She was crimson with confusion as she paid her fare. She wished the earth would open and swallow her up. Several of the girls came up to stare and speak to her.
"My word! Faith Ledley's going the pace! Someone left you a fortune, Faith? Where have you been? Old Dell was mad when you didn't turn up this morning."
Faith stammered her reply. "I'm not coming back any more. I've left. I want to see Peg. Where's Peg? Oh, there she is!"
She broke through the little group and ran after her friend, calling to her breathlessly.
Peg turned reluctantly. There was a grim sort of look on her handsome face.
"Well, where have you been?" she demanded.
Faith slipped a hand through her arm.
"I've got so much to tell you," she said. "It seems so long since we met. Are you better?"
"Well enough," was the uncompromising reply, and Peg jerked Faith's arm from her. "What have you been doing?" she asked again.
Faith smiled and blushed rosily.
"I've been getting married," she said with sudden boldness.
"Married? A kid like you!" Peg stared. "Well," she said then bluntly, "I only hope he's some decent chap and not like the rotten sort you were having tea with the other day when I saw you."
The colour died from Faith's cheeks, her heartbeats slowed down sickeningly.
"What—what do you mean?" she faltered.
"I mean what I say," said Peg firmly. "I thought better of you, that I did—having tea with him! Where did you pick him up I should like to know?"
Faith tried to answer, but no words would come.
"I suppose you thought I shouldn't recognize him," Peg went on wrathfully, "but I knew him right enough, the mean, selfish brute.... I——"
Faith caught her arm in shaking fingers.
"Peg, do you know who you're talking about?" she gasped. Peg laughed.
"Do I? I should rather say I do! Once seen never forgotten, my dear! I'm talking about theman you were having tea with the other day—Scammel, the brute we're all slaving for to make him rich."
For a moment Faith stared at her friend, then she laughed.
"Well, you're wrong, quite wrong," she said, with a little sigh of relief. "His name isn't Scammel at all—his name is Nicholas Forrester, and so...."
Peg shrugged her shoulders.
"So it may be, for all I know, but he's Scammel, and he owns Heeler's. Ask him, if you don't believe me. He's the man who brought that crowd of women round the factory I told you about—stuck-up crew! He's the man who cut down our overtime money. Ask any of the girls. Ask old Dell, if you don't believe me. He may call himself Forrester, or Jones, or any other old name, for all I care, but he's Scammel right enough, and he's as mean as he is rich," she added violently.
"I don't believe it," said Faith. She was surprised at her own boldness. As a rule, she never dared to contradict Peg, but her heart sprang to the defence of this man whom she hadso recently married. He was good and generous. She had had ample proof of it.
Peg began to walk on quickly. There was a sullen look in her handsome eyes. Faith had almost to run to keep pace with her.
"Don't walk so fast," she broke out at last breathlessly. "What's the hurry when I haven't seen you for so long?"
"I've been ill," was the uncompromising reply.
"I know, and I'm ever so sorry. I came up here particularly to see you, Peg—it's unkind to talk to me like this."
Peg slackened her steps a little. She was very fond of Faith, but because she considered her weak and unfit to take care of herself she thought it as well to be angry with her sometimes.
"Oh, well," she said more graciously; "it's no use going for you, I suppose. You're only a kid, after all." She smiled faintly. "What sort of a man have you married? And does your mother know?"
Faith coloured a little. She answered nervously that her mother did not know yet, but that she was going to tell her when she got home.
Peg said "Humph!" and added that she did not think Mrs. Ledley would be particularly pleased.
"Are you ashamed of the man or what?" she demanded bluntly. "He can't be much of a chap not to have wanted to see your mother."
Again Faith rushed eagerly to his defence.
"He did want to. It was my fault that she was not told. It was my suggestion. I wanted to surprise her."
Peg laughed grimly.
"I should say she'll be surprised all right," she said.
"She'll be delighted," Faith maintained. "Why, we shall be ever so rich!"
"Rich!" Peg stared at her companion suspiciously, and the younger girl flushed.
"Mother won't have to work any more," she said proudly. "And we can send the twins to a nice school." She paused. "And he's got a motor-car," she added in an awed voice.
Peg burst into shrill laughter.
"Lord! It's a novelette come true," she said. "Hark at her! You'll be telling me next thathe's a second Scammel or something. What did you say his name was?"
"Nicholas Forrester!" said Faith defiantly.
Peg stood stock still, as if she had lost all power of movement. She stared at Faith with horrified eyes.
"Scammel!" she ejaculated.
Faith flushed scarlet.
"He's not Scammel, I tell you!" she said passionately. "How dare you say that he is? I wouldn't believe it—not if everyone in the world told me that he was!"
"You're a little fool!" Peg answered brutally. "I don't know why I trouble about you at all, and that's a fact. You'll probably find that he's married already. What on earth do you think he wants with a wife like you? Why, with all his money he could have anybody he likes. Where is he now, I should like to know?"
"He's gone away—he went to America this morning."
"America!" Peg laughed bitterly. "Yes, and that's where he'll stay. Mark my words, you'll never see him again! Bah! You make me sick!"
She turned abruptly and struck off across the road, leaving Faith alone staring after her tall figure. Then mechanically she began to walk on.
In spite of her brave defence of the Beggar Man, there was very little real confidence in her heart. Peg was generally right, she knew, and the knowledge filled her with terror.
A sudden wild longing for Forrester almost overcame her. How should she get through these seventeen dreadful days till he came back?
Supposing he never came back!
Such things did happen, she knew! In the novelettes, of which Peg devoured about six weekly, it was a common occurrence for the villain of the story to desert his bride at the altar.
Panic closed about her heart. She began to run. All she wanted in the world was to get to her mother and tell her of this dreadful thing that had happened. She reached home white and breathless. The front door was open, and the twins, just back from school, were playing in the narrow passage.
The sight of them and the sound of their voices calmed her. She told herself that she was foolishto have been so easily influenced by what Peg had said. She looked at her new wedding-ring and gained courage.
Of course, they could not be true, all these horrible accusations. How could the Beggar Man be Scammel, when he had told her himself that his name was Forrester! She almost laughed at her panic. He had given her money, and he had kissed her—he had taken her to his beautiful flat and wished her to stay there. He had given her the address of his lawyer and told her to go to him if she were ever in trouble. What more could he have done? She was ashamed of her want of trust in him. It comforted her to remember the firm clasp of his hand and the steadfast look in his eyes.
He was her husband, and they were going to live happily ever after! Before he came back she would make herself into a lady. She walked into the house quite steadily and stooped to kiss the twins.
"We're all going for a ride this afternoon," she told them. "A lovely ride right down into the country."
The twins clung clamouring round her. "Inthe country! On a bus?" they asked in one voice.
Faith laughed happily.
"No," she said, "we're going to have a taxicab."
Mrs. Ledley, coming from the kitchen, heard the words.
"Faith! You shouldn't promise them such things, when you know it's impossible." She rebuked her daughter wearily. "You've got new shoes to buy out of your money this week, and there's the gas to pay...."
Faith smiled and dimpled. The pendulum had swung the other way now, and she was hugging her secret to her breast delightedly.
"I'm not going back to Heeler's any more," she said.
"Not going back!" Mrs. Ledley stared at her helplessly for a moment; then she burst into tears.
"I knew something had happened," she sobbed. "I knew you hadn't been yourself all this week. What have you done, Faith, that they've sent you away just when you were settling down so nicely?"
"I haven't done anything," said Faith. "At least ... nothing you will mind. And I wasn't sent away. I left on my own account."
Mrs. Ledley went on crying.
She sobbed out that she wished she was dead, that she did not see what was the use of going on living.
Faith went down on her knees beside her and the twins held hands and cried for sympathy.
"There's nothing to cry for, mother," Faith urged, kissing her. "There's only something to be glad about. Such a wonderful thing has happened. It's like a...." Like a novelette, she had been going to add, but she remembered the way the Beggar Man had said that he did not like the expression, and changed it to "a fairy story" instead.
She drew her mother's hands down from her face.
"You'll be able to live happily ever after," she said excitedly. Her eyes shone like stars. "We're going to be rich—all of us. We can go away from London and live in the country. And the twins can go to a lovely school and havereally pretty frocks. Oh, smile, darling, smile, and say you're glad!"
Mrs. Ledley looked up.
"I think you must be ill—or dreaming," she said with a sob. "What is the good of talking such nonsense, Faith? How do you think such things can ever come true?"
Faith held out her left hand with its new wedding ring.
"Because I've married a Fairy Prince," she said.
Mrs. Ledley stared at the little ring for a moment in absolute silence, then she broke out tremblingly:
"Faith! It's not true! You're just teasing me! It's just a joke! You couldn't have got married without telling me first! Why, there's nobody who would ask you!" She caught the girl by both shoulders and peered into her face.
"Faith!" she urged again passionately.
Faith laughed tremulously. Somehow she had not expected her news to be received so tragically; her old fears came surging back. Peg's words echoed once more in her ears.
"What do you think he wants with a wife likeyou? With all his money he could have anybody he likes...."
To drown the insistence of that voice she broke out into hurried explanations.
"It's the man who brought me home in his car that day I was ill. He's ever so rich, and we were married this morning. Oh, mother, don't look like that; it's all right—indeed, it is! You saw him. You saw him drive me up to the gate.... He's so good—so kind; he's going to help us all. He's going to buy you a house in the country and send the twins to school. He's given me ever so much money already—look!"
With shaking hands she dragged the money from her frock and put it into her mother's lap.
"You can have it all—all!" she went on eagerly. "It's for you that I wanted it. Not for myself. Oh, mother, why don't you speak? Why don't you say something?"
Mrs. Ledley moved suddenly. She pushed the girl almost roughly from her, letting the notes fall unheeded to the ground. She rose to her feet and walked away up the stairs, and Faith heard the key turn in her bedroom door.
She stood there in the narrow hall, all her happiness fallen from her.
What was the reason that nobody was glad? She had hoped such great things from her mother and Peg, and both of them had disappointed her.
The twins had dried their tears and were clamouring round her to know how soon they could start for their promised drive. Faith hardly heard them. She went down on her knees and gathered up the Beggar Man's despised money. She took it into the sitting-room and laid it on the table; then she sat down by the window with a feeling of utter helplessness.
What was the matter with everyone? Why had all her dreams gone so sadly awry?
She thought of Forrester with a very real pang. If only he had been here—if only she had allowed him to see her mother first, as he had wished, all this might have been averted.
When would she see him again? The future loomed before her like a thick shadow, without one ray of sunshine. She wished wildly that she had gone with him at the last moment when he had asked her to. She had never felt so lonely in her life.
It seemed a long time before Mrs. Ledley came downstairs again. She came into the room where Faith sat, and looked at her with hard eyes.
"This man you say you have married?" she asked. "Where is he?"
"He has gone to America," said Faith. "He went this morning; he won't be back for seventeen days."
Then the full pathos of her position overcame her and she broke down into tears.
"I did it for your sake," she sobbed. "I thought you would be so glad. I hated to see you look tired. I hated to see you work so hard, and he promised me he would give you a house in the country and send the twins to school. When he comes back he'll tell you himself."
There was a little silence.
"Faith," said Mrs. Ledley painfully, "do you think he ever will come back?"
Faith's tears were dried in a scorching flush. She raised her little head proudly.
"I know he will," she said.
Mrs. Ledley's face softened. She came over to where the girl sat, and bending, kissed her.
"Tell me all about it," she said.
Faith told her the little she knew—of their first meeting, right down to the strange marriage that morning in the registrar's dingy office, but she carefully kept to herself the things that Peg Fraser had said. They were too preposterous to mention!
She showed the letter for Mr. Shawyer, the lawyer, and Mrs. Ledley's face cleared a little as she took it and read the few lines.
"We will go and see him," she said. "On Monday we will go and see him, Faith, you and I."
Faith looked up eagerly.
"And you will believe in him then, won't you?" she asked. "If Mr. Shawyer tells you that it is all right you will believe in him, won't you?"
Mrs. Ledley took the girl's eager face in her hands.
"Do you love him—very much?" she asked rather sadly.
Faith echoed the words vaguely.
"Love him? Who do you mean?..."
"I mean this man—your husband."
Faith looked away across the room, and there was a little frown between her eyes.
"I don't know," she said hesitatingly. "I don't think I've ever thought about it. He's very kind—nobody has ever been so kind to me before."
Mrs. Ledley gripped the girl's hand.
"Faith, if you don't love him, why did you marry him?" she asked.
Faith raised her brown eyes.
"I told you," she said. "For you and the twins."
John Shawyer looked across his paper-strewn table at Faith's mother and smiled indulgently.
"I really don't think there is any need for you to be so alarmed," he said kindly. "I have known Mr. Forrester for a great many years, and have every reason to believe that he is an honourable man. He came to see me only last Friday and told me all about his romantic marriage. Unfortunately he has had to go to America, as you know. I think at the last it worried him considerably that he had not seen you before he left and been able to explain things. The marriage is perfectly in order, but you can go to the registrar yourself if you would prefer to do so...."
Mrs. Ledley broke in tremblingly.
"It all seems so extraordinary. Mr. Forrester had only seen my daughter three times before he married her, and ... and if he is as rich as you say, surely he would have looked higher for his wife?"
Poor woman! She could remember more than twenty years ago when she had made her own runaway match, the tortures of inquisition through which she had been put by her husband's relatives, and the complete ostracism with which the miserable affair had finally ended.
She had known herself incapable of ascending to his position in the world, and he had loved her well enough to sink into obscurity with her. Was history about to repeat itself in Faith's marriage?
"It is impossible to regulate romance," said Mr. Shawyer; privately he thought that the Beggar Man had shown taste in his choice of a wife. He considered that Faith had a charming face, and he was shrewd enough to see that with a few alterations in clothes the little moth would have no difficulty in spreading her wings and turning into a butterfly.
He was extremely interested in the whole affair. He had always considered Nicholas Forrester unique, and he genuinely admired his pluck in having taken this step.
"I am sure," he went on pleasantly, "that Mr. Forrester would be only too pleased for meto answer any questions you may care to ask. He told me if the occasion arose I was to be perfectly frank—especially in regard to his financial affairs, and...."
Mrs. Ledley interrupted hurriedly.
"It isn't the money I'm thinking of at all. It isn't the money that matters, if he is a good man, and will be kind to my little girl. But I know nothing about him! I only saw him once from the window, when he brought Faith home in his car, and I should not know him again if I saw him. If you could just tell me something about his people—if he has a mother and father living, or what he has been doing all his life...."
Mr. Shawyer cleared his throat and drew his chair closer to the table.
"I shall be only too pleased to answer those questions," he said. "As far as I know, Mr. Forrester is quite without relatives! His mother died when he was a small boy, and for some years he lived in Australia with his father. The father broke his neck in a riding accident, and from that time the son seems to have roughed it all over the world. He must have been bornwith the gift for making money, as he seems to have made a great deal before he was five and twenty—and spent it!" Mr. Shawyer added with a smile.
"About ten years ago," he went on, "he first came to England on some business deal with which I was concerned, and it proved to be a wonderful success, and I think I am right in saying that from that day he has never looked back. At the present moment I have no doubt that he is one of the richest men in London—he is known everywhere—perhaps I should tell you that he has not always been known under the name of Nicholas Forrester, though it really is his name——"
Faith leaned forward, the colour surging into her face.
"What—what other name, then?" she asked with an effort.
Mr. Shawyer smiled.
"For business purposes," he said gently, as if he were speaking to a child, "he calls himself Ralph Scammel! I know he would not object to your being told, otherwise I should certainly not have mentioned it, I——"
He broke off. Mrs. Ledley had risen to her feet. She was as white as death, and her eyes were like fire as she took a step forward and leaned heavily against the paper-strewn table.
"Scammel!" she said hoarsely. "Ralph Scammel! Is that the man my daughter has married?"
"It is merely an assumed name," Mr. Shawyer said quickly. "For business purposes." Mrs. Ledley was breathing fast. It was with difficulty that she at length found her voice.
"Ralph Scammel is the man who ruined my husband," she said.
Faith had hardly spoken during the whole interview, but now she started up from her chair with a little stifled cry.
Ever since her father's death, though she had never heard the name of the man who had brought about his ruin, she had been encouraged always to think of him with hatred.
Even the twins, in their play, frightened each other with an imaginary bogey of him, whom they called for want of a better name "The Bad Man," and sometimes Mrs. Ledley herself, tired and worried to death, would quiet them and forcethem to settle down to sleep by telling them that unless they did the "bad man" would come and carry them away.
And now Faith had married him!
She was still child enough to feel a nameless fear of the imaginary bogey, as well as suffocating shame and dread of the thing she had unwittingly done.
After a moment she broke out hysterically:
"It's not true! I won't believe it! You're all against me, all of you! His name is Nicholas Forrester! I tell you his name is Nicholas Forrester!" She broke into violent sobbing.
Mr. Shawyer looked greatly distressed.
"No doubt it is all a misapprehension," he said. "There is some mistake in the name. It is not such a very uncommon name," he suggested. But he knew that it was.
"There is no mistake," Faith's mother insisted flintily. "If my daughter has married that man I will never forgive her to my dying day."
"Mother!" The word came from Faith in a heart-broken cry, and once more Mr. Shawyer rushed gallantly into the breach.
"It is very unjust to my client to take thispremature view," he said reprovingly. "Naturally, I know nothing of the circumstances of which you are now speaking, and we can only wait until Mr. Forrester comes home before they are proved or disproved. I speak of him as I have always found him, and I can truthfully say that your daughter will be perfectly safe and happy with him."
But for all notice Mrs. Ledley took he might have spared himself the trouble of speech. Disappointment and sorrow had hardened her, and she could see nothing beyond the fact that her own child had married the man whom she herself most hated in all the world.
Almost before Mr. Shawyer had finished speaking she rose and took up her shabby little handbag.
"There is nothing more we need stay for," she said harshly. "Faith, dry your eyes and come home."
But Faith could only sob on in the bitterness of her heart: "It isn't true—I know it isn't true! And if it is—how did I know—how could I have known?"
Mrs. Ledley looked at her with hard eyes.
"If you had cared for me at all," she said dully, "you would not have married him without my consent. I've been a good mother to you, and this is the reward I get. It was only of yourself you thought when you married him. You never thought of me at all."
Faith looked up, her face all flushed and quivering.
"It was only of you I thought," she sobbed, "you and the twins. I wanted you to be rich—I wanted them to go to a good school and he promised and I knew he was rich!..."
Mrs. Ledley clenched her hand.
"I would rather die than take a penny of his money," she said passionately. "Money made dishonestly—from the ruin of other men's lives."
Mr. Shawyer made another attempt.
"All this may or may not be true," he said smoothly; "but at any rate no fault can be attached to this child here." He laid a kind hand on Faith's arm. "And if you will forgive my saying so, Mrs. Ledley, it is very cruel to her to speak in this way."
Mrs. Ledley turned and faced him proudly across the table.
"I loved my husband," she said, "and if you think—even for my daughter's sake—I shall ever receive Ralph Scammel into my house, you make a very great mistake! Faith has married him, and she can do as she pleases, of course, but it will mean a choice between her husband and me. That is my last word," and she turned and walked out of the room, leaving Faith sobbing in her chair.
Mr. Shawyer rose to his feet and began pacing the room. He hated scenes, and during his lifetime he had been forced into a great many. He was unutterably relieved when Faith stopped crying and put her handkerchief away. Something of the childishness in her face seemed to have deepened to womanhood as, for a moment, she raised her brown eyes to him.
"And what am I to do now?" she asked.
Mr. Shawyer spread his hands.
"My dear young lady, how can I advise you beyond saying that the only thing to do is to wait until Nicholas Forrester comes home. He is your husband and rightful guardian, and if you love him you know what course to adopt. Even if—if what your mother says is a fact, hehas not injured you knowingly, at all events. You say he has been all that is kind and good. Well, that is all that concerns you! A man's past is his own."
It was an easy and comfortable doctrine from his point of view, and he went on:
"After all, he is a business man. I never met a keener! And if in the course of business he unfortunately bettered your father in some transaction, well, how can he be blamed?"
Faith had been listening attentively, but now she broke in vehemently:
"If he is Ralph Scammel, he is a bad man! Peg says so, and Peg is always right!" And then again, with renewed anguish: "Oh, but it can't be true, I know it can't."
"If you have that much faith in him," said Mr. Shawyer quickly, "you must be content to wait till he comes back and ask him yourself. Now, take my advice and go home, and you will find that already your mother has repented of her hasty words."
Faith shook her head.
"I don't think so," she said slowly. She knew her mother well in many ways, and she knewthe bitter and relentless hatred with which Mrs. Ledley had always regarded the "bad man," as the twins called him.
He had robbed her of all happiness. He had brought her and her children down to poverty. Faith did not think that her mother would ever relent or forgive.
She went home with dragging steps. Before she entered the house she slipped off her wedding ring and put it into a pocket. She felt more free without it, could almost imagine that the whole thing was nothing more, than a bad dream.
She was afraid to face her mother. She went up to her own little room on the top floor and sat down at the window.
There was not much to be seen from it but roofs and telegraph poles and wires, but the sky was blue beyond them all, and against her will Faith thought of the sea, which she had only seen once, years ago, and of Nicholas Forrester, who was even then being carried away from her across its blueness.
Since he said good-bye to her she had many times wished him back again, but now the thoughtof him made her shiver. She wished never to see him any more.
In her childishness she somehow fancied that she had only to say she regretted her marriage and give back everything he had ever given her to wipe the episode out of her life. She was thankful now that she had not spent a shilling of his money. She took it all from its hiding place and made a little parcel of it, with her wedding ring, and addressed it to the flat where he had taken her for lunch after their marriage.
He would find it when he came back and understand, she thought. She slipped out and posted it at once, for fear she should be tempted to change her mind by the sight of the twins' shabby frocks and the memory of all she could have bought them with the Beggar Man's money.
Then she went into the kitchen to her mother and held out her trembling bare left hand.
"I've sent it back," she said in a whisper. "And the money—I never want to see him any more."
Mrs. Ledley stared at her helplessly, then something in the girl's face, its immature lookand innocent eyes, swept the anger and bitterness from her heart.
She took Faith on to her lap as if she had still been a child, and the two kissed and cried together.
Mrs. Ledley did not believe Faith would ever see the Beggar Man again. She thought she knew only too well the type of man he was. She sobbed out that she was only too thankful to have her daughter safely with her.
"I didn't mean to be hard and cruel," she said over and over again. "It would have broken my heart if he had taken you away from me."
"He wanted me to go and I wouldn't," Faith said. She tried to believe that she was quite happy cuddled into her mother's arms, but she knew that she was not. There was something old and sad in her heart which would never leave her again she knew. She listened apathetically while Mrs. Ledley spoke of her husband.
"You haven't forgotten him, Faith? You haven't so soon forgotten your father? He was so good to you. He loved you all so much. This man ruined him and caused his death. I know that my little girl could not love such a man."
"I wanted you to be rich," Faith whispered brokenly. "I wanted everything for you and the twins."
She sat up with sudden energy, pushing the dark hair from her face. "I hope I never see him again!" she said fiercely. "I hope he never comes home any more!..."
Faith went back to the factory the next day and asked to be taken on again. Miss Dell would like to have refused, but she met Peg's fierce eyes across the room and changed her mind, and Faith was reinstated.
There was not much time for talking that morning. There was a rush of work on hand and hardly a moment to spare, but during the dinner hour Peg asked a storm of questions.
"What has happened? He's not coming back, of course! What a brute! Didn't I always say he was a brute?"
Faith shivered.
There were moments when she still clung passionately to the hope that there was some mistake—that when he came back he would be able to explain and put matters right. And there were other times when she shrank from the very thought of him, and only wished to be able to forget those few days of delirium.
She would not even confide in Peg. All she would do was to beg her to ask no questions.
"It's all over and done with," she said tremblingly. "You said he would not come back. I hope he never will."
"I said I should not be at all surprised if he didn't," Peg answered. "But, of course, he may do. Sometimes in novelettes the villain of the story turns out to be the hero after all, you know."
Faith did not think it was at all likely in this case, and the days began slowly to creep away.
When a fortnight had gone and the seventeenth day drew near, panic closed about her heart. Supposing he came after all?
She had had no word from him, and she hardly knew whether to be glad or sorry. Perhaps it meant that he never would come back. She wished she could believe this.
At other times, lying awake at night in her little room with its sloping roof, against her will she was forced to remember every word the Beggar Man had said to her, every kindly action that he had done, and there was always a great unanswered question in her mind.
"Why did he marry me if he was bad, as they say he is? He need not have married me. There are heaps of other girls in the world."
Mr. Shawyer wrote and begged her to go and see him, but she neither went nor answered the letter.
She spent as much of her time with Peg as possible, and the elder girl once more resumed her rôle of friend and protector.
"If you're worrying about that good-for-nothing!" she said to Faith one day in her blunt manner, "you're a little fool. There are as good fish in the sea as any that were caught, my girl, and don't you make any mistake. Let old Scammel stay in America. Jolly good riddance, I say!"
Faith did not answer, but her nerves were tearing her to pieces. Every time a man's voice sounded in the passages of the factory or a door opened suddenly she was sure it was the Beggar Man come back to find and claim her. Every time she heard the sound of a motor coming up the street her heart beat so fast she could hardly breathe. She never knew how she dragged through the seventeenth day, but it passedsomehow, and the eighteenth and nineteenth and twentieth, and still there was no sign of Nicholas Forrester.
She began to pluck up courage. He would not come now, she was sure. If he had returned to England he had found her wedding ring and the returned money and had understood what she meant. Perhaps even he had repented as much as she, long before he got back home.
Or perhaps he was still abroad! That would be best of all, if she could only be sure that the sea was still dividing them.
Five days after Nicholas was due to return Mrs. Ledley spoke of him.
"He'll never come back, Faith." There was triumphant thankfulness in her voice. "Somehow I felt all along that he would never come back."
Faith could not answer. Though her fear had decreased it was not yet dead, and only last night she had dreamed of the Beggar Man, dreamed that she was on one side of a locked door on which he knocked, knocked ceaselessly. It was early evening, and Faith had come home from work to find Mrs. Ledley dressed to go out.
"You won't be long, mother, will you?" she urged. She dreaded being alone in the house. Though it was early evening, the twins were in bed and asleep, and everything seemed very still.
"I shan't be long," her mother answered, "but I must have a breath of air. The house has stifled me all day. I can't breathe at all sometimes."
Faith watched her down the street and went back indoors.
And Mrs. Ledley had not been gone more than half an hour, when there was a great knocking at the outer door. Shaking in every limb, Faith went to open it. A strange woman stood there, and down at the gate was a little crowd and a policeman. The strange woman put kind arms round the girl's shrinking figure and told her as gently as she could that something terrible had happened, but that she must try to be brave and——
"Mother!" said Faith. She broke away like a mad thing from the arms that would have held her and rushed to the gate. She gave one look at the white face of the woman they were carrying home and screamed, hiding her face with distraught hands.
Mrs. Ledley was dead. She had been walking along quite naturally, so they said, and suddenly had been seen to fall.
There was nothing to be done. Hard work and sorrow and bitterness had taken their toll of her strength and ended her life.
Faith could not shed a tear. After that first wild scream she had been silent. She went to the room where the twins lay sleeping and crouched down beside them, desperately holding a chubby hand of each.
Downstairs a kindly neighbour was in charge of the house; presently she came upstairs to Faith and bent over her.
"A gentleman, dearie. I told him you couldn't see anyone, but he seemed so distressed. I promised to tell you. He says he must see you, and such a nice gentleman he is."
Faith turned her face away.
"I can't! I don't want anyone! Leave me alone!"
The woman sighed and went away, and presently another step ascended the narrow stairs—a man's heavier step.
Faith was crouched against the bed, facingthe door, her eyes closed, her cheek pressed to the sleeping hands to which she clung. Someone spoke her name through the silent room: "Faith!" and then again, with deepest pity: "Faith!"
The girl did not move. For a moment she thought she was dreaming, and that the voice had spoken in her dream. Then as she looked up with a wild hope that it was so—that all the past hour would prove to be nothing but a terrible nightmare—her dazed, piteous eyes met those of the Beggar Man.
All his life Nicholas Forrester remembered that room with its sloping roof and poor furniture, and the sleeping twins lying on the bed, with Faith, little more than a child herself, crouched on the floor beside them.
Hot evening sunshine shone through the narrow window and fell right upon the motherless little group, as with a stifled exclamation he went forward and, stooping, lifted Faith to her feet.
"My poor little girl," he said, keeping his arms round her, and though she made no effort to resist him, she stood apathetically enough,only turning her head away when he would have kissed her.
He broke out into incoherent explanations.
"I only got to Liverpool last night. We ran into a fog-bank and had to reduce speed. I tried to let you know but it seemed hopeless. I came as quickly as I could."
She heard what he said disinterestedly, wondering why he chose to make explanations at all, and when he had finished she looked at him with dazed brown eyes.
"Mother is dead; did they tell you?"
"The woman downstairs told me. I can't tell you how grieved I am. If I had only been here. If I had only been able to help."
The girl looked at him blankly; he had a kind face she thought, even as she had thought that time of their first meeting, but now she knew that he was not really kind or anything that he looked. He was Scammel who had ruined her father, Scammel for whose sake all those girls at Heeler's factory worked and sweated, and made money whereby to enrich him.
"I don't know why you came here, anyway," she said helplessly.
He flushed and bit a lip, but he answered gently enough: "I came straight to you, of course! Who had a better right! Have you forgotten so soon that you are my wife?"
She held out her bare left hand.
"I sent your ring back. I am sorry I ever married you. It's all over and done with."
He took but little notice of her words. He knew that she was overwrought and broken-hearted, and that it was no time now to press his claim.
The twins began to rouse, and sat up, two rosy-cheeked youngsters with eyes still drowsy with sleep, but which opened widely enough at sight of the stranger.
"Is it teatime?" was their first demand, regardless of the fact that they had had their tea hours ago, and Forrester answered that supper was ready downstairs. Would they like to be carried?
They made a wild rush at him immediately, but Faith was too quick for him. She put her arms round both the children, and looked at him across their tousled heads with defensive eyes.
"They're all I've got in the world," she said hoarsely. "You can't have them, too."
The Beggar Man did not answer. He followed them down the stairs to the sitting-room, where the kindly neighbour had made more tea, more for something to do than for any other reason, but the twins consumed slice after slice of bread and jam uncomplainingly, and regarded the Beggar Man with eyes of smiling interest.
"Do you like chocolates?" he inquired when the meal was ended. "Well, run along to a shop and buy some." He gave them half a crown, and bundled them out of the room amid shrieks of delight, then he shut the door and went back to where Faith sat by the window, her listless eyes on the sunbaked street.
He stood beside her silently for a moment. Then he asked gently:
"How soon can you be ready to leave this house—to-morrow?"
She looked up.
"I don't know what you mean. I am never going to leave it. I shall stay here and work for the twins, as mother did."
Her voice faltered a little as she spoke thatbeloved name, but no tears came, and Forrester said patiently:
"You cannot stay here. It's impossible. You must let me see to things for you. I promise you that everything shall be done exactly as you wish." He waited, but she did not speak, and he said again with a touch of impatience in his voice:
"Faith, you are angry with me. What have I done?"
She temporized, with the feeling that as yet she could not bring herself to say all that she knew she meant to say sooner or later.
"You never wrote to me." The words were apathetic. She had not cared whether he wrote to her or not.
He shrugged his shoulders.
"I had no chance, and what sense was there in writing? I have got here almost as soon as a letter would have done." He walked a pace from her and came back. "I'm a bad hand at writing, anyway," he said, sombrely.
She was looking again into the street, and the weary outline of her face touched his heart.
"I thought of you all the time," he said, impulsively. "I cursed every minute that we were delayed."
She asked another question.
"Have you been to your flat?"
"I came straight here, of course. I was anxious about you. I thought you might be wondering what had become of me."
She drew a long sigh.
"Then you haven't got it?"
"Haven't got what?" he asked gently.
She rose to her feet.
"My ring and the money. It was all a mistake. I don't want to be married to you any more." She regarded him with wide, frightened eyes. For the first time it was slowly dawning upon her that perhaps it was not such an easy thing to get unmarried as it had been to get married.
"Please!" she added with faint appeal.
The Beggar Man's face hardened.
"My dear child," he said as patiently as he could, "it's not possible to stop being married like that, for no reason! Come, Faith, be reasonable! I make every allowance for you.I—I'm grieved at your mother's death, but...."
The burning colour rushed suddenly to the girl's face. Her blank eyes woke into life and passion.
"Grieved! When you helped to kill her!" she cried. She broke into wild laughter. "When you helped to kill her!" she said again helplessly.
The Beggar Man caught her by both arms.
"Faith! For God's sake," he said hoarsely. He thought that the shock of her mother's death had turned her brain. He tried to draw her to him, but she resisted him fiercely.
"You killed my father and ruined his life," she went on, raving. "You killed my father, and now you've killed my mother. Oh, I wish I could die, too! I wish I had never seen you." And quite suddenly she seemed to collapse, and would have fallen but for Forrester's upholding arms.
He laid her down on the couch by the window, and called to the kindly neighbour. The doctor had just arrived for Mrs. Ledley, and he came at once to Faith.
Forrester stood by, pale and anxious.
"The mother is dead, of course?" he asked once hopelessly, and the doctor looked up for a moment to answer.
"She must have died instantly. It was heart failure!" His eyes searched the young man's agitated face.
"May I ask who you are?" he inquired, faintly amazed.
"Yes." The Beggar Man glanced down at Faith.
"She is my wife," he said, briefly.
"Your wife! That child!" The amazed words were out before the doctor could check them, and he hastened to apologize. "I beg your pardon, but she looks so young."
"She is young," said the Beggar Man, flintily. "I am nearly twenty years older than she is."
Faith was coming back to consciousness, and the doctor said hurriedly: "I think it will be better for you to go away for the present, if you will—I want her to be kept quite quiet."
Nicholas went out into the narrow passage. The twins had returned and were squabbling overan enormous bag of sticky sweets. They hailed Nicholas with delight.
"I thought I said you were to buy chocolates?" he said, with pretended severity.
He sat down on the stairs and took the bag from them, dividing it into equal parts and sharing out its contents. "Ough! How sticky," he complained, with a little grimace.
"Nice!" said the twins, unanimously. They were quite happy; nobody had told them, poor mites, of their irreparable loss.
Nicholas did his best to amuse them. He was worried and unhappy, but he racked the recesses of his brain for forgotten fairy tales, and told them of the wolves that used to howl over the prairie at night when he was a boy and of a tiger which his father had once shot in India.
They listened, wide-eyed and wondering, and when at last he paused they both scrambled to their feet.
"Tell Mums! Go and tell Mums!"
That was the beginning of the trouble. In vain he tried to put them off with stories that their mother was not well, that her head ached,that she was lying down and must not be disturbed. The twins were disbelieving, grew angry, and finally broke into tears and sobs.
Nicholas took them up, one on each arm, and carried them into the kitchen. He was afraid they would disturb Faith. He sat down in a big old armchair, a child on each knee, and soothed and petted, and made vague promises for the morrow if they were good, until finally they both fell asleep with his arms round them.
It was getting late then. A clock on the kitchen shelf struck eight, but Nicholas was afraid to move. His arms were cramped, and he was racked with anxiety for Faith, but he sat doggedly on until the kindly neighbour and the doctor came to him.
The doctor smiled as he saw Forrester's burdens, and the kindly neighbour came forward with little murmurs of sympathy, and carried the twins away one at a time, still sleeping, to bed.
The Beggar Man stood up and stretched his arms.
"Well! This is a bad business," he said despondently.
"Yes." The doctor was looking at him with puzzled eyes. "You must forgive me," he said at last, "but I have known Mrs. Ledley and her family for several years now, and I had no idea that the child in the next room was married!"
Forrester coloured a little.
"We were married three weeks ago," he explained grudgingly. "And I had to leave her at once, on business, for America! I only got back last night and came here to find—this!" He looked round the room helplessly. "Of course everything will be all right," he added hurriedly. "I shall look after the children. There are only the two, aren't there?" he asked with a shade of anxiety.
The doctor smiled. "Yes, only the twins."
"And my wife? How is she?" the Beggar Man asked.
"She is suffering from shock, severe shock, of course, and must be kept perfectly quiet. I asked her if she wished to see you, and—I amsorry—but she said No! You must humour her, and not take it seriously," he explained kindly. "I asked if there was anyone she would like to see, and she said, 'Yes, Peg.' Do you know who Peg is?"
The Beggar Man frowned.
"Yes—a friend of hers."
The doctor turned away to the door. He was a kind man, but overworked and underpaid, and could not afford to waste a moment more than he was obliged.
"Well, I should send for her," he said briskly. "The woman here tells me she cannot stay all night. She has her own home and children to attend to. If you know where this 'Peg' is—send for her."
Forrester saw the doctor out, and went in search of the kindly neighbour who had tucked the twins up in bed, and was tidying the house.
He had no more idea than the dead how he was going to find Peg, but he asked the neighbour hopefully for information.
"Yes, I know her," she said. "I know herwell—she lives about ten minutes away from here. Yes, I can give you her address."
Forrester wrote it down on his shirt cuff, promised to be back quickly, and went out.
The door of the room where Faith lay was open as he passed it, but some queer impulse prevented him from entering. She had said that she did not want him—well, he could wait.
But his heart was sore as he went up and down the narrow streets in search of Peg.
She was at the door of the house when he reached it, laughing and talking with a youth in a loud check suit and a highly-coloured tie, and her handsome face hardened as Forrester approached and raised his hat. She vouchsafed no answer to his "Good evening," only stared as he explained his errand.
"I think you are a friend of my wife's. She is ill, and has asked for you." He paused, and the youth in the check suit lounged off and down the street.
"My name is Forrester," the Beggar Man went on after a moment. "I don't know whether you have heard of me, but I have heard of you,and I know you are Faith's friend. Will you come? She is in great trouble. Her mother died suddenly this evening."
"Died!" Peg's eyes opened in horror. "Oh, poor kid!" she ejaculated. "Here, wait a minute." She turned into the house, and he heard her shouting to someone that she was going out and might not be home all night. Then she came back to him, banged the door behind her, and they set off down the road together.
People stared at them curiously as they passed, but Forrester was unconscious of it. He was not greatly prepossessed with Peg, but then few people were at first sight, although she was a handsome girl and magnificently built.
She was gaudily dressed for one thing, and Forrester hated gaudy clothes, and she wore long silver gipsy earrings and a string of bright green beads dangling from her neck.
She did not speak to him till they were nearly at their destination. Then she said bluntly:
"You've come back then?"
Forrester looked at her.
"Yes. I came back last night."
She gave a short laugh.
"I told Faith I didn't believe you would," she said.
He coloured angrily.
"I am much obliged to you, I am sure," he said, curtly.
Peg laughed again.
"Oh, don't mention it!" she said, airily. "I'm glad to be wrong for once in my life." She paused. "Faith's mighty fond of you," she added, almost threateningly.
Forrester frowned: he resented this girl's blunt, downright manner of speech, but Peg went on, quite indifferent to his obvious annoyance.
"She went for me hot and strong when I told her you were Ralph Scammel. Up like a spitfire she was!"
"When you told her—what?"
Her blue eyes met his defiantly.
"When I told her that you were Scammel and owned Heeler's," she repeated. "I knew, and I didn't see why she shouldn't know, too! Notthat she believed it, though," she added, with a touch of chagrin. The Beggar Man made no answer, but he quickened his steps a little. He thought of Faith's strange manner towards him and Peg's words seemed all at once to have explained a great deal.
Peg took control of the house as absolutely as if she had always been its mistress, and, in spite of his dislike of her, Nicholas Forrester felt a great sense of relief. She was capable, whatever else she might not be, and he knew she was fond of Faith.
Before he left the house that night he had a little conversation with her.
"Can you stay with my wife?" he asked.
Peg looked him up and down coolly.
"I suppose you've got so much money that you've forgotten that some people have to earn their living," she said bluntly, but without intentional insolence. "How do you suppose I'm going on if I stay here for nothing?"
"I can make it worth your while," he said, speaking as bluntly as she had spoken.
Peg laughed.
"Oh, well, if it's to be a business deal."
She told him what she earned at Heeler's, andasked double the amount if she consented to stay with Faith.
"You won't be wanting me for long, anyway," she said, "so I'm for making hay while the sun shines."
The Beggar Man gave her notes for the amount she asked without a word, and a faint admiration crept into her blue eyes.
"Look here," she said, "are you acting on the square with Faith? That's what I want to know."
The Beggar Man met her gaze steadily.
"Well, I married her, didn't I?" he asked.
"I know, but you've let her down in other ways; you never told her that Heeler's belonged to you."
"That is no business of yours."
"Perhaps not," she agreed, "but you'll find it is of hers. She is only a kid, and soft in some ways, but she can be hard as nails when she chooses, beneath all that softness, and you'll find it out."
"Very well. I don't need you to tell me about it, anyway. Take care of her—and the twins—that's all I ask of you."
"I shall take care of them right enough," she answered laconically. "But not because you've paid me, but because I'm fond of them—see?"
She challenged him defiantly.
The Beggar Man smiled grimly.
"Oh, yes, I see," he said. "Well, good-night. I'll be round early to-morrow to make arrangements."
Peg shut the door after him, and went back to Faith. The girl was awake, and sitting up in bed with feverish eyes.
"Has he gone?" she asked in a whisper.
"Yes." Peg sat down beside the bed. "Here, have you two been and had a real row?" she demanded.
"Yes," Faith whispered.
Peg said "Humph! You mean a proper old glory-row like they have in novelettes, eh? Don't mean to make it up till the last chapter, if ever, eh?"
"I never mean to make it up."
There was a little silence; then Peg said:
"With all his money, it might be worth while."
Faith hid her face.
"I don't want his money. I only want my mother," she sobbed.
"You poor chicken!" Peg took her into motherly arms.
"You shan't ever see him again if you don't want," she promised rashly. "He shan't come in here except over my dead body," she added, with tragic emphasis, and a sudden memory of a pink-backed novelette still lying at home unfinished....
But she found the Beggar Man more difficult to manage than she had imagined. He demanded to see Faith, and being determinedly repulsed, asked reasons.
Peg hesitated; then she said with evident enjoyment:
"Well, you'll have to know in the end, so I may as well tell you now! She's found out something about you."
Forrester changed colour a little.
"What the deuce do you mean?" he demanded.
Peg shrugged her shoulders.
"I only mean that she told me so last night. Of course, she's sick and ill, and everythinglooks its blackest, and I told her she was making too much of it, but she wouldn't listen! I'm not sensitive myself, but she seems to think you're responsible for her father's death. Her father was a gentleman, you know," she added in emphatic parenthesis.
The Beggar Man laughed.
"I never knew her father. I never saw him in my life to the best of my knowledge."
Peg regarded him with her handsome head on one side, and her arms akimbo.
"Have you ever read a book called 'Revenge is Sweet'?" she asked.
The Beggar Man moved impatiently.
"No, I haven't, and even if I had——"
She interrupted mercilessly.
"Well, you should! It's on at the pictures, too, this week, and it reminds me of what Faith told me about her father and you! It's all about a man who ruined another man in business and broke his heart, so that he died! Well, that's what happened to Faith's father—through you!"
The Beggar Man walked over to the window and stood looking out into the ugly street.
A dull flush had risen to his face. He was notproud of everything that had happened in his life, and he was perfectly well aware that his great wealth could not always have been accumulated without distress to others.
Until now those "others" had been vague, unreal figures, but it gave him a sick feeling of shame to think that perhaps Peg was speaking the truth when she said that one of them had been Faith's father.
"Business is business," he began angrily in self-defence.
Peg nodded.
"That's what I say! I said so to Faith, and told her that it would very likely be worth while to overlook things for the sake of your money, but...."
The Beggar Man turned with a roar like a wounded lion.
"You told her that!"
"I did." Her hard blue eyes met his unflinchingly. "Money's the only thing in the world worth having when you've never had any, and I know! I believe I'd marry Old Nick himself if he offered me ten thousand a year and a car of my own."
Forrester swore under his breath.
"Women are all the same," he said bitterly. "Ready to sell their souls for jewels and luxury."
"Well," said Peg, "I don't know thatyoucan talk! Anyway, it's no business of mine, only that's why Faith won't see you."
The Beggar Man's face hardened in a way that made him almost ugly; he was not used to being thwarted.
He went close to Peg as she stood guarding the doorway.
"Are you going to move?" he asked quietly, "or have I got to make you?"
Peg grew very red. She began to say, "Make me?" but changed her mind and stood on one side with a sudden meekness that would have amazed anyone who knew her. And the Beggar Man opened the door and went out into the passage.
She followed him then and spoke in a subdued way. "Look here, I'm not taking sides any longer, so don't you think it. But Faith's a little bit of a thing, and she's sad, and she's sick. I can't stop you going in to her if youmean to, but——" She paused. "If you're the sport I almost think you are, you won't, at any rate not to-day," she added earnestly.
It was very clever of her, and the Beggar Man stopped and wavered.
For an instant they looked at one another silently, eye to eye; then he turned back.
"Very well; but as soon as she's well enough you understand that nothing you can say or do will prevent me." Peg laughed grimly.
"Oh, yes, I understand that," she said.