That night was one of the worst in my life. I was so fond of Robert Lorillard, and I'd grown to love Joyce Arnold so well that the breaking of their love idyll hurt as if it had been my own.
Never shall I forget the hour when we three talked together at my flat after that séance at the Savoy, or the look on those two faces as Robert and Joyce agreed to part! Even I had acquiesced at first in that decision—but only while I was still half stunned by the shock of the great surprise, and thrilled by the seeming miracle. At sight of the two I loved quietly giving each other up, making sacrifice of their hearts on a cold altar, I had a revulsion of feeling.
I jumped up, and broke out desperately.
"I don't believe it's true! Somethingtellsme it isn't! Don't spoil your lives without making sure."
"How can we be surer than we are?" Robert asked. "You recognized June's voice."
"Ithoughtthen that I did," I amended. "I was excited. Now, I don't trust my own impression."
"But the perfume of La France roses? Even if the woman could have found out other things, how should she know about a small detail like June's favourite flower? How could she have the perfume already in her room when we came—as if she were sure of our coming there—which of course she couldn't have been," Robert argued.
"I don'tseehow she could have been sure," I had to grant him. "I don't see through any of it. But they're so deadly clever, these people—the fraudulent ones, I mean. They couldn't impress the public as they do if they weren't up to every trick. All I say is,wait. Don't decide irrevocably yet. The way the voice talked didn't seem to me a bit like June. Only the tones were like hers; and they might have been imitated by anybody who'd known her, or who'd been coached by someone."
"Dear Princess, you're so anxious for our happiness that I fear you're thinking of impossible things. Who could have an object in parting Joyce and me? I can think of no one. Still less could this stranger from America have a motive, even if she lied, and really knew who I was before she spoke to us at the Savoy."
"I admit it does sound just as impossible as you say!" I agreed, forlornly. "But things thatsoundimpossible may be possible. And we must find out. In justice to Joyce and yourself—even in justice to June's spirit, which Ican'tthink would be so selfish—we must find out!"
"What would you suggest?" Joyce asked rather timidly. But there was a faint colour in her cheeks, like a spark in the ashes of hope.
"Detectives!" I said. "Or ratheradetective. I know a good man. He served me very well once, when some of our family treasures disappeared from Courtenaye Abbey, and it rather looked as if I'd stolen them myself. He can learn without any shadow of doubt when Miss Reardon did land, and when she came to London. Besides, he's sure to have colleagues on the other side who can give him all sorts of details about the woman: how she's thought of at home, whether she's ever been caught out as a cheat, and so on. Will you both consent to that? Because if you will, I'll 'phone to my man this moment."
They did consent. At least, Robert did, for Joyce left the decision entirely to him. She was so afraid, poor girl, of seeming determined toholdhim at any price, that she would hardly speak. As for Robert, though he felt that I was justified in getting to the bottom of things, I saw that he believed in the truth of the message he'd received. If it were not the spirit of June who had come to command his allegiance, he still had a right to his warm earthly happiness with Joyce Arnold. But if it were indeed her spirit who claimed all he had to give for the rest of life, it was a fair debt, and he would pay in full.
I received the detective (my old friend Smith) alone, in another room, when he came. The necessary discussion would have been torture for Robert and intolerable for Joyce. When Smith left I had at least this encouragement to give the two: it would be simple to learn what I wished to learn about Miss Reardon, on both sides of the Atlantic.
That was better than nothing. But it didn't make the dark watches of the night less dark. I had an ugly presentiment that Smith, smart as he was, would get hold of little to help us, if anything. Yet at the same time I felt that therewassomething to get hold of—somewhere!
If I hadn't implored them to wait, Joyce and Robert would have decided to publish the news that their marriage (which somehow everyone knew about!) would "not take place." This concession they did make to me; but they agreed together that they mustn't meet. My cheerful flat felt like a large grave fitted with all modern conveniences, when it had been deprived of Robert. And Joyce trying to be normal and not to shed gloom over me, her employer, wastooagonizing!
Robert didn't even write to Joyce. I suppose he couldn't trust himself. But he wrote to me, and gave the history of his second interview with Miss Reardon. June had come again, and had reminded him of incidents about which, he said, "no outsider could possibly know."
"I can't help believing now that there are more things in heaven and earth than I'd dreamed of in my philosophy," he ended his letter. "There's no getting round the fact that what I should have thought a miracle has happened. The spirit of June has claimed me from the 'other side.' And even if I were brutal enough, disloyal enough, to disown the claim, to pretend to Joyce and myself that Ididn'tbelieve, neither Joyce nor I could have a moment's happiness, married. She knows that as well as I do. As my wife her life would be spoiled. June would always stand between us, separating us one from the other. I think I should be driven mad. Joyce's heart would be broken!
"I've promised to talk with June through a medium every day. Miss Reardon has to leave London in a fortnight, but June's voice asked me to go to Opal Fawcett. You remember my telling you that Opal suggested this long ago, saying that June wanted to get in touch with me? I wouldn't hear of it then, because at that time I had no reason to believe in the genuineness of visits from one world to another. Now it's different. I shall go to Opal.
"Tell Joyce that I'll write her to-night. It won't be a letter such as I should wish to write. But she will understand."
Yes, she would understand! One could always trust Joyce to understand, even if she were on the rack!
It was the next day—the third day after the unforgettable one at the Savoy—when my tame detective brought his budget. He would have come even sooner, he said, if there hadn't been a delay in the cable service.
Miss Reardon, Smith learned, had never been exposed as an impostor. She was respected personally, and had attained a certain amount of fame both in Boston (where she lived) and New York. She had been several times invited to visit England, but had never been able to accept until now. She had arrived by the ship and at the time stated. When we met her at the Savoy, she could not have been more than two hours in London. Therefore her story seemed to be true in every detail, and what was more, she had not been met at ship or train by any one.
I simplyhatedpoor dear little Smith. He ought to have nosed outsomethingagainst the woman! What are detectivesfor?
"You've been an angel to fight for my happiness," Joyce said. "I adore you for it. And so does Robert, I know—though he mustn't put such feelings into words, or evenhavefeelings if he can help it. There's nothing more to fight about now. The best thing I can pray for is that Robert may forget our—dream, and that he may be happy in this other dream—of June."
"And you?" I asked. "What prayer do you say for yourself? Doyoupray to forget?"
"Oh, no!" she answered. "I don't want to forget. I wouldn't forget, if I could. You see, it wasn't a dream to me. It was—it always will be—the best thing in my life—the glory of my life. In my heart I shall live it all over and over again till I die. I don't mind suffering. I've seen so much pain in the war, and the courage that went with it. I shall have my roses—not La France; deep red roses they'll be, red as blood, and sharp with thorns, but sweet as heaven. There!" and her voice changed. "Now you know, Princess! We'll never speak of this again, because we don't need to, do we?"
"No—o," I agreed. "You're a grand girl, Joyce, worth two of——But never mind! And I'll try to make you as happy as I can."
She thanked me for that; she was always thanking me for something. Soon, however, she broke the news that she must go away. She loved me and her work, yet she couldn't stop in London; she just couldn't. Not as things were. If Robert had been turning his back on England she might have stayed. But his promise to communicate with June daily through Opal bound him to London. Joyce thought that she might try India. She had friends there in the Army and in the Civil Service. She might do useful work as a nurse among the purdah women and their babies, where mortality was very high, she'd heard. "Imustbe busy—busy every minute of the day," she cried, hiding her anguish with that smile of hers which I'd learned to love.
What Robert had said to her in his promised letter, the only one he wrote, she didn't tell. I knew no more than that it had been written and received. Probably it wasn't an ideal letter for a girl to wear over her heart, hidden under her dress. Robert would have felt it unfair to write that kind of letter. All the same I'm sure that Joycedidwear it there!
As for me, I was absolutelysickabout everything. I felt as if my two dearest friends had been put in prison on a false charge, and as though—if I hadn't cotton wool for a brain—I ought to be able to get them out.
"There's a clue to the labyrinth if I could see it," I told myself so often that I was tired of the thought. And the most irritating part was that now and then I seemed to catch a half glimpse of the clue dangling back and forth like a thread of spider's web close to my eyes. But invariably it was gone before I'dreallycaught sight of it. And all the good thatconcentratingdid was to bump my intelligence against the pale image of Opal Fawcett.
I didn't understand how Opal, even with the best—or worst—will in the world, could have stage-managed this drama, though I should have liked to think she had done it.
Miss Reardon frankly admitted having heard of Opal (who hadn't heard of her), among those interested in spiritism, during the last few years; but as the American woman had never before been in England, and Opal had never crossed to America, the Boston medium hardly needed to say that she'd never met Miss Fawcett. As for correspondence, if therewerea secret between the pair, of course they'd both deny it. And so, though I longed to fling a challenge to Opal, I saw that it would be stupid to put the two women, if guilty, on their guard. Besides, howcouldthey, through any correspondence, have contrived the things that had happened?
Suddenly, through the darkness of my doubts, shot a lightning flash: the thought of Jim Courtenaye.
Superficially judging, Sir James Courtenaye, wild man of the West, but lately transplanted, appeared the last person to assist in working out a psychic problem. All the same a great longing to prop myself against him (figuratively!) overwhelmed me; and for fear the impulse might pass, I wired at once:
Please come if you can. Wish to consult you.Elizabeth Di Miramare.
Please come if you can. Wish to consult you.
Elizabeth Di Miramare.
Jim was, as usual, hovering between Courtenaye Coombe and Courtenaye Abbey. There were hours between us, even by telegraph, and the best I expected was an answer in the afternoon to my morning's message. But at six o'clock his name was announced, and he walked into the drawing room of my flat as large as life, or a size or two larger.
"Good gracious!" I gasped. "You'vecome?"
"You're not surprised, are you?" he retorted.
"Why, yes," I said. "I didn't suppose——"
"Then you're not so brainy as I thought you were," said he. "Also you didn't look at time-tables. What awful catastrophe has happened to you, Elizabeth, to make you want to see me?"
I couldn't help laughing, although I didn't feel in the least like laughter; and besides, he had no right to call me Elizabeth.
"Nothing has happened tome," I explained. "It's to somebody else——"
"Oh, somebody you've been trying to 'brighten,' I suppose?"
"Yes, and failed," I confessed.
He scowled.
"A man?"
"A man and his girl." Whereupon I emptied the whole story into the bowl of Jim's intelligence.
"Do you see light?" I asked at last.
"No," he returned, stolidly. "I don't."
Oh, how disappointed I was! I'd hardly known how much I'd counted on Jim till I got that answer.
"But I might find some," he added, when he'd watched the effect of his words on me.
"How?" I implored.
"There's only one way, if any, to get the kind of light you want," said Jim. "It might be a difficult way, and it might be a long one."
"Yet you think lightcouldbe got? The kind of light I want?" I clasped my hands and deliberately tried to look irresistible.
"Who can tell? The one thing certain is, that trying would take all my time away from everything else, maybe for weeks, maybe for months."
His tone made my face feel the way faces look in those awful concave mirrors: about three feet in length and three inches in width.
"Then you won't undertake the task?" I quavered.
"I don't say that," grudged Jim.
"Youwouldn'tsay it if you could meet Joyce Arnold," I coaxed. "She's such a darling girl. Poor child, she's out now, pulling strings for a job in India."
"Meeting her wouldn't make any difference to me," said Jim. "It's for you I'd try to bring off this stunt—if I tried at all."
"Oh, then do it for me," I broke out.
"That's what I was working up to," he replied. "I wouldn't say 'yes' and I wouldn't say 'no' till I knew what you'd do for me in return if I succeeded."
"Why, I'd thank you a thousand times!" I cried. "I'd—I'd never forget you as long as I live."
"There's not much in that for me. I hate being thanked for things. And what good would it do me to be remembered by you at a distance, perhaps married to some beast or other?"
"But if I marry I sha'n't marry a beast," I sweetly assured my forty-fourth cousin four times removed.
"I should think any man you married a beast, if he wasn't me," said Jim.
"Good heavens!" I breathed. "Surelyyoudon't want to marry me!"
"Surely I do," he retorted. "And what's more, you know it jolly well."
"I don't."
"You do. You've known it ever since that affair of the yacht. If you hadn't, you wouldn't have asked me to hide the Scarlett kid. I knew then that you knew. And you'd be a fool if you hadn't known—which you're not."
I said no more, because—I was found out! Ihadknown. Only, I hadn't let myself think about it much—until lately perhaps. But now and then Ihadthought. I'd thought quite a good deal.
When he had me silenced, Jim went on:
"Just like a woman! You're willing to let me sacrifice all my engagements and inclinations to start off on a wild-goose chase for you, while you give nothing in return——"
"But I would!" I cut in.
"What would you give?"
"What do you want?"
"Yourself, of course."
"Oh!"
"If you'll marry me in case I find out that someone's been playing a devil's trick on Lorillard," said Jim, "I'll do—my damnedest! How's that?"
I shrugged my shoulders, and looked debonair; which was easy, as my nose is that shape. Yet my heart pounded.
"You seem to think the sacrifice of your engagements and inclinations worth a big price!"
"I know it's a big price," he granted. "But every man has his price. That happens to be mine. You may not have to pay, however, even in the event of my success. Because, in the course of my operations I may do something that'll land me in quod. In that case, you're free. I wouldn't mate you with a gaol bird."
I stared, and gasped.
"What do you mean?"
"Don't you know me intimately enough to be sure that once I'm on the warpath I stop at nothing?" he challenged.
"I don't think you'd be easy to stop," I said. "That's why I've called on you to help me. But really, I can't understand what there is in the thing to send you to prison."
"You don't need to understand," snorted Jim. "I sha'n't get there if I can keep out, because that would be the way to lose my prize. But I suppose from your point of view the great thing is for your two dearest friends to be happy ever after."
"Not at a terrible cost to you," I just stopped myself from saying. Instead, I hedged: "You frighten me!" I cried. "And you make me curious—fearfullycurious. Whatcanyou be meaning to do?"
"That's my business!" said Jim.
"You've got a plan—already?"
"Yes, I've got a plan—already, if——"
"If what?"
"If you agree to the bargain. Do you?"
I nodded.
He seized my hand and squeezed it hard.
"Then I'm off," he said. "You won't hear from me till I have news, good or bad. And meanwhile I have no address."
With that he was gone.
I felt as if he had left me alone in the dark.
The only way in which I could keep Joyce with me for a little while longer was by pretending to be ill.Thatfetched her. And it wasn't all pretense, either, because I was horribly worried, not only about her and Robert, but about Jim. And about myself.
I said not a word to Joyce of Jim and his mission. So far as she knew I'd abandoned hope—as she had. We heard nothing from Robert, or concerning him, and each day that built itself up was a gloomiercul de sacthan the last.
Bye and bye there came the end of Miss Reardon's fortnight in London. "Now Robert will be turned over to Opal," I groaned to myself. And I was sure that the same thought was in the mind of Joyce. Just one or two days more, and after that a long monotony of bondage for him, year in and year out!
As I waked in the morning with these words on my lips, Joyce herself knocked, playing nurse, with a tray of coffee and toast.
"I would have let you sleep on," she said, "but a note has come by messenger for you, with 'Urgent' on the envelope in such a nice handwriting I felt you'd want to have it. So I brought your breakfast at the same time."
The nice handwriting was Jim's. He had vowed not to write till there was "news, good or bad." My fingers trembled as I tore open the letter. I read:
Make Lorillard invite you and Miss Arnoldand your fiancéto a séance before Miss Reardon goes. It will have to be to-day or to-morrow. Don't take "no" for an answer. Manage it somehow. If you insist, Lorillard will force Reardon to consent. When the stunt's fixed up, let me hear at once.Yours,Jim.L—— is at his flat. You know the address.
Make Lorillard invite you and Miss Arnoldand your fiancéto a séance before Miss Reardon goes. It will have to be to-day or to-morrow. Don't take "no" for an answer. Manage it somehow. If you insist, Lorillard will force Reardon to consent. When the stunt's fixed up, let me hear at once.
Yours,Jim.
L—— is at his flat. You know the address.
By Jove! This was a facer! Could I bring the thing off? But I simplymust. I knew Jim well enough to be sure that the clock of fate had been wound up by him, ready to strike, and that it wouldn't strike if I didn't obey orders.
I pondered for a minute whether or no to tell Joyce, but quickly decidedno. The request must first come from Robert.
I braced myself with hot coffee, and thought hard. Then I asked Joyce for writing materials, and scribbled a note to Robert. I wrote:
There is a reason why youmustget us invited by Miss Reardon to the last séance she gives before leaving. When I say "us," I meanJoyceas well as myself, and the man I've just promised to marry. I know this will seem shocking to you, perhaps impossible, as you agreed not to see Joyce again, "voluntarily." But oh, Robert, trust me, andmakeit possible for the sake of a brave girl who once saved your life at the risk of her own. Seeing her this time won't count as "voluntary" on your part. It is necessary.
There is a reason why youmustget us invited by Miss Reardon to the last séance she gives before leaving. When I say "us," I meanJoyceas well as myself, and the man I've just promised to marry. I know this will seem shocking to you, perhaps impossible, as you agreed not to see Joyce again, "voluntarily." But oh, Robert, trust me, andmakeit possible for the sake of a brave girl who once saved your life at the risk of her own. Seeing her this time won't count as "voluntary" on your part. It is necessary.
When the note was ready I said to Joyce that I'd just had news of Robert Lorillard from a great friend of mine who was much interested in his welfare. This news necessitated my writing Robert, and as I was still in bed I must request her to send the letter by hand.
"Go out to the nearest post office yourself, and have a messenger take it," I directed.
While she was gone I got up, bathed, and put on street dress for the first time since I'd been "playing 'possum."
I felt much better, I explained when Joyce came back, and added that, later in the day, I might even be inclined "for a walk or something."
"If you're so well as that, you'll be ready to let me go to India soon, won't you, dear?" she hinted. No doubt my few words about Robert, and the sight of his name on a letter, had made the poor girl desperate under her calm, controlled manner.
I was desperate, too, knowing that her whole future depended on the success of Jim's plan. If it failed, I should have to let her go, and all would be over!
"You must do what's best for you," I answered. "But don't talk about it now. Wait till to-morrow."
Joyce was dumb.
Hours passed, and no reply from Robert. I began to fear he'd gone away—or that he was hideously offended. We'd got through a pretence of luncheon, when at last a messenger came. Thank heaven, Robert's handwriting was on the envelope!
He wrote:
I don't understand your wish, dear Princess. It seems like deliberate torture of Joyce and me that she should be present when I am visited by the spirit of June—for that is what actually happens. June materializes. I see her, as well as hear her voice. Can Joyce bear this? You seem to think she can, and so I must. For you are a friend of friends, and you wouldn't put me to such a test without the best of reasons.I expected that Miss Reardon would refuse to receive strangers on such an occasion. But rather to my surprise she has consented, and a séance is arranged for this evening at nine o'clock in her rooms. To-morrow would have been too late, as she is leaving for the south of France, to stay with some American millionairess at Cannes, who hopes to get into touch with a son on the Other Side. You see, I don't use that old, cold word "dead." I couldn't now I know how near, and how like their earthly selves, are those who go beyond.So you are engaged to be married! Don't think I'm indifferent because I leave mention of your news till the last. I'm deeply interested. Bless you, Princess!Yours ever, R. L.
I don't understand your wish, dear Princess. It seems like deliberate torture of Joyce and me that she should be present when I am visited by the spirit of June—for that is what actually happens. June materializes. I see her, as well as hear her voice. Can Joyce bear this? You seem to think she can, and so I must. For you are a friend of friends, and you wouldn't put me to such a test without the best of reasons.
I expected that Miss Reardon would refuse to receive strangers on such an occasion. But rather to my surprise she has consented, and a séance is arranged for this evening at nine o'clock in her rooms. To-morrow would have been too late, as she is leaving for the south of France, to stay with some American millionairess at Cannes, who hopes to get into touch with a son on the Other Side. You see, I don't use that old, cold word "dead." I couldn't now I know how near, and how like their earthly selves, are those who go beyond.
So you are engaged to be married! Don't think I'm indifferent because I leave mention of your news till the last. I'm deeply interested. Bless you, Princess!
Yours ever, R. L.
I read this letter, destroying it (in case Joyce became importunate), and then broke it to her that Robert earnestly wished us to attend the last séance with Miss Reardon.
She turned sickly white.
"I can't go!" she almost sobbed. "I simply can't."
Then I said that it would hurt Robert horribly if she didn't. He wouldn't have asked such a thing without the strongest motive. I would be with her, I went on; and tried to pull her thoughts up out of tragic gulfs by springing the news of my engagement upon her. It may have sounded irrelevant, almost heartlessly so, but it braced the girl. And she little guessed that the engagement would not exist save for Robert and her!
I 'phoned Jim at the address on his letter, a house in Westminster which—when I happened to notice—was in the same street as Opal Fawcett's. It was a relief to hear his voice answer "Hello!" for he had demanded immediate knowledge of our plans; and goodness knew what mysterious preparations for hiscouphe might have to elaborate.
He would meet us at the Savoy, he said, at 8:45, and I could introduce him to Miss Reardon before the séance began.
Joyce and I started at 8:30, in a taxi, having made a mere stage pretence of dinner. We hardly spoke on the way, but I held her hand, and pressed it now and then.
Jim was waiting for us just inside the revolving doors of the hotel.
"I'd have liked to come for you in a car," he said aside to me, "but I thought it would be hard on Miss Arnold—and maybe on you—to have more of my society than need be, you know!"
"Why on me?" I hastily inquired.
His black eyes blazed into mine.
"Well, I've sort of blackmailed you, haven't I?"
"Have you?"
"Into this engagement of ours."
"Oh, I haven't got time to think of that just now!" I snapped. "Let's go to Miss Reardon's rooms."
We went. Jim said no more, except to mention that Captain Lorillard had already gone up.
Joyce may have imagined Jim to be the "great friend interested in Robert's welfare," but as for me, I wondered how he knew Robert by sight. Then I scolded myself: "Silly one! Hasn't he been watching—playing detective for you?"
It was poignant, remembering the last time when Robert, Joyce, and I had met in Miss Reardon's sitting room—the last day of their happiness. But we greeted each other quietly, like old friends, though Joyce's heart must have contracted at sight of the man's changed face. All the renewed youth and joyous manhood her love had given him had burned out of his eyes. He looked as he'd looked when I saw him that day at River Orchard Cottage.
Miss Reardon was slightly nervous in manner, and flushed like a girl when I introduced Sir James Courtenaye to her. But soon she recovered her prim little poise, and began making arrangements for the séance.
"Mr. Lorillard has already tested mybona fidesto his own satisfaction," she said. "He has examined my small suite, and knows that no person, no theatrical 'properties' are concealed about the place. If any of you would like to look around, however, before we start, I'm more than willing. Also if you'd care to bind my hands and feet, or sit in a circle and hold me fast, I've no objection."
As she made this offer, she glanced from one to the other of us. Pale, silent Joyce shook her head. Jim "left it to Princess di Miramare," and I decided that if Captain Lorillard was satisfied, we were.
"Very well," purred Miss Reardon. "In that case there's nothing more to wait for. Captain Lorillard, will you switch off the lights as usual?"
"Oh!" I broke in, surprised, "I thought you'd told us that the 'influence' was just as strong in light as darkness?"
"That is so," replied the medium, "except for materialization. For that, darkness is essential. There's somequalityin darkness that They need. They can't get thestrengthto materialize in light conditions."
"How can we see anything if the room's pitch-black?" I persisted.
"Explain to your friends, Captain Lorillard, what takes place," bade Miss Reardon.
"When—June comes—she brings a faint radiance with her—seems to evolve it out of herself," Robert said in a low voice.
As he spoke he switched off the light, and profound silence fell upon us.
Some moments passed, and nothing happened.
Joyce and I sat with locked cold hands. I was on the right of the medium, and from my chair quite close to hers could easily have reached out and touched her, if I'd wished. On her left, at about the same distance, sat Robert. Jim was the only one who stood. He had refused a chair, and propped his long length against the wall between two doors: the door opening into the hall outside the suite, and that leading to Miss Reardon's bedroom and bath.
We could faintly hear each other breathe. Then, after five or six minutes, perhaps, I heard odd, gasping sounds as if someone struggled for breath. These gasps were punctuated with moans, and I should have been frightened if the direction and nearness of the queer noise hadn't told me at once that it came from the medium. I'd never before been to a materializing séance, yet I felt instinctively that this was the convulsive sort of thing to expect.
Suddenly a dim light—oh, hardly a light!—a pale greenish glimmer, as if there were a glowworm in the room—became faintly visible. It seemed to swim in a delicate gauzy mist. Its height above the floor (this was the thought flashing into my mind) was about that of a tall woman's heart. A perfume of La France roses filled the room.
At first our eyes, accustomed to darkness, could distinguish nothing except this glowworm light and the surrounding haze of lacy gray. Then, gradually, we became conscious of a figure—a slender shape in floating draperies. More and more distinct it grew, as slowly it moved toward us—toward Robert Lorillard; and my throat contracted as I made out the semblance of June Dana.
The form was clad in the gray dress which Miss Reardon had so surprisingly described when we met her first—the dress June had worn the day of her engagement—the dress of the portrait at River Orchard Cottage. The gray hat with the long curling plume shaded the face, and so obscured it that I should hardly have recognized it as June's had it not been for the thick wheel of bright, red-brown hair on each side bunching out under the hat exactly as June had worn her hair that year. A long, thin scarf filmed like a cloud round the slowly moving figure, looped over the arms, which waved gracefully as if the spirit-form swam in air rather than walked. There was an illusive glitter of rings—just such rings as June had worn: one emerald, one diamond. A dark streak across the ice-white throat showed her famous black pearls; and—strangest thing of all—the green light which glimmered through filmy folds of scarf was born apparently in a glittering emerald brooch.
At first the vision (which might have come through the wall of the room, for all we could tell) floated toward Robert. None save spirit-eyes could have made him out distinctly in the darkness that was lit only by the small green gleam. But I fancied that he always sat in the same seat for these séances; he had taken his chair in a way so matter of course. Therefore the spirit would know where to find him!
Within a few feet of distance, however, the form paused, and swayed as if undecided. "She has seen that there are others in the room besides Robert and the medium," I thought. "Will she be angry? Will she vanish?"
Hardly had I time to finish the thought, however, when the electricity was switched on with a click. The light flooding the room dazzled me for a second, but in the bright blur I saw that Jim Courtenaye had seized the gray figure. All ghostliness was gone from it. A woman was struggling with him in dreadful silence—a tall, slim woman with June Dana's red-bronze hair, June Dana's gray dress and hat and scarf.
She writhed like a snake in Jim's merciless grasp, but she kept her head bent not to show her face, till suddenly in some way her hat was knocked off. With it—caught by a hatpin, perhaps—went the gorgeous, bunched hair.
"A wig!" I heard myself cry. And at the same instant Joyce gasped out "Opal!"
Yes, it was Opal, disguised as June, in the gray dress and hat and scarf, with black pearls and emeralds all copied from the portrait—and the haunting fragrance of roses that had been June's.
The likeness was enough to deceive June's nearest and dearest in that dimmest of dim lights which was like the ghost of a light, veiled with all those chiffon scarves. But with the room bright as day, all resemblance, except in clothes and wig and height, vanished at a glance.
The woman caught in her cruel fraud was a pitiable sight, yet I had no pity for her then. Staring at the whitened face, framed in dishevelled, mouse-brown hair, the long upper lip painted red in a high Cupid's bow to resemble June's lovely mouth, I was sick with disgust. As at last she yielded in despair to Jim's fierce clutch, and dropped sobbing on the sofa, I felt I could have struck her. But she had no thought for me nor for any of us—not even for Jim, who had ruined the game, nor for Miss Reardon, who must have sold her to him at a price; for no one at all except Robert Lorillard.
When she'd given up hope of escape, and lay panting, exhausted, flung feebly across the sofa, she looked up at Robert.
"I loved you," she wept. "That's why I did it; I couldn't let you go to another woman. I thought I saw a way to keep you always near me—almost as if you were mine. You can'thatea woman who loves you like that!"
Robert did not answer. I think he was half dazed. He stood staring at her, frozen still like the statue of a man. I was frightened for him. He had endured too much. Joyce couldn't go to him yet, though he would be hers—all hers, for ever—bye and bye—butIcould go, as a friend.
I laid my hand on his arm, and spoke his name softly.
"Robert, I always felt there was fraud," I said. "Now, thank Heaven, we know the truth before it's too late for you to be happy, as June herself would want you to be happy, if she knew. She wasn't cruel—therealJune. She wasn't like this false one at heart. Go, now, I beg, and take Joyce home to my flat—she's almost fainting. You must look after her. I will stay here. Jim Courtenaye'll watch over me—and later we'll bring you explanations of everything."
So I got them both away. And when they were gone the whole story was dragged from Opal. Jim forced her to confess; and with Robert out of sight—lost for ever to the wretched woman—the task wasn't difficult. You see, Miss Reardonhadsold her beforehand. Jim doesn't care what price he pays when he wants a thing!
First of all, he'd taken a house that was to let furnished, near Opal's. She didn't know him from Adam, but he had her description. He followed her several times, and saw her go to the Savoy; even saw her go to Miss Reardon's rooms. Then, to Miss Reardon he presented himself,en surprise, and pretended to know five times as much as he did know; in fact, as much as he suspected. By this trick he broke down her guard; and before she had time to build it up again, flung a bribe of two thousand pounds—ten thousand dollars—at her head. She couldn't resist, and eventually told him everything.
Opal and she had corresponded for several years, it seemed, as fellow mediums, sending each other clients from one country to another. When Opal learned that the Boston medium was coming to England, she asked if Miss Reardon would do her a great favour. In return for it, the American woman's cabin on shipboard and all expenses at one of London's best hotels would be paid.
This sounded alluring. Miss Reardon asked questions by letter, and by letter those questions were answered. A plan was formed—a plan that was aplot. Opal kept phonographic records of many voices among those of her favourite clients—did this with their knowledge and consent, making presents to them of their own records to give to friends. It was just an "interesting fad" of hers! Such a record of June's voice she had posted to Boston. Miss Reardon, who was a clever mimic (a fine professional asset!) learned to imitate the voice. She had a description from Opal of the celebrated gray costume with the jewels June wore, and knew well how to "work" her knowledge of June's favourite perfume.
As to that first meeting at the Savoy, Opal was aware that Joyce and I met Robert there on most afternoons. A suite was taken for Miss Reardon in the hotel, and the lady was directed to await developments in thefoyerat a certain hour—an old stage photograph of Robert Lorillard in her hand-bag. The rest had been almost simple, thanks to Opal's knowledge of June's life and doings; to her deadly cleverness, and the device of a tiny electric light glimmering through a square of emerald green glass on the "spirit's" breast, under scarves slowly unfolded. If it had not been for Jim, Robert would have become her bond-slave, and Joyce would have fled from England.
"Well, are you satisfied?" Jim asked, spinning me home at last in his own car.
"More than satisfied," I said. "Joyce and Robert will marry after all, and be the happiest couple on earth. They'll forget this horror."
"Which is what you'd like to do if I'd let you, I suppose," said Jim.
"Forget! You mean——?"
"Yes. The promise I dragged out of you, and everything."
"I never forget my promises," I primly answered.
"But if I let you off it? Elizabeth, that's what I'm going to do! I love you too much, my girl, to blackmail you permanently—to get you for my wife in payment of a bargain. I may be pretty bad, but I'm hanged if I'm as bad as that."
I burst out laughing.
"Idiot!" I gurgled. "Haven't you the wits to see Iwantto marry you? I'm in love with you, you fool. Besides, I'm tired of being matron of honour, and you being best man every time people I 'brighten' marry!"
"It sha'n't happen again!" said Jim.
And then he almost took my breath away.Whata strong man he is!
"Nice end of a honeymoon I'm having!" Jim grumbled. "With my wife thinking and talking all the time about another fellow."
"My darling, adored man!" I exclaimed. "You know perfectly well that you're the background and undercurrent and foundation of all my thoughts, every minute of the day and night. And this 'other fellow' isdying."
Yes; "darling, adored" were my adjectives for Jim Courtenaye, whom I had once abused.
All the same, if a cat may look at a king, a bride may just glance at a man who isn't her bridegroom.
"Ruling passion strong in—marriage, I suppose," said Jim. "I bet you'd like to try your hand at 'brightening' that chap—though judging from his face, he's almost past even your blandishments.Iwouldn't be past 'em—not in mycoffin! But it isn't every blighter who can love as I do, you minx."
"And 'tisn't every blighter who has such a perfect woman to love," I capped him with calm conceit.
"But I wish Icould'brighten' that poor fellow. Or else I wish that someone else would!"
And at this instant my wish was granted in the most amazing way!
A girl appeared—but no, I mustn't let her arrive upon the scene just yet. First, I must explain that Jim and I were on shipboard, coming back to England from America, where we had been having the most wonderful honeymoon. Jim had taken me out West, and showed me the places where he had lived in his cowboy days. We had ridden long trails together, in the Grand Canyon of Arizona, and in the Yosemite Valley of California. I had never imagined that life could be so glorious, and our future together—Jim's and mine—stretched before us like a dream of joy. We were going to live in the dear old Abbey which had been the home of the Courtenayes for hundreds and hundreds of years, and travel when we liked. Because we were so much in love and so happy, I yearned to make a few thousand other people happy also—though it did seem impossible that any one on earth could be as joyous as we were.
This was our second day out from New York on theAquitania, and my spirits had been slightly damped by discovering that two fellow-passengers if not more were extremely miserable. One of these lived in a stateroom next to our suite. In my cabin at night I could hear her crying and moaning to herself in a fitful sleep. I had not seen her, so far as I knew, but I fancied from the sound of those sobs that she was young.
When I told Jim, he wanted to change cabins with me, so that I should not be disturbed. But I refused to budge, saying that Iwasn'tdisturbed. My neighbour didn't cry or talk in her sleep all through the night by any means. Besides, once I had dropped off, the sounds were not loud enough to wake me. This was true enough not to be a fib, but myrealestreason for clinging to the room was an odd fascination in that mysterious sorrow on the other side of the wall; sorrow of a woman I hadn't seen, might perhaps never see, yet to whom I could send out warm waves of sympathy. I felt as if those waves had colours, blue and gold, and that they would soothe the sufferer.
Her case obsessed me until, in the sunshine of a second summer day at sea, the one empty chair on our crowded deck was filled. A man was helped into it by a valet or male nurse, and a steward. My first glimpse of his face as he sank down on to carefully placed cushions made my heart jump in my breast with pity and protest against the hardness of fate.
If he'd been old, or even middle-aged, or if he had been one of those colourless characters dully sunk into chronic invalidism, I should have felt only the pity without the protest. But he was young, and though it was clear that he was desperately ill, it was clear, too, in a more subtle, psychic way, that he had not been ill long; that love of life or desire for denied happiness burned in him still.
Of course Jim was not really vexed because I discussed this man and wondered about him, but my thoughts did play round that piteously romantic figure a good deal, and it rather amused Jim to see me forget the mystery of the cabin in favour of the cushioned chair.
"Once a Brightener, always a Brightener, I suppose!" he said. Now that I'd dropped my "Princesshood" to marry James Courtenaye, I need never "brighten" any one for money again. But I didn't see why I should not go sailing along on a sunny career of brightening for love. According to habit, therefore, my first thought was: Whatcouldbe done for the man in the cushioned chair?
Maybe Jim was right! If he hadn't been young and almost better than good-looking, my interest might not have been so keen. He was the wreck of a gorgeous creature—one of those great, tall, muscular men you feel were born to adorn the Guards.
The reason (the physical reason, not the psychic one) for thinking he hadn't been ill long was the colour of the invalid's face. The pallor of illness hadn't had time to blanch the rich brown that life in the open gives. So thin was the face that the aquiline features stood out sharply; but they seemed to be carved in bronze, not moulded in plaster. As for the psychic reason, I found it in the dark eyes that met mine now and then. They were not black like those of my own Jim, which contrasted so strikingly with auburn hair. Indeed, I couldn't tell whether the eyes were brown or deep gray, for they were set in shadowy hollows, and the brows and thick lashes were even darker than the hair, which was lightly silvered at the temples. Handsome, arresting eyes they must always have been; but what stirred me was the violentwishthat seemed actually to speak from them.
Whether it was a wish to live, or a haunting wish for joy never gratified, I could not decide. But I felt that it must have been burnt out by a long illness.
I had only just learned a few things about the man, when there came that surprising answer to my prayer for someone to "brighten" him. My maid had got acquainted with his valet-nurse, and had received a quantity of information which she passed to me.
"Mr. Tillett's" master was a Major Ralston Murray, an Englishman, who had gone to live in California some years ago, and had made a big fortune in oil. He had been in the British Army as a youth, Tillett understood, and when the European war broke out, he went home to offer himself to his country. He didn't return to America till after the Armistice, though he had been badly wounded once or twice, as well as gassed. At home in Bakersfield, the great oil town where he lived, Murray's health had not improved. He had been recommended a long sea journey, to Japan and China, and had taken the prescription. But instead of doing him good, the trip had been his ruin. In China he was attacked with a malady resembling yellow fever, though more obscure to scientists. After weeks of desperate illness, the man had gained strength for the return journey; but, reaching California, he was told by specialists that he must not hope to recover. After that verdict his one desire was to spend the last days of his life in England. Not long before a distant relative had left him a place in Devonshire—an old house which he had loved in his youth. Now he was on his way there, to die.
So this was the wonderful wish, I told myself. Yet I couldn't believe it was all. I felt that there must be something deeper to account for the burning look in those tortured eyes. And of course I was more than ever interested, now that his destination proved to be near Courtenaye Abbey. Ralston Old Manor was not nearly so large nor so important a place historically as ours, but it was ancient enough, and very charming. Though we were not more than fifteen miles away, I had never met the old bachelor, the Mr. Ralston of my day. He was a great recluse, supposed to have had his heart broken by my beautiful grandmother when they were both young. It occurred to me that this Ralston Murray must be the old man's namesake, and the place had been left him on that account.
Now, at last, having explained the man in the cushioned chair, I can come back to the moment when my wish was granted: the wish that, if not I, someone else might "brighten" him.
You know, when you're on shipboard, how new people appear from day to day, long after you've seen everyone on the passenger list! It is as if they had been dropped on deck from stealthy aeroplanes in the dark watches of the night.
And that was the way in which this girl appeared—this girl who worked the lightning change in Major Murray. It didn't seem possible that she could have come on board the ship nearly two days ago, and we not have heard of her, for she was the prettiest person I'd ever seen in my life. One would have thought that rumours of her beauty would have spread, sincesomeonemust have seen her, even if she had been shut up in her cabin.
Heads were turned in her direction as she came walking slowly toward us, and thanks to this silent sensation—like a breeze rippling a field of wheat—I saw the tall, slight figure in mourning while it was still far off.
The creature was devastatingly pretty, too pretty for any one's peace of mind, including her own: the kind of girl you wouldn't ask to be your bridesmaid for fear the bridegroom should change his mind at the altar!
"Jim," I exclaimed, "the prettiest girl in the world is now coming toward you."
"Really?" said he. "I was under the impression that she sat beside me."
I suppose I must have spoken rather more loudly than I meant, for my excited warning to Jim caught the ear of Major Murray. My deep interest in the invalid had woven an invisible link between him and me, though we had never spoken, nor even smiled at each other: for sympathy inevitably has this effect. Therefore his hearing was attuned to my voice more readily than to others in his neighbourhood. He had apparently been half asleep; but he opened his eyes wide just in time to see the girl as she approached his chair. Never had I beheld such a sudden change on a human face. It was a transfiguration.
The man was very weak, but he sat straight up, and for a moment all look of illness was swept away. "Rosemary!" he cried out, sharply.
The girl stopped. She had been pale, but at sight of him and the sound of his voice she flushed to her forehead. I thought that her first impulse was to escape, but she controlled it.
"Major Murray!" she faltered. "I—I didn't dream of—seeing you here."
"I have dreamed many times of seeing you," he answered. "And I wished for it—very much."
"Ah," thought I, "thatis the real wish!That'swhat the look in his eyes means, not just getting back to England and dying in a certain house. Now Iknow."
Everyone near his chair had become more or less interested in Murray, romantic and pathetic figure that he was. Now, a middle-aged man whose chair was near to Murray's on the right, scrambled out of a fur rug. "I am off to the smoking room," he said. "Won't you" (to the girl) "take my chair and talk to your friend? I shall be away till after lunch, maybe till tea-time."
I fancied that the girl was divided in her mind between a longing to stay and a longing to flee. But of course she couldn't refuse the offer, and presently she was seated beside Major Murray, their arms touching. I could hear almost all they said. This was not eavesdropping, because if they'd cared to be secretive they could have lowered their voices.
Soon, to my surprise, I learned that the girl was married. She didn't look married, or have the air of being married, somehow, and in the conversation that followed she contradicted herself two or three times. Perhaps it was only because I confused my brain with wild guesses, but from some things she said one would think she was free as air; from others, that she was tied down to a rather monotonous kind of existence. She spoke of America as if she knew it only from a short visit. Then, in answer to a question of Murray's, she said, as if reluctantly, that she had lived there, in New York, and Baltimore, and Washington, for years.
It was quite evident to me—whether or not it was to Murray—that Mrs. Brandreth (as he called her after the first outburst of "Rosemary!") disliked talking of herself and her way of life. She wanted to talk about Major Murray, or, failing that subject, of almost anything that was remote from her own affairs.
I gathered, however, that she and Murray had known each other eight years ago or more, and that they had met somewhere abroad, out of England. There had been an aunt of Rosemary's with whom she had travelled as a young girl. The aunt was dead; but even the loss of a loved relative didn't account to my mind for this girl's sensitiveness about the past.
"They must have been engaged, these two, and something happened to break it off," I thought. "Buthecan bear to talk of old times, and she can't. Odd, because she must have been ridiculously young for a love affair all those years ago. She doesn't look more than twenty-one now, though she must be more, of course—at least twenty-four. And he is probably thirty-two or three."
I am often what Jim calls "intuitive," and I had a strong impression that there was something the beautiful Mrs. Brandreth was desperately anxious to conceal, desperately afraid of betraying by accident. Could it have to do with her husband? I wondered. She seemed very loth to speak of him, and I couldn't make out from what she said whether the man was still in existence. Her mourning—so becoming to her magnolia skin, great dark eyes, and ash-blonde hair—didn't look like widow's mourning. Still, it might be, with the first heaviness of crêpe thrown off. Or, of course, the girl's peculiar reticence might mean that there had been, or was to be, a divorce.
I didn't move from my deck-chair till luncheon time, but I had to go then with Jim; and we left Mrs. Brandreth ordering her food from the deck steward. She would have it with Major Murray, who, poor fellow, was allowed no other nourishment than milk.
When we came back on deck it was to walk. We had been below for an hour or more, but the girl and the man were still together. As Jim and I passed and repassed those chairs, I could throw a quick glance in their direction without being observed. Mrs. Brandreth's odd nervousness and shy distress seemed to have gone. The two were talking so earnestly that a school of porpoises might have jumped on deck without their knowing that anything out of the way had happened.
Later in the afternoon, the owner of Mrs. Brandreth's chair appeared; but when she would blushingly have given up her place, he refused to take it. "I've only come to say," he explained, "that one seat on deck is the same to me as any other. So why shouldn't I haveyourchair, wherever it is, and you keep mine? It's very nice for the Major here to have found a friend, and it will do him a lot of good. I'm a doctor, and if I were his physician, such society would be just what I should prescribe for him."
Mrs. Brandreth had a chair, it seemed, though she said she'd come on board so tired that she had stayed in her cabin till this morning. Whether or not she were pleased at heart with the proposal, she accepted it after a little discussion, and Murray's tragic eyes burned with a new light.
I guessed that his wish had been to see this beautiful girl again before he died. The fact that he was doomed to death no doubt spiritualized his love. He no longer dreamed of being happy in ways which strong men of his age call happiness; and so, in these days, he asked little of Fate. Just a farewell sight of the loved one; a new memory of her to take away with him. And if I were right in my judgment, this was the reason why, even if Mrs. Brandreth had a husband in the background, these hours with her would be hours of joy for Murray—without thought of any future.
That evening, as Jim and I were strolling out of our little salon to dinner, the door of the cabin adjoining mine opened, and it was with a shock of surprise that I saw Mrs. Brandreth. Soshewas my mysterious neighbour who cried and moaned in her sleep!... I was thrilled at the discovery. But almost at once I told myself that I ought to have Sherlocked the truth the moment this troubled, beautiful being had appeared on deck.
Mrs. Brandreth was in black, of course, but she had changed into semi-evening dress, and her white neck was like swansdown in its folded frame of filmy black gauze. Over the glittering waves of her ash-blonde hair she had thrown a long black veil of embroidered Spanish lace, which fell nearly to her knees, and somehow, before she could close the door, a gust blew it back, shutting in the veil. The girl was struggling to free herself when Jim said, "Let me help you."
Naturally, she had to thank him, and explain how she ought to have fastened her window, as ours was the windy side of the ship to-night. She and I smiled at each other, and so our acquaintance began. I guessed from the veil that she was dining in Murray's company, and pictured them together with the deck to themselves, moonlight flooding the sea.
Next day the smile and nod which Mrs. Brandreth and I exchanged won a pleasant look from Major Murray for me. We began speaking soon after that; and before another day had passed Jim or I often dropped into the empty chair, if Mrs. Brandreth was not on deck. Murray was interested to know that we would be neighbours of his, and that I was the grand-daughter of the famous beauty his old bachelor cousin had loved.
I remember it was the night after my first real talk with him that I met Mrs. Brandreth again as we both opened our doors. Jim was playing bridge or poker with some men, and hadn't noticed the dressing bugle. I was ready, and going to remind him of the hour; yet I was charmed to be delayed by Mrs. Brandreth. Hitherto, though friendly when we were with our two men, or only one of them, she had seemed like a wild bird trying to escape if we happened to be alone. It was as if she were afraid I might ask questions which she would not wish to answer. But now she stopped me of her own accord.
"I—I've been wanting to tell you something," she began, with one of her bright blushes. "It's only this: when I'm tired or nervous I'm afraid I talk in my sleep. I came on board tired out. I had—a great grief a few months ago, and I can't get over the strain of it. Sometimes when I wake up I find myself crying, and have an impression that I've called out. Now I know that you're next door, I'm rather worried lest I have disturbed you."
I hurried to reassure her. She hadn't disturbed me at all. I was, I said, a splendid sleeper.
"You haven't heard anything?" she persisted.
I felt she would know I was fibbing if I did fib, so it wasn't worth while. "Ihaveheard a sound like sobbing now and then," I admitted.
"But no words? I hope not, as people say suchsillythings in their sleep, don't they?—things not even true."
"I think I've heard you cry out 'Mother!' once or twice."
"Oh! And that is all?"
"Really, that's all—absolutely!" It was true, and I could speak with such sincerity that I forced belief.
Mrs. Brandreth looked relieved. "I'm glad!" she smiled. "I hate to make myself ridiculous. And I'm trying very hard now to control my subconscious self, which gets out of hand at night. It's simply the effect of my—grief—my loss I spoke of just now. I'm fairly normal otherwise."
"I hope you're not entirely normal!" I smiled back. "People one speaks of as 'normal' are so bromidic and dull! You look far too interesting, too individual to be normal."
She laughed. "So do you!"
"Oh, I'm not normal at all, thank goodness!"
"Well, you're certainly interesting—and individual—far more thanIam."
"Anyhow, I'm sympathetic," I said. "I'm tremendously interested in other people. Not in theiraffairs, but in themselves. I never want to know anything they don't want me to know, yet I'm so conceited, I always imagine that I can help when they need help—just by sympathy alone, without a spoken word. But to come back to you! I have a lovely remedy for restlessness at night; not that I need it often myself, but my French-Italian maid carries dried orange leaves and blossoms for me. She thinkstisanesbetter than doctor's medicines. May she make some orange-flower tea for you to-night at bedtime?"
Mrs. Brandreth had shown signs of stiffening a little as I began, but she melted toward the last, and said that she would love to try the poetic-sounding tea.
It was concocted, proved a success, and she was grateful. Perhaps she remembered my hint that I never wanted to know things which my friends didn't want me to know, because she made some timid advances as the days went on. We had quite intimate talks about books and various views of life as we walked the deck together; and I began to feel that there was something else she longed to say—something which rose constantly to her lips, only to be frightened back again. What could it be? I wondered. And would she in the end speak, or decide to be silent?
I think she meant to be silent, but desperation drove her to speak, and she spoke.
I had a headache the last day out but one, and stayed in my cabin all the afternoon. It seems that Mrs. Brandreth asked Jim if she might visit me for a little while, and he consented.
I was half dozing when she came, with a green silk curtain drawn across the window. I suggested that she should push this curtain back, so that we might have light to see each other.
"Please, no!" she said. "I don't want light. I don't want to be seen. Dear Lady Courtenaye—may I really call you 'Elizabeth,' as you asked me to do?—I need so much to talk to you. And the darker it is, the better."
"Very well—Rosemary!" I answered. "I've guessed that you are worried—or not quite happy. There's nothing I should like so much as to help you if I could. I believe you know that."
"Yes, I know—I feel it," she said. "I want your advice. I think you're the only person whose advice I would take whether I liked it or not. I don't understand why that is so. But it is. You're probably younger than I am——"
"I'm getting on for twenty-three," I informed the girl, when I had made her sit down beside my bed.
"And I'm nearly twenty-six!"
"You look twenty-one."
"I'm afraid I look lots of things that I'm not," she sighed, in a voice too gloomy for the half-joking words. "Oh, now that I'm trying to speak, I don't know how to begin, or how far to go! I must confess one thing frankly: and that is, I can't tell youeverything."
"Tell me what you want to tell: not a word more."
"Thank you. I thought you'd say that. Well, suppose you loved a man who was very ill—so ill he couldn't possibly get well, and he begged you to marry him—because then you might be in the same house till the end, and he could die happily with you near: what would you do?"
"If I loved himenough, I would marry him the very first minute I could," was my prompt answer.
"I do love him enough!" she exclaimed.
"But you hesitate?"
"Yes, because——Oh, Elizabeth, there's a terrible obstacle."
"An obstacle!" I echoed, forgetting my headache. "I can't understand that, if—forgive me—if you're free."
"I am free," the girl said. "Free in the way you mean. There's nomanin the way. The obstacle is—a woman."
"Pooh!" I cried, my heart lightened. "I wouldn't let a woman stand between me and the man I loved, especially if he needed me as much as—as——"
"You needn't mind saying it. Of course you know as well as I do that we're talking about Ralston Murray. And I believe he does need me. I could make him happy—if I were always near him—for the few months he has to live."
"He would have a new lease of life given him with you," I ventured.
The girl shook her head. "He says that the specialists gave him three months at the most. And twelve days out of those three months have gone already, since he left California."
For an instant a doubt of her shot through me. Ralston Murray had been a get-rich-quick oil speculator, so I had heard, anyhow, he was supposed to be extremely well off. Besides, there was that lovely old place in Devonshire, of which his widow would be mistress. I knew nothing of Rosemary Brandreth's circumstances, and little of her character or heart, except as I might judge from her face, and voice, and charming ways. Was Iwrongin the judgment I'd impulsively formed? Could it be that she didn't truly care for Murray—that if she married him in spite of the mysterious "obstacle," it would be for what she could get?
Actually I shivered as this question asked itself in my mind! And I was ashamed of it. But her tone and look had been strange. When I tried to cheer her by hinting that Murray's lease of life might be longer because of her love, she had looked frightened, almost horrified.
For the first time I deliberately tried to read her soul, whose sincerity I had more or less taken for granted. I stared into her eyes through the green dusk which made us both look like mermaids under water. Surely that exquisite face couldn't mask sordidness? I pushed the doubt away.
"All the more reason for you to make radiant the days that are left, if you're strong enough to bear the strain," I said. And Rosemary answered that she was strong enough for anything that would help him. She would tell Ralston, she added, that she had asked my advice.
"He wanted me to do it," she said. "He thought I oughtn't to decide without speaking to a sweet, wise woman. Andyouare a sweet, wise woman, although you're so young! When you are better, will you come on deck and talk to Ralston?"
"Of course I will, if you think he'd care to have me," I promised. And it was extraordinary how soon that headache of mine passed away! I was able to talk with Ralston that evening, and assure him that, in my opinion, he wasn'tat allselfish in wanting Rosemary Brandreth to "sacrifice" herself for him. It would be no sacrifice to a woman who loved a man, I argued. He had done the right thing, it seemed to me, in asking Mrs. Brandreth to marry him. If Jim were in his place, and I in Rosemary's, I should have proposed if he hadn't!
But while I was saying these things, I couldn't help wondering underneath if she had mentioned the "obstacle" to Ralston, and if he knew precisely what kind of "freedom to marry" her freedom was—whether Mr. Blank Brandreth were dead or only divorced?
Somehow I had the strongest impression that Rosemary had told Major Murray next to nothing about herself—had perhaps begged him not to ask questions, and that he had obeyed for fear of distressing—perhaps even losing—the woman he adored.
"Of course, I shall leave her everything," he announced, when Mrs. Brandreth had strolled away with Jim in order to give me a few minutes alone with Major Murray. "While she's gone, I'd like to talk with you about that, because I want you to consult your husband for me. Rosemary can't bear to discuss money and that sort of thing. I had almost to force her to it to-day; for you see, I haven't long at best—and the time may be shorter even than I think. At last I made her see my point of view. I told her that I meant to make a new will, here on shipboard, for fear I should——Well, you understand. I said it would be in her favour, as Rosemary Brandreth, and then, after we were married—provided I live to marry her, as I hope to do—I ought to add a codicil or something—I don't quite know how one manages such things—changing 'Rosemary Brandreth' to 'my wife, Rosemary Murray.'"
"Yes," I agreed. "I suppose you would have to do that. I don't know very much about wills, either—but I remember hearing that a legacy to a wife might be disputed if the will were in her favour as an engaged girl, and mentioning her by her maiden name."
"Brandreth isn't Rosemary's maiden name," he reminded me. "That was Hillier. But it's the same thing legally. And disputes are what I want to avoid. Still, I daren't delay, for fear of something happening to me. There's a doctor chap in Devonshire, who would have inherited Ralston Old Manor and the money that goes with it if my cousin hadn't chosen to leave all he had to me instead. I believe, as a matter of fact, he's my only living relative. I haven't seen him many times in my life, but we correspond on business. Every penny I possess might go to Paul Jennings, as well as the Ralston property—by some trick of the law—if I don't tie it up for Rosemary in time. You see why I'm impatient. I want you and Sir Jim to witness a will of sorts this very night. I shall sleep better if it's done. But—there's a funny thing, Lady Courtenaye: a whim of Rosemary's. I can't see light on it myself. Perhaps you could lead up to the subject, and get her to explain."
"What is the funny thing?" I asked.
"Why, at first she implored me not to leave money to her—actually begged, with tears in her eyes. However, I explained that if she didn't get what I have, a stranger would, which would make me unhappy. My being 'unhappy' settled the matter for her! But she made a queer condition. If she allowed me to leave everything to her, the legacy must be arranged somehow without altering it to her married name when she is my wife. It must be in favour of 'Rosemary Brandreth,' not 'Rosemary Murray.' I begged her to tell my why she wanted such an odd thing, and she said it was a prejudice she had about women changing their names and taking their husbands' names. Well, as a matter of fact, I believe a woman marryingcankeep her own name legally if she likes. Taking the husband's name is a custom, not a necessity for a woman, I remember hearing. But I'm not sure. Sir Jim may know. If not, he'll find out for me. I haven't much strength, and it would be the greatest favour if he would get some first-rate legal opinion about carrying out this wish of Rosemary's."
"Jim will be glad to do anything he can," I said, warmly. "We shall be neighbours, you know."
"Yes, thank Heaven!" he exclaimed. "I used not to think much about such things, but I do feel as if you two had been sent me in my need, by Providence. There was the wonderful coincidence of Rosemary being on my ship—at least, onecallsit a coincidence, but it must be something deeper and more mysterious than that. Then, finding such friends as you and Sir Jim—neighbours on deck, and neighbours on shore. I can't tell you the comfort it is to know that Rosemary won't be left alone when I'm gone."
"Count on us," I repeated, "now and always."
"I do," Murray answered. "As for the present, my first will in favour of Rosemary Brandreth will be clear sailing. It is the second one—or the codicil—after marriage, that raises a question. I suppose I needn't worry about that till the time comes: yet I do. I want to be sure that Rosemary is safe. I wish you could persuade her not to stick to the point she's so keen on."