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The Yellow House; Master of Men

by E. Phillips Oppenheim · English · Gutenberg #41402 · 365,163 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Yellow House; Master of Men

Author: E. Phillips Oppenheim


        
Release date: November 18, 2012 [eBook #41402]
                Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YELLOW HOUSE; MASTER OF MEN ***

Transcriber’s Note

  Obvious typographical and printer’s errors have been corrected.
  Punctuation marks where missing have silently been supplied.
  Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been retained as in
  the original except where noted otherwise.

  A complete list of corrections can be found at the end of this
  e-text.




[Illustration: THE YELLOW HOUSE]




                     THE
                 YELLOW HOUSE

                MASTER OF MEN

                      BY

            E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM

                  AUTHOR OF

   “THE MISCHIEF-MAKER” “BERENICE” “HAVOC”
      “THE LOST LEADER” “THE MALEFACTOR”

                [Illustration]

                  VOLUME ONE

                   NEW YORK
             P. F. COLLIER & SON




       Copyright 1908
   By C. H. Doscher & Co.

       Copyright 1912
   By P. F. Collier & Son




THE YELLOW HOUSE




CHAPTER I

THE YELLOW HOUSE


Positively every one, with two unimportant exceptions, had called
upon us. The Countess had driven over from Sysington Hall, twelve
miles away, with two anæmic-looking daughters, who had gushed
over our late roses and the cedar trees which shaded the lawn. The
Holgates of Holgate Brand and Lady Naselton of Naselton had presented
themselves on the same afternoon. Many others had come in their train,
for what these very great people did the neighborhood was bound
to endorse. There was a little veiled anxiety, a few elaborately
careless questions as to the spelling of our name; but when my father
had mentioned the second “f,” and made a casual allusion to the
Warwickshire Ffolliots--with whom we were not indeed on speaking
terms, but who were certainly our cousins--a distinct breath of
relief was followed by a gush of mild cordiality. There were wrong
Ffolliots and right Ffolliots. We belonged to the latter. No one
had made a mistake or compromised themselves in any way by leaving
their cards upon a small country vicar and his daughters. And earlier
callers went away and spread a favorable report. Those who were
hesitating, hesitated no longer. Our little carriage drive, very
steep and very hard to turn in, was cut up with the wheels of many
chariots. The whole county within a reasonable distance came, with two
exceptions. And those two exceptions were Mr. Bruce Deville of Deville
Court, on the borders of whose domain our little church and vicarage
lay, and the woman who dwelt in the “Yellow House.”

I asked Lady Naselton about both of them one afternoon. Her ladyship,
by the way, had been one of our earliest visitors, and had evinced
from the first a strong desire to become my sponsor in Northshire
society. She was middle-aged, bright, and modern--a thorough little
cosmopolitan, with a marked absence in her deportment and mannerisms
of anything bucolic or rural. I enjoyed talking to her, and this was
her third visit. We were sitting out upon the lawn, drinking afternoon
tea, and making the best of a brilliant October afternoon. A yellow
gleam from the front of that oddly-shaped little house, flashing
through the dark pine trees, brought it into my mind. It was only from
one particular point in our garden that any part of it was visible at
all. It chanced that I occupied that particular spot, and during a
lull in the conversation it occurred to me to ask a question.

“By the by,” I remarked, “our nearest neighbors have not yet been to
see us?”

“Your nearest neighbors!” Lady Naselton repeated. “Whom do you mean?
There are a heap of us who live close together.”

“I mean the woman who lives at that little shanty through the
plantation,” I answered, inclining my head towards it. “It is a woman
who lives there, isn’t it? I fancy that some one told me so, although
I have not seen anything of her. Perhaps I was mistaken.”

Lady Naselton lifted both her hands. There was positive relish in her
tone when she spoke. The symptoms were unmistakable. Why do the nicest
women enjoy shocking and being shocked?

I could see that she was experiencing positive pleasure from my
question.

“My dear Miss Ffolliot!” she exclaimed. “My dear girl, don’t you
really know anything about her? Hasn’t anybody told you anything?”

I stifled an imaginary yawn in faint protest against her unbecoming
exhilaration. I have not many weaknesses, but I hate scandal and
scandal-mongering. All the same I was interested, although I did not
care to gratify Lady Naselton by showing it.

“Remember, that I have only been here a week or two,” I remarked;
“certainly not long enough to have mastered the annals of the
neighborhood. I have not asked any one before. No one has ever
mentioned her name. Is there really anything worth hearing?”

Lady Naselton looked down and brushed some crumbs from her lap
with a delicately gloved hand. She was evidently an epicure in
story-telling. She was trying to make it last out as long as possible.

“Well, my dear girl, I should not like to tell you all that people
say,” she began, slowly. “At the same time, as you are a stranger to
the neighborhood, and, of course, know nothing about anybody, it is
only my duty to put you on your guard. I do not know the particulars
myself. I have never inquired. But she is not considered to be at all
a proper person. There is something very dubious about her record.”

“How deliciously vague!” I remarked, with involuntary irony. “Don’t
you know anything more definite?”

“I find no pleasure in inquiring into such matters,” Lady Naselton
replied a little stiffly. “The opinion of those who are better able to
judge is sufficient for me.”

“One must inquire, or one cannot, or should not, judge,” I said. “I
suppose that there’s something which she does, or does not, do?”

“It is something connected with her past life, I believe,” Lady
Naselton remarked.

“Her past life? Isn’t it supposed to be rather interesting nowadays to
have a past?”

I began to doubt whether, after all, I was going to be much of a
favorite with Lady Naselton. She set her tea cup down, and looked at
me with distinct disapproval in her face.

“Amongst a certain class of people it may be,” she answered, severely;
“not”--with emphasis--”in Northshire society; not in any part of
it with which I am acquainted, I am glad to say. You must allow me
to add, Miss Ffolliot, that I am somewhat surprised to hear you, a
clergyman’s daughter, express yourself so.”

A clergyman’s daughter. I was continually forgetting that. And, after
all, it is much more comfortable to keep one’s self in accord with
one’s environment. I pulled myself together, and explained with much
surprise--

“I only asked a question, Lady Naselton. I wasn’t expressing my
own views. I think that women with a past are very horrid. One is
so utterly tired of them in fiction that one does not want to meet
them in real life. We won’t talk of this at all. I’m not really
interested. Tell me about Mr. Deville instead.”

Now this was a little unkind of me, for I knew quite well that Lady
Naselton was brimming with eagerness to tell me a good deal about this
undesirable neighbor of ours. As it happened, however, my question
afforded her a fresh opportunity, of which she took advantage.

“To tell you of one, unfortunately, is to tell you of the other,” she
said, significantly.

I decided to humor her, and raised my eyebrows in the most approved
fashion.

“How shocking!” I exclaimed.

I was received in favor again. My reception of the innuendo had been
all that could be desired.

“We consider it a most flagrant case,” she continued, leaning over
towards me confidentially. “I am thankful to say that of the two Bruce
Deville is the least blamed.”

“Isn’t that generally the case?” I murmured. “It is the woman who has
to bear the burden.”

“And it is generally the woman who deserves it,” Lady Naselton
answered, promptly. “It is my experience, at any rate, and I have
seen a good deal more of life than you. In the present case there
can be no doubt about it. The woman actually followed him down here,
and took up her quarters almost at his gates whilst he was away. She
was there with scarcely a stick of furniture in the house for nearly
a month. When he came back, would you believe it, the house was
furnished from top to bottom with things from the Court. The carts
were going backwards and forwards for days. She even went up and
selected some of the furniture herself. I saw it all going on with my
own eyes. Oh! it was the most barefaced thing!”

“Tell me about Mr. Deville,” I interrupted hastily. “I have not seen
him yet. What is he like?”

“Bruce Deville,” she murmured to herself, thoughtfully. Then she was
silent for a moment. Something that was almost like a gleam of sorrow
passed across her face. Her whole expression was changed.

“Bruce Deville is my godson,” she said, slowly. “I suppose that is why
I feel his failure the more keenly.”

“He is a failure, then?” I asked. “Some one was talking about him
yesterday, but I only heard fragments here and there. Isn’t he very
quixotic, and very poor?”

“Poor!” She repeated the word with peculiar emphasis. Then she rose
from her chair, and walked a step or two towards the low fence which
enclosed our lawn.

“Come here, child.”

I stood by her side looking across the sunlit stretch of meadows and
undulating land. A very pretty landscape it was. The farm houses, with
their grey fronts and red-tiled roofs, and snug rickyards close at
hand, had a particularly prosperous and picturesque appearance. The
land was mostly arable and well-cultivated; field after field of
deep golden stubble, and rich, dark soil stretched away to the dim
horizon. She held out her hand.

“You see!” she exclaimed. “Does that look like a poor man’s
possessions?”

I shook my head.

“Every village there from east to west, every stone and acre
belongs to Bruce Deville, and has belonged to the Devilles for
centuries. There is no other land owner on that side of the
country. He is lord of the Manor of a dozen parishes!”

I was puzzled.

“Then why do people call him so miserably poor?” I asked. “They say
that the Court is virtually closed, and that he lives the life of a
hermit, almost without servants even.”

“He either is or says he is as poor as Job,” Lady Naselton continued,
resuming her seat. “He is a most extraordinary man. He was away from
the country altogether for twelve years, wandering about, without any
regular scheme of travel, all over the world. People met him or heard
of him in all manner of queer and out-of-the-way places. Then he lived
in London for a time, and spent a fortune--I don’t know that I ought
to say anything about that to you--on Marie Leparte, the singer. One
day he came back suddenly to the Court, which had been shut up all
this time, and took up his quarters there in a single room with an old
servant. He gave out that he was ruined, and that he desired neither
to visit nor to be visited. He behaved in such an extraordinary manner
to those who did go to see him, that they are not likely to repeat the
attempt.”

“How long has he been living there?” I asked.

“About four years.”

“I suppose that you see him sometimes?”

She shook her head sadly.

“Very seldom. Not oftener than I can help. He is changed so
dreadfully.”

“Tell me what he is like.”

“Like! Do you mean personally? He is ugly--hideously ugly--especially
now that he takes so little care of himself. He goes about in clothes
my coachman would decline to wear, and he slouches. I think a man who
slouches is detestable.”

“So do I,” I assented. “What a very unpleasant neighbor to have!”

“Oh, that isn’t the worst,” she continued. “He is impossible in every
way. He has a brutal temper and a brutal manner. No one could possibly
take him for a gentleman. He is cruel and reckless, and he does
nothing but loaf. There are things said about him which I should not
dare to repeat to you. I feel it deeply; but it is no use disguising
the fact. He is an utter and miserable failure.”

“On the whole,” I remarked, resuming my chair, “it is perhaps well
that he has not called. I might not like him.”

Lady Naselton’s hard little laugh rang out upon the afternoon
stillness. The idea seemed to afford her infinite but bitter
amusement.

“Like him, my dear! Why, he would frighten you to death. Fancy any
one liking Bruce Deville! Wait until you’ve seen him. He is the most
perfect prototype of degeneration in a great family I have ever come
in contact with. The worst of it, too, that he was such a charming
boy. Why, isn’t that Mr. Ffolliot coming?” she added, in an altogether
different tone. “I am so glad that I am going to meet him at last.”

I looked up and followed her smiling gaze. My father was coming
noiselessly across the smooth, green turf towards us. We both of
us watched him for a moment, Lady Naselton with a faint look of
surprise in her scrutiny. My father was not in the least of the type
of the ordinary country clergyman. He was tall and slim, and carried
himself with an air of calm distinction. His clean-shaven face was
distinctly of the intellectual cast. His hair was only slightly grey,
was parted in the middle and vigorously mobile and benevolent. His
person in every way was faultless and immaculate, from the tips of
his long fingers to the spotless white cravat which alone redeemed
the sombreness of his clerical attire. I murmured a few words of
introduction, and he bowed over Lady Naselton’s hand with a smile
which women generally found entrancing.

“I am very glad to meet Lady Naselton,” he said, courteously. “My
daughter has told me so much of your kindness to her.”

Lady Naselton made some pleasing and conventional reply. My father
turned to me.

“Have you some tea, Kate?” he asked. “I have been making a long round
of calls, and it is a little exhausting.”

“I have some, but it is not fit to drink,” I answered, striking the
gong. “Mary shall make some fresh. It will only take a minute or two.”

My father acquiesced silently. He was fastidious in small things, and
I knew better than to offer him cold tea. He drew up a basket-chair to
us and sat down with a little sigh of relief.

“You have commenced your work here early,” Lady Naselton remarked. “Do
you think that you are going to like these parts?”

“The country is delightful,” my father answered readily. “As to the
work--well, I scarcely know. Rural existence is such a change after
the nervous life of a great city.”

“You had a large parish at Belchester, had you not?” Lady Naselton
asked.

“A very large one,” he answered. “I am fond of work. I have always
been used to large parishes.”

And two curates, I reflected silently. Lady Naselton was looking
sympathetic.

“You will find plenty to do here, I believe,” she remarked. “The
schools are in a most backward condition. My husband says that unless
there is a great change in them very soon we shall be having the
School Board.”

“We must try and prevent that,” my father said, gravely. “Of course
I have to remember that I am only curate-in-charge here, but still I
shall do what I can. My youngest daughter Alice is a great assistance
to me in such matters. By the by, where is Alice?” he added, turning
to me.

“She is in the village somewhere,” I answered. “She will not be home
for tea. She has gone to see an old woman--to read to her, I think.”

My father sighed gently. “Alice is a good girl,” he said.

I bore the implied reproof complacently. My father sipped his tea for
a moment or two, and then asked a question.

“You were speaking of some one when I crossed the lawn?” he
remarked. “Some one not altogether a desirable neighbor I should
imagine from Lady Naselton’s tone. Would it be a breach of
confidence----”

“Oh, no,” I interrupted. “Lady Naselton was telling me all about the
man that lives at the Court--our neighbor, Mr. Bruce Deville.”

My father set his cup down abruptly. His long walk had evidently tired
him. He was more than ordinarily pale. He moved his basket-chair a few
feet further back into the deep, cool shade of the cedar tree. For a
second or two his eyes were half closed and his eyelids quivered.

“Mr. Bruce Deville,” he repeated, softly--”Bruce Deville! It is
somewhat an uncommon name.”

“And somewhat an uncommon man!” Lady Naselton remarked, dryly. “A
terrible black sheep he is, Mr. Ffolliot. If you really want to
achieve a triumph you should attempt his conversion. You should try
and get him to come to church. Fancy Bruce Deville in church! The
walls would crack and the windows fall in!”

“My predecessor was perhaps not on good terms with him,” my father
suggested, softly. “I have known so many unfortunate cases in which
the squire of the parish and the vicar have not been able to hit it
off.”

Lady Naselton shook her head. She had risen to her feet, and was
holding out a delicately gloved hand.

“No, it is not that,” she said. “No one could hit it off with
Bruce Deville. I was fond of him once; but I am afraid that he is
a very bad lot. I should advise you to give him as wide a berth as
possible. Listen. Was that actually six o’clock? I must go this
second. Come over and see me soon, won’t you, Miss Ffolliot, and bring
your father? I will send a carriage for you any day you like. It is
such an awful pull up to Naselton. Goodbye.”

She was gone with a good deal of silken rustle, and a faint emission
of perfume from her trailing skirt. Notwithstanding his fatigue, my
father accompanied her across the lawn, and handed her into her pony
carriage. He remained several minutes talking to her earnestly after
she had taken her seat and gathered up the reins, and it seemed to me
that he had dropped his voice almost to a whisper. Although I was but
a few paces off I could hear nothing of what they were saying. When at
last the carriage drove off and he came back to me, he was thoughtful,
and there was a dark shade upon his face. He sat quite still for
several moments without speaking. Then he looked up at me abruptly.

“If Lady Naselton’s description of our neighbor is at all correct,” he
remarked, “he must be a perfect ogre.”

I nodded.

“One would imagine so. He is her godson, but she can find nothing but
evil to say of him.”

“Under which circumstances it would be as well for us--for you girls
especially--to carefully avoid him,” my father continued, keeping his
clear, grey eyes steadily fixed upon my face. “Don’t you agree with
me?”

“Most decidedly I do,” I answered.

But, curiously enough, notwithstanding his evil reputation--perhaps
because of it--I was already beginning to feel a certain amount of
unaccountable interest in Mr. Bruce Deville.




CHAPTER II

ON THE MOOR


After tea my father went to his study, for it was late in the week,
and he was a most conscientious writer of sermons. I read for an
hour, and then, tired alike of my book and my own company, I strolled
up and down the drive. This restlessness was one of my greatest
troubles. When the fit came I could neither work nor read nor think
connectedly. It was a phase of incipient dissatisfaction with life,
morbid, but inevitable. At the end of the drive nearest the road, I
met Alice, my youngest sister, walking briskly with a book under her
arm, and a quiet smile upon her homely face. I watched her coming
towards me, and I almost envied her. What a comfort to be blessed with
a placid disposition and an optimistic frame of mind!

“Well, you look as though you had been enjoying yourself,” I remarked,
placing myself in her way.

“So I have--after a fashion,” she answered, good humoredly. “Are you
wise to be without a hat, Kate? To look at your airy attire one would
imagine that it was summer instead of autumn. Come back into the house
with me.”

I laughed at her in contempt. There was a difference indeed between my
muslin gown and the plain black skirt and jacket, powdered with dust,
which was Alice’s usual costume.

“Have you ever known me to catch cold through wearing thin clothes or
going without a hat?” I asked. “I am tired of being indoors. There
have been people here all the afternoon. I wonder that your conscience
allows you to shirk your part of the duty and leave all the tiresome
entertaining to be done by me!”

She looked at me with wide-opened eyes and a concerned face. Alice was
always so painfully literal.

“Why, I thought that you liked it!” she exclaimed. I was in an evil
mood, and I determined to shock her. It was never a difficult task.

“So I do sometimes,” I answered; “but to-day my callers have
been all women, winding up with an hour and a half of Lady
Naselton. One gets so tired of one’s own sex! Not a single man all the
afternoon. Somebody else’s husband to pass the bread and butter would
have been a godsend!”

Alice pursed up her lips, and turned her head away with a look of
displeasure.

“I am surprised to hear you talk like that, Kate,” she said,
quietly. “Do you think that it is quite good taste?”

“Be off, you little goose!” I called after her as she passed on
towards the house with quickened step and rigid head. The little sober
figure turned the bend and disappeared without looking around. She was
the perfect type of a clergyman’s daughter--studiously conventional,
unremittingly proper, inevitably a little priggish. She was the right
person in the right place. She had the supreme good fortune to be
in accord with her environment. As for me, I was a veritable black
sheep. I looked after her and sighed.

I had no desire to go in; on the other hand, there was nothing to
stay out for. I hesitated for a moment, and then strolled on to the
end of the avenue. A change in the weather seemed imminent. A grey,
murky twilight had followed the afternoon of brilliant sunshine, and a
low south wind was moaning amongst the Norwegian firs. I leaned over
the gate with my face turned towards the great indistinct front of
Deville Court. There was nothing to look at. The trees had taken to
themselves fantastic shapes, little wreaths of white mist were rising
from the hollows of the park. The landscape was grey, colorless,
monotonous. My whole life was like that, I thought, with a sudden
despondent chill. The lives of most girls must be unless they are
domestic. In our little family Alice absorbed the domesticity. There
was not one shred of it in my disposition.

I realized with a start that I was becoming morbid, and turned from
the gate towards the house. Suddenly I heard an unexpected sound--the
sound of voices close at hand. I stopped short and half turned
round. A deep voice rang out upon the still, damp air--

“Get over, Madam! Get over, Marvel!”

There was the sound of the cracking of a whip and the soft patter of
dogs’ feet as they came along the lane below--a narrow thoroughfare
which was bounded on one side by our wall and on the other by the open
stretch of park at the head of which stood Deville Court. There must
have been quite twenty of them, all of the same breed--beagles--and
amongst them two people were walking, a man and a woman. The man was
nearest to me, and I could see him more distinctly. He was tall and
very broad, with a ragged beard and long hair. He wore no collar, and
there was a great rent in his shabby shooting coat. Of his features I
could see nothing. He wore knickerbockers, and stockings, and thick
shoes. He was by no means an ordinary looking person, but he was
certainly not prepossessing. The most favorable thing about him was
his carriage, which was upright and easy, but even that was in a
measure spoiled by a distinct suggestion of surliness. The woman
by his side I could only see very indistinctly. She was slim, and
wore some sort of a plain tailor gown, but she did not appear to be
young. As they came nearer to me, I slipped from the drive on to the
verge of the shrubbery, standing for a moment in the shadow of a tall
laurel bush. I was not seen, but I could hear their voices. The woman
was speaking.

“A new vicar, or curate-in-charge, here, isn’t there, Bruce? I fancy I
heard that one was expected.”

A sullen, impatient growl came from her side.

“Ay, some fellow with a daughter, Morris was telling me. The parson
was bound to come, I suppose, but what the mischief does he want with
a daughter?”

A little laugh from the woman--a pleasant, musical laugh.

“Daughters, I believe--I heard some one say that there were two. What
a misogynist you are getting! Why shouldn’t the man have daughters if
he likes? I really believe that there are two of them.”

There was a contemptuous snort, and a moment’s silence. They were
exactly opposite to me now, but the hedge and the shadow of the
laurels beneath which I was standing completely shielded me from
observation. The man’s huge form stood out with almost startling
distinctness against the grey sky. He was lashing the thistles by the
side of the road with his long whip.

“Maybe!” he growled. “I’ve seen but one--a pale-faced, black-haired
chit.”

I smothered a laugh. I was the pale-faced, black-haired chit, but it
was scarcely a polite way of alluding to me, Mr. Bruce Deville. When
they had gone by I leaned over the gate again, and watched them
vanish amongst the shadows. The sound of their voices came to me
indistinctly; but I could hear the deep bass of the man as he slung
some scornful exclamation out upon the moist air. His great figure,
looming unnaturally large through the misty twilight, was the last to
vanish. It was my first glimpse of Mr. Bruce Deville of Deville Court.

I turned round with a terrified start. Almost at my side some heavy
body had fallen to the ground with a faint groan. A single step, and
I was bending over the prostrate form of a man. I caught his hand and
gazed into his face with horrified eyes. It was my father. He must
have been within a yard of me when he fell.

His eyes were half closed, and his hands were cold. Gathering up my
skirts in my hand, I ran swiftly across the lawn into the house.

I met Alice in the hall. “Get some brandy!” I cried,
breathlessly. “Father is ill--out in the garden! Quick!”

She brought it in a moment. Together we hurried back to where I had
left him. He had not moved. His cheeks were ghastly pale, and his eyes
were still closed. I felt his pulse and his heart, and unfastened his
collar.

“There is nothing serious the matter--at least I think not,” I
whispered to Alice. “It is only a fainting fit.”

I rubbed his hands, and we forced some brandy between his
lips. Presently he opened his eyes, and raised his head a little,
looking half fearfully around.

“It was her voice,” he whispered, hoarsely. “It came to me through
the shadows! Where is she? What have you done with her? There was a
rustling of the leaves--and then I heard her speak!”

“There is no one here but Alice and myself,” I said, bending over
him. “You must have been fancying things. Are you better?”

“Better!” He looked up at both of us, and the light came back into his
face.

“Ah! I see! I must have fainted!” he exclaimed. “I remember the study
was close, and I came to get cool. Yet, I thought--I thought----”

I held out my arm, and he staggered up. He was still white and shaken,
but evidently his memory was returning.

“I remember it was close in the study,” he said--”very close; I was
tired too. I must have walked too far. I don’t like it though. I must
see a doctor; I must certainly see a doctor!”

Alice bent over him full of sympathy, and he took her arm. I walked
behind him in silence. A curious thought had taken possession of me. I
could not get rid of the impression of my father’s first words, and
his white, terrified face. Was it indeed a wild fancy of his, or had
he really heard this voice which had stirred him so deeply? I tried
to laugh at the idea. I could not. His cry was so natural, his terror
so apparent! He had heard a voice. He had been stricken with a sudden
terror. Whose was the voice--whence his fear of it? I watched him
leaning slightly upon Alice’s arm, and walking on slowly in front
of me towards the house. Already he was better. His features had
reassumed their customary air of delicate and reserved strength. I
looked at him with new and curious eyes. For the first time I wondered
whether there might be another world, or the ashes of an old one
beneath that grey, impenetrable mask.




CHAPTER III

MR. BRUCE DEVILLE


My father’s first sermon was a great success. As usual, it was
polished, eloquent, and simple, and withal original. He preached
without manuscript, almost without notes, and he took particular
pains to keep within the comprehension of his tiny congregation. Lady
Naselton, who waited for me in the aisle, whispered her warm approval.

“Whatever induced your father to come to such an out-of-the-way
hole as this?” she exclaimed, as we passed through the porch into
the fresh, sunlit air. “Why, he is an orator! He should preach at
cathedrals! I never heard any one whose style I like better. But all
the same it is a pity to think of such a sermon being preached to such
a congregation. Don’t you think so yourself?”

I agreed with her heartily.

“I wonder that you girls let him come here and bury himself, with his
talents,” she continued.

“I had not much to do with it,” I reminded her. “You forget that I
have lived abroad all my life; I really have only been home for about
eight or nine months.”

“Well, I should have thought that your sister would have been more
ambitious for him,” she declared. “However, it’s not my business,
of course. Since you are here, I shall insist, positively insist,
upon coming every Sunday. My husband says that it is such a drag
for the horses. Men have such ridiculous ideas where horses are
concerned. I am sure that they take more care of them than they do of
their wives. Come and have tea with me to-morrow, will you?”

“If I can,” I promised. “It all depends upon what Providence has in
store for me in the shape of callers.”

“There is no one left to call,” Lady Naselton declared, with her foot
upon the carriage step. “I looked through your card plate the other
day whilst I was waiting for you. You will be left in peace for a
little while now.”

“You forget our neighbor,” I answered, laughing. “He has not called
yet, and I mean him to.”

Lady Naselton leaned back amongst the soft cushions of her barouche,
and smiled a pitying smile at me.

“You need not wait for him, at any rate,” she said. “If you do you
will suffer for the want of fresh air.”

The carriage drove off, and I skirted the church yard, and made my
way round to the Vicarage gate. Away across the park I could see a
huge knickerbockered figure leaning over a gate, with his back to
me, smoking a pipe. It was not a graceful attitude, nor was it a
particularly reputable way of spending a Sunday morning.

I was reminded of him again as I walked up the path towards the
house. A few yards from our dining room window a dog was lying upon a
flower bed edge. As I approached, it limped up, whining, and looked at
me with piteous brown eyes. I recognized the breed at once. It was a
beagle--one of Mr. Deville’s without a doubt. It lay at my feet with
its front paw stretched out, and when I stooped down to pat it, it
wagged its tail feebly, but made no effort to rise. Evidently its leg
was broken.

I fetched some lint from the house, and commenced to bind up the limb
as carefully as possible. The dog lay quite still, whining and licking
my hand every now and then. Just as I was finishing off the bandage
I became conscious that some one was approaching the garden--a firm,
heavy tread was crossing the lane. In a moment or two a gruff voice
sounded almost at my elbow.

“I beg pardon, but I think one of my dogs is here.”

The words were civil enough, but the tone was brusque and repellant. I
looked round without removing my hands from the lint. Our neighbor’s
appearance was certainly not encouraging. His great frame was
carelessly clad in a very old shooting suit, which once might
have been of good cut and style, but was now only fit for the rag
dealer. He wore a grey flannel shirt with a turn-down collar of the
same material. His face, whatever its natural expression might have
been, was disfigured just then with a dark, almost a ferocious,
scowl. His hand was raised, as though unwillingly, to his cap, and a
pair of piercing grey eyes were flashing down upon me from beneath his
heavily marked eyebrows. He stood frowning down from his great height,
a singularly powerful and forbidding object.

I resumed my task.

“No doubt it is your dog!” I said, calmly. “But you must wait until
I have finished the bandage. You should take better care of your
animals! Perhaps you don’t know that its leg is broken.”

He got down on his knees at once without glancing at me again. He
seemed to have forgotten my very existence.

“Lawless,” he exclaimed, softly--”little lady, little lady, what have
you been up to? Oh, you silly little woman!”

The animal, with the rank ingratitude of its kind, wriggled
frantically out of my grasp and fawned about its master in a paroxysm
of delight. I was so completely forgotten that I was able to observe
him at my ease. His face and voice had changed like magic. Then I saw
that his features, though irregular, were powerful and not ill-shaped,
and that his ugly flannel shirt was at any rate clean. He continued
to ignore my presence, and, taking the dog up into his arms, tenderly
examined the fracture.

“Poor little lady!” he murmured. “Poor little Lawless. One of those
damned traps of Harrison’s, I suppose. I shall kill that fellow some
day!” he added, savagely, under his breath.

I rose to my feet and shook out my skirts. There are limits to one’s
tolerance.

“You are perfectly welcome,” I remarked, quietly.

There was no doubt as to his having forgotten my presence. He looked
up with darkened face. Lady Naselton was perfectly right. He was a
very ugly man.

“I beg your pardon,” he said. “I had quite forgotten that you were
here. In fact, I thought that you had gone away. Thank you for
attending to the dog. That will do very nicely until I get it home,”
he added, touching the bandage.

“Until you get it home!” I repeated. “Thank you! Do you think that you
can bandage better than that?”

I looked down with some scorn at his large, clumsy hands. After all,
were they so very clumsy, though? They were large and brown, but they
were not without a certain shapeliness. They looked strong, too. He
bore the glance with perfect equanimity, and, taking the two ends of
the line into his hands, commenced to draw them tighter.

“Well, you see, I shall set the bone properly when I get back,” he
said. “This is fairly done, though, for an amateur. Thank you--and
good morning.”

He was turning brusquely away with the dog under his arm, but I
stopped him.

“Who is Harrison?” I asked, “and why does he set traps?”

He frowned, evidently annoyed at having to stay and answer questions.

“Harrison is a small tenant farmer who objects to my crossing his
land.”

“Objects to you crossing his land?” I repeated, vaguely.

“Yes, yes. I take these dogs after hares, you know--beagling, we call
it. Sometimes I am forced to cross his farm if a hare is running,
although I never go there for one. He objects, and so he sets traps.”

“Is he your tenant?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Why don’t you get rid of him, then? I wouldn’t have a man who would
set traps on my land.”

He frowned, and his tone was distinctly impatient. He was evidently
weary of the discussion.

“I cannot. He has a long lease. Good morning.”

“Good morning, Mr. Deville.”

He looked over his shoulder.

“You know my name!”

“Certainly. Don’t you know mine?”

“No.”

“Let me introduce myself, then. I am Miss Ffolliot--the pale-faced
chit, you know!” I added, maliciously. “My father is the new vicar.”

I was standing up before him with my hands clasped behind my back, and
almost felt the flash of his dark, fiery eyes as they swept over me. I
could not look away from him.

There was a distinct change in his whole appearance. At last he was
looking at me with genuine interest. The lines of his mouth had come
together sharply, and his face was as black as thunder.

“Ffolliot?” he repeated, slowly--”Ffolliot? How do you spell it?”

“Anyhow, so long as you remember the two F’s!” I answered,
suavely. “Generally, double F, O, double L, I, O, T. Rather a
pretty name, we think, although I am afraid that you don’t seem to
like it. Oh! here’s my father coming. Won’t you stay, and make his
acquaintance?”

My father, returning from the church, with his surplice under his arm,
had been attracted by the sight of a strange man talking to me on the
lawn, and was coming slowly over towards us. Mr. Deville turned round
rather abruptly. The two men met face to face, my father dignified,
correct, severe, Bruce Deville untidy, ill-clad, with sullen, darkened
face, lit by the fire which flashed from his eyes. Yet there was
a certain dignity about his bearing, and he met my father’s eyes
resolutely. The onus of speech seemed to rest with him, and he
accepted it.

“I need no introduction to Mr. Ffolliot,” he said, sternly. “I am
afraid that I can offer you no welcome to Northshire. This is a
surprise.”

My father looked him up and down with stony severity.

“So far as I am concerned, sir,” he said, “I desire no welcome from
you. Had I known that you were to be amongst my near neighbors, I
should not have taken up my abode here for however short a time.”

“The sentiment,” remarked Mr. Deville, “is altogether mutual. At any
rate, we can see as little of each other as possible. I wish you a
good morning.”

He raised his cap presumably to me, although he did not glance in my
direction, and went off across the lawn, taking huge strides, and
crossing our flower beds with reckless unconcern. My father watched
him go with a dark shadow resting upon his face. He laid his fingers
upon my arm, and their touch through my thin gown was like the touch
of fire. I looked into his still, calm face, and I wondered. It was
marvellous that a man should wear such a mask.

“You have known him?” I murmured. “Where? Who is he?”

My father drew a long, inward breath through his clenched teeth.

“That man,” he said, slowly, with his eyes still fixed upon the now
distant figure, “was closely, very closely, associated with the most
unhappy chapter of my life. It was all over and done with before you
were old enough to understand. It is many, many years ago, but I felt
in his presence as though it were but yesterday. It is many years
ago--but it hurts still--like a knife it hurts.”

He held his hand pressed convulsively to his side, and stood watching
the grey, stalwart figure now almost out of sight. His face was
white and strained--some symptoms of yesterday’s faintness seemed
to be suggested by those wan cheeks and over bright eyes. Even I,
naturally unsympathetic and callous, was moved. I laid my hand upon
his shoulders.

“It is over and finished, you say, this dark chapter,” I whispered,
softly. “I would not think of it.”

He looked at me for a moment in silence. The grey pallor still
lingered in his thin, sunken cheeks, and his eyes were like cold
fires. It was a face which might well guard its own secrets. I looked
into it, and felt a vague sense of trouble stirring within me. Was
that chapter of his life turned over and done with forever? Was that
secret at which he had hinted, and the knowledge of which lay between
these two, wholly of the past, or was it a live thing? I could not
tell. My father was fast becoming the enigma of my life.

“I cannot cease to think about it,” he said, slowly. “I shall never
cease to think about it until--until----”

“Until when?” I whispered.

“Until the end,” he cried, hoarsely--”until the end, and God grant
that it may not be long.”




CHAPTER IV

OUR MYSTERIOUS NEIGHBORS


This was a faithful and exact account of my meeting with the first of
those two of our neighbors who seemed, according to Lady Naselton’s
report, to remain entirely outside the ordinary society of the
place. Curiously enough, my meeting with the second one occurred on
the very next afternoon.

We came face to face at a turning in the wood within a few yards of
her odd little house, and the surprise of it almost took my breath
away. Could this be the woman condemned to isolation by a whole
neighborhood--the woman on whose shoulders lay the burden of Bruce
Deville’s profligacy? I looked into the clear, dark eyes which met
mine without any shadow of embarrassment--returning in some measure
the keen interest of my own scrutiny--and the thing seemed impossible.

She spoke to me graciously, and as though to do so were quite a matter
of course. Her voice completed my subjugation. One may so often be
deceived by faces, but the voice seems an infallible test.

“There is going to be a terrible storm,” she said. “Won’t you come in
for a few minutes? You will scarcely be able to get home, and these
trees are not safe.”

Even while she was speaking the big rain drops began to fall. I
gathered up my skirts, and hurried along by her side.

“It is very good of you,” I said, breathlessly. “I am dreadfully
afraid of a thunderstorm.”

We crossed the trim little lawn, and in a moment I had passed the
portals of the Yellow House. The front door opened into a low, square
hall, hung with old-fashioned engravings against a background of dark
oak. There were rugs upon the polished floor, and several easy chairs
and lounges. By the side of one was a box from Mudie’s, evidently just
arrived, and a small wood fire was burning in the open grate. She laid
her hand on the back of a low rocking chair.

“Shall we sit here?” she suggested. “We can keep the door open and
watch the storm. Or perhaps you would rather see as little of it as
possible?”

I took the easy chair opposite to her.

“I don’t mind watching it from inside,” I answered. “I am not really
nervous, but those trees look horribly unsafe. One wants to be on the
moor to enjoy a thunderstorm.”

She looked at me with a faint smile, kindly but critically.

“No, you don’t look particularly nervous,” she said. “I wonder----”

A crash of thunder drowned the rest of her sentence.

In the silence which followed I found her studying my features
intently. For some reason or other she seemed suddenly to have
developed a new and strong interest in me. Her eyes were fastened upon
my face. I began to feel almost uncomfortable.

She suddenly realized it, and broke into a little laugh.

“Forgive my staring at you so outrageously,” she exclaimed. “You must
think me a very rude person. It is odd to meet any one in the woods
about here, you know; and I don’t think that I have ever seen you
before, have I?”

I shook my head.

“Probably not; unless you were at church yesterday,” I said.

“Then I certainly have not, for I do not attend church,” she
answered. “But you don’t live in church, do you?”

I laughed.

“Oh, no; but we have only been here a week or so,” I told her. “My
name is Kate Ffolliot. I am the daughter of the new vicar, or, rather,
curate-in-charge.”

Once more the hall was filled with white light.

There was a moment’s breathless silence, and then the thunder came
crashing over our heads. When it was over she was leaning forward with
her face buried in her hands. She did not look up immediately.

“The thunder is awful!” I remarked. “I never heard it more directly
overhead. I am afraid it is making you uncomfortable, is it not?”

She did not move her hands or answer me. I rose to my feet,
frightened.

“What is the matter?” I cried. “Are you ill? Shall I call any one?”

She raised her head and looked at me, motioning me to sit down with
a little wave of her hand. Evidently the storm had affected her
nerves. Her face was paler than ever save where her clenched fingers
seemed to have cut into her cheeks and left red livid marks on either
side. Her dark eyes were unnaturally bright and dry. She had lost that
dignified serenity of manner which had first impressed me.

“No; please sit down,” she said, softly. “I am all right--only very
foolish. That last crash was too awful. It was silly of me to mind,
though. I have seen worse storms. It is a sign of advancing age, I
suppose.”

I laughed. She was still regarding me fixedly.

“So we are neighbors, Miss Ffolliot?” she remarked.

“Close ones,” I answered. “There is only a little belt of trees
between us.”

“I might have guessed who you were,” she said. “For the moment,
though, it did not occur to me. You are not,” she said, with a faint
smile, “at all what one looks for in a country clergyman’s daughter.”

“I have lived abroad nearly all my life,” I said. “I was at school in
Berlin and Heidelberg. My sister has always been my father’s helper. I
am afraid that parish work does not appeal to me at all.”

“I am not surprised at that,” she answered. “One needs a special
disposition to interest one’s self in those things, and, without being
a physiognomist, I can tell you that you have not got it.”

“People in the country are so stupid, and they take so much for
granted,” I remarked. “If I were a philanthropist, I should certainly
choose to work in a city.”

“You are quite right,” she answered, absently. “Work amongst people
who have learned to think a little for themselves is more inspiring.”

We were silent for a moment or two. She was evidently not interested
in the discussion, so I did not attempt to carry it on. I turned a
little in my chair to watch the storm outside, conscious all the time
that her eyes scarcely left my face.

“I had grown so used,” she said, presently, “to the rectory being
empty, that I had quite forgotten the possibility of its being
occupied again. The vicar used to live several miles away. I wonder
that Mr. Deville did not know anything about you--that he did not know
your name, at any rate.”

Now I was sorry that she had mentioned Mr. Deville. I was doing my
best to forget all that I had heard from Lady Naselton, and to form
an independent judgment; but at her words the whole substance of it
returned to me with a rush. I leaned back in my chair, and looked at
her thoughtfully. She was a woman whose age might be anything between
thirty-five and forty. She was plainly dressed, but with a quiet
elegance which forbade any idea of a country dressmaker. She was too
thin for her figure to be considered in any way good; but she was tall
and graceful in all her movements. Her thick, brown hair, touched here
and there with grey, was parted in the middle and vigorously brushed
away from a low, thoughtful forehead, over which it showed a decided
propensity to wave. Her features were good and strongly marked, and
her skin was perfect. Her eyes were bright and dark, her mouth piquant
and humorous. She had no pretence to beauty, but she was certainly a
very attractive and a very well-bred woman. I had never in all my life
seen any one who suggested less those things at which Lady Naselton
had hinted.

Perhaps she saw the slight change in my face at Mr. Deville’s name. At
any rate, she turned the conversation.

“Have you been living in the country before you came here, or near a
large city?” she asked. “You will find it very quiet here!”

“We came from Belchester,” I answered. “My father had a church in the
suburbs there. It was very horrid; I was not there long, but I hated
it. I think the most desolate country region in the world is better
than suburbanism.”

“I don’t think that I agree with you,” she smiled. “In a large
community at any rate you are closer to the problems of life. I was at
Belchester not long ago, and I found it very interesting.”

“You were at Belchester!” I repeated in surprise.

“Yes; I was electioneering. I came to help Mr. Densham.”

“What! The Socialist!” I cried.

She nodded, and I could see that the corners of her mouth were
twitching with amusement.

“Yes. I thought that Belchester was rather an enlightened place. We
polled over four thousand votes. I think if we had another week or
two, and a few less helpers we might have got Mr. Densham in.”

“A few less helpers!” I repeated, aimlessly.

“Yes. That is the worst of Labor and Socialist meetings. There is
such a terrible craving amongst the working classes to become stump
orators. You cannot teach them to hold their tongues. They make silly
speeches, and of course the newspapers on the other side report them,
and we get the discredit of their opinions. One always suffers most at
the hands of one’s friends.”

I looked at her in silent wonder. I, too, had helped at that
election--that is to say, I had driven about in the Countess of
Applecorn’s barouche with a great bunch of cornflower in my gown,
and talked amiably to a lot of uninteresting people. I had a dim
recollection of a one-horse wagonette which we had passed on the way
preceded by a brass band and a lot of factory hands, and of Lady
Applecorn raising her gold-rimmed eyeglass and saying something about
the Socialist candidate.

“Did you make speeches--and that sort of thing?” I asked,
hesitatingly.

She laughed outright.

“Of course I did. How else could I have helped? I am afraid that you
are beginning to think that I am a very terrible person,” she added,
with a decided twinkle in her rich brown eyes.

“Please don’t say that!” I begged. “Only I have been brought up
always with people who shuddered at the very mention of the word both
here and abroad, and I daresay that I have a wrong impression about
it all. For one thing I thought it was only poor people who were
Socialists.”

For a moment she looked grave.

“True Socialism is the most fascinating of all doctrines for the
rich and the poor, for all thoughtful men and women,” she said,
quietly. “It is a religion as well as the very core of politics. But
we will not talk about that now. Are you interested in the new
books? You might like to see some of these.”

She pointed at the box. “I get all the new novels, but I read very few
of them.”

I looked them over as she handed the volumes out to me. I had read a
good many books in which she was interested. We began to discuss them,
casually at first, and then eagerly. An hour or more must have slipped
away. At last I looked at the clock and sprang up.

“You must have some tea,” she said, with her hand on the bell. “Please
do not hurry away.”

I hesitated, but she seemed to take my consent for granted, and I
suffered myself to be persuaded.

“Come and see my den while they bring it.”

She opened a door on the left hand of the hall, and I passed by her
side into a large room of irregular shape, from which French windows
led out on to the trim little lawn. The walls were almost lined with
books--my father’s library did not hold so many. A writing table drawn
up to the window was covered with loose sheets of paper and works of
reference turned upon their faces. For the rest the room was a marvel
of delicate coloring and refined femininity. There were plenty of cosy
chairs, and three-legged tables, with their burden of dainty china,
rare statuettes, and many vases of flowers, mostly clustering yellow
roses. But what absorbed my attention after my rapid glance around
was the fact that Mr. Bruce Deville was sitting in a very comfortable
chair near the window, reading one of the loose sheets of paper which
he had taken from the desk.

He rose from his feet at the sound of the opening of the door, but
he did not immediately look up. He spoke to her, and I scarcely
recognized his voice. His gruffness was gone! It was mellow and
good-humored.

“Marcia! Marcia! Why can’t you leave poor Harris alone?” he said. “You
will drive him out of his senses if you sling Greek at him like
this. You women are so vindictive!”

“If you will condescend to turn round,” she answered, smiling, “I
shall be glad to know how you got in here, and what are you doing with
my manuscript?”

He looked up, and the sheet fluttered from his fingers. He regarded
me with undiluted astonishment. “Well, I came in at the window,” he
answered. “I was in a hurry to escape getting wet through. I had no
idea that you had a visitor!”

I glanced towards her. She was in no way discomposed or annoyed.

“I am not inclined to walk this afternoon,” she said. “Will you come
down after dinner, about nine? I want to see you, but not just now.”

He nodded, and took up his cap. At the window he looked back at
me curiously. For a moment he seemed about to speak. He contented
himself, however, with a parting bow, to which I responded. Directly
he got outside the garden he took his pipe from his pocket and lit it.

The incident did not seem to have troubled her in any way. She pointed
out some of the treasures of her room, elegant little trifles,
collected in many countries of the world, but I am afraid I was not
very attentive.

“Is Mr. Deville a relation of yours?” I asked, rather abruptly.

She had just taken down a little Italian statuette for my inspection,
and she replaced it carefully before she answered.

“No. We are friends. I have known him for a good many years.”

A tiny Burmese gong rang out from the hall. She came across the room
towards me, smiling pleasantly.

“Shall we go and have some tea? I always want tea so much after a
thunderstorm. I will show you some more of my Penates, if you like
afterwards.”

I followed her into the hall, and took my tea from the hands of a
prim little maid servant. With the Dresden cup between my fingers a
sudden thought flashed into my mind. If only Lady Naselton could see
me. Unconsciously my lips parted, and I laughed outright.

“Do forgive me,” I begged. “Something came into my mind. It was too
funny. I could not help laughing.”

“To be able to laugh at one’s thoughts is a luxury,” she answered. “I
know a man who lived through a terrible illness solely because of his
sense of humor. There are so many things to laugh at in the world, if
only one sees them in the right light. Let me give you some more tea.”

I set down my cup. “No more, thanks. That has been delicious. I wonder
whether I might ask you a question?” I added. “I should like to if I
might.”

“Well, you certainly may,” she answered, good-humoredly.

“Mr. Deville spoke of your work,” I continued; “and of course I could
see you had been writing. Do you write fiction? I think it is so
delightful for women to do anything for themselves--any real work, I
mean. Do you mind my asking?”

“I do not write fiction as a rule,” she said, slowly. “I write for
the newspapers. I was a correspondent for several years for one
of the dailies. I write more now for a purpose. I am one of the
‘abhorred tribe,’ you know--a Socialist, or what people understand as
a Socialist. Are you horrified?”

“Not in the least,” I answered her; “only I should like to know more
about it. From what I have heard about Socialism I should never have
dreamed of associating it with--well, with Dresden cups and saucers,
for instance,” I laughed, motioning to her own.

Her eyes twinkled. “Poor child,” she said, “you have all the
old-fashioned ideas about us and our beliefs, I suppose. I am not sure
that, if you were a properly regulated young lady, you would not get
up and walk out of the house.”

A shadow had fallen across the open doorway, and a familiar voice,
stern, but tremulous with passion, took up her words.

“That is precisely what my daughter will do, madam! At once, and
without delay! Do you hear, Kate?”

I rose to my feet dumb with amazement. My father’s tall figure, drawn
to its utmost height, stood out with almost startling vividness
against the sunlit space beyond. A deep red flush was on his pale
cheeks. His eyes seemed on fire with anger. My hostess rose to her
feet with dignity.

“Your daughter is at liberty to remain or go at any time,” she said,
coolly. “I presume that I am addressing Mr. Ffolliot?”

She looked over my shoulder towards my father, and their eyes met. I
looked from one to the other, conscious that something was passing
outside my knowledge--something between those two. Her eyes had
become like dull stones. Her face had grown strangely hard and
cold. There was a brief period of intense silence, broken only by a
slow, monotonous ticking of the hall clock and the flutter of the
birds’ wings from amongst the elm trees outside. A breath of wind
brought a shower of rain drops down on to the gravel path. A sparrow
flew twittering into the hall and out again. Then it came to an end.

“Marcia!”

His single cry rang out like a pistol shot upon the intense
silence. He took a quick step across the threshold. She held out both
her hands in front of her, and he stopped short.

“You had better go,” she said. “You had better go quickly.”

I went out and took my father’s arm. He let me lead him away without a
word; but he would have fallen several times if it had not been for my
support. When we reached home he turned at once into the library.

“Go away, Kate,” he said, wearily. “I must be alone. See that I am not
disturbed.”

I hesitated, but he insisted. I shut the door and left him. I, too,
wanted to be alone. My brain was in a whirl. What was this past
whose ghosts seemed rising up one by one to confront us? First there
had been Mr. Deville, and now the woman whom my father had called
Marcia. What were they to him? What had he to do with them? Where
had their lives touched? I pressed my hot forehead against the
window-pane, and looked across at the Yellow House. The sunlight was
flashing and glistening upon its damp, rain-soaked front. In the
doorway a woman was standing, shading her eyes with her hand, and
looking across the park. I followed her gaze, and saw for whom she
was waiting. Bruce Deville was walking swiftly towards her. I saw him
leap a fence to save a few yards, and he was taking huge and rapid
strides. I turned away from my window and hid my face in my hands.




CHAPTER V

A SOUTH AMERICAN LETTER


Naturally I expected that some time that night my father would have
spoken to me concerning the strange meeting at the house of the woman
whom he had called Marcia. In a sense I feared what he might have to
say. Already I was beginning to reckon those few hours as an epoch in
my life. Never had I met any one whom in so short a time had attracted
me so much. I found myself thinking of her continually, and the
more I thought the more I scoffed at the idea of connecting in any
way with her those things at which Lady Naselton had hinted. There
seemed something almost grossly incongruous in any such idea. The
more I thought of her the more resolute I became in putting all such
thoughts behind me. And, apart from my judgment, which was altogether
on her side, I was conscious of a vague personal attraction, almost
a fascination, which had a wonderful effect on me. The manner of
her life, her surroundings, that air of quiet, forcible elegance,
which seemed to assert itself alike in her house, her dress, and her
conversation, were a revelation to me. She was original too, obviously
intellectual, a woman who held her life well within control, and
lived it fearlessly and self-reliantly. I had never met any one like
it before, and I longed to see more of her. My one fear was lest my
father should lay some stern embargo upon my association with her. In
that case I had made up my mind not to yield without a struggle. I
would be quite sure that it was not a matter of merely prejudice
before I consented to give up what promised to be the most delightful
friendship I had ever known.

But, rather to my surprise, and a little to my relief, my father
ignored our afternoon’s adventure when I saw him again. He came in
to dinner as usual, carefully dressed, and ate and drank with his
customary fine care that everything of which he partook should be of
the best of its kind. After he had left the table we saw no more of
him. He went straight to his study, and I heard the door shut and the
key turned--a sign that he was on no account to be disturbed; and
though I sat in the drawing room until long after my usual time for
retiring, and afterwards remained in my room till the small hours
commenced to chime, his door remained locked. Yet in the morning he
was down before us. He was standing at the window when I came into
the breakfast room, and the clear morning light fell mercilessly on
his white face, pallid and lined with the marks of his long vigil. It
seemed to me that he greeted us both more quietly than usual.

During breakfast time I made a few remarks to him, but they passed
unnoticed, or elicited only a monosyllabic reply. Alice spoke of the
schools, but he seemed scarcely to hear. We all became silent. As
we were on the point of rising, the unusual sound of wheels outside
attracted our attention. A fly was passing slowly along the road
beyond our hedge. I caught a glimpse of a woman’s face inside, and
half rose up.

“She is going away!” I exclaimed.

My father, too, had half risen. He made a movement as though to
hurry from the room, but with an effort he restrained himself. The
effect of her appearance upon him was very evident to me. His under
lip was twitching, and his long, white fingers were nervously
interlaced. Alice, bland and unseeing, glanced carelessly out of the
window.

“It is our mysterious neighbor from the Yellow House,” she
remarked. “If a tithe of what people say about her is true we ought to
rejoice that she is going away. It is a pity she is not leaving for
good.”

My father opened his lips as though about to speak. He changed his
mind, however, and left the room. The burden of her defence remained
with me.

“If I were you I would not take any notice of what people say about
her,” I remarked. “In all probability you will only hear a pack of
lies. I had tea with her yesterday afternoon, and she seemed to me to
be a very well-bred and distinguished woman.”

Alice looked at me with wide-open eyes, and an expression almost of
horror in her face.

“Do you mean to say that you have been to see her, that you have been
inside her house, Kate?” she cried.

I nodded.

“I was caught in the rain and she asked me in,” I explained,
coolly. “Afterwards I liked her so much that I was glad to stay to tea
when she asked me. She is a very charming woman.”

Alice looked at me blankly.

“But, Kate, didn’t Lady Naselton tell you about her? Surely you have
heard what people say?”

I shrugged my shoulders slightly.

“Lady Naselton told me a good many things,” I answered; “but I do not
make a point of believing everything disagreeable which I hear about
people. Do you think that charitable yourself?”

My sister’s face hardened. She had all the prejudices of her type, in
her case developed before their time. She was the vicar’s daughter, in
whose eyes the very breath of scandal was like a devastating wind. Her
point of view, and consequently her judgment, seemed to me alike
narrow and cruel.

“You forget your position,” she said, with cold indignation. “There
are other reports of that woman besides Lady Naselton’s. Depend upon
it there is no smoke without fire. It is most indiscreet of you to
have had any communication with her.”

“That,” I declared, “is a matter of opinion.”

“I believe that she is not a nice woman,” Alice said, firmly.

“And I shall believe her to be a very nice one until I know the
contrary,” I answered. “I know her and you do not, and I can assure
you that she is much more interesting than any of the women who have
called upon us round here.”

Alice was getting angry with me.

“You prefer an interesting woman to a good one,” she said, warmly.

“Without going quite so far as that, I certainly think that it
is unfortunate that most of the good women whom one meets are so
uninteresting,” I answered. “Goodness seems so satisfying--in the
case of repletion. I mean--it doesn’t seem to leave room for anything
else.”

Whereupon Alice left me in despair, and I found myself face to face
with my father. He looked at me in stern disapproval. There was a
distinctly marked frown on his forehead.

“You are too fond of those flighty sayings, Kate,” he remarked,
sternly. “Let me hear less of them.”

I made no reply. There were times when I was almost afraid of my
father, when a suppressed irritation of manner seemed like the thin
veneer beneath which a volcano was trembling. To-day the signs were
there. I made haste to change the subject.

“The letters have just come,” I said, holding out a little packet to
him. “There is one for you from a place I never heard of--somewhere in
South America, I think.”

He took them from me and glanced at the handwriting of the topmost
one. Then for a short space of time I saw another man before me. The
calm strength of his refined, thoughtful face was transformed. Like
a flash the gleam of a dark passion lit up his brilliant eyes. His
lips quivered, his fingers were clenched together. For a moment I
thought he would have torn the letter into shreds unopened. With an
evident effort, however, he restrained himself, and went out of the
room bearing the letter in his hand.

I heard him walking about in his study all the morning. At luncheon
time he had quite recovered his composure, but towards its close he
made, for us, a somewhat startling announcement.

“I am going to London this afternoon,” he said, quietly.

“To London?” we both echoed.

“Yes. There is a little business there which requires my personal
attention.”

Under the circumstances Alice was even more surprised than I was.

“But how about Mr. Hewitt?” she reminded him blandly. “We were to
meet him at the schools at five o’clock this afternoon about the new
ventilators.”

“Mr. Hewitt must be put off until my return,” my father answered. “The
schools have done without them for ten years so they can go on for
another week. Can I trouble you for the Worcestershire sauce, Kate?”

This was my father’s method of closing the subject. Alice looked at me
with perplexed face, but my thoughts were elsewhere. I was wondering
whether my father would undertake a commission for me at Debenham and
Freebody’s.

“Shall you be going West?” I asked him.

He looked up at me and hesitated for a moment.

“My business is in the city,” he said, coldly. “What do you call
West?”

“Regent Street,” I answered.

He considered a few moments.

“I may be near there,” he said. “If so I will try to do what you
require. Do not be disappointed if I should happen to forget about it,
though. If it is important you had better send direct.”

“I would rather you called if it wouldn’t be bothering you,” I told
him. “There is some money to pay, and it would save my getting postal
orders.”

I left the room to write a note. When I came back my father had gone
into his study. I followed him there, and, entering the room without
knocking, found him bending over his desk.

He looked up at me and frowned.

“What do you want?” he said, sharply.

I explained, and he took the note from me, listening to the details of
my commission, and making a note in his pocket-book.

“I will see to this for you if I can,” he said. “I will not promise,
because I shall have other and more important matters to take up my
attention. In the meantime, I should be glad to be left undisturbed
for an hour. I have some letters to write.”

I left him at once, and I heard the key turn in the door after me. At
half-past three a fly arrived from the Junction, and he appeared upon
the step carrying a small black bag in his hand.

“I shall be back,” he said, “on Friday. Goodbye, Alice; goodbye,
Kate.”

We kissed him, and he got up in the carriage and drove off. Alice and
I remained upon the doorstep looking at one another. We both felt that
there was something mysterious about his sudden departure.

“Have you any idea what it means?” she asked me.

I shook my head.

“He has not told me anything,” I said. “Didn’t you say that he used to
go to London often when you were at Belchester?”

Alice looked very grave.

“Yes,” she said; “and that is one reason why we left the place. The
people did not like it. He went away very often; and, indeed, old
Colonel Dacre wrote to the Bishop about it.”

“He was a meddlesome old duffer,” I remarked, leaning against the
door-post with my face turned towards the Yellow House.

“He was rather a busybody,” Alice admitted; “but I am not surprised
that he wrote to the Bishop. A good many other people used to complain
about it. You were not in Belchester very long, so of course you knew
nothing about it.”

“And do you mean to say that you have no idea at all why he went so
often? You don’t know what he did there, or anything, not even where
he stayed?”

“Not the shred of an idea,” Alice declared. “It used to worry me a
great deal, and when I came here I hoped it was all over. Now it seems
as though it were all beginning again!”

“I believe,” I said, “that I know what took him up to London to-day.”

“Really!” Alice cried, eagerly.

I nodded.

“It was a letter.”

“One that he had this morning?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“Morris gave me the letters through the window,” I answered. “There
were only two for father. One was from Mr. Hewitt--that was about
the schools you know, and the other was from somewhere in South
America. It was that letter which took him to London.”

She looked at me with knitted brows, and a general expression of
perplexity.

“From South America! I never heard father speak of any one there.”

“From South America,” I repeated. “It was a large square envelope, and
the writing was very fine and delicate.”

“I wonder,” Alice suggested, thoughtfully, “whether we have any
relatives out there of whom we do not know. It may be that. Perhaps
they are poor, and--”

I interrupted her.

“This letter was not from a poor person,” I declared,
confidently. “The notepaper, or rather the envelope, was expensive,
and in very good style. I believe there was a crest on the envelope.”

“Still,” Alice remarked, “we cannot be certain--especially if the
letter was from South America--that it was the cause of his going to
London.”

“I think we can,” I answered. “In one corner there were three words,
written very small--”London about fifteenth.”

We exchanged glances.

“To-day is the fifteenth,” Alice remarked.

I nodded. It was true. My sister’s eyes were full of trouble.

“I wonder,” she said, softly, “what will be the end of it
all? Sometimes I am almost afraid.”

And I, who knew more than she did, was also troubled. Already I was
growing to fear my father. Always he seemed to move amongst us with
an air of stern repression, as though he were indeed playing a part,
wearing always a mask, and as though his real life lay somewhere else,
somewhere in the past, or--worst still--somewhere in the present, far
away from our quiet little village. I thought of all the stories I had
read of men who had lived double lives--men with a double personality
one side of whose life and actions must necessarily be a wholesale
lie. The fear of something of this sort in connection with my father
was gradually laying chill hold upon me. He fulfilled his small
parish obligations, and carried himself through the little routine
of our domestic life with a stern air of thoughtful abstraction, as
though he were performing in a mechanical manner duties contemptible,
trivial, and uninteresting, for some secret and hidden reason. Was
there another life? My own eyes had shown me that there was another
man. Twice had I seen this mask raised; first when he had come face to
face with Bruce Deville, and again when he had found me talking with
our curious neighbor beneath the roof of the Yellow House. Another
man had leaped out then. Who was he? What was he? Did he exist solely
in the past, or was there a present--worse still, a future--to be
developed?

We were standing side by side at the window. Suddenly there was a
diversion. Our gate was flung open. A tall figure came up the drive
towards the house. Alice watched it with curiosity.

“Here is a visitor,” she remarked. “We had better go away.”

I recognized him, and I remained where I was. After that little scene
upon the lawn only last Sunday I certainly had not expected to see
Mr. Bruce Deville again within the confines of our little demesne. Yet
there he was, walking swiftly up the gravel walk--tall, untidy, and
with that habitual contraction of the thick eyebrows which was almost
a scowl. I stepped out to meet him, leaving Alice at the window. He
regarded us coldly, and raised his cap with the stiffest and most
ungracious of salutes.

“Is Mr. Ffolliot in?” he asked me. “I should like to have a word with
him.”

I ignored his question for a moment.

“Good morning, Mr. Deville,” I said, quietly.

His color rose a little. He was not so insensible as he tried to
appear, but his bow was flagrantly ironical.

“Good morning, Miss Ffolliot,” he answered, frigidly. “I should like
a word with your father--if I could trouble you so far as to tell him
that I am here.”

“My father will be exceedingly sorry to have missed you,” I answered,
smiling upon him; “he is out just now.”

His frown deepened, and he was obviously annoyed. He made ready to
depart.

“Can you tell me when he will be in?” he asked. “I will call again.”

“I am afraid that I cannot positively,” I answered. “We expect him
home on Friday, but I don’t know at what time.”

He turned round upon me with a sudden change on his face. His
curiously colored eyes seemed to have caught fire.

“Do you mean that he has gone away?” he asked, brusquely.

“He has gone to London this afternoon,” I answered. “Can I give him
any message from you?”

He stood quite still, and seemed to be looking me through and
through. Then he drew a small time-table from his pocket.

“Annesly Junction, 3.30; St. Pancras, 7.50,” he muttered to
himself. “Thank you; good morning.”

He turned upon his heel, but I called him back.

“Mr. Deville.”

He stopped short and looked round. “I beg your pardon,” he said; “I am
in a hurry.”

“Oh, very well,” I answered. “I should be sorry to detain you. You
dropped something when you took out your time-table, and it occurred
to me that you might want it again. That is all.”

He came back with three great strides. A square envelope, to which
I was pointing, lay on the ground almost at my feet. As he stooped
to pick it up I too glanced at it for the second time. A little
exclamation escaped from my lips. He looked at me inquiringly.

“Is anything the matter?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“Good morning Mr. Deville.”

He hesitated for a moment. He was evidently desirous of knowing why I
had uttered that exclamation. I did not choose to satisfy him.

“I thought you made some remark,” he said. “What was it?”

“It was nothing,” I told him. “You are in a hurry, I think you
said. Don’t let me keep you.”

He pocketed the envelope and strode away. Alice came out of the low
window to me, looking after him with wide-open eyes.

“What an extraordinary man!” she exclaimed.

But I did not answer her immediately, I had found something else to
think about. There was no possibility of any mistake. The handwriting
upon the envelope which Mr. Deville had dropped was the same as that
which had summoned my father to London.




CHAPTER VI

THE MILLIONAIRE


On the Thursday following my father’s departure for London Lady
Naselton sent her carriage for me, and a note marked urgent. It
contained only a few lines, evidently written in a hurry.

              “Naselton, _Thursday_.

“My Dear Girl,--Put on your calling-frock, and come up to tea at
once. The Romneys and a few other people are coming over, and Fred
brought a most interesting man down from town this morning. I
want you to know him. He is quite delightful to talk to, and is a
millionaire! Come and help me entertain him.

    “Yours ever,
        “Amy Naselton.”

I laughed as I went upstairs to change my things. Lady Naselton was
famed throughout the county as an inveterate matchmaker. Without a
doubt the millionaire who was delightful to talk to was already in
her mind as the most suitable match for a poor country clergyman’s
daughter who had the misfortune to possess ambitions. I could tell
by the fussy manner in which she greeted me that she considered the
matter already almost settled. The room was full of people, but my
particular victim was sitting alone in a recess. Evidently he had been
kept back for my behoof. Lady Naselton, as though suddenly remembering
his presence, brought him over and introduced him at once.

“Mr. Berdenstein,” she said--”Miss Ffolliot. Will you see that Miss
Ffolliot has some tea?” she added, smiling upon him blandly. “My
servants all seem so stupid to-day.”

I sat down and looked at him while he attended to my wants. At the
first glance I disliked him. He was tall and dark, with sallow face
and regular features of somewhat Jewish type. There was too much
unction about his manner. He smiled continually, and showed his teeth
too often. I found myself wondering whether he had made his million
in a shop. I was forced to talk to him, however, and I settled myself
down to be bored.

“You have not been in England long?” I asked.

“About three days,” he answered.

His voice was not so bad. I looked at him again. His face was not a
pleasant one, and he seemed to be scarcely at his ease, added to which
something in his bearing indistinctly suggested a limited acquaintance
with drawing rooms such as Lady Naselton’s. Yet it was possible that
he was clever. His forehead was well shaped, and his mouth determined.

“Mr. Fred Naselton was the first man I saw in London,” he went on. “It
was a very odd thing to run against him before I was well off the
ship.”

“He was an old friend of yours?” I continued, purely for the sake of
keeping up the conversation.

“Not very. Oh, no! Scarcely friend at all,” he disclaimed. “I did him
a turn in Rio last month. Nothing to speak of, but he was grateful.”

“Where?” I asked, abruptly.

“Rio,” he repeated. “Rio Janeiro--you know, capital of South America.”

I turned and faced him suddenly. His eyes had been fixed on my
face. He had been watching me furtively. My heart beat suddenly
faster. I drew a little breath, I could not trust myself to speak for
a moment. After a brief pause he continued--

“I’ve been out there a good many years. Long enough to get jolly well
sick of the place and people and everything connected with it. I’m
thankful to say that I’ve finished with it.”

“You are not going back, then,” I remarked, indifferently.

“Not I,” he declared. “I only went to make money, and I’ve made it--a
good deal. Now I’m going to enjoy it, here, in the old country. Marry
and settle down, and all that sort of thing, you know, Miss Ffolliot.”

His keen, black eyes were fixed upon my face. I felt a slight flush
of color in my cheeks. At that moment I hated Lady Naselton. She had
been talking to this odious man about me, and he had been quick enough
to understand her aright. I should have liked to have got up but for
a certain reason. He had come from South America. He had arrived in
London about the 15th. So I sat there and suffered.

“A most praiseworthy ambition,” I remarked, with a sarcasm which I
strove vainly to keep to myself. “I am sure I wish you every success.”

“That is very good of you,” he answered, slowly. “Wishes count for a
good deal sometimes. I am very thankful for yours.”

“Wishes cost little,” I answered, coldly, “and I am afraid that mine
are practically valueless. Have you been away from England long?”

“For many years,” he answered, after a slight hesitation.

“It seems odd,” I remarked, “that your first visit should be at the
house of a comparative stranger. Have you no relations or old friends
to welcome you back?”

A slight and peculiar smile hovered upon his lips.

“I have some old friends,” he said, quietly; “I do not know whether
they will welcome me home again. Soon I shall know. I am not far away
from them.”

“Do they know of your return?” I asked.

“Some of them. One of them I should say,” he answered. “The one about
whom I care does not know.”

“You are going to surprise him?” I remarked.

“I am going to surprise her,” he corrected.

There was a short silence. I had no more doubt in my mind. Chance had
brought me face to face with the writer of that letter to my father,
the man to find whom he was even now in London. Perhaps they had
already met; I stole a glance at him; he was furtively watching me all
the while.

“I have also,” he said, “a sister of whom I am very fond. She lives in
Paris. I have written to her to come to me--not here, of course, to
London.”

I turned a little in my chair and faced him.

“I wonder,” I said, “if amongst those friends of whom you speak there
is any one whom I know.”

His lips parted, and he showed all his glistening white teeth.

“Somehow,” he said, softly, under his breath, “I thought you knew. Has
your father sent you here? Have you any message for me? If so, let me
have it, we may be disturbed.”

I shook my head.

“My father is in London,” I told him. “He left the morning he had your
letter.”

“When is he coming back?” he asked, eagerly.

“On Friday, I believe,” I answered. “I am not quite sure. At any rate,
he will be here by Sunday.”

An odd look flashed for a moment across the man’s face. It gave me an
uneasy sensation.

“Have you seen him in London?” I asked, quickly.

“Certainly not,” he answered; “I have seen no one. I have only been
in England for a day or two. I shall look forward,” he added, “to the
pleasure of seeing your father on Sunday.”

“And Mr. Bruce Deville?” I inquired.

He looked at me suspiciously. He was wondering how much I knew.

“Mr. Bruce Deville?” he said, slowly. “I have not seen him lately;
they tell me he has altered a great deal.”

“I have only known him a week, and so I cannot tell,” I answered.

Again he fixed his little dark eyes upon me; he was evidently
completely puzzled.

“You have only known him a week, and yet you know that--that he and I
are not strangers?”

“I learned it by accident,” I answered.

Obviously he did not believe me; he hesitated for a moment to put his
disbelief into words, and in the meantime I made a bold stroke.

“Have you seen Adelaide Fortress yet?” I asked.

His face changed. He looked at me half in wonder, half eagerly; his
whole expression had softened.

“Not yet,” he said; “I am waiting to know where she is; I would go to
her to-day--if only I dared--if only I dared!”

His dark eyes were lit with passion; a pale shade seemed to have crept
in upon the sallowness of his cheeks.

“When you talk of her,” he said, speaking rapidly, and with his
voice thick with some manner of agitation, “you make me forget
everything! You make me forget who you are, who she is, where we
are! I remember only that she exists! Oh, my God!”

I laid my hand upon his coat sleeve.

“Be careful,” I whispered. “People will notice you; speak lower.”

His voice sank; it was still, however, hoarse with passion.

“I shall know soon,” he said, “very soon, whether the years have
made her any kinder; whether the dream, the wild dream of my life,
is any nearer completion. Oh, you may start!” he added, looking into
my white, puzzled face; “you and your father, and Deville, and the
whole world may know it. I love her still! I am going to regain her
or die! There! You see it is to be no secret war; go and tell your
father if you like, tell them all, bid them prepare. If they stand in
my way they must suffer. Soon I am going to her. I am going to stand
before her and point to my grey hairs, and say, ‘Every one of them is
a thought of you; every day of my life has been moulded towards the
winning of you.’ And when I tell her that, and point to the past, she
will be mine again.”

“You are very sure of her,” I murmured.

His face fell.

“Alas! no,” he cried, “I cannot say that; only it is my hope and my
passion which are so strong. They run away with me; I picture it to
myself--this blessed thing--and I forget. Listen!” he added, with
sudden emphasis, “you must promise me something. I have let my tongue
go too fast. I have talked to you as my other self; you must promise
me one thing.”

“What is it?” I asked.

“You must promise me that you will not speak of my presence here to
her. In a day or two--well, we shall see. I shall go to her then; I
shall risk everything. But at present, no! She must be ignorant of my
return until I myself declare it. You will promise me this?”

I promised. I scarcely dared do otherwise if I wished to avoid a
scene, for already the agitation and occasional excitement of his
speech were attracting attention. But, having promised, I asked him a
question.

“Will not Mr. Deville tell her--or my father?”

“It is just possible that Mr. Deville might,” he said, with the air of
one who had well considered the matter. “But I do not think it likely;
there are certain reasons which would probably keep him silent.”

“And my father?” I asked.

Again there was an odd look in his face. Somehow it filled me with
vague alarm; I could not imagine what it meant.

“I do not think,” he answered, “that your father will tell her; I am
nearly sure that he will not. No, I myself shall announce my return. I
shall stand face to face with her before she has learned to school her
countenance. I shall see in the light or in the darkness how she holds
me. It will be a test--a glorious test.”

Lady Naselton came rustling up to us with beaming face. “My dear
girl,” she said, “I am so sorry to disturb you, you both look
so interested. Whatever you have found to talk about I can’t
imagine. Lady Romney is going; she would so like to know you. Would
you mind coming to speak to her?”

“With pleasure,” I declared, rising at once to my feet; “I must be
going too. Good afternoon, Mr. Berdenstein.”

He held out his hand, but I had no intention of shaking hands with
him. I bowed coldly, and turned to follow Lady Naselton.

“Perhaps it is best,” he murmured, leaning a little forward. “We
cannot possibly be friends; no doubt you hate me; we are on opposite
sides. Good afternoon, Miss Ffolliot.”

I followed Lady Naselton, but before we had reached the Romneys I
stopped her.

“Lady Naselton, who is that man?” I asked her. “What do you know of
him?”

“My dear child,” she answered, “from the confidential manner in which
you have been talking all this time, I should have imagined that
he had told you his history from childhood. Frankly, I don’t know
anything about him at all. He was very good to Fred in South America,
and he has made a lot of money, that is really all I know. Fred met
him in town, and brought him down without notice. I hope,” she added,
looking at my pale face, “that he has been behaving himself properly.”

“I have no fault to find with him,” I answered. “I was curious, that
is all.”

“I am so glad, dear,” she answered, smiling. “For a millionaire you
know, I don’t consider him at all unpresentable, do you?”

I smiled faintly. Poor Lady Naselton!

“He did not strike me as being remarkably objectionable,” I
answered. “He is a little awkward, and very confidential.”

Lady Naselton piloted me across the room towards the Romneys, with her
arm linked in mine.

“We must make a few allowances, my dear,” she whispered,
confidentially. “One cannot have everything nowadays. He is really not
so bad, and the money is quite safe. In diamonds, or something, Fred
says. It is quite a million.”

I glanced back to him as I stood talking with the Romneys. He was
sitting quietly where I had left him, watching me covertly. His black
eyebrows were drawn together, and a certain look of anxiety seemed
to have sharpened his sallow features. His eyes fell at once before
mine. I felt that I would have given everything I possessed in the
world to have known who he was.




CHAPTER VII

A FRUITLESS APPEAL


Friday passed without any sign of my father’s return, and when on
Saturday morning we found no letter from him upon the breakfast table,
the vague disquiet of the day before assumed a definite shape. We
looked into one another’s faces, and we were seriously alarmed.

“We shall be sure to hear from him in an hour or two,” Alice said,
holding her cup to her lips with shaking hands. “He must have missed
the post. We shall have a telegram.”

“I hope so,” I answered, fervently. “Nothing can have happened to
him, of course. It is absurd to feel nervous. But it is too bad of
him. He ought to have written. However busy he is, he could have found
a minute or two.”

“I will never let him go away again without leaving us an address of
some sort,” Alice declared. “No doubt he will telegraph soon. Still,
one cannot help feeling uneasy.”

But no telegram arrived. Luncheon time came and passed without a
word. The afternoon dragged on. The last train from London was due
at the nearest railway station--three miles away--at six o’clock. At
eight o’clock he had not returned. More than an hour ago a fly with
luggage from the train had passed our gate and gone on to the Yellow
House. Alice was as white as a sheet, and commenced to cry softly to
herself.

“There is a service to-morrow morning, and no one to help,” she
moaned. “He must be very ill. What had we better do, Kate?”

Do! How was I to know? Action of any sort would have been a relief,
but it was like groping in the dark. He had left no address to
which we could write, and, so far as we knew, he did not belong
to any club nor had he any friends in London. There was no means
of tracing him, not a clue as to the nature of the business which
had called him so suddenly to town. Even granting that he had gone
to see Mr. Berdenstein, to meet him on his arrival in London, it
was hopeless to try and imagine where he might be prosecuting his
search. Mr. Berdenstein had denied that he had met him. Without a
doubt he would deny it again if I went to him. As he had told me
plainly that we were on opposite sides, to look for help from him
was utterly futile. We girls were helpless. Alice, whose instincts
were largely conventional, was feeling chiefly the scandal which
must accrue when his place in the pulpit to-morrow remained empty
and service had to be abandoned. For my part, my anxieties were
deeper. Chance had placed in my hands the threads of a mystery whose
unravelment was threatened with terrible possibilities. I could not
tell what the end of it might be. I scarcely dared to let my mind
dwell upon it at all. I concentrated my thoughts upon the present
dilemma. The first thing to be done was to find my father. There was
only one possible shadow of a clue as to his whereabouts. One man knew
the secret of that letter which had called him up to London. To this
man I resolved that I would go.

But as dusk came on, and I was preparing to start for the Court, I
saw his tall figure crossing the park towards the Yellow House. I did
not hesitate then any more. To see him there would be easier than to
confront him alone at the Court. I threw a cloak over my shoulders and
went bareheaded down the drive. The thing which I was proposing to
myself to do was simple enough in effect, although with my overwrought
nerves it presented itself to me at the time as a somewhat formidable
undertaking. I was going to confront them together. I was going to
pray for their help.

I walked swiftly across the park and through the plantation to the
Yellow House, and after pausing for a moment to regain my breath, I
rang the bell. There was no immediate answer, and save that I could
see through a chink in the drawn curtains a rose-shaded lamp burning
in the drawing room, I should have feared that after all Adelaide
Fortress had not returned. But in a few minutes the trim little
maid-servant opened the door, letting out a flood of light. She
started with surprise to see me standing there, looking no doubt a
little ghost-like with my white, anxious face and uncovered head.

“I want to speak to Mrs. Fortress,” I said. “Is she in?”

The girl hesitated, but I took her assent for granted, and stepped
into the hall. She moved towards the drawing room door. I kept close
by her side, and when she opened it I crossed the threshold.

Bruce Deville was there, sitting in a low chair. To my surprise he
was wearing evening dress, and he had a book in his hand, from which
he appeared to have been reading aloud. At my entrance he rose to his
feet at once with a little exclamation of surprise. Adelaide Fortress,
whose back had been turned to the door, turned sharply round. She too
rose to her feet. A swift look passed between them, which did not
escape me.

“Miss Ffolliot!” she exclaimed. “Why, is anything the matter?” The
little maid had retreated, and closed the door. I advanced a few
steps further into the room. Somehow I became dimly conscious that
their attitude towards me, or my mission, if they had surmised its
purport, was in a certain sense hostile. I looked into the woman’s
eyes, and I was perplexed. Something had come between us. Perhaps it
was my father’s stern words to her, perhaps it was some shadow from
those former days concerning which they certainly had some common
knowledge. But from whatever cause it arose there was certainly a
change. The frank sympathy which seemed to have sprung up between
us on that delightful afternoon was altogether a thing of the past,
almost as though it had never been. She faced me coldly, with
indrawn lips and unfriendly face. I was confused and perplexed;
yet even in that same moment a thought flashed in upon me. She was
wearing a mask. For some reason or other she was putting away her
friendliness. Surely it was the memory of my father’s words.

“It was Mr. Deville I wanted to see,” I said. “I saw him cross the
park on his way here, so I followed. I am in trouble. I wanted to ask
him a question.”

He stood leaning against the broad mantelpiece, his brows contracted,
his face cold and forbidding.

“I am afraid that I cannot help you, Miss Ffolliot,” he said. “I
cannot conceive any way in which I could be of service to you, I am
afraid.”

“You can help me if you will, by answering a single question,” I
interrupted. “You dropped a letter from your pocket on Wednesday
morning, and I returned it to you. Tell me whose handwriting it was!”

There was a little crash upon the floor, and the sound of a
half-uttered exclamation. Adelaide Fortress had dropped a small china
ornament with which she had been playing. She did not even glance
towards the pieces at her feet. She was bending slightly towards me,
her lips half parted, her cheeks pale. Her appearance fascinated me; I
forgot Mr. Deville altogether until the sound of his clear, deep voice
broke the silence.

“I had several letters in my pocket, Miss Ffolliot,” he said,
slowly. “I am not sure that I remember which one it was that you were
good enough to restore to me. In any case, how are you interested
in the writer of any of them? What has it to do with your present
trouble--whatever that may be?”

“I will tell you,” I answered, readily. “On Tuesday morning my father
received a letter, and whatever its contents were, they summoned him
to London. He was to have returned yesterday. He did not come, and he
sent no message. All to-day we have had no word from him. The last
train from London to-night is in, and he has not come. We do not
know where he is, or what has become of him. There are the services
to-morrow, and no one to take them. He must be ill, or in trouble of
some sort, or he would have returned, that is certain. It has made us
terribly anxious.”

“I am very sorry to hear this, Miss Ffolliot,” he said. “If I
could help you I would be glad, but I am afraid I do not quite
see--exactly--”

I raised my eyes to his and looked him in the face. The words seemed
to die away upon his lips. He was not actor enough for his part.

“I will tell you why I came to you for help, Mr. Deville,” I
exclaimed. “The handwriting upon the letter which you dropped was the
same handwriting which summoned my father to London.”

Then, for the first time, some glimmering of the mystery in which
these persons and my father were alike concerned dawned upon me. The
man and the women looked at one another; Bruce Deville walked over to
the window without answering or addressing me. I had, indeed, asked no
direct question. Yet they knew what I wanted. It was the whole truth
which I desired.

I stamped my foot upon the floor. Did they know what my sufferings
were, those two persons, with their pale, puzzled faces and cold
words? I felt myself growing angry.

“Answer me!” I cried. “Who wrote you that letter?”

Still neither the man nor the woman spoke. Their silence maddened
me. I forgot my promise to the man at Naselton Hall. I forgot
everything except my desire to sting them out of that merciless,
unsympathetic silence. So I cried out to them--

“I will tell you who wrote it; it was a man from South America,
and his name is Berdenstein. He is at Naselton Hall. I will go to
him. Perhaps he will tell me what you will not.”

The man stepped forward with outstretched hand. His face was dark with
passionate anger, almost I thought he would have struck me. But the
woman’s was pale as death, and a drop of red blood marked the place
where her teeth met her under lip. Then I saw that the man had known,
but the woman had not.

“If you know so much,” he said, brutally, “you had better go to him
and discover the rest. You will find him very sympathetic. Without a
doubt he will help you!”

“No! No!”

The woman’s negative rang out with a sudden sharp and crisp
distinctness. She rose and came over to my side. She laid her hands
softly upon my shoulders. Her face amazed me, it was so full of
sympathy, and yet so sorrowful. She, too, had received a blow.

“Child,” she said, softly, “you must not be impatient. I believe that
your father is well. I believe that somehow or other he will contrive
to be here in time to take up his duties to-morrow. We could not tell
you--either Mr. Deville or I--where he is, but we know perhaps a
little more than you do. He is in London somewhere seeking for that
person whom you have just mentioned. He will not find him, but he
will not give up searching for him till the last moment. But, child,
whatever you do, avoid that man Berdenstein like a pestilence. Your
father and he are bitter and terrible enemies. Do not dream of going
to him. Do not let your father know that he is near. If fate must have
it so, they will meet. But God forbid!--but God forbid!”

“Who is he, then, this man, this Berdenstein?” I asked her under my
breath. Her words had had a powerful effect upon me. She was terribly
in earnest. I knew that she was speaking for my good. I trusted her. I
could not help it.

She shook her head. Her eyes were full of horror.

“It is not for me to tell you, child. It is one of those things which
God forbid that you may ever know.”

Then there was a silence between us. After all this mystery whose
shadows seemed to surround me was like a far away thing. My
present trouble weighed heaviest upon me. The other was vague,
even though it was terrible. My father’s disappearance was a real
and terrible calamity staring me in the face. It engrossed all my
thoughts. They would tell me nothing, those two. I dared not go to
Berdenstein. Already I was afraid of him. I remembered his smile
when I spoke of my father, and I shuddered. Supposing they had
met. Supposing they had come together face to face in some lonely
house. Perhaps his letter had been a decoy. The man’s face, with its
cruel mouth and sardonic smile, suddenly loomed large in my memory. I
sprang to my feet with a cry of fear. I was terrified with my own
thoughts. Bruce Deville came over to me, and I found him studying my
face with a new expression, the meaning of which I could not fathom.

“If you will come to the window, Miss Ffolliot,” he said, “I think you
will see something which will relieve some part of your anxiety at any
rate.”

I hastened eagerly to his side. Only a few yards away, walking
steadily in the middle of the hard, white road, was a figure in sombre
black. His shoulders were bent, and his pale face downcast. His whole
appearance was that of a weary and dejected wanderer. These things I
realized more completely afterwards; for the present a sense of almost
intolerable relief drowned every other motion. It was my father--he
had returned.

I should have rushed out to him, but Bruce Deville laid his hand very
softly upon my shoulder. I could not have believed that any touch of
his could be so gentle.

“I wish you would take my advice, Miss Ffolliot,” he said. “Take the
path through the plantation home, and don’t let your father see you
leaving here. It would be better, would it not, Adelaide?” he added.

She looked at me.

“Yes, it would be better,” she said. “Do you mind? You will be at home
as soon as he is.”

I could not but admit that the advice was good, bearing in mind my
father’s words when he found me there only a few days before. Yet
it galled me that it should have been offered. What was this secret
shared between these three of which I was ignorant? I declared to
myself that I would know as soon as my father and I were alone
together. I would insist upon all these things being made clear to
me. I would bear it no longer, I was resolved on that. But in the
meantime I was helpless.

“Very well,” I answered; “perhaps you are right, I will go by the
footpath.”

I left the room abruptly. Mr. Deville opened the front door for me,
and hesitated with his cap in his hand. I waved him away.

“I will go alone,” I said. “It is quite light.”

“As you will,” he answered, shortly. “Good-night.”

He turned on his heel and re-entered the room. I crossed the road with
soft footsteps. At the opening of the plantation I paused. My father
was in the road below walking wearily and leaning upon his stick. At
my sudden standstill a twig beneath my feet snapped short. A sudden
change seemed to transform his face. He stopped short and turned
round with the swift, eager movement of a young man. His hand fumbled
for a moment in the pocket of his long clerical coat, and reappeared
clutching something which flashed like steel in the dull light. He
held it at arm’s length, looking eagerly around, peering forward in my
direction, but unable to see me owing to the dark shadows of the trees
beneath which I stood. But I on the other hand could see his every
movement; in the half-light his figure stood out in such marvellous
distinctness against the white road and the low, grey line of sky
beyond. I could see him, and I could see what it was he carried in his
hand. It was a small, shining revolver.

He stood quite still like a man expecting a sudden attack. When
none came and the stillness remained unbroken, the strained, eager
light died slowly out of his face. He appeared rather disappointed
than relieved. Reluctantly he turned around, and with the revolver
still in his hand but hidden beneath the skirts of his coat, made
his way up the white hill towards the Vicarage. He must have walked
quickly, for although I hurried, and my way back was the shorter, he
was already at our gate when I emerged from the plantation. As he
stooped to adjust the fastening I heard him groan, and bending forward
I caught a glimpse of his face. I must have cried out, only my lips
seemed palsied as though I were but a sleeping figure in some terrible
nightmare. His face was like the face of a dead man. He seemed to have
aged by at least a dozen years. As he hastened up the little drive,
his walk, usually so dignified and elastic, became a shamble. It
seemed to me that this was but the wreck of the man who had left us
only a few days before.




CHAPTER VIII

THE COMING OF MR. BERDENSTEIN


There are days marked in our lives with white stones. We can
never forget them. Recollections, a very easy effort of memory,
seem to bring back even in some measure the very thrill, the same
pulsations and emotions, as were kindled into life by certain
never-to-be-forgotten happenings. Time cannot weaken them. Whilst we
have life the memory of them is eternal. And there are other days
against the memory of which we have dropped a black stone. We shrink
from anything which may recall them. No sacrifice would seem too
great if only we could set the seal of oblivion upon those few hated
hours. We school ourselves to close our eyes, and turn our heads away
from anything which might in any manner recall them to us. Yet we are
powerless. Ghosts of them steal light-footed, detested and uninvited
guests, across our fairest moments; the chill of winter shakes us
on the most brilliant of midsummer days; the color steals from our
cheeks, and our blood runs to water. We are at the mercy of those
touches of icy reminiscence. There is no escape from them. There never
will be any escape. The Sunday which followed my father’s visit to
London is one of those hideous memories. In the calendar of my life
it is marked with the blackest of black stones. I only pray that such
another day as that may never find its way into my life.

The morning passed much as usual. My father had scarcely spoken
to us on the previous evening. In reply to our half eager, half
frightened questions, he admitted that he had been ill. He would not
hear of a doctor. His malady, he told us, was one which he himself
perfectly understood. He would be better in a few days. He ate and
drank sparingly, and then retired at once to his room. We heard him
drag himself wearily up the stairs, and Alice burst into tears, and I
myself felt a lump in my throat. Yet what could we do? He would not
have us near him. The only invalid’s privilege which he permitted
himself was a fire in his bedroom, and this he asked for immediately
he entered the house, although the night was close and oppressive, and
he had come in with beads of perspiration standing out upon his white
forehead.

In the morning he preached an old sermon, preached it with weary lips
and wholly nonchalant manner. His pallid face and lustreless eyes
became objects of remark amongst the meagre congregation. I could
hear people whispering to one another when the service was over. Lady
Naselton spoke to me of it with concern as we passed down the aisle.

“I am sorry to see your father looking so dreadfully ill dear,” she
remarked. “I am particularly sorry to-day. Come outside, and I will
tell you why.”

We passed out together into the sunlit air, fresh and vigorous after
the dull vault-like gloom of the little church, with its ivy-hung
windows. Lady Naselton held my arm.

“My dear,” she said, “the Bishop is lunching with us to-day, and
staying all night. I have spoken to him about your father. He
remembers him quite well, and he is coming to service this evening on
purpose to hear him preach.”

“The Bishop,” I repeated, vaguely. “Do you mean our Bishop? The Bishop
of Exchester?”

“Yea. I am not supposed, of course, to say anything about it, as his
visit has nothing whatever to do with diocesan affairs, but I should
be disappointed if your father did not make an impression upon him.”

She looked around to be sure that no one was listening. It was quite a
needless precaution.

“You see, dear, I happen to know that there are two vacant stalls at
the cathedral, and the Bishop wants a preacher badly. It is owing
to what I have told him about your father that he is coming over
to-day. I do hope that he will be at his best this evening.”

“I am afraid that there is very little chance of it,” I answered,
blankly. “He is really very ill. He will not admit it, but you can see
for yourself.”

“He must make an effort,” Lady Naselton said, firmly. “Will you tell
him this from me? Say that we shall all be there, and if only he can
make a good impression--well, it is the chance of a lifetime. Of
course, we shall all be terribly sorry to lose you, but Exchester
is not very far off, and we really could not expect to keep a man
with your father’s gifts very long. Try and rouse him up, won’t
you? Goodbye, dear.”

She drove off, and I waited at the vestry door for my father. He came
out with half-closed eyes, and seemed scarcely to see me. I walked by
his side, and repeated what Lady Naselton had told me. Contrary to my
expectations, the news was sufficient to rouse him from his apathy.

“The Bishop here to-night!” he repeated, thoughtfully. “You are quite
sure that there is no mistake? It is the Bishop of Exchester?”

I nodded assent.

“So Lady Naselton assured me. I have heard her say more than once that
they knew him very well indeed. She is most anxious that you should
do your very best. It seems that there are two stalls vacant at the
cathedral.”

The light flashed into his eyes for a moment, and then died out.

“If only it had been a week ago,” he said. “I have other things in my
mind now. I am not in the mood to prepare anything worth listening
to.”

“Those other things, father,” I said, softly. “Are we to remain wholly
ignorant of them? If there is any trouble to be faced, we are ready to
take our share.”

He shook his head, and a wan smile flickered for a moment upon his
pale lips. He looked at me not unkindly.

“It may come, Kate,” he said, softly. “Till then, be patient and ask
no questions.”

We had reached the house, and I said no more. Directly after luncheon,
at which he ate scarcely anything, he went into his study. We hoped,
Alice and I, that he had gone to work. But in less than half an hour
he came out. I met him in the hall.

“My hat and stick, Kate,” he said. “I am going for a walk.”

His manner forbade questions, but as he was leaving the house an
impulse came to me.

“May I come with you, father?” I asked. “I was going for a walk too.”

He hesitated for a moment, and seemed about to refuse. What made him
change his mind I could never tell. But he did change it.

“Yes, you can come,” he said, shortly. “I am starting now, though. I
cannot wait for a moment.”

“I am quite ready,” I answered, taking my hat and gloves from the
stand. So we passed out of the house together.

At the gate he paused for a moment, and I thought that he was
going to take the road which led to the Yellow House and Deville
Court. Apparently he changed his mind, however.

“We will take the footpath to Bromilow Downs,” he said. “I have never
been there.”

We turned our backs upon the more familiar places, and walked slowly
along the country which led to the Downs. We neither of us spoke
a word for some time. Once or twice I glanced towards him with
concern. He was moving with uncertain steps, and every now and then
he pressed his hand to his side. Physically, I could see that he was
scarcely equal to the exertion of walking. It was mental disquiet
which had brought him out. His eyes were dry and bright, and there
was a hectic flush upon his cheeks. As we passed from the lane out on
to the open Downs, he drew a little breath and removed his hat. The
autumn wind swept through his hair, and blew open his coat. He took
in a long breath of it. “This is good,” he said, softly. “Let us rest
here.”

We sat upon the trunk of a fallen pine tree on the verge of the
common. Far away on the hillside rose the red chimneys of Naselton
Hall. I looked at them, and of a sudden the desire to tell my
father what I knew of that man’s presence there grew stronger and
stronger. After all it was his right to know. It was best to tell him.

“Father,” I said, “I have something to say to you. It is something
which I think you ought to know.”

He looked away from vacancy into my face. Something in my manner
seemed to attract him. He frowned, and answered me sharply.

“What is it, child? Only mind that it is not a question.”

“It is not a question.” I said. “It is something that I want to tell
you. Perhaps I ought to have told you before. One afternoon last week
I was at Lady Naselton’s for tea. I met a man there--half a foreigner
he seemed to me. He had lately returned from South America. His name
was Berdenstein.”

He heard me in perfect silence. He did not utter a single
exclamation. Only I saw his head sink, and a curious marble rigidity
settle down upon his features, chasing away all expression. In the
silence which followed before I spoke again I could hear his breathing
sharp and low, almost like the panting of an animal in pain.

“Don’t think that I have been spying on you, father,” I begged. “It
all came about so naturally. I gave you your letters the morning that
you went away, and I could not help seeing that one of them was from
South America. On the envelope was written: ‘In London about the
15th.’ Well, as you left for London at once, I considered that you
went to meet that person, whoever it was. Then at Lady Naselton’s
this man stared at me so, and he told me that he came from South
America. Some instinct seemed to suggest to me that this was the man
who had written that letter. I talked to him for awhile, and I was
sure of it.”

Then my father spoke. He was like a man who had received a stroke. His
voice seemed to come from a great distance. His eyes were fixed upon
that break in the trees on the distant hillside beyond which was
Naselton Hall.

“So near,” he said, softly--”so very near! How did he come here? Was
it chance?”

“He was good to Lady Naselton’s son abroad,” I answered. “He is very
rich, they say.”

“Ay, ay!” My father nodded his head slowly. His manner was becoming
more natural. Yet there was a look of deadly earnest in his white,
set face. To look at him made me almost shudder. Something in his
expression was like a premonition of the tragedy to come.

“We shall meet soon, then,” he said, thoughtfully. “It may be
to-morrow. It may be to-day. Kate, your eyes are younger than mine. Is
that a man coming along the road there?--down in the hollow on the
other side of the turn. Do you see?”

I stood up by his side. There was a figure in sight, but as yet a long
way off.

“It is a man,” I said. “He is coming towards us.”

We stood there side by side for several minutes. My father was leaning
upon my shoulder. The clutch of his fingers seemed to burn their way
through my dress into my flesh. It was as though they were tipped
with fire. He did not move or speak. He kept his eyes steadfastly
fixed upon the bend of the road. Suddenly a slight change flashed
into his face. He leaned forward; his upper lip quivered; he shaded
his eyes with his hand. I followed his rapt gaze, and in the middle
of the dusty white road I could see the man now. Well within sight,
I watched him draw nearer and nearer. His carriage was buoyant and
un-English, and he carried a cane, with which he snapped off the
heads of the thistles growing by the hedge-side. He seemed to be
whistling softly to himself, showing all the while those rows of
white, glistening teeth unpleasantly prominent against the yellowish
tinge of his cheeks. From the first I had scarcely doubted that this
was the man of whom we had been talking. The coincidence of his coming
never even struck me. It seemed at the time to be a perfectly natural
thing.

He came to within a yard or two of us before he appeared to recognize
me. Then he took off his hat and made me a sweeping bow. In the middle
of it he encountered my father’s steady gaze. His hat slipped from his
fingers--he stood like a man turned to stone. His black eyes were full
of horror; he looked at my father as a man would look at one risen
from the dead. And my father returned his gaze with a faint, curious
smile parting his thin lips.

“Welcome to England once more, Stephen,” my father said, grimly. “You
were about to address my daughter. Have you lost your way?”

The man opened his lips twice before he spoke. I could almost fancy
that his teeth were chattering. His voice was very low and husky.

“I was going to ask the way to Deville Court,” he said. All the time
his eyes never left my father’s face. For some reason or other they
were full of wonder; my father’s presence seemed to terrify him.

“The way to Deville Court?” my father repeated. “I am returning in
that direction. I will show it to you myself. There are several turns
before you get on to the straight road.”

My father descended the bank into the road. The stranger muttered
something inaudible, which my father ignored.

“We had better start,” he said, calmly. “It is rather a long way.”

The man whom my father had called Stephen hesitated and drew back.

“The young lady,” he suggested, faintly--”she will come with us.”

“The young lady has an engagement in another direction,” he said, with
his eyes fixed on me. “I want you, Kate, to call upon Mr. Charlsworth
and tell him to be sure to be at church to-night. You can tell him why
it is important.”

There was a ring in my father’s tone, and a light in the glance which
he flashed upon me which forbade any idea of remonstrance. Yet at the
thought of leaving those two men together a cold chill seemed to pass
through all my veins. Something seemed to tell me that this was no
ordinary meeting. The man Berdenstein’s look of terror as he had
recognized my father was unmistakable. Even now he was afraid to go
with him. Yet I was powerless, I dared not disobey. Already the two
men were walking side by side. I was left alone, and the farmhouse to
which my father had bidden me go lay in altogether a different
direction. I stood and watched them pass along the lane together. Then
I went on my errand. There was nothing else I could do.

       *       *       *       *       *

I reached home in about an hour. Alice met me at the door.

“Has father come in yet?” I asked her, quickly.

She nodded.

“About five minutes ago. The walk seemed to have done him good,” she
added. “He was quite cheerful, and had a wonderful color. Why, Kate!
what have you been doing to yourself? You are as white as a ghost.”

“He was alone, I suppose?” I asked, ignoring the question.

“Alone! Of course he was alone. Come in and have some tea at once. You
look tired out.”




CHAPTER IX

A TERRIBLE INTERRUPTION


By some means or other the news had spread in the village, and such a
congregation as I had never seen filled our little church long before
the usual time. In a dark corner I saw, to my surprise, Bruce Deville
leaning against a pillar with folded arms, and on my way to my pew I
passed Adelaide Fortress seated in a chair in the nave. Neither of
these two had I ever seen in church before, and what had brought them
there on that particular evening I never clearly understood. It was
a little irony of fate--one of those impulses which it is hard to
believe are altogether coincidences.

The Bishop came early, and sat by Lady Naselton’s side, the centre
of all eyes. I looked away from him to the chancel. I was strangely
nervous. It was still dimly lit, although the bells had ceased to
ring. There was only a moment’s pause, however, then the little space
was filled with white-robed figures, and my sister’s voluntary, unduly
prolonged in this instance, died away in a few soft chords. I drew a
long breath of relief. Everything was going as usual. Perhaps, after
all this night might be a fateful one to us.

I watched the Bishop’s face from the first. I saw him glance up as if
in surprise at my father’s rich, musical voice, which woke the echoes
of the dark little church with the first words of the service. At
the singing, which was always wretched, he frowned, and, catching
a sideway glance from Lady Naselton, smiled somewhat. Studying him
through half-closed eyelids, I decided that country services in the
abstract did not attract him, and that he was a little bored.

It was only when my father stood up in the pulpit and looked around
him in that moment or two of hushed suspense which precedes the giving
out of the text, that the lines of his face relaxed, and he settled
himself down with an air of interest.

For me it was a terribly anxious moment. I knew my father’s state of
health, and I remembered the few weary and pointless words which had
gone to make his morning sermon. Contrary to his usual custom, he
stood there without any notes of any sort. I scarcely dared to hope
that he would be able to do himself justice. Yet the first words of
his text had scarcely left his lips when some premonition of what
was to come sent a strange thrill through all my nerves. “The wages
of sin is death.” No words could give any idea of the marvellous yet
altogether effortless solemnity with which these words passed from my
father’s lips. Scarcely uttered above a whisper, they yet penetrated
to the utmost corners of the little church. Was it really intense
earnestness or a wonderful knowledge and appreciation of true dramatic
effect which made him close the book with a slow movement of his
forefinger, and stand up there amongst the deep shadows as pale as the
surplice which hung around his pale form? Yet when he spoke his voice
did not tremble or falter. His words, tense with life, all vibrating
with hidden fire, penetrated easily to the furthest and darkest corner
of the building.

“The wages of sin--the eternal torment of a conscience never sleeping,
never weary!” It was of that he went on to speak. I can scarcely
remember so much as a single sentence of that sermon, although its
effect upon myself and those who formed the congregation of listeners,
is a memory which even now thrills me. From those few opening words,
pregnant as they were with dramatic force, and lit with the fire of
true eloquence, not for one moment did the attention of the little
congregation wander. A leaf could have been heard to drop in the
church, the rustle of a pocket handkerchief was a perfectly audible
sound. Not even a child looked sideways to watch the dark ivy waving
softly against the stained glass windows or wondered at the strange
pattern which a ray of dying sunlight had traced upon the bare stone
aisles. There was something personal--something like the cry of human
sorrow itself in that slow, passionate outpouring. Was it by any
chance a confession or an accusation to which we were listening? It
was on the universality of sin of which my father spoke with such
heart-moving emphasis. Our lives were like cupboards having many
chambers, some of which were open indeed to the daylight and the gaze
of all men, but there were others jealously closed and locked. We
could make their outside beautiful, we could keep the eyes of all
men from penetrating beneath that fair exterior. We could lock them
with a cunning and secret key, so that no hand save our own could lay
bare the grisly spectre that lurked within. Yet our own knowledge, or
what we had grown to call conscience, sat in our hearts and mocked
us. Sometime the great white light swept into the hidden places,
there was a tug at our heartstrings, and behold the seal had fallen
away. And in that church, my father added slowly, “he doubted whether
any one could say that within him those dark places were not.”

Suddenly his calm, tense eloquence became touched with passion. His
pale face gleamed, and his eyes were lit with an inward fire. Gesture
and tone moved to the beat of a deeper and more subtle rhetoric. He
was pleading for those whose sin beat about in their bosoms and lay
like a dark shadow across all the sweet places of life. Passionate
and more passionate he grew. He was pleading--for whom? We listened
entranced. His terrible earnestness passed like an electric thrill
into the hearts of all of us. Several women were crying softly; men
sat there with bowed heads, face to face with ghosts long since
buried. Bruce Deville was sitting back in his corner with folded
arms and downcast head. Adelaide Fortress was looking steadfastly up
towards that pale, inspired figure, with soft, wet eyes. Even the
Bishop was deeply moved, and was listening to every word. For my
part there was a great lump in my throat. The sense of some terrible
reality behind my father’s impassioned words had left me pale and
trembling. A subtle sense of excitement stole through the church. When
he paused for a moment before his concluding sentence, there was
something almost like a murmur amongst the congregation, followed by
another period of breathless suspense.

In the midst of that deep hush a faint sound attracted me. My seat was
on a level with the open door, and I glanced out. A man was leaning
against the porch--a man in very grievous condition. His clothes were
disordered and torn, and there was a great stain on the front of his
coat. I alone had gazed away from the preacher in the pulpit towards
him, and whilst I looked the sound which had first attracted me was
repeated. A low, faint moan, scarcely louder than a whisper, passed
between his lips. He stood there supporting himself with his hands
against the wall. His lined face was turned towards me, and, with a
thrill of horror, I recognized him. I half rose from my seat. The man
was either ill or dying. He seemed to be making frantic signs to me. I
tried my utmost to signal to Mr. Charlsworth, but, like all the rest,
his eyes seemed riveted upon the pulpit. Before I could leave my seat,
or attract any one’s attention, he had staggered through the door
into the church itself. He stood leaning upon a vacant chair, a wild,
disordered object, with blood stains upon his hands and clothes, and
his dark eyes red and gleaming fiercely beneath his wind-tossed mass
of black hair.

So fascinated was the congregation that save myself only one or
two stray people had noticed him. He stood amongst the shadows,
and only I, to whom his profile appeared against the background of
the open door, was able to mark the full and terrible disorder of
his person. And while I waited, numb with some nameless fear, the
preacher’s voice rang once more through the building, and men and
women bowed their heads before the sweet, lingering passion of those
sad words.

“The wages of sin is death. For all things may pass away save sin. Sin
alone is eternal. Sin alone must stamp itself wherever it touches with
an undying and everlasting mark. Retribution is like the tides of the
sea, which no man’s hands can stay; and Death rides his barque upon
the rolling waves. You and I and every man and woman in this world
whom sin has known--alas! that there should be so many--have looked
into his marble face, have felt the touch of his pitiless hands,
and the cold despair of his unloving embrace. For there is Death
spiritual and Death physical, and many of us who bear no traces of our
past in the present of to-day, have fought our grim battle with the
death--the--death----”

And then my father’s words died away upon his lips, and the whole
congregation knew what had already thrown me into an agony of
terror. The man had struggled to the bottom of the aisle, and the
sound of his shuffling movements, and the deep groan which accompanied
them, had drawn many eyes towards him. His awful plight stood
revealed with pitiless distinctness in the open space where he was
now standing. The red blood dripped from his clothing upon the bare
stone floor, a foam which was like the foam of death frothed at his
lips. He stood there, the focus of all horrified eyes, swaying to
and fro as though on the eve of collapse, his arms outstretched, and
his eyes flashing red fire upon the thin almost spectral-like figure
of the preacher now leaning over towards him from the pulpit. The
slight color forced into my father’s cheeks by the physical effort
of his impassioned oratory died away. To his very lips he was white
as the surplice he wore. Yet he did not lose his nerve or falter
for a moment. He motioned to Mr. Charlsworth and the other church
wardens, and both left their places and hurried down the aisle towards
the wild, tragical looking figure. Just as they reached him the cry
which his lips had twice declined to utter burst out upon the tense,
breathless silence. He made a convulsive movement forward as though to
spring like a wild cat upon that calm, dignified figure looking down
upon him with unfaltering and unflinching gaze.

“Judas! you, Judas! Oh! my God!”

His hands, thrown wildly out, fell to his side. He sank back into the
arms of one of those who had hurried from their places at my father’s
gesture. A last cry, more awful than anything I have ever heard, woke
hideous echoes amongst the wormeaten, black oak beams, and before
it had died away, I saw Adelaide Fortress glide like a black wraith
from her seat and fall on her knees by the fainting man’s side. My
father lifted up his arms, and with a deep, solemn tremor in his tone
pronounced the Benediction. Then, with his surplice flying round him,
he came swiftly down the aisle between the little crowd of horrified
people. They all fell back at his approach. He sank on one knee by the
side of the prostrate man and looked steadfastly into his face. The
congregation all waited in their places, and Alice, who was only
partly aware of what was going on, commenced to play a soft voluntary.

There was some whispering for a moment or two, then they lifted him up
and carried the lifeless body out into the open air.

My father followed close behind. For a few minutes there was an uneasy
silence. People forgot that the Benediction had been pronounced, and
were uncertain whether to go or stay. Then some one made a start, and
one by one they got up and left the church.

Lady Naselton paused and sat by my side for a moment. She was
trembling all over.

“Do you know who it was?” she whispered.

I shook my head.

“I am not sure. It was a stranger; was it not?”

She shuddered.

“It was either a stranger, or my guest, Mr. Berdenstein. I only caught
a glimpse of his face for a moment, and I could not be sure. He looked
so horrible.”

She paused, and suddenly discovered that I was half fainting. “Come
out into the air,” she whispered. I got up and went out with her just
in time.

They had carried him into a distant corner of the churchyard. My
father, when he saw us standing together in a little group, came
slowly over as though to check our further advance. His face was
haggard and drawn. He seemed to walk with difficulty, and underneath
his surplice I could see that one hand was pressed to his side.

“The man is dead,” he said, quietly. “There must have been an accident
or a fight. No one seems to know where he came from.”

“I wonder,” remarked the Bishop, thoughtfully, “why he should have
dragged himself up to the church in such a plight. One of those
cottages or the Vicarage would have been nearer.”

“Perhaps,” my father answered, gravely, “he was struggling for
sanctuary.”

And the Bishop held up his right hand towards the sky with a solemn
gesture.

“God grant that he may have found it,” he prayed.




CHAPTER X

CANON OF BELCHESTER


There followed for me after these solemn words of the Bishop a
phantasmagoria of human faces, and sky, and tree-tops, and a singing
in my ears, now loud, now soft, in which all other sounds and
movements seemed blended. I have an indistinct recollection of
the walk home, and of finding myself in my own room. Then memory
gradually faded away from me. Blank unconsciousness enveloped me like
a cloud. The next thing I remember is waking up one morning as though
after a terrible dream, a night of nightmares, and finding the room
half full of medicine bottles. I looked around me faintly curious,
inexpressibly bewildered; I suddenly realized that I had been ill.

I was not alone. Alice was standing over me, her round, honest little
face beaming with pleasure and her underlip quivering.

“You are better,” she said, softly. “I am so glad.”

“How long have I been here?” I asked.

She sat down by my side.

“A week to-morrow! Just think of it.”

I closed my eyes. The little scene in the churchyard had suddenly
risen up again before my eyes. My head commenced to swim. I asked no
more questions.

The next morning I was stronger. I sat up in bed and looked
around. The first thing which I noticed was that the room was full of
the most beautiful flowers; I stooped over a vase of roses and smelt
them. The air was almost faint with their delicious perfume.

“Where did they all come from?” I asked Alice.

She laughed in rather an odd manner.

“From whom do you suppose?” she asked.

“How should I know?” I protested, faintly. “I have not an idea.”

“From the _bête noir_,” she exclaimed, plucking off one of the yellow
blossoms and placing it upon my pillow.

I still looked blankly at her. She laughed.

“Can’t you really guess?” she asked.

I shook my head. I really had no idea.

“From Mr. Deville. He has called nearly every day to ask after you.”

It was surprising enough, but I said very little. I suppose I was not
considered strong enough then to hear any news of importance; but
several days later, when I was sitting up, Alice looked up from the
book she was reading aloud to me and told me something which I know
she must have had very hard work to have kept to herself for so long.

“Father is to be made a canon, Kate,” she said, triumphantly. I looked
up at her bewildered. I had forgotten all about Lady Naselton’s plans
on his behalf. The latter part of this terrible Sunday had haunted me
like a nightmare, usurping all my thoughts. There had been little room
for other memories.

“A canon!” I repeated, feebly. “Do you mean it, Alice?”

She nodded.

“The Bishop came here from Lady Naselton’s. He said a lot of nice
things to father about his sermon on--that Sunday night--you
remember.”

“It was a wonderful sermon,” I whispered.

“So the Bishop thinks; so every one thinks,” Alice declared, with
enthusiasm. “I shall never forget how I felt. And he had no notes, or
anything.”

“It was the most realistic sermon I ever heard,” I said, with a little
shudder. “It was like a scene from a play. It was wonderful.”

Alice looked up at me quickly. Doubtless my voice had betrayed some
agitation. She laid her hand upon my arm.

“Don’t think about it this evening,” she begged. “I quite forgot
father especially forbade my speaking of it to you. It must have been
terrible for you to have been so near it all. I can’t imagine what
I should have done. I could see nothing from the organ screen, you
know.”

I leaned over and looked at her.

“Alice, I do not want to talk about it, but I want to know how it
ended. You must tell me that.”

She hesitated for a moment.

“He was quite dead,” she said, slowly. “There was an inquest, and they
decided that he must have been attacked somewhere in the wood between
the downs and Yellow House. There were all the marks of a struggle
within a few hundred yards of the road.”

“Did they bring in a verdict of murder?” I asked.

Alice nodded.

“Yes,” she assented, gravely. “He was murdered. It seems that he was
lately come from abroad. He had been staying at Lady Naselton’s, but
she knew scarcely anything about him. He was kind to her son abroad. I
think they just know his name and that was all. They had no idea where
to send to or if he had any near relatives alive. It was all very
odd.”

“Was he robbed?” I asked.

“No. His watch and money were found in his pocket undisturbed. If
anything was taken from it it must have been papers only. The police
are trying hard to find a clue, but they say that it is a very
difficult case. No one seems to have seen him at all after he left
Naselton Hall.”

I caught at the side of my chair.

“No one at all?” I asked.

“Not a soul.”

I was silent for a moment. The walls of my little chamber had suddenly
opened. I saw again from the edge of the moor that lone figure coming
down the hillside towards us, I saw that strange light flashing in my
father’s face, and I heard the greeting of the two men. A sick dread
was in my heart.

“Was father called as a witness?” I asked.

“No. Why should he be? The man was a stranger to him. He had never
seen him before.”

I closed my eyes and laid back. Alice bent over me anxiously.

“I ought not to have talked about this to you,” she said. “Father
absolutely forbade me to, but you wanted to know the end so
much. Promise not to think of it any more.”

Promise not to think of it any more? Ah! if only I could have made
that promise and kept it. My sister’s protesting words seemed charged
with the subtlest and most bitter of all irony. Already some faint
premonition of the burden which I was to bear seemed dawning upon
me. I remained silent and kept my eyes closed. Alice thought that
I was asleep, but I knew that sleep was very far off. The white,
distorted face of that dying man was before me. I saw the silent
challenge and the silent duel which had passed between those two, the
central figures in that marvellous little drama--one, the challenger,
ghastly pale even to the tremulous lips, wild and dishevelled, my
father looking down upon him with unquailing mien and proud, still
face. One moment more of life, a few beats more of the pulses, and
that sentence--and that sentence--what would it have grown to? I felt
myself shivering as I lay there.

“Did you say that father was away now?” I asked Alice.

She nodded.

“Yes; he is staying with the Bishop for a few days. I should not be
surprised if he came home to-day, though. I have written to him by
every post to let him know how you are, and he was most anxious to
hear directly you were well enough to talk. I have been disobeying him
frightfully.”

Again I closed my eyes and feigned sleep. I had heard what Alice had
not, the sound of wheels below. Suddenly she laid down her work and
started up. It was my father’s voice bidding the cabman “Good night.”

“I must go down to him, Kate,” she declared, springing up; “I won’t
leave you alone for more than a minute or two.”

But when the minute or two had elapsed and there was a knock at my
door, it was not Alice who had returned. I answered in a low voice,
and my father entered.




CHAPTER XI

THE GATHERING OF THE CLOUD


From my low chair I watched my father cross the room. So far as I
could see there was no change in him. He came over to my side and took
my hand with an air of anxious kindliness. Then he stooped down, and
his lips touched my forehead.

“You are better, Kate?” he inquired, quietly.

“Quite well,” I answered.

He looked at me thoughtfully, and asked a few questions about my
illness, touched upon his own visit to the Bishop, and the dignity
which had been offered to him. Then after a short pause, during which
my heart beat fiercely, he came and sat down by my side.

“Kate! You are strong enough to listen to me while I speak just for a
moment or two upon a very painful subject.”

“Yes,” I whispered. “Go on.”

“I gather from what Alice tells me that you have already shown a very
wise discretion--in a certain matter. You have already alluded to
it, it seems, and she has told you all that is known. Something, of
course, must have at once occurred to you--I mean the fact that I have
not thought it well to disclose the fact that you and I together met
that unfortunate man on the common, and that he asked me the way to
the Yellow House.”

“I was bewildered when I found that you had not mentioned it,” I
faltered. “I do not understand. Please tell me.”

He looked steadily into my eyes. There was not the slightest
disquietude in his still, stern face. My nervousness did not affect
him at all. He seemed to feel no embarrassment.

“It is a matter,” he said, slowly, “to which I gave a good deal of
thought at the time. I came to the conclusion that for my own sake and
for the sake of another that the fact of that meeting had better not
be known. There are things concerning it which I may not tell you. I
cannot offer you as I would like my whole confidence. Only I can say
this, my disclosure of the fact of our having met the man could have
done not one iota of good. It could not possibly have suggested to any
one either a clue as to the nature of the crime or to the criminal
himself, and bearing in mind other things of which you are happier to
remain ignorant, silence became to me almost a solemn duty. It became
at any rate an absolute necessity. For the sake of others as well as
for my own sake I held my peace. Association direct or indirect with
such a crime would have been harmful alike to me and to the person
whom he desired to visit. So I held my peace, and I require of you,
Kate, that you take my pledged word as to the necessity for this
silence, and that you follow my example. I desire your solemn promise
that no word of that meeting shall ever pass your lips.”

I did not answer. With his eyes fixed upon my face he waited. I laid
my hand upon his arm.

“Father, in the church, did you see his face? Did you hear what he was
saying?”

He did not shrink from me. He looked into my white, eager face without
any sign of fear or displeasure.

“Yes,” he answered, gravely.

“Was it--was it--you to whom he spoke?” I cried.

There was a short silence.

“I cannot answer you that question, Kate,” he said.

I grasped his hand feverishly. There was a red livid mark afterwards
where my nails had dug into his wrist.

“Father, would you have me go mad?” I moaned. “You know that man. You
knew who he was! You knew what he wanted--at the Yellow House.”

“It is true,” he answered.

“In the church I could have touched--could have touched him, he was
so near to me--there was a terrible light in his face, his eyes were
flaming upon you. He was like a man who suddenly understands. He
called ‘Judas,’ and he pointed--at you.”

“He was mad,” my father answered, with a terrible calmness. “Every one
could see that he was mad.”

“Mad!” I caught at the thought. I repeated the word to myself, and
forced my recollection backwards with a little shudder to those few
horrible moments. After all was there any hope that this might be the
interpretation? My father’s voice broke in upon my thoughts.

“I do not wish to harp upon what must be a terribly painful subject
to you, Kate. I only want your promise, you must take my word for
everything else.”

I looked at him long and steadily. If the faces of men are in any
way an index to their lives, my father’s should rank high--high
indeed. His countenance was absolutely unruffled. There was not a
single shadow of fear there, or passion of any sort; only a delicate
thoughtfulness tempered with that quiet dignity which seemed almost
an inseparable characteristic of his. I took his hands in mine and
clasped them fervently.

“Father,” I cried, “give me your whole confidence. I will promise
all that you desire, only let me know everything. I have thought
sometimes--terrible thoughts--I cannot help them. They torment me
now--they will torment me always. I know so much--tell me a little
more. My lips shall be sealed. I mean it! Only----”

He raised his hand softly, but the words died upon my lips.

“I have nothing to tell you, child,” he said, quietly. “Put that
thought away from you forever. The burden which I bear is upon my own
shoulders only. God forbid that even the shadow of it should darken
your young life.”

“I am not afraid of any knowledge,” I cried. “It is ignorance of which
I am afraid. I can bear anything except these horrible, nameless
fears against which I have no power. Why don’t you trust me? I am old
enough. I am wise enough. What you tell me shall be as sacred as God’s
word to me.”

He shook his head without any further response. I choked back the
tears from my eyes.

“There is some mystery, here,” I cried. “We are all enveloped in
it. What does it mean? Why did we come here?”

“We came here by pure accident,” my father answered. “We came here
because the curacy was offered to me; and I was glad to take anything
which relieved me of my duties at Belchester.”

“It was fate!--a cruel fate!” I moaned.

“It was the will of God,” he answered, sternly.

Then there was a silence between us, unbroken for many minutes. My
father waited by my side--waited for my answer. The despair in my
heart grew deeper.

“I cannot live here,” I said, “and remain ignorant.”

“You must give me your promise, child,” he said. “I have no power to
tell you anything. You are young, and for you the terror of this thing
will fade away.”

I answered him then with a sinking heart.

“I promise,” I said, faintly. “Only--I shall have to go away. I cannot
live here. It would drive me mad.”

His cold lips touched mine as he rose.

“You must do,” he said, gravely, “what seems best to you. You are
old enough to be the moulder of your own life. If you would be
happier away, you must go. Only there is this to be remembered--I can
understand that this particular place may have become distasteful to
you. We are not going to live here any longer. You will find life at
Eastminster larger and more absorbing. I shall be able to do more for
you than I have ever done before.”

“It is not that,” I interrupted, wearily. “You know that it is not
that. It is between us two.”

He was silent. A sudden change stole into his face. His lips
quivered. An inexpressible sorrow gleamed for a moment in his dark
eyes. He bent his head. Was that a tear that fell? I fancied so.

I took his hand and soothed it.

“Father, you will tell me, won’t you?” I whispered. “I shall not
mind. I will be brave, whatever dreadful things I may have to
know. Let me share the burden.”

For a moment I thought that he was yielding. He covered his face with
his hands and remained silent. But when he looked up I saw that the
moment of weakness had passed. He rose to his feet.

“Good night, Kate,” he said, quietly. “Thank you for your promise.”

My heart sank. I returned his kiss coldly. He left me without another
word.




CHAPTER XII

MR. BERDENSTEIN’S SISTER


Three days after that memorable conversation with my father a
fly drove up to the door, and from where I was sitting in our
little drawing room I heard a woman’s anxious voice inquiring for
Mr. Ffolliot. A moment or two later the maid knocked at my door.

“There is a young lady here, miss, inquiring for the Vicar. I told her
that Mr. Ffolliot would not be in for an hour or two, and she asked if
she could speak to any other member of the family.”

“Do you know what she wants, Mary?” I asked.

The girl shook her head.

“No, miss. She would not say what her business was. She just wants to
see one of you, she said.”

“You had better tell her that I am at home, and show her in here if
she wishes to see me,” I directed.

She ushered in a young lady, short, dark, and thin. Her eyes were
swollen as though with weeping, and her whole appearance seemed to
indicate that she was in trouble. She sank into the chair to which I
motioned her, and burst into tears.

“You must please forgive me,” she exclaimed, in a voice broken with
sobs. “I have just come from abroad, and I have had a terrible shock.”

Some instinct seemed to tell me the truth.

My heart stood still.

“Are you any relation of the gentleman who was--who died here last
week?” I asked, quickly.

She nodded.

“I have just been to the police station,” she said. “It is his
watch--the one I gave him--and his pocket book, with a half-written
letter to me in it. They have shown me his photograph. It is my
brother, Stephen Berdenstein. He was the only relative I had left in
the world.”

I was really shocked, and I looked at her pitifully. “I am so sorry,”
I said. “It must be terrible for you.”

She commenced to sob again, and I feared she would have hysterics. She
was evidently very nervous, and very much overwrought. I was never
particularly good at administering consolation, and I could think of
nothing better to do than to ring the bell and order some tea.

“He was to have joined me in Paris on Saturday,” she continued after
a minute or two. “He did not come and he sent a message. When Monday
morning came and there was no letter from him, I felt sure that
something had happened. I bought the English papers, and by chance I
read about the murder. It seemed absurd to connect it with Stephen,
especially as he told me he was going to be in London, but the
description was so like him that I could not rest. I telegraphed to
his bankers, and they replied that he had gone down into the country,
but had left no address. So I crossed at once, and when I found that
he had not been heard of at his club in London or anywhere else for
more than ten days, I came down here. I went straight to the police
station, and--and----”

She burst into tears again. I came over to her side and tried
my best to be sympathetic. I am afraid that it was not a very
successful attempt, for my thoughts were wholly engrossed in another
direction. However, I murmured a few platitudes, and presently she
became more coherent. She even accepted some tea, and bathed her face
with some eau de Cologne, which I fetched from my room.

“Have you any idea,” I asked her presently, “why your brother came to
this part of the country at all. He was staying at Lady Naselton’s,
was he not? Was she an old friend?”

She shook her head.

“I never heard him speak of her in my life. He wrote me of a young
Mr. Naselton who had visited him in Rio, but even in his last letter
from Southampton he did not say a word about visiting them. He would
have come straight to me, he said, but for a little urgent business in
London.”

“And yet he seems to have accepted a casual invitation, and came down
here within a day or two of his arrival in England,” I remarked.

“I cannot understand it!” she exclaimed, passionately. “Stephen and
I have not met for many years--he has been living in South America,
and I have been in Paris--but he wrote to me constantly, and in every
letter he repeated how eagerly he was looking forward to seeing me
again. I cannot think that he would have come down here just as an
ordinary visit of civility before coming to me, or sending for me to
come to him. There must be something behind it--something of which I
do not know.”

“You know, of course, that Naselton Hall is shut up and that the
Naseltons have gone to Italy?” I asked her.

“They told me so at the police station,” she answered. “I have sent
Lady Naselton a telegram. It is a long time since I saw Stephen, and
one does not tell everything in letters. He may have formed great
friendships of which I have never heard.”

“Or great enmities,” I suggested, softly.

“Or enmities,” she repeated, thoughtfully. “Yes; he may have made
enemies. That is possible. He was passionate, and he was wilful. He
was the sort of a man who made enemies.”

She was quite calm now, and I had a good look at her. She was
certainly plain. Her face was sharp and thin, and her eyes were a
dull, dark color. She was undersized and ungraceful, in addition
to which she was dressed much too richly for traveling, and in
questionable taste. So far as I could recollect there was not the
slightest resemblance between her and the dead man.

She surprised me in the middle of my scrutiny, but she did not seem to
notice it. She had evidently been thinking something out.

“You have not lived here very long, Miss Ffolliot?” she asked, “have
you?”

I shook my head.

“Only a month or so.”

“I suppose,” she continued, “you know the names of most of the
principal families round here. A good many of them would call upon
you, no doubt?”

“I believe I know most of them, by name at any rate,” I told her.

“Do you know any family of the name of Maltabar?” she
asked--”particularly a man called Philip Maltabar?”

I shook my head at once with a sense of relief which I could not
altogether conceal.

“No, I never heard it in my life,” I answered. “I am quite sure that
there is no family of that name of any consequence around here. I must
have heard it, and it is too uncommon a one to be overlooked.”

The brief light died out of her face. She was evidently disappointed.

“You are quite sure?”

“Absolutely certain.”

She sighed.

“I am sorry,” she said. “Philip Maltabar is the one man I know who
hated my brother. There has been a terrible and lifelong enmity
between them. It has lasted since they were boys. I believe that it
was to avoid him that my brother first went to South America. If there
had been a Maltabar living anywhere around here I should have known
where to go for vengeance.”

“Is it well to think of that, and so soon?” I asked, quietly. The
girl’s aspect had changed. I looked away from her with a little
shudder.

“What else is there for me to think of?” she demanded. “Supposing it
were you, it would be different. You have other relatives. I have
none. I am left alone in the world. My brother may have had his
faults, but to me he was everything. Can you wonder that I hate the
person who has deprived me of him?”

“You are not sure--it is not certain that there was not an
accident--that he did not kill himself,” I suggested.

She dismissed the idea with scorn.

“Accident! What accident could there have been? It is not possible. As
to taking his own life, it is ridiculous! Why should he? He was too
fond of it. Other men might have done that, but Stephen--never! No. He
was murdered in that little plantation. I know the exact spot. I have
been there. There was a struggle, and some one, better prepared than
he, killed him. Perhaps he was followed here from London. It may be
so. And yet, what was he doing here at all? That visit to Naselton
Hall was not without some special purpose. I am sure of it. It was
in connection with that purpose that he met with his death. He must
have come to see some one. I want to know who it was. That is what I
am going to find out--whom he came to see. You can blame me if you
like. It may be unchristian, and you are a parson’s daughter. I do not
care. I am going to find out.”

I was silent. In a measure I was sorry for her, but down in my heart
there lurked the seeds of a fear--nameless, but terribly potent--which
put me out of all real sympathy with her. I began to wish that
she would go away. I had answered her questions, and I had done
all--more--than common courtesy demanded. Yet she sat there without
any signs of moving.

“I suppose,” she said at last, finding that I kept silent, “that it
would not be of any use waiting to see your father. He has not been
here any longer than you have. He would not be any more likely to know
anything of the man Maltabar?”

I shook my head decidedly.

“He would be far less likely to know of him than I should,” I assured
her. “He knows a good deal less of the people around here. His
interests are altogether amongst the poorer classes. And he has left
my sister and me to receive and pay all the calls. He is not at all
fond of society.”

“Philip Maltabar may be poor--now,” she said musingly. “He was never
rich.”

“If he were poor, he would not be living here,” I said. “The poor of
whom I speak are the peasantry. It is not like a town, you know. Any
man such as the Mr. Maltabar you speak of would be more than ever a
marked figure living out of his class amongst villagers. In any case
he would not be the sort of man whom my father would be likely to
visit.”

“I suppose you are right,” she answered, doubtfully. “At any
rate--since I am here--there would be no harm in asking your father,
would there?”

“Certainly not,” I answered. “I daresay he will be here in a few
moments.”

Almost as I spoke he passed the window, and I heard his key in the
front door. The girl, who had seen his shadow, looked up quickly.

“Is that he?” she asked.

I nodded.

“Yes. You can ask him for yourself now.”

“I should like to,” she answered. “I am so glad I stayed.”

Some instinct prompted me to rise and leave the room. I went out and
met my father in the hall.

“Father,” I said, “there is a girl here who says she has identified
that man. She is his sister. She is waiting to see you.”

My father had evidently come in tired out; he leaned against the wall
for support. He was out of breath, too, and pale.

“What does she want with me?” he asked, sharply.

“She came to ask if we knew of any family of the name of
Maltabar. Philip Maltabar, it seems, is the name of a man who has been
her brother’s enemy. She thinks that this thing must have been his
doing. She cannot think of any one else with whom he has ever been on
bad terms. I have told her that there is no one of that name in these
parts.”

He cleared his throat. He was very hoarse and ghastly pale.

“Quite right, Kate,” he said. “There is no one of that name around
here. What more does she want? What does she want of me?”

“I told her that I knew of no one, but she came to see you in the
first place. She does not seem quite satisfied. She wants to ask you
herself.”

He drew back a step.

“No! no! I cannot see her. I am tired--ill. I have walked too
far. Tell her from me that there is no one of that name living in
these parts. I am absolutely sure of it. She can take it for granted
from me.”

“Hadn’t you better see her just for one moment, as she has waited for
so long?” I said. “She will be better satisfied.”

He ground his heel down into the floor.

“No! I will not! I have had too much worry and trouble in connection
with this affair already. My nerves are all unstrung. I cannot discuss
it again with any one. Please let her understand that from me as
kindly as possible, but firmly. I am going to my study. Don’t come to
see me again until she has gone.”

He crossed the hall and entered his own room. I heard the key turn in
the lock after him. It was useless to say anything more. I went back
to my visitor.

I entered noiselessly, as I was wearing house shoes, and was surprised
to find her with the contents of my card-plate spread out before
her. She flushed up to the temples when she saw me standing on the
threshold, yet she was not particularly apologetic.

“I am very rude,” she said, brusquely. “I had no right, of course, to
take such a liberty, but I thought--it might be barely possible--that
you had forgotten the name, that some one might have called when you
were not at home, or that, perhaps, your sister might have met them.”

“Oh, pray satisfy yourself,” I said, icily. “You are quite welcome to
look them through.”

She put the card-plate down.

“I have looked at all of them,” she said. “There is no name anything
like it there. Is your father coming in?”

“He is not very well,” I told her, “and is quite tired out. He has
walked a long way this afternoon. He wishes you to excuse him, and to
say that he is quite sure that there is no one of that name, rich or
poor, living anywhere in this neighborhood.”

She seemed by no means satisfied.

“But shall I not be able to see him at all, then?” she exclaimed. “I
had hoped that as he was the clergyman here, and was one of those who
were with my brother when he died, that he would be certain to help
me.”

I shook my head.

“I am afraid that you will think it very selfish,” I said, “but my
father would rather not see you at all. He is in very delicate health,
and this affair has already been a terrible shock to him. He does not
want to have anything more to do with it directly or indirectly. He
wants to forget it if he can. He desires me to offer you his most
sincere sympathy. But you must really excuse him.”

She rose slowly to her feet; her manner was obviously ungracious.

“Oh, very well!” she said. “Of course if he has made up his mind
not to see me, I cannot insist. At the same time, I think it very
strange. Good afternoon.”

I rang the bell, and walked with her to the door.

“Is there anything else which I can do for you?” I asked.

“No, thank you. I think I shall telegraph to London for a detective. I
shall see what they say at the police station. Good afternoon.”

She did not offer to shake hands, nor did I. I think of all the women
I had ever met, I detested her the most.

I watched her walk down the drive with short, mincing steps and get
into a fly. Then I went to the door of my father’s room and knocked.




CHAPTER XIII

FOR VENGEANCE


I knocked at the door twice before there was any answer. Then I heard
my father’s voice from the other end of the room.

“Is that you, Kate?”

“Yes,” I answered. “Can I come in?”

The door was not immediately unlocked.

“Has she gone?” he asked.

“Yes,” I answered.

He opened it then, and I was frightened to see how ill he looked. He
had evidently been lying down, for the cushions on his sofa were
disarranged.

“She has gone away, then,” he repeated, anxiously.

I nodded.

“Yes.”

“Was she annoyed because I did not see her?”

“She was disappointed,” I admitted. “She was very ungracious and very
disagreeable; a most objectionable person altogether. I don’t know how
I managed to be civil with her.”

“You explained that I was not well--that I was not fit to see any
one?”

“I did my best. She was very unreasonable, and she evidently expected
that you would have made an effort to see her. She went away
grumbling.”

He sat down upon the sofa, and I leaned against the table.

“Has she gone back to London?” he asked.

“I do not know, I don’t think so. She said something about going back
to the police station and wiring to London for a detective.”

“Ah!”

He had closed his eyes. I heard him draw in a long, sharp breath.

“She is a very determined young woman,” I continued. “Perhaps
I ought not to say so, but she seemed to feel more angry than
broken-hearted. She is vindictive, I am sure. She will do her best to
find the man who killed her brother, and if she finds him she will
have no mercy.”

My father rose up and walked to his writing table. His back was turned
to me as he commenced to sort out some papers.

“Perhaps,” he said, “that is natural. It is very hard indeed to
remember that vengeance belongs to God, and not to man. It is very
hard indeed. Leave me now, Kate, and see that I am not disturbed for
an hour.”

I closed his door softly, and walked out into the garden, across the
lawn to the edge. Below me was the little plantation, ill-famed and
suddenly notorious as the scene of that terrible tragedy. Every tree
seemed clearly defined and beautiful in that soft autumn twilight. I
looked at it with a curious sense of shuddering fear. That girl’s
face, hungry for vengeance, the code of blood for blood--it was
terrible. But the vengeance of God--more awful, if not so swift as
hers--on whom was that to fall?

A heavy step in the road brought me, with a little sense of relief,
back to the present. The tall form of Mr. Bruce Deville came in
sight. He passed so close to me that I could have touched him.

“Good night, Mr. Deville,” I said, softly, in his ear.

He started almost over to the other side of the road. Then he saw me,
and lifted his cap.

“Good God!” he exclaimed. “I beg your pardon, Miss Ffolliot. How you
startled me!”

“I am very sorry,” I said, penitently.

He looked at me and laughed. “You may be,” he said; “but you don’t
look it. I am glad that you are better.”

“I am quite well, thank you,” I answered. “I am glad to see you,
Mr. Deville. I wanted to thank you for those beautiful roses. I could
not believe that they came from you.”

He looked a little embarrassed.

“They are not worth mentioning,” he muttered. “Besides, it was
Adelaide’s idea. She thought that you would like them.”

I felt a little needlessly disappointed. Doubtless I answered him a
little coldly.

“I must thank Mrs. Fortress for them, then! Very well; I will go down
and see her to-morrow.”

“I don’t think,” he said, with a slight twinkle in his eyes, “that you
need go down specially. Mrs. Fortress only answered my question when I
asked her if she thought that you would care for them.”

“Oh, is that all?” I remarked.

“Entirely,” he answered. “At the same time, if you have any time to
spare I daresay Mrs. Fortress would be glad to see you if you went
down.”

“Do you think she would, really?” I asked. “You know the first time I
was there, something a little unpleasant happened in connection with
my father. I took a great fancy to her, and I would like to go and see
her again, but I am not sure whether she wants me. I fancy she was
very surprised at my visit the other night.”

“I am perfectly certain,” he declared, confidently, “that she would be
glad to see you any time you chose to go to her. You may take my word
for that.”

“I think I will go to-morrow, then,” I said. “Mrs. Fortress interests
me very much. There is no one else round here like her.”

“You are very friendly with my godmamma, are you not?” he said, with a
faint smile at the corners of his lips.

“Lady Naselton has been very kind to me,” I answered.

“I am afraid she gives me a dreadful character, doesn’t she?” he
asked.

“If she does you probably deserve it,” I said, severely. “I fancy
that I have heard her say that you are exceedingly shiftless and very
lazy. You could scarcely deny that, could you?”

“Well, I don’t know,” he answered. “I have walked twenty or thirty
miles to-day. That doesn’t sound particularly lazy, does it?”

“On sport or business?” I inquired.

He laughed, and looked down at himself. His clothes were splashed with
mud, and a bramble had torn his coat in a fresh place.

“I maintain that it is immaterial,” he declared. “I’ve been out all
day, and I haven’t sat down for more than an hour. Therefore I deny
the laziness _in toto_.”

“At any rate,” I continued, “there is another charge against you,
which you certainly can’t deny.”

“And that is?”

“Untidiness! We used to have a woman call upon us at Belchester to buy
our old clothes. If ever she comes here I shall certainly send her up
to Deville Court.”

He laughed gruffly.

“I wish you would; I’d sell her the whole lot. Anything else?”

“The other things,” I said, “were too bad to repeat. I have only been
enumerating your minor faults.”

He made me an ironical bow.

“I am exceedingly obliged to my godmother,” he said. “Some day I shall
do myself the pleasure of paying her a visit and suggesting that she
should mind her own business.”

“Your business is her business to the extent of her godmotherhood,” I
reminded him, suavely.

“Hang her godmotherhood!” he uttered under his breath. I think it was
“hang” he said--I was not sure about the expletive.

“I shall go away,” I said. “You are getting profane. You are still as
rude as when I bound your dog’s leg for you, I see.”

He was suddenly grave.

“That seems a long time ago,” he remarked.

“A week or two only,” I reminded him. “It seems longer, because of all
that has happened. That reminds me, Mr. Deville. I wanted to speak to
you--about--that Sunday--the murder!”

He shook his head, and whistled to his dogs.

“Can’t talk about it,” he declared. “You ought not to want to.”

“And why not?” I demanded.

“You are not well enough. I don’t wonder that you’ve been
ill. You must have been within a few yards of the fellow all the
time. Certainly you must not talk about it. Good evening.”

“But there is something I want to ask you,” I continued.

He shook his head. He was already moving away. I called him back.

“Mr. Deville! One moment, please.”

He paused and looked over his shoulder.

“Well!”

“I want to ask you just one thing about that man.”

I was talking to empty space. Bruce Deville was already almost out
of sight, striding along across the short turf, with his broad back
turned to me. Soon he had vanished amongst the shadows. There was
nothing for me to do but to return to the house.




CHAPTER XIV

ADELAIDE FORTRESS’S GUEST


My father did not appear at breakfast time the next morning, and
Alice, who took him up some tea, came down in some concern.

“Father is not getting up until this afternoon, at any rate,” she
announced. “He is very unwell. I wish he would let us send for a
doctor. He has looked so dreadfully ill since he came back from
London.”

Under the circumstances I was perhaps less alarmed than I might have
otherwise been. It was clear to me that he did not wish to see the
girl who had called upon me yesterday. I was strongly inclined to look
upon his present indisposition as somewhat exaggerated with a view
to escaping a meeting with her. But I was soon to be undeceived. I
went up to him after breakfast, and, gaining no answer to my knock at
the door, I entered softly. He was lying quite still upon the bed,
partially dressed, and at first I thought that he was asleep. I moved
to his side on tiptoe, and a sudden shock of fear drove the color from
my face, and set my heart beating wildly. His eyes were closed, his
cheeks were pale as death. Upon his side, underneath his waistcoat,
was a linen bandage, half soaked with blood. Evidently he had fainted
in the act of fastening it.

I got some brandy and forced it between his lips, chafed his hands,
and gradually the life seemed to return to him. He opened his eyes and
looked at me.

“Don’t move!” I whispered. “I will see to the bandage.”

He lay quite still, groaning every now and then until I had
finished. Then I drew the counterpane over him and waited for a moment
or two. He opened his eyes and looked at me.

“I am going to send for a doctor,” I whispered, leaning over him.

He clutched my hand.

“I forbid it,” he answered, hoarsely. “Do not dare to think of it,
Kate! Do you hear?”

“But this is serious!” I cried. “You will be very ill.”

“It is only a flesh wound,” he muttered. “I scarcely feel it; only--I
drew the bandage too tightly.”

“How long have you had it?” I asked.

He looked towards the door; it was closed.

“Since I was in London. It was a cowardly attack--the night before I
returned. I have gone armed ever since. I am safe now--quite safe.”

I was sorely perplexed. He was watching me with bright, feverish eyes.

“Promise, Kate, that you will not send for a doctor, unless I give you
leave,” he whispered, eagerly. “Your solemn promise, Kate; I must have
it.”

“On condition that you let me see to the bandages for you then,” I
answered, reluctantly.

“Very good! You can. They will want changing to-night. I am going to
sleep now.”

He closed his eyes and turned his face to the wall. I stole softly
out of the room and down stairs. The sight of Alice’s calm and placid
features as she busied herself about the affairs of the house and the
parish was a constant irritation to me. I could not sit down or settle
to any work. A fit of nervous restlessness came over me. Outside was
a storm of wind and rain but even that I felt at last was better than
inaction; so I put on my coat and hat and walked across the soddened
turf and down the drive with the fresh, stinging rain in my face. I
passed out into the road, and after a moment’s hesitation took the
turn towards the Yellow House.

I do not know what prompted me to go and see Adelaide Fortress. It was
a sudden impulse, and I yielded to it promptly. But I had scarcely
taken half a dozen steps before I found myself face to face with Bruce
Deville. He stopped short, and looked at me with surprise.

“You are not afraid of rough weather, Miss Ffolliot,” he remarked,
raising his cap, with, for him, unusual courtesy.

“I fear many things worse,” I answered, looking down into the
wood. “Are you going to see Mrs. Fortress?”

“Yes, presently,” he assented. “In the meantime, I was rather
thinking--I want a word with your father.”

“What about?” I asked, abruptly.

He looked at me intently. There was a new look upon his face which I
scarcely understood. Was it pity. It was almost like it. He seemed to
be wondering how much I knew--or surmised.

“It is a matter of some importance,” he said, gravely. “I wish I could
tell you. You look sensible, like a girl who might be told.”

His words did not offend me in the least. On the contrary, I think
that I was pleased.

“Mr. Deville,” I said, firmly, “I agree with you. I am a girl who
might be told. I only wish that my father would be open with me. There
is some mystery around, some danger. I can see it all in your faces;
I can feel it in the air. That man’s death”--I pointed into the
wood--”is concerned in it. What does it all mean? I want to know. I
want you to tell me.”

“Tell me who that man was, and who killed him?” I asked, firmly. “I
have a right to know. I am determined to know!”

He was certainly paler underneath the dark tan of his sun and
weather-burned cheeks. Yet he answered me steadily enough.

“Take my advice, Miss Ffolliot, ask no questions about it, have no
thought about it. Put it away from you. I speak for your happiness,
which, perhaps, I am more interested in than you would believe.”

Afterwards I wondered at that moment of embarrassment, and the little
break in his voice. Just then the excitement of the moment made me
almost oblivious of it.

“You are telling me!” I cried.

“I am not telling you; I am not telling you because I do not
know. For God’s sake ask me no more questions! Come and see Adelaide
Fortress. You were going there, were you not?”

“Yes, I was going there,” I admitted.

“We will go together,” he said. “She will be glad to see you, I am
sure. Mind the mud; it’s horribly slippery.”

We descended the footpath together. Just as we reached the gates of
the Yellow House, I turned to him.

He sighed.

“I am not the one to whom you should appeal,” he said. “I have not the
right to tell you anything; you may know very soon. In the meantime,
will you tell me where your father is?”

“He is at home,” I answered, “in bed. He is ill. I do not think that
he will see you. He is not going to get up to-day.”

Mr. Deville did not appear in the least disturbed or disappointed. On
the contrary, his face cleared, and I think that he was relieved.

“I am glad to hear it,” he answered.

“Why?”

“He is better out of the way just for the present. When does he take
up his new appointment?”

“I am not sure that any definite time has been fixed,” I answered. “In
about a month I should think.”

“I heard about it yesterday,” he remarked. “Your stay here has not
been a long one, has it?”

“Would to God that we had never come at all!” I exclaimed,
fervently. “It has been the most miserable time in my life.”

“I don’t know that I can echo that wish,” he said, with a faint
smile. “Yet so far as you are concerned, from your point of view, I
suppose your coming here must have seemed very unfortunate. It is a
pity.”

“Mr. Deville,” I said, drawing close to his side, “I am going to ask
you a question.”

He looked down at me shaking his head.

“I should rather you asked me no question at all,” he answered,
promptly. “Can’t we talk of other things?”

“No, we cannot! Listen!”

I laid my hand upon his arm, and forced him to turn towards me.

“You were speaking of going to see my father this afternoon,” I
said. “Can I give him any message for you?”

“Tell him that I am sorry to hear of his illness, but that I am glad
that he is taking care of himself,” he answered, looking down at
me. “Tell him that the weather is bad, and that he will do well to
take care of himself. He is better in his room just at present.”

We were inside the gates of the Yellow House, and I had not time
to ask him the meaning of this unusual solicitude for my father’s
health. I was still puzzling over it when we were shown into the
drawing room. Then for a moment I forgot it, and everything else
altogether. Adelaide Fortress had a visitor sitting opposite to her
and talking earnestly.

The conversation ceased suddenly, and she looked up as we
entered. There was no mistaking the long, sallow face and anxious
eyes. She looked at me with indifference, but at the sight of my
companion she jumped up and a little cry broke from her lips. Her eyes
seemed to be devouring him.

“At last!” she cried. “At last!”




CHAPTER XV

THE LIKENESS OF PHILIP MALTABAR


We stood looking at them in wonder. Her face had seemed suddenly to
light up in some mysterious way, so that for the moment one quite
forgot that she was plain at all.

“It is really you!” she murmured. “How wonderful!” She held out both
her hands. Bruce Deville took them a little awkwardly. It was easy to
see that her joy at this meeting was not altogether reciprocated. But
she seemed utterly unconscious of that. There was quite a becoming
pink flush on her sallow cheeks, and her dark eyes were wonderfully
soft. Her lips were parted with a smile of welcome, and showed all her
teeth--she had gleaming white teeth, beautifully shaped and regular.

“To think that we should meet again like this,” she continued, parting
with his great brown hand with some evident reluctance.

“We were bound to meet again some day,” he answered,
deprecatingly. “After all, there is nothing very extraordinary about
it. The world is a small place.”

“You never kept your promise,” she reminded him, reproachfully. “You
never came near our hotel. I waited for you a week.”

“I could not; I was leaving Baeren that same afternoon.”

She turned to us at last.

“This is the most delightful meeting in the world, so far as I am
concerned,” she declared, still a little breathlessly. “Mr. Deville
once saved my life.”

He made some sort of a protest, but she took no notice. She was
determined to tell her story.

“I was traveling with a friend through the Italian lakes, and we were
out for a drive near Baeren. We were coming down a terrible hill, with
a precipice on one side and the sheer mountain on the other. The road
was only just wide enough for our carriage, and suddenly a great bird
flew out from a hole in the mountain and startled our horses. The
driver must have been half asleep, and when they plunged he lost his
balance and was thrown off. The horses started galloping down the
hill. It was almost like the side of a house, and just in front was
a sharp turn, with only a little frail palisading, and the precipice
just below. We must have gone straight over. He could not possibly
have turned at the pace they were going. If they had the carriage must
have swung over. We were clinging to one another, and I am afraid we
were dreadful cowards. It was like certain and fearful death, and just
then Mr. Deville came round the corner. He seemed to see it all in a
moment, and ran to meet us. Oh, it was horrible!” she cried, throwing
her hands up with a little shiver. “I shall never forget it until I
die. Never!”

She paused for a moment. Adelaide Fortress and I had been hanging
over her every word. There was something very thrilling about the
way she told her story. Mr. Deville alone seemed uninterested, and a
little impatient. He was turning over the pages of a magazine, with a
restless frown upon his strong, dark face.

“It seemed to me,” she continued, lowering her shaking voice, “that he
was down under the horses, being dragged----”

Bruce Deville closed the magazine he had been reading with a bang. He
had evidently been a passive auditor as long as he was able to endure
it. “Let me finish,” he said, shortly. “I am blessed with strong
arms, and I stopped the horses. It was not a particularly difficult
task. The ladies walked back to the hotel, and I went to look for the
driver, who had broken his leg.”

“And I have never seen him since!” she exclaimed, breathlessly.

“Well, I couldn’t help that,” he continued. “I believe I promised to
come to the hotel and call upon you, but when I thought it over it
really didn’t seem worth while. I was on my way to Geneva, walking
over the hills, and I was rather anxious to get there, and as I
found some men to take the carriage and the driver back, I thought I
might as well continue my journey. I wanted to get to Geneva for my
letters.”

She laughed quietly. Her eyes continually sought his, soft with
admiration and pleasure.

“You are like all the men of your country, who are brave and
noble,” she said. “You will do a great deed, but you do not like
to be thanked. Yet we waited there for days, hoping to see you. I
have looked for you wherever I have been since then, and to think
that now--on this very saddest journey I have ever been forced to
take--that I should call here, by accident, and the door should open,
and you should walk in. Ah!”

“It is quite a romance,” Adelaide Fortress remarked, with a faint
smile upon her lips. “How grateful you must be that you came to see me
this afternoon, Bruce! By the by, do you mind ringing the bell--unless
you prefer stewed tea?”

He got up and rang it with avidity.

“I am glad you recognize the fact that we have come to tea,” he
remarked. “Miss Ffolliot and I met at the gate. You ought to give us
something specially good for venturing out on such a day.”

“I will give you some Buszard’s cake,” she answered, laughing; “some
kind friend sent it to me this morning. Only you mustn’t eat it all
up; it has to last me for a week.”

“How is your father, Miss Ffolliot?” the girl asked, turning to me
abruptly.

“I am sorry to say that he is very unwell,” I answered, “and he is
obliged to keep to his room. And I am afraid that he will not be able
to leave it for several days.”

She did not appear much concerned. I watched her closely, and with
much relief.

“I am sorry,” she remarked, politely. “However, so far as I am
concerned, I suppose after all there would be very little object in my
seeing him. I have been to most of the oldest residents round here,
and they all seem certain that they have never heard of the name
Maltabar.”

I saw Bruce Deville start, and the hand which held his teacup
shook. Adelaide Fortress and he exchanged swift glances. The girl,
whose eyes were scarcely off him for a moment, noticed it too,
although I doubt if she attached the same significance to it.

“You do not know--you have not heard recently of any one of that
name?” she asked him. “Please tell me! I have a reason for being very
much interested.”

He shook his head.

“If I have ever heard the name at all it must have been very long
ago,” he said; “and certainly not in connection with this part of the
world.”

She sighed.

“I suppose you do not know who I am, or why I am here,” she said. “My
name I told you once, although I daresay you have forgotten it. It is
Berdenstein. The man who was found dead, who was killed close to here,
was my brother.”

He murmured a few words of sympathy, but he showed no surprise. I
suspected that he had known who she was and of her presence here
before.

“Of course I came here directly I heard of it,” she continued,
ignoring us altogether, and talking only to him. “It is a terrible
trouble to me, and he was the only relative I had left in the
world. You cannot wonder, can you, that I want to find out all about
it?”

“That is a very hard task,” he said. “It is a task best left, I think,
in the hands of the proper authorities.”

“They do not know as much as I know,” she answered. “He had an enemy.”

“The man Maltabar, of whom you spoke?”

“Yes. It was for him I inquired at once. Yet I suppose I must conclude
that he is not at any rate a resident around here. I thought that he
might have changed his name, and I have described him to a great many
people. Nobody seems to recognize him.”

“Don’t you think,” Adelaide Fortress said, quietly, “that you have
done all that it is possible for any one to do? The police are doing
their utmost to solve the mystery of your brother’s death. If I were
you I should leave it to them.”

She shook her head.

“I am not satisfied to do nothing,” she said. “You cannot imagine what
it feels like to lose some one very dear to you in such a terrible
way. I think of it sometimes until I tremble with passion, and I think
that if I could meet the man who did it face to face, I would stab him
to the heart myself, with my own hands. I am weak, but I feel that I
could do it. I cannot go away from here if I would. Something seems to
tell me that the key to the whole mystery lies here--just at hand. No,
I cannot go away. I must watch and wait. It may come to me at any
moment.”

No one answered her. She was conscious of a certain antagonism to
her, betrayed by our lack of response to that little outburst and our
averted faces. She looked from one to the other of us, and finally at
Bruce Deville.

“At least, you must think that I am right,” she cried,
appealingly. “You are a man, and you would feel like that. I am sure
of it. Isn’t it natural that I should want justice? He was all I had
in the world.”

“He is dead,” Bruce Deville said, gently. “Nothing can bring him back
to life. Besides----”

He hesitated. The girl leaned forward, listening intently.

“Besides what?”

“Hasn’t it ever occurred to you,” he said, slowly, “that if a man
hated your brother so much as to follow him down here and kill him,
that so great a hatred must have sprung from some great cause? I know
nothing, of course, of your brother’s life, or of the manner of his
life. But men do not strike one another without provocation. They do
not kill one another without very great provocation.”

“I see what you mean,” she said, slowly. “You mean that my brother
must first have been the sinner.”

“I am not taking that for granted,” he said, hastily; “only one cannot
help thinking sometimes that it might have been so.”

“He was my brother,” she said, simply. “He was all that I had in the
world. My desire for justice may be selfish. Yet I hate the man who
killed him, and I want to see him punished. I do not believe that any
sin of his could ever have deserved so terrible a retribution.”

“Perhaps not,” he said; “yet there is so little that you can do. To
search for any one by the name of Maltabar around here you have proved
a hopeless task; and that is your only clue, is it not?”

“I am sending,” she said, “for a London detective. I shall remain here
until he arrives, at any rate.”

Again we looked at one another questioningly, and our silence was like
a fresh note of antagonism to her avowed purpose. She could not fail
to notice it, and she commenced to talk of other things. I believe but
for Mr. Deville’s presence she would have got up and left us. Open
war with us women could not have troubled her in the least. Already I
could tell that she had contracted a dislike to me. But for his sake
she was evidently anxious--oppressively anxious--to keep friendly.

She tried to draw him into more personal conversation with her, and he
seemed quite ready to humor her. He changed his seat and sat down by
her side. Adelaide Fortress and I talked listlessly of the Bishop’s
visit and our intending removal from the neighborhood. We studiously
avoided all mention of my last visit to her and its sensational
ending. We talked as ordinary acquaintances might have talked, about
trifles. Yet we were both of us equally conscious that to a certain
extent it was a farce. Presently there was a brief silence. The girl
was talking to Mr. Deville, evidently of her brother.

“He was so fond of collecting old furniture,” she was saying. “So am
I. He gave me a little cabinet, the image of this one, only mine was
in black oak.”

She bent over a little piece of furniture by her side, and looked at
it with interest.

“Mine was exactly this shape,” she continued; “only it had a wonderful
secret spring. You pressed it just here and the top flew up, and there
was space enough for a deed or a photograph.”

She touched a portion of the woodwork idly as she spoke, and there was
a sort of click. Then she sprang to her feet with a little tremulous
cry.

A portion of the back of the cabinet had rolled back at the touch of
her fingers. A cabinet photograph was disclosed in the niche. She was
bending over it with pale cheeks and bloodless lips.

“What is it?” I cried, with a sudden pain at my heart. “What have you
found there?”

She turned around and faced Adelaide Fortress. Her eyes were flashing
fire.

“You are all deceiving me,” she cried, passionately. “I was beginning
to suspect it. Now I know.”

“What do you mean?” I cried.

She pointed to the photograph with trembling fingers.

“You have all declared that the name of Maltabar is strange to you. It
is a lie! That is the likeness of the man I seek. It is the likeness
of Philip Maltabar.”




CHAPTER XVI

“IT WAS MY FATHER”


The two women were standing face to face. Bruce Deville and I had
fallen back. There was a moment or two’s breathless silence. Then
Adelaide Fortress, with perfect composure, moved over to the girl’s
side, and glanced over her shoulder.

“That,” she said, quietly, “is the photograph of a man who has been
dead twenty years. His name was not Maltabar.”

“That,” repeated the girl, unshaken, “is the photograph of Philip
Maltabar.”

I stepped forward to look at it, but, as if divining my purpose,
Adelaide Fortress touched the spring and the aperture was hidden.

“That photograph,” she repeated, coldly, “is the likeness of an old
and dear friend of mine who is dead. I do not feel called upon to tell
you his name. It was not Maltabar.”

“I do not believe you,” she said, steadily. “I believe that you are
all in a conspiracy against me. I am sorry I ever told you my story. I
am sorry I ever sat down under your roof. I believe that Philip
Maltabar lives and that he is not far away. We shall see!”

She moved to the door. Mr. Deville stood there ready to open it. She
looked up at him--as a woman can look sometimes.

“You at least are not against me,” she murmured. “Say that you are
not! Say that you will be my friend once more!”

He bent down and said something to her very quietly, which we did
not hear, and when she left the room he followed her. We heard the
hall door slam. Through the window we could see them walking down the
gravel path side by side. She was talking eagerly, flashing quick
little glances up at him, and her fingers lay upon his coat sleeve. He
was listening gravely with downcast head.

Adelaide Fortress looked from them to me with a peculiar smile. What
she said seemed a little irrelevant.

“How she will bore him!”

“Oh! I don’t know,” I answered, with an irritation whose virulence
surprised me. “Men like that sort of thing.”

“Not Mr. Deville,” she said. “He will hate it.”

I was not sure about it. I watched them disappear. He was stooping
down so as to catch every word she said. Obviously he was doing his
best to adapt himself and to be properly sympathetic. I was angry with
myself and ignorant of the cause of my anger.

“Never mind about them,” I said, abruptly. “There is something
else--more important--Mrs. Fortress.”

“Yes.”

“I want to see that photograph--the photograph of the man whom she
called Philip Maltabar.”

She shook her head. Was it my fancy, or was she indeed a shade paler?

“Don’t ask me that,” she said, slowly. “I would rather not show it to
any one.”

“But I have asked you, and I ask again!” I exclaimed. “There are
already too many things around me which I do not understand. I am not
a child, and I am weary of all this mystery. I insist upon seeing that
photograph.”

She laid her hands upon my shoulders, and looked up into my face.

“Child,” she said, slowly, “it were better for you not to see that
photograph. Can’t you believe me when I tell you so. It will be better
for you and better for all of us. Don’t ask me to show it to you.”

“I would take you at your word,” I answered, “only I have already some
idea. I caught a fugitive glimpse of it just now, before you touched
the spring. To know even the worst is better than to be continually
dreading it.”

She crossed the room in silence, and bending over the cabinet touched
the spring. The picture smiled out upon me. It was the likeness of
a young man--gay, supercilious, debonair--yet I knew it--knew it
at once. The forehead and the mouth, even the pose of the head was
unchanged. It was my father.

“He called himself once, then, Philip Maltabar?” I cried, hoarsely.

She nodded.

“It was long ago.”

“It is for him the girl is searching. It is he who was her brother’s
enemy; it is----”

She held my hand and looked around her fearfully.

“Be careful,” she said, softly. “The girl may have returned. It is
not a thing to be even whispered about. Be silent, and keep your own
counsel.”

Then I covered my face with my hands, and my throat was choked
with hard, dry sobs. The thing which I had most feared had come to
pass. The scene in the church rose up again before my eyes. I saw the
fierce gestures of a dying man, the froth on his lips, as he struggled
with the words of denunciation, the partial utterance of which had
killed him. With a little shiver I recognized how narrow had been my
father’s escape. For I could no longer have any real doubts. It was my
father who had killed Stephen Berdenstein.




CHAPTER XVII

A CONFERENCE OR TWO


In the wood half-way between the Yellow House and home I met Bruce
Deville. I should have hurried on, but it was impossible to pass
him. He had a way of standing which took up the whole path.

“Miss Ffolliot,” he said, “may I walk home with you?”

“It is only a few steps,” I answered. “Please don’t trouble.”

“It will be a pleasure,” he said, sturdily.

I looked at him; such a faint, acrimonious smile.

“Haven’t you been almost polite enough for one day?” I asked.

He seemed to be genuinely surprised at my ill-humor.

“You mean, I suppose, because I walked home with that girl,” he
answered. “I did so on your account only. I wanted to know what she
was going to do.”

“I did not require any explanation,” I remarked.

He seemed perplexed. Men are such idiots. In the end he ignored my
speech.

“I wanted to see you,” he began, thoughtfully. “I have been to call at
the Vicarage; your sister would not let me see your father.”

“I am not surprised at that,” I answered; “you do not realize how ill
he is.”

“Have you had a doctor to see him?” he asked.

“No; he will not let me send for one,” I answered. “Yet I know he is
in need of medical advice. It is very hard to know what to do for the
best.”

“If I may advise you,” he said, slowly, “I should strongly recommend
your doing exactly as your father wishes. He knows best what is well
for him. Only tell him this from me. Tell him that change will be his
best medicine. I heard yesterday that the Bishop wished him to go to
Eastminster at once. Let him get an invalid carriage and go there
to-morrow. It will be better for him and safer.”

I stopped short, and laid my hand upon his wrist. I tried to make him
look at me; but he kept his face turned away.

“You are not thinking of his health only,” I said; “there is something
else. I know a good deal, you need not fear. You can speak openly. It
is that girl.”

He did not deny it. He looked down at me, and his strong, harsh face
was softened in a peculiar manner. I knew that he was very sorry for
me, and there was a lump in my throat.

“What is she going to do?” I asked, trembling. “What does she
suspect?”

“Nothing definite,” he answered, quickly. “She is bewildered. She is
going to stay here and watch. I am afraid that she will send for a
detective. It is not that she has any suspicion as to your father. It
is you whom she distrusts--you and Adelaide. She thinks that you are
trying to keep your father from her. She thinks that he could tell
her--what she wants to know. That is all.”

“It is quite enough!” I cried, passionately. “If only we could get her
to go away. I am afraid of her.”

We were standing by the gate, I held out my hand to him; he grasped it
warmly.

“Remember my advice to your father,” he said. “I shall do my utmost
to prevent the girl from taking any extreme measures. Fortunately she
considers herself under some obligation to me.”

“You saved her life,” I remarked, thoughtfully.

“Yes, I am sorry for it,” he added, curtly. “Goodbye.”

He turned away and I hurried into the house. Alice was nowhere
about. I went softly into my father’s room. He was dozing, and as I
stood over him and saw how pale and thin his face was, my heart grew
sick and sorrowful. The tears stood in my eyes. After all, it was a
noble face; I longed to have that barrier broken down between us, to
hear the truth from his own lips, and declare myself boldly on his
side--even if it were the side of the outlaw and the sinner. As I
stood there, he opened his eyes. They were dull and glazed.

“You are ill, father,” I said, softly, “you will get worse if you will
not have advice. Let me go and bring the doctor?”

“You will do no such thing,” he answered, firmly. “I am better--much
better.”

“You do not look it,” I answered, doubtfully.

“Never mind, I am better, I feel stronger. Where is that girl? Has she
gone away?”

I was glad he asked me the question outright. It was one step forward
towards the more complete confidence which I so greatly desired. I
shook my head.

“No, she has not gone away. She seems to have no idea of going. She
has found a friend here.”

“A friend?”

“Yes; she has met Mr. Deville before. He saved her life in
Switzerland.”

He tossed about for a moment or two with closed eyes and frowning
face.

“You have seen her again, then?” he muttered.

“Yes; I met her this afternoon.”

“Where?”

I hesitated. I had not wished to mention my visit to Adelaide
Fortress, at any rate until he was stronger; but he saw my reluctance
and forced me to answer him.

“At the Yellow House,” I said, softly.

He gave a little gasp. At first I was afraid that he was going to be
angry with me. As it chanced, the fact of my disobedience did not seem
to occur to him.

“The Yellow House?” he repeated, quickly. “What was she doing
there? What did she want?”

“I don’t know what excuse she made for calling,” I answered. “She
seems to be going round the neighborhood making inquiries for Philip
Maltabar. She has quite made up her mind that he is the man who killed
her brother. She says----”

“Yes----”

“That she is quite sure that he is here--somewhere--in hiding. She is
like a ferret, she will not rest until she has found him.”

He struck the bedclothes vigorously with his white, clenched hand.

“It is false! She will never find him. Philip Maltabar is dead.”

“I wish that we could make her believe it,” I answered. “But we
cannot. We shall never be able to.”

“Why not?”

“Because it is not true. Philip Maltabar is not dead. She knows it.”

“What do you mean?” he said hoarsely, raising himself from the
pillows. “Who says that he is not dead? Who dares to say that Philip
Maltabar still lives?”

“I do!” I answered, firmly. “It is you who have called yourself
Philip Maltabar in days that have gone by. It is you for whom she is
looking.”

He did not attempt to deny it. I had spoken decisively, with the air
of one who knows. He fell back and half closed his eyes. “Does she
suspect it?” he whispered. “Is that why she waited? Is that why she
came here?”

“I do not think so,” I answered. “Yet she certainly does believe that
Philip Maltabar is somewhere here in hiding. She suspects me more than
any one.”

“You!--how you?”

“She has an idea that he is a friend of mine--that I am shielding him
and trying to keep you away from her, lest she should learn the truth
from you. That is what she thinks at present.”

“Cannot you persuade her that there is no such person round here as
Philip Maltabar?” he murmured. “She can make her own inquiries, she
can consult directories, the police, the residents. It ought not to be
hard to convince her.”

“It is impossible,” I answered, shortly.

“Impossible! Why?”

“Because she has seen the photograph, in Adelaide Fortress’s cabinet.”

“What!”

The exclamation seemed to come from his parched, dry lips like a
pistol shot. His burning eyes were fixed upon me incredulously. I
repeated my words.

“She saw his photograph at the Yellow House. It was in the secret
aperture of a cabinet. She touched the spring unwittingly, and it flew
open.”

My father turned over and groaned.

“When Fate works like this, the end is not far off,” he cried, in a
broken voice. “God help us!”

I fell on my knees by the bedside, and took one of his white hands in
mine.

“Father,” I said, “I have asked you many questions which you have not
answered. This one you must answer. I will not li

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