No; Gerald has not kissed her. He wished to very badly, but something in his heart--a strong sense of honor maybe--prevented his doing so until he had made his position clear to her. She was so simple, so innocent, so virginal that she knew nothing of passion, or of life, or of that world wherein women marry and are given in marriage. With an almost absurd particularity the young man desired that, before being kissed, she should learn that he was her true lover, that he wished to marry her, that he greatly desired to enter into a lifelong companionship with her. To act otherwise was to bind her unknowingly to him. When she understood what love meant, and was ready to accept him as her husband, then could he seal this acceptance with a kiss. For he knew full well that such a kiss would awaken the woman in her; would reveal life to her soul. A caress meant so much, that it was little wonder he restrained himself from following too hurriedly the desire of his heart.
And perhaps it was that he found her innocence and friendly acceptance of his presence too delightful to transmute with unconsidered haste friendship into love. Why spoil this idyll of lilies by presenting her with the red ripe roses of love? The romance was so charming, so dreamlike, that the poetic instinct of the poet forbade him to rouse her. Mavis was indeed the Sleeping Beauty, slumbering within her enchanted palace, and he, the fated Prince--as it would seem he was from his finding of the cylinder--would in time awaken her with a kiss. But the hour had not yet struck. When it did, many things would come to pass.
In the first place, Mavis would no longer be contented to live in the Pixy's House, ignorant of life. She would wish to come out into the world, even before the age of twenty-one, and would not wait longer for her guardian's permission. Such a desire would mean a meeting and an explanation with Rebb, and Gerald, as yet, did not see how to bring this about. He guessed that when he spoke to the Major he would be told of the homicidal mania with which Mavis was said to be tainted. It would be vain for him to decline to believe in such a taint. If Rebb insisted that it was so he could refuse to allow Haskins to marry his ward, particularly as she was under age. Then again, if Rebb guessed that the young man wished to marry the girl, he might very easily remove her secretly to a new hiding-place, and Gerald would lose her for ever. Hasty action was not to be thought of, and it would be best to wait until he could learn why Rebb secluded the girl in that ruinous house.
Haskins duly returned to the Devon Maid, and found Geary as cheerful and obsequious as usual. But now that Gerald was enlightened as to the connection of the negro with the Pixy's House he found it difficult to tolerate these false smiles. Piercing the mask of Geary's good humor he saw in him a dangerous man, gripping a yellow-handled knife which he was ready to use, should it be necessary. Haskins no longer wondered at the negro's presence amongst these lonely hills. He knew that he had not drifted there, but had been made landlord of the inn to act as a dragon. And a very dangerous dragon he might prove to be, should he gain wind of Gerald's philanderings with Mavis.
Geary, however, showed no signs that he suspected anything, but waited as usual on his guest. While at dinner Gerald seized the opportunity to tell his landlord that he contemplated stopping at Silbury on the ensuing night. "I have to run up to London on the day after to-morrow," said Haskins, with feigned carelessness, "and if I sleep at Silbury I can catch the eight-o'clock train."
"I could dribe you dere, sah, for dat train," said Geary, beaming, and evidently pleased at Haskins' announcement.
"No, my good fellow, that would mean my getting up at five in the morning. I prefer to sleep at Silbury--at the Prince's Head Hotel."
"Will you come back here, sah?"
"Oh yes, in two or three days, but only for a time, Geary. I have to go on to St. Ives, you know."
"I shall be sorry to lose you, sah?"
"Thank you. I shall be sorry to go. This inn is comfortable, and the country all around is picturesque. I have left my canoe down on the river, and when I return I shall send it back to Exeter. I am tired of exploring that river--it is so lonely."
"Berry lonely, sah," assented Geary promptly, and went towards the door with the tray in his hands. There he stopped. "Will you want me dis ebenin', sah. I go to see a frien' in de Lawd at Leegarth, who wish to see me for de good ob his bressed soul."
"No, I won't want you," rejoined Haskins, secretly disgusted at the fellow for using the cloak of religion to mask his Pixy's House visit. "I shall go to bed early."
"T'ank you, sah," and Geary departed. Later, while Gerald at the window sipped his coffee, he saw the big negro walking up the hill which led on to the moors. For the moment it flashed across the young man that Geary might go to Mother Carey's Peace Pool by taking the down path, and there might discover the canoe. But on second thoughts he dismissed his reflection. Geary, being quite ignorant of Haskins' knowledge, had no reason to seek the pool, and so the canoe would be left undisturbed in the undergrowth.
Haskins had really intended to retire early, but, unable to rest quietly, he strolled out of the inn and on to the bridge. No one lingered there now, as the early birds of Denleigh had gone to roost. He had the Rialto of the village all to himself, as he thought, until he became aware that Mrs. Geary, with a blue shawl over her head, was leaning against the parapet. Wondering if he could learn anything about Adonis from his usually silent wife, Gerald moved alongside.
"A penny for your thoughts, Mrs. Geary," he said cheerfully.
Mrs. Geary turned, and in the moonlight he saw that she was crying. "My thoughts have to do with funerals, sir," she said, in a heavy voice, but with a much less use of the Devonshire dialect than he would have expected from a Barnstaple woman.
"With funerals?"
"I was thinking," said Mrs. Geary, looking at the water flowing under the bridge, "if it wouldn't be best for me to throw myself into yon stream."
"Why on earth should you do that?" asked Haskins blankly. And it was then that he became conscious that she had been drinking, for she swayed against the stonework. Perhaps it was the drink which made her talk more than usual, added to the absence of her husband, but she certainly spoke very freely, and told him much that he wished to know.
"Why should I wish to do that, sir?" she repeated scornfully--"because I am the most miserable woman on God's green earth."
"Oh, surely not, Mrs. Geary. You have a good home, healthy children, and a capital husband."
Again she laughed scornfully. "A capital husband, when it suits him. Oh, you don't know what Geary is, Mr. Haskins. His soul is as black as his face, and that is saying a lot."
"I wondered why you married a negro," commented Haskins, leaning over the bridge, and leading her to confide in him.
"I married him because I was a greedy fool, sir. I was a housemaid, or at least a general servant, under Bellaria at the Pixy's House."
Gerald caught his breath. "That is where the mad girl lives, according to your husband."
"Mad? She's less mad than I am, sir. A poor, pretty, sweet young lady, who is kept a fast prisoner by Major Rebb."
"Why is she kept prisoner?"
"I can't tell you that, sir. All I know is that, sixteen long years ago, I was a servant there, and Miss Mavis liked me. I got on well with Bellaria too, although she had her fits of terror at times--why I can't say, but she often seemed to be scared by her very shadow. Major Rebb was away then with his regiment in Jamaica."
"Oh! And Miss Mavis lived at the Pixy's House?"
"She was and is kept a prisoner there," said Mrs. Geary, whose tongue seemed to be very loose with the drink, else she would scarcely have talked so boldly. "Major Rebb came home with Geary, who had been his servant in Jamaica. Geary stopped at the Pixy's House, while his master went to London. He fell in love with me, and quarreled with Bellaria. They were like cat and dog, so when Major Rebb came down he said that if I would marry Geary he would keep my old mother out of the poorhouse. I didn't dislike Geary then, and I wanted my mother to be comfortable for the rest of her life. I agreed, and married Geary. Major Rebb settled us in the Devon Maid fifteen years ago, and since then my life has been a hell, with that villain. Geary will kill me some day," added the woman in a matter-of-fact tone, "unless I kill myself first."
"But a big woman like you can manage him."
"Not when he threatens with that yellow-handled knife he holds, sir. I fear that knife. Geary says that it was used in some African sacrifice in Jamaica, and the sight of it makes me sick. Because of Geary's treatment I took to drink, and he's always threatening to kill me, unless I leave it off. How can I," cried Mrs. Geary, throwing open her arms, "when it is the only thing that makes me able to stand the brute?"
"Does he strike you?"
"He beats me and kicks me, and threatens me with the knife. Don't tell him that I said so, sir," cried Mrs. Geary, with sudden terror, for the drink was dying out of her, "if you do he'll kill me. I am afraid of death," she added, looking into the silver water, "if I were not I would end everything in yonder stream."
"I won't say a word, Mrs. Geary," said Haskins soothingly, "your husband will never hear anything from me. Why does he live here?"
"To watch the Pixy's House," said Mrs. Geary, "to see that Miss Mavis don't get away. If she did, and learned what she should learn, the Major wouldn't be able to dash about in motor cars."
"Is it money?" asked Gerald eagerly.
Mrs. Geary drew her shawl tightly round her massive form. "I don't know rightly what it is," she said, in her heavy voice. "Geary says very little, but what he does say shows that Major Rebb will never let Miss Mavis leave that house. And she's not mad, poor lamb. She's a poor innocent angel, the sport of villains. I'll go now, Mr. Haskins, and mind, I have your word to say nothing."
"You have," said Gerald as she turned away, "but if you want to help Miss Mavis----"
"Only one man can help her," interrupted the woman gruffly, "and he must be her lover, who will stand against these devils on her behalf. But she never sees a man, since Mr. Arnold went away, unless old Matthew counts, so what chance has she! There," she ended abruptly, "I have told you more than I ought to. The drink! the drink! Geary would kill me if he knew. Curse Geary and curse the drink!" and she returned slowly to the inn, striking her forehead and repeating: "the drink, the drink, the drink!"
Haskins remained on the bridge for a few minutes and then retired to bed, not to sleep but to think deeply. He had enough to occupy his thoughts throughout that long summer night. Mrs. Geary, as the saying goes, had given the show away. From the remark about the motor car Gerald felt certain that Mrs. Geary had meant a loss of money. Apparently, if Mavis escaped from the Pixy's House, Rebb would lose an income, which rightfully belonged to the girl. But of this the young man could not be sure, and until he had more information he could do nothing. Still his suspicions had certainly proved to be correct. The negro was Rebb's creature, and had been posted in Denleigh village to guard the Pixy's House and its occupants. Haskins felt that he was on the track of the mystery, but could not follow it up until he talked it over with another person. Two heads were better than one, in this instance, and Tod Macandrew was very shrewd. Therefore Haskins fell asleep with a resolution to explain matters to the lawyer when he went to London. Meanwhile he had to meet Mavis in the moonlight on the ensuing night, and that thought alone was sufficient to fill his mind to the exclusion of less romantic matters.
Next morning Geary was as suave and obedient as usual. Evidently he had neither found, nor had he heard, anything to awaken his suspicion while visiting the Pixy's House. Haskins watched him closely, and weighed every look, every inflection of the voice; but in every case he was satisfied that the negro had not the slightest idea that his guest had stormed the Enchanted Castle. When the time came for Haskins to drive to Silbury the negro himself appeared on the box of the trap.
"Hullo," said Gerald, climbing in, and seeing that his portmanteau was all right, "this is an honor. Geary."
"Oh no, sah," said the negro, showing his splendid teeth, "you ver' good pusson, sah, to hab at de Devon Maid. I wish you to come here again an'--an' tell odder jemplem ob dis place."
"I'll tell everyone," said Gerald, when the trap started, "and I'll be back soon."
"To stay wid me, sah?"
"For a few days. I must then get on to St. Ives, as a friend is awaiting me there. What I miss about Denleigh, Geary," added the young man, in a careless tone, "is, that there are no pretty girls."
"No, sah, no. You hab to see Jamaica for de pretty gals, sah."
"You come from Jamaica then?"
"Yes, sah. Me buckra nigger, sah, and servant to Major Rebb. Him was in command ob a fine black rig'm't, sah."
Geary was communicative indeed, and simply told what Gerald had gathered from the wife. However, to shield her, he expressed suitable surprise. "I wonder you don't go back to Jamaica, Geary. After the Tropics this place must be chilly, and extremely dull in winter."
"Yas, sah, it berry dull," replied the negro unsuspiciously, "but I hab de inn and de wife and de family, so I getting on berry well. But some day I go back to Port Royal to lib, wid money, and den I a grand jemplem."
In this way Adonis chattered all the long way to Silbury, and told Haskins quite a lot about his life with Major Rebb. The negro appeared to be quite devoted to his old master, alleging that Rebb had saved his life when it was in danger. "From what?" asked Gerald idly.
"Voodoo!" said Geary, scowling. "I lose one eye in Voodoo," and after this remark he became silent.
Haskins had heard of Voodoo, of the terrible African witchcraft, and having an initiate in his company would have liked, from literary curiosity, to learn more. But by this time the trap was entering Silbury and descending the steep High Street, so Geary refused to say anything more. The loss of his eye was evidently a sore subject with him, and small wonder that he loved Rebb if the sight of the other eye had been saved by that military gentleman. When Geary drove away, leaving Haskins at the Prince's Head, that individual thought deeply.
Haskins, being genuinely Anglo-Saxon, had not the plotting instincts of a conspirator, and was therefore somewhat rough and ready in arranging for a secret meeting with Mavis. However, love sharped his wits and he excused himself to the landlady of the Prince's Head for being absent after midnight on the plea that he had to ride out and see an old friend. In the ordinary course of things there was no reason why he should explain at all; but to make matters entirely safe, should Mr. Geary play the spy--which was just what the creature would do--Haskins thus arranged for an explanation.
After dinner he called in Mrs. Jennings and ordered a horse, obtaining at the same time the key of a side door, so that he could admit himself when he returned, somewhere about one o'clock in the morning. Then he gave orders that he was to be called in time for the early morning train, and afterwards snatched forty winks, in order to prepare himself thoroughly for the fatigues of the night.
Owing to the excessive heat of the weather Haskins usually wore loose white flannels from morning until evening. But on this occasion, to escape the possible watchfulness of Bellaria, he donned a dark-hued riding-dress, with brown gaiters and a tweed cap. In this guise, and when shielded by the semi-gloom of the summer night, he would certainly avoid observation. And of course the chances were that the woman, tormented by her fears, would not venture out of the house after dark. Still, it was best to be on the safe side and dress as inconspicuously as possible.
The animal supplied by the stables of the Prince's Head was not exactly a Derby Winner. He proved to be a wary quadruped, remarkably old and extraordinarily slow, but having the great merit of knowing every inch of the surrounding country, no mean qualification considering the rider's comparative ignorance. However, Gerald had a fair idea of the five miles' route to Leegarth, and in due time the horse got over the ground, although it must be admitted that he did not hurry himself. Haskins reached the village shortly after ten o'clock, and skirted round the houses, so that he should not be observed. An unknown stranger, arriving in so secluded a hamlet, would assuredly awaken the suspicions of the wary Geary, and news travels fast in country districts. So Gerald kept well out of the way, and after a somewhat circuitous route came to the banks of Mother Carey's Peace Pool. Here he fastened his horse to the trunk of an ancient oak, with permission to crop the lush grass, and launched his faithful canoe. Shortly he was perched for the fourth or fifth time on the top of the wall.
The night was perfect. A Romeo and Juliet night, warm and still, with a cloudless sky, radiant with ivory moonlight. Gerald looked down on the quaint peaceful quadrangle sleeping in the chill whiteness, at the range of buildings with their fantastic architecture, and at the darkly solemn trees which girdled this Enchanted Palace. Then he became aware of a slight, white-clothed figure flitting across the shaven lawns, like a ghost of dead-and-gone beauty. A musical whisper stole through the warm stillness, and the adventurer, with a fast-throbbing heart, flung himself on to the boughs of the copper beech, to use it as a stair for descent. In a few minutes he found himself standing in the shadow of the tree, clasping a cool slender hand, and looking into two wonderful eyes which flashed like the stars overhead.
"Oh, you are not in white, Prince," said Mavis, disappointed.
Gerald explained. "I thought it best to wear dark clothes, since Bellaria might be on the watch."
"There is no chance of that. She is fast asleep, and would not leave her bed unless the house went on fire."
"Then again," went on Gerald, pressing her hand, "I had to ride here from Silbury. I could scarcely do that in flannels."
"Well," Mavis dragged him into the radiant moonlight and surveyed him critically, "it doesn't matter. I like you in this suit of clothes. You look so tall and straight and slim, and----"
"Oh, my dear," Gerald laughed, "you will make me vain."
"But you are vain already," she said naively. "Bellaria says that all young men are vain."
"How can this particular young man be otherwise," questioned the lover, "when the most charming girl in the world makes an appointment with him in the realms of romance?"
"Am I charming, Gerald; am I? Oh," Mavis clapped her hands, "how delightful to be told that. Say it again."
"You are charming, Mavis, and also rather reckless for laughing so loud."
"Pooh! Everything is safe, for the gates are locked and Bellaria is asleep. In all these wide gardens only you and I are awake, unless," added Mavis seriously, "you count the fairies."
"And the nightingales, and the crickets," ended Gerald, smiling.
Mavis smiled also, and they stood hand in hand like a couple of schoolchildren out on a frolic. Then "Come," she cried, loosening her grip, "you must catch me, catch me, my Prince;" and like an arrow from the bow she shot across the turf towards the archway, followed rapidly by her lover. Haskins was swift of foot, but Mavis ran like Atalanta, and was flitting about the gardens on the other side of the archway before he could range alongside.
"You are the Fairy Queen," panted Gerald, when he reached her. "I saw you spread large white wings."
"Oh no," said Mavis seriously and prosaically, "I used my legs."
"The Queen of Spain has no legs," quoted Haskins, laughing.
"Oh, how dreadful--how very, very dreadful!"
And he laughed again to see that she took him seriously.
The gardens were very lovely, and much less orderly than the quadrangle. Following Disraeli's dictum, they had been cultivated to excess, and then Nature had been allowed to decivilize them. The result was charming, and wonderfully artistic. There were beds of brilliant flowers, wherein slim saplings grew at will; statues of god and goddess wreathed in greenery; ponds of placid water rimmed with stone, wherein white lilies slept on broad leaves, floating amidst slender reeds. The façade of the house, with its Tudor battlements and long ranges of latticed windows, rose picturesquely in the still, calm light of the moon, which rendered all things ethereal and fairylike. Before the mansion stretched a shallow terrace of gray stone, diapered with lichens and emerald moss. A wide flight of steps descended from this to meet a broad path, which melted imperceptibly into a jungle of tall bushes and wiry grasses. And all around the trees sprang like sentinels to guard this magic domain from the prose of the outside world. Everything was bathed in a luminous white radiance--and in this colorless world Mavis flitted here and there like a moth of snow.
"It is too lovely for mere words," murmured Gerald, gazing at all this beauty, with his poetical feelings uppermost.
"Are you speaking of me?" asked Mavis joyfully.
He laughed. "In spite of your seclusion, my dear, you are a true woman, for you will not allow even the landscape to be complimented when you are present."
"Human beings are so much nicer than landscape," she pouted.
"One is, at least. I wonder who she can be."
"Me," said Mavis triumphantly.
"How clever of you to guess that, my angel."
Mavis flung up her arms with a silvery laugh. "I am a fairy to-night, and no angel. They are stiff things with goose wings."
"Rhyme and reason both together," said Gerald, sitting down on a mossy stone fronting a smooth greensward. "Well, then, you are Titania, and I the rash mortal who has intruded on your privacy."
"Take care that I do not enchant you, poor mortal."
"You have done that already. Hark!" he raised a finger, "the wind is rising, your Majesty."
"To play for my dancing."
Then Gerald saw a wonderful thing. While the wind played with viewless fingers on the lyre of the surrounding woods, Mavis danced to the rhythm in exact unison with the gentle breaths which came and went. She bent her golden head to listen critically to the murmurings, and swung and swayed and floated to the melody of Nature. Her feet and arms scarcely moved, her slender body was almost still, yet by subtle movements she contrived to interpret the meaning of the hour. A low, low note from the tree-tops would send her floating across the grass: a pause would bring her to a statue stillness, and a dying sigh, as the wind lost heart, stirred her limbs to gentle movements, like the tremblings of a flower on its stalk. Poised gracefully in the radiant light, in her white garb, and with her mystical gestures timed to the Nature sounds, she looked like a spirit of the woods. Gerald faintly grasped for one fleeting moment the idea of the sacred dances of old, when every gesture and every pose was a sign of power to draw down the hierarchy of heaven to the physical plane.
Then the wind died away, and the golden notes of the nightingale fluted through the trees. One bird trilled wild music, and another replied with a scattering of liquid notes like falling rain. All the marvelous enchantment of the night was in that speechless song, and the young man's heart beat in measure with the pulse of Nature. He rose abruptly to his feet, and when Mavis floated within the circle of his arms they went round her passionately. Like a tamed bird she rested on his heaving breast, and looked up smilingly into his brown eyes. Mavis read therein all that the wind and the nightingale had been trying to tell her, and when the man's lips were pressed ardently to her own she felt as though she had stepped from the twilight of unformed things into the glory of sunlight and song.
"Oh," she panted, nestling to his heart, "what does this mean?"
"Love!" he breathed, "love, which changes man into God," and again his lips sought hers. With a thrill, she yielded to the first caress she had ever known. And the nightingale sang triumphantly in the thicket. But now the song was no longer wordless: she knew all that the bird could tell. "Which is love, love, and love again," whispered the Fairy Prince.
Then Mavis began to weep, with a natural fear of the unknown, and Gerald consoled her, as a mother consoles a child. She clung to him in the shadow of the tree, silent and wondering, and with something of pain--the pain of the reborn, when the fire of love purifies the soul. A veil had fallen from her eyes, and, beholding the secret shrine of the god, she trembled, and wept, and joyed, all in a breath. "It is wonderful, wonderful, terrible," she murmured. "Oh, Gerald, if you leave me I shall die. You are part of me: your soul is blended with mine. You love me: oh, say that you love me?"
"As I love Truth and Beauty and Wisdom, and all things that make up our conception of God."
There was silence for a few minutes, and the two human beings, who were really one, felt that they were alone in this wonderful white world--alone with God. "And this is love?" murmured Mavis dreamily.
"Part of love," said Gerald softly.
"What do you mean?"
"Dearest, the veil of love is beauty."
"Yes?"
"We must remove that veil: we must look behind it, to see what love really means in the innermost."
"Can we?"
"We are about to," he drew her closer to his breast, "the inner meaning of love is sacrifice."
"Sacrifice," said Mavis, puzzled.
"And that sacrifice we must make, if we would know the real and true meaning of love."
"Do you mean that we must part?" she gasped, withdrawing herself.
"For a time," he assured her, "only for a time--say a week."
"Oh," Mavis stretched out her arms langorously, "how can I live through seven days without you?"
"By knowing that sacrifice is the soul of love."
"But why must you go?" she entreated. "Oh, do not go, darling. Let us be always together in this garden."
"I fear Bellaria will object," said Haskins, smiling.
"She will never know?"
"Oh yes. We cannot always meet by stealth. Bellaria is a woman, and will sooner or later discover our secret. Then there is Geary, and your guardian."
Mavis shivered. "I am afraid of Geary, with his big knife, but not of Bellaria or my guardian. She will be a little angry, but when I tell her how happy I am she will be glad. And my guardian is always kind. Oh, Gerald, tell him that you love me, and wish me to be your wife. Then he will stop Geary from coming here, and we can be happy."
Haskins hugged her to his breast and smiled grimly in the darkness. He was very certain that, if he told Major Rebb, there would be no end of trouble. In order to arrive at some conclusion it was necessary to make inquiries as to why Rebb kept the girl in the Pixy's House. When that was known, steps might be taken to release her, and when she was released she could be presented to the world as Mrs. Gerald Haskins. But to make inquiries it was necessary that he should go to London and consult Tod, who was sharp enough in professional matters, and a visit to London meant a seven days' separation from Mavis. "I don't think that the Major will be overpleased at my wooing you by stealth," said Gerald, choosing his words, so as not to alarm her. "You see, I should have come openly and with his permission."
"He would not have given it until I was twenty-one," cried Mavis, "he said that I was to see no one for the next ten months."
"Precisely! And that is why I have made love to you secretly," explained Haskins cheerily. "Now, darling heart, I wish you to be brave and to help me."
"Only tell me what you wish me to do, and I'll do it," said Mavis, with a little shudder. "Only I don't like pain!"
"To love truly we must suffer pain, my sweetheart. Pain and sacrifice are the demands of love. Had we an eternity of pleasure, without any disagreeables, even you and I should grow weary."
"Oh no, no!" She clung to him.
"Ah, my sweet," he said sadly, "we are but flesh and blood, and so may grow weary of too perfect bliss. The flower that is always in the sun wilts and dies. And, after all, the delights of life lie in contrast."
"What do you mean by that, Gerald?"
Haskins saw that he was speaking too highly for her comprehension, so talked on a lower plane, for the night was passing, and he had to ride back to Silbury. "My dear," he said slowly, "I should like to stay here for ever with you, and then we would be as gods. But if we wish to know the true meaning of love, as I explained, we must sacrifice ourselves to the necessities of life. We must part for seven days. I have to go to London, Mavis, and search out matters."
"What matters?"
But Haskins wisely declined to explain in detail, lest he should alarm her, for she must never know the true character of Major Rebb. Gerald did not know it himself at the moment, but he suspected that when the past of Rebb was searched into there would be some things found which would not bear the light of day. "I have to go on private business," he said evasively. "When I return you shall know what is necessary. In the meantime, my own brave girl, you must hold fast our secret, and not allow Bellaria to guess that we have even met, much less that we are engaged."
Mavis stood up slim and strong with a brave light in her wonderful eyes. "I promise!" she said simply, "I promise!"
"Sweetheart!" He rose also and kissed her, and then they walked slowly up the path, through the archway, and stopped again under the beech. "I shall return in seven days," said Gerald, anxious to go, yet loth to depart, "only be silent. Live as you have hitherto lived, and----"
"I can never do that, my dearest," she said, flushing, "the world is all changed. You are my world! you are my---- Oh!" she broke down.
Haskins folded her in his arms, and their lips met in one last long kiss. Then he left her, silently. That was true wisdom, for a single word might have detained him for ever in that enchanted garden.
"It's nutty, but not what I call top hole straight!"
"Mr. Macandrew, I am consulting you professionally, so I must ask you to use the King's English!"
"It can't explain my feelings, Jerry--it can't indeed. What am I to say when you tell me that you have fallen in love in five minutes."
"You loved Charity when you first set eyes on her, Tod."
"That's different!" snapped the solicitor. "She's an angel! It's only right to love an angel like winking when you spot her."
"I quite agree with you, and so I loved Mavis."
"Is this girl pretty?"
Haskins smiled to himself, as he had not yet informed Tod of the marvelous resemblance between the dancer and the recluse. "Yes, she is pretty!" he said calmly.
"Huh!" from Tod, "that doesn't sound enthusiastic."
"If you wish me to give details----"
"No! No!" Macandrew looked alarmed. "None of your beastly blank verse. I understand that you wish to consult me professionally."
"Well," replied Haskins leisurely, "I have been trying to ram that into your thick head for the last ten minutes."
"Clients," retorted Tod, with dignity, "do not call their legal advisers silly cuckoo names!" He arranged his blotting-paper, flattened out a sheet of paper, and seized a pencil. "You have my best attention."
Gerald grinned. Tod's professional airs were too absurd. All the same he knew that he could not come to a better man for advice. Also, Tod, being in love himself, was likely to be more sympathetic than a regular dry-as-dust lawyer.
"One moment, Toddy," said Haskins, taking out a silver case, "I want to light a cigarette first. Have one?"
"These," said the outraged Tod significantly, "are business hours."
"So I should think from your ridiculously serious face. Nature intended you for a chubby Bacchus without any clothes, Toddy; but circumstance has stuffed you into a stupid little office to mislead people on points of law."
"The office is capital," said Tod heatedly. "I pay a very high rent."
"You are being cheated then."
"I'll--I'll--I'll have a cigarette," ended Tod weakly. "It was too hot to argue."
Haskins had come up on the previous day, and having slept on his business had repaired to the grimy office in Chancery Lane to consult his solicitor. Mr. James Ian Robert Roy Macandrew--which was the lawyer's gorgeous name, usually shortened to Tod by his friends because of his ruddy hair--possessed two rooms, sparsely furnished. The outer room contained two lean clerks and an office boy, who labored to increase a gradually growing business, while the inner room was sacred to the master brain that was building up that same business. There was a green-painted safe, an important-looking escritoire with a sliding lid, three or four chairs, a battered bookcase containing Tod's somewhat limited library, and piles of japaned deed-boxes in iron frames. Everything looked very legal and very dry and very dusty, with the exception of Tod himself, spick and span, and far too fashionably dressed for Chancery Lane. Tod should have been strolling in the Row--and if dead-and-gone Macandrews had not squandered their money he probably would have been--beside Charity Bird, if possible. As it was, Tod, looking fresh and well fed and well groomed and alert, dwelt for many hours daily in a dull room, which his ancestors would have scorned. But Tod had been compelled to lay down the ancestral claymore and take up the pen, which was hard on Tod, who much preferred a kilt to a lawyer's wig.
However, it was useless to be dignified with Jerry Haskins, as Tod decided, so after a glance at the door to see that it was closed, he unbent. He lighted a cigarette and produced a bottle of whisky and two glasses and a syphon. Not wishing that his clerks should see him unbend to this bacchanalian extent Mr. Macandrew cast a second look at the door, and advised Gerald, in scarcely legal language, to "Fire away." "You've been playing the high-kick-oh, houp-la, since I left you," said Tod with a jolly grin.
"I've been doing nothing of the sort," cried Haskins indignantly. "This is very serious."
"Is it now?" bantered the lawyer. "Well, when a man decides to marry a girl whom he has only seen for five minutes I rather think it is infernally serious. How did she manage to hook you?"
"What a beastly low mind you have, Tod. H'm! Shut up, and hold yourself tight. I am going to startle you."
"Startle away." Tod gripped the arms of his sedate chair.
"Well then, this Mavis Durham is the living image of Charity Bird."
Macandrew stared and glared. "You're rotting, boy. There can only be one angel in the world, and----"
"There are two of this especial make," insisted Gerald, leaning back. "I say, Toddy, do be serious."
"But are you serious?"
"I am, confound you. Don't I look it?"
Macandrew stared and glared again. "There is a change in you," he admitted--"love, I suppose. It's the same with myself."
"Tod, you don't know what love is."
"Oh, don't I? Hang your beastly conceit! Well then, I just do. I love my heavenly Charity, no end. So there. But aren't you pulling my leg when you say that Charity is the image of this Mavis girl?"
"Don't call her a Mavis girl. Miss Durham to you, Tod."
"Very well then--Miss Bird to you."
Haskins sighed resignedly. "We'll never get on at this rate. I am really and truly in trouble, Macandrew. Do listen."
Tod nodded, and his face grew serious. Haskins seized the fortunate moment and detailed everything from the finding of the sealed message--which was scarcely necessary, since Tod had hooked the cylinder--to the parting with Mavis on that enchanted night. "What do you think of it, Toddy?" questioned Haskins anxiously.
"It's very rum," murmured Tod, making pencil marks on his blotting-paper. "Why does Rebb keep this girl shut up?"
"That is what I wish to learn. You must help me."
"I'm only too glad: but how?"
"Don't you remember how Mrs. Geary said that if Mavis left the Pixy's House the Major would not be able to dash about in his motor car?"
"Yes. What of that?"
"It hints at money belonging to Mavis, which the Major is using."
"Oh, I say," Tod fell back in his chair, "you go too far. I don't hold a brief for Rebb, but he wouldn't be such a blackguard as that. Besides, he has six thousand a year. I know that for a fact."
"Who told you?"
"Mrs. Berch."
"What! Mrs. Crosby's mother?"
"Yes. A grim old lady, ain't she? Rather like my grandmother. She is not very fond of Rebb, as he is not very polite to her. Still, she wants Mrs. Crosbie to marry him, because of the money. How she found out, I can't say; but she certainly stated that Rebb had the income I mentioned."
"But I thought that both Mrs. Berch and her daughter were well off?"
"They assume to be," answered Tod, with a shrug and a wink--"that is, they have a slap-up flat, and go everywhere, and Mrs. Crosbie wears expensive frocks, although the old woman looks like a rag-shop at times."
"That may not be lack of money, but indifference to dress."
"Humph! As if any woman, old or young, could be indifferent to frocks. Anyhow Mrs. Crosbie is supposed to be a wealthy widow in the market; but if she wants to marry Major Rebb, who is not a nice man, and if Mrs. Berch wants to be Rebb's mother-in-law, it strikes me that the two may not be so rich as they pretend."
"Well! well! well!" cried Gerald impatiently, "we are wandering from the subject. Rebb, you say, has six thousand a year?"
"On the authority of Mrs. Crosbie's mother--yes."
"Well then, Tod, I want you to know how Rebb comes to be possessed of that six thousand a year. Can you find out?"
"Well, no. You might ask the Income Tax people."
"I can't help thinking," said Haskins, staring at the dusty carpet, "that the money belongs to Mavis."
"If you think that on the few words let slip by Mrs. Geary," said Tod scornfully, "you haven't got a leg to stand on."
"I go by my intuitions also, Toddy. They rarely deceive me. Witness my distrust of Geary. I was right in thinking that he had to do with Rebb and the Pixy's House."
Macandrew nodded. "Yes. You were right so far, but you assume too much in accusing Major Rebb of taking Miss Durham's money."
"It is only a guess," said Gerald impatiently. "I may be wrong of course, Tod. Still, you must see that there is something queer in Rebb keeping Mavis shut up, and in putting about this rumor of her being affected with a homicidal mania."
"You are sure that isn't true?" ventured Macandrew cautiously.
Haskins grew wrathful. "Good heavens, Toddy, do you take me for an ass, you silly blighter! I tell you the girl is as sane as I am, and a deal more sane than you are.
"Then why does Rebb shut her up?"
"I want to find that out, I tell you," snapped the other savagely.
Tod reflected. "Perhaps this girl is Rebb's daughter," he guessed.
Haskins started, as well he might. "I can't believe that," he declared violently. "She hasn't a drop of Rebb's blood in her body. And even if she were his daughter," he went on in a contradictory fashion, "that is no reason that he should shut her in that gaol, and set a beastly nigger to keep his eye on her."
"N----o," drawled Macandrew, his eye on the blotting-paper, "you say that this girl is like Charity?"
"The very image of her. That is partly why I fell in love so rapidly, Tod. Before you came along I did love Charity in a way; admired her beauty and all that. But somehow she never made my heart beat. Now Mavis is just as lovely as Charity, and more so."
"No! no! no!" growled Tod, striking the desk.
"Yes! yes! yes!" insisted Haskins, "besides, there is something in her personality which Charity lacks. I feel my heart beat and my pulses thrill and my whole being raised to heaven when Mavis looks at me."
"So do I when I look at Charity," retorted the lawyer, "but for heaven's sake, Jerry, don't let us pit the girls against one another. Mavis suits you and Charity suits me: there's no more to be said."
"Save that the girls might be twins."
"I never heard that Charity had a twin."
"Nor did I. But then we don't know Charity's history."
"I do, in part," said Tod quickly. "When Mrs. Pelham Odin was traveling with her own comedy company in India, fifteen or sixteen years ago, she found Charity at Calcutta. The child was then five years of age, and belonged to a native woman of the juggler caste."
"Native? Do you mean to say that Charity has nigger blood?"
"No," snapped Tod sharply, "I don't. You have only to look at her to see that she is purely European. The native woman confessed to Mrs. Pelham Odin that she had picked up the child from an ayah at Simla for a few rupees. The ayah had perhaps stolen the child from some English people, or perhaps the mother was dead. At any rate the native woman bought the child, and taught her to dance in the show she and her husband went round with. Mrs. Pelham Odin took a fancy to the child's beauty, and bought her from this native woman, and adopted her as her daughter in a way. She called her Charity because of the way in which she was found, and Bird because of her silvery voice."
"Ha!" Gerald started, "another point of resemblance. Mavis has a voice like a nightingale. Tod, I must learn Mavis's past life; these two girls must be connected in some way; the resemblance is too wonderful."
"There are chance likenesses," hinted Tod slowly.
"I daresay, but Nature doesn't turn out two girls line for line the same unless she sends them into the world as twins. Mavis was brought to the Pixy's House when she was five years of age, but she doesn't remember where she lived before that. She is twenty-one in ten months."
"By Jupiter!" Tod hoisted himself up with a curious look, "that's odd, for Charity told me that she would be twenty-one next year, and then could run away with me. Perhaps there is something in what you say, Jerry, after all. What's to be done?"
Haskins pinched his chin. "Let us leave the question of the resemblance alone for the moment, Tod. What I want you to do is to go to Somerset House and look up the wills."
"The wills? Whose will. What will?"
"Look up any will made by anyone called Durham. Go back fifteen or twenty years. Of course," said Gerald apologetically, "it is only my fancy based upon the few words let drop by Mrs. Geary, but I feel somehow--in my bones, as the old women say--that Mavis is being kept a prisoner on account of money."
Tod fidgeted. "It's such a wild idea," he protested.
"Wild or not, it is six and eightpence in your greedy, legal pocket."
"Rebb might not like my prying into his private affairs."
"I don't see that Rebb need know anything about it," said Gerald impatiently. "In fact, I want to keep my doings dark in the Rebb direction, for if there is anything in my belief the Major will do his best to queer my pitch. If you look up the will of a man or of a woman called Durham, Rebb cannot say anything, as neither you nor I are supposed to know anything about the Pixy's House business. Well?"
Tod nodded, and made a note. "I'll search," he assented. "Any will by someone called Durham, man or woman, and dated some fifteen or twenty years ago. Suppose I find nothing?"
"And suppose you do," retorted his friend, rising; "we are searching for a needle in a haystack, remember, Toddy, and must poke about in every direction. We'll look into the money business first, and then we can question Mrs. Pelham Odin and Bellaria as to the possibility of there being any relationship between these two girls."
"See here," remarked Macandrew slowly, "all this talk is first rate if you were writing a story and knew the end. But it seems to me that, as we have to deal with real life, you are making circumstances to fit in with your theories."
"Perhaps I am," replied Haskins, with a shrug, "but I am so much in love with Mavis that I shall move heaven and earth to get her."
"Why not be bold and ask Rebb straight out? Then he could tell you the story of the girl's birth, and perhaps may explain why she is so like Charity. If Rebb dislikes this Mavis so much that he shuts her up he won't mind your taking her off his hands."
"Oh, yes, he will, if money goes with her," said Gerald grimly. "I don't want to make Rebb think that I am in love. The whole business is shady."
"Do you mean your love-making?" asked Tod slyly.
"No, you rotter. My love-making is as straight as Rebb's ways are crooked. Do what I say, and when we learn if there is a will----"
"Well?"
"We'll know how to move next. Meanwhile I intend to tell the story that I have told you to Mrs. Crosbie."
"But, I say, she'll go straight and tell Rebb."
"No," said Haskins decisively. "I have known Mrs. Crosbie for years, and she is as honest and good a little woman as ever lived. Mrs. Berch is also a ripping sort, if somewhat funereal. If Major Rebb is a villain--and I really believe that he is--I don't want Mrs. Crosbie's life to be made miserable by marrying him--or Mrs. Berch's either: you know how she adores her daughter."
"All the same, Mrs. Crosbie may tell Rebb," insisted Tod Macandrew.
"I don't think so. I shall enlist her sympathies on my behalf. Every woman loves a love affair. Then my story will put her on her guard against Major Rebb, and she'll probably contrive to find out the truth of the business without his knowing. Good-day, Toddy boy."
Haskins shot out of the office rapidly, but Macandrew sat soberly at the desk shaking his red poll. It appeared to him that Gerald was about to climb the Hill Difficulty, and might not reach the top.