of the affair."

So I went to pack my bag. And within an hour I was on my way to France.

       *       *       *       *       *

I rose to my feet, after a somewhat lengthy wait, and bowed. Between
this newcomer and myself, across the stone floor, lay the sunlight, a
long, yellow stream which seemed to me the only living thing which I had
as yet seen in this strange, grim-looking building. I spoke in
indifferent French. She answered me in perfect English.

"I have the honour to address----"

"Madame Richard. I am the lay principal of the convent. Will you permit
me?"

The blind fell, and there was no more sunlight. I was conscious of a
sudden chill. The bare room, with its stone-flagged floor, its plain
deal furniture, depressed me no less than the cold, forbidding
appearance of the woman who stood now motionless before me. She was
paler than any woman whom I had ever seen in my life. A living person,
she seemed the personification of lifelessness. Her black hair was
streaked with grey; her dress, which suggested a uniform in its
severity, knew no adornment save the plain ivory cross which hung from
an almost invisible chain about her neck. Her expression indicated
neither curiosity nor courtesy. She simply waited. I, although as a rule
I had no great difficulty in finding words, felt myself almost
embarrassed.

"I have come from London to see you," I said. "My name is
Greatson--Arnold Greatson."

There was not a quiver of expression in her cold acknowledgment of my
declaration. Nevertheless, at that moment I received an inspiration. I
was perfectly sure that she knew who I was and what I had come for.

"I have come to know," I continued, "if you can give me any information
as to the friends or parentage of a young lady who was recently, I
believe, a pupil of yours--a Miss Isobel de Sorrens?"

"The young lady is still in your charge, I hear," Madame Richard
remarked quietly.

Notwithstanding my inspiration I was startled.

"How do you know that?" I asked.

"We despatched a messenger only yesterday to escort Isobel back here,"
Madame Richard answered. "Your address was the destination given us."

"May I ask who gave it you? At whose instigation you sent?"

"At the instigation of those who have the right to consider themselves
Isobel's guardians," Madame Richard said quietly.

"Isobel's guardians!" I repeated softly. "But surely you know, Madame
Richard--you have heard of the tragedy which happened in London? Major
Delahaye died last week."

"We have been informed of the occurrence," she answered, her tone as
perfectly emotionless as though she had been discussing the veriest
trifle. "We were content to recognize Major Delahaye as representing
those who have the right to dispose of Isobel's future. His death,
however, alters many things. Isobel will be placed in even surer hands."

"Isobel has, I presume, then, relatives living?" I remarked. "May I know
their names?"

Madame Richard was silent for a moment. She was regarding me steadily. I
even fancied that the ghost of a hard smile trembled upon her lips.

"I have no authority to disclose any information whatever," she said.

I bowed.

"I have no desire to seem inquisitive," I said. "On the other hand, I
and my friends are greatly interested in the child. I will be frank with
you, Madame Richard. We have no claim upon her, I know, but we should
certainly require to know something about the people into whose charge
she was to pass before we gave her up."

"She is to come back here," Madame Richard answered calmly. "We are
ready to receive her. She has lived with us for ten years. I presume
under the circumstances, and when I add that it is the desire of those
who are responsible for her that she should immediately return to us,
that you will not hesitate to send her?"

"Madame Richard," I answered gravely, "you who live so far from the
world lose touch sometimes with its worst side. We others, to our
sorrow, know more, though our experience is dearly enough bought. Let me
tell you that I should hesitate at any time to give back the child into
the care of those who sent her out into the world alone with such a man
as Major Delahaye."

Madame Richard touched the cross which hung upon her bosom. Her eyes, it
seemed to me, narrowed a little.

"Major Delahaye," she said, "was the nominee of those who have the right
to dispose of the child."

"Then," I answered, "I shall require their right proven before Isobel
leaves us. I do not wish to speak ill of the dead, but I was present
when Major Delahaye was shot, and I am not sure that the bullet of his
assassin did not prevent a worse crime. The child was terrified to
death. It is my honest conviction that her fear was not uncalled for."

Madame Richard raised her hand slightly.

"Monsieur," she said, "such matters are not our concern. It is because
of the passions and evil doing of the world outside that we cling so
closely here to our own doctrine of isolation. Whatever she may have
suffered, Isobel will learn to forget here. In the blessed years which
lie before her, the memory of her unhappy pilgrimage will grow dim and
faint. It may even be for the best that she has realized for a moment
the shadow of evil things."

"Isobel is intended, then?" I asked.

"For the Church," Madame Richard answered. "That is the present decision
of those who have the right to decide for her. We ourselves do not care
to take pupils who have no idea at all of the novitiate. Occasionally we
are disappointed, and those in whom we have placed faith are tempted
back into the world. But we do our best while they are here to show them
the better way. We feared that we had lost Isobel. We shall be all the
more happy to welcome her back."

I shivered a little. I could not help feeling the cold repression of the
place. A vision of thin, grey-gowned figures, with pallid faces and
weary, discontented eyes, haunted me. I tried to fancy Isobel amongst
them. It was preposterous.

"Madame," I said, "I do not believe that Isobel is adapted by nature or
disposition for such a life."

"The desire for holiness," Madame Richard answered, "is never very
apparent in the young. It is the child's great good fortune that she
will grow into it."

"I am afraid," I answered, "that our views upon this matter are too far
apart to render discussion profitable. You have spoken of those who have
the right to dispose of the child's future. I will go and see them."

"It is not necessary," Madame Richard answered. "We will send to England
for the child."

"Do I understand, Madame Richard," I said, "that you decline to give me
the address of those who stand behind you in the disposal of Isobel?"

"They would not discuss the matter with you," she answered calmly.
"Their decision is already made. Isobel is for the Church."

I took up my hat.

"I will not detain you any further, Madame," I said.

"A messenger is already in London to bring back the child," she
remarked.

"As to that," I answered, "it is perhaps better to be frank with you,
Madame Richard. Your messenger will return alone."

For the first time the woman's face showed some signs of feeling. Her
dark eyebrows contracted a little. Her expression was coldly repellent.

"You have no claim upon the child," she said.

"Neither do I know of any other person who has," I answered.

"We have had the charge of her for ten years. That itself is a claim. It
is unseemly that she should remain with you."

"Madame," I answered, "Isobel is meant for life--not a living death."

The woman crossed herself.

"There is but one life," she said. "We wish to prepare Isobel for it."

"Madame," I said, "as to that, argument between us is impossible. I
shall consult with my friends. Your messenger shall bring back word as
to our decision."

The face of the woman grew darker.

"But surely," she protested, "you will not dare to keep the child?"

"Madame," I answered, "humanity makes sometimes strange claims upon us.
Isobel is as yet a child. She came into my keeping by the strangest of
chances. I did not seek the charge of her. It was, to tell the truth, an
embarrassment to me. Yet she is under my care to-day, and I shall do
what I believe to be the right thing."

"Monsieur," she said, "you are interfering in matters greater than you
have any knowledge of."

"It is in your power," I reminded her, "to enlighten me."

"It is not a power which I am able to use," she answered.

"Then I will not detain you further, Madame," I said.

As I passed out she leaned over towards me. She had already rung a bell,
and outside I could hear the shuffling footsteps of the old servant who
had admitted me.

"Monsieur," she said, "if you keep the child you make enemies--very
powerful enemies. It is long since I lived in the world, but I think
that the times have not changed very much. Of the child's parentage I
may not tell you, but as I hope for salvation I will tell you this. It
will be better for you, and better for the child, that she comes back
here, even to embrace what you have called the living death."

"Madame," I said, "I will consider all these things."

"It will be well for you to do so, Monsieur," she said with meaning. "An
enemy of those in whose name I have spoken must needs be a holy man, for
he lives hand in hand with death."




CHAPTER X


So I was driven back to Argueil, the red-tiled, sleepy old town, with
its great gaunt church, whose windows, as the lumbering cart descended
the hill, were stained blood-red by the dying sunset. Behind, on the
hillside, was the convent, with its avenue of stunted elms, its
close-barred windows, its terrible prison-like silence. As I looked
behind, holding on to the sides of the springless cart to avoid being
jostled into the road, I found myself shivering. The convent
boarding-schools which I had heard of had been very different sort of
places. Even after my brief visit there this return into the fresh
country air, the smell of the fields, the colour and life of the rolling
landscape, were blessed things. I was more than ever satisfied with my
decision. It was not possible to send the child back to such a place.

Across a great vineyard plain, through which the narrow white road ran
like a tightly drawn band of ribbon, I came presently to the village of
Argueil. The street which led to the inn was paved with the most
abominable cobbles, and I was forced to hold my hat with one hand and
the side of the cart with the other. My blue-smocked driver pulled up
with a flourish in front of the ancient gateway of the _Leon d'Or_, and
I was very nearly precipitated on to the top of the broad-backed horse.
As I gathered myself together I was conscious of a soft peal of
laughter--a woman's laughter, which came from the arched entrance to the
inn. I looked up quickly. A too familiar figure was standing there
watching me,--Lady Delahaye, trim, elegant, a trifle supercilious. By
her side stood the innkeeper, white-aproned and obsequious.

I clambered down on to the pavement, and Lady Delahaye advanced a little
way to meet me. She held out a delicately gloved hand, and smiled.

"You must forgive my laughing, Arnold," she said. "Really, you looked
too funny in that terrible cart. What an odd meeting, isn't it? Have you
a few minutes to spare?"

"I believe," I answered, "that I cannot get away from this place till
the evening. Shall we go in and sit down?"

She shook her head.

"The inn-parlour is too stuffy," she answered. "I was obliged to come
out myself for some fresh air. Let us walk up the street."

I paid for my conveyance, and we strolled along the broad sidewalk. Lady
Delahaye seemed inclined to thrust the onus of commencing our
conversation upon me.

"I presume," I said, "that we are here with the same object?"

She glanced at me curiously.

"Indeed!" she remarked. "Then tell me why you came."

"To discover that child's parentage, if possible," I answered promptly.
"I want to discover who her friends are, who really has the right to
take charge of her."

"You perplex me, Arnold," she said thoughtfully. "I do not understand
your position in the matter. I always looked upon you as a somewhat
indolent person. Yet I find you now taking any amount of trouble in a
matter which really does not concern you at all. Whence all this
good-nature?"

"Lady Delahaye----"

"Eileen," she interrupted softly.

"Lady Delahaye," I answered firmly. "You must forgive me if I remind you
that I have no longer the right to call you by any other name. I am not
good-natured, and I am afraid that I am still indolent. Nevertheless, I
am interested in this child, and I intend to do my utmost to prevent her
returning to this place."

"I am still in the dark," she said, looking at me curiously. "She is
nothing to you. A more unsuitable home for her than with three young men
I cannot imagine. You seem to want to keep her there. Why? She is a
child to-day, it is true--but in little more than a year's time she will
be a woman. The position then for you will be full of embarrassments."

"I find the position now," I answered, "equally embarrassing. We can
only give the child up to you, send her back to the convent, or keep her
ourselves. Of the three we prefer to keep her."

"You seem to have a great distaste for the convent," she remarked, "but
that is because you are not a Catholic, and you do not understand these
things. She would at least be safe there, and in time, I think, happy."

We were at the head of the village street now, upon a slight eminence. I
pointed backwards to the prison-like building, standing grim and
desolate on the bare hillside.

"I should consider myself no less a murderer than the man who shot your
husband," I answered, "if I sent her there. I have made all the
enquiries I could in the neighbourhood, and I have added to them my own
impressions. The secular part of the place may be conducted as other
places of its sort, but the great object of Madame Richard's sister is
to pass her pupils from that into the religious portion. Isobel is not
adapted for such a life."

Lady Delahaye shrugged her shoulders.

"Well," she said, "I am a Catholic, so of course I don't agree with you.
But why do you hesitate to give the child up to me?"

I was silent for a moment. It was not easy to put my feeling into words.

"Lady Delahaye," I said, "you must forgive my reminding you that on the
occasion of your visit to us you did not attempt to conceal the fact
that your feelings towards her were inimical. Beyond that, I was pledged
not to hand her back into your husband's care, and----"

"Pledged by whom?" she asked quickly.

"I am afraid," I said, "that I cannot answer you that question."

She flashed an angry glance upon me.

"You pretend that the man who called himself Grooten was not your
friend. Yet you have been in communication with him since!"

"I saw Mr. Grooten for the first time in my life on the morning of that
day," I answered.

"You know where he is now?" she asked, watching me keenly.

"I have not the slightest idea. I wish that I did know," I declared
truthfully. "There is no man whom I am more anxious to see."

"You would, of course, inform the police?" she asked.

"I am afraid not," I answered.

Again she was angry. This time scarcely without reason.

"Your sympathies, in short, are with the murderer rather than with his
victim--the man who was shot without warning in the back? It accords, I
presume, with your idea of fair play?"

"Lady Delahaye," I said, "the subject is unpleasant and futile. Let us
return to the inn."

She turned abruptly around. She made a little motion as of dismissal,
but I remained by her side.

"By-the-bye," I said, "we were to exchange confidences. You are here, of
course, to visit the convent? Why?"

She smiled enigmatically.

"I am not sure, my very simple conspirator," she said, "whether I will
imitate your frankness. You see, you have blundered into a somewhat more
important matter than you have any idea of. But I will tell you this, if
you like. You may call that place a prison, or any hard names you
please--yet it is destined to be Isobel's home. Not only that, but it is
her only chance. I am putting you on your guard, you see, but I do not
think that it matters. You are fighting against hopeless odds, and if by
any chance you should succeed, your success would be the most terrible
thing which could happen to Isobel."

I walked by her side for a moment in silence. There was in her words and
tone some underlying note of fear, some suggestion of hidden danger,
which brought back to my mind at once the farewell speech of Madame
Richard. There was something ominous, too, in her presence here.

"Lady Delahaye," I said, as lightly as possible, "you have told me a
great deal, and less than nothing at all. Yet I gather that you know
more about the child and her history than you have led me to suppose."

"Yes," she admitted, "that is perhaps true."

"Why not let me share your knowledge?" I suggested boldly.

"You carry candour," she remarked, smiling, "to absurdity. We are on
opposite sides. Ah, how delicious this is!"

We were regaining the centre of the little town by a footpath which for
some distance had followed the river, and now, turning almost at right
angles, skirted a cherry orchard in late blossom. The perfume of the
pink and white buds, swaying slightly in the breeze, came to us both--a
waft of delicate and poignant freshness. Lady Delahaye stood still, and
half closed her eyes.

"How perfectly delicious," she murmured. "Arn--Mr. Greatson, do get me
just the tiniest piece. I can't quite reach."

I broke off a small branch, and she thrust it into the bosom of her
dress. The orchard was gay with bees and a few early butterflies, blue
and white and orange coloured. In the porch of a red-tiled cottage a few
yards away a girl was singing. Suddenly I stopped and pointed.

"Look!"

An avenue with a gate at the end led through the orchard, and under the
drooping boughs we caught a glimpse of the convent away on the hillside.
Greyer and more stern than ever it seemed through the delicate framework
of soft green foliage and blossoms.

"Lady Delahaye," I said, "you are yourself a young woman. Could you bear
to think of banishing from your life for ever all the colour and the
sweet places, all the joy of living? Would you be content to build for
yourself a tomb, to commit yourself to a living death?"

She answered me instantly, almost impulsively.

"There is all the difference in the world," she declared. "I am a woman;
although I am not old, I know what life is. I know what it would be to
give it up. But the child--she knows nothing. She is too young to know
what lies before her. As yet her eyes are not opened. Very soon she
would be content there."

I shook my head. I did not agree with Lady Delahaye.

"Indeed no!" I protested. "You reckon nothing for disposition. In her
heart the song of life is already formed, the joy of it is already
stirring in her blood. The convent would be slow torture to her. She
shall not go there!"

Lady Delahaye smiled--mirthlessly, yet as one who has some hidden
knowledge which she may not share.

"You think yourself her friend," she said. "In reality you are her
enemy. If not the convent, then worse may befall her."

I shrugged my shoulders.

"As to that," I said, "we shall see!"

We resumed our walk. Again we were nearing the inn. Lady Delahaye looked
at me every now and then curiously. My feeling towards her had grown
more and more belligerent.

"You puzzle me, Arnold," she said softly. "After all, Isobel is but a
child. What cunning tune can she have played upon your heartstrings that
you should espouse her cause with so much fervour? If she were a few
years older one could perhaps understand."

I disregarded her innuendo.

"Lady Delahaye," I said, "if you were as much her friend as I believe
that I am, you would not hesitate to tell me all that you know. I have
no other wish than to see her safe, and amongst her friends, but I will
give her up to no one whom I believe to be her enemy."

"Arnold," she answered gravely, "I can only repeat what I have told you
before. You are interfering in greater concerns than you know of. Even
if I would, I dare not give you any information. The fate of this child,
insignificant in herself though she is, is bound up with very important
issues."

Our eyes met for a moment. The expression in hers puzzled me--puzzled me
to such an extent that I made her no answer. Slowly she extended her
hand.

"At least," she said, "let us part friends--unless you choose to be
gallant and wait here for me until to-morrow. It is a dreary journey
home alone."

I took her hand readily enough.

"Friends, by all means," I answered, "but I must get back to Paris
to-night. A messenger from Madame Richard is already waiting for me in
London."

She withdrew her hand quickly, and turned away.

"It must be as you will, of course," she said coldly. "I do not wish to
detain you."

Nevertheless, her farewell look haunted me as I sped across the great
fertile plain on my way to Paris.




CHAPTER XI


Mabane laid down his brush, Arthur sprang from his seat upon the table
and greeted me with a shout. Isobel said nothing, but her dark blue eyes
were fastened upon my face as though seeking to read her fate there.
They had evidently been waiting for my coming. I remember thinking it
strange, even then, that these other two men should apparently share to
the fullest degree my own interest in the child's fate.

"I have failed," I announced shortly.

I took Isobel's hand. It was cold as ice, and I could feel that she was
trembling violently.

"Madame Richard would tell me nothing, Isobel," I said. "I believe that
she knows all about you, and I believe that Lady Delahaye does too. But
they will tell me nothing."

"And?" she demanded, with quivering lips. "And?"

"It is for you to decide," I said gravely. "Lady Delahaye wants you, so
does Madame Richard. On the other hand, if you like to stay with us
until someone proves their right to take you away, you will be very
welcome, Isobel! Stop one moment," I added hastily, for I saw the quick
colour stream into her cheeks, and the impetuous words already trembling
upon her lips, "I want you to remember this: Madame Richard makes no
secret of her own wishes as regards your future. She desires you to take
the veil. You have lived at the convent, so I presume you are able to
judge for yourself as regards that. Lady Delahaye, on the other hand, is
a rich woman, and she professes to be your friend. Your life with her,
if she chose to make it so, would be an easy and a pleasant one. We, as
you know, are poor. We have very little indeed to offer you. We live
what most people call a shiftless life. We have money one day, and none
the next. Our surroundings and our associations are not in the least
like what a child of your age should become accustomed to. Nine people
out of ten would probably pronounce us utterly unsuitable guardians for
you. It is only right that you should understand these things."

She looked at me with tear-bedimmed eyes.

"I want to stay with you," she pleaded. "Don't send me away--oh, don't!
I hate the convent, and I am afraid of Lady Delahaye. I will do
everything I can not to be a nuisance to you. I am not afraid to work,
or to help Mrs. Burdett. Only let me stay."

I smiled, and looked around at the others.

"It is settled," I declared. "We appoint ourselves your guardians. You
agree, Mabane?"

"Most heartily," he answered.

"And you, Arthur?"

"Great heavens, yes!" he answered vehemently.

"You are very good," she murmured, "very good to me. All my life I shall
remember this."

She held out both her hands. Her eyes were fixed still upon mine. Mabane
laid his hand upon her shoulder.

"Dear child," he said, "do not forget that there are three of us. I too
am very happy to be one of your guardians."

She gave him the hand which Arthur had seized upon. I think that we had
none of us before seen a smile so dazzling as hers.

"Dear friends," she murmured, "I only hope that you will never regret
this great, great kindness."

Then suddenly she flitted away and went to her room. We three men were
left alone.

I think that for the first few moments there was some slight
awkwardness, for we were men, and we spoke seldom of the things which
touched us most. Arthur, however, broke almost immediately into speech,
and relieved the tension.

"And to think that it was I," he exclaimed, "who sent you out plot
hunting to the station! Arnold, what a sensible chap you are!"

We all laughed.

"A good many people," Mabane remarked quietly, "would call us three
fools. Tell us, Arnold, did you really discover nothing?"

"Absolutely nothing," I declared. "Stop, though. I did find out this.
There is some secret about the child's parentage. I have spoken with two
people who know it, and one of them warned me that in keeping the child
we were interfering in a greater matter than we had any idea of. Of
course it might have been a bluff, but I fancy that Lady Delahaye was in
earnest."

"You do not think," Mabane asked, "that she was Major Delahaye's
daughter?"

"I do not," I answered, with a little shudder. "I am sure that she was
not."

"Whoever she is," Arthur declared, "there's one thing jolly certain, and
that is she's thoroughbred. She has the most marvellous nerve I ever
knew. We got in a tight corner this morning. I took her down to
Guildford in a trailer, and I had to jump the pavement to avoid a
runaway. She never flinched for a moment. Half the girls I know would
have squealed like mad. She only laughed, and asked whether she should
get out. She's as thoroughbred as they make them."

"Perhaps," I answered, "but I'm not going to have you risk her life with
your beastly motoring, Arthur. Take her out in a car, if you want to.
Who's this?"

We turned towards the door. Was it the ghost of Madame Richard who stood
there pale, cold, and in the sombre garb of her sisterhood?

"This lady has been before," Mabane said, placing a chair for her. "She
has come from the convent, and she brought a letter from Madame
Richard."

"You are Mr. Greatson?" she asked.

I bowed, and took the letter which she handed to me. I tore it open. It
contained a few lines only.

     "SIR,--

     "I have been informed of the unfortunate event which has placed
     under your protection one of my late pupils, Isobel de Sorrens. We
     are willing and anxious to receive her back here, and I have sent
     the bearer to accompany her upon the journey. She will also defray
     what expenses her sojourn with you may have occasioned.

     "I am, sir, yours respectfully,

     "EMILY RICHARD."

I put the letter back in the envelope and laid it upon the table.

"I have seen Madame Richard," I said. "The child will remain with us for
the present."

The cold, dark eyes met mine searchingly.

"But, monsieur," the woman said, "how can that be? You are not a
relative, you surely have no claim----"

"It will save time, perhaps," I interrupted, "if I explain that I have
discussed all these matters with Madame Richard, and the decision which
I have come to is final. The child remains here."

The woman looked at me steadfastly.

"Madame Richard will not be satisfied with that decision," she said.
"You will be forced to give her up."

"And why," I asked, "should a penniless orphan, as I understand Isobel
is, be of so much interest to Madame Richard?"

The woman watched me still, and listened to my words as though seeking
to discover in them some hidden meaning. Then she leaned a little
towards me.

"Can I speak with you alone, monsieur?" she said.

"These are my friends," I answered, "from whom I have no secrets."

"None?"

"None," I repeated.

She hesitated. Then, although the door was fast closed, she dropped her
voice.

"You know--who the child is," she said softly.

"Upon my word, I do not," I answered. "I saw the man, under whose care
she was, shot, and I brought her here because she was friendless. I know
no more about her."

"That," she said quietly, "is hard to believe."

"I have no interest in your belief or disbelief," I answered. "Pardon me
if I add, madame, that I have no interest in the continuation of this
conversation."

She rose at once.

"You are either a very brave man," she said, "or a very simple one. I
shall await further instructions from Madame Richard."

She departed silently and without any leave-taking. We all three looked
at one another.

"Now what in thunder did she mean by that!" Arthur exclaimed blankly.

"It appears to me," Mabane said, "that you went plot hunting with a
vengeance, Arnold."

Arthur was walking restlessly up and down the room, his hands in his
pockets, a discontented frown upon his smooth young face. He stopped
suddenly in front of us.

"I don't know much about the law, you fellows," he said, "but it seems
to me that any of these people who seem to want to take Isobel away from
us have only to go before the court and establish some sort of a legal
claim, and we should have to give her up."

"That is true enough," I admitted. "The strange part of it is, though,
that no one seems inclined to take this course."

Arthur threw down a letter upon the table.

"This came for you yesterday, Arnold," he said. "I haven't opened it, of
course, but you can see from the name at the back of the envelope that
it is from a firm of solicitors."

I took it up and opened it at once. I knew quite well what Arthur
feared. This is what I read--

     "17, LINCOLN'S INN, LONDON.

     "DEAR SIR,--

     "We beg to inform you that we have been instructed by a client, who
     desires to remain anonymous, to open for you at the London and
     Westminster Bank an account on your behalf as guardian of Miss
     Isobel de Sorrens, a young lady who, we understand, is at present
     in your care.

     "The amount placed at our disposal is three hundred a year. We
     shall be happy to furnish you with cheque book and full authority
     to make use of this sum if you will favour us with a call,
     accompanied by the young lady, but we are not in a position to
     afford you any information whatever as to our client's identity.

     "Trusting to have the pleasure of seeing you shortly,

     "We are, yours truly,

     "HAMILTON & PLACE."

I laid the letter on the table without a word. Mabane and Arthur in turn
read it. Then there was an ominous silence. I think that we all had the
same thought. It was Arthur, however, who expressed it.

"What beastly rot!" he exclaimed.

I turned to Mabane.

"I imagine," he said, "that we should not be justified in refusing this
offer. At the same time, if anyone has the right to provide for the
child, why do they not come forward and claim her?"

At that moment Isobel came in. I took up the letter and placed it in her
hand.

"Isobel," I said, "we want you to read this."

She read it, and handed it back to me without a word. We were all
watching her eagerly. She looked at me appealingly.

"Is it necessary," she asked, "for me to accept this money?"

"Tell us," I said, "exactly how you feel."

"I think," she said, "that if there is anyone from whom I have the right
to accept all this money, I ought to know who they are. I do not want to
be a burden upon anyone," she added hesitatingly, "but I would rather
work every moment of the day--oh, I think that I would rather starve
than touch this money, unless I know who it is that offers it."

I laughed as I tore the letter in half.

"Dear child," I said, resting my hand upon her shoulder, "that is what
we all hoped that you would say!"




CHAPTER XII


Lady Delahaye sank down upon the couch against which I had been
standing.

"Poor, bored man!" she exclaimed, with mock sympathy. "I ought to have
asked some entertaining people, oughtn't I? There isn't a soul here for
you to talk to!"

"On the contrary," I answered, "there are a good many more people here
than I expected to see. I understood that you were to be alone."

"And you probably think that I ought to be," she remarked. "Well, I
never was conventional. You know that. I shut myself up for a month. Now
I expect my friends to come and console me."

"It is not likely," I said, "that you will be disappointed."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Perhaps not. Those whom I do not want will come, of course. As for the
others--well!"

She looked up at me. I sat down by her side.

"Ah! That is nice of you," she said softly. "I wanted to have a quiet
talk. Tell me why you are looking so glum."

"I was not conscious of it," I answered. "To tell you the truth, I was
wondering whether Isobel were not a little young to bring to a gathering
of this description."

"My dear Arnold," she murmured, "there are only one or two of my
particular friends here. The rest dropped in by accident. Isobel does
not seem to me to be particularly out of place, and she is certainly
enjoying herself."

The echoes of her light laugh reached us just then. Several men were
standing over her chair. She was the centre of what seemed to be a very
amusing conversation. Arthur was standing on the outskirts of the group,
apparently a little dull.

"She enjoys herself always," I answered. "She is of that disposition.
Still----"

She put her hands up to her ears.

"Come, I won't be lectured," she exclaimed. "Seriously, I wanted you
here. I had something to say to you--something particular."

"Waiving the other matter, then," I said, "I am wholly at your service."

"I may be prolix," she said quietly. "Forgive me if I am, but I want you
to understand me. I am beginning to see that I have adopted a wrong
position with regard to a certain matter which we have discussed at your
rooms and at Argueil. I want to reopen the subject from an entirely
different point of view."

"You mean," I said, "the subject of Isobel?"

"Of course! The first time I came to see you," Lady Delahaye said,
looking up at me with penitence in her blue eyes, "I was horrid. I am
very, very sorry. I did not know then who Isobel was, and I was angry
with everyone--with poor Will, with the child herself, and with you. You
must forgive me! I was very much upset."

"I will never think of it again," I promised her.

"Then, again, at Argueil," she continued, "I adopted a wrong tone
altogether. Yours was the more natural, the more human point of view.
There are certain very grave reasons why the child would be very much
better out of the world. A life of seclusion would, I believe, in the
end, when she is able to understand, be the happiest for her. And
yet--she ought to have her chance!"

"I am glad that you admit that," I murmured.

"Now I am going to ask you something," she went on. "You will not be
angry with me, I am sure. Do you think that a girl of Isobel's age and
appearance is in her proper place in bachelor quarters, living with
three young men?"

"I do not," I admitted. "I look upon it as a most regrettable necessity.
Still, you must not make it sound worse than it is. We have a
housekeeper who is the very essence of respectability, and Isobel is
under her care."

"I want to make it no longer a necessity," Lady Delahaye said, smiling.
"I want to relieve you and your conscience at the same time of a very
awkward incubus. Listen! This is what I propose. Let Isobel come to me
for a year! I shall treat her as my own daughter. She will have plenty
of amusement. There are the theatres, and no end of scratch
entertainments where one can take a girl of her age who is too young for
society. She will mix with young people of her own age, she will have
every advantage which, to speak frankly, must be denied to her in her
present position. At the end of that year I shall tell her her history.
It is a sad and a miserable one. You may as well know that now. She can
then take her choice of the convent, or any other mode of life which
between us we can make possible for her. And I am very much inclined to
believe, Arnold, that she will choose the convent."

"Is there any real reason, Lady Delahaye?" I asked, "why you should not
tell me now what you propose to tell Isobel in a year's time? There have
been so many mysterious circumstances in connection with this affair
that it is hard to come to any decision when one is ignorant of so
much."

"There are reasons--grave reasons--why I can tell you nothing," she
answered. "Indeed, I would like to, Arnold," she continued earnestly,
"but my position is a very difficult one. I think that you might trust
me a little."

"I am sure that you wish to do what is best," I said, a little
awkwardly, "but you must see that my position also is a little
difficult. I, too, am under a promise!"

Her eyes flashed indignantly.

"To the man who killed my husband! The man whom you are shielding!" she
exclaimed indignantly. "I think that you might at least have the grace
to leave him out of the conversation."

"I have never introduced him," I answered. "I do not wish to do so. As
to shielding him, I have not the slightest idea as to his whereabouts.
Be reasonable, Lady Delahaye. I----"

"Reasonable," she interrupted. "That is what I want you to be! Ask
yourself a plain question. Which is the more fitting place for her--my
house, or your chambers?"

She pointed to Isobel, who was leaning back in her chair laughing
heartily into the face of a young man who was bending over her. By
chance she looked just then older even than her years, and Arthur's glum
figure, too, in the background was suggestive.

"Your house, without a doubt," I answered gravely, "if it is the house
of a friend."

Her satin slipper beat the ground impatiently. She looked at me with a
frown upon her face.

"Do you believe, then," she asked, "that I am her enemy? Does my offer
sound like it?"

"Indeed, no," I answered, rising. "I am going to give Isobel herself a
chance of accepting or declining it."

I crossed the room. Isobel, seeing me come, rose at once.

"Is it time for us to go?" she asked.

"Not quite!" I answered. "Go and talk to Lady Delahaye for a few
minutes. She has something to say to you."

Isobel made a little grimace, so slight that only I could notice it, and
took my place upon the sofa. I talked for a few minutes with some of the
men whom I knew, and then Arthur touched me on the arm.

"Can't we go, Arnold?" he exclaimed, a little peevishly. "I've never
been so bored in all my life."

"We must wait for a few minutes," I answered. "Isobel is talking to Lady
Delahaye."

"I don't know a soul here, and I'm dying for a cigarette."

I pointed through the curtain to the anteroom adjoining.

"You can smoke in there," I remarked. "I'll introduce you to Miss
Ernston if you like, the girl who drives the big Panhard in the park. I
heard her say that she was going in there to get one of Lady Delahaye's
Russian cigarettes!"

Arthur shook his head. He was covertly watching Isobel, sitting on the
sofa.

"I'll go in and have the cigarette," he said, "but, Arnold, there's no
fresh move on, is there? You're looking pretty glum!"

I shook my head.

"No, there is nothing exactly fresh," I answered. "Come along and smoke,
will you! I want Lady Delahaye and Isobel to have their talk out."

He followed me reluctantly into the smaller of Lady Delahaye's
reception-rooms, where we smoked for a few minutes in silence. Then
Mabel Ernston stopped to speak to me for a moment, and I introduced
Arthur. I left them talking motors, and stepped back into the other
room. Isobel had already risen to her feet, and Lady Delahaye was
looking at her curiously as though uncertain how far she had been
successful. She saw me enter, and beckoned me to approach.

"I think that Isobel is tired," she said, in a tone which was meant to
be kind. "She has promised to come and see me again."

Isobel looked at me. Her mouth, which a few minutes before had been
curved with smiles, was straight now, and resolutely set. She was
distinctly paler, and her manner seemed to have acquired a new gravity.
I must confess that my first impulse was one of relief. Isobel had not
found Lady Delahaye's offer, then, so wonderfully attractive.

"Do you mind coming home now, Arnold?" she asked. "I did not know that
it was so late."

I saw Lady Delahaye's face darken at her simple use of my Christian
name, and the touch of her fingers upon my arm. Arthur heard our voices,
and came to us at once. So we took leave of our hostess, and turned
homewards.

For a long time we walked almost in silence. Then Isobel turned towards
me with a new gravity in her face, and an unusual hesitation in her
tone.

"Arnold," she said, "Lady Delahaye has been pointing out to me one or
two things which I had not thought of before. I suppose she meant to be
kind. I suppose it is right that I should know. But----" her voice
trembled--"I wish she had not told me."

"Lady Delahaye is an interfering old cat!" Arthur exclaimed viciously.
"Don't take any notice of her, Isobel."

"But I must know," she answered, "whether the things which she said were
true."

"They were probably exaggerations," I said cheerfully; "but let us hear
them, at any rate."

"She said," Isobel continued, looking steadily in front of her, "that
you were all three very poor indeed, and that I had no right to come and
live with you, and make you poorer still, when I had a home offered me
elsewhere. She said that I should disturb your whole life, that you
would have to give up many things which were a pleasure to you, and you
would not be able to succeed so well with your work, as you would have
to write altogether for money. And she said that I should be grown up
soon, and ought to live where there are women; and when I told her about
Mrs. Burdett she laughed unpleasantly, and said that she did not count
at all. And that is why--she wants me--to go there!"

Again the shadow of tragedy gleamed in the child's white face. Her face
was strained, her eyes had lost the deep softness of their colouring,
and there lurked once more in their depths the terror of nameless
things. To me the sight of her like this was so piteous that I wasted
not a moment in endeavouring to reassure her.

"Rubbish!" I exclaimed cheerfully. "Sheer and unadulterated rubbish! We
are not rich, Isobel, but the trifle the care of you will cost us
amounts to nothing at all. We are willing and able to take charge of you
as well as we can. You know that!"

Ah! She drew a long sigh of relief. It was wonderful how her face
changed.

"But why is Lady Delahaye so cruel--why is she so anxious that I should
not stay with you?" she said.

I laughed.

"Lady Delahaye is mysterious," I answered. "I have come to the
conclusion, Isobel, that you must be a princess in disguise, and that
Lady Delahaye wants to claim all the rewards for having taken charge of
you!"

"Don't be silly!" she laughed. "Princesses are not brought up at Madame
Richard's, without relations or friends to visit them, and no pocket
money."

"Nevertheless," I answered, "when I consider the number of people who
are interested in you, and Lady Delahaye's extraordinary persistence, I
am inclined to stick to my theory. We shall look upon you, Isobel, as an
investment, and some day you shall reward us all."

Her hand slipped into mine. Her eyes were soft enough now.

"Dear friend," she murmured, "I think that it is my heart only which
will reward you--my great, great gratitude. I am afraid of Lady
Delahaye, Arnold. There are things in her eyes when she looks at me
which make me shiver. Do not let us go there again, please!"

Arthur broke in impetuously.

"You shall go nowhere you don't want to, Isobel. Arnold and I will see
to that."

"And--about the other thing--she mentioned," Isobel began.

"She was right and wrong," I answered. "Of course, it would be better
for you if one of us had a sister or a mother living with us, but Mrs.
Burdett has always seemed to us like a mother, and I think--that it will
be all right," I concluded a little lamely. "We need not worry about
that, at present at any rate. Come, we've had a dull afternoon, and I
sold a story yesterday. Let's go to Fasolas, and have a half-crown
dinner."

"I'm on," Arthur declared. "We'll go and fetch Allan."

"You dear!" Isobel exclaimed. "I shall wear my new hat!"




Book II




CHAPTER I


"I have no doubt," Mabane said gloomily, "that Arthur is right. He ought
to know more about it than old fogies like you and me, Arnold. We had
the money, and we ought to have insisted upon it. You gave way far too
easily."

"That's all very well," I protested, "but I don't take in a woman's
fashion paper, and Isobel assured us that the hat was all right. She
looks well enough in it, surely!"

"Isobel looks ripping!" Arthur declared, "but then, she looks ripping in
anything. All the same, the hat's old-fashioned. You look at the hats
those girls are wearing, who've just come in--flat, bunchy things, with
flowers under the brim. That's the style just now."

"Isobel shall have one, then," I declared. "We will take her West
to-morrow. We can afford it very well."

She came up to us beaming. She was a year older, and her skirts were a
foot longer. Her figure was, perhaps, a shade more developed, and her
manner a little more assured. In other respects she was unchanged.

"What are you two old dears worrying about?" she exclaimed lightly. "You
have the air of conspirators. No secrets from me, please. What is it all
about?"

"We are lamenting the antiquity of your hat," Mabane answered gravely.
"Arthur assures us that it is out of date. It ought to be flat and
bunchy, and it isn't!"

"Geese!" she exclaimed lightly, "both of you! Arthur, I'm ashamed of
you. You may know something about motors, but you are very ignorant
indeed about hats. Come along, all of you, and gaze at my miniatures. I
am longing to see how they look framed."

"As regards the hat----" I began.

"I will not hear anything more about it," she interrupted, laughing. "Of
course, if you don't like to be seen with me--oh! Why, look! look!"

We had stopped before a case of miniatures. In the front row were two
somewhat larger than the others, and Isobel's first serious attempts.
Behind each was stuck a little ivory board bearing the magic word
"Sold."

"Sold!" Arthur exclaimed incredulously.

"It may be a mistake," I said slowly.

Mabane and I exchanged glances. We knew very well that, though the
miniatures showed promise of talent, they were amateurish and imperfect,
and the reserve which we had placed upon them was quite out of all
proportion to their merit. It must surely be a mistake! We followed
Isobel across the room. A little elderly gentleman was sitting before a
desk, engaged in the leisurely contemplation of a small open ledger.
Isobel had halted in front of him. There was a delicate flush of pink on
her cheeks, and her eyes were brilliant.

"Are my miniatures sold, please?" she exclaimed. "My name is Miss de
Sorrens. They have a small ivory board just behind them which says
'Sold.'"

The elderly gentleman looked up, and surveyed her calmly over the top of
his spectacles.

"What did you say that your name was, madam, and the number of your
miniatures?" he enquired.

"Miss Isobel de Sorrens," she answered breathlessly, "and my miniatures
are number two hundred and seven and eight--a portrait of an elderly
lady, and two hundred and eighty-nine--a child."

The little old gentleman turned over the pages of his ledger in very
leisurely fashion, and consulted a recent entry.

"Your miniatures are sold, Miss de Sorrens," he said, "for the reserve
price placed upon them--twenty guineas each. The money will be paid to
you on the close of the Exhibition, according to our usual custom."

"Please tell me who bought them," she begged. "I want to be quite sure
that there is no mistake."

"There is certainly no mistake," he answered, smiling. "The first one
was bought by--let me see--a nobleman in the suite of the Archduchess of
Bristlaw, the Baron von Leibingen. I believe that her Highness is
proposing to visit the Exhibition this afternoon. The other purchaser
paid cash, but refused his name. Ah! Excuse me!"

He rose hastily, and moved towards the door. A little group of people
were entering, before whom the bystanders gave way with all that respect
which the British public invariably displays for Royalty. Isobel watched
them with frank and eager interest. Mabane and I moved over to her side.

"Is it true?" I asked her.

"He says so," she answered, still a little bewildered. "Arnold, can you
imagine it? Forty guineas! I--I----"

There followed an amazing interlude. The little party of newcomers,
before whom everyone was obsequiously giving way, came face to face with
us. Mabane and I stepped back at once, but Isobel remained motionless.
An extraordinary change had come over her. Her eyes seemed fastened upon
the woman who was the central figure of the little procession, and the
girl who walked by her side. Someone whispered to her to move back. She
took no notice. She seemed as though she had not heard. Royalty raised
its lorgnettes, and dropped them with a crash upon the polished wood
floor. Then those who were quick to understand knew that something lay
beneath this unusual awkwardness.

The manager of the Gallery, who, catalogue in hand, had been prepared
personally to conduct the Royal party round, looked about him, wondering
as to the cause of the _contretemps_. His eyes fell upon Isobel.

"Please step back," he whispered to her, angrily. "Don't you see that
the Princess is here, and the Archduchess of Bristlaw? Clear the way,
please!"

The manager was a small man, and Isobel's eyes travelled over his head.
She did not seem to hear him speak. The Archduchess recovered herself.
She took the shattered lorgnettes from the hand of her lady-in-waiting.
She pointed to Isobel.

"Who is this young person?" she asked calmly. "Does she wish to speak to
me?"

A wave of colour swept into Isobel's cheeks. She drew back at once.

"I beg your pardon, Madame," she said. But even when she had rejoined my
side her eyes remained fixed upon the face of the Archduchess and her
companion.

There was a general movement forward. One of the ladies in the suite,
however, lingered behind. Our eyes met, and Lady Delahaye held out her
hand.

"Your ward is growing," she murmured, "in inches, if not in manners.
When are you going to engage a chaperon for her?"

"When I think it necessary, Lady Delahaye," I answered, with a bow.

"You artists have--such strange ideas," she remarked, smiling up at me.
"You wish Isobel to remain a child of nature, perhaps. Yet you must
admit that a few lessons in deportment would be of advantage."

"To the Archduchess, apparently," I answered. "One does not often see a
great lady so embarrassed."

Lady Delahaye shrugged her shoulders. She dropped her voice a little.

"Are we never to meet without quarrelling, Arnold?" she whispered,
looking up into my eyes. "It used not to be like this."

"Lady Delahaye," I said, "it is not my fault. We seem to have taken
opposite sides in a game which I for one do not understand. Twice during
the last six months you have made attempts which can scarcely be called
honourable to take Isobel from us. Our rooms are continually watched. We
dare not let the child go out alone. Now this woman from Madame
Richard's has come to live in the same building. She, too, watches."

"It is only the beginning, Arnold," she said quietly. "I told you more
than a year ago that you were interfering in graver concerns than you
imagined. Why don't you be wise, and let the child go? The care of her
will bring nothing but trouble upon you!"

Her words struck home more surely than she imagined, for in my heart had
lain dormant for months the fear of what was to come, the shadow which
was already creeping over our lives. Nevertheless, I answered her
lightly.

"You know my obstinacy of old, Lady Delahaye," I said. "We are wasting
words, I think."

She shrugged her shoulders and passed on. Mabane touched me on the
shoulder.

"Isobel would like to go," he said. "Arthur and she are at the door
already."

I turned to leave the place. We were already in the passage which led
into Bond Street, when I felt myself touched upon the shoulder. A tall,
fair young man, with his hair brushed back, and very blue eyes, who had
been in the suite of the Archduchess, addressed me.

"Pardon me," he said, "but you are Mr. Arnold Greatson, I believe?"

I acknowledged the fact.

"The Archduchess of Bristlaw begs that you will spare her a moment. She
will not detain you longer."

I turned to Mabane.

"Take Isobel home," I said. "I will follow presently."

We re-entered the Gallery. The majority of the Royal party were busy
examining the miniatures. The Archduchess was talking earnestly to Lady
Delahaye in a remote corner. My guide led me directly to her.

"Her Highness permits me to present you," he said to me. "This is Mr.
Arnold Greatson, your Highness."

The Archduchess acknowledged my bow graciously.

"You are the Mr. Arnold Greatson who writes such charming stories," she
said. "Yes, it is so, is it not?"

"Your Highness is very kind," I answered.

"I learn," she continued, "that you are also the guardian of the young
lady who gave us all such a start. Pardon me, but you surely seem a
little young for such a post."

"The circumstances, your Highness," I answered, "were a little
exceptional."

She nodded thoughtfully.

"Yes, yes, so I have heard. Lady Delahaye has been telling me the story.
I understand that you have never been able to discover the child's
parentage. That is very strange!"

"There are other things in connection with my ward, your Highness," I
said, "which seem to me equally inexplicable."

"Yes? I am very interested. Will you tell me what they are?"

"By all means," I answered. "I refer to the fact that though no one has
come forward openly to claim the child, indirect efforts to induce her
to leave us are continually being made by persons who seem to desire
anonymity. Whenever she has been alone in the streets she has been
accosted under various pretexts."

The Archduchess was politely surprised.

"But surely you are aware," she remarked, "of the source of some at
least of these attempts?"

"Madame Richard," I said, "the principal of the convent where Isobel was
educated, seems particularly anxious to have her return there."

The Archduchess nodded her head slowly.

"Well," she said, "is that so much to be wondered at? Even we who are of
the world might consider--you must pardon me, Mr. Greatson, if I speak
frankly--the girl's present position an undesirable one. How do you
suppose, then, that the principal of a convent boarding-school, whose
sister, I believe, is a nun, would be likely to regard the same thing?"

"Your Highness knows, then, of the convent?" I remarked.

The Archduchess lifted her eyebrows lightly. Her gesture seemed intended
to convey to me the fact that she had not sent for me to answer my
questions. I remained unabashed, however, and waited for her reply.
Several curious facts were beginning to group themselves together in my
mind.

"I have heard of the place," she said coldly. "I believe it to be an
excellent institution. I sent for you, Mr. Greatson, not, however, to
discuss such matters, but solely to ask for information as to the
child's parentage. It seems that you are unable to give me this."

"Lady Delahaye knows as much--probably more--than I," I answered.

It seemed to me that the Archduchess and Lady Delahaye exchanged quick
glances. I affected, however, to have noticed nothing.

"I will be quite candid with you, Mr. Greatson," the Archduchess
continued. "My interest in the girl arises, of course, from the
wonderful likeness to my own daughter, and to other members of my
family. Your ward herself was obviously struck with it. I must confess
that I, too, received something of a shock."

"I think," I answered, "that it was apparent to all of us."

The Archduchess coughed. For a Royal personage, she seemed to find some
little difficulty in proceeding.

"The history of our family is naturally a matter of common knowledge,"
she said slowly. "Any connection with it, therefore, which this child
might be able to claim would be of that order which you, as a man of the
world, would doubtless understand. Nevertheless, I am sufficiently
interested in her to be inclined to take any steps which might be
necessary for her welfare. I propose to set some enquiries on foot.
Providing that the result of them be as I suspect, I presume you would
have no objection to relinquish the child to my protection?"

"Your Highness," I answered, "I could not answer such a question as that
without consideration, or without consulting Isobel herself."

The Archduchess frowned upon me, and I was at once made conscious that I
had fallen under her displeasure. I fancy, however, that I appeared as I
felt, quite unimpressed.

"I cannot understand any hesitation whatsoever upon your part, Mr.
Greatson," she said. "Under my care the child's future would be
fittingly provided for. Her position with you must be, at the best, an
equivocal one."

"Your Highness," I answered steadily, "my friends and I are handicapped
perhaps by our sex, but we have a housekeeper who is an old family
servant, and a model of respectability. In all ways and at all times we
have treated Isobel as a very dear sister. The position may seem an
equivocal one--to a certain order of minds. Those who know us, I may
venture to say, see nothing harmful to the child in our guardianship."

The Archduchess stared at me, and I gathered that she was not used to
anything save implicit obedience from those to whom she made
suggestions. She stared, and then she laughed softly. There was more
than a spice of malice in her mirth.

"Which of you three young men are going to fall in love with her?" she
asked bluntly. "You call her a child, but she is almost a woman, and she
is beautiful. She will be very beautiful."

"Your Highness," I answered coldly, "it is a matter which we have not as
yet permitted ourselves to consider."

The Archduchess was displeased with me, and she took no further pains to
hide her displeasure.

"Mr. Greatson," she said, with a little wave of dismissal, "for the
present I have no more to say."

She turned her back upon me, and I at once left the Gallery.




CHAPTER II


I walked home with but one thought in my mind. The Archduchess had put
into words--very plain, blunt words--what as yet I had scarcely dared
harbour in my mind as a fugitive idea. She had done me in that respect
good service. She had brought to a sudden crisis an issue which it was
folly any longer to evade. I meant to speak now, and have done with it.
I walked through the busy streets a dreaming man. It was for the last
time. Henceforth, even the dream must pass.

I found Mabane and Arthur alone, for which I was sufficiently thankful.
There was no longer any excuse for delay. Mabane had taken possession of
the easy-chair, and was smoking his largest pipe. Arthur was walking
restlessly up and down the room. Evidently they had been discussing
between them the events of the afternoon, for there was a sudden silence
when I entered, and they both waited eagerly for me to speak. I closed
the door carefully behind me, and took a cigarette from the box on my
desk.

"What did the Archduchess want?" Arthur asked bluntly.

"I will tell you all that she said presently," I answered. "In effect,
it was the same as the others. She, too, wanted Isobel!"

"Shall we have to give her up?" Arthur demanded.

"We will discuss that another time," I said. "I am glad to find that you
are both here. There is another matter, concerning which I think that we
ought to come to an understanding as soon as possible. It has been in my
mind for a long while."

"About Isobel?" Arthur interrupted.

"About Isobel!" I assented.

They were both attentive. Mabane's expression was purely negative.
Arthur, on the other hand, was distinctly nervous. I think that from the
first he had some idea what it was that I wanted to say.

"Isobel, when she came to us little more than a year ago," I continued,
"was a child. We have always treated her, and I believe thought of her,
as a child. It was perhaps a daring experiment to have brought her here
at all, and yet I am inclined to think that, under the circumstances, it
was the best thing for her, and, from another point of view, an
excellent thing for us!"

"Excellent! Why, it has made all the difference in the world," Arthur
declared vigorously.

"I see that you follow me," I agreed. "Her coming seems to have steadied
us up all round. The changes which we were obliged to make in our manner
of living have all been for the better. I am afraid that we were
drifting, Allan and I, at any rate into a somewhat objectless sort of
existence, and our work was beginning to show the signs of it. The
coming of Isobel seems to have changed all that. You, Allan, know that
you have never done better work in your life than during the last year.
Your portrait of her was an inspiration. Some of those smaller studies
show signs of a talent which I think has surprised everyone, except
Arthur and myself, who knew what you could do when you settled down to
it. I, too, have been more successful, as you know. I have done better
work, and more of it. You agree with me so far, Allan?"

"There is no doubt at all about it," Mabane said slowly. "There has been
a different atmosphere about the place since the child came, and we have
thrived in it. We are all better, much the better, for her coming!"

"I am glad that you appreciate this, Allan," I said. "This sort of thing
is rather hard to put into words, but I believe that you fellows
understand exactly what I mean. We have had to amuse her, and in doing
so we have developed simpler and better tastes for ourselves. We've had
to give up a lot of things, and a lot of friends we've been much better
without."

"It's true, every word of it, Arnold," Mabane admitted, knocking out the
ashes from his pipe. "We've chucked the music-halls for the theatres,
and our lazy slacking Sundays, with a night at the club afterwards, for
long wholesome days in the country--very jolly days, too. We're better
men in our small way for the child's coming, Arnold. You can take that
for granted. Now, go on with what you have to say. I suppose this is all
a prelude to something or other."

Even then I hesitated, for my task was not an easy one, and all the
while Arthur, who maintained an uneasy silence, was watching me
furtively. It was as though he knew from the first what it was that I
was leading up to, and I seemed to be conscious already of his
passionate though unspoken resistance.

"It was a child," I said at last, "whom we took into our lives. To-day
she is a woman!"

Then Arthur could keep silence no longer. There was a pink flush in his
cheeks, which were still as smooth as a girl's, but the passion in his
tone was the passion of a man.

"You are not thinking, Arnold--you would not be so mad as to think of
giving her up to any of these people?" he exclaimed. "They are her
enemies, all of them. I am sure of it!"

"I am coming to that presently," I went on. "You know what happened this
afternoon? You saw the likeness, the amazing likeness, between Isobel
and that other girl, the daughter of the Archduchess. The Archduchess
was herself very much impressed with it. Without a doubt she knows
Isobel's history. She went so far as to tell me that she believed Isobel
to be morganatically connected with her own family, the House of
Waldenburg! She offered to take her under her own protection!"

"You did not consent!" Arthur exclaimed.

"I neither consented nor absolutely refused," I answered. "It was not a
matter to be decided on the spur of the moment. But the more I think of
it, the more I am puzzled. Madame Richard wants Isobel. She was not
satisfied with our refusal to give her up. She sent that messenger of
hers back with fresh offers, and when again we refused, the woman takes
up her quarters here, always spying upon us, always accosting Isobel on
any excuse. Madame Richard may be a very good woman, but I have seen and
spoken with her, and I do not for one moment believe that her
extraordinary persistence is for Isobel's sake alone. Then Lady Delahaye
has never ceased from worrying us. She has tried threats, persuasions
and entreaties. She has tried by every means in her power to induce us
to give up the child to her. And now we have the Archduchess to deal
with, and it seems to me that we are getting very near the heart of the
matter. The Archduchess is a daughter of one of the Royal Houses of
Europe, and Major Delahaye was once _attaché_ at her father's Court.
Then there is Grooten, the man who shot Delahaye. His interest in her is
so strong that he risks his life and commits a crime to save her from a
man whom he believes to be a source of danger to her. He sends her money
every quarter, which, as you know, we have never touched--it stands in
her name if ever she should require it. Grooten is a man into whose
charge we could not possibly give her, and yet of all these people he is
the only one whom I would trust--the only one whom I feel instinctively
means well by her. Madame Richard wants her, Lady Delahaye wants her,
and behind them both there is the Archduchess, who also wants her. I
have thought this matter over, and, so far as I am concerned, I have
decided----"

"Not to give her up to any of them!" Arthur exclaimed sharply.

"To give her up to no one who is not prepared to go into court and
establish a legal claim," I continued. "It is very simple, and I think
very reasonable. When she leaves us, it shall be to take up an
accredited and definite station in life. The time may come at any
moment. We must always be prepared for it. But until it does, we will
not even parley any longer with these people who come to us and hint at
mysterious things."

Arthur wrung my hand. He was apparently much relieved, and he did not
know what was coming.

"Arnold, you are a brick!" he exclaimed. "That's sound
common-sense--every word you've uttered. Let them prove their claim to
her."

"I agree with every word you have spoken," Allan said quietly, in
response to a look from me. "The child is at least safe with us, and she
is not wasting her time. She has talent, and she has application. I, for
my part, shall be very sorry indeed when the time comes, as I suppose it
will come some day, for her to go."

Then I mustered up my courage, and said that which I had known from the
first would be difficult.

"There is one thing more," I said, "and I want to say it to you now. It
may seem to you both unnecessary. Perhaps it is. Still, it is better
that we should come to an understanding about it. A year has passed
since Isobel, the child, came to us. To-day she is a woman. If we still
keep her with us there must be a bond, a covenant between us, and our
honour must stand pledged to keep it. I think that you both know very
well what I mean. I hope that you will both agree with me."

I paused for a moment, but I received no encouragement from either of
them. They were both silent, and Arthur's eyes were questioning mine
fiercely. I addressed myself more particularly to him.

"Allan and I are elderly persons compared with you, Arthur," I said,
"but we might still be described at a stretch as young men. If we decide
to remain Isobel's guardians, there is a further and a deeper duty
devolving upon us than the obvious one of treating her with all respect.
It is possible that she might come to feel a preference for one of us--a
sense of gratitude, the natural sentiment of her coming womanhood, even
the fact of continual propinquity might encourage it. Isobel is
charming; she will be beautiful. The position, if any one of us relaxed
in the slightest degree, might become critical. You must understand what
I mean, I am sure, even if I am not expressing it very clearly. Isobel
sees few, if any, other men. It is possible, it is almost certain, that
she belongs to a class whose position and ideas are far removed from
ours. There must be no sentimental relations established between her and
any one of us. We are her brothers, she is our sister. So it must remain
while she is under our charge. This must be agreed upon between us."

There was a dead, almost an ominous, silence. Mabane was standing with
his arms folded, and his face turned a little away. I appealed first to
him.

"Allan," I said, "you agree with me?"

"Absolutely!" he answered. "I agree with every word you have said."

I turned to Arthur.

"And you, Arthur?"

He did not at once reply. The colour was coming and going in his cheeks,
and he was playing nervously with his watchchain. When he raised his
eyes to mine, the slight belligerency of his earlier manner was more
clearly defined.

"I think," he said, "that there is another side to the question. Isobel
is the sort of girl whom fellows are bound to notice. Besides, being so
jolly good-looking, she is such ripping good form, and that sort of
thing. What you are proposing, Arnold, is simply that we should stand on
one side altogether and leave Isobel for any other fellow who happens to
come along."

"It scarcely amounts to that," I answered. "No other man is likely to
see much of her while she is under our care. Afterwards, of course, the
conditions are different. Our covenant, the covenant to which I am
asking you to agree, comes to an end when she leaves us."

"You see," Arthur protested, "it is a little different, isn't it, for
you fellows? Not that I'm comparing myself with you, of course, in any
sort of way. You're both heaps cleverer than I am, and all that, but
Isobel and I are nearer the same age, and we've been about together such
a lot, motoring and all that, and had such good times. You understand
what I mean, don't you? Of course, that sort of thing, that sort of
thing--you know, brings a fellow and a girl together so, liking the same
things, and being about the same age. It isn't quite like that with you
two, is it now?"

Again there was silence. Mabane had withdrawn his pipe from his mouth,
and was looking steadfastly into the bowl. As for me, I found it wholly
impossible to analyse my sensations. All the time Arthur was looking
eagerly from one to the other of us. I recovered myself with an effort,
and answered him.

"We will not dispute the position with you, Arthur," I said quietly. "We
will admit all that you say. We will admit, therefore, that by all
natural laws you are the one on whom the burden of keeping this covenant
must fall most heavily. That fact may make it a little harder for you
than for us, but it does not alter the position in any way. There must
be no attempt at sentiment between Isobel and any one of us. If by any
chance the opening should come from her, it must be ignored and
discouraged."

"I can't for the life of me see why," Arthur declared. "And I--well,
it's no use beating about the bush. Isobel is the only girl in the world
I could ever look at. I am fond of her! I can't help it! I love her!
There!"

Mabane mercifully took up the burden of speech.

"Have you said anything to her?" he asked.

"No."

"Not a word?"

"Not a word," Arthur declared. "She is too young. She has not begun to
think about those things yet. But she is wonderful, and I love her. It
is all very well for you two," he continued earnestly. "You are both
over thirty, and confirmed bachelors. I'm only just twenty-four, and
I've never cared for a girl a snap of the fingers yet. I don't care any
more about knocking about. Of course, I've done a bit at it like
everyone else, but Isobel has knocked all that out of me. I should be
quite content to settle down to-morrow!"

I tried to put myself in his place, to enter for a moment into his point
of view. Yet I am afraid that I must have seemed very unsympathetic.

"Arthur," I said, "I am sorry for you, but it won't do. I fancy that
before long she will be removed from us altogether. For her sake, and
the sake of our own honour, no word of what you have told us must pass
your lips. Unless you can promise that----"

I hesitated. Arthur had risen to his feet. The colour had mounted to his
temples, his eyes were bright with anger.

"I will not promise it," he declared. "I love Isobel, and very soon I
mean to tell her so."

"Then it must be under another roof," I answered. "If you will not
promise to keep absolutely silent until we at least know exactly what
her parentage is, you must leave us."

Arthur took up his hat.

"Very well," he said shortly. "I will send for my things to-morrow."

He left the room without another word to either of us.




CHAPTER III


"In diplomacy," the Baron remarked blandly, "as also, I believe, in
affairs of commerce, the dinner-table is frequently chosen as a fitting
place for the commencement of delicate negotiations. For a bargain--no!
But when three men--take ourselves, for instance--have a matter of some
importance to discuss, I can conceive no better opportunity for the
preliminary--skirmishing, shall I say?--than the present."

I raised my glass, and looked thoughtfully at the pale amber wine
bubbling up from the stem.

"From a certain point of view," I answered, "I entirely agree with you.
Yet you must remember that the host has always the advantage."

"In the present case," the Baron said with a smile, "that amounts to
nothing, for you practically gave me my answer before we sat down to
dinner. If I am able to induce you to change your mind--well, so much
the better. If not--well, I can have nothing to complain of."

"I am glad," I answered, "that you appreciate our position. With regard
to the present custody of the child, which I take it is what you want to
discuss with us, our minds are practically made up. My friend and I have
both agreed that we will continue the charge of her until she is claimed
by someone who is in a position to do so openly--someone, in short, who
has a legal right."

The Baron nodded gravely.

"An excellent decision," he said. "No one could possibly quarrel with
it. Yet it is a privilege to be able to tell you some facts which may
perhaps affect your point of view. I can explain to you _why_ this open
claim is not made."

"We are here," I answered, "to listen to whatever you may have to say."

We--Allan and I--were dining with the Baron at Claridge's. An
appointment, which he had begged us to make, had been changed into a
dinner invitation at his earnest request. There was a likelihood, he
told us, of his being summoned abroad at any moment, and he was
particularly anxious not to leave the hotel pending the arrival of a
cablegram. So far his demeanour had been courtesy and consideration
itself, but under the man's geniality and almost excessive _bonhomie_
both Allan and myself were conscious of a certain nervous impatience,
only partially concealed. Whatever proposal he might have to make to us,
our acceptance of it was without doubt a matter of great importance to
him. The more we realized this, the more we wondered.

"I only wish," he said with emphasis, "that it was within my power to
lay the cards upon the table before you, to tell you the whole truth. I
do not think then that you would hesitate for a single second. But that
I cannot do. The honour of a great house, Mr. Greatson, is involved in
this matter, into which you have been so strangely drawn. I must leave
blanks in my story which you must fill in for yourselves, you and Mr.
Mabane. There are things which I may not--dare not--tell you. If I
could, you would wonder no longer that those who desire to take over the
charge of the child wish to do so without publicity, and without any
appeal to the courts."

"The Archduchess," I remarked, "gave me some hint as to the nature of
these difficulties."

The Baron emptied his glass and called for another bottle of wine. Then
he looked carefully around him, a quite unnecessary precaution, for our
table was in a remote corner of the room, and there were very few
dining.

"It is no longer," he said, "a matter of surmise with us as to who the
child you call Isobel de Sorrens really is. She is of the House of
Waldenburg. She carries her descent written in her face, a hall-mark no
one could deny. Upon the Archduchess and others of her great family must
rest always the shadow of a grave stigma so long as the child remains in
the hands of strangers, an alien from her own country. The Archduchess
wishes at once, and quietly, to assume the charge of her. She is
conscious of your services; she feels that you have probably saved the
child from a fate which it is not easy to contemplate calmly. She
authorizes me, therefore, to treat with you in the most generous
fashion."

"That is a phrase," I remarked, "which I do not altogether understand."

"Later," the Baron said, with a meaning look, "I will make myself clear.
In the meantime, let me recommend this soufflé. Mr. Mabane, you are
drinking nothing. Would you prefer your wine a shade colder?"

"Not for me," Allan declared. "I prefer champagne at its natural
temperature; the wine is far too good to have its flavour frozen out of
it. Apropos of what you were saying, Baron, there is one question which
I should like to ask you. Why was Major Delahaye sent to St. Argueil for
Isobel, and what was he supposed to do with her?"

I do not think that the Baron liked the question. He hesitated for
several moments before he answered it.

"Major Delahaye was not sent," he said. "He went on his own account. He
was the only person who knew the child's whereabouts."

"And what do you suppose his object was in bringing her away from the
convent?" Allan persisted.

"I do not know," the Baron answered. "All I can say is that it pleases
me vastly more to find the child in your keeping than in his."

"Was the man who shot him," I asked, "concerned in the child's earlier
history?"

"I cannot place him at all," the Baron answered. "I should imagine that
his quarrel with Major Delahaye was a personal one, and had no bearing
upon the child. Few men had more enemies than Delahaye. One does not
wish to speak ill of the dead, but he was a bully and a brute all his
days."

A servant in plain black livery brought a sealed note to our host, and
stood respectfully by his side while he read it. It obviously consisted
of but a few words, yet the Baron continued to hold it in front of him
for nearly a minute. Finally, he crushed it in his hand, and dismissed
the servant.

"There is no answer," he said. "I shall wait upon her Highness in an
hour."

Our dinner was over. Both Mabane and myself had declined dessert. Our
host rose.

"Gentlemen," he said, "I have ordered coffee in the smoking-room. The
head-waiter has told me of some wonderful brandy, and I have some cigars
which I am anxious for you to try. Will you come this way?"

We were the only occupants of the smoking-room. The Baron appropriated a
corner, and left us to fetch the cigars. Mabane lit a cigarette and
leaned back in an easy-chair.

"It seems to me, Arnold," he said, "that you are like the man who found
what he went out for to see. You wanted tragedy--and you came very near
it. I do not quite see what the end of all these things will be. Our
host----"

"There is a disappointment in store for him, I fancy," I interrupted.
"He is a very faithful servant of the Archduchess, and he has worked
hard for her. From his point of view his arguments are reasonable
enough. All that he says is plausible--and yet--one feels that there is
something behind it all. Allan, I don't trust one of these people! I
can't!"

"Nor I," Allan answered softly, for the Baron had already entered the
room.

He brought with him some wonderful cabanas, and immediately afterwards
coffee and liqueurs were served. The moment the waiter had disappeared,
he threw off all reserve.

"Come," he said, "I am no longer your host. We meet here on equal terms.
I have an offer to make to you which I think you will find astonishing.
The fact is, her Highness is anxious to run no risk of any resurrection
of a certain scandal. She has commissioned me to beg your
acceptance--you and your friend--of these," he laid down two separate
pieces of paper upon the table. "She wishes to relieve you as soon as
possible to-night, if you can arrange it--of the care of a certain young
lady. There need be no hesitation about your acceptance. Royalty, as you
know, has special privileges so far as regards bounty, and her Highness
appreciates most heartily the care and kindness which the child has
received at your hands."

I stared at my piece of paper. It was a cheque for five thousand pounds.
I looked at Mabane's. It was a cheque for a like amount. Then I looked
up at the Baron. The perspiration was standing out upon his forehead. He
was watching us as a man might watch one in whose hands lay the power of
life or death. I resisted my first impulse, which was simply to tear the
cheque in two. I simply pushed it back across the table.

"Baron," I said, "if this is meant as a recompense for any kindness
which we have shown to a friendless child, it is unnecessary and
unacceptable. If it is meant," I added more slowly, "for a bribe, it is
not enough."

"Call it what you will," he answered quickly. "Name your own price for
the child--brought here--to-night."

"No price that you or your mistress could pay, Baron," I answered
quietly. "I told you my ultimatum two hours ago. The child remains with
us until she is claimed by one who has a legal right, and is not afraid
to invoke the law."

"But I have explained the position," the Baron protested. "You must
understand why we cannot bring such a matter as this into the courts."

"Your story is ingenious, and, pardon me, it may be true," I answered.
"We require proof!"

The Baron's face was not pleasant to look upon.

"You doubt my word, sir--my word, and the word of the Archduchess?"

I rose to my feet. Mabane followed my example. I felt that a storm was
pending.

"Baron," I said, "there are some causes which make strange demands upon
the best of us. A man may lie to save a woman's honour, or, if he be a
politician, for the good of his country. I cannot discuss this matter
any further with you. My sole regret is that we ever discussed it at
all. My friend and I must wish you good-night."

"By heavens, you shall not go!" the Baron exclaimed. "What right have
you to the child? None at all! Her Highness wishes to be generous. It
pleases you to flout her generosity. Mr. Arnold Greatson, you are a
fool! Don't you see that you are a pigmy, who has stolen through the
back door into the world where great things are dealt with? You have no
place there. You cannot keep the child away from us. You have no
influence, no money. You are nobody. If you think----"

Mabane interposed.

"Baron," he said, "if you were not still, in a sense, our host, I should
knock you down. As it is, permit me to tell you that you are talking
nonsense."

The Baron drew a sharp, quick breath.

"You are right," he said shortly. "I am a fool to discuss this with you
at all. It is not worth while. The Archduchess, out of kindness, would
have treated you as friends. You decline! Good! You shall be treated--as
you deserve."

The Baron threw open the door and bowed us out. The commissionaire
helped us on with our coats and summoned a hansom. We were just driving
off, when a man in a long travelling coat, who had been standing outside
the swing-door of the hotel, calmly swung himself up into the cab and
motioned to us to make room. I stared at him in blank amazement.

"Hullo!" I exclaimed. "What----"

"It is I, my friend," Mr. Grooten answered calmly. "Tell the man to
drive to your rooms."




CHAPTER IV


"I am staying at Claridge's, or rather I was," Mr. Grooten remarked, as
we turned into Brook Street. "I saw you with Leibingen, and I have been
waiting for you. We will talk, I think, at your rooms."

Whereupon he lit a fresh cigarette, and did not speak a word until we
had reached our destination. Isobel had gone to bed, and our
sitting-room was empty. I turned up the lamp, and pushed a chair towards
him. In various small ways he seemed to have succeeded in effecting a
wonderful change in his appearance. His hair was differently arranged,
and much greyer. His face was pale and drawn as though with illness. But
for his voice and his broad, humorous mouth I doubt whether I should
immediately have recognized him.

"I perceive," he said, "that I am not forgotten. It is very flattering!
My friends abroad tell me that I have altered a good deal during the
last twelve months."

"You have altered, without a doubt," I admitted. "But the circumstances
connected with our first meeting were scarcely such as tend towards
forgetfulness. You remember my friend, Mr. Allan Mabane?"

"Perfectly," he assented, with a courteous little wave of the hand. "I
am very glad to have come across you both again so opportunely. I only
arrived in England a few days ago, but I did not hope to have this
pleasure until the morning at the earliest. You expected to have heard
from me, perhaps, before."

"I don't know about that," I answered, "but I can assure you that we are
both very glad to see you, for more reasons than one. There are a good
many things which we are anxious to discuss with you."

"The pleasure, then, is mutual," Mr. Grooten remarked affably. "Isobel
is, I trust, well?"

"She is quite well," I answered.

"You are helping her to spend her time profitably, I am glad to find,"
he continued. "I saw two miniatures of hers yesterday at the Mordaunt
Rooms."

"Isobel has gifts," I said. "We are doing our best to assist her in
their development."

Mr. Grooten raised his eyes to mine. He looked at me steadily.

"Why have you refused to use the money which I placed to your credit at
the National Bank for her?" he asked.

"Because," I answered, "we are not aware what right you have to provide
for her."

Mr. Grooten smiled upon us--much as a sphynx might have smiled. It had
the effect of making us both feel very young.

"My claim," he murmured, "must surely be as good as yours."

"Perhaps," I admitted. "At any rate, the money remains there in her
name. She may find herself in greater need of it later on in life."

Mr. Grooten seemed to find some amusement in the idea.

"No," he said, "I do not think that that is likely. You could safely
have used the money, but as you have not--well, it is of small
consequence. I presume that attempts have been made to withdraw the
child from your care?"

"Several," I told him. "Madame Richard and Lady Delahaye were equally
importunate."

Grooten nodded.

"You have shown," he said, "an admirable discretion in refusing to give
her up to either of them."

"And to-day," I continued, "a third claimant to the care of her has
intervened. The Archduchess of Bristlaw herself has offered to relieve
us of our guardianship."

Mr. Grooten dropped the cigarette which he had only just lit, and seemed
for the moment unconscious of the fact. He made no effort to pick it up.
He quivered as though someone had struck him a blow. For a man whose
impassivity was almost a part of himself he was evidently deeply
agitated.

"The Archduchess--has seen Isobel!" he muttered.

"They met by chance at the Mordaunt Rooms a few afternoons ago," I told
him. "The Archduchess was accompanied by a girl of about Isobel's age.
We came upon them suddenly, and the likeness was so marvellous that we
were all startled. There was something in the nature of a scene. We left
the Gallery at once, but the Archduchess sent one of her suite for me. I
had some conversation with her concerning Isobel."

"Can you repeat it?" Grooten asked.

"In substance--yes," I told him. "The Archduchess plainly hinted that
she believed Isobel to be connected morganatically with her family. She
wished to take her under her own charge and provide for her."

"And you?"

"I thought it best to take some time for reflection. I had some idea of
looking up the history of the Archduchess's family."

"You made no promise?"

"Certainly not. To tell you the truth, I was influenced by the presence
of Lady Delahaye amongst the royal party. I have no faith in Lady
Delahaye's good intentions with regard to Isobel."

Mr. Grooten flashed a quick glance upon me.

"Yet," he said softly, "report says that you and Lady Delahaye have been
very good friends."

"That," I answered, "is beside the mark. I knew her before her marriage,
but I have seen very little of her since. As a matter of fact, our
relations at the present time are scarcely amicable. We have had a
difference of opinion concerning our guardianship of Isobel. Lady
Delahaye does not approve of her presence here with us."

Mr. Grooten smiled.

"That," he said, "is probable. May I proceed to ask a somewhat
impertinent question? You were the guests to-night, I believe, of the
Baron von Leibingen, who is, I understand, a _persona grata_ with the
Archduchess. I presume that your meeting in some way concerned Isobel?"

"Isobel was the sole cause of it," I answered. "The Archduchess is a
woman who perseveres. She declined to consider that my reply to her
first tentative offer was in any way final. She passed the matter on to
the Baron, and certainly until he lost his temper towards the end of our
interview, he was a very efficient ambassador. He proved to us quite
clearly that it was our duty to give Isobel up to those who had a better
right to assume the charge of her, and he wound up by handing us cheques
for--I think it was five thousand pounds each, wasn't it, Allan?"

Mr. Grooten leaned back in his chair and laughed silently, yet with
obvious enjoyment.

"That poor von Leibingen," he murmured, "how he blunders his way through
life! Yet, my friend, I am afraid that this charge which I so
thoughtlessly laid upon you is proving very troublesome. And you
perceive that I do not even offer you a cheque."

Allan suddenly rose up and knocked the ashes from his pipe into the
fire.

"You do not offer us a cheque, Mr. Grooten," he said quietly, "because
you have perceptions. But there is another way in which you can
recompense us for the trifling inconveniences to which we have been put.
You can make our task easier--and more dignified; you can answer a
question which I think I may say that we have an absolute right to ask
you."

Mr. Grooten inclined his head slightly. He made no remark. Allan turned
to me.

"Arnold," he said, "this is more your affair than mine, for it is you
who have borne the brunt of it from the first. I do not wish to
interfere in it unduly. But from every point of view, I think that the
time has come when all this mystery concerning Isobel's antecedents
should be, so far as we are concerned at any rate, cleared up. Our hands
would be immensely strengthened by the knowledge of the truth. Your
friend here, Mr. Grooten, can tell us if he will. Ask him to do so. I
will go further. I will even say that we have a right to insist upon
it."

Mr. Grooten sat immovable. One could scarcely gather from his face that
he had heard a word of Allan's speech.

"You are quite right, Allan," I answered. "Mr. Grooten," I continued,
turning towards him, "you are the best judge as to whether your presence
in this country is altogether wise, but I can assure you that for the
last six months we have looked for you every day, and for this same
reason. We want that question answered. The time has come when, in
common justice to us and the child, the whole thing should be cleared
up. Whatever knowledge rests with you is safe also with us. I think that
we have proved that. I think that we have earned our right to your
complete confidence. Mabane and I you can consider as one in this
matter. You can speak before him as though we were alone. Now tell us
the whole truth."

"I cannot," Mr. Grooten answered simply.

There was a certain crisp definiteness about those two words which
carried conviction with them. Mabane and I were a little staggered. Our
position was such a strong one, our request so reasonable, that I think
that we had never realized the possibility of a refusal.

"May I ask you this?" Mabane said. "Do you expect that we shall continue
our--I suppose we may call it guardianship--of Isobel in the face of
your present attitude?"

"I hope so, for the present," our visitor admitted softly.

"Notwithstanding," Mabane continued, "our absolute ignorance of
everything connected with her, our lack of any sort of claim or title to
the charge of her, and the increasing number of people who still persist
in trying to take her from us?"

Mr. Grooten shrugged his shoulders.

"You omit to mention the factors in the situation which may be said to
be on your side," he murmured.

"I should be interested to know what those are," I remarked.

"Certainly. The first and most powerful of all is, of course,
possession."

Mabane nodded.

"And after that?"

"The fact that not one of the three people who have appealed to you for
the charge of the child is in a position to use the only real force
which exists in this land. I mean the law," Grooten continued.

This kept us silent again for a moment. Mabane, I could see, was getting
a little ruffled.

"You pelt us with enigmas, sir," he said. "You answer our questions only
by propounding fresh conundrums. One thing, at least, you may feel
disposed to tell us. What is your own relationship to Isobel?"

"None," Mr. Grooten answered.

"Your interest, then?"

Mr. Grooten remained silent. He sat in his chair, very still and very
quiet. Yet in his eyes there shone for a moment something which seemed
to bring into the little room the shadow of great things. Mabane and I
both felt it. We had the sense of having been left behind. The little
man in his chair seemed to have been lifted out of our reach into the
mightier world of passion and suffering and self-conquest.

"I loved her mother," he said softly. "I was the man whom her mother
loved."

There was a silence between us then. We had no more to say. We were at
that moment his bounden slaves. But by some evil chance, after a
lengthened pause, he continued--

"I, alas, could do little for the child. Yet when I heard that harm was
threatened to her through that scamp Delahaye, I crossed the ocean at an
hour's notice. I saved her from him. He deserved his fate, but I am no
murderer by profession, and the shock unnerved me for a time. Then----"

"Hush!" Mabane cried.

I sprang to the door. It had been thrust about a foot open. From outside
came the sound of angry voices, followed by a moment's silence. Then a
quick, shrill cry of triumph.

"Let me in. Oh, you shall not stop me now. I am going to see the man who
boasts of being my husband's murderer!"

It was the voice of Lady Delahaye. She was already upon the threshold. I
sprang to the table and saw her coming. Already she was behind the
screen, stealing into the room, her head thrust forward, her lips
parted, a peculiar glitter in her eyes. For a moment I stood rigid. The
sight of her fascinated me--there was something so wholly animal-like in
the stealthy triumph of her tiptoe approach. I recovered myself just in
time. One more step, a turn of her head, and she would have seen
Grooten. My finger pressed down the catch of the lamp, and a sudden
darkness filled the room.

She stopped short. Her fierce little cry of anger told me exactly where
she was. I stepped forward and caught her wrists firmly. Then I faced
where I knew Grooten was still sitting. I could see the red end of his
cigarette still in his mouth.

"Leave the room at once," I said. "You can push the screen on one side,
and you are within a yard of the door then. Please do exactly as I say,
and don't reply."

"Let go my hands, sir! Arnold, how dare you! Let me go, or I'll scream
the place down. Mr. Mabane, you will not permit this?" she cried, in a
fury.

Mabane closed the door through which Grooten had already issued, and I
heard the key turn in the lock. I released Lady Delahaye's hands, and
she sprang away from me. As the flame from the lamp which Allan had just
rekindled gained in power we saw her, still shaking the handle, but with
her back now against the wall turned to face us. She was calmer than I
had expected, but it was a terrible look which she flashed upon us.

[Illustration: She was calmer than I had expected, but it was a terrible
look which she flashed upon us.]

"In how many minutes," she asked, "may I be released?"

Allan whispered in my ear.

"In five minutes, Lady Delahaye," I said. "I regret very much the
necessity for keeping you at all. May I offer you a chair?"

"You may offer me nothing, sir, except your silence," she answered
swiftly.

She meant it too. I know the signs of anger in a woman's face as well as
most men, and they were written there plainly enough. So for a most
uncomfortable period of time we waited there until Allan, after a glance
at his watch, went and opened the door. She passed out without remark,
but from the threshold outside she turned and looked at me.

"I warned you once before, Arnold Greatson," she said, "that you were
meddling with greater concerns than you knew of, and that harm would
come to you for it. Now you have chosen to shield a murderer, and to use
your strength upon a woman. These things will not go unforgotten!"

Mabane closed the door, and threw himself into an easy chair.

"For two easy-going sort of fellows, Arnold," he said to me, "we seem to
be making a lot of enemies. Don't you think it would be a good idea if
we drew stumps for a bit?"

"Meaning?" I asked.

"Roseleys!"

"We'll go to-morrow," I declared.




CHAPTER V


"I have never seen anything like this," Isobel said softly. I looked up
from the writing-pad on my knee, and she met my glance with a smile of
contrition.

"Ah," she said. "I forgot that I must not talk. Indeed, I did not mean
to, but--look!"

I followed her eyes.

"Well," I said, "tell me what you see."

"There are so many beautiful things," she murmured. "Do you see how
thick and green the grass is in the meadows there? How the quaker
grasses glimmer?--you call them so, do you not?--and how those yellow
cowslips shine like gold? What a world of colour it all seems. London is
so grey and cold, and here--look at the sea, and the sky, with all those
dear little fleecy white clouds, and the pink and white of all those
wild roses wound in and out of the hedges. Oh, Arnold, it is all
beautiful!"

"Even without a motor-car!" I remarked.

She looked at me a little resentfully.

"Motoring is very delightful," she said, "although you do not like it.
Of course, it would be nice if Arthur were here!"

She looked away from me seawards, and I found myself studying her
expression with an interest which had something more in it than mere
curiosity. At odd times lately I had fancied that I could see it coming.
To-day, for the first time, I was sure. The smooth transparency of
childhood, the unrestrained but almost animal play of features and eyes,
reproducing with photographic accuracy every small emotion and
joy--these things were passing away. Even before her time the child was
seeking knowledge. As she sat there, with her steadfast eyes fixed upon
the smooth blue line where sea and sky met, who could tell what thoughts
were passing in her mind? Not I, not Mabane, nor any of us into whose
care she had come. Only I knew that she saw new things, that the rush of
a more complex and stronger life was already troubling her, the sweet
pangs of its birth were already tugging at her heartstrings. My pencil
rested idly in my fingers, my eyes, like hers, sought that distant line,
beyond which lies ever the world of one's own creation. What did she see
there, I wondered? Never again should I be able to ask with the full
certainty of knowing all that was in her mind. The time had come for
delicate reserves, the time when the child of yesterday, with the first
faint notes of a new and wonderful song stealing into her heart, must
fence her new modesty around with many sweet elusions and barriers,
fairy creations to be swept aside later on in one glad moment--by the
one chosen person. There was a coldness in my heart when I realized that
the time had come even for the child who had tripped so lightly into our
lives so short a time ago, to pass away from us into that other and more
complex world. It was the decree of sex, nature's immutable law,
sundering playfellows, severing friendships, driving its unwilling
victims into opposite corners of the world, with all the pitilessness of
natural law. Nevertheless, the thought of these things as I looked at
Isobel made me sad. She was young indeed for these days to come, for the
shadows to steal into her eyes, and the song of trouble to grow in her
heart.

"Tell me," I asked softly, "what you see beyond that blue line."

"I can tell you more easily," she said, glancing down with a faint smile
at my empty pages, "what I see by my side--a very lazy man. And," she
continued, crumpling a little ball of heather in her fingers and
throwing it with unerring aim at Allan, "another one over there!"

"My picture," Allan protested, "is finished."

"Nonsense!" she exclaimed, preparing to rise, but he waved her back.

"In my mind," he added. "Don't misunderstand me. The casual and ignorant
observer glancing just now at my canvas might come to the same
conclusion as you--a conclusion, by-the-bye, entirely erroneous. I will
admit that my canvas is unspoilt. Nevertheless, my picture is painted."

She looked across at him reproachfully.

"Allan, how dare you!" she exclaimed. "Only Arnold has the right to be
subtle. I have always regarded you as a straightforward and honest
person. Don't disappoint me."

"St. Andrew forbid it!" Allan declared. "My meaning is painfully simple.
I build up my picture first in my mind. Its transmission to canvas is
purely mechanical. Here goes!"

He took up his palette, and in a few moments was hard at work. Isobel
pointed downwards to my writing-pad.

"Can you too match Allan's excuse?" she asked. "Is your story already
written?"

I shook my head.

"I have been watching you," I answered. "Besides, for a perfectly lazy
person, are you not rather a hard task-mistress? Consider that this is
our first day of summer--the first time we have seen the sun make
diamonds on the sea, the first west wind which has come to us with the
scent of cowslips and wild roses. I claim the right to be lazy if I want
to be."

She smiled.

"The poet," she murmured, "finds these things inspiring."

"The poet," I answered, "is an ordinary creature. Nowadays he eats
mutton-chops, plays golf, and has a banking account. The real man of
feeling, Isobel, is the man who knows how to be idle. Believe me, there
is a certain vulgarity in seeking to make a stock-in-trade of these
delicious moments."

"That is not fair," she protested. "How should we all live if none of
you did any work?"

"For your age, Isobel," I declared seriously, "you are very nearly a
practical person. You make me more than ever anxious for an answer to my
last question. What were you thinking of just now?"

Her eyes seemed to drift away from mine. A touch of her new seriousness
returned. She pointed to that thin blue line.

"Beyond there," she said, "is to-morrow, and all the to-morrows to come.
One sees a very little way."

"Our limitations," I answered, "are life's lesson to us. If to-morrow is
hidden, so much the more reason that we should live to-day."

"Without thought for the morrow?"

"Without care for it," I answered. "Are we not Bohemians, and is it not
our text?"

She shook her head.

"It is not yours," she answered slowly. "I am sure of that."

I looked at her quickly.

"What do you mean?"

"Just what I say," she answered gravely. "Men and women to whom the
present is sufficient surely cannot achieve very much in life. All the
time they must concentrate powers which need expansion. I think that it
must be those who try to climb the walls, those even who tear their
fingers and their hearts in the great struggle for freedom, who can make
themselves capable of great things, even if escape is impossible. But I
do not think that escape is so impossible after all, is it? There have
been men, and women too, who have lived in all times, to whom there have
been no to-morrows or any yesterdays. Only it seems rather hard that
life for those who seek it must always be a battle!"

I did not answer her for several minutes. It was true, then, that the
old days had passed away. Isobel, the child whom we had known and loved
so well, had disappeared. It was Isobel the incomprehensible who was
taking her place. What might the change not mean for us?...

Later we walked back over an open heath yellow with gorse, and faintly
pink with the promise of the heather to come. Isobel carried her hat in
her hand. She walked with her head thrown back, and a smile playing
every now and then upon her lips. She was so completely absorbed that I
found myself every now and then watching her, half expecting, I believe,
to find some physical change to accord with that other more mysterious
evolution. She walked with all the grace of long limbs and unfettered
clothing. Her figure, though perfectly graceful, and with that same
peculiar distinction which had first attracted me, was as yet wholly
immature. But in the face itself there were signs of a coming change.
Wherein it might lie I could not tell, but it was there, an intangible
and wholly elusive thing. I think that a certain fear of it and what it
might mean oppressed me with the sense of coming trouble. I was more
fully conscious then than ever before of the moral responsibility of our
peculiar charge.

We crossed a straight dusty road, cleaving the rolling moor like a belt
of ribbon. Isobel looked thoughtfully along it.

"I wonder," she said, "when Arthur will come down!"

The folly of a man is a thing sometimes outside his own power of
control. A second before I had been wondering of whom and what she had
been thinking.

"Not just yet, I'm afraid," Allan answered, stopping to light his pipe.
"It is not easy for him to get backwards and forwards, and I believe
that he is by way of being rather busy just now."

"What a nuisance!" Isobel declared, looking behind her regretfully. "The
roads about here seem so good."

"The roads are good, but the heath is better," Allan answered. "I will
race you for half a pound of chocolates to that clump of pines!"

"You are such a slow starter," she laughed, bounding away before he had
time to drop his easel. "Make it a pound!"

I picked up Allan's easel and strolled away after them. Was it the
motoring, I wondered, which had prompted her half-wistful question, or
had I been wise too late? Arthur had been very confident. So much that
he had said had carried with it a certain ring of truth. Youth and the
temperament of youth were surely irresistible. Like calls to like across
the garden of spring flowers with a cry which no interloper can still,
no wanderer of later years can stifle. Somehow it seemed to me just then
that the sun had ceased to shine, and a touch of winter after all was
lingering in the western breeze....

They disappeared round the pine plantation, Isobel leading by a few
yards, her skirts blowing in the wind, running still with superb and
untired grace. I climbed a bank to gain a better view of the finish, and
became suddenly aware that I was not the only interested spectator of
their struggle. About a hundred yards to my left a man was standing on
the top of the same bank, a pair of field-glasses glued to his eyes,
watching intently the spot where they might be expected to reappear. The
sight of him took me by surprise. A few moments ago I could have sworn
that there was not a human being within a mile of us. There was only one
explanation of his appearance. He must have been concealed in the dry
mossy ditch at the foot of the bank. It was possible, of course, that he
might have been like us, a casual way-farer, and yet the suddenness of
his appearance, the intentness of his watch, both had their effect upon
me. I moved a few yards towards him, with what object I perhaps scarcely
knew. A dry twig snapped beneath my feet. He became suddenly aware of my
approach. Then, indeed, my suspicions took definite shape, for without a
moment's hesitation the man turned and strode away in the opposite
direction.

I shouted to him. He took no notice. I shouted again, and he only
increased his pace. I watched him disappear, and I no longer had any
doubts at all. He was not in the least like a tramp, and his flight
could bear but one interpretation. Isobel was not safe even here. We had
been followed from London--we were being watched every hour. For the
first time I began seriously to doubt what the end of these things might
be.




CHAPTER VI


"Silence and perfume and moon-flooded meadows," Allan murmured. "Arnold,
we shall all become corrupted. You will take to writing pastorals, and
I--I--"

Isobel, from her seat between us, smiled up at him. Touched by the
yellow moonlight, her face seemed almost ethereal.

"You," she said, "should paint a vision of the 'enchanted land.' You see
those blurred woods, and the fields sloping up to the mists? Isn't that
a perfect impression of the world unseen, half understood? Oh, how can
you talk of such a place corrupting anybody, Allan!"

"I withdraw the term," he answered. "Yet Arnold knows what I meant very
well. This place soothes while the city frets. Which state of mind do
you think, Miss Isobel, draws from a man his best work?"

"Don't ask me enigmas, Allan," she murmured. "I am too happy to think,
too happy to want to do anything more than exist. I wish we lived here
always! Why didn't we come here long ago?"

"You forget the wonders of our climate," I remarked. "A month ago you
might have stood where you are now, and seen nothing. You would have
shivered with the cold. The field scents, the birds, the very insects
were unborn. It is all a matter of seasons. What to-day is beautiful was
yesterday a desert."

She shook her head slowly. Bareheaded, she was leaning now over the
little gate, and her eyes sought the stars.

"I will not believe it," she declared. "I will not believe that it is
not always beautiful here. Arnold, Allan, can you smell the
honeysuckle?"

"And the hay," Allan answered, smoking vigorously. "To-morrow we shall
be sneezing every few minutes. Have you ever had hay fever, Isobel?"

She laughed at him scornfully.

"You poor old thing!" she exclaimed. "You should wear a hat."

"A hat," Allan protested, "is of no avail against hay fever. It's the
most insidious thing in the world, and is no respecter of youth. You, my
dear Isobel, might be its first victim."

"Pooh! I catch nothing!" she declared, "and you mustn't either. I'm sure
you ou

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