Theyplayed bridge immediately afterwards. Mrs. Crowley looked upon conversation as a fine art, which could not be pursued while the body was engaged in the process of digestion; and she was of opinion that a game of cards agreeably diverted the mind and prepared the intellect for the quips and cranks which might follow when the claims of the body were satisfied. Lucy drew Alec MacKenzie as her partner, and so was able to watch his play when her cards were on the table. He did not play lightly as did Dick, who kept up a running commentary the whole time, but threw his whole soul into the game and never for a moment relaxed his attention. He took no notice of Dick's facetious observations. Presently Lucy grew more interested in his playing than in the game; she was struck, not only by his great gift of concentration, but by his boldness. He had a curious faculty for knowing almost from the beginning of a hand where each card lay. She saw, also, that he was plainly most absorbed when he was playing both hands himself; he was a man who liked to take everything on his own shoulders, and the division of responsibility irritated him.
At the end of the rubber Dick flung himself back in his chair irritably.
'I can't make it out,' he cried. 'I play much better than you, and I hold better hands, and yet you get the tricks.'
Dick was known to be an excellent player, and his annoyance was excusable.
'We didn't make a single mistake,' he assured his partner, 'and we actually had the odd in our hands, but not one of our finesses came off, and all his did.' He turned to Alec. 'How the dickens did you guess I had those two queens?'
'Because I've known you for twenty years,' answered Alec, smiling. 'I know that, though you're impulsive and emotional, you're not without shrewdness; I know that your brain acts very quickly and sees all kinds of remote contingencies; then you're so pleased at having noticed them that you act as if they were certain to occur. Given these data, I can tell pretty well what cards you have, after they've gone round two or three times.'
'The knowledge you have of your opponents' cards is too uncanny,' said Mrs. Crowley.
'I can tell a good deal from people's faces. You see, in Africa I have had a lot of experience; it's apparently so much easier for the native to lie than to tell the truth that you get into the habit of paying no attention to what he says, and a great deal to the way he looks.'
While Mrs. Crowley made herself comfortable in the chair, which she had already chosen as her favourite, Dick went over to the fire and stood in front of it in such a way as effectually to prevent the others from getting any of its heat.
'What made you first take to exploration?' asked Mrs. Crowley suddenly.
Alec gave her that slow, scrutinising look of his, and answered, with a smile:
'I don't know. I had nothing to do and plenty of money.'
'Not a bit of it,' interrupted Dick. 'A lunatic wanted to find out about some district that people had never been to, and it wouldn't have been any use to them if they had, because, if the natives didn't kill you, the climate made no bones about it. He came back crippled with fever, having failed in his attempt, and, after asserting that no one could get into the heart of Rofa's country and return alive, promptly gave up the ghost. So Alec immediately packed up his traps and made for the place.'
'I proved the man was wrong,' said Alec quietly. 'I became great friends with Rofa, and he wanted to marry my sister, only I hadn't one.'
'And if anyone said it was impossible to hop through Asia on one foot, you'd go and do it just to show it could be done,' retorted Dick 'You have a passion for doing things because they're difficult or dangerous, and, if they're downright impossible, you chortle with joy.'
'You make me really too melodramatic,' smiled Alec.
'But that's just what you are. You're the most transpontine person I ever saw in my life.' Dick turned to Lucy and Mrs. Crowley with a wave of the hand. 'I call you to witness. When he was at Oxford, Alec was a regular dab at classics; he had a gift for writing verses in languages that no one except dons wanted to read, and everyone thought that he was going to be the most brilliant scholar of his day.'
'This is one of Dick's favourite stories,' said Alec. 'It would be quite amusing if there were any truth in it.'
But Dick would not allow himself to be interrupted.
'At mathematics, on the other hand, he was a perfect ass. You know, some people seem to have that part of their brains wanting that deals with figures, and Alec couldn't add two and two together without making a hexameter out of it. One day his tutor got in a passion with him and said he'd rather teach arithmetic to a brick wall. I happened to be present, and he was certainly very rude. He was a man who had a precious gift for making people feel thoroughly uncomfortable. Alec didn't say anything, but he looked at him; and, when he flies into a temper, he doesn't get red and throw things about like a pleasant, normal person—he merely becomes a little paler and stares at you.'
'I beg you not to believe a single word he says,' remonstrated Alec.
'Well, Alec threw over his classics. Everyone concerned reasoned with him; they appealed to his common sense; they were appealing to the most obstinate fool in Christendom. Alec had made up his mind to be a mathematician. For more than two years he worked ten hours a day at a subject he loathed; he threw his whole might into it and forced out of nature the gifts she had denied him, with the result that he got a first class. And much good it's done him.'
Alec shrugged his shoulders.
'It wasn't that I cared for mathematics, but it taught me to conquer the one inconvenient word in the English language.'
'And what the deuce is that?'
'I'm afraid it sounds very priggish,' laughed Alec. 'The wordimpossible.'
Dick gave a little snort of comic rage.
'And it also gave you a ghastly pleasure in doing things that hurt you. Oh, if you'd only been born in the Middle Ages, what a fiendish joy you would have taken in mortifying your flesh, and in denying yourself everything that makes life so good to live! You're never thoroughly happy unless you're making yourself thoroughly miserable.'
'Each time I come back to England I find that you talk more and greater nonsense, Dick,' returned Alec drily.
'I'm one of the few persons now alive who can talk nonsense,' answered his friend, laughing. 'That's why I'm so charming. Everyone else is so deadly earnest.'
He settled himself down to make a deliberate speech.
'I deplore the strenuousness of the world in general. There is an idea abroad that it is praiseworthy to do things, and what they are is of no consequence so long as you do them. I hate the mad hurry of the present day to occupy itself. I wish I could persuade people of the excellence of leisure.'
'One could scarcely accuse you of cultivating it yourself,' said Lucy, smiling.
Dick looked at her for a moment thoughtfully.
'Do you know that I'm hard upon forty?'
'With the light behind, you might still pass for thirty-two,' interrupted Mrs. Crowley.
He turned to her seriously.
'I haven't a grey hair on my head.'
'I suppose your servant plucks them out every morning?'
'Oh, no, very rarely; one a month at the outside.'
'I think I see one just beside the left temple.'
He turned quickly to the glass.
'Dear me, how careless of Charles! I shall have to give him a piece of my mind.'
'Come here, and let me take it out,' said Mrs. Crowley.
'I will let you do nothing of the sort I should consider it most familiar.'
'You were giving us the gratuitous piece of information that you were nearly forty,' said Alec.
'The thought came to me the other day with something of a shock, and I set about a scrutiny of the life I was leading. I've worked at the bar pretty hard for fifteen years now, and I've been in the House since the general election. I've been earning two thousand a year, I've got nearly four thousand of my own, and I've never spent much more than half my income. I wondered if it was worth while to spend eight hours a day settling the sordid quarrels of foolish people, and another eight hours in the farce of governing the nation.'
'Why do you call it that?'
Dick Lomas shrugged his shoulders scornfully.
'Because it is. A few big-wigs rule the roost, and the rest of us are only there to delude the British people into the idea that they're a self-governing community.'
'What is wrong with you is that you have no absorbing aim in politics,' said Alec gravely.
'Pardon me, I am a suffragist of the most vehement type,' answered Dick, with a thin smile.
'That's the last thing I should have expected you to be,' said Mrs. Crowley, who dressed with admirable taste. 'Why on earth have you taken to that?'
Dick shrugged his shoulders.
'No one can have been through a parliamentary election without discovering how unworthy, sordid, and narrow are the reasons for which men vote. There are very few who are alive to the responsibilities that have been thrust upon them. They are indifferent to the importance of the stakes at issue, but make their vote a matter of ignoble barter. The parliamentary candidate is at the mercy of faddists and cranks. Now, I think that women, when they have votes, will be a trifle more narrow, and they will give them for motives that are a little more sordid and a little more unworthy. It will reduce universal suffrage to the absurd, and then it may be possible to try something else.'
Dick had spoken with a vehemence that was unusual to him. Alec watched him with a certain interest.
'And what conclusions have you come to?'
For a moment he did not answer, then he gave a deprecating smile.
'I feel that the step I want to take is momentous for me, though I am conscious that it can matter to nobody else whatever. There will be a general election in a few months, and I have made up my mind to inform the whips that I shall not stand again. I shall give up my chambers in Lincoln's Inn, put up the shutters, so to speak, and Mr. Richard Lomas will retire from active life.'
'You wouldn't really do that?' cried Mrs. Crowley.
'Why not?'
'In a month complete idleness will simply bore you to death.'
'I doubt it. Do you know, it seems to me that a great deal of nonsense is talked about the dignity of work. Work is a drug that dull people take to avoid the pangs of unmitigated boredom. It has been adorned with fine phrases, because it is a necessity to most men, and men always gild the pill they're obliged to swallow. Work is a sedative. It keeps people quiet and contented. It makes them good material for their leaders. I think the greatest imposture of Christian times is the sanctification of labour. You see, the early Christians were slaves, and it was necessary to show them that their obligatory toil was noble and virtuous. But when all is said and done, a man works to earn his bread and to keep his wife and children; it is a painful necessity, but there is nothing heroic in it. If people choose to put a higher value on the means than on the end, I can only pass with a shrug of the shoulders, and regret the paucity of their intelligence.'
'It's really unfair to talk so much all at once,' said Mrs. Crowley, throwing up her pretty hands.
But Dick would not be stopped.
'For my part I have neither wife nor child, and I have an income that is more than adequate. Why should I take the bread out of somebody else's mouth? And it's not on my own merit that I get briefs—men seldom do—I only get them because I happen to have at the back of me a very large firm of solicitors. And I can find nothing worthy in attending to these foolish disputes. In most cases it's six of one and half a dozen of the other, and each side is very unjust and pig-headed. No, the bar is a fair way of earning your living like another, but it's no more than that; and, if you can exist without, I see no reason why Quixotic motives of the dignity of human toil should keep you to it. I've already told you why I mean to give up my seat in Parliament.'
'Have you realised that you are throwing over a career that may be very brilliant? You should get an under-secretaryship in the next government.'
'That would only mean licking the boots of a few more men whom I despise.'
'It's a very dangerous experiment that you're making.'
Dick looked straight into Alec MacKenzie's eyes.
'And is it you who counsel me not to make it on that account?' he said, smiling. 'Surely experiments are only amusing if they're dangerous.'
'And to what is it precisely that you mean to devote your time?' asked Mrs. Crowley.
'I should like to make idleness a fine art,' he laughed. 'People, now-a-days, turn up their noses at the dilettante. Well, I mean to be a dilettante. I want to devote myself to the graces of life. I'm forty, and for all I know I haven't so very many years before me: in the time that remains, I want to become acquainted with the world and all the graceful, charming things it contains.'
Alec, fallen into deep thought, stared into the fire. Presently he took a long breath, rose from his chair, and drew himself to his full height.
'I suppose it's a life like another, and there is no one to say which is better and which is worse. But, for my part, I would rather go on till I dropped. There are ten thousand things I want to do. If I had ten lives I couldn't get through a tithe of what, to my mind, so urgently needs doing.'
'And what do you suppose will be the end of it?' asked Dick.
'For me?'
Dick nodded, but did not otherwise reply. Alec smiled faintly.
'Well, I suppose the end of it will be death in some swamp, obscurely, worn out with disease and exposure; and my bearers will make off with my guns and my stores, and the jackals will do the rest.'
'I think it's horrible,' said Mrs. Crowley, with a shudder.
'I'm a fatalist. I've lived too long among people with whom it is the deepest rooted article of their faith, to be anything else. When my time comes, I cannot escape it.' He smiled whimsically. 'But I believe in quinine, too, and I think that the daily use of that admirable drug will make the thread harder to cut.'
To Lucy it was an admirable study, the contrast between the man who threw his whole soul into a certain aim, which he pursued with a savage intensity, knowing that the end was a dreadful, lonely death; and the man who was making up his mind deliberately to gather what was beautiful in life, and to cultivate its graces as though it were a flower garden.
'And the worst of it is that it will all be the same in a hundred years,' said Dick. 'We shall both be forgotten long before then, you with your strenuousness, and I with my folly.'
'And what conclusion do you draw from that?' asked Mrs. Crowley.
'Only that the psychological moment has arrived for a whisky and soda.'
Therewas some rough shooting on the estate which Mrs. Crowley had rented, and next day Dick went out to see what he could find. Alec refused to accompany him.
'I think shooting in England bores me a little,' he said. 'I have a prejudice against killing things unless I want to eat them, and these English birds are so tame that it seems to me rather like shooting chickens.'
'I don't believe a word of it,' said Dick, as he set out. 'The fact is that you can't hit anything smaller than a hippopotamus, and you know that there is nothing here to suit you except Mrs. Crowley's cows.'
After luncheon Alec MacKenzie asked Lucy if she would take a stroll with him. She was much pleased.
'Where would you like to go?' she asked.
'Let us walk by the sea.'
She took him along a road called Joy Lane, which ran from the fishing town of Blackstable to a village called Waveney. The sea there had a peculiar vastness, and the salt smell of the breeze was pleasant to the senses. The flatness of the marsh seemed to increase the distances that surrounded them, and unconsciously Alec fell into a more rapid swing. It did not look as if he walked fast, but he covered the ground with the steady method of a man who has been used to long journeys, and it was good for Lucy that she was accustomed to much walking. At first they spoke of trivial things, but presently silence fell upon them. Lucy saw that he was immersed in thought, and she did not interrupt him. It amused her that, after asking her to walk with him, this odd man should take no pains to entertain her. Now and then he threw back his head with a strange, proud motion, and looked out to sea. The gulls, with their melancholy flight, were skimming upon the surface of the water. The desolation of that scene—it was the same which, a few days before, had rent poor Lucy's heart—appeared to enter his soul; but, strangely enough, it uplifted him, filling him with exulting thoughts. He quickened his pace, and Lucy, without a word, kept step with him. He seemed not to notice where they walked, and presently she led him away from the sea. They tramped along a winding road, between trim hedges and fertile fields; and the country had all the sweet air of Kent, with its easy grace and its comfortable beauty. They passed a caravan, with a shaggy horse browsing at the wayside, and a family of dinglers sitting around a fire of sticks. The sight curiously affected Lucy. The wandering life of those people, with no ties but to the ramshackle carriage which was their only home, their familiarity with the fields and with strange hidden places, filled her with a wild desire for freedom and for vast horizons. At last they came to the massive gates of Court Leys. An avenue of elms led to the house.
'Here we are,' said Lucy, breaking the long silence.
'Already?' He seemed to shake himself. 'I have to thank you for a pleasant stroll, and we've had a good talk, haven't we?'
'Have we?' she laughed. She saw his look of surprise. 'For two hours you've not vouchsafed to make an observation.'
'I'm so sorry,' he said, reddening under his tan. 'How rude you must have thought me! I've been alone so much that I've got out of the way of behaving properly.'
'It doesn't matter at all,' she smiled. 'You must talk to me another time.'
She was subtly flattered. She felt that, for him, it was a queer kind-of compliment that he had paid her. Their silent walk, she did not know why, seemed to have created a bond between them; and it appeared that he felt it, too, for afterwards he treated her with a certain intimacy. He seemed to look upon her no longer as an acquaintance, but as a friend.
A day or two later, Mrs. Crowley having suggested that they should drive into Tercanbury to see the cathedral, MacKenzie asked her if she would allow him to walk.
He turned to Lucy.
'I hardly dare to ask if you will come with me,' he said.
'It would please me immensely.'
'I will try to behave better than last time.'
'You need not,' she smiled.
Dick, who had an objection to walking when it was possible to drive, set out with Mrs. Crowley in a trap. Alec waited for Lucy. She went round to the stable to fetch a dog to accompany them, and, as she came towards him, he looked at her. Alec was a man to whom most of his fellows were abstractions. He saw them and talked to them, noting their peculiarities, but they were seldom living persons to him. They were shadows, as it were, that had to be reckoned with, but they never became part of himself. And it came upon him now with a certain shock of surprise to notice Lucy. He felt suddenly a new interest in her. He seemed to see her for the first time, and her rare beauty strangely moved him. In her serge dress and her gauntlets, with a motor cap and a flowing veil, a stick in her hand, she seemed on a sudden to express the country through which for the last two or three days he had wandered. He felt an unexpected pleasure in her slim erectness and in her buoyant step. There was something very charming in her blue eyes.
He was seized with a great desire to talk. And, without thinking for an instant that what concerned him so intensely might be of no moment to her, he began forthwith upon the subject which was ever at his heart. But he spoke as his interest prompted, of each topic as it most absorbed him, starting with what he was now about and going back to what had first attracted his attention to that business; then telling his plans for the future, and to make them clear, finishing with the events that had led up to his determination. Lucy listened attentively, now and then asking a question; and presently the whole matter sorted itself in her mind, so that she was able to make a connected narrative of his life since the details of it had escaped from Dick's personal observation.
For some years Alec MacKenzie had travelled in Africa with no object beyond a great curiosity, and no ambition but that of the unknown. His first important expedition had been, indeed, occasioned by the failure of a fellow-explorer. He had undergone the common vicissitudes of African travel, illness and hunger, incredible difficulties of transit through swamps that seemed never ending, and tropical forest through which it was impossible to advance at the rate of more than one mile a day; he had suffered from the desertion of his bearers and the perfidy of native tribes. But at last he reached the country which had been the aim of his journey. He had to encounter then a savage king's determined hostility to the white man, and he had to keep a sharp eye on his followers who, in abject terror of the tribe he meant to visit, took every opportunity to escape into the bush. The barbarian chief sent him a warning that he would have him killed if he attempted to enter his capital. The rest of the story Alec told with an apologetic air, as if he were ashamed of himself, and he treated it with a deprecating humour that sought to minimise both the danger he had run and the courage he had displayed. On receiving the king's message, Alec MacKenzie took up a high tone, and returned the answer that he would come to the royal kraal before midday. He wanted to give the king no time to recover from his astonishment, and the messengers had scarcely delivered the reply before he presented himself, unarmed and unattended.
'What did you say to him?' asked Lucy.
'I asked him what the devil he meant by sending me such an impudent message,' smiled Alec.
'Weren't you frightened?' said Lucy.
'Yes,' he answered.
He paused for a moment, and, as though unconsciously he were calling back the mood which had then seized him, he began to walk more slowly.
'You see, it was the only thing to do. We'd about come to the end of our food, and we were bound to get some by hook or by crook. If we'd shown the white feather they would probably have set upon us without more ado. My own people were too frightened to make a fight of it, and we should have been wiped out like sheep. Then I had a kind of instinctive feeling that it would be all right. I didn't feel as if my time had come.'
But, notwithstanding, for three hours his life had hung in the balance; and Lucy understood that it was only his masterful courage which had won the day and turned a sullen, suspicious foe into a warm ally.
He achieved the object of his expedition, discovered a new species of antelope of which he was able to bring back to the Natural History Museum a complete skeleton and two hides; took some geographical observations which corrected current errors, and made a careful examination of the country. When he had learnt all that was possible, still on the most friendly terms with the ferocious ruler, he set out for Mombassa. He reached it in one month more than five years after he had left it.
The results of this journey had been small enough, but Alec looked upon it as his apprenticeship. He had found his legs, and believed himself fit for much greater undertakings. He had learnt how to deal with natives, and was aware that he had a natural influence over them. He had confidence in himself. He had surmounted the difficulties of the climate, and felt himself more or less proof against fever and heat. He returned to the coast stronger than he had ever been in his life, and his enthusiasm for African travel increased tenfold. The siren had taken hold of him, and no escape now was possible.
He spent a year in England, and then went back to Africa. He had determined now to explore certain districts to the northeast of the great lakes. They were in the hinterland of British East Africa, and England had a vague claim over them; but no actual occupation had taken place, and they formed a series of independent states under Arab emirs. He went this time with a roving commission from the government, and authority to make treaties with the local chieftains. Spending six years in these districts, he made a methodical survey of the country, and was able to prepare valuable maps. He collected an immense amount of scientific material. He studied the manners and customs of the inhabitants, and made careful observations on the political state. He found the whole land distracted with incessant warfare, and broad tracts of country, fertile and apt for the occupation of white men, given over to desolation. It was then that he realised the curse of slave-raiding, the abolition of which was to become the great object of his future activity. His strength was small, and, anxious not to arouse at once the enmity of the Arab slavers, he had to use much diplomacy in order to establish himself in the country. He knew himself to be an object of intense suspicion, and he could not trust even the petty rulers who were bound to him by ties of gratitude and friendship. For some time the sultan of the most powerful state kept him in a condition bordering on captivity, and at one period his life was for a year in the greatest danger. He never knew from day to day whether he would see the setting of the sun. The Arab, though he treated him with honour, would not let him go; and, at last, Alec, seizing an opportunity when the sultan was engaged in battle with a brother who sought to usurp his sovereignty, fled for his life, abandoning his property, and saving only his notes, his specimens, and his guns.
When MacKenzie reached England, he laid before the Foreign Office the result of his studies. He pointed out the state of anarchy to which the constant slave-raiding had reduced this wealthy country, and implored those in authority, not only for the sake of humanity, but for the prestige of the country, to send an expedition which should stamp out the murderous traffic. He offered to accompany this in any capacity; and, so long as he had the chance of assisting in a righteous war, agreed to serve under any leader they chose. His knowledge of the country and his influence over its inhabitants were indispensable. He guaranteed that, if they gave him a certain number of guns with three British officers, the whole affair could be settled in a year.
But the government was crippled by the Boer War; and though, appreciating the strength of his arguments, it realised the necessity of intervention, was disinclined to enter upon fresh enterprises. These little expeditions in Africa had a way of developing into much more important affairs than first appeared. They had been taught bitter lessons before now, and could not risk, in the present state of things, even an insignificant rebuff. If they sent out a small party, which was defeated, it would be a great blow to the prestige of the country through Africa—the Arabs would carry the news to India—and it would be necessary, then, to despatch such a force that failure was impossible. To supply this there was neither money nor men.
Alec was put off with one excuse after another. To him it seemed that hindrances were deliberately set in his way, and in fact the relations of England with the rest of Europe made his small schemes appear an intolerable nuisance. At length he was met with a flat refusal.
But Alec MacKenzie could not rest with this, and opposition only made him more determined to carry his business through. He understood that it was hard at second hand to make men realise the state of things in that distant land. But he had seen horrors beyond description. He knew the ruthless cruelty of the slave-raiders, and in his ears rang, still, the cries of agony when a village was set on fire and attacked by the Arabs. Not once, nor twice, but many times he had left some tiny kraal nestling sweetly among its fields of maize, an odd, savage counterpart to the country hamlet described in prim, melodious numbers by the gentle Goldsmith: the little naked children were playing merrily; the women sat in groups grinding their corn and chattering; the men worked in the fields or lounged idly about the hut doors. It was a charming scene. You felt that here, perhaps, one great mystery of life had been solved; for happiness was on every face, and the mere joy of living was a sufficient reason for existence. And, when he returned, the village was a pile of cinders, smoking still; here and there were lying the dead and wounded; on one side he recognised a chubby boy with a great spear wound in his body; on another was a woman with her face blown away by some clumsy gun; and there a man in the agony of death, streaming with blood, lay heaped upon the ground in horrible disorder. And the rest of the inhabitants had been hurried away pellmell on the cruel journey across country, brutally treated and half starved, till they could be delivered into the hands of the slave merchant.
Alec MacKenzie went to the Foreign Office once more. He was willing to take the whole business on himself, and asked only for a commission to raise troops at his own expense. Timorous secretaries did not know into what difficulties this determined man might lead them, and if he went with the authority of an official, but none of his responsibilities, he might land them in grave complications. The spheres of influence of the continental powers must be respected, and at this time of all others it was necessary to be very careful of national jealousies. Alec MacKenzie was told that if he went he must go as a private person. No help could be given him, and the British Government would not concern itself, even indirectly, with his enterprise. Alec had expected the reply and was not dissatisfied. If the government would not undertake the matter itself, he preferred to manage it without the hindrance of official restraints. And so this solitary man made up his mind, single handed, to crush the slave traffic in a district larger than England, and to wage war, unassisted, with a dozen local chieftains and against twenty thousand fighting men The attempt seemed Quixotic, but Alec had examined the risks and was willing to take them. He had on his side a thorough knowledge of the country, a natural power over the natives, and some skill in managing them. He was accustomed now to the diplomacy which was needful, and he was well acquainted with the local politics.
He did not think it would be hard to collect a force on the coast, and there were plenty of hardy, adventurous fellows who would volunteer to officer the native levies, if he had money to pay them. Ready money was essential, so he crossed the Atlantic and sold his estate in Texas; he made arrangements to raise a further sum, if necessary, on the income which his colliery in Lancashire brought him. He engaged a surgeon, whom he had known for some years, and could trust in an emergency, and then sailed for Zanzibar, where he expected to find white men willing to take service under him. At Mombassa he collected the bearers who had been with him during his previous expeditions, and, his fame among the natives being widely spread, he was able to take his pick of those best suited for his purpose. His party consisted altogether of over three hundred.
When he arrived upon the scene of his operations, everything for a time went well. He showed great skill in dividing his enemies. The petty rulers were filled with jealousy of one another and eager always to fall upon their friends, when slave-raiding for a season was unsuccessful. Alec's plan was to join two or three smaller states in an attack upon the most powerful of them all, to crush this completely, and then to take his old allies one by one, if they would not guarantee to give up their raids on peaceful tribes. His influence with the natives was such that he felt certain it was possible to lead them into action against their dreaded foes, the Arabs, if he was once able to give them confidence. Everything turned out as he had hoped.
The great state which had aimed at the hegemony of the whole district was defeated; and Alec, with the method habitual to him, set about organising each strip of territory which was reclaimed from barbarism. He was able to hold in check the emirs who had fought with him, and a sharp lesson given to one who had broken faith with him, struck terror in the others. The land was regaining its old security. Alec trusted that in five years a man would be able to travel from end to end of it as safely as in England. But suddenly everything he had achieved was undone. As sometimes happens in countries of small civilisation, a leader arose from among the Arabs. None knew from where he sprang, and it was said that he had been a camel driver. He was called Mohammed the Lame, because a leg badly set after a fracture had left him halting, and he was a shrewd man, far-seeing, ruthless, and ambitious. With a few companions as desperate as himself, he attacked the capital of a small state in the North which was distracted by the death of its ruler, seized it, and proclaimed himself king.
In a year he had brought under his sway all those shadowy lands which border upon Abyssinia, and was leading a great rabble, mad with the lust of conquest, fanatic with hatred of the Christian, upon the South. Consternation reigned among the tribes to whom MacKenzie was the only hope of salvation. He pointed out to the Arabs who had accepted his influence, that their safety, as well as his, lay in resistance to the Lame One; but the war cry of the Prophet prevailed against the call of reason, and he found that they were against him to a man. His native allies were faithful, with the fidelity of despair, and these he brought up against the enemy. A pitched battle was fought, but the issue was undecided. The losses were great on both sides, and Alec was himself badly wounded.
Fortunately the wet season was approaching, and Mohammed the Lame, with a wholesome respect for the white man who for the moment, at least, had checked his onward course, withdrew to the Northern regions where his power was more secure. Alec knew that he would resume the attack at the first opportunity, and he knew also that he had not the means to withstand a foe who was astute and capable. His only chance was to get back to the coast, return to England, and try again to interest the government in the undertaking; if they still refused help he determined to go out once more himself, taking this time Maxim guns and men capable of handling them. He knew that his departure would seem like flight, but he could not help that. He was obliged to go. His wound prevented him from walking, but he caused himself to be carried; and, firing his caravan with his own indomitable spirit, he reached the coast by forced marches.
His brief visit to England was already drawing to its close, and, in less than a month now, he proposed to set out for Africa once more. This time he meant to finish the work. If only his life were spared, he would crush for ever the infamous trade which turned a paradise into a wilderness.
Alec stopped speaking as they entered the cathedral close, and they paused for a moment to look at the stately pile. The trim lawns that surrounded it, in a manner enhanced its serene majesty. They entered the nave. There was a vast and solemn stillness. And there was something subtly impressive in the naked space; it uplifted the heart, and one felt a kind of scorn for all that was mean and low. The soaring of the Gothic columns, with their straight simplicity, raised the thoughts to a nobler standard. And, though that place had been given for three hundred years to colder rites, the atmosphere of an earlier, more splendid faith seemed still to cling to it. A vague odour of a spectral incense hung about the pillars, a sweet, sad smell, and the shadows of ghostly priests in vestments of gold, and with embroidered copes, wound in a long procession through the empty aisles.
Lucy was glad that they had come there, and the restful grandeur of the place fitted in with the emotions that had filled her mind during the walk from Blackstable. Her spirit was enlarged, and she felt that her own small worries were petty. The consciousness came to her that the man with whom she had been speaking was making history, and she was fascinated by the fulness of his life and the greatness of his undertakings. Her eyes were dazzled with the torrid African sun which had shone through his words, and she felt the horror of the primeval forest and the misery of the unending swamps. And she was proud because his outlook was so clear, because he bore his responsibilities so easily, because his plans were so vast. She looked at him. He was standing by her side, and his eyes were upon her. She felt the colour rise to her cheeks, she knew not why, and in embarrassment looked down.
By some chance they missed Dick Lomas and Mrs. Crowley. Neither was sorry. When they left the cathedral and started for home, they spoke for a while of indifferent things. It seemed that Alec's tongue was loosened, and he was glad of it. Lucy knew instinctively that he had never talked to anyone as he talked to her, and she was curiously flattered.
But it seemed to both of them that the conversation could not proceed on the strenuous level on which it had been during the walk into Tercanbury, and they fell upon a gay discussion of their common acquaintance. Alec was a man of strong passions, hating fools fiercely, and he had a sardonic manner of gibing at persons he despised, which caused Lucy much amusement.
He described interviews with the great ones of the land in a broadly comic spirit; and, when telling an amusing story, he had a way of assuming a Scottish drawl that added vastly to its humour.
Presently they began to speak of books. Being strictly limited as to number, he was obliged to choose for his expeditions works which could stand reading an indefinite number of times.
'I'm like a convict,' he said. 'I know Shakespeare by heart, and I've read Boswell'sJohnsontill I think you couldn't quote a line which I couldn't cap with the next.'
But Lucy was surprised to hear that he read the Greek classics with enthusiasm. She had vaguely imagined that people recognised their splendour, but did not read them unless they were dons or schoolmasters, and it was strange to find anyone for whom they were living works. To Alec they were a deliberate inspiration. They strengthened his purpose and helped him to see life from the heroic point of view. He was not a man who cared much for music or for painting; his whole æsthetic desires were centred in the Greek poets and the historians. To him Thucydides was a true support, and he felt in himself something of the spirit which had animated the great Athenian. His blood ran faster as he spoke of him, and his cheeks flushed. He felt that one who lived constantly in such company could do nothing base. But he found all he needed, put together with a power that seemed almost divine, within the two covers that bound his Sophocles. The mere look of the Greek letters filled him with exultation. Here was all he wanted, strength and simplicity, and the greatness of life, and beauty.
He forgot that Lucy did not know that dead language and could not share his enthusiasm. He broke suddenly into a chorus from theAntigone; the sonorous, lovely words issued from his lips, and Lucy, not understanding, but feeling vaguely the beauty of the sounds, thought that his voice had never been more fascinating. It gained now a peculiar and entrancing softness. She had never dreamed that it was capable of such tenderness.
At last they reached Court Leys and walked up the avenue that led to the house. They saw Dick hurrying towards them. They waved their hands, but he did not reply, and, when he approached, they saw that his face was white and anxious.
'Thank God, you've come at last! I couldn't make out what had come to you.'
'What's the matter?'
The barrister, all his flippancy gone, turned to Lucy.
'Bobbie Boulger has come down. He wants to see you. Please come at once.'
Lucy looked at him quickly. Sick with fear, she followed him into the drawing-room.
Mrs. Crowleyand Robert Boulger were standing by the fire, and there was a peculiar agitation about them. They were silent, but it seemed to Lucy that they had been speaking of her. Mrs. Crowley impulsively seized her hands and kissed her. Lucy's first thought was that something had happened to her brother. Lady Kelsey's generous allowance had made it possible for him to hunt, and the thought flashed through her that some terrible accident had happened.
'Is anything the matter with George?' she asked, with a gasp of terror.
'No,' answered Boulger.
The colour came to Lucy's cheeks as she felt a sudden glow of relief.
'Thank God,' she murmured. 'I was so frightened.'
She gave him, now, a smile of welcome as she shook hands with him. It could be nothing so very dreadful after all.
Lucy's uncle, Sir George Boulger, had been for many years senior partner in the great firm of Boulger & Kelsey. After sitting in Parliament for the quarter of a century and voting assiduously for his party, he had been given a baronetcy on the celebration of Queen Victoria's second Jubilee, and had finished a prosperous life by dying of apoplexy at the opening of a park, which he was presenting to the nation. He had been a fine type of the wealthy merchant, far-sighted in business affairs and proud to serve his native city in every way open to him. His son, Robert, now reigned in his stead, but the firm had been made into a company, and the responsibility that he undertook, notwithstanding that the greater number of shares were in his hands, was much less. The partner who had been taken into the house on Sir Alfred Kelsey's death now managed the more important part of the business in Manchester, while Robert, brought up by his father to be a man of affairs, had taken charge of the London branch. Commerce was in his blood, and he settled down to work with praiseworthy energy. He had considerable shrewdness, and it was plain that he would eventually become as good a merchant as his father. He was little older than Lucy, but his fair hair and his clean-shaven face gave him a more youthful look. With his spruce air and well-made clothes, his conversation about hunting and golf, few would have imagined that he arrived regularly at his office at ten in the morning, and was as keen to make a good bargain as any of the men he came in contact with.
Lucy, though very fond of him, was mildly scornful of his Philistine outlook. He cared nothing for books, and the only form of art that appealed to him was the musical comedy. She treated him as a rule with pleasant banter and refused to take him seriously. It required a good deal of energy to keep their friendship on a light footing, for she knew that he had been in love with her since he was eighteen. She could not help feeling flattered, though on her side there was no more than the cousinly affection due to their having been thrown together all their lives, and she was aware that they were little suited to one another. He had proposed to her a dozen times, and she was obliged to use many devices to protect herself from his assiduity. It availed nothing to tell him that she did not love him. He was only too willing to marry her on whatever conditions she chose to make. Her friends and her relations were anxious that she should accept him. Lady Kelsey had reasoned with her. Here was a man whom she had known always and could trust utterly; he had ten thousand a year, an honest heart, and a kindly disposition. Her father, seeing in the match a resource in his constant difficulties, was eager that she should take the boy, and George, who was devoted to him, had put in his word, too. Bobbie had asked her to marry him when he was twenty-one, and again when she was twenty-one, when George went to Oxford, when her father went into bankruptcy, and when Hamlyn's Purlieu was sold. He had urged his own father to buy it, when it was known that a sale was inevitable, hoping that the possession of it would incline Lucy's heart towards him; but the first baronet was too keen a man of business to make an unprofitable investment for sentimental reasons. Bobbie had proposed for the last time when he succeeded to the baronetcy and a large fortune. Lucy recognised his goodness and the advantages of the match, but she did not care for him. She felt, too, that she needed a free hand to watch over her father and George. Even Mrs. Crowley's suggestion that with her guidance Robert Boulger might become a man of consequence, did not move her. Bobbie, on the other hand, had set all his heart on marrying his cousin. It was the supreme interest of his life, and he hoped that his patience would eventually triumph over every obstacle. He was willing to wait.
When Lucy's first alarm was stayed, it occurred to her that Bobbie had come once more to ask her the eternal question, but the anxious look in his eyes drove the idea away. His pleasant, boyish expression was overcast with gravity; Mrs. Crowley flung herself in a chair and turned her face away.
'I have something to tell you which is very terrible, Lucy,' he said.
The effort he made to speak was noticeable. His voice was strained by the force with which he kept it steady.
'Would you like me to leave you?' asked Alec, who had accompanied Lucy into the drawing-room.
She gave him a glance. It seemed to her that whatever it was, his presence would help her to bear it.
'Do you wish to see me alone, Bobbie?'
'I've already told Dick and Mrs. Crowley.'
'What is it?' she asked.
Bobbie gave Dick an appealing look. It seemed too hard that he should have to break the awful news to her. He had not the heart to give her so much pain. And yet he had hurried down to the country so that he might soften the blow by his words: he would not trust to the callous cruelty of a telegram. Dick saw the agitation which made his good-humoured mouth twitch with pain, and stepped forward.
'Your father has been arrested for fraud,' he said gravely.
For a moment no one spoke. The silence was intolerable to Mrs. Crowley, and she inveighed inwardly against the British stolidity. She could not look at Lucy, but the others, full of sympathy, kept their eyes upon her. Mrs. Crowley wondered why she did not faint. It seemed to Lucy that an icy hand clutched her heart so that the blood was squeezed out of it. She made a determined effort to keep her clearness of mind.
'It's impossible,' she said at last, quietly.
'He was arrested last night, and brought up at Bow Street Police Court this morning. He was remanded for a week.'
Lucy felt the tears well up to her eyes, but with all her strength she forced them back. She collected her thoughts.
'It was very good of you to come down and tell me,' she said to Boulger gently.
'The magistrate agreed to accept bail in five thousand pounds. Aunt Alice and I have managed it between us.'
'Is he staying with Aunt Alice now?'
'No, he wouldn't do that. He's gone to his flat in Shaftesbury Avenue.'
Lucy's thoughts went to the lad who was dearest to her in the world, and her heart sank.
'Does George know?'
'Not yet.'
Dick saw the relief that came into her face, and thought he divined what was in her mind.
'But he must be told at once,' he said. 'He's sure to see something about it in the papers. We had better wire to him to come to London immediately.'
'Surely father could have shown in two minutes that the whole thing was a mistake.'
Bobbie made a hopeless gesture. He saw the sternness of her eyes, and he had not the heart to tell her the truth. Mrs. Crowley began to cry.
'You don't understand, Lucy,' said Dick. 'I'm afraid it's a very serious charge. Your father will be committed for trial.'
'You know just as well as I do that father can't have done anything illegal. He's weak and rash, but he's no more than that. He would as soon think of doing anything wrong as of flying to the moon. If in his ignorance of business he's committed some technical offence, he can easily show that it was unintentional.'
'Whatever it is, he'll have to stand his trial at the Old Bailey,' answered Dick gravely.
He saw that Lucy did not for a moment appreciate the gravity of her father's position. After the first shock of dismay she was disposed to think that there could be nothing in it. Robert Boulger saw there was nothing for it but to tell her everything.
'Your father and a man called Saunders have been running a bucketshop under the name of Vernon and Lawford. They were obliged to trade under different names, because Uncle Fred is an undischarged bankrupt, and Saunders is the sort of man who only uses his own name on the charge sheet of a police court.'
'Do you know what a bucketshop is, Lucy?' asked Dick.
He did not wait for a reply, but explained that it was a term used to describe a firm of outside brokers whose dealings were more or less dishonest.
'The action is brought against the pair of them by a Mrs. Sabidon, who accuses them of putting to their own uses various sums amounting altogether to more than eight thousand pounds, which she intrusted to them to invest.'
Now that the truth was out, Lucy quailed before it. The intense seriousness on the faces of Alec and Dick Lomas, the piteous anxiety of her cousin, terrified her.
'You don't think there's anything in it?' she asked quickly.
Robert did not know what to answer. Dick interrupted with wise advice.
'We'll hope for the best. The only thing to do is to go up to London at once and get the best legal advice.'
But Lucy would not allow herself, even for a moment, to doubt her father. Now that she thought of the matter, she saw that it was absurd. She forced herself to give a laugh.
'I'm quite reassured. You don't think for a moment that father would deliberately steal somebody else's money. And it's nothing short of theft.'
'At all events it's something that we've been able to get him released on bail. It will make it so much easier to arrange the defence.'
A couple of hours later Lucy, accompanied by Dick Lomas and Bobbie, was on her way to London. Alec, thinking his presence would be a nuisance to them, arranged with Mrs. Crowley to leave by a later train; and, when the time came for him to start, his hostess suddenly announced that she would go with him. With her party thus broken up and her house empty, she could not bear to remain at Court Leys. She was anxious about Lucy and eager to be at hand if her help were needed.
A telegram had been sent to George, and it was supposed that he would arrive at Lady Kelsey's during the evening. Lucy wanted to tell him herself what had happened. But she could not wait till then to see her father, and persuaded Dick to drive with her from the station to Shaftesbury Avenue. Fred Allerton was not in. Lucy wanted to go into the flat and stay there till he came, but the porter had no key and did not know when he would return. Dick was much relieved. He was afraid that the excitement and the anxiety from which Fred Allerton had suffered, would have caused him to drink heavily; and he could not let Lucy see him the worse for liquor. He induced her, after leaving a note to say that she would call early next morning, to go quietly home. When they arrived at Charles Street, where was Lady Kelsey's house, they found a wire from George to say he could not get up to town till the following day.
To Lucy this had, at least, the advantage that she could see her father alone, and at the appointed hour she made her way once more to his flat. He took her in his arms and kissed her warmly. She succumbed at once to the cheeriness of his manner.
'I can only give you two minutes, darling,' he said. 'I'm full of business, and I have an appointment with my solicitor at eleven.'
Lucy could not speak. She clung to her father, looking at him with anxious, sombre eyes; but he laughed and patted her hand.
'You mustn't make too much of all this, my love,' he said brightly. 'These little things are always liable to happen to a man of business; they are the perils of the profession, and we have to put up with them, just as kings and queens have to put up with bomb-shells.'
'There's no truth in it, father?'
She did not want to ask that wounding question, but the words slipped from her lips against her will. He broke away from her.
'Truth? My dear child, what do you mean? You don't suppose I'm the man to rob the widow and the orphan? Of course, there's no truth in it.'
'Oh, I'm so glad to hear that,' she exclaimed, with a deep sigh of relief.
'Have they been frightening you?'
Lucy flushed under his frank look of amusement. She felt that there was a barrier between herself and him, the barrier that had existed for years, and there was something in his manner which filled her with unaccountable anxiety. She would not analyse that vague emotion. It was a dread to see what was so carefully hidden by that breezy reserve. She forced herself to go on.
'I know that you're often carried away by your fancies, and I thought you might have got into an ambiguous position.'
'I can honestly say that no one can bring anything up against me,' he answered. 'But I do blame myself for getting mixed up with that man Saunders. I'm afraid there's no doubt that he's a wrong 'un—and heaven only knows what he's been up to—but for my own part I give you my solemn word of honour that I've done nothing, absolutely nothing, that I have the least reason to be ashamed of.'
Lucy took his hand, and a charming smile lit up her face.
'Oh, father, you've made me so happy by saying that. Now I shall be able to tell George that there's nothing to worry about.'
Their conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Dick. Fred Allerton greeted him heartily.
'You've just come in time to take Lucy home. I've got to go out. But look here, George is coming up, isn't he? Let us all lunch at theCarltonat two, and get Alice to come. We'll have a jolly little meal together.'
Dick was astounded to see the lightness with which Allerton took the affair. He seemed unconscious of the gravity of his position and unmindful of the charge which was hanging over him. Dick was not anxious to accept the invitation, but Allerton would hear of no excuses. He wanted to have his friends gathered around him, and he needed relaxation after the boredom of spending a morning in his lawyer's office.
'Come on,' he said. 'I can't wait another minute.'
He opened the door, and Lucy walked out. It seemed to Dick that Allerton was avoiding any chance of conversation with him. But no man likes to meet his creditor within four walls, and this disinclination might be due merely to the fact that Allerton owed him a couple of hundred pounds. But he meant to get in one or two words.
'Are you fixed up with a solicitor?' he asked.
'Do you think I'm a child, Dick?' answered the other. 'Why, I've got the smartest man in the whole profession, Teddie Blakeley—you know him, don't you?'
'Only by reputation,' answered Dick drily. 'I should think that was enough for most people.'
Fred Allerton gave that peculiarly honest laugh of his, which was so attractive. Dick knew that the solicitor he mentioned was a man of evil odour, who had made a specialty of dealing with the most doubtful sort of commercial work, and his name had been prominent in every scandal for the last fifteen years. It was surprising that he had never followed any of his clients to the jail he richly deserved.
'I thought it no good going to one of the old crusted family solicitors. I wanted a man who knew the tricks of the trade.'
They were walking down the stairs, while Lucy waited at the bottom. Dick stopped and turned round. He looked at Allerton keenly.
'You're not going to do a bolt, are you?'
Allerton's face lit up with amusement. He put his hands on Dick's shoulders.
'My dear old Dick, don't be such an ass. I don't know about Saunders—he's a fishy sort of customer—but I shall come out of all this with flying colours. The prosecution hasn't a leg to stand on.'
Allerton, reminding them that they were to lunch together, jumped into a cab. Lucy and Dick walked slowly back to Charles Street. Dick was very silent. He had not seen Fred Allerton for some time and was surprised to see that he had regained his old smartness. The flat had pretty things in it which testified to the lessee's taste and to his means, and the clothes he wore were new and well-cut. The invitation to theCarltonshowed that he was in no want of ready money, and there was a general air of prosperity about him which gave Dick much to think of.
Lucy did not ask him to come in, since George, by now, must have arrived, and she wished to see him alone. They agreed to meet again at two. As she shook hands with Dick, Lucy told him what her father had said.
'I had a sleepless night,' she said. 'It was so stupid of me; I couldn't get it out of my head that father, unintentionally, had done something rash or foolish; but I've got his word of honour that nothing is the matter, and I feel as if a whole world of anxiety were suddenly lifted from my shoulders.'
The party at theCarltonwas very gay. Fred Allerton seemed in the best of spirits, and his good-humour was infectious. He was full of merry quips. Lucy had made as little of the affair as possible to George. Her eyes rested on him, as he sat opposite to her, and she felt happy and proud. Now and then he looked at her, and an affectionate smile came to his lips. She was delighted with his slim handsomeness. There was a guileless look in his blue eyes which was infinitely attractive. His mouth was beautifully modelled. She took an immense pride in the candour of soul which shone with so clear a light on his face, and she was affected as a stranger might have been by the exquisite charm of manner which he had inherited from his father. She wanted to have him to herself that evening and suggested that they should go to a play together. He accepted the idea eagerly, for he admired his sister with all his heart; he felt in himself a need for protection, and she was able to minister to this. He was never so happy as when he was by her side. He liked to tell her all he did, and, when she fired him with noble ambitions, he felt capable of anything.
They were absurdly light-hearted, as they started on their little jaunt. Lady Kelsey had slipped a couple of banknotes into George's hand and told them to have a good time. They dined at theCarlton, went to a musical comedy, which amused Lucy because her brother laughed so heartily—she was fascinated by his keen power of enjoyment—and finished by going to theSavoyfor supper. For the moment all her anxieties seemed to fall from her, and the years of trouble were forgotten. She was as merry and as irresponsible as George. He was enchanted. He had never seen Lucy so tender and so gay; there was a new brilliancy in her eyes; and, without quite knowing what it was that differed, he found a soft mellowness in her laughter which filled him with an uncomprehended delight. Neither did Lucy know why the world on a sudden seemed fuller than it had ever done before, nor why the future smiled so kindly: it never occurred to her that she was in love.
When Lucy, exhausted but content, found herself at length in her room, she thanked God for the happiness of the evening. It was the last time she could do that for many weary years.
A few days later Allerton appeared again at the police court, and the magistrate, committing him for trial, declined to renew his bail. The prisoner was removed in custody.
Duringthe fortnight that followed, Alec spent much time with Lucy. Together, in order to cheat the hours that hung so heavily on her hands, they took long walks in Hyde Park, and, when Alec's business permitted, they went to the National Gallery. Then he took her to the Natural History Museum, and his conversation, in face of the furred and feathered things from Africa, made the whole country vivid to her. Lucy was very grateful to him because he drew her mind away from the topic that constantly absorbed it. Though he never expressed his sympathy in so many words, she felt it in every inflection of his voice. His patience was admirable.
At last came the day fixed for the trial.
Fred Allerton insisted that neither Lucy nor George should come to the Old Bailey, and they were to await the verdict at Lady Kelsey's. Dick and Robert Boulger were subpoenaed as witnesses. In order that she might be put out of her suspense quickly, Lucy asked Alec MacKenzie to go into court and bring her the result as soon as it was known.
The morning passed with leaden feet.
After luncheon Mrs. Crowley came to sit with Lady Kelsey, and together they watched the minute hand go round the clock. Now the verdict might be expected at any moment. After some time Canon Spratte, the vicar of the church which Lady Kelsey attended, sent up to ask if he might see her; and Mrs. Crowley, thinking to distract her, asked him to come in. The Canon's breezy courtliness as a rule soothed Lady Kelsey's gravest troubles, but now she would not be comforted.
'I shall never get over it,' she said, with a handkerchief to her eyes. 'I shall never cease blaming myself. Nothing of all this would have happened, if it hadn't been for me.'
Canon Spratte and Mrs. Crowley watched her without answering. She was a stout, amiable woman, who had clothed herself in black because the occasion was tragic. Grief had made her garrulous.
'Poor Fred came to me one day and said he must have eight thousand pounds at once. He told me his partner had cheated him, and it was a matter of life and death. But it was such a large sum, and I've given him so much already. After all, I've got to think of Lucy and George. They only have me to depend on, and I refused to give it. Oh, I'd have given every penny I own rather than have this horrible shame.'
'You mustn't take it too much to heart, Lady Kelsey,' said Mrs. Crowley. 'It will soon be all over.'
'Our ways have parted for some time now,' said Canon Spratte, 'but at one period I used to see a good deal of Fred Allerton. I can't tell you how distressed I was to hear of this terrible misfortune.'
'He's always been unlucky,' returned Lady Kelsey. 'I only hope this will be a lesson to him. He's like a child in business matters. Oh, it's awful to think of my poor sister's husband standing in the felon's dock!'
'You must try not to think of it. I'm sure everything will turn out quite well. In another hour you'll have him with you again.'
The Canon got up and shook hands with Lady Kelsey.
'It was so good of you to come,' she said.
He turned to Mrs. Crowley, whom he liked because she was American, rich, and a widow.
'I'm grateful, too,' she murmured, as she bade him farewell. 'A clergyman always helps one so much to bear other people's misfortunes.'
Canon Spratte smiled and made a mental note of the remark, which he thought would do very well from his own lips.
'Where is Lucy?' asked Mrs. Crowley, when he had gone.
Lady Kelsey threw up her hands with the feeling, half of amazement, half of annoyance, which a very emotional person has always for one who is self-restrained.
'She's sitting in her room, reading. She's been reading all day. Heaven only knows how she can do it. I tried, and all the letters swam before my eyes. It drives me mad to see how calm she is.'
They began to talk of the immediate future. Lady Kelsey had put a large sum at Lucy's disposal, and it was arranged that the two children should take their father to some place in the south of France where he could rest after the terrible ordeal.
'I don't know what they would all have done without you,' said Mrs. Crowley. 'You have been a perfect angel.'
'Nonsense,' smiled Lady Kelsey. 'They're my only relations in the world, except Bobbie, who's very much too rich as it is, and I love Lucy and George as if they were my own children. What is the good of my money except to make them happy and comfortable?'
Mrs. Crowley remembered Dick's surmise that Lady Kelsey had loved Fred Allerton, and she wondered how much of the old feeling still remained. She felt a great pity for the kind, unselfish creature. Lady Kelsey started as she heard the street door slam. But it was only George who entered.
'Oh, George, where have you been? Why didn't you come in to luncheon?'
He looked pale and haggard. The strain of the last fortnight had told on him enormously, and it was plain that his excitement was almost unbearable.
'I couldn't eat anything. I've been walking about, waiting for the damned hours to pass. I wish I hadn't promised father not to go into court. Anything would have been better than this awful suspense. I saw the man who's defending him when they adjourned for luncheon, and he told me it was all right.'
'Of course it's all right. You didn't imagine that your father would be found guilty.'
'Oh, I knew he wouldn't have done a thing like that,' said George impatiently. 'But I can't help being frightfully anxious. The papers are awful. They've got huge placards out:County gentleman at the Old Bailey. Society in a Bucket Shop.'
George shivered with horror.
'Oh, it's awful!' he cried.
Lady Kelsey began to cry again, and Mrs. Crowley sat in silence, not knowing what to say. George walked about in agitation.
'But I know he's not guilty,' moaned Lady Kelsey.
'If he's guilty or not he's ruined me,' said George. 'I can't go up to Oxford again after this. I don't know what the devil's to become of me. We're all utterly disgraced. Oh, how could he! How could he!'
'Oh, George, don't,' said Lady Kelsey.
But George, with a weak man's petulance, could not keep back the bitter words that he had turned over in his heart so often since the brutal truth was told him.
'Wasn't it enough that he fooled away every penny he had, so that we're simply beggars, both of us, and we have to live on your charity? I should have thought that would have satisfied him, without getting locked up for being connected in a beastly bucketshop swindle.'
'George, how can you talk of your father like that!'
He gave a sort of sob and looked at her with wild eyes. But at that moment a cab drove up, and, he sprang on to the balcony.
'It's Dick Lomas and Bobbie. They've come to tell us.'
He ran to the door and opened it. They walked up the stairs.
'Well?' he cried. 'Well?'
'It's not over yet. We left just as the judge was summing up.'
'Damn you!' cried George, with an explosion of sudden fury.
'Steady, old man,' said Dick.
'Why didn't you stay?' moaned Lady Kelsey.
'I couldn't,' said Dick. 'It was too awful.'
'How was it going?'
'I couldn't make head or tail of it. My mind was in a whirl. I'm an hysterical old fool.'
Mrs. Crowley went up to Lady Kelsey and kissed her.
'Why don't you go and lie down for a little while, dear,' she said. 'You look positively exhausted.'
'I have a racking headache,' groaned Lady Kelsey.
'Alec MacKenzie has promised to come here as soon as its over. But you mustn't expect him for another hour.'
'Yes, I'll go and lie down,' said Lady Kelsey.
George, unable to master his impatience, flung open the window and stood on the balcony, watching for the cab that would bring the news.
'Go and talk to him, there's a good fellow,' said Dick to Robert Boulger. 'Cheer him up a bit.'
'Yes, of course I will. It's rot to make a fuss now that it's nearly over. Uncle Fred will be here himself in an hour.'
Dick looked at him without answering. When Robert had gone on to the balcony, he flung himself wearily in a chair.
'I couldn't stand it any longer,' he said. 'You can't imagine how awful it was to see that wretched man in the dock. He looked like a hunted beast, his face was all grey with fright, and once I caught his eyes. I shall never forget the look that was in them.'
'But I thought he was bearing it so well,' said Mrs. Crowley.
'You know, he's a man who's never looked the truth in the face. He never seemed to realise the gravity of the charges that were brought against him, and even when the magistrate refused to renew his bail, his confidence never deserted him. It was only to-day, when the whole thing was unrolled before him, that he appeared to understand. Oh, if you'd heard the evidence that was given! And then the pitiful spectacle of those two men trying to throw the blame on one another!'