“The German Embassy,“Wednesday evening.“Alas! my dear Prince, had I been able, nothing could have given me so much pleasure as to have joined your little party, but, unfortunately, this wretched climate, which we both so justly loathe, has upset my throat again, and I have too much regard for my life to hand myself over to the English doctors. Accordingly, all being well, I go to Berlin to-morrow night to consult our own justly-famed Dr. Steinlaus.“Accept, my dear Prince, this expression of my most sincere regret, and believe me, yours most sincerely,”Karl von Knigenstein.”
“The German Embassy,“Wednesday evening.
“Alas! my dear Prince, had I been able, nothing could have given me so much pleasure as to have joined your little party, but, unfortunately, this wretched climate, which we both so justly loathe, has upset my throat again, and I have too much regard for my life to hand myself over to the English doctors. Accordingly, all being well, I go to Berlin to-morrow night to consult our own justly-famed Dr. Steinlaus.
“Accept, my dear Prince, this expression of my most sincere regret, and believe me, yours most sincerely,
”Karl von Knigenstein.”
“The doctor whom he has gone to consult is no man of medicine,” the Prince said thoughtfully. “He has gone to the Emperor.”
“Lord Wolfenden?”
He laughed at her surprise, and took off his cap. He was breathless, for he had been scrambling up the steep side of the hill on which she was standing, looking steadfastly out to sea. Down in the valley from which he had come a small boy with a bag of golf clubs on his back was standing, making imaginary swings at the ball which lay before him.
“I saw you from below,” he explained. “I couldn’t help coming up. You don’t mind?”
“No; I am glad to see you,” she said simply. “You startled me, that is all. I did not hear you coming, and I had forgotten almost where I was. I was thinking.”
He stood by her side, his cap still in his hand, facing the strong sea wind. Again he was conscious of that sense of extreme pleasure which had always marked his chance meetings with her. This time he felt perhaps that there was some definite reason for it. There was something in her expression, when she had turned so swiftly round, which seemed to tell him that her first words were not altogether meaningless. She was looking a little pale, and he fancied also a little sad. There was an inexpressible wistfulness about her soft, dark eyes; the light and charming gaiety of her manner, so un-English and so attractive to him, had given place to quite another mood. Whatever her thoughts might have been when he had first seen her there, her tall,slim figure outlined so clearly against the abrupt sky line, they were at all events scarcely pleasant ones. He felt that his sudden appearance had not been unwelcome to her, and he was unreasonably pleased.
“You are still all alone,” he remarked. “Has Mr. Sabin not arrived?”
She shook her head.
“I am all alone, and I am fearfully and miserably dull. This place does not attract me at all: not at this time of the year. I have not heard from my uncle. He may be here at any moment.”
There was no time like the present. He was suddenly bold. It was an opportunity which might never be vouchsafed to him again.
“May I come with you—a little way along the cliffs?” he asked.
She looked at him and hesitated. More than ever he was aware of some subtle change in her. It was as though her mental attitude towards him had adapted itself in some way to this new seriousness of demeanour. It was written in her features—his eyes read it eagerly. A certain aloofness, almost hauteur, about the lines of her mouth, creeping out even in her most careless tones, and plainly manifest in the carriage of her head, was absent. She seemed immeasurably nearer to him. She was softer and more womanly. Even her voice in its new and more delicate notes betrayed the change. Perhaps it was only a mood, yet he would take advantage of it.
“What about your golf?” she said, motioning down into the valley where his antagonist was waiting.
“Oh, I can easily arrange that,” he declared cheerfully. “Fortunately I was playing the professional and he will not mind leaving off.”
He waved to his caddie, and scribbled a few lines on the back of a card.
“Give that to McPherson,” he said. “You can clean my clubs and put them in my locker. I shall not be playing again this morning.”
The boy disappeared down the hill. They stood for a moment side by side.
“I have spoilt your game,” she said. “I am sorry.”
He laughed.
“I think you know,” he said boldly, “that I would rather spend five minutes with you than a day at golf.”
She moved on with a smile at the corners of her lips.
“What a downright person you are!” she said. “But honestly to-day I am not in the mood to be alone. I am possessed with an uneasy spirit of sadness. I am afraid of my thoughts.”
“I am only sorry,” he said, “that you should have any that are not happy ones. Don’t you think perhaps that you are a little lonely? You seem to have so few friends.”
“It is not that,” she answered. “I have many and very dear friends, and it is only for a little time that I am separated from them. It is simply that I am not used to solitude, and I am becoming a creature of moods and presentiments. It is very foolish that I give way to them; but to-day I am miserable. You must stretch out that strong hand of yours, my friend, and pull me up.”
“I will do my best,” he said. “I am afraid I cannot claim that there is anything in the shape of affinity between us; for to-day I am particularly happy.”
She met his eyes briefly, and looked away seawards with the ghost of a sorrowful smile upon her lips. Her words sounded like a warning.
“Do not be sure,” she said. “It may not last.”
“It will last,” he said, “so long as you choose. For to-day you are the mistress of my moods!”
“Then I am very sorry for you,” she said earnestly.
He laughed it off, but her words brought a certaindepression with them. He went on to speak of something else.
“I have been thinking about you this morning,” he said. “If your uncle is going to play golf here, it will be very dull for you. Would you care for my mother to come and see you? She would be delighted, I am sure, for it is dull for her too, and she is fond of young people. Ifyou——”
He stopped short She was shaking her head slowly. The old despondency was back in her face. Her eyes were full of trouble. She laid her delicately gloved fingers upon his arm.
“My friend,” she said, “it is very kind of you to think of it—but it is impossible. I cannot tell you why as I would wish. But at present I do not desire any acquaintances. I must not, in fact, think of it. It would give me great pleasure to know your mother. Only I must not. Believe me that it is impossible.”
Wolfenden was a little hurt—a good deal mystified. It was a very odd thing. He was not in the least a snob, but he knew that the visit of the Countess of Deringham, whose name was still great in the social world, was not a thing to be refused without grave reasons by a girl in the position of Mr. Sabin’s niece. The old question came back to him with an irresistible emphasis. Who were these people? He looked at her furtively. He was an observant man in the small details of a woman’s toilette, and he knew that he had never met a girl better turned out than his present companion. The cut of her tailor-made gown was perfection, her gloves and boots could scarcely have come from anywhere but Paris. She carried herself too with a perfect ease and indefinable distinction which could only have come to her by descent. She was a perfect type of the woman of breeding—unrestrained, yet aristocratic to the tips of her finger-nails.
He sighed as he looked away from her.
“You are a very mysterious young woman,” he said, with a forced air of gaiety.
“I am afraid that I am,” she admitted regretfully. “I can assure you that I am very tired of it. But—it will not last for very much longer.”
“You are really going away, then?” he asked quickly.
“Yes. We shall not be in England much longer.”
“You are going for good?” he asked. “I mean, to remain away?”
“When we go,” she said, “it is very doubtful if ever I shall set my foot on English soil again.”
He drew a quick breath. It was his one chance, then. Her last words must be his excuse for such precipitation. They had scrambled down through an opening in the cliffs, and there was no one else in sight. Some instinct seemed to tell her what was coming. She tried to talk, but she could not. His hand had closed upon hers, and she had not the strength to draw it away. It was so very English this sudden wooing. No one had ever dared to touch her fingers before without first begging permission.
“Don’t you know—Helène—that I love you? I want you to live in England—to be my wife. Don’t say that I haven’t a chance. I know that I ought not to have spoken yet, but you are going away so soon, and I am so afraid that I might not see you again alone. Don’t stop me, please. I am not asking you now for your love. I know that it is too soon—to hope for that—altogether! I only want you to know, and to be allowed to hope.”
“You must not. It is impossible.”
The words were very low, and they came from her quivering with intense pain. He released her fingers. She leaned upon a huge boulder near and, resting her face upon her hand, gazed dreamily out to sea.
“I am very sorry,” she said. “My uncle was right after all. It was not wise for us to meet. I ought tohave no friends. It was not wise—it was very, very foolish.”
Being a man, his first thoughts had been for himself. But at her words he forgot everything except that she too was unhappy.
“Do you mean,” he said slowly, “that you cannot care for me, or that there are difficulties which seem to you to make it impossible?”
She looked up at him, and he scarcely knew her transfigured face, with the tears glistening upon her eyelashes.
“Do not tempt me to say what might make both of us more unhappy,” she begged. “Be content to know that I cannot marry you.”
“You have promised somebody else?”
“I shall probably marry,” she said deliberately, “somebody else.”
He ground his heel into the soft sands, and his eyes flashed.
“You are being coerced!” he cried.
She lifted her head proudly.
“There is no person breathing,” she said quietly, “who would dare to attempt such a thing!”
Then he looked out with her towards the sea, and they watched the long, rippling waves break upon the brown sands, the faint and unexpected gleam of wintry sunshine lying upon the bosom of the sea, and the screaming seagulls, whose white wings shone like alabaster against the darker clouds. For him these things were no longer beautiful, nor did he see the sunlight, which with a sudden fitfulness had warmed the air. It was all very cold and grey. It was not possible for him to read the riddle yet—she had not said that she could not care for him. There was that hope!
“There is no one,” he said slowly, “who could coerce you? You will not marry me, but you will probably marrysomebody else. Is it, then, that you care for this other man, and not for me?”
She shook her head.
“Of the two,” she said, with a faint attempt at her old manner, “I prefer you. Yet I shall marry him.”
Wolfenden became aware of an unexpected sensation. He was getting angry.
“I have a right,” he said, resting his hand upon her shoulder, and gaining courage from her evident weakness, “to know more. I have given you my love. At least you owe me in return your confidence. Let me have it. You shall see that even if I may not be your lover, I can at least be your faithful friend.”
She touched his hand tenderly. It was scarcely kind of her—certainly not wise. She had taken off her glove, and the touch of her soft, delicate fingers thrilled him. The blood rushed through his veins like mad music. The longing to take her into his arms was almost uncontrollable. Her dark eyes looked upon him very kindly.
“My friend,” she said, “I know that you would be faithful. You must not be angry with me. Nay, it is your pity I want. Some day you will know all. Then you will understand. Perhaps even you will be sorry for me, if I am not forgotten. I only wish that I could tell you more; only I may not. It makes me sad to deny you, but I must.”
“I mean to know,” he said doggedly—“I mean to know everything. You are sacrificing yourself. To talk of marrying a man whom you do not love is absurd. Who are you? If you do not tell me, I shall go to your guardian. I shall go to Mr. Sabin.”
“Mr. Sabin is always at your service,” said a suave voice almost at his elbow. “Never more so than at the present.”
Wolfenden turned round with a start. It was indeedMr. Sabin who stood there—Mr. Sabin, in unaccustomed guise, clad in a tweed suit and leaning upon an ordinary walking-stick.
“Come,” he said good-humouredly, “don’t look at me as though I were something uncanny. If you had not been so very absorbed you would have heard me call to you from the cliffs. I wanted to save myself the climb, but you were deaf, both of you. Am I the first man whose footsteps upon the sands have fallen lightly? Now, what is it you want to ask me, Lord Wolfenden?”
Wolfenden was in no way disturbed at the man’s coming. On the contrary, he was glad of it. He answered boldly and without hesitation.
“I want to marry your niece, Mr. Sabin,” he said.
“Very natural indeed,” Mr. Sabin remarked easily. “If I were a young man of your age and evident taste I have not the least doubt but that I should want to marry her myself. I offer you my sincere sympathy. Unfortunately it is impossible.”
“I want to know,” Wolfenden said, “why it is impossible? I want a reason of some sort.”
“You shall have one with pleasure,” Mr. Sabin said. “My niece is already betrothed.”
“To a man,” Wolfenden exclaimed indignantly, “whom she admits that she does not care for!”
“Whom she has nevertheless,” Mr. Sabin said firmly, and with a sudden flash of anger in his eyes, “agreed and promised of her own free will to marry. Look here, Lord Wolfenden, I do not desire to quarrel with you. You saved me from a very awkward accident a few nights ago, and I remain your debtor. Be reasonable! My niece has refused your offer. I confirm her refusal. Your proposal does us both much honour, but it is utterly out of the question. That is putting it plainly, is it not? Now, you must choose for yourself—whether you will drop the subjectand remain our valued friend, or whether you compel me to ask you to leave us at once, and consider us henceforth as strangers.”
The girl laid her hand upon his shoulder and looked at him pleadingly.
“For my sake,” she said, “choose to remain our friend, and let this be forgotten.”
“For your sake, I consent,” he said. “But I give no promise that I will not at some future time reopen the subject.”
“You will do so,” Mr. Sabin said, “exactly when you desire to close your acquaintance with us. For the rest, you have chosen wisely. Now I am going to take you home, Helène. Afterwards, if Lord Wolfenden will give me a match, I shall be delighted to have a round of golf with him.”
“I shall be very pleased,” Wolfenden answered.
“I will see you at the Pavilion in half an hour,” Mr. Sabin said. “In the meantime, you will please excuse us. I have a few words to say to my niece.”
She held out both her hands, looking at him half kindly, half wistfully.
“Goodbye,” she said. “I am so sorry!”
But he looked straight into her eyes, and he answered her bravely. He would not admit defeat.
“I hope that you are not,” he said. “I shall never regret it.”
Wolfenden was in no particularly cheerful frame of mind when, a few moments after the half hour was up, Mr. Sabin appeared upon the pavilion tee, followed by a tall, dark young man carrying a bag of golf clubs. Mr. Sabin, on the other hand, was inclined to be sardonically cheerful.
“Your handicap,” he remarked, “is two. Mine is one. Suppose we play level. We ought to make a good match.”
Wolfenden looked at him in surprise.
“Did you say one?”
Mr. Sabin smiled.
“Yes; they give me one at Pau and Cannes. My foot interferes very little with my walking upon turf. All the same, I expect you will find me an easy victim here. Shall I drive? Just here, Dumayne,” he added, pointing to a convenient spot upon the tee with the head of his driver. “Not too much sand.”
“Where did you get your caddie?” Wolfenden asked. “He is not one of ours, is he?”
Mr. Sabin shook his head.
“I found him on some links in the South of France,” he answered. “He is the only caddie I ever knew who could make a decent tee, so I take him about with me. He valets me as well. That will do nicely, Dumayne.”
Mr. Sabin’s expression suddenly changed. His body, as though by instinct, fell into position. He scarcely alteredhis stand an inch from the position he had first taken up. Wolfenden, who had expected a half-swing, was amazed at the wonderfully lithe, graceful movement with which he stooped down and the club flew round his shoulder. Clean and true the ball flew off the tee in a perfectly direct line—a capital drive only a little short of the two hundred yards. Master and servant watched it critically.
“A fairly well hit ball, I think, Dumayne,” Mr. Sabin remarked.
“You got it quite clean away, sir,” the man answered. “It hasn’t run very well though; you will find it a little near the far bunker for a comfortable second.”
“I shall carry it all right,” Mr. Sabin said quietly.
Wolfenden also drove a long ball, but with a little slice. He had to play the odd, and caught the top of the bunker. The hole fell to Mr. Sabin in four.
They strolled off towards the second teeing ground.
“Are you staying down here for long?” Mr. Sabin asked.
Wolfenden hesitated.
“I am not sure,” he said. “I am rather oddly situated at home. At any rate I shall probably be here as long as you.”
“I am not sure about that,” Mr. Sabin said. “I think that I am going to like these links, and if so I shall not hurry away. Forgive me if I am inquisitive, but your reference to home affairs is, I presume, in connection with your father’s health. I was very sorry to hear that he is looked upon now as a confirmed invalid.”
Wolfenden assented gravely. He did not wish to talk about his father to Mr. Sabin. On the other hand, Mr. Sabin was politely persistent.
“He does not, I presume, receive visitors,” he said, as they left the tee after the third drive.
“Never,” Wolfenden answered decisively. “He suffersa good deal in various ways, and apart from that he is very much absorbed in the collection of some statistics connected with a hobby of his. He does not see even his oldest friends.”
Mr. Sabin was obviously interested.
“Many years ago,” he said, “I met your father at Alexandria. He was then in command of theVictoria. He would perhaps scarcely recollect me now, but at the time he made me promise to visit him if ever I was in England. It must be—yes, it surely must be nearly fifteen years ago.”
“I am afraid,” Wolfenden remarked, watching the flight of his ball after a successful brassy shot, “that he would have forgotten all about it by now. His memory has suffered a good deal.”
Mr. Sabin addressed his own ball, and from a bad lie sent it flying a hundred and fifty yards with a peculiar, jerking shot which Wolfenden watched with envy.
“You must have a wonderful eye,” he remarked, “to hit a ball with a full swing lying like that. Nine men out of ten would have taken an iron.”
Mr. Sabin shrugged his shoulders. He did not wish to talk golf.
“I was about to remark,” he said, “that your father had then the reputation of, and impressed me as being, the best informed man with regard to English naval affairs with whom I ever conversed.”
“He was considered an authority, I believe,” Wolfenden admitted.
“What I particularly admired about him,” Mr. Sabin continued, “was the absence of that cocksureness which sometimes, I am afraid, almost blinds the judgment of your great naval officers. I have heard him even discuss the possibility of an invasion of England with the utmost gravity. He admitted that it was far from improbable.”
“My father’s views,” Wolfenden said, “have always been pessimistic as regards the actual strength of our navy and coast defences. I believe he used to make himself a great nuisance at the Admiralty.”
“He has ceased now, I suppose,” Mr. Sabin remarked, “to take much interest in the matter?”
“I can scarcely say that,” Wolfenden answered. “His interest, however, has ceased to be official. I daresay you have heard that he was in command of the Channel Fleet at the time of the terrible disaster in the Solent. He retired almost immediately afterwards, and we fear that his health will never altogether recover from the shock.”
There was a short intermission in the conversation. Wolfenden had sliced his ball badly from the sixth tee, and Mr. Sabin, having driven as usual with almost mathematical precision, their ways for a few minutes lay apart. They came together, however, on the putting-green, and had a short walk to the next tee.
“That was a very creditable half to you,” Mr. Sabin remarked.
“My approach,” Wolfenden admitted, “was a lucky one.”
“It was a very fine shot,” Mr. Sabin insisted. “The spin helped you, of course, but you were justified in allowing for that, especially as you seem to play most of your mashie shots with a cut. What were we talking about? Oh, I remember of course. It was about your father and the Solent catastrophe. Admiral Deringham was not concerned with the actual disaster in any way, was he?”
Wolfenden shook his hand.
“Thank God, no!” he said emphatically. “But Admiral Marston was his dearest friend, and he saw him go down with six hundred of his men. He was so close that they even shouted farewells to one another.”
“It must have been a terrible shock,” Mr. Sabinadmitted. “No wonder he has suffered from it. Now you have spoken of it, I think I remember reading about his retirement. A sad thing for a man of action, as he always was. Does he remain in Norfolk all the year round?”
“He never leaves Deringham Hall,” Wolfenden answered. “He used to make short yachting cruises until last year, but that is all over now. It is twelve months since he stepped outside his own gates.”
Mr. Sabin remained deeply interested.
“Has he any occupation beyond this hobby of which you spoke?” he asked. “He rides and shoots a little, I suppose, like the rest of your country gentlemen.”
Then for the first time Wolfenden began to wonder dimly whether Mr. Sabin had some purpose of his own in so closely pursuing the thread of this conversation. He looked at him keenly. At the moment his attention seemed altogether directed to the dangerous proximity of his ball and a tall sand bunker. Throughout his interest had seemed to be fairly divided between the game and the conversation which he had initiated. None the less Wolfenden was puzzled. He could scarcely believe that Mr. Sabin had any real, personal interest in his father, but on the other hand it was not easy to understand this persistent questioning as to his occupation and doings. The last inquiry, carelessly though it was asked, was a direct one. It seemed scarcely worth while to evade it.
“No; my father has special interests,” he answered slowly. “He is engaged now upon some work connected with his profession.”
“Indeed!”
Mr. Sabin’s exclamation suggested a curiosity which it was not Wolfenden’s purpose to gratify. He remained silent. The game proceeded without remark for a quarter of an hour. Wolfenden was now three down, and with allthe stimulus of a strong opponent he set himself to recover lost ground. The ninth hole he won with a fine, long putt, which Mr. Sabin applauded heartily.
They drove from the next tee and walked together after their balls, which lay within a few yards of one another.
“I am very much interested,” Mr. Sabin remarked, “in what you have been telling me about your father. It confirms rather a curious story about Lord Deringham which I heard in London a few weeks ago. I was told, I forget by whom, that your father had devoted years of his life to a wonderfully minute study of English coast defences and her naval strength. My informant went on to say that—forgive me, but this was said quite openly you know—that whilst on general matters your father’s mental health was scarcely all that could be desired, his work in connection with these two subjects was of great value. It struck me as being a very singular and a very interesting case.”
Wolfenden shook his head dubiously.
“Your informant was misled, I am afraid,” he said. “My father takes his hobby very seriously, and of course we humour him. But as regards the value of his work I am afraid it is worthless.”
“Have you tested it yourself?” Mr. Sabin asked.
“I have only seen a few pages,” Wolfenden admitted, “but they were wholly unintelligible. My chief authority is his own secretary, who is giving up an excellent place simply because he is ashamed to take money for assisting in work which he declares to be utterly hopeless.”
“He is a man,” Mr. Sabin remarked, “whom you can trust, I suppose? His judgment is not likely to be at fault.”
“There is not the faintest chance of it,” Wolfenden declared. “He is a very simple, good-hearted little chap and tremendously conscientious. What your friend told you, by the bye, reminds me of rather a curious thing which happened yesterday.”
Wolfenden paused. There did not seem, however, to be any reason for concealment, and his companion was evidently deeply interested.
“A man called upon us,” Wolfenden continued, “with a letter purporting to be from our local doctor here. He gave his name as Franklin Wilmot, the celebrated physician, you know, and explained that he was interested in a new method of treating mental complaints. He was very plausible and he explained everything unusual about his visit most satisfactorily. He wanted a sight of the work on which my father was engaged, and after talking it over we introduced him into the study during my father’s absence. From it he promised to give us a general opinion upon the case and its treatment. Whilst he was there our doctor drove up in hot haste. The letter was a forgery, the man an impostor.”
Wolfenden, glancing towards Mr. Sabin as he finished his story, was surprised at the latter’s imperfectly concealed interest. His lips were indrawn, his face seemed instinct with a certain passionate but finely controlled emotion. Only the slight hiss of his breath and the gleam of his black eyes betrayed him.
“What happened?” he asked. “Did you secure the fellow?”
Wolfenden played a long shot and waited whilst he watched the run of his ball. Then he turned towards his companion and shook his head.
“No! He was a great deal too clever for that. He sent me out to meet Whitlett, and when we got back he had shown us a clean pair of heels. He got away through the window.”
“Did he take away any papers with him?” Mr. Sabin asked.
“He may have taken a loose sheet or two,” Wolfenden said. “Nothing of any consequence, I think. He had notime. I don’t think that that could have been his object altogether, or he would scarcely have suggested my remaining with him in the study.”
Mr. Sabin drew a quick, little breath. He played an iron shot, and played it very badly.
“It was a most extraordinary occurrence,” he remarked. “What was the man like? Did he seem like an ordinary thief?”
Wolfenden shook his head decidedly.
“Not in the least,” he declared. “He was well dressed and his manners were excellent. He had all the appearance of a man of position. He completely imposed upon both my mother and myself.”
“How long were you in the study before Dr. Whitlett arrived?” Mr. Sabin asked.
“Barely five minutes.”
It was odd, but Mr. Sabin seemed positively relieved.
“And Mr. Blatherwick,” he asked, “where was he all the time?”
“Who?” Wolfenden asked in surprise.
“Mr. Blatherwick—your father’s secretary,” Mr. Sabin repeated coolly; “I understood you to say that his name was Blatherwick.”
“I don’t remember mentioning his name at all,” Wolfenden said, vaguely disturbed.
Mr. Sabin addressed his ball with care and played it deliberately on to the green. Then he returned to the subject.
“I think that you must have done,” he said suavely, “or I should scarcely have known it. Was he in the room?”
“All the time,” Wolfenden answered.
Mr. Sabin drew another little breath.
“He was there when the fellow bolted?”
Wolfenden nodded.
“Why did he not try to stop him?”
Wolfenden smiled.
“Physically,” he remarked, “it would have been an impossibility. Blatherwick is a small man and an exceedingly nervous one. He is an honest little fellow, but I am afraid he would not have shone in an encounter of that sort.”
Mr. Sabin was on the point of asking another question, but Wolfenden interrupted him. He scarcely knew why, but he wanted to get away from the subject. He was sorry that he had ever broached it.
“Come,” he said, “we are talking too much. Let us play golf. I am sure I put you off that last stroke.”
Mr. Sabin took the hint and was silent. They were on the eleventh green, and bordering it on the far side was an open road—the sea road, which followed the coast for a mile or two and then turned inland to Deringham. Wolfenden, preparing to putt, heard wheels close at hand, and as the stroke was a critical one for him he stood back from his ball till the vehicle had passed. Glancing carelessly up, he saw his own blue liveries and his mother leaning back in a barouche. With a word of apology to his opponent, he started forward to meet her.
The coachman, who had recognised him, pulled up his horses in the middle of the road. Wolfenden walked swiftly over to the carriage side. His mother’s appearance had alarmed him. She was looking at him, and yet past him. Her cheeks were pale. Her eyes were set and distended. One of her hands seemed to be convulsively clutching the side of the carriage nearest to her. She had all the appearance of a woman who is suddenly face to face with some terrible vision. Wolfenden looked over his shoulder quickly. He could see nothing more alarming in the background than the figure of his opponent, who, with his back partly turned to them, was gazing out to sea. He stood at the edge of the green on slightly rising ground, and his figure was outlinedwith almost curious distinctness against the background of air and sky.
“Has anything fresh happened, mother?” Wolfenden asked, with concern. “I am afraid you are upset. Were you looking for me?”
She shook her head. It struck him that she was endeavouring to assume a composure which she assuredly did not possess.
“No; there is nothing fresh. Naturally I am not well. I am hoping that the drive will do me good. Are you enjoying your golf?”
“Very much,” Wolfenden answered. “The course has really been capitally kept. We are having a close match.”
“Who is your opponent?”
Wolfenden glanced behind him carelessly. Mr. Sabin had thrown several balls upon the green, and was practising long putts.
“Fellow named Sabin,” he answered. “No one you would be likely to be interested in. He comes down from London, and he plays a remarkably fine game. Rather a saturnine-looking personage, isn’t he?”
“He is a most unpleasant-looking man,” Lady Deringham faltered, white now to the lips. “Where did you meet him? Here or in London?”
“In London,” Wolfenden explained. “Rather a curious meeting it was too. A fellow attacked him coming out of a restaurant one night and I interfered—just in time. He has taken a little house down here.”
“Is he alone?” Lady Deringham asked.
“He has a niece living with him,” Wolfenden answered. “She is a very charming girl. I think that you would like her.”
The last words he added with something of an effort, and an indifference which was palpably assumed. Lady Deringham, however, did not appear to notice them at all.
“Have no more to do with him than you can help, Wolfenden,” she said, leaning a little over to him, and speaking in a half-fearful whisper. “I think his face is awful.”
Wolfenden laughed.
“I am not likely to see a great deal of him,” he declared. “In fact I can’t say that he seems very cordially disposed towards me, considering that I saved him from rather a nasty accident. By the bye, he said something about having met the Admiral at Alexandria. You have never come across him, I suppose?”
The sun was warm and the wind had dropped, or Wolfenden could almost have declared that his mother’s teeth were chattering. Her eyes were fixed again in a rigid stare which passed him by and travelled beyond. He looked over his shoulder. Mr. Sabin, apparently tired of practising, was standing directly facing them, leaning upon his putter. He was looking steadfastly at Lady Deringham, not in the least rudely, but with a faint show of curiosity and a smile which in no way improved his appearance slightly parting his lips. Meeting his gaze, Wolfenden looked away with an odd feeling of uneasiness.
“You are right,” he said. “His face is really a handsome one in a way, but he certainly is not prepossessing-looking!”
Lady Deringham had recovered herself. She leaned back amongst the cushions.
“Didn’t you ask me,” she said, “whether I had ever met the man? I cannot remember—certainly I was at Alexandria with your father, so perhaps I did. You will be home to dinner?”
He nodded.
“Of course. How is the Admiral to-day?”
“Remarkably well. He asked for you just before I came out.”
“I shall see him at dinner,” Wolfenden said “Perhaps he will let me smoke a cigar with him afterwards.”
He stood away from the carriage and lifted his cap with a smile. The coachman touched his horses and the barouche rolled on. Wolfenden walked slowly back to his companion.
“You will excuse my leaving you,” he said. “I was afraid that my mother might have been looking for me.”
“By all means,” Mr. Sabin answered. “I hope that you did not hurry on my account. I am trying,” he added, “to recollect if ever I met Lady Deringham. At my time of life one’s reminiscences become so chaotic.”
He looked keenly at Wolfenden, who answered him after a moment’s hesitation.
“Lady Deringham was at Alexandria with my father, so it is just possible,” he said.
Wolfenden lost his match upon the last hole; nevertheless it was a finely contested game, and when Mr. Sabin proposed a round on the following day, he accepted without hesitation. He did not like Mr. Sabin any the better—in fact he was beginning to acquire a deliberate distrust of him. Something of that fear with which other people regarded him had already communicated itself to Wolfenden. Without having the shadow of a definite suspicion with regard to the man or his character, he was inclined to resent that interest in the state of affairs at Deringham Hall which Mr. Sabin had undoubtedly manifested. At the same time he was Helène’s guardian, and so long as he occupied that position Wolfenden was not inclined to give up his acquaintance.
They parted in the pavilion, Wolfenden lingering for a few minutes, half hoping that he might receive some sort of invitation to call at Mr. Sabin’s temporary abode. Perhaps, under the circumstances, it was scarcely possible that any such invitation could be given, although had it been Wolfenden would certainly have accepted it. For he had no idea of at once relinquishing all hope as regards Helène. He was naturally sanguine, and he was very much in love. There was something mysterious about that other engagement of which he had been told. He had an idea that, but for Mr. Sabin’s unexpected appearance, Helène wouldhave offered him a larger share of her confidence. He was content to wait for it.
Wolfenden had ridden over from home, and left his horse in the hotel stables. As he passed the hall a familiar figure standing in the open doorway hailed him. He glanced quickly up, and stopped short. It was Harcutt who was standing there, in a Norfolk tweed suit and thick boots.
“Of all men in the world!” he exclaimed in blank surprise. “What, in the name of all that’s wonderful, are you doing here?”
Harcutt answered with a certain doggedness, almost as though he resented Wolfenden’s astonishment.
“I don’t know why you should look at me as though I were a ghost,” he said. “If it comes to that, I might ask you the same question. What are you doing here?”
“Oh! I’m at home,” Wolfenden answered promptly. “I’m down to visit my people; it’s only a mile or two from here to Deringham Hall.”
Harcutt dropped his eyeglass and laughed shortly.
“You are wonderfully filial all of a sudden,” he remarked. “Of course you had no other reason for coming!”
“None at all,” Wolfenden answered firmly. “I came because I was sent for. It was a complete surprise to me to meet Mr. Sabin here—at least it would have been if I had not travelled down with his niece. Their coming was simply a stroke of luck for me.”
Harcutt assumed a more amiable expression.
“I am glad to hear it,” he said. “I thought that you were stealing a march on me, and there really was not any necessity, for our interests do not clash in the least. It was different between you and poor old Densham, but he’s given it up of his own accord and he sailed for India yesterday.”
“Poor old chap!” Wolfenden said softly. “He wouldnot tell you, I suppose, even at the last, what it was that he had heard about—these people?”
“He would not tell me,” Harcutt answered; “but he sent a message to you. He wished me to remind you that you had been friends for fifteen years, and he was not likely to deceive you. He was leaving the country, he said, because he had certain and definite information concerning the girl, which made it absolutely hopeless for either you or he to think of her. His advice to you was to do the same.”
“I do not doubt Densham,” Wolfenden said slowly; “but I doubt his information. It came from a woman who has been Densham’s friend. Then, again, what may seem an insurmountable obstacle to him, may not be so to me. Nothing vague in the shape of warnings will deter me.”
“Well,” Harcutt said, “I have given you Densham’s message and my responsibility concerning it is ended. As you know, my own interests lie in a different direction. Now I want a few minutes’ conversation with you. The hotel rooms are a little too public. Are you in a hurry, or can you walk up and down the drive with me once or twice?”
“I can spare half an hour very well,” Wolfenden said; “but I should prefer to do no more walking just yet. Come and sit down here—it isn’t cold.”
They chose a seat looking over the sea. Harcutt glanced carefully all around. There was no possibility of their being overheard, nor indeed was there any one in sight.
“I am developing fresh instincts,” Harcutt said, as he crossed his legs and lit a cigarette. “I am here, I should like you to understand, purely in a professional capacity—and I want your help.”
“But my dear fellow,” Wolfenden said; “I don’t understand.If, when you say professionally, you mean as a journalist, why, what on earth in this place can there be worth the chronicling? There is scarcely a single person known to society in the neighbourhood.”
“Mr. Sabin is here!” Harcutt remarked quietly.
Wolfenden looked at him in surprise.
“That might have accounted for your presence here as a private individual,” he said; “but professionally, how on earth can he interest you?”
“He interests me professionally very much indeed,” Harcutt answered.
Wolfenden was getting puzzled.
“Mr. Sabin interests you professionally?” he repeated slowly. “Then you have learnt something. Mr. Sabin has an identity other than his own.”
“I suspect him to be,” Harcutt said slowly, “a most important and interesting personage. I have learnt a little concerning him. I am here to learn more; I am convinced that it is worth while.”
“Have you learnt anything,” Wolfenden asked, “concerning his niece?”
“Absolutely nothing,” Harcutt answered decidedly. “I may as well repeat that my interest is in the man alone. I am not a sentimental person at all. His niece is perhaps the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my life, but it is with no thought of her that I have taken up this investigation. Having assured you of that, I want to know if you will help me?”
“You must speak a little more plainly,” Wolfenden said; “you are altogether too vague. What help do you want, and for what purpose?”
“Mr. Sabin,” Harcutt said; “is engaged in great political schemes. He is in constant and anxious communication with the ambassadors of two great Powers. He affects secrecy in all his movements, and the name by which he isknown is without doubt an assumed one. This much I have learnt for certain. My own ideas are too vague yet for me to formulate. I cannot say any more, except that I believe him to be deep in some design which is certainly not for the welfare of this country. It is my assurance of this which justifies me in exercising a certain espionage upon his movements—which justifies me also, Wolfenden, in asking for your assistance.”
“My position,” Wolfenden remarked, “becomes a little difficult. Whoever this man Sabin may be, nothing would induce me to believe ill of his niece. I could take no part in anything likely to do her harm. You will understand this better, Harcutt, when I tell you that, a few hours ago, I asked her to be my wife.”
“You asked her—what?”
“To be my wife.”
“And she?”
“Refused me!”
Harcutt looked at him for a moment in blank amazement.
“Who refused you—Mr. Sabin or his niece?”
“Both!”
“Did she—did Mr. Sabin know your position, did he understand that you are the future Earl of Deringham?”
“Without a doubt,” Wolfenden answered drily; “in fact Mr. Sabin seems to be pretty well up in my genealogy. He had met my father once, he told me.”
Harcutt, with the natural selfishness of a man engaged upon his favourite pursuit, quite forgot to sympathise with his friend. He thought only of the bearing of this strange happening upon his quest.
“This,” he remarked, “disposes once and for all of the suggestion that these people are ordinary adventurers.”
“If any one,” Wolfenden said, “was ever idiotic enough to entertain the possibility of such a thing. I may add thatfrom the first I have had almost to thrust my acquaintance upon them, especially so far as Mr. Sabin is concerned. He has never asked me to call upon them here, or in London; and this morning when he found me with his niece he was quietly but furiously angry.”
“It is never worth while,” Harcutt said, “to reject a possibility until you have tested and proved it. What you say, however, settles this one. They are not adventurers in any sense of the word. Now, will you answer me a few questions? It may be just as much to your advantage as to mine to go into this matter.”
Wolfenden nodded.
“You can ask the questions, at any rate,” he said; “I will answer them if I can.”
“The young lady—did she refuse you from personal reasons? A man can always tell, you know. Hadn’t you the impression, from her answer, that it was more the force of circumstances than any objection to you which prompted her negative? I’ve put it bluntly, but you know what I mean.”
Wolfenden did not answer for nearly a minute. He was gazing steadily seaward, recalling with a swift effort of his imagination every word which had passed between them—he could even hear her voice, and see her face with the soft, dark eyes so close to his. It was a luxury of recollection.
“I will admit,” he said, quietly, “that what you suggest has already occurred to me. If it had not, I should be much more unhappy than I am at this moment. To tell you the honest truth I was not content with her answer, or rather the manner of it. I should have had some hope of inducing her to, at any rate, modify it, but for Mr. Sabin’s unexpected appearance. About him, at least, there was no hesitation; he said no, and he meant it.”
“That is what I imagined might be the case,” Harcuttsaid thoughtfully. “I don’t want to have you think that I imagine any disrespect to the young lady, but don’t you see that either she and Mr. Sabin must stand towards one another in an equivocal position, or else they must be in altogether a different station of life to their assumed one, when they dismiss the subject of an alliance with you so peremptorily.”
Wolfenden flushed up to the temples, and his eyes were lit with fire.
“You may dismiss all idea of the former possibility,” he said, with ominous quietness. “If you wish me to discuss this matter with you further you will be particularly careful to avoid the faintest allusion to it.”
“I have never seriously entertained it,” Harcutt assented cheerfully; “I, too, believe in the girl. She looks at once too proud and too innocent for any association of such thoughts with her. She has the bearing and the manners of a queen. Granted, then, that we dismiss the first possibility.”
“Absolutely and for ever,” Wolfenden said firmly. “I may add that Mr. Sabin met me with a distinct reason for his refusal—he informed me his niece was already betrothed.”
“That may or may not be true,” Harcutt said. “It does not affect the question which we are considering at present. We must come to the conclusion that these are people of considerable importance. That is what I honestly believe. Now what do you suppose brings Mr. Sabin to such an out of the way hole as this?”
“The golf, very likely,” Wolfenden said. “He is a magnificent player.”
Harcutt frowned.
“If I thought so,” he said, “I should consider my journey here a wasted one. But I can’t. He is in the midst of delicate and important negotiations—I know asmuch as that. He would not come down here at such a time to play golf. It is an absurd idea!”
“I really don’t see how else you can explain it,” Wolfenden remarked; “the greatest men have had their hobbies, you know. I need not remind you of Nero’s fiddle, or Drake’s bowls.”
“Quite unnecessary,” Harcutt declared briskly. “Frankly, I don’t believe in Mr. Sabin’s golf. There is somebody or something down here connected with his schemes; the golf is a subterfuge. He plays well because he does everything well.”
“It will tax your ingenuity,” Wolfenden said, “to connect his visit here with anything in the shape of political schemes.”
“My ingenuity accepts the task, at any rate,” Harcutt said. “I am going to find out all about it, and you must help me. It will be for both our interests.”
“I am afraid,” Wolfenden answered, “that you are on a wild goose chase. Still I am quite willing to help you if I can.”
“Well, to begin then,” Harcutt said; “you have been with him some time to-day. Did he ask you any questions about the locality? Did he show any curiosity in any of the residents?”
Wolfenden shook his head.
“Absolutely none,” he answered. “The only conversation we had, in which he showed any interest at all, was concerning my own people. By the bye, that reminds me! I told him of an incident which occurred at Deringham Hall last night, and he was certainly interested and curious. I chanced to look at him at an unexpected moment, and his appearance astonished me. I have never seen him look so keen about anything before.”
“Will you tell me the incident at once, please?” Harcutt begged eagerly. “It may contain the very clue for whichI am hunting. Anything which interests Mr. Sabin interests me.”
“There is no secrecy about the matter,” Wolfenden said. “I will tell you all about it. You may perhaps have heard that my father has been in very poor health ever since the great Solent disaster. It unfortunately affected his brain to a certain extent, and he has been the victim of delusions ever since. The most serious of these is, that he has been commissioned by the Government to prepare, upon a gigantic scale, a plan and description of our coast defences and navy. He has a secretary and typist, and works ten hours a day; but from their report and my own observations I am afraid the only result is an absolutely unintelligible chaos. Still, of course, we have to take him seriously, and be thankful that it is no worse. Now the incident which I told Mr. Sabin was this. Last night a man called and introduced himself as Dr. Wilmot, the great mind specialist. He represented that he had been staying in the neighbourhood, and was on friendly terms with the local medico here, Dr. Whitlett. My father’s case had been mentioned between them, and he had become much interested in it. He had a theory of his own for the investigation of such cases which consisted, briefly of a careful scrutiny of any work done by the patient. He brought a letter from Dr. Whitlett and said that if we would procure him a sight of my father’s most recent manuscripts he would give us an opinion on the case. We never had the slightest suspicion as to the truth of his statements, and I took him with me to the Admiral’s study. However, while we were there, and he was rattling through the manuscripts, up comes Dr. Whitlett, the local man, in hot haste. The letter was a forgery, and the man an impostor. He escaped through the window, and got clean away. That is the story just as I told it to Mr. Sabin. What do you make of it?”
Harcutt stood up, and laid his hand upon the other’s shoulder.
“Well, I’ve got my clue, that’s all,” he declared; “the thing’s as plain as sunlight!”
Wolfenden rose also to his feet.
“I must be a fool,” he said, “for I certainly can’t see it.”
Harcutt lowered his tone.
“Look here, Wolfenden,” he said, “I have no doubt that you are right, and that your father’s work is of no value; but you may be very sure of one thing—Mr. Sabin does not think so!”
“I don’t see what Mr. Sabin has got to do with it,” Wolfenden said.
Harcutt laughed.
“Well, I will tell you one thing,” he said; “it is the contents of your father’s study which has brought Mr. Sabin to Deringham!”
A woman stood, in the midst of a salt wilderness, gazing seaward. Around her was a long stretch of wet sand and of seaweed-stained rocks, rising from little pools of water left by the tide; and beyond, the flat, marshy country was broken only by that line of low cliffs, from which the little tufts of grass sprouted feebly. The waves which rolled almost to her feet were barely ripples, breaking with scarcely a visible effort upon the moist sand. Above, the sky was grey and threatening; only a few minutes before a cloud of white mist had drifted in from the sea and settled softly upon the land in the form of rain. The whole outlook was typical of intense desolation. The only sound breaking the silence, almost curiously devoid of all physical and animal noises, was the soft washing of the sand at her feet, and every now and then the jingling of silver harness, as the horses of her carriage, drawn up on the road above, tossed their heads and fidgeted. The carriage itself seemed grotesquely out of place. The coachman, with powdered hair and the dark blue Deringham livery, sat perfectly motionless, his head bent a little forward, and his eyes fixed upon his horses’ ears. The footman, by their side, stood with folded arms, and expression as wooden as though he were waiting upon a Bond Street pavement. Both were weary, and both would have liked to vary the monotony by a little conversation; but only a few yardsaway the woman was standing whose curious taste had led her to visit such a spot.
Her arms were hanging listlessly by her side, her whole expression, although her face was upturned towards the sky, was one of intense dejection. Something about her attitude bespoke a keen and intimate sympathy with the desolation of her surroundings. The woman was unhappy; the light in her dark eyes was inimitably sad. Her cheeks were pale and a little wan. Yet Lady Deringham was very handsome—as handsome as a woman approaching middle age could hope to be. Her figure was still slim and elegant, the streaks of grey in her raven black hair were few and far between. She might have lived hand in hand with sorrow, but it had done very little to age her. Only a few years ago, in the crowded ball-room of a palace, a prince had declared her to be the handsomest woman of her age, and the prince had the reputation of knowing. It was easy to believe it.
How long the woman might have lingered there it is hard to say, for evidently the spot possessed a peculiar fascination for her, and she had given herself up to a rare fit of abstraction. But some sound—was it the low wailing of that seagull, or the more distant cry of a hawk, motionless in mid-air and scarcely visible against the cloudy sky, which caused her to turn her head inland? And then she saw that the solitude was no longer unbroken. A dark object had rounded the sandy little headland, and was coming steadily towards her. She looked at it with a momentary interest, her skirt raised in her hand, already a few steps back on her return to the waiting carriage. Was it a man? It was something human, at any rate, although its progression was slow and ungraceful, and marked with a peculiar but uniform action. She stood perfectly still, a motionless figure against the background of wan, cloud-shadowed sea and gathering twilight, her eyes riveted upon this strangething, her lips slightly parted, her cheeks as pale as death. Gradually it came nearer and nearer. Her skirt dropped from her nerveless fingers, her eyes, a moment before dull, with an infinite and pitiful emptiness, were lit now with a new light. She was not alone, nor was she unprotected, yet the woman was suffering from a spasm of terror—one could scarcely imagine any sight revolting enough to call up that expression of acute and trembling fear, which had suddenly transformed her appearance. It was as though the level sands had yielded up their dead—the shipwrecked mariners of generations, and they all, with white, sad faces and wailing voices, were closing in around her. Yet it was hard to account for a terror so abject. There was certainly nothing in the figure, now close at hand, which seemed capable of inspiring it.
It was a man with a club foot—nothing more nor less. In fact it was Mr. Sabin! There was nothing about his appearance, save that ungainly movement caused by his deformity, in any way singular or threatening. He came steadily nearer, and the woman who awaited him trembled. Perhaps his expression was a trifle sardonic, owing chiefly to the extreme pallor of his skin, and the black flannel clothes with invisible stripe, which he had been wearing for golf. Yet when he lifted his soft felt hat from his head and bowed with an ease and effect palpably acquired in other countries, his appearance was far from unpleasant. He stood there bare-headed in the twilight, a strangely winning smile upon his dark face, and his head courteously bent.
“The most delightful of unexpected meetings,” he murmured. “I am afraid that I have come upon you like an apparition, dear Lady Deringham! I must have startled you! Yes, I can see by your face that I did; I am so sorry. Doubtless you did not know until yesterday that I was in England.”
Lady Deringham was slowly recovering herself. She was white still, even to the lips, and there was a strange, sick pain at her heart. Yet she answered him with something of her usual deliberateness, conscious perhaps that her servants, although their heads were studiously averted, had yet witnessed with surprise this unexpected meeting.
“You certainly startled me,” she said; “I had imagined that this was the most desolate part of all unfrequented spots! It is here I come when I want to feel absolutely alone. I did not dream of meeting another fellow creature—least of all people in the world, perhaps, you!”
“I,” he answered, smiling gently, “was perhaps the better prepared. A few minutes ago, from the cliffs yonder, I saw your carriage drawn up here, and I saw you alight. I wanted to speak with you, so I lost no time in scrambling down on to the sands. You have changed marvellously little, Lady Deringham!”
“And you,” she said, “only in name. You are the Mr. Sabin with whom my son was playing golf yesterday morning?”
“I am Mr. Sabin,” he answered. “Your son did me a good service a week or two back. He is a very fine young fellow; I congratulate you.”
“And your niece,” Lady Deringham asked; “who is she? My son spoke to me of her last night.”
Mr. Sabin smiled faintly.
“Ah! Madame,” he said, “there have been so many people lately who have been asking me that question, yet to you as to them I must return the same answer. She is my niece!”
“You call her?”
“She shares my name at present.”
“Is she your daughter?”
He shook his head sadly.
“I have never been married,” he said, with an indefinablemournfulness in his flexible tones. “I have had neither wife, nor child, nor friend. It is well for me that I have not!”
She looked down at his deformity, and woman-like she shivered.
“It is no better, then?” she murmured, with eyes turned seaward.
“It is absolutely incurable,” he declared.
She changed the subject abruptly.
“The last I heard of you,” she said, “was that you were in China. You were planning great things there. In ten years, I was told, Europe was to be at your mercy!”
“I left Pekin five years ago,” he said. “China is a land of Cabals. She may yet be the greatest country in the world. I, for one, believe in her destiny, but it will be in the generations to come. I have no patience to labour for another to reap the harvest. Then, too, a craving for just one draught of civilisation brought me westward again. Mongolian habits are interesting but a little trying.”
“And what,” she asked, looking at him steadily, “has brought you to Deringham, of all places upon this earth?”
He smiled, and with his stick traced a quaint pattern in the sand.
“I have never told you anything that was not the truth,” he said; “I will not begin now. I might have told you that I was here by chance, for change of air, or for the golf. Neither of these things would have been true. I am here because Deringham village is only a mile or two from Deringham Hall.”
She drew a little closer to him. The jingling of harness, as her horses tossed their heads impatiently, reminded her of the close proximity of the servants.
“What do you want of me?” she asked hoarsely.
He looked at her in mild reproach, a good-humoured smile at the corner of his lips; yet after all was it goodhumour or some curious outward reflection of the working of his secret thoughts? When he spoke the reproach, at any rate, was manifest.
“Want of you! You talk as though I were a blackmailer, or something equally obnoxious. Is that quite fair, Constance?”
She evaded the reproach; perhaps she was not conscious of it. It was the truth she wanted.
“You had some end in coming here,” she persisted. “What is it? I cannot conceive anything in the world you have to gain by coming to see me. We have left the world and society; we live buried. Whatever fresh schemes you may be planning, there is no way in which we could help you. You are richer, stronger, more powerful than we. I can think,” she added, “of only one thing which may have brought you.”
“And that?” he asked deliberately.
She looked at him with a certain tremulous wistfulness in her eyes, and with softening face.
“It may be,” she said, “that as you grow older you have grown kinder; you may have thought of my great desire, and you were always generous, Victor, you may have come to grant it!”
The slightest possible change passed over his face as his Christian name slipped from her lips. The firm lines about his mouth certainly relaxed, his dark eyes gleamed for a moment with a kindlier light. Perhaps at that minute for both of them came a sudden lifting of the curtain, a lingering backward glance into the world of their youth, passionate, beautiful, seductive. There were memories there which still seemed set to music—memories which pierced even the armour of his equanimity. Her eyes filled with tears as she looked at him. With a quick gesture she laid her hand upon his.
“Believe me, Victor,” she said, “I have always thoughtof you kindly; you have suffered terribly for my sake, and your silence was magnificent. I have never forgotten it.”
His face clouded over, her impulsive words had been after all ill chosen, she had touched a sore point! There was something in these memories distasteful to him. They recalled the one time in his life when he had been worsted by another man. His cynicism returned.
“I am afraid,” he said, “that the years, which have made so little change in your appearance, have made you a sentimentalist. I can assure you that these old memories seldom trouble me.”