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This House to Let

by William Le Queux · English · Gutenberg #41187 · 434,918 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: This House to Let

Author: William Le Queux


        
Release date: October 25, 2012 [eBook #41187]
                Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41187

Credits: Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THIS HOUSE TO LET ***

This House to Let
By William Le Queux
Published by Hodder and Stoughton Ltd, London.
This edition dated 1921.

This House to Let, by William Le Queux.

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________
THIS HOUSE TO LET, BY WILLIAM LE QUEUX.

PROLOGUE.

Very early on a July morning in 1919 Constable Brown was on his beat in
Kensington, in the immediate neighbourhood of Cathcart Square.

Cathcart Square was an old-fashioned backwater of this highly
respectable suburb.  It had not been built on any regular lines.  Small,
narrow houses nestled comfortably by the side of what might be called
mansions.  At the entrance to the Square itself, a narrow-fronted
milk-shop stood next door to a palatial residence.  The dairy was very
old, and the Square, with its strange agglomeration of houses, had been
built round it.

Constable Brown, a tall, strapping young fellow, took his duties easily.
He was quite contented with his lot, and not thirsting for promotion;
he had no overweening sense of his own abilities.  He was friendly with
all the cooks on his beat, and from them he received very choice
tit-bits.  In his case, the policeman's lot was a fairly happy one.

The morning was a very bright one, a somewhat powerful summer sun had
just risen, and flooded the streets with light.

He had no need of his lantern, early in the morning as it was.  He
strolled slowly round the Square, turning observant eyes on all the
houses.  In his patrol, he met nobody.  The busy world of commerce was
not yet astir.  Only from afar he heard the distant rumbling of
market-carts on their way to Covent Garden, market-carts laden with
fruit and vegetables.

The Square was sleeping.  In a few more hours it would wake to vigorous
life.  The dairy shop would take down its shutters, and show signs of
animation.  And when the dairy shop took down its shutters, Constable
Brown would be relieved, and go home to enjoy his well-earned rest.

All was quiet in the Square.  Brown had patrolled it several times in
his nightly vigil, and had discovered no signs of marauders.

He paused opposite Number 10, one of the few big houses.  He looked
contemplatively at the board announcing in large type--THIS HOUSE TO
LET: FURNISHED--with the agent's name displayed prominently at the foot
of the bill.

"Only house to let in the Square," ruminated Brown, as he stood reading
the bill for perhaps the hundredth time.  "It's been empty now for over
three months.  It ought to have been snapped up long ago."

He was right.  Houses in Cathcart Square did not wait long for tenants.
Mr Brown ruminated further, and provided his own solution.

"Old Miles, the caretaker, has got too comfortable quarters, he doesn't
want to flit.  When people come to view, he talks to them about damp, or
ghosts or beetles, and chokes them off.  Artful old devil, Miles, and a
bit too fond of drink."

Having finished his patrol of the Square itself, he passed along the
backs, abutting on a somewhat mean street, for a rather undesirable
neighbourhood had built itself around these somewhat stately houses.

His perambulations brought him to the back of Number 10, the house to
let.  His trained eye, accustomed to take in the smallest details,
noticed a broken pane of glass in the scullery window.  He climbed over
the low railing which shut off the back premises from the mean street on
which they looked, and peered at the broken window-pane.  From a general
point of view there was not much in it.  Window-panes are broken every
day.  But this was an empty house, looked after by a somewhat bibulous
caretaker of the name of Miles.  A hundred chances to one that Miles had
stumbled against it, and broken it with his elbow.

But although Constable Brown was not very brilliant, he was painstaking
and methodical; his mind was slow but tenacious.  He did not accept
facts at their face value.

After peering through the broken pane, he proceeded to further
experiments.  He lifted the window, and it went up easily.  He drew his
deductions swiftly.  Somebody had entered the empty house.  That
somebody had smashed the pane in order to get at the latch, had entered
the house, later emerged through the window and forgotten to fasten it.

But why enter an empty house, where there was nothing to steal except
the heavy furniture left by the late tenant, a Mr Washington, who was
abroad?  Brown knew for a fact from the caretaker that all silver and
plate had been lodged at Mr Washington's bank.  It was a puzzle.

One thing was clear: his duty lay straight before him.  He must go over
that empty house.  A careful examination might reveal something or
nothing.

But he was a very cautious man, and with no great belief in his own
powers.  He would not make the examination alone.  He blew his whistle
for further assistance.

In a few seconds, a fellow constable, a smart young fellow, hurried up
to him.  Brown pointed to the broken pane, the uplifted window.  The
smart young man projected himself through the open space.  Brown
followed, explaining as he went.

They searched the basement, the ground floor, and the floor above--with
no result.

"Now for the caretaker," said the younger and the more quick-witted of
the two policemen.

"He sleeps up at the top," answered Brown.  "He generally comes home
half-seas over.  If a regiment was hammering at the door he would not
wake till his sleep was done."

They went up to the caretaker's room on the top floor.  The bed was
empty.  Miles had evidently taken a holiday.

The young constable grunted.  "Seems a reliable sort of chap, doesn't
he?  I wonder how long he has been away?  The house agents can tell us
if they have sent any clients to view the house during the last
twenty-four hours, and whether they have been able to get in or not.
Anyway, for the present, he seems out of this job."

Brown assented.  He did not talk as much as his quicker-witted
colleague, but his rather slow mind was working at its normal speed.

"We've got to examine the other floors, you know.  I've made up my mind
to one thing--whoever came in here, robbery wasn't the object."

"There I quite agree," remarked the younger man.

They made their way down from the top floor, which consisted of three
attics.  On the floor beneath this, they searched every room and found
nothing.

But on the floor underneath their search was rewarded.  In a small
dressing-room, leading off the bedroom which fronted the square, they
found a gruesome sight--the lifeless body of a man, comparatively young,
somewhere about thirty-five or so, a deep gash in his throat, in his
stiffened hand a razor.

The two men gazed, horrified.  It was an early summer morning, the sun
was shining through the windows, the birds were twittering in the trees.
Shortly the whole world would be astir.  And here, in the small room,
lay the senseless clay, oblivious of all these signs of awakening life
and vigour.

Brown was the first to speak.  "Suicide!" he said hoarsely.  "The poor
devil wanted to make an end of it, and crept in here, knowing it was an
empty house."

The younger man spoke less convincingly.  "It looks like it.  Suicide,
as you say."  He paused a moment, and then spoke slowly: "I think it's
suicide, but it might be--mind you, I only say might be--a very
carefully planned murder.  And now, let us overhaul his pockets, we may
find something to establish identification."

Together they bent down, and rummaged the dead man's pockets.  They
found plenty of material for identification.

As they were engaged in their gruesome task, they heard the sound of a
latch-key being put in the front-door.  They heard the door banged to,
and heavy footsteps ascended the staircase.

"Miles come back after his spree," whispered Constable Brown to the
younger man.

Miles, all unsuspecting of what had taken place during his absence, came
heavily up the stairs.  It could not be said that he was by any means
drunk, but he was not absolutely sober.  He was slowly recovering from
the previous night's debauch.

Arrived on the floor where the two policemen were conducting their
investigations, absolute sobriety came back to him.  He saw the open
door of the dressing-room, two men in uniform kneeling by the side of an
inanimate object.  His brain cleared as if by magic.  He recognised in
one of the kneeling constables his old friend Brown.

He indulged in a little profanity, born of his emotion, which need not
be set down here.  Shorn of certain expletives, natural to a man of his
class, he inquired of Brown what was the matter.

Brown on his side was cool and explicit, and instead of answering the
caretaker's questions, he preferred to put a few of his own.

"Nice sort of caretaker you are," he said in a contemptuous voice.
"You're paid to look after this house, aren't you?  Where were you all
last night I should like to know?  You can see what has happened.
Somebody has got in through the back, either to commit suicide, or with
a companion who brought him here to murder him.  That's got to be found
out before the Coroner."

Miles pulled himself together.  He was by no means a fool when sober,
and in sight of this ghastly object the fumes of last night's
intoxication had absolutely cleared.

"I can show an alibi right enough," he said doggedly.

The younger and readier-witted of the two constables looked up and spoke
sharply.  "So far, my friend, we have not accused you, but you may as
well tell us the details of your alibi."

Miles's explanation, delivered in the somewhat halting way of his class,
bore the ring of truth.  An old acquaintance of his, whose name and
address he gave, had looked him up the day before and asked him to spend
a day with him at Shepperton, where the said acquaintance kept a small
shop.  Miles had succumbed to the temptation.

"It drives a man fair off his blooming chump to be tied by the leg in a
hole like this," he interpolated in the midst of his narrative, "waiting
for would-be tenants who never call.  I daresay you chaps do your eight
or ten hours a day, but you're out in the open air, not looking on four
walls.  You see a bit of life, I don't."

Constable Brown cut across his narrative swiftly.

"Never mind your grievances, Miles.  If you could get a better job, I
guess you would take it.  Where did you spend the night?"

"At the same old show, down at Shepperton," replied the unabashed Miles.
"My old pal's a sport, I can tell you.  When he shut up his shop, he
plied me with some of the best.  I wasn't backward, I admit.  I missed
the last train back, and slept on the sofa in the back room.  When I
woke, I remembered things a bit, and got an early train home.  Here I
am.  My old pal Jack will tell you I'm speaking gospel truth."

Neither of the two men listening to him had any doubt that his narrative
was a true one.  He was a poor, weak, bibulous creature, but by no
stretch of the imagination could he be an accessory to the gruesome
happenings at Number 10.

Even had he been at his post, as he should have been on this particular
night, he would have been sunk in a stertorous sleep, and have heard
nothing.

But to make everything sure, Constable Brown pulled him along and forced
him to look at the dead man.

"You have never seen him before, Miles?  I mean he has not called to
look over the house or anything?"

"No."  Miles, looking shudderingly at the ghastly sight, was ready to
swear he had never seen him before.

He turned his frightened gaze away: "It will be all over the town
to-night," he said ruefully.  "We shall never let the house after this."

"It will still be a soft job for you, Miles," retorted Brown, a little
spitefully.  "You won't have to play up the damp and the beetles.  You
are here for life, old man."

"I know," said Miles in a gloomy tone.  "But I shall see him staring at
me every minute of the day and night."

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The body was removed to the mortuary.  The evening newspapers had
flaring headlines: "Gruesome Discovery in Number 10 Cathcart Square."
An enterprising journalist had got hold of Miles, and speedily
discovering his weakness, had taken him to the nearest public-house, and
plied him plentifully with liquor, with a view to a sensational article.

The enterprising reporter made the best of his material, but it did not
amount to much.  The caretaker knew nothing about the dead man, he was
armed at all points with his alibi.  As regards the house itself,
invested with so much tragedy, the present tenant was a Mr Washington,
a man of considerable means, now abroad.  Mr Washington was prepared to
let it furnished.  The furniture was very valuable.

To a public greedily anxious for the smallest details, the astute
journalist served up a nice little article, describing the expensive
furniture, and adding a short life-history of Mr Washington, as
supplied by the reminiscent Miles.  The public swallowed this article
eagerly and awaited further developments.

These came with the inquest, and there was a somewhat tame ending to
what had promised to be a very sensational case.

Some three months previously, a certain man named Reginald Davis had
been suspected of committing a murder while driving a motor-car in
Cornwall.  The evidence, although circumstantial, had been very
convincing.  The police had been on his track, but not quickly enough.
The man had eluded their vigilance, and rim to earth somewhere.

On the body of the dead man in Cathcart Square, the two constables had
found three letters addressed to Reginald Davis.  Also a letter, signed
Reginald Davis, addressed to the Coroner in which he avowed his
intention of committing suicide at the earliest opportunity.

It was fairly evident from this that the wretched man, hunted by the
police, and recognising that capture was imminent in the course of a few
days, had resolved upon the fatal step, had effected his entrance into
the lonely house in Cathcart Square, had found it even more deserted
than he imagined, and in that little dressing-room cheated the law.

But, in addition to this overpowering evidence, there was added the fact
of identification.

A tall, handsome young woman, giving the name of Caroline Masters, had
been to the mortuary, and identified the body as that of her brother,
Reginald Davis.

She gave her evidence before the Coroner with commendable composure,
broken now and again with a little natural grief.  Her disclosures were
briefly as follows.

Reginald had always been the black sheep of the family, not naturally
vicious, but impetuous, fiery-tempered and ungovernable.  If he was
guilty of the murder in Cornwall, it had been due to no natural criminal
instinct, but to a fit of unbridled passion.  Her theory was that
remorse had weighed upon him for this unpremeditated crime, and that,
through remorse and the fear of justice overtaking him, he had crept
into this lonely house and passed sentence on himself.

She made a very great impression on the Court by the calm and dignified
way in which she gave her evidence.  The Coroner put to her a few
questions.  She was quite certain that the body was that of her brother,
Reginald Davis?  Were there any other members of the family who could
support her in her identification?

No, there were no other members of the family alive.  There was another
brother dead, and a sister of whose whereabouts she knew nothing.  Her
father had been a strange man, he had quarrelled with all the members of
his family, and she had never known one of them.  Her mother had died
some years ago.  Her voice broke a little as she related these touching
circumstances of her domestic life, more especially when she added she
was a widow, her husband having been killed in the Great War.

There seemed but one possible verdict.  The dead man, it was clearly
established, was Reginald Davis, first by the letters found upon him,
secondly by his sister's identification.

It was also clear that Reginald Davis, hunted by the police, and knowing
that it was only a question of days or weeks before he would be rim to
earth, had considered the two alternatives of self-destruction or the
extreme penalty of the law--and that he had chosen the former.

The verdict was recorded.  Mrs Masters was complimented on the way in
which she had given her evidence.  The Coroner assured her that the
sympathy of the Court was with her.  The tears welled into her eyes as
she listened to the Coroner's well-chosen phrases.  She bowed her
grateful thanks.

Constable Brown was waiting in the corridor as she came out.  Beside him
stood the younger policeman who had assisted him on that very
well-remembered night in Cathcart Square.

Brown touched his helmet.  "A very trying time for you, ma'am," he said,
"a very trying time.  You went through it bravely."

She smiled wanly.  "My poor brother!  He had so many good points.  But
it is better as it is.  I shudder to think of what might have been, if
he had not done this dreadful thing."

"Much the best way, ma'am, much the best way," corroborated Brown.

She went out, a graceful figure, and Brown turned to his younger
colleague.

"A remarkable case, old chap.  As we said all along, suicide."

The younger man paused a little before he replied.  It may be mentioned
that a few months later he was promoted to the detective force in
consequence of some rather clever work connected with a gang of coiners
in an obscure corner of the West End.

"It looks like it, but I'm not quite as sure as you are," he said
laconically.

Brown stared, but made no comment.  A verdict was a verdict.  His young
colleague had the inexperience and the vanity of youth, and thought he
was more clever than other people, perhaps!

But on one thing the young constable had made up his mind, and that was
that Miles, the bibulous caretaker, had not told the truth when in the
witness-box.  He came to this conclusion from his demeanour.  Miles
swore that he had no knowledge of the dead man, but the constable
believed this to be a lie.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

And with the tame ending of the Coroner's inquest, the mystery of Number
10 Cathcart Square ceased to hold the public interest.  Plenty of other
things came on to attract their attention.

CHAPTER ONE.

In the year before the Great War, when to all appearance there was not a
cloud upon the horizon, when only a few statesmen felt "profoundly
uneasy," the secret of that uneasiness being carefully locked away in
their own breasts, and hidden from the general public--in that year of
1913, in the month of March, the Twenty-fifth Lancers were quartered at
the town of Blankfield, in Yorkshire.

The Twenty-fifth was a crack regiment.  Most of the officers were
members of the aristocracy, a few of the plutocracy, that portion of the
plutocracy which on account of its wealth had been adopted into a
superior world by marriage with its aristocratic daughters.

They were a fine set of clean-minded, healthy living, sporting young
fellows.  They rode to hounds, they played polo when there was any
going, they shot over the coverts of their friends, they made love to
all the pretty girls they came across in a gallant and desultory
fashion, loving and riding away.

It cannot be said that they took their professional duties in too
serious a fashion.  But they were brave as lions, and when the time came
to prove their mettle, none of their relatives had cause to blush for
their record.  The memories of most of them were enshrined deeply in the
hearts of wailing mothers and weeping sweethearts, when the great
holocaust came.

Foremost amongst this band of gay spirits and resolute sportsmen was a
certain Captain Murchison, "Hughie," as he was always called by his
intimates.

"Hughie" was not a pure aristocrat.  His father, a man of fabulous
wealth, was the head of the great brewing firm of Murchison, Delaroyd
and Co., the fourth in succession, for the big brewery had been founded
over a hundred years ago.

It is supposed, in the case of self-made men, that it requires three
generations to make a gentleman.  Anyway, the present Sir Hugh had won
his spurs by the fact of belonging to the fourth.  And he had further
firmly established his position by marrying Lady Gertrude Marchmont, a
daughter of the Earl of Mounthaven.  The Marchmonts had blue blood in
profusion, they were one of the oldest families in the Kingdom, only
just being beaten by such superior people as the Howards, the Talbots,
and the Nevilles.

Captain Murchison was, therefore, plutocrat on the father's side,
aristocrat of aristocrat on the mother's.  But he did not owe his
popularity to these adventitious circumstances.  The fact that he was
the most popular man in his regiment was due to his own sterling
qualities.

In the first place, he was a man of the most unbounded generosity and
the most serene good-humour.  He had captained the Eleven at Eton, and
he was one of the best shots, also one of the best polo-players, in
England.  Needless to say that he was a man's man.  The fact that he was
also equally a Woman's man can be easily explained.  He boasted more
than ordinary good looks, and he had a charming, deferential way with
Women that captivated them at once.

The Twenty-fifth had a very good time at Blankfield, on the whole.  The
houses of the "county" were, of course, open to such a distinguished
regiment, but perhaps they had a rather jollier time amongst the rather
limited circle of rich townsfolk whom they condescended to visit: the
people who, at the best, had only a nodding acquaintance with the
"county."

Murchison was a born sportsman.  Hunting, polo, shooting, cricket,
occupied nearly all his Waking thoughts, except those few that were
claimed by his professional duties.  Popular as he was with women, not a
single member of the weaker and more charming sex had made any real
impression on him up to the present.

He had had several flirtations with charming girls, of course: he might
have indulged in a few sentimental passages with certain more or less
detached, or semi-detached, married women.  The latter very rarely, for
although by no means a saint he was a very clean-minded young man, and
held rather rigid notions as to what might be done, and what ought not
to be done.  Anyway at this particular moment he was quite heart-whole.

And then, one day, in this rather sleepy town of Blankfield, an
adventure befell him.  It was not strictly a common or garden adventure,
for more than one reason.

The woman, or rather girl, who was concerned in it, for looking at her
in a severe light she did not appeal to be more than twenty, bore upon
her no marks of the shameless adventuress.  It was easy to see that she
was not a member of his own World, the World of plutocracy mingled into
aristocracy by judicious intermarriage.  The "county" would not, of
course, open their doors to her.  According to her own account, the
respectable "villadom" of the sleepy old town had not called upon her,
on account of the absence of convincing credentials.

The meeting happened in this way.  Hugh found himself with a blank
afternoon, an afternoon that had not been filled up.  He could call at
lots of houses and get tea.  But, at this period, he was becoming a
little fed-up with the Blankfield teas, the simpering girls, the astute
mothers who Wanted to take the heir of the Murchison millions off his
guard, and hook him for a son-in-law.

Coming from a long line of successful tradesmen, Hugh had rather less
brains than he ought to have acquired by heredity.  Still, he was no
fool.  As long as a proposition was not too complex, he could size it up
pretty accurately.  And he sized up the Blankfield hospitality at its
true worth.

He walked down the High Street, and turned into the first tea-shop.  It
was a well-known establishment, and the dashing members of the
Twenty-fifth were wont to invite hither for tea some of the Blankfield
maidens who were not too particular as to chaperonage.

He expected to find here a good few of his brother officers.  To his
surprise, he did not see one.  But the room was very full.  To a casual
observer, every table seemed occupied.  He was about to turn away, when
a waitress, who knew him well, touched him on the arm.

"It's quite all right, Captain Murchison,"--Hugh had arrived at
seniority very early: "there's a table up there at the far end.  There's
only a young lady there, and she has very nearly finished her tea."

The young lady in question was quite young; Hugh decided from the first
swift glance at her that she could not be more than twenty.  She was
exceedingly pretty, with wavy light hair and soft brown eyes.  She wore
an air of composure remarkable in one so youthful.

The young man knew her well by sight, as did his brother officers.  She
was frequently to be seen in the High Street, flitting in and out shops,
sometimes alone, sometimes accompanied by a rather common-looking
person, some ten years her senior.  It was said they were brother and
sister and their name was Burton.

They had arrived in Blankfield about a couple of months ago, and taken a
moderate-sized house on the London Road, a little in the outskirts of
the town.  But though they had been here for these two months, they knew
nobody.  Not a soul had called upon them: for the villadom of Blankfield
was very select, and had to know something about newcomers before it
stretched out a Welcoming hand.  About the Burtons nothing seemed to be
known, and until some reliable information was forthcoming, they would
be ostracised.

The shop was very crowded, and most girls of her age might have felt
embarrassed by her loneliness.  But, although many admiring glances were
levelled at her from the few masculine occupants, she seemed quite
unperturbed and unconscious, looking neither to the right nor the left,
but taking in everything that was going on, under lowered eyelids
veiling those pretty brown eyes.

She gave him one swift glance as he sat down, and then went on
composedly with her tea.  There was nothing in the glance that was
either provocative or inviting.  Of the two, Hugh felt much more
embarrassed than she did.  He wondered if she was as stand-offish as she
looked.  If he addressed a remark to her, would she snub him?

Anyway he determined to put it to the proof.  "I do hope I am not
intruding, but it was Hobson's choice, you know; this is the only vacant
table."

No, she was not going to snub him.  On the contrary, she gave him a very
pleasant smile, and he noted with satisfaction that her voice was a
refined and pleasant one.

"There is hardly any question of intruding in a public place like this.
I cannot expect them to turn customers away in order that I may sit by
myself."

It was not a bad beginning, thought Hugh.  It was evident she was not
disinclined to enter into a little desultory conversation with a man who
she knew was a gentleman, and not likely to take undue advantage of her
absence of conventionality.

Hugh went on with growing boldness.  He had often said to his great chum
Jack Pomfret that it was a thousand pities this pretty girl was not in
Blankfield Society, she seemed so much more attractive than the other
girls who were in it.

"We haven't been introduced, of course, but I know you very well by
sight.  There is hardly a day that I do not meet you about here.  And I
know your name, too.  You are Miss Burton, are you not?  And you live
with your brother at that nice little house on the London Road."

"Quite right."  Miss Burton nodded her pretty head.  She added with a
little silvery laugh: "We can't be introduced, unless the waitress took
the kind office upon herself, for I don't know a soul in the place.  We
have been here two months, and we have been let severely alone.  I
suppose if we stayed here for twenty years it would be the same.  Of
course, we didn't expect to get into `county' Society, but we must be
quite as good as heaps of people in the town and outskirts."

Hugh was a little embarrassed by these very frank remarks.  He observed
lamely that it was a shame, and indulged in some rather inane remarks on
the snobbishness of provincial towns.

"You must find it awfully dull," he ventured after a brief pause.
During the short silence, Miss Burton had ordered herself some more tea.
It was evident that she was not desirous of abruptly terminating this
pleasant _tete-a-tete_.  The waitress drew her own conclusions from the
further order, and smiled a little as she turned away.

"I should be a hypocrite if I pretended the contrary.  Of course,
housekeeping takes up a good bit of my time, and I read a good deal, and
do a lot of fancy-work.  But all the same, it is a state of isolation,
not an outside person to speak to from one week-end to the other.  Of
course I hear all that is going on from the tradespeople, and I know the
names of the principal persons here whom I constantly meet and never
speak to.  I know, for instance, that you are Captain Murchison.  I
think I know the names of all your brother officers."

"What made you come here, if it is not a rude question?" asked Hugh
bluntly.  "It was surely a risky experiment, landing yourself in a town
like this, without any introductions."

"I told my brother so when he first proposed it," replied Miss Burton
calmly.  "But, although he is one of the best fellows in the world, he
is frightfully obstinate.  He had stayed at an hotel here for a few days
some years ago, and he had taken a violent fancy to the place.  He was
quite sure everybody would make a rush for us, the moment we arrived."

Miss Burton proceeded to draw on her gloves.  During this explanatory
conversation, she had consumed her second cup of tea.  She called the
waitress and paid her bill.

"I must be going now," she said.  "I have quite enjoyed this little
chat, although I am sure you will think very badly of me for having
confided so much to a stranger.  I really don't know what made me do
it--I suppose I got tired of having kept silence for so long."

Yes, he could understand that.  Poor, pretty little girl, just at an age
when all the pleasures of youth should be open to her, and to have to
pass her life in the society of that rather common-looking brother, good
fellow as she declared him to be.

"I have enjoyed the meeting immensely, too," said Hugh heartily.  "I
only wish we could come across each other at some of these Blankfield
houses, stupid and dull as they generally are."

And then, the pretty Miss Burton fired her last shot as she rose to
leave:

"I have been unconventional enough from the beginning, and if I can do
it without blushing, I am going to be more unconventional still.  If you
cared to come up to Rosemount one afternoon, I am sure my brother would
be pleased to see you."

Murchison was very embarrassed by the suggestion, although she did not
proffer it in any bold fashion.

"I shall be delighted," he stammered.  "I will run up one afternoon."
Of course when he said this he had very little intention of keeping his
promise.  To enjoy a mild sort of flirtation with an exceedingly pretty
girl was one thing.  To go to her house and make the acquaintance of her
brother, who he was certain was not a gentleman, was quite a different
proposition, and might land him in all sorts of unpleasant
complications.

He also had an uneasy conviction that Miss Burton was remarkably
self-assured for such a young woman.  She had spoken of blushing when
she gave him the invitation, but she had not done so.  Not the faintest
colour showed on her cheek, and the glance that met his was perfectly
steady and unwavering.  She must either be very innocent, or, young as
she was, she had acquired the experience and self-possession of a much
older woman.  He would like to think it all out.

The girl nodded in a friendly fashion, and tripped away, leaving Hugh
Murchison to finish his tea, and ponder over what had happened.

CHAPTER TWO.

When Hugh got back to his quarters the first thing he did was to hunt up
his great friend Jack Pomfret.  He found that young gentleman stretched
in front of a blazing fire--it was a very chilly March--and smoking a
cigar nearly as big as himself.  Jack Pomfret, it may be said, was quite
a small man, of about the size and weight that would be associated with
the coxswain of a 'Varsity boat.

Next to Murchison, perhaps Pomfret was the most popular man in the
regiment.  He was certainly the poorest, for although he came of an
aristocratic family, the said family had very little to bless themselves
with.

If it had been left to his immediate relatives, Jack would have had to
enter a line regiment, and subsist on his pay, supplemented by more or
less regular small remittances from his hard-up father.

But fortune had smiled on Jack when he was in his cradle.  A rich
great-aunt had been his godmother, and from the date of his christening
had taken him under her wing.  She had been crossed in love when quite a
girl, and would never marry.  Jack Pomfret had a handsome, but not an
extravagant, allowance now, and he would come into his great-aunt's
fortune when she died.

Jack always complained that his aunt was a bit thrifty, and did not
fully understand the imperative necessities of a young subaltern in an
expensive regiment like the Twenty-fifth.

As a matter of fact, Miss Harding, his mother's youngest sister,
suffered from acute indigestion, existed principally on soda-water and
biscuits, lived in a comparatively small house with one manservant and
two maids, and saved a great deal every year out of a large income.  She
loved Jack very much, but she had little or no sympathy with the follies
and indiscretions of youth.  She had a hazy sort of idea that an officer
should live within his pay, as she lived well within her income.
Needless to say that Jack had long disabused her of this silly idea.

"Great tidings, old man," cried Murchison, breaking in upon the
meditative little man, blowing great clouds of smoke.  "I'll give you
six guesses."

"Not in a guessing mood," returned Jack shortly.  "All my brain-power is
used up.  I am trying to concoct a letter to the dear old aunt--God
bless her, she is one of the best!--insinuating gently that a cheque for
a couple of hundred would be very convenient at the present moment."

Murchison took a seat.  "Silly old ass," he said in a kindly tone, "if
you want a couple of hundred have it from me, and don't worry about the
aunt.  You can pay me when she stumps-up.  From what you have told me
about your respected relative, it might be a lengthy business.  I
suppose you will plead debts.  She might offer to discharge them, and
ask the names of the creditors.  In that case, old chap, you wouldn't
handle much personally, would you?"

Pomfret laughed genially.  He was always very hard-up, but he was never
depressed for very long.  There was always a silver lining to every
cloud.

"She's the sweetest, dearest soul on God's earth," he said in a tone of
conviction.  "But you know, Hughie old man, she doesn't understand--I
say emphatically, she doesn't understand--you know what I mean.  She is
early Victorian.  As to your suggestion, I appreciate it very much, but
emphatically, no."  He added, with a whimsical smile: "Yours is a loan,
I should have to pay back; Heaven knows when I could do so.  The dear
old aunt, well, it is a gift, no question of paying back.  I haven't
thought it all out yet, but in the early cool of to-morrow morning, I
shall write her a beautiful and touching letter.  I know by experience
it will bring a cheque."

"You're an artful young devil, I know," said Murchison.  Straight as a
die himself, he was not too appreciative of his friend's diplomatic
methods.

On the other hand, was he justified in criticising?  He had a
magnificent allowance from his opulent father.  Poor Jack, with a
somewhat puritanical and niggardly aunt at his back, had just to worry
along, and live in this expensive regiment from hand to mouth.

There was no more to be said on this subject.

"Well, Jack, are you in a mood to listen to my news?"

Pomfret leaned forward, and flicked the ash off his cigar.  "Yes, I
think I am.  Begone dull care!  I shall write that letter the first
thing to-morrow morning."

"Well, I have made the acquaintance of that pretty Burton girl, whom
nobody in Blankfield visits."

Mr Pomfret emitted a little chuckling sound.  "Lucky devil.  How did
you do it?  I thought she was unapproachable.  She walks down the High
Street, `with a haughty stare, and her nose in the air,' and looks
neither to left nor right.  How did you manage it, old man?"  Hugh
laughed.  "Oh, as easy as anything.  Just dropped in to Winkley's,
expecting to see a lot of you fellows with your best girls.  Not a soul
there I knew.  Room full--every table full, save for one at which Miss
Burton was sitting alone--sat at the one table, _vis-a-vis_ with Miss
Burton.  There it is in a nutshell."

Mr Pomfret grinned broadly.  "Oh, Hughie, what I would have given for
your chance.  You know I am awfully gone on that girl, she is so sweet
and dainty, far and away the prettiest girl in Blankfield.  What did you
make of your chance?"

"As much as could be made in five or ten minutes.  She told me a lot
about things, her disappointment in finding that the Blankfield people
would not call upon her, and that, excepting her brother, she had not a
soul to speak to."

"Poor little soul!" said Mr Pomfret, in a voice of the deepest
sympathy.  "Poor little soul!" he repeated.

"Well, we talked for some little time, some ten minutes perhaps, I don't
think it could have been much longer.  And then--then--you will never
believe it, Jack--she asked me to call, and be introduced to her
brother."

Mr Pomfret was quite young, in fact he was the baby of the regiment.
But having been educated at a public school, he had learned a certain
amount of worldly wisdom rather early.  He gave expression to it now.

"If she were living with her mother, or a maiden aunt, Hughie, the thing
would be so easy.  But the brother, we have seen him walking beside that
lovely girl.  It would be difficult to class him.  It would be perhaps
too much to say he was either a bounder or a cad--he's not boisterous
enough for the one or common enough for the other.  But clearly, he's
not a gentleman or the imitation of one."

"No," answered Hugh.  "Your description of the brother quite fits.  He
is neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor good red-herring, as the old saw has
it.  Then the girl is so different.  She is, to an extent, frank and
unconventional."

"She must be, or she wouldn't have asked you to call upon her,"
interrupted the astute Mr Pomfret.

"Quite so, I perfectly agree.  But upon my soul, Jack, she has the most
perfect manners.  She does these sort of things in such a way that you
cease to wonder why she does them."

"I understand."  Mr Pomfret looked very wise.  "There's a wonderful
fascination about the girl.  She radiates it, even when you pass her in
the street.  By Gad, there's not a young woman in Blankfield who can
hold a candle to her.  Well, Hughie, what are you going to do about the
invitation?"

"I'm in two minds, old man, to go or stay away.  There's the brother,
you see."

"There's the brother," repeated Mr Pomfret, "and a dashed disappointing
sort of a brother, too.  If it had only been a mother, or a maiden aunt!
What a priceless opportunity!  And yet it seems a bit too good to be
lost."

"But the brother, what about him?"  Hugh insisted.

"The brother is, of course, a stumbling-block.  You can't ask him to
Mess.  `Old Fireworks' will stand more from you than anybody, but he
would never stand Burton.  He would be calling him `Your Grace' or `Your
Worship' or something."

"Old Fireworks," it may be explained, was the nickname of the respected
Colonel of the gallant Twenty-fifth Lancers.  It had been conferred upon
him, on account of his explosive temper.  He was also a rigid
disciplinarian.

"I shall not go," said Hugh after a brief pause.

Mr Pomfret was thinking deeply.  He pulled at his big cigar in a
meditative fashion.  Then at length, out of his wisdom, he spoke:

"Let us reason this out, my well-beloved friend.  A very pretty girl
asks you to go and see her, she is unfortunately hampered by an
undesirable brother.  You accept their hospitality, but you know he is
not a man you can ask to Mess.  But you can take him to an hotel, and
feed him up there.  Tell him the Colonel's kicked up rough about guests,
any lie you like, to save his _amour propre_."

"A good idea, Jack.  Have you anything more to say?  Don't forget that
if I go to Rosemount, the news will be all over Blankfield in five
minutes."

Mr Pomfret snapped his fingers.  "Who cares a fig for the Blankfield
people?  Everybody knows, or ought to know, that a soldier loves and
rides away.  And the Blankfield girls are dull enough, Heaven knows, I
wouldn't give a thought to them."

"Then you advise me to call, and be introduced to the brother, eh?"

"Of course.  We shall be off in another two months, and leave only
tender memories behind us."  Mr Pomfret was a practical person, if ever
there was one.  "Let us seize the passing day.  By the way, have you any
objection to taking me up to call with you, when you go?  Say no, if you
have the slightest objection."

Hugh Murchison looked at him squarely.  "No, old chap, not the
slightest.  The girl interests me in a way, chiefly, I think, because I
can't quite make her out, can't determine whether she is very cunning or
very simple, but I am not attracted in the ordinary sense.  I take it
you are."

Pomfret's look of indifference changed to one of gravity.  "Yes, Hughie,
I am.  I would like to see that girl at close quarters."

Hugh rose.  "Right.  We will call together, and in the meantime we will
keep it from the other fellows?"

"Good Heavens, I should think so.  We should be chaffed to death," was
Jack's fervent answer.

A few days later, the two young men walked to Rosemount.  It was a villa
sort of house, set in a small garden, very carefully kept.  The windows
were ornamented with boxes of flowers.  Small as the establishment was,
there was an air of elegance about it, an elegance perhaps of restricted
means but of refined taste.

Pomfret nudged his senior officer.  "I say, they've turned it into a
very decent sort of little crib, haven't they?  I should say that is due
to the girl."

Hugh laughed.  "Perhaps it is the brother after all.  He might be an
artist, you know.  Artists are often very rum-looking chaps."

"Artist be hanged," said Pomfret emphatically.  "I'll bet you a fiver he
isn't an artist, whatever he is.  A `bookie' or a `bookie's' tout, more
likely."

At the end of this short colloquy, they had reached the hall door.  A
very smart maidservant, in a becoming cap and apron, opened it.  In
answer to their inquiry, Miss Burton was in.

They were shown into the drawing-room.  The young mistress of the house
was reclining in an easy-chair; an open book lay on her lap.

She advanced towards them with that peculiar air of self-possession
which had so impressed Hugh on his first meeting in the tea-shop.  A
hostess with years of social experience could not have been more at her
ease than this young girl.

"How nice of you to come, after that very vague invitation," she said,
in her clear, silvery voice.

She addressed Murchison first, and then turned swiftly to Pomfret, in
whose eyes she doubtless recognised frank admiration of her peculiar
attractiveness.

"I know your friend is going to introduce you in proper form.  But it is
really quite unnecessary.  I know you are Mr Pomfret.  I have learned
the names of all the officers from the tradespeople, also, my only
friends in Blankfield.  Perhaps Captain Murchison has told you what I
confided to him the other day, that we are as isolated here as if we
were on a desert island."

Mr Pomfret sat down beside her on a small Chesterfield.  From his
vantage point he could gaze into the beautiful eyes, he could note the
lustre of that fair, wavy hair.

"A beastly shame," growled the young subaltern, at a loss for
appropriate words to express the enormities of Blankfield Society.

She turned away lightly, as if the subject interested her no further.

"I think we will have tea.  My brother is engaged in scientific
pursuits.  When he can tear himself away, he will join us.  Captain
Murchison, will you kindly ring the bell?"

Truly, she had the manners of a woman of the world.  She took the homage
of the two men as an accomplished fact.  The villadom of Blankfield
could not produce such a hostess, so free from fussiness or exaggerated
hospitality.  You would have to go to the "county" to find her parallel.
The two men exchanged appreciative glances.  Whatever her origin, Miss
Burton could shine in any circle in which she found herself permanently,
or temporarily, located.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The tea was served, and over the tea-cups they chatted in desultory
fashion.  Then the drawing-room door opened, and Mr Burton appeared.
From the moment of his appearance, the atmosphere seemed to be changed.
He advanced towards them with outstretched hands.  His manner was
extremely cordial, but it went beyond the limits of good taste.  His
tones were breezy but blusterous.  There was a rasping and a vulgar ring
in his voice.

"Welcome to our humble abode, gentlemen.  It is very brave of you to
come and visit the boycotted ones."

Hugh and Jack Pomfret fidgeted in their chairs.  This common-looking
young man was a bit too communicative about his private affairs.  They
had a slight suspicion that he had been indulging in alcohol, his manner
was so unrestrained.

Mr Burton sank down in his chair, and took a cup of tea from the hands
of his attentive sister.  The visitors did not see it, but she shot a
warning glance at him, and in face of that warning glance, Mr Burton,
by a strong effort, pulled himself together.

"You see, gentlemen, I feel very sore about this matter; my sister has a
calmer temperament, and she takes things as they come.  Here we came
from the North of Ireland, from a little town where we were highly
looked up to, where we knew every man, woman and child in the place.  We
came here, and, as I say, we are boycotted."

Miss Burton looked at him severely.  "George, I do not think it is very
good taste of you to inflict your grievances upon these gentlemen, who
have just come to make an afternoon call.  Don't you think you could
soothe your nerves better by getting back to your laboratory, or
whatever you call it?"

Mr Burton accepted the hint, and rose.  He waved a genial hand towards
the visitors.

"You will excuse me for a few moments.  I have a most important
experiment on.  But I shall be back very shortly: I shall see you again
before you leave."

The two young men devoutly wished that they might not see him again.
The man was a confirmed and innate vulgarian.  Both he and his sister,
no doubt, felt very sore about their social ostracism, but how different
were the methods of expression indulged in by the two.  She explained
the situation with a proud dignity, hiding her chagrin with a show of
indifference.  He was exposing his gaping wounds to the public eye with
an air of ostentation.

"I must ask you to excuse my brother," said Miss Burton when her
ebullient relative had left the room.  "He has the true Irish
temperament, it is impossible for him to conceal his feelings.  He would
like to go down the High Street, trailing his coat behind him, and
inviting the residents to tread upon it, in real Irish fashion, so that
he could indulge in a free fight with them."

The young men laughed cordially.  They felt that a somewhat awkward
situation had been saved by her ready tact, her rather humorous
explanation.

But Murchison, the more level-headed of the two, looked at her very
fixedly, as he said, "But you are Irish, too.  How is it that you have
learned to control your feelings so successfully?"

At such a direct question, he would have expected her to flush a little;
at any rate, show some slight symptoms of embarrassment.  But this
remarkably self-possessed girl of twenty or thereabouts was as cool as a
cucumber.  She laughed her little silvery laugh.

"My brother and I are as wide apart as the North and South Poles," she
said lightly.  "Many people have commented on the fact.  Would you like
to know the reason?"

She directed a rather challenging glance in the direction of Pomfret,
whom she rightly judged to be more susceptible to feminine influence
than his friend.

"I should like to very much," was the subaltern's answer.  That eloquent
glance had completely subjugated the young man.

"Well, listen.  My father was a hard-riding, gambling, hard-drinking
Irish squire, who squandered his money and left little but debts behind
him.  My brother takes after him in certain qualities, thank Heaven not
his least desirables ones.  My mother was an Englishwoman, rather a
puritanical sort of woman, who fell in love, perhaps a little
injudiciously, and I think wore her life out in the attempt to curb my
father's unhappy propensities.  I take after my mother.  You understand?
George is really my half-brother by my father's first wife."

Pomfret nodded his head gravely.  "I quite understand," he said, and his
tone was one of conviction.  Murchison preserved a benevolent attitude
of neutrality.  He was still thinking it all out.

Miss Burton was very pretty, nay, more than pretty, very charming, very
attractive, gifted with a marvellous self-possession, very clever, very
adroit.  But was she as genuine and frank as she seemed?  Pomfret
evidently thought so, but Murchison was not quite sure.

Mr George Burton, who took after his Irish father in several respects,
according to his sister's account, made a re-appearance before the
visitors left.  There had been just a little suspicion at first that he
had been indulging in the hard-drinking habits of his male parent.  If
so, that suspicion must be at once removed.  He was bright, breezy and
blusterous, but he was certainly master of himself.  He advanced with
the most cordial air.

"Gentlemen, I feel I owe you an apology.  I had no right to intrude my
private grievances upon you, even although I am very possessed with
them.  Please put it down to my Irish temperament.  You will forgive me,
I am sure."

He stretched out appealing hands, the hands of the plebeian as Murchison
was quick to notice, nails bitten to the quick, coarse fingers and
thumbs.

Murchison quietly ignored the outstretched hand.  So did Pomfret,
subjugated as he was with the charm and attractiveness of Miss Burton.
He did not quite feel that he wanted to shake hands with this very
terrible brother, who took after his Irish father.

"I apologise most sincerely, gentlemen," he repeated, "for my outburst
just now.  I had no right to inflict upon you a recital of my private
grievances against the inhabitants of this wretched town.  But I am a
wild, excitable Irishman, whatever is in my mind has to come out.
Please forgive me; I know my sister Norah never will."

He looked appealingly at the girl who sat there, calm and self-possessed
as always, with a slight expression of contempt upon her charming face.

"I have already made excuses for you to Captain Murchison and Mr
Pomfret," she said coldly.

The visitors were very much embarrassed.  What could they say to this
dreadful person who seemed so utterly lacking in all the qualities of
good breeding?  Hugh remained silent, Pomfret opened his lips and
murmured something about the whole affair being very regrettable.

But these somewhat incoherent remarks were quite enough to restore Mr
Burton to his normal state of easy buoyancy.  He smiled affably.

"So that is all over.  Well, I am delighted to see you, and it will not
be my fault if your first visit is your last.  Now, I propose you come
round and have a little bit of dinner with us soon, so that we may get
to know each other better.  Any night that you are at liberty will suit
us.  _We_ are not overwhelmed with invitations, as you can understand
from what I have told you."

If Murchison had been by himself, he would have politely shelved the
invitation.  Miss Burton, who took after her English mother, was quite
decent and ladylike.  The brother was insufferable.  Vulgarity, so to
speak, oozed from him.  He was offensive even in his geniality.  In
short, he was impossible.

But Pomfret took the wind out of his senior's sails.

"Sorry we are quite full up this week, but hardly anything on next.
Shall we say Monday?"

Miss Burton took the matter out of her brother's hands by turning
directly to Murchison.

"Monday, of course, will suit us.  Will it suit you?" she asked him
pointedly.

Taken by surprise, the unhappy young man could only mutter a reluctant
affirmative.  A few minutes later they left, pledged to partake of the
Burtons' hospitality on the following Monday.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

When they were safely outside, Murchison spoke severely to his brother
officer.

"You've let us in for a nice thing.  If you had left it to me, I would
have got out of that dinner somehow."

"But I didn't want to get out of it," replied the unabashed junior.  "We
knew the brother was pretty bad all along.  I don't know that on the
whole he is much worse than we imagined.  But she's a ripping girl.  I
want to see more of her."

"You silly young ass," growled Murchison; "I believe you've fallen head
over ears in love with her."

And Pomfret, one of the most mercurial and light-hearted of subalterns,
answered quite gravely:

"I rather fancy I have.  I've never met a girl who appealed to me in
quite the same sort of way."

CHAPTER THREE.

As a result of his visit to Rosemount, Hugh Murchison was very perturbed
in his mind.  He blamed himself severely for having been tempted into
that rather intimate conversation at the tea-shop.  Miss Burton was
attractive enough, and ladylike enough, to excuse any man for taking
advantage of his obvious opportunities, but he had been a fool to go
farther.  He ought never to have set his foot in the house of people of
whom he knew nothing.

It was all Jack Pomfret's fault, he decided hastily.  It was his
influence, his keen desire to make the girl's acquaintance, that had
weighed down his friend's prudence.  For, if left to himself, Hugh was
quite sure that he would have dallied and dallied till all inclination
to call at Rosemount had died down.

And Pomfret had owned to being greatly impressed with the fair young
chatelaine.  He had admitted that he had never met a girl who had
appealed to him in quite the same sort of way.  In fact, it was easy to
see he had fallen desperately in love with her.

And Jack was just one of those light-hearted, susceptible sort of chaps
who have not an atom of common-sense in their composition, who will obey
their impulses, regardless of consequences.

And he was not his own master.  His career was practically at the
disposal of his somewhat puritanical aunt.  It was just on the cards
that Jack would be mad enough to propose to this girl who had so
bewitched him.  One could imagine how the aunt would receive such a
communication.

There was one little ray of hope, however.  If Jack did commit such a
crowning folly, he would be far too honourable not to acquaint Miss
Burton with his circumstances.  Hugh was fairly convinced that the young
lady knew how to take care of herself.  And, even if she did fall in
love with Jack, as he had done with her, and be inclined to make a fool
of herself, there was the objectionable brother to be reckoned with.  He
would certainly not allow his sister to engage herself to a man, except
with the consent of that man's family.

All the same, it was as well to avoid any embarrassing entanglements, if
possible.  It is easy to retrace your steps when you have only just
started.

With this object in view, Murchison sought his friend on the Sunday
preceding the day on which they were to present themselves at Rosemount.

"Jack, old man, I have been thinking--" he began.

Mr Pomfret lifted a warning finger.  "My dear friend and mentor, don't
indulge in such violent processes.  It's very bad for you."

"Don't be an ass, Jack.  You are not really funny when you say that sort
of thing.  I've been thinking over this business to-morrow, and,
frankly, I don't relish the prospect.  We had better cut it out."

Pomfret's face took on an obstinate expression.  "You are speaking for
yourself, of course.  For my part, I don't intend to break my
appointment.  In my opinion, it would be an awfully low-down thing to
do.  If you didn't want to go, you shouldn't have accepted."

It was evident the young man was not in a very reasonable frame of mind,
equally evident he would require very careful handling.

"Now, Jack, don't get off the handles.  You know you are an awfully
impetuous chap, and that I have much the cooler head of the two.  I have
been thinking it all out the last day or two, and I don't like the look
of it."

"You informed me just now that you had been thinking," replied Mr
Pomfret in the same sarcastic strain.  "There is no need to dwell upon
the fact.  It is obvious."

But the elder man was not to be ruffled.  If anything unpleasant came of
this sudden acquaintance he would lay the blame on himself for having
mentioned that little incident of the tea-shop, and inspired the
mercurial Jack's love of the daring and adventurous.

"I don't know that I did accept, as a matter of fact, except by
implication.  I was about to return an evasive answer, leave it in the
air, so to speak, when you cut in and jumped at the invitation for
both."

This was true, and Mr Pomfret's air lost a little of its jaunty
confidence.  "Well, if you think I lugged you in, get out of it
yourself.  Of course you will have to tell some beastly lie that they
will see through at once.  Anyway I am going, and that's flat."

"If you go, I shall go," said Hugh firmly.  "But I would like you to
listen to me for a few moments, and put things before you as they
present themselves to me."

"Fire away, then," was Pomfret's answer, but it was delivered in a very
ungracious tone.

"Of course we are both agreed about the brother," began Hugh mildly.

The other interrupted impatiently: "The brother be hanged.  We are not
going to the house for the brother's sake, but because of the sister.
What's the use of blinking the fact?  If you had met him in the tea-shop
instead of her, I don't suppose you would have wasted a word on him, no
more should I.  But I don't see why that pretty girl should be
ostracised because of him."

"I don't quite see, under the circumstances, how you can separate them,"
pursued the obstinate Hugh.  "I should like to turn off, just for a
moment to the sister, and consider her."

"Go ahead," said Mr Pomfret in a somewhat sullen tone.  He was keeping
his impulsive and fiery nature under control, out of his great respect
for his friend.  But it was very doubtful if he would stand much
criticism even from one so respected.

"I have not a word to say against her appearance or her manners.  I will
go further, and say there is not a girl in Blankfield, or for the matter
of that in the `county' itself, who gives the impression of a thorough
gentlewoman more convincingly than she does."  Pomfret's face brightened
at these words.  "Oh, then you admit that, and you have knocked about
the world a few years longer than I have.  I am of the same opinion, but
if you say it, it must be so."

"I do say it unhesitatingly, but mind you, I am only judging from
outside appearances.  Now, how comes it that such a refined and ladylike
girl as that should have such a bounder of a brother?  There is a
mystery there."

Jack Pomfret prepared to argue.  "I don't quite agree that he is a
bounder, he is not quite boisterous enough for that.  Let us agree on a
common definition--namely, that he is bad form.  That fits him, I
think."

"And the sister is very good form.  You can't deny that there is a
mystery."

But the young subaltern developed a quite surprising ingenuity in
argument.

"She just simply calls him her brother," sharply, "but she has told you
he is her half-brother by a first marriage--father a gentleman, mother a
common person, hence the bad form.  A second time, the father married a
woman of his own class, hence Norah Burton.  Norah knows him for a good
sort, if a bit rough, and sticks to him.  That's a reasonable theory,
anyway."

"More ingenious than reasonable perhaps," commented Murchison with an
amused smile.

Pomfret went on, warming to his subject.  "And, hang it all, if we speak
of bounders--and mind you, I won't admit he is a bounder in the strict
sense of the term--is there a family in England without them?"

"Quite the same sort, do you think?" was Hugh's question.

"Look here, I'm not going to be impertinent, and ask if you can point to
any amongst your own connections, but I know something of my own family.
I've got a cousin, good blood on both sides.  He's been a bounder from
the time he learned to talk, sets your teeth on edge; as some fellow
said, every time he opens his mouth he puts his foot into it.  By Gad,
this fellow Burton is a polished gentleman to him.  If George showed his
nose in this regiment they would send him to Coventry in five minutes."

"As they did that chap last year," remarked Hugh, alluding to an
offensive young man who had been compelled to send in his papers, owing
to the fact that his general demeanour had not come up to the somewhat
exalted standard of the gallant Twenty-fifth.

"Precisely," assented Pomfret.  "But you were going to give me some
views about the girl.  Again I say, fire away."

"Well, to go back to that meeting in the tea-shop.  It was, to say the
least, a little unconventional for a young girl to invite an utter
stranger to call upon her."

"You were not an utter stranger," retorted Jack doggedly.  "She had
heard who you were, perhaps from the tradespeople.  She knew you were a
gentleman, she knew your name, Captain Murchison.  Hang it all, if you
had met her in one of these dull Blankfield houses, and she had been
introduced by a hostess about whom you both knew precious little, and
asked you to call, being the mistress of her brother's house, you would
have thought it quite the correct and proper thing.  So would every man
in the barracks.  Don't people strike up acquaintances in hotels, and
sometimes trains?"

"They generally find out something about each other before they pursue
the acquaintance," suggested Murchison.  "Look here, old man, you know
as well as I do, you are arguing all round the point.  It would be
precious easy for the Burtons to say who and what they were, and furnish
some proper credentials.  If they did that, I daresay all Blankfield
would call upon them, and swallow the brother for the sake of the very
charming sister."

"Well, I'll pump her to-night, and get out all you want to know,"
retorted Mr Pomfret confidently.  "I don't go so far as to say they
will be able to refer us to Burke or Debrett.  Decent middle-class
people, I expect."

It was useless to argue with such an optimist.  "You've accounted for
the brother, I remember, by your ingenious theory.  Well, you've made up
your mind to go then?"

"Most certainly I have.  You do as you like, but while we are on the
subject of good form, it is not a pretty thing to accept an invitation,
and then excuse yourself at the eleventh hour by an obvious lie."

"Under ordinary circumstances, you would be quite right.  It has not
occurred to you that we were rather rushed into this dinner, then--that
we were, so to speak, jumped at?"

"It might look like it at first blush," admitted Mr Pomfret
reluctantly.  "But here are two poor devils, marooned, as it were, in
this snobbish town, and they naturally jump at the first people who show
them the slightest civility.  They must simply be aching to exchange a
word with their fellow-creatures.  Well, I am going to exchange several
with them, I promise you."

Hugh felt it was useless.  When Pomfret got in these moods, it was waste
of time to reason with him.  He felt uneasy, however.  He had promised
his family to look after him, and he felt a certain responsibility.  It
was to be hoped the sudden infatuation for a pretty face would expire as
quickly as it had been born.

Perhaps a closer association with the bounder brother would produce a
chastening influence.  But then Jack seemed bounder-proof.  Had he not
alluded to a well-born cousin, beside whom Burton shone as a polished
gentleman?

Anyway, he must not desert his young and very impulsive friend.  But it
was with considerable reluctance that he accompanied him to Rosemount on
the Monday night.

CHAPTER FOUR.

Eight o'clock was the hour appointed for dinner, this fact scoring in
the Burtons' favour, as evincing a knowledge of the habits of good
society.  Even a few of the most select hostesses in Blankfield, who
ought to have known better, made a base compromise with half-past seven.

The two men arrived about five minutes before the time.  The young
hostess was awaiting them in the drawing-room, attired in some filmy
creation that made her look very charming and ethereal.  Soft lights
from shaded lamps played about her, and lent a touch of perfection to
the picture.

Mr Burton was attired in the usual conventional evening dress of the
English gentleman.  One would have guessed him the sort of man who would
wear a ready-made tie.  Not at all.  He had tied the bow himself, and
with a masterly hand.  Pomfret even, who was admitted to be the Beau
Brummel of his regiment, could not have done it better.

It is generally supposed that a common man looks more common still when
he dons evening attire.  "George" was an exception to the rule.  His
black clothes became him, and lent him a certain air of dignity, which
was wanting when he assumed everyday garments.  Even Murchison,
prejudiced as he was against him, was forced to admit to himself that
the "bounder" for once looked quite respectable.  Pomfret, ever leaning
to the charitable side, felt quite enthusiastic over him, and contrasted
him favourably with his own cousin, who could boast blue blood on both
sides.

Norah Burton played the hostess as to the manner born, greeting the
visitors with just the right degree of cordiality, quite free from the
effusiveness of most of the Blankfield hostesses.  And Burton, taking
his cue from her, was hearty without boisterousness.

The young subaltern's heart warmed to her, she was so gracious, so
sweet, and about her there hovered such an air of calm dignity.
Rosemount, no doubt, was honoured by the introduction of such
distinguished visitors, viewed merely from the social point of view, but
she did not permit a suspicion of this to escape her.  Rather, judging
by her demeanour, the visitors were honoured by being admitted to
Rosemount.

"Rather reminds me of a young queen entertaining her subjects," Pomfret
remarked afterwards to his friend in a rather enthusiastic outburst.
"I'm not speaking of the `county' of course, but these Blankfield women
make you feel they are overwhelmed with your condescension in coming to
their houses, that they are hardly fit to sit at the same table with
you."

The dinner was plain, but well-cooked.  The appointments were perfect,
snowy napery, elegant glass and cutlery.  One neat-handed maidservant
waited, and waited well.  Mr Burton carved the dishes that were
carvable, there was no pretence at an _a la Russe_ banquet.  Their small
establishment could not cope with that, and they did not attempt it.
There was a generous supply of wines: hock, burgundy and champagne.

And Mr Burton, strangely subdued, was quite a good host, hospitable but
not pressing.  Murchison thought he must have been having some lessons
from his sister, who seemed intuitively to do the right thing Still
suspicious, he was sure that she had been steadily coaching him how to
comport himself on this important night.

For, after all, it must be a feather in their caps, that after having
been coldly cast aside by the _elite_ of Blankfield, they had captured
for their dining acquaintance two of the most popular officers of the
exclusive Twenty-fifth.

And Murchison, ever on the watch for any little sign or symptom to
confirm his suspicions, had to admit the pair were behaving perfectly.
Not the slightest sign of elation at the small social triumph manifested
itself in the demeanour of either.  Dinner-parties like this might be a
common occurrence for all they showed to the contrary.

The substantial portion of the meal was over.  Dessert was brought in,
with port, claret and sherry, all of the most excellent vintage.  The
house was a small one, and not over-staffed, but there was no evidence
of lack of means.  Perhaps the Burtons were wise people in not keeping
up a great show, but spending the greater part of their income on their
personal enjoyments.

While the men were still lingering over their dessert, Miss Burton rose.

"There are no ladies to support me, so I shall feel quite lonely by
myself," she said in her pretty, softly modulated voice.  "Shall we have
coffee in the drawing-room?  You men can smoke.  It is quite Liberty
Hall here.  My brother smokes in every room of the house."

Murchison noted the subtle difference between the brother and sister.
If Burton had given the invitation, he would certainly have said, "you
gentlemen."  The beautiful Norah would not make a mistake like that.

Five minutes afterwards, the three men trooped into the pretty
drawing-room with its subdued, shaded lights.  Norah was sitting at a
small table, on which were set the coffee equipage with an assortment of
liqueurs.  Decidedly, the Burtons knew how to do things when they
received guests.

The "bounder" brother, as Hugh always called him to himself, had drunk
very heavily at dinner of every wine: hock, burgundy and champagne.  But
evidently he could carry a big quantity.  It would take more than a
small dinner-party like this to knock him over.  When he entered the
drawing-room his mien was as subdued as when he had first received his
visitors.

They drank their coffee round the fair-sized octagonal table, and then
they broke up.  Miss Burton retired to a Chesterfield, whither Pomfret
followed her, as he was bound to do.

Burton bustled out of the room, and returned with a huge box of
expensive cigars.  He offered the box to Hugh, who took one with a
deprecating look at the young hostess.

"We dare not, Miss Burton.  Think of your curtains in the morning."

"Don't trouble, Captain Murchison," she said, with her charming smile.
"The curtains have to take what comes in this house.  George doesn't
often sit in this room, but when he does he always smokes cigars.  I
told you this was Liberty Hall, you know."

The box was offered to Pomfret, who took one.  "Do you smoke, Miss
Burton?" he asked.

"Once in a blue moon.  I think I will have one to-night, as a little
treat.  It is terribly tempting, when I see all you men smoking."  The
enamoured Pomfret fetched her a cigarette, hovered over her with a
match, till it was properly lighted, and settled himself again on the
Chesterfield.  If that silly old Hugh didn't butt in, he was going to
have a nice little chat with this charming girl, who had played the
young hostess to such perfection.

But Hugh was safely out of the way.  Burton had piloted him to a
comfortable easy-chair at the extreme end of the drawing-room, and these
two antipathetic persons were apparently engaged in an interesting
conversation.  Anyway, Murchison's laugh rang out frequently.

Pomfret, it must be confessed, was not very great at conversation.  If
the ball were opened, he could set it rolling, but he lacked initiative.
He looked at Miss Burton with admiring eyes, but although he had got
her comfortably to himself on that convenient Chesterfield, he could
think of nothing to say to her.

And then a brilliant inspiration came to him.  "I say, how gracefully
you smoke."  The young woman burst into a pleasant peal of quite
spontaneous laughter.  She always had a ready smile at command, but her
laughter was generally a little forced.  This time it was perfectly
genuine.

"Oh, you are really comical," she cried.  "How can any girl smoke a
cigarette gracefully?  In the first place, it is a most unfeminine thing
to do.  All people must smoke them in the same way, and there can never
be anything graceful in the act."

"Women don't smoke them the same way," replied the young subaltern, with
the air of a man who has observed and learned.  "Most of them chew them,
and hold them at arm's length, as if they were afraid of being bitten."

"It's because they don't like smoking, really, and only do it to be in
the fashion.  Now, when I am quite in the mood, I actually revel in a
cigarette.  I am in the mood to-night."

Pomfret leaned forward, with a tender expression on his rather homely,
but good-humoured, countenance.

"That means that you feel happy to-night, eh?"

She nodded brightly.  "Oh, ever so happy!  It is seeing new faces, you
know, after weeks of isolation," she added with a touch of almost
girlish gaiety.  "It seems such ages since we gave a dinner-party.  And
you and Captain Murchison are so nice.  It seems almost like a family
gathering."

"You like my friend Murchison, then?  I am glad, because it is to him I
owe the pleasure of your acquaintance."

"I think he is a dear, he seems so honest, straightforward, and so
reliable."  She spoke with apparent conviction.  "Were you not
dreadfully shocked when he told you, for of course he must have told
you, how we got to know each other?"

"Not in the least," said Mr Pomfret stoutly.  "I explained to him that
people can become acquainted, without being properly introduced in the
conventional sort of way."

"Ah, then, he had some doubts himself?" flashed Miss Burton.  "I expect
he was a little shocked, if you were not."

"Not in the slightest, I assure you," replied Mr Pomfret easily.  He
was not above telling a white lie upon occasions.  He remembered too
well the remarks that his friend had made upon the girl's unconventional
behaviour, but he was not going to admit anything.

Miss Burton spoke softly, after a brief pause.

"You and Captain Murchison are very great friends, are you not?"

"Awful pals," was the genuine response.  "You see, he knows all my
family.  And when I joined the regiment, they deputed him to look after
me.  He has got a hard task," he added with a laugh.

"Oh, not so very hard really, I am sure of that."  Norah's voice was
very sweet, very caressing.  "But you and your friend are of very
different temperaments."

"In what way?"

She smiled.  "Oh, in half a hundred ways.  Captain Murchison is as true
as steel, but also as hard as steel.  You, now, are not in the least
hard.  You are very kind and compassionate, you think the best of
everybody."

"Don't flatter me too much, please," interjected the bashful Pomfret.

"Oh, pardon me, I know just the kind of man you are."  The sweet face
was very close to his own, the beautiful, rather sad eyes were looking
steadily into his.  "You are a rich man, or you would not be in this
expensive regiment.  But, if you were a poor man, and you had only ten
pounds in your pocket, you would lend an impecunious friend five of
them, and not trouble whether he repaid you or not."

"I think you have fitted me, Miss Burton.  My dear old chum Hugh is
never tired of telling me I am an awful ass."

"You are both right, really," answered Miss Burton.

"You see, we look at life from two different standpoints."

"I fancy you come from two different classes?" queried the charming
young woman.

Pomfret felt a little embarrassed.  He did not want to give away his
particular chum.  But there were no doubt certain inherited commercial
instincts in Hugh that sometimes offended the descendant of a more
careless and aristocratic family.

"You see, Hugh has come from the trading class, originally.  His
ancestors, no doubt, were close-fisted people.  Hugh is not close-fisted
himself: he is, in a certain way, the soul of generosity, but sometimes
the old Adam peeps out in little things."

He had a swift pang of remorse when he had said this.  For he suddenly
remembered Hugh's generous offer of the two hundred which Pomfret, by a
very diplomatic letter, was going to cajole out of the octogenarian
great-aunt.

"Believe me," added he fervently, "Hugh is one of the best.  He is a
little peculiar sometimes in small things.  I ought not to have spoken
as I have done.  I am more than sorry if I have conveyed a wrong
impression of him."

"But you have not," cried Norah Burton swiftly.  "He would be hard in
some things: I am sure--for instance--he would never forgive a really
dishonourable action, even in the case of his best friend."

"No, I am sure he would not," assented Pomfret.  "But I don't fancy he
has been much tried that way.  We don't get many `rotters' amongst our
lot."

"_Noblesse oblige_," quoted Miss Burton, lightly.  Then she added more
seriously: "And I am sure he is very kind-hearted and thoughtful.  I was
impressed with his reluctance to smoke because of the curtains.  Of
course, he did not remember that it did not matter in the least, as we
never have callers."

She was getting on the theme of their social isolation, but Pomfret was
sure that, unlike her brother, strangely subdued to-night from his usual
boisterousness, she would handle the subject with her customary tact and
good taste.

"Ah, of course, all that is very regrettable.  It is not so much your
loss, as the loss of Blankfield.  I suppose you won't stay very long
here."

For a moment there came a blazing light in the soft, beautiful eyes.  "A
few days ago, I advised my brother to pack up and clear out.  The
snobbish plutocracy of Blankfield had beaten us, made up of retired
shopkeepers and merchants.  To-night, with you and Captain Murchison as
our guests, I think we have beaten Blankfield with its fat mothers and
plain daughters."

She looked superb, as she drew her slender form up to its full height,
the glow of indignant triumph blazing on her cheek.  At the moment she
was extremely beautiful.  If Pomfret had been attracted before, he was
infatuated now.

"I will help you to beat the Blankfield people, for whom I don't care a
row of pins.  I will come, whenever you want me."

"And your friend Captain Murchison, will he come, too?"

Pomfret smiled whimsically.  "Oh yes, he will come, if I make a point of
it.  Old Hugh thinks he leads me, but I really lead him."  She leaned
forward eagerly.  "Can you bring some of your brother officers, Mr
Pomfret?  Please don't think I am bold and forward and presumptuous.
But I do long to be even with these Blankfield people.  I would love to
make a little sort of _salon_ of my own.  I know it is useless to expect
the women at present, but they might come in time.  Mind you, I don't
want them."

"I will try," said Pomfret slowly.  "I think I may say that Hugh and I
are the two most popular men in the regiment; I say it without vanity.
And I don't suppose we care a snap of the fingers about the Blankfield
people.  Still, I don't want to raise hopes that may never be fulfilled.
I can only say, I will try."  There was a pause.  Then she spoke, and
there was a far-away look in her eyes.  "You hesitate, I see.  Oh, I
quite believe you when you say you will try.  But there is some
stumbling-block in the way, isn't there?"  Pomfret had perforce to
dissemble.  "There is no stumbling-block that I know of, except running
the risk of offending Blankfield.  That is not a great one, as we shall
be out of here in about two months."

She leaned closer to him, and her voice sank to a whisper.  "There is a
stumbling-block, I know.  You are too kind and generous to state what it
is, you could not, as to-night he is your host.  It is my brother."

And then poor, infatuated Pomfret sought no further refuge in
subterfuge.  He blurted out the truth.  "Some of our chaps wouldn't
stand him, you know," he said simply.

There was a little convulsive movement of the delicate hands.  "And he
is such a dear good fellow at heart, wanting I know in the little
delicacies that mark a real gentleman.  You see a great difference
between us, don't you?"

"A very distinct difference," assented Pomfret.

"I will explain it to you in a few words.  My father was a harum-scarum
sort of person, as I told you last time you were here, hard-riding and
hard-drinking.  When he was a boy of twenty-five he married a woman out
of his own class, a shopgirl or a barmaid, I am not quite sure which.
George is many years older than myself, as I told you he is really my
half-brother.  The first wife died, my father married again, this time a
lady.  I am the daughter of the second marriage.  Now, I think you
understand."

Pomfret was delighted at this avowal, it proved his own prescience.

"I am so glad you told me, but as it happens, it was just what I
guessed."

Miss Burton looked at him with admiring eyes.  "You are really very
clever, you know.  Well, I will not exactly say this is a secret, but
you will whisper it about discreetly.  You need not be quite so frank as
I have been about details, but you can hint at a _mesalliance_.  I hate
to have to tell you so much, for my brother has been so good to me."

"Ah!"  Mr Pomfret's air plainly showed that he was eager for further
information.

And Miss Burton was quite willing to gratify him.  The young man was a
pleasant, comfortable sort of person to talk to.  He was an admirable
listener, and never broke in with unnecessary, or irritating
interruptions.

"When my father died he left little behind him but debts; my mother had
preceded him some ten years.  Poor George had gone into a stockbroker's
office, through the good offices of a distant connection.  His salary
was very small, but he made a home for me.  He would not hear of my
earning my own living."

"That could not have been very long ago," remarked Pomfret, "because you
are not very old now."

"No, it was not long," answered the girl, not committing herself to any
definite dates.  "Well, we had a very hard time, as you can imagine.
Then suddenly our luck changed.  An uncle of George's on his mother's
side had gone out to Australia as a boy, and amassed, we won't say a
fortune from your point of view, but what we should look upon as wealth.
He had never married, and when he died, a will was found in which he
left all he was possessed of to his sister's children.  George was the
only child, so he took it all."

"So he threw up business and went in for a country life."

"Well, he has thrown it up for a time.  I am not quite certain he will
not get tired of inactivity, and go back to it.  Now that he has
capital, it would be easy for him to embark in something that would keep
him occupied, and pay him well."

"Not a sportsman, I suppose, he doesn't care for hunting or shooting?
The country is slow for a man if he doesn't do something in that line."

The pretty girl smiled; there was a faint touch of humour in the smile.
"Oh, he's not rich enough to indulge in luxuries of that sort.
Besides," she added hastily, "he has such wretched sight, he would be no
good at sport."  Pomfret thought it had been a very pleasant,
enlightening conversation.  Norah seemed to have been perfectly frank
about their past and their present position.  She did not pretend to be
anything but what she was, the daughter of a spendthrift father, living
on what was practically the charity of a good-hearted brother.  And that
brother was indebted for his good fortune to a relative who must have
been a man of the people.

While the two young people were having this confidential chat, Mr
Burton was making himself agreeable to the other guest, in his doubtless
well-meant, but somewhat undiplomatic, fashion.

"I do envy you young fellows when I see you walking about as if the
world belonged to you."

Hugh drew himself up stiffly.  "I was not in the least aware that any
one of us conveyed that impression."

"No offence meant, I assure you."  Hugh's tone showed him that he had
been guilty of bad taste: a blessing Norah had not heard--she would have
given him a bad quarter of an hour later on.  "But all army men, I
think, get a certain kind of swagger.  Oh, nothing overbearing or
unpleasant about it, of course.  They are made so much of that there is
no wonder if they do fancy themselves a bit.  I'm sure I should if I
were one of them."  Murchison made no comment on this frank statement,
and the other man rambled on in desultory fashion.

"It's the life I wanted.  As a boy I longed to grow up quickly and go
into the army.  There was a fair chance of it then, when the old man had
still got a bit of money left.  But by the time I was old enough the
idea had to be knocked on the head.  I had to go into a dingy
stockbroking office instead."

Hugh pricked up his ears at the announcement.  He had not suspected that
the man would be so communicative about his past.  Of course he had gone
as a clerk.  If his father was not well-off enough to put him in the
army neither could he have afforded to buy him a share in a business.

"Yes," pursued Mr Burton, "it was an awful come down after the dreams I
had indulged in."

"It must have been a very bitter disappointment," assented Hugh
politely, in spite of his firm conviction that the army was the very
last profession in the world suited to a man of his host's obvious
peculiarities.

"I should have been awfully keen on soldiering," pursued Mr Burton,
under the impression that he had discovered a sympathetic listener.
"Don't you consider it a splendid life?"

"There are many things in its favour, certainly," was the rather frigid
reply.

"But, after all, I don't think I should have cared to be in the line;
there's not the same glamour about it, is there?  You fellows in the
cavalry, in a crack regiment like yours, must see the rosy side of
life."  He heaved a sigh.  "And, of course, you've all got pots of money
to grease the wheels."

Hugh fidgeted perceptibly.  How very vulgar the man was, with an innate
vulgarity that nothing would ever eradicate.  But his host, absorbed in
his own reflections, did not observe the movement.

"Of course, we know all about you, about the great house of Murchison,
you are tiled-in all right."  He lowered his voice to a confidential
whisper: "What about that young chap yonder?  I suppose he's rolling in
money, too?"

It was growing insufferable.  For two pins Hugh would have got up and
bidden him good night then and there, but he shrank from making a scene.
What a fool he had been to come here, to allow his kindly feeling for
that susceptible young donkey of a Pomfret to expose him to such an
ordeal as this.

"Really, Mr Burton," he said in a cutting voice, "I do not discuss the
private affairs of my friends on such a brief acquaintance.  If you are
really anxious to know, I believe Mr Pomfret has considerable
expectations from an old aunt who is fairly wealthy.  Those expectations
depend, I understand, upon his conforming generally to her wishes in all
respects."

"Ah, I understand," said the unabashed Burton.  "Sorry if my question
gave you offence.  What really put it in my head was the difference
between his position and mine when I was his age."

There was silence for some little time, while the two men applied
themselves steadily to their cigars.  Then Burton jumped up suddenly.

"This must be a bit slow for you and your friend, and the night is
young.  What do you say to a game at bridge?"

Yes, Captain Murchison would welcome a game of bridge, anything as a
relief to this vulgarian's conversation.

They played for over two hours, Murchison keenly alert from certain
suspicions that had been forming in his mind.  At present there was no
foundation for these vague suspicions.  They played for small stakes,
but the visitors rose up the winners, not by a great amount, but still
winners.

It was a fine night, the two men walked back to their quarters.

"How did you get on with the charmer?  I saw you seemed very
confidential together," asked the older man.

"Splendidly, old chap.  She told me a lot about her history."  Pomfret
related all he had been told in full.  "And how did you get on with the
brother?"

"Don't ask me," replied Hugh with a groan.  "He's the most insufferable
creature I ever came across.  I don't really think I can go there again.
At the beginning of the evening he started fairly well, but later he
reverted to type."

"Well, I may as well tell you straight, I shall.  The next time we go
I'll take a share of the brother."

When Pomfret spoke in that tone he meant what he said, and Hugh knew he
would have his own wilful way.

There was one piece of information which the young subaltern had not
imparted to his friend.

It was this--that after much pressing, and more than one refusal, Miss
Burton had agreed to meet him to-morrow afternoon at a very sequestered
spot about a mile and a half from Blankfield, with the view of pursuing
their acquaintance.

CHAPTER FIVE.

From the night of that dinner-party Murchison noted a subtle difference
in his young friend's demeanour.  Pomfret had always been a harum-scarum
sort of young fellow, accustomed to follow erratic and injudicious
impulses, not absolutely devoid of brains of a certain order, but of
imperfect and ill-balanced mentality.

But in his wildest escapades he had always been frank and above-board.
And he was ever the first, when he had overstepped the border-line, to
admit that he was in the wrong.  And on such occasions, far from
justifying his exploits, he had been ready to deplore them.

But his frankness seemed to have departed from that night.  He seemed
rather to avoid than seek the society of his old friend and mentor.
When Hugh brought up the subject of the Burtons, Pomfret seemed anxious
to avoid it, to say as little as possible.  He seemed to shut himself up
within his own soul.

Hugh, of course, was profoundly uneasy.  Such a transparent creature as
Pomfret would not be likely to retire within his own shell unless there
were cogent reasons for the withdrawal.  And the reasons were inspired
by the attractive personality of the fascinating siren at Rosemount, the
charming young woman who explained the presence of an undesirable
brother by the narrative of her father's first unfortunate marriage.

Pomfret had invited the brother and sister to a dinner at the principal
hotel in the place, and Hugh had been his friend's guest.  Ladies, of
course, could not be asked to the Mess.  It had been a happy solution of
a somewhat awkward position.  Mr Burton no doubt understood, but he
accepted the situation with alacrity.

From the dinner they had adjourned to Rosemount.  Here they had played
cards as before, but they left off fairly even.  Hugh's suspicions about
card-sharping were dissipated as before.  At the same time, he was still
resolved to keep a watchful eye upon the pair.  It was firmly engrained
upon his mind, and only, of course, from the purest instinct, that he
did not trust either of them.

Much to his surprise, they left without having been asked to a return
dinner.  It was the turn of the Burtons.  And judging from the haste
with which Burton had jumped at them on the first visit, the omission
was a little noticeable.  It could not be that these new isolated
dwellers in Blankfield wanted to shelve an acquaintance which must have
brightened their dull and unvisited existence.

Another fact presented itself to Murchison's rather acute intelligence.
There seemed already established between Pomfret and the attractive
Norah a certain kind of freemasonry, a certain sort of easy relations.
And once in the course of the evening he was sure that he heard the
young man, in the course of a whispered conversation, address her by her
Christian name.  They had been sitting together on the Chesterfield, and
their remarks to each other had been addressed in a very low tone.  But
Hugh's hearing was wonderfully acute, and he had surprised a sudden
expression of rebuke in Miss Burton's eyes when Pomfret made the slip.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

And here, for a moment, this story must leave Hugh Murchison with his
honest doubts and suspicions, while it follows the fortunes of his young
friend and the attractive Norah Burton.

For, truth to tell, at this particular juncture, young Pomfret, for all
his apparent guilelessness, was pursuing a double game.  Madly,
overwhelmingly, in love with Norah, he was meeting her clandestinely,
sometimes at her own house, sometimes in sequestered spots in the
surrounding neighbourhood.  And of these visits and meetings Hugh knew
nothing.

Pomfret was not free from a few pangs of self-reproach, from the fact
that he was not running quite straight with good old Hugh, to whom he
had always, hitherto, confessed all his difficulties and troubles.

But then Hugh, although one of the best, was such a practical old stick.
And if he told him the whole truth, there was no knowing what course
Hugh might not think it was his duty to take.  He might write to his
family and bring them down in an avalanche on him, or even to the
octogenarian aunt.

Love taught him deep cunning, and what he lacked in this subtle quality
was ably supplemented by Miss Burton, this young girl with the rather
sad expression, and the candid eyes that always met your gaze
unfalteringly.

From the first clandestine meeting, arranged in whispers on the night of
the dinner at Rosemount, Pomfret had made the running very fast.  He had
given Norah to understand that he thought her the most desirable girl he
had ever met, that no other woman had appealed, would or could appeal,
to him as she did.  There was a good drop of Irish blood in his own
veins, and he certainly made a most fervent lover.

Norah listened with a modest bashfulness that enchanted him.  He was
sure from her demeanour that she had never been made love to before.
She seemed so overwhelmed that she could hardly say a word.  If one were
not so much in love, one might almost have thought she was stupid.

She was not so stupid, however, as not to preserve her wits sufficiently
to make another appointment, this time at Rosemount.  Pomfret consented
gladly, but he made a certain stipulation, which his companion was more
than pleased to agree to.

"We mustn't let old Hugh know about this, though, or he'll think he's
left out in the cold.  You see, it was really through him I knew you.
You must tell your brother not to let it out."

Miss Burton promised that, so far as she and her brother were concerned,
Captain Murchison would be none the wiser.  It only remained for Mr
Pomfret--although entreated to do so, she could not at this early stage
address him as "Jack"--to surround his movements with a proper degree of
mystery.

When the two parted, and the meeting had been rather a brief one, for it
was always a little dangerous lingering long about the environs of
Blankfield, in case of unexpected intruders, Miss Burton made a
significant remark.

"I am quite sure your friend Captain Murchison does not like me.  In
fact, I think his real feeling is one of dislike."

Mr Pomfret was young enough to blush; he did so upon this occasion.  He
guessed the real truth, that Murchison did not dislike her at all, on
the contrary, he rather admired her--but he had a certain distrust of
her.

"Fancy on your part, fancy, I'm quite sure," he answered glibly.  "I
expect he is a little bit sore, you know, about the whole thing, thinks
I have cut him out with you."

"Perhaps," assented Norah, easily.  But in her own heart she knew it was
nothing of the kind.  She recognised at once the difference between the
two men.  Murchison was a thorough gentleman, kind and chivalrous, but
he was a man of the world, with a certain hard strain in him, a man who
would submit everything to the test of cold, practical reasoning, not to
be hoodwinked or led astray.

This poor babbling boy, with his unrestrained impulses, that Celtic
leaven in his blood, would fall an easy prey to any woman who was clever
enough to cast her spells over him.  He would never reason, he would
only feel.

After that first meeting, the precursor of many others, the affair
progressed briskly.  Pomfret made love with great ardour, Norah received
his advances with a shy sort of acquiescence that inflamed him the more.
He was sure, oh very sure, he was the first who had touched that
innocent heart.

From these delightful confidences Murchison was shut out.  It would not
be wise to ignore him altogether, for such a course of action would have
intensified his suspicions.  But the invitations to Rosemount from
either host or hostess were few and far between.

He was not, however, so easily gulled as the three conspirators thought.
Pomfret's preoccupied mood, the air of a man who had much on his mind,
his frequent and unexplained absences, gave to his friend much food for
thought.  He felt certain that the easy-going, irresponsible young man
was entangling himself.  But in such a state of affairs he felt
powerless.  Short of invoking the influence of the Colonel, or writing
to the elderly aunt, he could do nothing.

It cannot be said that the course of true love was running very
smoothly, even from the point of view of the ardent and enamoured suitor
himself.  In spite of his impulsive temperament, his disinclination to
look hard facts squarely in the face, there was in him a slight leaven
of common-sense.

Save for the bounty and goodwill of this generous, if somewhat
narrow-minded, aunt he was an absolute pauper.  There was no hope of
marrying without her consent.  And he was quite sure that in a case like
this her consent would never be given.  A _fiancee_, to be received by
her with approval, must present some sort of credentials.

And there was the difficulty.  Poor Jack had exhausted all his simple
cunning to extract from them some convincing details of their
antecedents.  But even he, infatuated as he was, had to admit that they
had parried inquiries with great adroitness.  They maintained a
persistent reticence as to names and places.  Even he was forced to
conclude that, for some reason or another, they did not choose to be
frank about their past.

These obvious facts, however, did not lessen his infatuation.  To marry
her was the one dominating object of his life, in spite of all that his
few remaining remnants of common-sense could urge against such a step.

More than once the rash idea occurred to him that he would marry her in
secret, and when the marriage was an accomplished fact, throw himself
upon his aunt's forgiveness.

He mooted the idea to Norah, to whom, of course, he had already made a
frank statement of his position, as befitted the honourable gentleman he
was.  But she did not receive the suggestion with enthusiasm, although
she professed to fully reciprocate his ardent affection.

"If I were a selfish girl, and only thought of my immediate happiness, I
should say `Yes,'" she said with a little tremulous smile, that made her
look more desirable than ever in her lover's eyes.  "But I could not
allow _you_ to run such a terrible risk.  Old people are very strange
and very touchy when they think they have been slighted.  Suppose she
cast you off."

"I suppose I could work, as thousands have to do," replied Jack, with a
touch of his old doggedness.

She shook her head.  "My poor Jack!  It is easy to talk of working, but
you have got to find an employer.  And you have been brought up to an
idle life.  What could you turn your hand to?"  She paused a moment, and
then added as an after-thought: "And besides, my brother would never
sanction it."

Even to Pomfret's slow revolving mind, the worldly taint in her just
peeped forth in those sensible remarks.

"If I am prepared to risk my aunt's displeasure, you can surely afford
to risk your brother's?" he queried angrily.

But Norah disarmed him with one of her sweetest smiles.

"Be reasonable, dearest; we must not behave like a pair of silly
children.  And besides, there is a certain moral obligation on both
sides.  You owe everything to your aunt.  I owe everything to my
brother.  It would be very base to ignore them."

Jack was touched by the nobility of these last sentiments.  "You are
much better than I am, Norah, much less selfish."

She caressed his curly head with her hand.  "We must have patience,
Jack.  You have told me as plainly as your dear, kind heart would allow
you to tell me that, for reasons which I don't want you to explain, your
aunt would never give her consent to your marriage with me.  Well, we
must wait."

In plain English her meaning was that they must possess their souls in
patience till such time as this excellent old lady had departed this
life.  The suggestion was certainly a coldblooded one, but in his
present infatuated mood Jack did not take any notice of that.  Norah
made a feeble attempt to gloss over the callousness of her remarks by
adding that, although it was a very horrible thing to have to wait for
the shoes of dead people, a person of Miss Harding's great age must
expect to very shortly pay the debt of nature.

Two days later, Jack received a telegram which seemed to give a certain
air of prophecy to the young woman's forebodings.  It was dispatched to
him from his aunt's home in Cheshire by the local doctor, who had
attended her for years.  It informed him that she was seriously ill and
requested his immediate attendance.

He sought the Colonel at once and obtained leave.  There was no time to
call at Rosemount, but he scribbled a hasty note to Miss Burton
explaining matters.  On his arrival, he found his aged relative very bad
indeed.  She had had a severe stroke, the second in two years, and
Doctor Jephson was very doubtful as to whether her vitality would enable
her to recover.  He added that she had a marvellous constitution, and in
such a case one could not absolutely say there was no hope.  Of a
feebler woman he would have said at once a few hours would see the end.

Pomfret stayed there as long as the result was in doubt.  At the end of
three days the brave old lady rallied in the most wonderful way, and was
able to hold a little conversation with her beloved nephew.  He did not
leave till the doctor assured him that she was out of danger.

"It's a wonderful recovery," said Doctor Jephson as he shook hands at
parting with the young man.  "But it's the beginning of the end.  I
don't give her very long now, a few months at the most.  Well, she has
had a wonderful life, hardly an ache or a pain till the last few years,
and then nothing very severe.  But, of course, the machinery is worn
out."

All the way back to Blankfield those words kept repeating themselves in
his ears: "I don't give her very long now, a few months at the most."

And then an idea began to form in his mind.  He was not so callous that
he wanted his poor old aunt to die quickly, but it was obvious the time
could not be long delayed when he would find himself possessed of her
fortune, the master of his own destinies.  Was there any reason why he
should not forestall that period by the rather daring expedient of a
secret marriage?  They were both young.  Even if the doctor was wrong,
and they had to wait four or five years, it was not a great sacrifice of
their youth.  At least that was his way of looking at it.  Of course he
did not know how she would take the suggestion.

She appeared to listen to him with deep interest and attention when he
unfolded his plans.

He explained that he had a very handsome allowance, which up to the
present he had generally exceeded.  Now that could all be altered.  He
would declare that he was sick of the army, and send in his papers.
Through his family influence, he would get some Government appointment
which necessitated his living in London.  He would take inexpensive
chambers for himself, rent a small house for her in some pleasant and
not too remote suburb, and spend as much of his time as possible with
her.

"You don't think your aunt would reduce your allowance if you left the
army?" was the one pertinent question she put to him when he had
finished.

"On the contrary, she would be more likely to increase it," was the
confident rejoinder.  "She would always have preferred that I should go
in for something that meant real work.  She thinks the army is an idle
life."

Miss Burton, no doubt, rapidly calculated the pros and cons of such a
daring step.  Jack had named a very handsome sum for her maintenance.
If she could put up with the clandestine nature of the connection, till
such time as a certain event happened, she would be better off than at
Rosemount.  She begged for time to think it over, and of course she
would have to consult her brother before taking such an unusual step.

That was only natural; it was impossible for Jack to insist that she
should settle the matter herself without reference to the one person
who, whatever his social defects, had behaved to her with unexampled
kindness and generosity.

Brother and sister no doubt talked it over very thoroughly, for it was
three days before she told her lover that, although George would have
preferred a longer period of waiting, he trusted him sufficiently to
entrust Norah to his keeping, on the terms proposed.

She did suggest that they should wait till Jack had left the army and
settled himself in London.  But he fought this idea stubbornly.  He was
mad to tie her to himself, for fear that somebody else with more
immediate prospects might step in and carry her off.  A little
common-sense, of course, might have told him that if she was as fatally
attractive to others as to himself, she would have been carried off
before this.

He was so terribly jealous of her, that he had never made the slightest
effort to bring any of his brother officers round to Rosemount.  He even
kept Hugh away as much as he could.

The lovers worked out their little plot very nicely.  Miss Burton would
leave Blankfield for a couple of weeks, ostensibly to pay a visit to a
relative.  Her destination would be London.  Jack would take a few days'
leave of absence in due course, and procure a special licence.  They
would return on separate days and resume their normal life, until such
time as they perfected their after arrangements.

CHAPTER SIX.

Miss Burton arrived home on a Monday by a mid-day train; her attentive
brother met her at the station.  She was one of those girls who look
smart and neat under the most trying circumstances.  Although it was a
long journey, she bore no signs or stains of travel.

"When does Jack arrive, not too soon, I hope?" commented George, as he
assisted her into a cab, and sat down beside her.

"He wanted to come down to-night, but I vetoed that," responded the
girl.  "I told him people might put two and two together.  He will get
here mid-day to-morrow.  I shall meet him casually in the High Street.
He is going to bring Murchison along with him.  And I shall give them an
impromptu invitation to dinner."

"I don't know that I am very keen on having Murchison to dinner,"
remarked Mr Burton in rather a growling tone.

Miss Burton shrugged her shoulders.  "And, perhaps, of the two, I am
less keen than you are.  But we have got to play it pretty quiet down
here, till the whole lot of us clear out.  Better to let Murchison come.
He is pretty suspicious, as it is, but if we shut him out, he'll be
more suspicious still."

Mr Burton chuckled in a grim fashion.

"Well, our inquisitive friend, the whole lot of them as a matter of
fact, can't do you much harm now.  You've got him tight enough.  And
I'll say this for him, he's a bit soft and all that sort of thing, but
he'll always play the game."

The girl did not reply for a moment, then she spoke in a voice that was
low and soft:

"Yes, he's a dear little chap, he'll always play the game."

"He can afford to," was the rather ungracious comment.  Clearly Mr
Burton was not in one of his best moods to-day.

Mr Pomfret returned from his short leave on the following day, and at
once sought his friend.

"Glad to be back, old man, got fed-up with London," he cried cheerfully.
His excuse for his visit was that he had to go up to see his aunt's
solicitors, on some pressing affairs which the old lady had entrusted to
him, after her temporary recovery from her dangerous illness.

Now Murchison was pretty quick.  He already had a shrewd suspicion that
Jack had been making a great many surreptitious visits to Rosemount,
that Hugh had been asked there now and again as a blind.  And when he
happened to be present, he had noticed that Jack and Norah had taken
very little notice of each other.  Jack had cultivated the brother, and
left his friend to entertain the attractive young woman.  In itself,
this rather obvious attitude was suspicious.  It confirmed his
impression that there was a private understanding between the young
people, and that they were throwing dust in his eyes.

He had already put two and two together, with regard to the concurrent
absences.  Mr Burton, meeting him in the High Street two days after
Norah's departure, had told him his sister was paying a visit to a
married relative who lived at Brighton.  He would have not believed Mr
Burton on his oath.

And Jack had taken his few days' leave, with the ostensible object of
attending to his aunt's affairs.

Hugh was pretty certain that the silly young ass, as he affectionately
designated Jack in his own mind, had arranged to meet Miss Burton for a
day or two in London, in order to enjoy her society, free from
interruption or espionage.  Of course, he was far from guessing the
truth.  He would not have thought Pomfret capable of any such daring
action.

Jack had just expressed himself fed-up with London, and yet his
demeanour was jubilant and hilarious.  Of course, Hugh could not dream
his attitude was that of the exultant bridegroom, almost intoxicated
with the knowledge of having gained his heart's desire.  There had been
a couple of lunches, perhaps a couple of dinners with a theatre thrown
in.  The buoyant Jack was living on these blissful memories.

Later in the day, the two men walked down the High Street, of course in
accordance with a pre-arranged plan decided upon by the artful lovers.
The first person they met was Miss Burton, sauntering along slowly; Miss
Burton, now Mrs Pomfret, as fast as the ecclesiastical law of England
could make her.

She welcomed them with her ready and charming smile.  "What strangers we
are," she cried gaily.  "And how nice to meet my only two friends in
Blankfield."

Pomfret did a little finessing on his own.  "I have been away for a few
days, too," he explained glibly.  "Had to go up to London to look after
some business of my poor old aunt's; only got back by the mid-day
train."

"Did you enjoy your visit?" inquired Hugh of Norah, with that stiffness
which he could never quite dissociate from his manner when addressing
either brother or sister.

"Yes and No," was the answer.  "On the whole, I had quite a good time,
but I am not sorry to get back to Rosemount, and my little household
gods.  Knowing you both has made such a difference to my life here."

She was laying it on a little bit thick, Hugh thought, and he fancied
she looked more at Pomfret than himself, as she said it.  But he made a
suitable and courteous reply.

She was just about to turn away, when a sudden thought seemed to strike
her.

"As Mr Pomfret and I have been such wanderers, would it not be nice to
celebrate our return?  Will you both come to dinner to-night, and we can
relate our experiences?"

Pomfret jumped at the invitation, and Hugh had to follow suit.  As a
matter of fact, he was rather eager to go.  They were both playing their
parts very well, but he was quite convinced they _were_ playing a part.
He was more certain about Jack than about her.  Jack had been a bit too
glib, had over-acted, as it were.  They had met in London, if only for a
few hours; he would have bet a thousand pounds on that.

Jack declared that he would walk back to Rosemount with Miss Burton.  He
did not now care a farthing what members of Blankfield Society he met.
Very shortly, the army would know him no more, and he would take up a
new life with this fearless girl whom he had married on the sly.

Hugh strolled on, and looked in at the various shops.  The High Street
happened to be rather empty on this particular afternoon, the _elite_ of
Blankfield Society had not yet turned out for its usual promenade.

Turning away from a jeweller's shop window, where he was inspecting some
sleeve-links, he was confronted by a tall, sturdily built man of about
fifty years of age, who raised his hat.

"I believe I have the pleasure of addressing Captain Murchison?" he
inquired politely.

Hugh directed a swift glance at him.  He was not exactly a common
person, on the other hand he was certainly not a gentleman.  There was
something military in his bearing; he might have been a retired
Sergeant-Major.

"That is my name," answered Hugh a little curtly.  "And who are you,
please?"

The tall man took a card from his waistcoat pocket and presented it.
"Those are my credentials, sir."

Hugh ran his eye over it swiftly.  He saw the name, Davidson, a common
one enough, and, in the corner, Scotland Yard.  Why the deuce should
this agent of the police want to accost him?  And how did he know his
name was Murchison?

"I think you are acquainted with a family of the name of Burton, brother
and sister they call themselves, who live at a house a little way out
called Rosemount?"

"Of course I know them, that is to say, in a casual sort of way."
Needless to say that Murchison had never been more surprised in his
life.  "Why are you asking these questions?"  Mr Davidson darted a keen
glance up and down the comparatively empty High Street.  "This is rather
an exposed place in which to talk, but I have something to tell you
which I am sure you will be interested to listen to.  I am staying at
the `Anchor,' in a side street from this.  If you will do me the honour
to follow me, I can take you into a private room there, where we shall
not be observed nor overheard."

Like a man in a dream, Hugh found himself following Mr Davidson to the
"Anchor," one of the second-class hotels in the town.  He was quite sure
that this tall, military looking person was going to clear up the
mystery of the couple whom Blankfield, in its wisdom, had refused to
visit, and whose acquaintance he owed to a random meeting at a tea-shop.

There were only one or two idlers in the entrance-hall of the hotel,
which was of what is known as the "Commercial" kind.  Murchison was glad
to find that he did not seem to attract their observation, as he rapidly
crossed over to where his new acquaintance was standing in a rather dark
corner.

Davidson piloted him into a little sitting-room which opened out of a
long narrow passage.  He rang the bell, and ordered refreshments with
the manner of a man who was acquainted with the usages of polite
society.

It would be quite safe to say that Hugh, the heir to a great fortune,
brought up in the lap of luxury, an aristocrat by adoption, if not
exactly by birth, had never found himself up till now in such an
environment.  He could not truthfully declare that it was an experience
he wished to repeat.

Still, he could blame nobody but himself, his foolish action in taking
up with a couple of persons whom Blankfield, in its superior worldly
wisdom, had decided to ignore.  As he was in for it, and nothing could
undo the past, it was better to go through with it.  Let him accommodate
himself to the situation, drink his whisky-and-soda in this dingy little
parlour of a second-rate hotel, and treat the detective with genial
courtesy.

After the first mouthful of his drink, Davidson began to explain.

"Of course, sir, I quite understand this is not the sort of thing or the
sort of place to which you are accustomed," he said, waving a
deprecatory hand round the shabby little parlour.  "But in this
particular case, I and my friend--that friend I may say at the moment is
elsewhere taking his observations--wanted to lie low.  It didn't enter
into our scheme to put up at a swagger hotel, and run the risk of
gossip.  It might have reached the ears of those we are after, and
scared them off."  Hugh listened attentively.  There was something very
serious in the wind now, and the dwellers at Rosemount were as yet
unaware of what was impending.

His surprise expressed itself in the direct question which he shot at
the detective: "I take it you are here to arrest them, then?"

"One of them, the man," corrected Mr Davidson, quietly; "we know a good
deal about the girl, but we have no evidence that implicates her beyond
the fact of her association with him, and from our point of view that
means nothing in a Court of Law."

"What is his offence?" asked the startled Hugh.

"Forgery," was the laconic answer.  "He belongs to a pretty well-known
gang, and we have had our suspicions of him for a long time now, but he
was devilish clever and cunning.  Several of his pals were caught, but
it was always difficult to rope him in.  We shouldn't have got him now
but for the fact of one of his pals peaching.  And even now, although
the evidence is strong enough for us, I doubt if it is strong enough to
get him more than a comparatively light sentence.  If he can lay hold of
a clever counsel, and there will be some money at the back of him, if
not a great deal, he won't come off so badly."

So Mr Burton was a criminal, and had been living in Blankfield on the
proceeds of his nefarious calling.  The rich uncle in Australia who had
left him a comfortable fortune was a myth.

"I suppose he has been on the `crook' all his life?" queried Hugh.

"Ever since he has come under our observation," was the reply of the
detective.  "Before he joined the present gang, a few of whom we have
collared from time to time, card-sharping was his lay.  Once he rented
an expensive flat in Paris, and I believe made a tidy bit out of it.
That is where the young lady first appeared upon the scene."

"But how long ago is that?  She doesn't look more than twenty."

"I know," said Mr Davidson.  "She looks wonderfully young, that is one
of her assets.  As a matter of fact I should say she was twenty-four at
the least.  The Parisian episode occurred about five years ago, making
her nineteen at the time.  He was there about twelve months, at the end
of which time he got an introduction to the forging gang, and chucked
the cards in favour of a more remunerative game."

"She acted, I suppose, as a decoy and confederate?"

"So I am given to understand.  She very seldom played herself, but used
to signal the opponents' cards to him."

"What a precious pair," groaned Hugh.  He had long been doubtful of
them, but he had never anticipated this.

"Now, Captain Murchison, there is a little question I want to ask you,"
said the detective briskly, after a brief pause.  "My pal and I only
arrived here yesterday, but we have not been idle, we have picked up a
good deal.  We have discovered that nobody in Blankfield visits them,
except yourself and another officer, a Mr Pomfret.  That is true, is it
not?"

"Quite true," assented Murchison.

"You frequently go to their house together.  But perhaps I may be
telling you something you don't know when I say that Mr Pomfret more
frequently has gone alone."

"I have had my suspicions some time," was Hugh's answer.

"Now tell me, please; I suppose in the evenings you played cards, or
roulette, or some game of chance.  I thought so.  Did you lose much?
Had you any suspicions they were rooking you?"

"On my first visit, a suspicion that they might do so crossed my mind.
But nothing of the sort was attempted.  I should say that, up to the
present, my friend and I stand a bit to the good.  Evidently, that was
not their object."

"Clearly," assented the shrewd detective, "they had a deeper game than
that on.  They wanted to catch this young friend of yours for a husband,
and failing that, to entrap him, so that they could blackmail him on the
threat of a breach of promise case."

"It looks as if that was their object."

"Now, Captain Murchison, may I ask you if your friend is a man likely to
fall into the trap?  I saw him in the High Street this afternoon with
you: and if I may say so without offence, he doesn't give me the
impression of a very strong or self-reliant person."

Hugh shook his head.  "I fear he is very weak, very impulsive, very
emotional, a ready prey for a designing woman."

"Have you any idea how far the thing has gone?"

To this question Hugh could only reply in the negative.  His one hope
was that the foolish boy had seen her so often that there was no
necessity to write incriminating letters.

"Well, Captain Murchison, my object in asking you to grant me an
interview was two-fold.  In the first place, I wanted to know if there
had been any card-sharping.  Then, as I am aware you go to the house, I
wished to tell you that I and my friend are going to take him to-night.
It might happen that you would be going there, and of course, you will
not want to be on the stage when we play our little comedy."

"We have promised to go to dinner to-night.  She asked us both when we
met her this afternoon."

"And of course now, you will not go.  I will take him before
dinner-time, so you need not send round any excuses."

Poor Hugh felt very miserable.  What he especially shirked was having to
tell this sordid narrative to Pomfret.  He expressed to the detective
his shrinking from the unwelcome task.

"I quite understand, sir, but it's got to be done," replied the
detective, firmly.  For a few seconds after he had spoken, he seemed to
be thinking deeply.  Then he came out with a startling proposition.

"Look here, Captain Murchison, something has just occurred to me.  I am
not sure whether you will think it a good plan.  Just now I thought it
would be better for you not to be there.  But if this young gentleman is
so gone on the girl, it might make a deeper impression on him, bring
home to him more strongly the sense of her unworthiness, if he were
actually present at the scene.  And it would spare you any painful
explanations, beforehand.  Afterwards you can tell him or not, as you
please, about our interview here."

Hugh made a gesture of disgust.  "You propose that we should carry out
our original intention of dining there and of sitting at the table of a
criminal?  I don't think I could bring myself to it."

If Mr Davidson did not quite agree with the young man's scruples, he
was open-minded enough to see the matter from Hugh's point of view.

"I quite understand, sir.  But I think I can manage it all right.  You
say they dine at eight.  Get there with your friend a quarter of an hour
before.  I will be there with my friend at five minutes to, before the
dinner is served.  You then won't have to sit at his table, you see."

Hugh was still hesitating.  Mr Davidson proceeded to clinch his
argument.

"You see, sir, it will be so much better for Mr Pomfret to see with his
own eyes and hear with his own ears.  When he has seen us clap the
darbies on Burton, and listened to what I can tell him about the girl--
you can just give me a lead there, if you don't mind--I think he will be
cured of his calf-love on the spot.  As far as he is concerned, we want
to make a swift and sudden cure, to kill his affection at once."

Yes, on the whole, after a little further reflection Murchison was
disposed to fall in with this new suggestion.  Pomfret, however deep his
infatuation, could not resist the evidence of his own senses.  He would
be much more strongly impressed than by a mere bald narration of the
facts as conveyed to his friend by the detective.

So it was settled.  Hugh would bring Pomfret to Rosemount at twenty
minutes or a quarter to eight.  At five minutes to, Davidson and his
colleague would present themselves to execute their painful errand.

"Just a word before I go," said the young man as he turned towards the
door.  "Is the man's name really Burton, or only an alias?"

"That is his real name.  Of course he has had aliases.  His family, I
understand, are respectable people of the lower middle-class.  He was
the black sheep, born with crooked and criminal instincts."

"And the girl, is she really his sister?"

"On that point, I have no positive information," replied Davidson.  "She
has passed as such ever since the Paris days.  But I should very much
doubt it.  I am informed that they are very unlike in manners and
appearance, that he is a rough sort of fellow, while she would pass
anywhere for a lady."

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hugh went back to the barracks, more than rejoiced at the fact that the
detective seemed to have appeared on the scene in the very nick of time.
If marriage was contemplated as the result of this clandestine wooing,
what a terrible tragedy would be averted from the unlucky Pomfret!

CHAPTER SEVEN.

It was twenty minutes to eight as the two young men rang at the door
bell of Rosemount.  Pomfret was always a slow dresser.  It was only by
extraordinary efforts that Hugh had got him off in time.

Brother and sister were awaiting them in the pretty drawing-room, lit
with softly shaded lamps.  Miss Burton rose to meet them, she extended a
hand to each, in her pretty graceful way, as if she looked upon them
both as her dearest friends, and would make no difference between them
in her greeting.

But Hugh was very wide-awake, after his meeting with the detective, and
he did notice that the left hand which she extended to Pomfret lingered
a little longer in his responsive clasp than did the right which she had
given to him.

Yes, it was obvious that their acquaintance had gone far.  There was
even, he fancied, an intelligent sympathy in their mutual glances.
Pomfret was the lover, Hugh Murchison was simply the friend.

Mr Burton welcomed them heartily.  "Just like old times," he cried in
his rough, breezy fashion.  "I've been like a fish out of water during
Norah's absence.  It was just like her to organise a little party,
simply us four, to celebrate her return."

It struck Hugh that his conviviality was just a trifle forced, that he
seemed "jumpy" and nervous.  Had he by chance spotted those two
strangers in the High Street, and wondered what manner of men they were?

Pomfret settled himself on the chesterfield beside Norah, in spite of
her rather obvious signals to preserve a more discreet attitude.
Ignorant of what was going to happen a few minutes hence, her great
object was to conceal the fact that Jack should take the position of an
acknowledged lover.

In her secret heart, she was very apprehensive of Murchison.  She knew
he was suspicious of her, and he had a sort of elder brother affection
for Pomfret.  She was not by any means sure as to the lengths to which
this fraternal feeling might lead him.  It might even inspire him to
evoke the assistance of the Pomfret family, and then the security of her
present position might be menaced.

The secret marriage was, after all, in the nature of a gamble.  If
things turned out as she expected, if the old aunt died in reasonable
time, the odds were in her favour.  She could twist Jack round her
little finger.  But nobody knew better than this astute young woman of
the world that there is many a slip betwixt the cup and the lip.
Something that she had not calculated, not foreseen, might happen at any
moment, and her house of cards might tumble to the ground.  Her
adventurous life had taught her never to be too sure of momentary
prosperity.

She was a little bit nervous and "jumpy," like her brother, to-night.
Her smile was a little forced, her high spirits rather assumed.  The
wedding-ring, the marriage certificate hidden from sight, were great
assets.  And yet, was it all just a little too good to be quite true?

Murchison talked with the brother, desultory sort of talk, hardly
conscious of what he was saying.  His ears were straining for the sound
of that electric-bell which would herald the arrival of Davidson and his
colleague.

And it came very quickly.  There was a loud, imperative peal.  Burton
started from his seat, and forgot his assumed good manners.

"Who the devil is that?" he cried fiercely.  "Do they want to knock the
house down?"  It was the vulgar exclamation of a very vulgar man.

Miss Burton was more mistress of herself, but Hugh observed that her
cheek went a shade paler.  Well, it was only natural.  These two had
been living in fear of the law for more years than they cared to
remember.  And they had thought they were safely in harbour.  Poor
fools!

She turned to Pomfret, and forced a wan smile.  "It is really quite
alarming, Mr Pomfret, visitors at this time of the evening.  And you
know so well that nobody in Blankfield, except yourselves, ever crosses
our threshold."

The happy Jack, the husband of a few short hours, was quite unperturbed.
He smiled back at her confidently.

"Somebody come to the wrong house, I should say.  Why, you have gone
quite pale!  What a nervous little thing it is!"  He whispered the last
sentence in a lover-like tone.

Murchison felt every nerve in his body tingling.  Jack was in a state of
ignorance.  The brother and sister, he was sure, were filled with vague
and undefined alarms.  He, alone out of the four sitting in that
charming little drawing-room awaiting the announcement of dinner, was
sure of what was going to happen.

He stole a look across at Pomfret with the happy, fatuous smile of the
successful lover on his face.  Poor devil!  In another couple of minutes
he would be terribly disillusioned.

There was a heavy trampling of feet across the hall.  The visitors,
whoever they were, had pushed past the trim and ladylike parlourmaid.

The drawing-room door was flung open, and the two big men, Davidson and
his colleague, advanced towards Burton who was standing in the middle of
the room.

The detective spoke in a clear, ringing voice.  "It's all up, Mr
Burton, I won't trouble to recount your various aliases.  I've a warrant
here to arrest you on a charge of forgery.  You've gone free for some
time, but one of your old pals has peached upon you.  Hard luck for you,
otherwise you might have been playing still, perhaps for ever, this nice
little `stunt' at Blankfield.  I suppose you will come quietly?"

For a few seconds George Burton indulged in some horrible imprecations.
In the same breath he protested his absolute innocence, and denounced
the "pal" who had betrayed him.  Mr Davidson cut him short, as he
fastened the handcuffs on his wrist.

"Stow it, old man!  Be a sport.  It's a fair cop, isn't it?  You knew
the risk you ran when you went into this business."

Mr Burton subsided.  "Yes, it's a fair cop," he growled.  "I don't
blame you, you are only doing your duty.  I've no grudge against you.
But by Heaven, when I come out, I'll do for that swine who has given me
away, if I have to swing for it."

Pomfret had risen from his seat on the chesterfield at the dramatic
entrance of the two strangers.  Norah had risen also.  In the few
seconds that elapsed between their entrance and the clapping of the
handcuffs on Burton, she stretched out appealing arms to him, and cried
out in a voice of despair:

"Stand by me, Jack, stand by me.  I knew nothing of this.  It is as
great a surprise to me as to you.  Oh, my poor brother!  He has done
this for love of me."

Murchison heard the impassioned tones, the despairing appeal.  They
would have melted a heart of stone.  What effect would they have upon
the unsuspicious Jack?

Pomfret withdrew himself, almost coldly, from the proffered embrace.  In
a few seconds, as it seemed to Hugh, he had grown from a boy to a man.

He turned to the detective, and Hugh was delighted at the sudden dignity
that seemed to have come to him.

"You seem to know a great deal about this man whom you have handcuffed,
and who admits you are only doing your duty.  Do you know anything about
his sister, Miss Burton?"

Mr Davidson glanced significantly at Murchison.  They had arranged a
little conversation between themselves, but Jack's frankness had
rendered this unnecessary.

"What I know of the young lady, sir, I am sorry to tell you, is not to
her credit.  She has been associated with this man for some years.  She
started with him in Paris some time ago, when he was a card-sharper, and
running a gambling-saloon.  But to be fair, she is not in this business
with him, and I have nothing against her."

"Are they what they represent themselves to be, brother and sister?"
Pomfret's voice was very quiet, but there was in it a suppressed note of
agony.  How he had loved this girl, and a few hours ago he had clasped
her in his arms as his wife!

The keen eyes of the detective softened as he looked at Jack, who was
hiding the most intense agitation under an apparently stoical demeanour.

"I have no accurate information on that point, sir, but I should very
much doubt the fact of their relationship."

While this brief conversation was taking place between Pomfret and
Davidson, Norah was still standing with arms outstretched.

Again there came forth the appealing, impassioned cry: "Jack, stand by
me!  Jack, stand by me!"  She sank down on the sofa, and put her hands
before her face.  "Stay with me, wait till they have all gone, and I
will explain everything.  I have nothing to do with this."

But Pomfret stood like a man turned to stone.  Then suddenly, Norah gave
a little gurgling cry, and fainted.  Pomfret made a step towards her,
and halted.  His great love for her had been killed.  Perhaps at this
moment he hated her more than he had ever loved her.

The parlourmaid, with a white face, was peeping in the room.  Davidson
beckoned to her.

"My colleague will help you to take her up to her room.  Look after her.
She's as game as they make them, but to-night's been too much for her.
She has been playing for big stakes, and she has lost."

The maid and Davidson's burly assistant lifted up the recumbent form.
And when they had carried her out, Pomfret's self-control seemed to give
way.  He suddenly clutched at his throat and turned to Hugh.

"Old man, I have had as much as I can stand.  For Heaven's sake, take me
from this accursed house."

Hugh put his arm under his to steady him.  The boy's nerve had gone, he
was trembling like a man stricken with the ague.  There was no cab or
taxi to be got in this outlying district.  They had to walk back to the
barracks.

Hugh planted him in an easy-chair in his own quarters, and mixed him a
stiff peg.  Even Dutch courage was better than nothing.  Pomfret drank
it in two big gulps.  Then he pulled himself together.

"I have been an infernal fool, old man," he gasped, "an infernal fool."

Hugh spoke soothingly.  "Of course you have.  But the folly is over.
You now know Norah Burton and her rascally brother for what they are, a
pair of criminals and adventurers."

"But you don't know all," groaned the unfortunate Jack.  "Norah Burton
is my wife.  I married her secretly the other day, by special licence,
while I was up in London."  Hugh leapt to his feet in astonishment.  He
had his own ideas of that visit to London, coupled with Norah's absence.
But that Pomfret, weak and impressionable as he was, should have made
such a fool of himself, was beyond the limits of his comprehension.

In a moment he pulled himself together.  The poor lad was in a big mess
enough, it was no time to rub it in.  "Tell me all about it, old chap,"
he said quietly.

And Pomfret told him.  He made it clear, perfect gentleman as he was,
that Norah had been the least to blame in the matter, that the
suggestion had come from himself, that Norah had insisted upon
consulting her brother before yielding to his wishes.

Yes, of course, Hugh could understand all that.  They had known just the
kind of man they were dealing with.  They had hooked and landed their
fish well.  To a woman in her uncertain state, a husband with some
prospects was better than her insecure position with a scoundrel like
George Burton.

Hugh filled a big pipe full up with a very strong and potent tobacco.
He thought better when he was smoking, and this was a situation that
demanded a good deal of thought.

After a while he spoke.  "Well, Jack, let us look facts in the face.
What is done can't be undone.  You have married this woman, and as long
as she lives she is entitled to call herself Mrs Pomfret, and you will
have to keep her.  There is no getting over that."

The unhappy Jack groaned.  There was no getting over that.  This
attractive, charming young woman, sister or confederate, or whatever
relationship she stood in to this wretched criminal, was his legal wife,
and, if she chose, she could make things very uncomfortable for him.

"Well, old man, you have made a hash of your life at the very beginning
of it.  As I say, that can't be undone.  You've got to make the best of
it.  I suppose you have entered into some financial arrangements with
her."

"Seven hundred a year till I come into my aunt's money.  After that, of
course, our marriage was to be acknowledged, and we would live
together."

"I see," said Hugh, assuming a cheerfulness he did not quite feel.
"Well, I should not say she would try for more than her seven hundred a
year at present.  When your aunt dies she will of course fight for a bit
more.  I take it, after to-night's work, you will never want to live
with her, cajoling and attractive as she is."

Pomfret shuddered.  "After what that fellow said, my love for her died.
But, by Heaven, Hugh, I did love her while I believed in her."

"Of course, of course.  Have you signed any document about that seven
hundred, by the way?"

"Not yet.  My solicitor is sending me the document to-day, it will reach
me to-morrow morning."

"It will make it a little easier to deal with her, then.  Are you going
to leave yourself in my hands?  I don't think she will be very full of
fight for the next few days."

"Certainly I will, Hugh.  Do your best for me.  I never want to see her
again, of that you may be sure."

Murchison reflected deeply before he spoke again.  "I doubt if she will
trouble you very much.  It won't be very difficult to compromise with
her, she has too much to hide.  And now for yourself."

"Yes," groaned the unhappy Pomfret, in a hollow voice.  "And now for
myself.  What do you suggest?"

"There's only one thing to do, and that is to put the past behind you.
As long as this woman lives, you can never marry.  But many men go
through life and remain bachelors, and are not altogether unhappy.  You
must make up your mind to be one of the bachelors, Jack."

But Jack looked very despairing.  The shock had been a terrible one.  In
spite of the stiff peg he had taken, his face was still livid, and his
hands were shaking.

Hugh looked at him anxiously.  He was very weak; had the occurrences of
this terrible night driven him over the border-line that separates
sanity from insanity?

Presently he muttered, almost as if to himself, certain disjointed
phrases.  Hugh caught a few of them, repeated again and again.

"Tied to her for life, she will outlive me, tied to her for life.  She
will never let me go.  My poor family!  I have always been a fool, but
up to now have never brought disgrace to them.  And God forgive me, I
was reckoning on the death of my poor old generous aunt, it is idle to
say I did not speculate on it.  And for what, for what?--the pretended
affection, the bought kisses of this adventuress, a card-sharper's
decoy, who told me lying tales about the way in which her criminal
associate had inherited his money."

He rambled on like this for some quarter of an hour, and Murchison
judged it was better to let him ease his mind in such a fashion.

In a way, the poor foolish boy's brain had cleared up to a point; he was
able to look the facts squarely in the face.  His infatuation might have
been so deep that he might, under these damning circumstances, have
fallen a victim to her wiles a second time.  She would no doubt have
been prepared, if he had given her the opportunity, to have sworn her
innocence, to have protested that she was the victim of circumstantial
evidence, that she had believed what her brother had told her, that she
had never been a partner in, or a confidant of, his criminal schemes.

No, so far the rude shock had cleared his brain, made him see and think
more clearly.  But Murchison very much feared that the agonising remorse
for his folly was obscuring it in another direction.

He seemed to look upon himself as something unclean in having allowed
himself to be contaminated by association with such a wretched
adventuress.  He was also acutely conscious that, at the best, he would
have to take this horrible secret with him to the grave, unless it
sprang suddenly to light, as such secrets have a knack of doing.  Above
all, he keenly felt the disgrace he had inflicted on his family.

There was a great deal more desultory talk, and Hugh gave him the best
advice he could under the unhappy circumstances--a reiteration of the
"put it behind you and live it down" philosophy.  This would have come
easy to a man of the rocky and stolid type to which Murchison belonged
by temperament.  But Jack was highly-strung and impulsive.  There was no
ballast in him.

Hugh almost had to push him out of the room.  But, before doing so, he
mixed the boy another stiff peg, with the hope that it would induce
sleep and purchase him the oblivion of a few hours.

"Now then, old man, toddle off.  Get a good night's rest, and when you
wake to-morrow, you will find things look pretty black, but not quite so
black as now.  If this young woman contemplates a deep game, and wants
to insist overmuch on her rights as your wife, I will deal with her on
your behalf.  I'll warrant I bring her to reason."

The poor distraught boy clasped his friend's hand convulsively.  "Hugh,
old chap, you are the best friend a man could ever have, true as steel."

"Don't say that," replied Hugh with a little break in his voice.  "I am
bound to do the best for you.  It was owing to my infernal folly that
you ever set foot in that cursed house.  I am older and stronger than
you, I ought to have known better.  Well, good old Jack, good-night!  I
tell you, things won't look quite as black to-morrow."

But to Hugh's intense grief and remorse, there was no morrow for the
unhappy boy, whose mind had been quite unhinged by the events of that
terrible night.  One could only surmise that he had found sleep
impossible, and in a fit of frenzy had taken his life to escape from a
future so black and discouraging.

When his servant went to call him in the morning, he found his master
lying on the floor, with a bullet-hole in the middle of his forehead.
Everybody in the barracks had been fast asleep when the poor boy had
fired the shot that was to take him out of his troubles, and nobody had
heard the report.

At the inquest, the whole miserable story came out.  Of course it came
through Hugh, the only person who was in possession of it.  He narrated
the details of his acquaintance with the Burtons, the introduction of
Jack Pomfret to the house, the scene at Rosemount when the two
detectives had taken the man, Jack's confession that he had made the
girl his wife a few hours previously.

Hugh never forgot that interview with the Colonel, in which "Old
Fireworks" poured out his wrath in no measured terms.  He roundly called
him an infernal fool for mixing himself up with people of whom he knew
nothing, and whom Blankfield in its ignorance of their antecedents had
declined to visit--and very wisely.

"If it had been poor Jack, a dear lad but a foolish, I could have found
it in my heart to forgive him," he ended.  "But you are a man of another
sort, you have got your wits about you, if you choose to exercise them.
I will never pardon you that day's work.  You can play with fire and not
be scorched, but he couldn't.  That poor boy's death lies at your door,
sir.  I hope you realise it."

Yes, Hugh did realise it.  He stood with bowed head, and could not utter
a word in self-defence.

The news, of course, was all over the town the next morning, or rather
the double news--that George Burton had been arrested by two detectives
from Scotland Yard, and that in the early morning of the following day
Jack Pomfret had blown out his brains.  The evidence at the inquest
explained the double event.

The news of her young husband's suicide reached Norah early in the
morning.  She had gambled and lost.  The old adventurous life was in
front of her again.

She took the buffets of fate with the stoicism of her kind and class.
She had a comfortable little nest-egg put by which stood between her and
present want.  If only Jack had been less emotional, she would not have
troubled him much, been content with quite a little.  It is to be feared
that, in her bitter disappointment, she felt a little sore against Jack
for his moral cowardice in getting comfortably out of it himself, and
leaving her in the lurch.

Anyway, she faced the situation with a courage that one could not refuse
to admire.  By two o'clock that same day the servants had been paid
their wages, the keys of the furnished house handed over to the agent,
and Mrs Pomfret had departed for London.

Murchison could never forget that terrible time till something came that
seemed to dwarf all other things.  In August, nineteen hundred and
fourteen, there burst the first storm of the war which shook the world
to its centre.  In the blood-soaked plains of France he forgot
everything except his country.

Jack Pomfret and Norah Burton seemed dim memories in those strenuous
times of the world's upheaval.  And yet, when he had a moment's leisure
to think of the past, he felt a savage longing to be even with that
fair-faced, smiling adventuress who had driven his poor young friend to
a suicide's grave.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

"It's a good proposition, old man.  You couldn't employ a couple of
hours better.  I have been in London Society of all sorts for the best
part of my life, and I tell you that Stella Keane is the most charming
girl I have ever met."

The speaker was little Tommy Esmond, short, genial, and rotund of
person.  Tommy knew everybody who was anybody, and everybody knew the
mercurial Tommy.

Guy Spencer puffed leisurely at his cigar, and regarded his rotund
little friend with an amused smile.  Spencer was about thirty, Tommy was
old enough to be his father.  But he wore well.

"Most excellent Tommy, how many times have I heard you say the same
thing?  Every girl you come across is the most charming you have ever
met--until one sees you the next week.  And then, the last girl has the
super-charm--like the young lady you just mentioned, Miss Stella Keane."

But Esmond was not to be rebuffed by a clumsy attempt at humour on the
part of a young man so much his junior.  Besides, Tommy was impervious
to humour.  It fell off him, like water from a duck's back.  In his way
he was a very strenuous little man, he had no time to frivol.

"Don't try to be funny, old man: it doesn't suit you.  Be sensible, and
come round with me to Mrs L'Estrange's flat and be introduced to Miss
Keane."

"It's an interesting suggestion, Tommy, but before I decide tell me
first--who is Mrs L'Estrange, and secondly, who and what is Miss
Keane?"

And Tommy Esmond launched forth on a full flow of narrative.  Mrs
L'Estrange was the first cousin of a well-known Irish earl, and was--
well, in somewhat reduced circumstances, and had a snug little flat in
the Cadogan district.

"Mrs L'Estrange is quite satisfactorily explained," remarked Guy,
interrupting his rather voluble friend.  "Now what do you really know
about Miss Keane?"

Here, Esmond was a little less precise.  Mrs L'Estrange he knew quite
well, had known her ever since he had been in London; her ancestry and
connections were unimpeachable.

Miss Keane, it would appear, had been suddenly projected into the
L'Estrange household, as it were, from space.  He understood that she
was a distant connection, a far-off cousin, but he could give no
particulars.

Tommy, with the born instinct of the true diplomatist, was always ready
to present everything in its best light, but he lacked the one essential
quality of the born diplomatist--he was not very successful when he came
to camouflaging facts.

Spencer's smile was more amused than ever, as he regarded his genial
friend.  Spencer was only thirty, and Tommy was at least old enough to
be his father.  But there were times when the younger man thought he saw
more clearly than the elder.

"Let us put it at this, Tommy.  Mrs L'Estrange, being in somewhat
straitened circumstances, supplements her meagre income by card-playing,
at which I have no doubt she is an adept."

And here, the usually placid Tommy interposed hotly: "You may say of
Mrs L'Estrange what you like.  But, if you propose to offer any
derogatory remarks about Miss Keane, I would rather not listen to them."

And Spencer kept a curb on his tongue.  Was this fat, comical-looking
little man, a most unromantic figure, violently in love with Miss Stella
Keane, and her sworn champion?  Far be it from him to disturb his faith
in this seductive siren, if it were so.

"It's all right, old chap," he said quietly.  "I am not going to make
any remarks, derogatory or otherwise, about Miss Keane.  I think I will
adopt your suggestion.  Let us adjourn to Mrs L'Estrange's flat.  If
one loses fifty or a hundred one may have a good time."

"You will see the most charming girl in London," cried Esmond in
enthusiastic tones.  It struck Spencer, as a peculiar phase of his
friend's detachment, that, being in love with the girl himself, he
should be so anxious to introduce her to a younger man, who might,
presumably, be his rival.

For there could be no question of rivalry between the two men, apart
from their ages.  Spencer was tall, athletic, handsome: Tommy Esmond
was--just Tommy Esmond--rotund, comical in appearance, and
insignificant.

Moreover, Spencer had other qualifications which are not without their
influence on the fair sex.  He had a considerable fortune, and he was
the next in succession to an ancient earldom.  If the Earl of
Southleigh, a widower, did not marry again, he would succeed to the
title and estates.  He was, in every sense of the term, an eligible
_parti_.

The long, weary War was drawing to its close.  The two men were dining
at the fashionable "Excelsior" and were now about half-way through their
dinner.

Spencer had the bearing of a soldier, and he would have been at the
Front long ago, but no doctor could be found who would pass him.  To all
appearance, he possessed the thews and sinews of an athlete, but the
stalwart, manly frame covered an incurably weak heart, which played him
strange tricks at times.  He was serving his country in the best way
open to him, and doing good, sound clerical work in a Government Office.

"When do you suggest we should put in an appearance at Mrs
L'Estrange's?" he asked presently.

"It will take us another half-hour to get through this abundant meal.
You will then have your coffee, and you will want a good and long cigar.
We began rather late, you will remember.  By the time you have got
through your smoke, we will make a move.  We shall then find them in
full swing."

Guy nodded, and went on with his dinner.  He was quite willing to go to
the L'Estrange flat: he had no other engagement this evening, and it
would be something to do.  But he was not greatly interested about
meeting the most beautiful girl in London.  In spite of his friend's
almost lyrical outbursts, he expected that Miss Stella Keane would prove
a very ordinary young woman.

Suddenly Tommy Esmond uttered an exclamation.  "Look, there they are,"
he whispered excitedly across the table.  "Mrs L'Estrange and her
cousin.  The man with them is Colonel Desmond, the man who won the
Victoria Cross in the Boer War."

Tommy's round face was red with pleasurable emotion.  Was there any
doubt, thought Spencer, that the little man was tremendously smitten by
the beautiful Miss Keane?  Would it result in a marriage, he wondered?
Tommy was well-off, and a person of some importance in his little social
world.  And if Miss Keane was as lovely as his fond imagination painted
her, it was quite evident that she was poor.  Penniless young girls have
before now accepted the shelter of a safe home, even when offered by
comical-looking little elderly men.

The three newcomers moved to a vacant table; Mrs L'Estrange, a woman of
middle age, dressed rather more youthfully than was quite in good taste,
their escort, a tall figure in khaki, very upright and soldierly in his
bearing, in spite of his sixty years, and last, but by no means least,
the beautiful Miss Keane.

Yes, at the first glance, the young man decided that she fully deserved
his friend's somewhat extravagant praise.  If everybody in London was
not raving over her, it was simply due to the fact that her cousin's
circle was not important, and that she had found nobody of sufficient
social influence to launch her with the necessary _cachet_.

If she had made her _debut_ at one of the great houses, stamped with the
approval of any one of London's distinguished hostesses, Society
journals would have gone into rhapsodies over her, and she would have
been one of the reigning beauties of the hour, far, far beyond the
aspirations of little Tommy Esmond.

His own special taste rather inclined towards fair women, his cousin,
Lady Nina, of whom he was very fond, being a charming specimen of that
type.  But he was no bigot in the matter of feminine beauty, and he was
prepared to admit that there were some dark women who could compare
favourably with their blonde sisters.

But Stella Keane was not very dark.  She had soft brown eyes, glossy
dark hair, and a beautiful creamy complexion, a mouth like Cupid's bow,
revealing when she smiled, teeth of a dazzling ivory.  Her figure would
have been pronounced perfect by the most critical and fastidious artist.

"What do you think of her?" asked the delighted Tommy, after he had
given his friend a decent time for his inspection.

Tommy was a man whose friends had got into the habit of smiling at him,
even when they agreed with him.  Spencer smiled at him quite as often as
any of his acquaintance, but at this moment he was perfectly grave.

"You are quite right, old man, this time," he said quietly.  "She is
really beautiful, and her carriage is splendid.  She looks like a young
Empress--or, rather, she fulfils one's idea of what a young Empress
should be."

Tommy beamed.  He drank in the words of unstinted praise like wine.  The
little blue eyes, usually devoid of expression, seemed suffused with a
soft emotion.  There was something pathetic in his devotion to this
radiant young woman who looked like a youthful Empress.

"And she is as good and sweet as she looks," he murmured in a voice that
he could not keep steady.  "When she talks to you seriously and lets you
know what she really thinks and feels, by gad, Spencer, it makes a
battered old worldling like myself feel unworthy to be in her presence.
For she has a beautiful soul and mind as well as a beautiful body."

Spencer could only look sympathetic.  Poor little Tommy, he certainly
seemed to talk like a lover.  And what did Miss Keane think of it all?
She must have more than a mere tolerance for him, or she would not have
allowed him those peeps into her mind and soul to which he alluded with
such unrestrained rapture.

It was some time before Esmond's intense gaze attracted the attention of
the party, and when it did, he was rewarded with a most affable smile
from Mrs L'Estrange, and one of quite pronounced friendliness from Miss
Keane.  The Colonel also bestowed a genial nod.

After a pause, Tommy spoke somewhat ruefully.  "I'm afraid this rather
upsets our little plans.  Mrs L'Estrange is a most conscientious diner:
she will be here, at the lowest calculation, for an hour and a half,
counting the coffee and cigarettes.  They won't be back at the flat
under a couple.  You wouldn't care to wait so long."

He looked rather wistfully at his companion.  He, for his own part,
would have waited half the night.

"Don't let us commit ourselves, old man, but await events.  We haven't
finished our dinner yet, and the service is deucedly slow.  We can put
in a lot more time.  You can pay your respects at a fitting moment, and
perhaps they will ask us to their table.  I must confess I should like
to see Miss Keane at closer quarters, and talk to her.  Although I don't
expect she will reveal as much to me as she does to you."

Tommy looked pleased again; he was very bent upon introducing Spencer to
his beautiful young friend.  It would come about presently: if not here,
in the lounge.  Already, Mrs L'Estrange had sent a few covert glances
in the direction of their table.  There was little doubt she knew who
his companion was, and would be quite pleased to number him amongst her
acquaintance.

"Has Miss Keane many admirers?  She should have," remarked Spencer
presently.  He noticed that Esmond's eyes were always turned in the
direction of that particular table.

"Not any serious ones, I fancy.  A few young fellows send her flowers,
but nothing more.  It is quite an unsuitable _menage_ for a girl of her
attractions.  The majority of the _habitues_ are middle-aged men who go
there simply to gamble.  The few young ones come for a flutter, and
disappear when they have had enough."

"Does the young lady play?"

"I have never seen her.  She has told me scores of times that she
loathes gambling.  Her father ruined himself by it.  I believe she is
really very unhappy there.  And I gather Mrs L'Estrange has not the
best of tempers, particularly when she has had bad luck."

"Hobson's choice, I expect," suggested Spencer sympathetically.  Miss
Keane was facing him, giving him ample opportunity to examine the
beautiful countenance, and it struck him that there was an underlying
expression of sadness on the perfect features, especially when in
repose.

"I fear so," was Esmond's answer.  "She is very reticent about her own
affairs, as any gentlewoman would be.  But from certain things she has
let drop, I make out her own means are very slender, and her cousin's
hospitality is a boon to her."

Half an hour passed, and Spencer lit a big cigar.  The two men chatted
on various topics.  Mrs L'Estrange and the Colonel were still doing
full justice to the excellent dishes offered them.  Miss Keane was
apparently satisfied, and sat quietly watching her companions, and
throwing in an occasional remark.

And suddenly came the loud sound of maroons.  Everybody started.  A few
seconds later the clamour and roaring of our own guns burst forth.
There was no doubt as to what was happening.  The Germans were making
one of their unwelcome visits.

"By heavens, it's a raid, and we are in the thick of it," cried Tommy
Esmond, rising excitedly.  He was a nervous little man, and his face had
grown a shade pale at the sound of the first boom.

In a few moments there was a stampede from the dining-room.  The guests
hurried as fast as they could to the basement and cellars.

Tommy, in his progress, was impeded by two burly men who were making
their way leisurely.  Spencer was a few feet in front of him, making for
the crowd that surged round the doors.  As he looked around the deserted
tables, he saw Miss Keane standing alone, her eyes almost rigid with
terror, her hands clutching convulsively at the back of the chair on
which she had been sitting.  It was evident that the Colonel had quickly
removed Mrs L'Estrange from the scene of danger, and she had been too
panic-stricken to follow them.

He crossed over to her.  "Excuse me," he said gently--"I am a friend of
Mr Esmond's.  How is it you are alone?  Did your companions desert
you?"

"Colonel Desmond took my cousin, and told me to keep close behind them.
When I got up, my limbs seemed unable to move.  I feel as if I were
paralysed."

He took her arm and put it through his.  It was evident she had been
rendered immobile by terror.

"I will take care of you," he said soothingly.  "Downstairs you will be
quite safe.  But we will let this crowd get through first."

Tommy Esmond came bustling up, all anxiety.  Truth to tell, he did not
feel over brave, but his anxiety for himself was lost in the
contemplation of her white face and stricken eyes.

Slowly, cheered by the presence of the two men, a little colour flowed
back into her cheeks, and she smiled wanly.

"I am a fearful coward," she explained.  "I go all to pieces in even the
mildest thunderstorm."

And it was in this wise, amid the crash of falling bombs, and the roar
and clamour of our own guns, that Guy Spencer made the acquaintance of
Stella Keane.

CHAPTER NINE.

They found shelter in one of the big cellars of the Restaurant, and Miss
Keane by degrees got back some of her courage.  There were about twenty
other persons in the same refuge, and she probably derived fortitude
from their temporary companionship, and common danger.  Tommy Esmond
recovered himself very quickly, and hastened to observe the conventions.

"It is a queer time and place in which to make introductions," he
remarked genially.  "But even in times of peril, one should preserve the
usages of good society.  I don't suppose you know the name of your
gallant rescuer.  Let me make you known, in a formal fashion.  Mr
Spencer--Miss Keane."

The beautiful Stella bowed her dark head, and the ghost of a smile
flitted over her still pale face.

"I know Mr Spencer very well by sight.  When I have recovered my wits,
I will thank him properly and prettily.  Perhaps he will come and see us
at my cousin's flat."

"I was bringing him on there to-night, as a matter of fact," explained
Esmond.  "But I presume all that is knocked on the head, even supposing
we get out of this disgusting hole in reasonable time.  Mrs L'Estrange
won't be in a mood to receive visitors, after this disquieting
experience, I am sure."

"I am afraid you don't know Mrs L'Estrange," replied the girl, with a
little mocking laugh.  Her tones were not yet quite steady, but she was
rapidly recovering herself.  "The card-tables were laid before we
started, and we intended to be back early.  If we get out safely from
this disgusting hole, as you call it, my cousin will resume her ordinary
pursuits, as if nothing had occurred to disturb them."

Desultory conversation, the irresponsible chatter of the drawing-room
kind, was almost impossible under the circumstances.  And although Miss
Keane did her best to assume a brave front, it was easy to see that she
was inwardly quivering.  At every roar of the guns, she shivered all
over, and her cheek alternately flushed and then grew deadly pale with
her inward terror.

"Poor child," whispered Spencer to his companion; "she must be a bundle
of nerves.  Every second, she is experiencing the pangs of death in
anticipation.  By the way, the gallant Desmond doesn't seem to have
troubled himself much about her.  If I hadn't taken her forcibly away, I
believe she would be rooted to that chair now."

Esmond shrugged his shoulders.  "Of course, a chap like Desmond doesn't
know the meaning of fear, and he can't understand the sensation in
others.  The other woman took possession of him, and dragged him away.
No doubt, he thought she was following.  Mrs L'Estrange, so far as I
can judge, would never think of anything but number one."

And as Spencer's glance stole to the fair face, he felt a strange
feeling of pity for her.  The poignant happenings of the last few
moments had revealed to him her loneliness, the tragedy of her
dependence upon others.  In a supreme moment of peril, she, who ought to
have lovers and friends by the score, was left by herself, and thrown
upon the compassion of a stranger.

An anxious half-hour passed, and then messengers came down with tidings
of a reassuring nature.  The raiders had been driven off, after
inflicting considerable damage.  Gay London was free to pursue its
natural course of pleasure.

At once the tension was relaxed.  Drooping forms resumed an erect
carriage, the roses bloomed again in the pale cheeks of the women.
There was a flutter, a stir.  They all moved away from the refuge which
had been so welcome, and now had become unbearable.

In the hall they encountered the Colonel, cool and collected, as if he
were on parade, Mrs L'Estrange fluttering and full of protestations.

"Oh, my poor Stella!  I have been distracted about you.  Why did you not
follow us?  I thought you were close behind us all the time, till we got
to one of these abominable cellars, and looked back to find you were
missing."

The Colonel pulled at his moustache a little nervously.

"I shall never forgive myself, Miss Keane, not to have assured myself
you were with us at the start.  I would have come back to search for
you, but Mrs L'Estrange was in such a nervous state I could not leave
her."  Miss Keane answered him very coldly, and to her cousin she did
not vouchsafe any reply.

"Please do not apologise.  It was a question of _sauve qui peut_.
Fortunately, I found some kind friends who took compassion on a forlorn
damsel, shaking and terror-stricken."  She turned to Mrs L'Estrange.
"Mr Esmond is, of course, an old friend.  But you do not know Mr
Spencer who got to me first."

Mrs L'Estrange was quite equal to the occasion; she extended her
perfectly-gloved hand with an air of effusive cordiality.

"A thousand thanks to you both.  My darling Stella was fortunate in
finding such protectors.  We are both terrible cowards, I don't know
which is the greater."

"I, without question," flashed out Miss Keane.  "Otherwise I should have
had the sense to scurry away like yourself.  We were both frightened
rabbits, but you could run to a place of safety while I stood
paralysed."

Mrs L'Estrange turned away the awkward thrust with a charming smile.
"I have made up my mind to one thing," she remarked with an air of
conviction.  "Never, so long as the War lasts, will I dine out of my own
home.  This night's experience has taught me a lesson.  I don't want a
second one."

At this juncture, Tommy Esmond interposed.  "I was going to bring my
friend Spencer round to you to-night.  But I suppose you feel a bit too
shattered, eh?  You would like to get home and rest."

"Oh dear, no!" replied the lady vivaciously.  "I never alter my habits
for anything or anybody.  Let us all go along at once.  I will go with
Colonel Desmond.  You and Mr Spencer can continue your charge of
Stella."  But Guy had a small duty to perform.  "I think if you will
excuse me, I will join you a little later.  I want to go round to
inquire after my uncle and cousin.  He is a very old man, and I should
like to know he is quite safe."

So it was arranged.  The others drove off to Mrs L'Estrange's flat, and
Spencer, finding he would have some time to wait for a taxi, walked to
Carlton House Terrace, where Lord Southleigh had his town house.

The footman who opened the door informed him that his lordship and Lady
Nina were still in the dining-room with a small party.  The earl had
taken it all very calmly, and his daughter, who, unlike poor Stella
Keane, was a young woman of remarkable courage, had not been disturbed
at all.

"Are they alone, Robert?"

"No, sir, two old friends of his lordship's came to dinner to-night and
are still with them.  But, of course, they will be glad to see you."

However, his duty being performed, and learning that all was
satisfactory, Spencer thought he might, as well get along to the flat.
He had been strangely attracted by the beautiful girl, whom even her
obvious terror and lack of self-control could not deprive of her charm.

"No, I won't come in.  Tell them I called round to make sure they were
all safe.  And say to her ladyship I will look in to-morrow afternoon
about tea-time."

He went into his club for a few moments to see if there were any
letters, and half an hour later was at Mrs L'Estrange's door.

She occupied the first floor of an imposing block of flats, recently
erected in one of the semi-fashionable quarters of London.  She might
not be in very affluent circumstances, as Esmond had hinted, but she
would have to pay a very handsome rent for her abode.

The door was opened by a decorous-looking butler, with the air of one
who had served in good families.  A man passed out as Spencer entered.
He was a good-looking young fellow of about twenty-five, in khaki.
Spencer knew him well by sight as the eldest son and heir of a rich
brewer.

His face did not wear a very happy expression.  It did not require a
Sherlock Holmes to surmise that his visit had been an expensive one, and
that he was hurrying away to avoid further temptation.

In the centre of a rather spacious hall, Stella Keane and Tommy Esmond
stood chatting.

She greeted the newcomer with a bright and friendly smile.  She no
longer looked pale, in fact he thought there was a slight suspicion of
rouge on the fair cheeks.  She was too good-looking to need the aid of
art, but perhaps she wanted to conceal the ravages inflicted on her
beauty by that terrible time at the "Excelsior."

"You are not very long after us.  I conclude you found your friends were
quite safe."

She had gathered from the garrulous Tommy what she had not known before,
that Spencer was next in succession to the earldom, also that Lord
Southleigh had a very pretty daughter, who was an accomplished young
sportswoman, a daring rider to hounds, an adept at golf, fishing, and
other pastimes of a strenuous nature.

She had pricked up her ears at mention of the cousin.  Artfully she
pumped Tommy as to whether there was any tender feeling between the
relatives.

But Tommy could give no information on this point.  Spencer was a very
reticent man about his private affairs, he explained.  Personally, he
should not consider him particularly susceptible to female influence.
But he had heard that the old earl, who had a shockingly weak heart, and
was likely to go off at any moment, would have viewed a marriage between
the cousins with favour.

She mused over his words.  He did not think him particularly susceptible
to female influence.  And yet she was sure there was admiration, open,
undisguised admiration, in the glances he had bestowed upon her
to-night.  He was evidently not deeply in love with his pretty sporting
cousin, or she would have been Mrs Guy Spencer before now, assuming, of
course, that she was ready to obey her father's wishes.

It was after a short silence that Miss Keane put a somewhat abrupt
question to him: "Are you fond of play, Mr Spencer?  Everybody is who
comes here."

"Not really.  I am a very lukewarm gambler.  I don't mind a little
flutter now and then, as a diversion.  I always enjoy a small gamble at
Monte Carlo, for example, but I never get carried away.  When I have
lost enough, I stop.  Nothing could induce me to stake another _sou_."

"Can you stop as easily when you are winning?  That, I fancy, is where
the self-control comes in.  But I think I am rather glad you are not one
of the infatuated ones.  I was brought up in an atmosphere of gambling."

There was a pathetic shadow in the beautiful brown eyes as she spoke.
Spencer's interest in her, a girl he had only known for a couple of
hours, quickened.  The glance he turned on her was full of sympathy,
although he did not utter a word.  It said as plainly as if he had
spoken: "Tell me more about yourself, you will find an attentive
listener."

"My father and mother were both desperate gamblers.  They staked and
lost everything they had at cards, on the race-course, at Monte Carlo.
My poor cousin, Mrs L'Estrange, has the same fever in her veins."

Now that he had invited her confidence, he was a little embarrassed by
it.  He did not know her well enough to condole with her.  By way of
relieving the tension, he uttered a few trite remarks on the subject of
gambling generally.

"Very sad when people are bitten by it to that extent.  In my small
experience, and I am only speaking of cards, I have found that, at the
end of twelve months, you leave off pretty well where you started, good
players or bad.  You lose a hundred this week, you win a hundred the
next, and so on, and so forth.  If you are a good player, you get bad
cards; if a duffer, you get good cards.  And so the bad player has a
pretty even chance with his more skilful opponent."

Miss Keane threw aside her momentary sadness, and laughed at his
scientific exposition.

"You have evidently thought it all out," she said brightly.  "But please
don't inflict these cheerful theories on my cousin.  She is a most
tragic being when she loses.  She thinks herself, and I believe is, one
of the most scientific bridge-players in England, and she cannot be
brought to understand why the duffers should have a look in."

At this juncture Tommy Esmond interposed.  It may have occurred to him
that they were wasting precious time.  They had come here for the
special purpose of gambling.

"What do you say to joining the others?  We are in the very temple of
gambling, and I know my young friend would like a little flutter."

"Certainly.  When I last peeped in, Amy looked the spirit of despair.  I
think she must have been losing heavily."

She turned to lead the way, but at that instant the door bell rang, and
she halted, in readiness to greet the visitor, whoever it might be; and
there entered a florid-looking, stout man, who advanced towards her with
effusion, and both hands outstretched.

"My dear Stella, I have been thinking of you ever since the raid began;
I know how terribly you suffer when they are on.  And I knew you were
dining out to-night.  I am rejoiced to see you safe and sound.  I came
round here the moment I could get away."  Miss Keane flushed slightly as
he took her hands and wrung them impressively to show his gratitude at
her escape from peril.  Tommy Esmond had given him a cool nod.  But she
felt Spencer's calm, critical gaze upon this ebullient expression of
young English manhood.

It was not so much what he said, as his manner of saying it.  Bounder
was written all over him, in his appearance, his manners, his gestures.

She answered him very briefly, almost curtly, as if she were
administering a cold douche.  Then the flush deepened as she turned to
Spencer.

"May I introduce my cousin, Mr Dutton?"  The florid man bowed with an
exaggerated air of cordiality.  Spencer, who had taken a violent dislike
to him from the first second he saw him, acknowledged the salutation
with chilling gravity; and Stella Keane could almost read his thoughts,
as his gaze travelled from one to the other.

How could this imperial-looking girl have such an unmitigated bounder
for a relative?  What was the mystery about her that could make a
creature like this claim kinship with her?

CHAPTER TEN.

Mrs L'Estrange was evidently a great believer in light: the electric
bulbs glowed softly, but brilliantly, over the two rooms devoted to the
service of the card-players.

On the sideboards were arranged decanters of whisky, and soda-water in
bottles and syphons.  Whether he lost or won, the gambler, triumphant or
despairing, could quaff to his success, or solace his despair.

The elderly, youthfully-dressed woman advanced towards the new visitors,
with a beaming expression of countenance.

"Mr Spencer, you will join us.  What is your favourite game?"

"Bridge," said Spencer, shortly.  He was already a bit in love with
Stella Keane, but he was by no means favourably inclined to her gushing,
elderly cousin.

He soon formed a party of four, and became absorbed, for the moment, in
the game.  Tommy Esmond was playing the same game, at a table some
distance from him.  Tommy was not supposed to be wealthy, but he
evidently had money enough to indulge in a quiet gamble now and then.

He remembered every incident of that night.  His partner was a
subordinate member of the Government, and a good sound player, lacking a
little perhaps in the qualities of initiative and rapid decision.  His
opponents were a young man in the Foreign Office, and a slender,
hawk-nosed young woman of about thirty.

All through he held abominable cards, but, truth to tell, he was not
very interested in the game.  Whether he won or lost a hundred pounds
did not interest him very greatly.

But what did interest him, to every fibre of his being, was that Stella
Keane hovered about his table.  His eyes continually sought hers, and
she did not seem to avoid his glance.  At times he was sure he could
detect a slight smile of intimacy.  After all, had he not rescued her,
half dead with fright, in the dining-room of the "Excelsior?"

Once she bent over him and whispered, her cool, fragrant breath fanning
his cheek: "You are having shocking bad luck.  You haven't held a single
decent card."

He whispered back: "What did I tell you a little time ago?  I flatter
myself I am a fairly good bridge-player, but what could one do with
those cards of mine?"

She fluttered away, with still the shadow of that intimate smile upon
her beautiful mouth, the smile that seemed to say they had only known
each other for a few hours, under romantic and dramatic circumstances,
but there was between them an affinity of spirit.

He played on steadily for over an hour, and then a halt was cried.  The
young gentleman from the Foreign Office and the hawk-nosed young woman
had scored.  Guy Spencer rose from the table, the poorer by a hundred
and fifty pounds.  He wrote his cheque with a light heart.  A hundred
and fifty pounds was not a great price to pay for the introduction to
Stella Keane.

Mrs L'Estrange came impressively towards him.

"Oh, Mr Spencer, I hope you have not lost.  If so, I fear you will
never come near me again."  His glance roved in the direction of Stella,
talking, as it appeared earnestly, to that bounder of a cousin.  There
came a steely look into his clear, resolute eyes.

"If you will allow me, I shall be delighted to come here often to see
you and Miss Keane.  I suppose I had better pick up my old friend Tommy
Esmond, if he is not too engrossed."  But when he approached Esmond,
that little rotund gentleman waved him away, in most genial fashion.

"Run away, dear boy.  It is Eclipse first, and the rest nowhere.  I am
winning hands down."  Certainly he bore the mien of a conqueror.  And
there, behind his chair, stood Stella Keane.

She welcomed Spencer with that faint, intimate smile which had already
stirred his pulses.

"I fear I brought you bad luck," she said, in her low, caressing voice.
"But to Mr Esmond I have been the harbinger of good fortune.  Are you
really going?"

"I always go when I have won enough, or lost enough.  You remember I
gave you a little homily on gambling generally, not so long ago."

She took her hand off Esmond's chair.  "Well, I will leave my good
influence behind, and look after the parting guest."

She walked leisurely with him in the direction of the hall.  It was
deserted, but the light was brilliant, as it was in every other corner
of the flat.

She held out her hand impulsively.  "Mr Spencer, I have not thanked you
properly for your kindness to me to-night.  Terror-stricken, paralysed
with fear, I should have been clinging to that chair now, if you had not
rescued me in time.  How can I thank you?"

Spencer laughed lightly.  "One would think from your excessive gratitude
that you had not experienced a great deal of kindness in your life.  And
yet that would be impossible."  She flushed a little; his gaze was
perhaps more full of admiration, of frank and open compliment than could
be justified by the briefness of their acquaintance.  And yet it only
expressed what he was inwardly thinking.

Here was a girl who had only to look at her mirror to learn she was
endowed with singular beauty.  She must also know that she combined with
her more than ordinary fairness an unusual charm of manner.

How had it come about that one with such striking qualifications should
exhibit a certain underlying sadness, as if the world had already proved
a very disappointing place?  Youth and good looks usually secure for
their owner a good time.  Girls with half her attractions could find
plenty of admirers.  What evil fate dogged her that she had to regard a
perfectly common act of kindness as something to be exceptionally
grateful for?

"I have never been petted nor spoiled, even as a child," she answered
gravely.  "My father and mother were ignorant of the duties, as they
were of the instincts, of parenthood.  And since my poor pretence of a
home was broken up, I have been a derelict and a wanderer, sometimes a
tolerated guest, rarely, I fear, a very welcome one in the houses of
other people."

"But you are happy here, surely?" he suggested.  After saying so much,
she could hardly regard the question as an impertinent one.  He longed
to hear her history.  Well, if he came and cultivated her, and let her
see how sympathetic he could be, one day she would tell him.

She shrugged her shoulders with an air of indifference.

"My cousin is peculiar in many ways, and her devotion to play is an
obsession.  We have very little in common; still, it would not be fair
to say she was difficult to get on with.  I have been with her now for
more than eighteen months, and although we have often held totally
different opinions, I cannot remember that we have ever had a real
quarrel.  And, anyway, it is a home and a shelter, and that is
something."

Not much enthusiasm here, certainly.  Mrs L'Estrange had been dismissed
with a very negative kind of faint praise.  Her excellence seemed to lie
rather in the absence of bad qualities than the possession of good ones.

And yet, he could not bring himself to believe that Miss Keane was an
ill-natured girl, or of an unresponsive temperament.  He had to admit
that his impressions of his hostess were not too favourable.

She was outwardly genial, and at times gushing.  Yet he fancied he could
read behind this plausible exterior the signs of a hard, worldly nature.
There was no softness in her glance, no tenderness in her rather hard,
staccato tones.

A girl with those glorious eyes, and mobile face, with the delicate
complexion that flushed and paled by turns, must surely be sweet and
sympathetic, and responsive to affection.  How her voice had thrilled
with emotion when she thanked him.  If she was disappointed in her
cousin, it must be the fault of the elder woman, who could not give what
was demanded by the younger and more ardent temperament.

He would have lingered longer, trying to pierce the riddle from these
disjointed remarks, but they were interrupted by Tommy Esmond, who came
bustling into the hall, flushed with victory.

"Never had such luck in my life.  Just wiped the floor with them," he
explained excitedly.  "You left your good influence behind, Miss Keane.
A few minutes sufficed for victory."

"I am very glad, but I think my powers for good must be very limited,
for I brought bad luck to your friend," was her smiling rejoinder.

He turned briskly to the young man.  "It is a perfect night, Spencer.
Shall we walk down to the Club to get a breath of fresh air, and turn in
there for a quiet smoke?"

Spencer nodded assent, and held out his hand to Miss Keane.

"Well, good-bye for the present."

"And I hope you will come and see us again soon.  Don't wait for Mr
Esmond to bring you: after our thrilling experiences of to-night, we are
more than ordinary acquaintances.  We are at home nearly every night, if
you want to gamble.  And, if you would like a little rational chat
instead, come in one afternoon to tea."

"Thanks, I will.  My card-playing fit has passed for a little time.
Once again, good-bye."

------------------------------------------------------------------------

And, as soon as they were in the street, Esmond burst in with the
question he was longing to ask.

"Well, what do you think of her?  Did I exaggerate?"

"Not in the least," answered Spencer, speaking less seriously than he
felt, he did not quite know for what reason, unless it was that with a
man of his friend's calibre, he always had a tendency to discuss things
lightly.  "No, I don't think you have exaggerated a bit this time; so
many of your swans have been geese, but this is a real swan, at last.
She is very lovely; even in her terror she looked beautiful, and she has
a peculiar, elusive charm.  She makes you want to know more of her, and
penetrate the mystery which seems to hover around her."

"I can't say I see any mystery, myself."  Esmond spoke rather sharply,
for such a good-natured little man.

"Perhaps it is too strong a word.  But I take it, you know something of
the _menage_, and can enlighten me on one point.  What is her position
there: paid companion, a passing guest, or does she share the flat with
her cousin on some sort of terms?"

It was a little time before Esmond answered.  "I have never rightly got
at that myself.  Sometimes I have thought one thing, sometimes another.
But I am pretty sure she is poor: in fact, she has admitted as much."

"Poverty is relative after all, and it depends on how she was brought
up.  She seems to dress well, and that cannot be done without money."

Yes, Esmond admitted that she was turned out well.  But he either could
not, or would not express any positive opinion upon the delicate subject
of Miss Keane's finances.

"Does she ever play?  She didn't touch a card while we were there, only
flitted about from table to table."

No, Esmond had never seen her play since he had frequented the house.
It was clear, therefore, she did not make any pocket-money out of
gambling.  He had to admit that she seemed to act as deputy hostess,
and, he believed, wrote most of her cousin's notes; in other words, made
herself useful.

All this information, such as it was, he imparted, as it seemed to
Spencer, with some reluctance.  Perhaps his keen admiration prompted him
to hide anything that served to show her in a dependent position.  And
Spencer desisted from any further cross-examination on this head.

On one point, however, he was determined to elicit a positive expression
of opinion from the cautious little man.

"What is the mystery of the bounder cousin?  You must admit he has cad
stamped all over him, his speech, his person, his gestures."

Tommy could establish no defence for the gentleman in question.  "No, he
is past criticism, I allow.  The result of some _mesalliance_, I
suppose; his mother a very common person doubtless.  But then, many
highly respectable people have skeletons like that in their cupboards."

"The mystery is that he finds his way, cousin as he may be, into any
decent house.  Mrs L'Estrange we know to be a woman of good family.
You would think she would lock and bolt the door against a creature like
that.  What is he supposed to be, if he has any profession beyond that
of his intense bounderism?"

"Something in the City, I am told," replied Esmond shortly.  "Something
connected with finance; stockbroker or something."

"It must be a shady kind of finance, if he has anything to do with it,"
growled the young man.  "To think of his claiming relationship with that
exquisite girl."

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

It would be idle to assume that a man of Guy Spencer's natural
advantages had reached the age of thirty without experiencing a few
affairs of the heart.  But he had never been deeply touched, and his
friend Tommy Esmond was right when he described him as not very
susceptible to feminine influence.

The one feeling which had lasted for some years, was a pronounced
affection for his cousin Nina.  He felt as much at home with her as he
would have done with a favourite sister, had he possessed one.  But the
regard had a warmth in it that is lacking in fraternal relations.

He knew that Lady Nina was not indifferent to him, that she allowed him
to assume a certain air of proprietorship in the disposal of dances, in
the claim to her society when he was disposed to enjoy it.  He knew also
that it was a match which would be warmly approved of by his invalid
uncle.

Without being guilty of undue vanity, he felt pretty certain that if he
proposed he would be accepted.  And once or twice he had been very near
to taking the decisive step.  He never could quite understand what it
was that made him hesitate.

The fact of his hesitation proved to himself, as well as to the young
lady concerned, that much as he might like his cousin, he was certainly
far from being deeply in love with her.

She was a pretty, winsome girl, possessing an upright, straightforward
nature, and quite attractive in a simple, frank fashion.  There was
nothing subtle or mysterious about her, you could read her like an open
book.  She was a good daughter, she was the type of girl who could not
help making a good wife.

Some day, no doubt, he would put the fateful question, and by her
acceptance be made, in conventional parlance, the happiest of men.  But
although he would know he had chosen very wisely, and look forward to a
placid kind of happiness, he was doubtful if Nina's smiles and kisses
would ever thrill him, if with her he would ever learn the meaning of
real love.

He was not by any means sure that he was capable of very strong
attachment.  He had indulged in a few fancies, but they had only
exercised a very small portion of his thoughts.  Up to the present, he
had certainly not experienced the wild ecstasies, the mingled joy and
pain of the true lover.

For the first time in his life, he had been seriously perturbed by the
advent of Stella Keane.  He had not fashioned in his imagination any
particular ideal, any special type of woman who would make to him an
irresistible appeal.  But, if she had been Lady Nina, if he had met her
in his own world, he would have owned at once this was the girl for whom
he had been waiting.

Her image pursued him persistently in his waking and his leisure hours.
He could recall every word she had spoken during the short time they had
spent together.  He could see her a dozen times a day standing in the
"Excelsior" dining-room, paralysed with terror.

He remembered the break in her voice, the mist in her beautiful eyes,
when she had thanked him.  And ever and again, he longed to fathom the
mystery of her loneliness, the cause of that sadness that was always
lurking underneath.

Was it wise to pursue the acquaintance, with the pretty certain result
of intensifying the interest he already felt in her?  He had no liking
for Mrs L'Estrange, a woman merely on the fringe of his world, or her
gambling circle.  If he wanted to lose or win money, there were plenty
of other houses where he could indulge his fancy.

And he knew nothing of Miss Keane's antecedents.  The only thing he did
know was that she had a cousin who was obviously a bounder of the first
water.  Tommy Esmond knew nothing about her either, or, if he did know,
would not tell.

For three days he wavered, one moment eager to rush off to the flat, the
next determining that it would be better not to renew the brief
acquaintance.

On the fourth day, his impulse conquered his prudence.  He told himself
soothingly that his visit was due to curiosity, that he merely wanted to
penetrate the mystery of her loneliness, her unprotected position.

The bounder cousin was coming out as he entered.  Mr Dutton nodded
affably to him with a greasy and familiar smile.  Spencer acknowledged
him in the coolest fashion compatible with bare civility.  Why were
there people, he wondered, whom you instinctively wanted to kick, for no
apparently sufficient reason?

Miss Keane was alone.  Mrs L'Estrange, she explained, was in bed with a
racking headache.  She had lost heavily the night before, and this was
the usual penalty she paid for losing.

"Hardly worth the candle, is it?" he said lightly, as he took his cup of
tea from her.  A slight frown crossed his brow as he observed the empty
cup of "the bounder" on the table.  Did he come here often? was his
thought.  Perhaps he was in love with her.  But it was surely beyond the
limits of possibility that she could ever return the affection of such a
creature.

He would see what he could get out of her.  "I met your cousin as I came
in.  I suppose he is a frequent visitor?"

She did not look in the least conscious or embarrassed by the question.
"Oh yes, he comes very often.  He is about the only one of my relatives
I have any acquaintance with.  My father's mode of life estranged all
the others."

Spencer thought it would have been a good thing if Mr Dutton had been
as sensitive to the disqualifications of the late Mr Keane as the rest
of her connections.  But, of course, he could not say so.

"He is not in the least like you."  Then, after a pause, he added
boldly, and perhaps a little rudely: "I should never have dreamed you
were related."

She quite understood what he meant, and there was a lurking humour in
her smile, as she answered:

"Poor old George, he is a good sort, but quite a rough diamond.  His
mother married a self-made man, of course, for his money.  That may
account for a great deal you have noticed."  Spencer had the grace to
look confused.  It was evident he had conveyed his private impression of
Mr Dutton very distinctly to her clear young vision.  But she did not
seem offended, only slightly amused, at the poor figure cut by Cousin
George in the estimation of a person in a superior world.

Anyway, that little mystery was explained.  There was nothing unusual in
poor gentlewomen marrying self-made men, for the sake of money.  The
noble family of Southleigh had many such _mesalliances_ amongst its
aristocratic records.

But it was a relief to find Stella herself under no delusions concerning
the young man in question.  He did not think it possible she could, but
as diplomatically as was possible, she admitted that Mr Dutton was not
what is, technically called, a gentleman.

"He is the only relative with whom I am on speaking terms," she added,
after a pause, "for reasons of which I have already given you a hint.
And I think I have grown rather to look forward to his visits."

Her observant eyes noticed a quick stiffening in his manner.  She could
guess his thoughts.  How was it possible for a refined young woman to
ever look forward to the visits of a person like Mr Dutton, cousin
though he might be?

"You, of course, have heaps of relations; you can pick and choose," she
went on, as if eager to explain to his fastidious taste her toleration
of a man, so obviously the denizen of an inferior world.  "You cannot, I
daresay, imagine the loneliness of a girl of my age, debarred, through
no fault of her own, from the society of her own kith and kin."  Here
was an opportunity to engage her in personal talk.  He had not hoped she
would take him into her confidence on his first visit.

He leaned forward, and there was an eager note in his voice.  "I formed
an idea of you in the first few moments of our acquaintance, that you
were not happy, that you were, in a sense, isolated, and that you had
known more of sorrow than joy in your short life."

She mused a moment, and then answered him in grave tones:

"You were quite right.  I feel it is the impression I must convey to
either friend or stranger, an impression I shall always convey.  For, if
a great and overwhelming happiness were to come to me to-morrow, I could
never forget the past years of sadness."

"But, surely, you must have some happy memories?  There were gleams of
brightness in your childhood?"

"No," she said, and there was a fierce vehemence in her voice.  "They
were the most miserable--an indifferent mother, a careless father, a
roof and a shelter, food and clothing sufficient, if not in abundance,
but no home, as it is understood by more fortunate children."

"And when that home, or the wretched pretence of it, was broken up, you
were thrown upon the mercy of the world," he questioned, "with no
kindred, no friends to stretch out a helping hand?"

"Our relatives had long before ceased to take any interest in the
daughter of a ruined gambler.  I was thrown, in a certain sense, on the
mercy of the world.  But for a small pittance, which my father could not
deprive me of, I should have starved, for he left nothing behind him but
debts."

She was not, then, absolutely penniless.  Something had been saved from
the wreck.  He wondered if Esmond knew this.  And yet, if she told a
comparative stranger this at their first real interview, she must have
told him, who seemed to be on the footing of a friend of the house.

"I had no real friends," she went on; "but in the course of a wandering
life--when my father owed too much in one place he removed to another--I
had picked up a few acquaintances.  With these I made a home, on and
off, for longer or shorter periods."

"And you have come to anchor here with Mrs L'Estrange, who is your
cousin, one of the few relatives who did not visit the sins of the
fathers on the children."

Her voice was a little scornful.  "The cousinship is a very distant one.
And, as she is an inveterate gambler herself, but more lucky than my
father, she could hardly look upon gambling in another as a deadly sin."
He nodded his head in agreement.  He did not want to talk himself, for
fear he should interrupt the flow of her reminiscences; she was
evidently in a confidential mood this afternoon.

"I saw her a few times when quite a child, and then she vanished like
the others.  A couple of years ago, we met in Devonshire at the house of
a mutual acquaintance.  She seemed to take a fancy to me.  In the end,
she proposed that I should, for the present, make my home with her.  She
has only one interest in life, _play_.  She is a very lazy woman.  She
hates writing the briefest note, and housekeeping is abhorrent to her.
I attend to her correspondence, I order the dinner and look after the
servants.  I am not exactly eating the bread of charity," she concluded
with a little mirthless laugh, "because I give some work in exchange for
my food.  My own little pittance provides me with clothes."

He wondered what the little pittance represented in annual hard cash.
She was dressed quietly but in good taste, and he was judge enough of
woman's apparel to know that the material of her dress was expensive.
On her slender fingers glittered a few valuable rings, heirlooms
probably saved from the clutches of the gambling father.  She did not
convey the impression of poverty, but perhaps she was clever, and kne

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