"You mean you don't want to threaten him or hold your knowledge of what he did over us?"
He looked at her gloomily. To think that this was the impression she had of him hurt.
"So that's what you think of me," he said slowly.
"Indeed it isn't," she answered quickly. "I didn't think it in the beginning and I don't want to do so now, but what was one to think?"
"It was your brother's behaviour that puzzled me," he said, "and still puzzles me. Don't you see I only want to be sure that he won't use what I told him?"
Lady Daphne looked at him curiously. Here was a man whose manners were perfect, who seemed tohave the same sports and occupation of the kind of men she knew hinting that he had done things of whose consequence he was afraid. She supposed there were many temptations into which a man might fall, lapses of which he might repent and still go in fear of discovery.
"I don't wonder you were bewildered," she said presently, "and I understand far better than you how it was. Mr. Trent you need never be afraid that the man who was Private Smith will ever say a word to any living souls of what you said to him."
"How can I be certain?" he demanded. "You don't know the rewards that a man might gain for speaking the truth about me."
"Private William Smith and my brother Arthur are two different people."
He looked at her in astonishment. Was the weary chase, the long uncertainty to begin again? There was never a doubt in his mind but that what she told him was true even if it was hard to be believed.
"Then where is Private Smith?" he asked. "Where is the man who knows the real me?"
"At the castle," she said.
He made a gesture of despair.
"It is incomprehensible."
"I am going to tell you about them—about the two utterly different men." She said nothing for a full minute. Then she went to the door and called Mrs. Bassett into the room. "Please tell Mr. Castoon I shall have to keep him waiting rather longer than I thought."
"Certainly, my Lady," Mrs. Bassett said. Later she told her husband that Mr. Castoon looked very black at the news. "He's not the kind to like being kept waiting," she explained.
"Princes of the Blood ought to be glad to wait for Lady Daphne," the tenant farmer cried.
"You learned somehow that Arthur was expelled from Harrow. It is true. He managed to get into Trinity but lasted only a term. Then came Sandhurst and a commission finally and black disgrace. Mr. Rudolph Castoon who is a friend of my eldest brother took pity on him and made him one of his secretaries—he's in Parliament you know—but even he couldn't do anything. Then a little while in Australia and failure there. The last thing he did was to enlist just before the war broke out. Colonel Langley was given the command of a London regiment and found Arthur under the name you knew."
"But you said he wasn't Private Smith," Trent broke in eagerly.
"You will see later what I mean. How did you meet him?"
Trent explained in a few words. But what confessions or boasts he had been betrayed into making he said nothing about.
"My brother was expelled from Harrow when he was eighteen. Until he was seventeen he was one of the sweetest natured boys you could imagine. He was full of fun and mischief but all his tutors loved him and there wasn't a particle of vice in him. Suddenly he seemed possessed of devils. He drank, hegambled—and cheated—he was insolent to his teachers. It broke my mother's heart. It helped to make my father the silent broken man he is today. It was the same when he went up to Trinity and the same when he was at Sandhurst...." There was a long pause. Trent could see she was struggling against tears. There welled up in him an almost divine pity. He wanted to soothe her, comfort her and let her cry on his shoulder.
It was in this moment that Anthony Trent knew he loved her and would always love her. Those passing affections of adolescence were pale, wan emotions compared with this. And it was an hour of grief to him. He realized that his ways of life had cut him off irremediably from marriage with such a woman as this.
"What happened," she said at last, "when you came to after being blown from that dug-out?"
"I was badly hurt," he answered, wonderingly, "those high explosives play the strangest tricks with one."
"This is what happened to my brother. He was unconscious for a very long time and his head was fearfully mangled. When he came out of ether he said very distinctly. 'Oh Bingo, how rottenly clumsy of you.'"
"Who was Bingo?" Trent asked.
"At the time nobody knew. Arthur's uniform was torn off in the explosion and his regiment unknown."
"He could have told them," Trent asserted.
She shook her head.
"You are mistaken. He could not tell them. They thought he was, what's the word, malingering. They thought he wanted to be sent back and get out of the fighting. Then he complained of the dreadful noise. By degrees they found that he did not even know of the war. They thought of course he was pretending. My father heard of the wound and although he had disowned him he had him brought to our house in Grosvenor Place. We had specialists, those new sorts of doctors who don't depend on medicines. Arthur thought he was still at Harrow eight years or more ago. Then I remembered a boy who shared a study with him there, a boy who had stayed here, a son of Sir Willoughby Hosken who has a place near Penzance. Bingo was somewhere in the Struma valley with his battery and in answer to a letter said that the only act of clumsiness he could call to mind was when he accidentally hit Arthur with an Indian club in the gym at school.
"One of the doctors went over to Harrow and found Arthur had been hit like this and was in the infirmary for three days. Mr. Trent, it was after that accident he altered entirely."
"I've heard of such cases," Trent said quickly. "Pressure of some sort on the brain they call it. There was quite an epidemic of such incidents in America a few years ago. It was supposed to be a cure for bad boys. Then you think—"
"I know," she said emphatically. "He is now exactly as he was when he was a boy, gentle, thoughtful and clean. Our specialists saw the army surgeonsand they supposed that in dressing his dreadful wounds they removed the portions of depressed bone and so made this extraordinary cure. They say the war has proved this sort of thing again and again."
The news which spelled salvation to Anthony Trent seemed too tremendous to believe. There was no miracle about it. It was a simple fact demonstrated by surgery and accepted now by the laity. The years in which Arthur Grenvil had sown wild oats and disrupted friendships and relationships was wiped from his consciousness. Trent now understood the half diffident, almost shy manner so inexplicable in a man of the type William Smith had been.
"My father thinks," the girl went on, "that as he will have to find out some of the things he did it will be as well to prepare him for it and shield him against consequences."
"Consequences?" he hazarded.
"I'm afraid," she said gravely, "that it will not be easy. His creditors for example have learned that my father has forgiven him and they are coming down on him. Fortunately my father can afford to pay but there is always the dread of some adventurer turning up and letting us into some dreadful secrets."
"Men like me," he asked.
"You know I didn't mean that," she said. "I think it most wonderful that you are here, because you will be able to tell him something about thegood part of his life you know. He is always hoping that his memory will come back but the doctors say it won't." She hesitated a little. "Poor Arthur is very much depressed at times. Could you try and remember as much about him as possible?"
"Surely," said Anthony Trent. "As it happens I met a man out there who knew him well and said he was a good soldier."
"I wish my father could know that," she said. "I'm going to ask you to luncheon tomorrow and to meet a man whose life Arthur saved would cheer him enormously. We shall be alone." She frowned. "I'd forgotten Mr. Castoon who is probably furious at being kept waiting. I promised him I'd be back in two cigarettes time. I was going to drive in to Camelford but I don't think I will. I feel almost that I want to cry." She held out her hand impulsively. "Forgive me for what I thought about you and come to luncheon at one tomorrow."
"You don't know how I'd like to," he said wistfully, "but you have forgotten about my past; and I had no such excuse as your brother."
"You are exaggerating it," she said more brightly. "Anyhow it's all over."
Exaggerating! And even were it all over, which he doubted, a blacker past remained than ever she dreamed of.
"I don't want Mr. Castoon to see that I've got tears in my eyes. Please tell him to wait a little longer while I talk to Mrs. Bassett.Au revoir."
Anthony Trent watched her go and then sighed.And he told himself that had he met her ten years before he would have had the strength to win a fortune honestly and not take the lower road.
He went outside to where Rudolph Castoon was sitting in the phaeton. The two horses were champing at their bits, a little groom at their heads trying to soothe their high tempers. He approached the financier with no personal feeling of any sort. In the beginning he expected to admire the man as he did all such forceful characters. He often suspected there was more kinship between him and the ruthless financier type that Castoon represented than the world comprehended.
Rudolph Castoon looked at him sourly.
"Well?" he snapped.
Anthony Trent looked at him and knew instantly that he would always share the hate he saw in the capitalist's face. For a moment he was at a loss to understand the reason. Then he saw that it was jealousy, furious, dynamic jealousy. Lady Daphne had come to see Mrs. Bassett. Instead Castoon found she had come to see a younger and better looking man. Trent did not fall into the error of underrating Castoon. In the event of a contest of any kind between them he would walk warily. But he never expected to see the man again and his peremptory way of speaking angered him.
"Well?" Castoon demanded again.
"Thank you," said Trent urbanely, "I find the air of these moorlands of great benefit to me. Formerly I slept poorly but now I sleep as soon as my headtouches the pillow. And my appetite is better. I eat three eggs for breakfast every morning. Do you sleep well?"
"I did not come here to sleep," Castoon frowned.
"But if you are here for long you must," Trent said pleasantly.
"I am not in the least interested in your health or how many eggs you can eat for breakfast." Castoon's manner was frankly rude. "I want to know where Lady Daphne Grenvil is."
"She said she had forgotten you," Trent answered, "she also said you would probably be furious at being kept waiting."
"I am," Castoon asserted. "Would it be too much to ask the reason?"
"I expected you to," Trent said affably. The time he took to select a cigarette from his case and the meticulous manner in which he lighted it added to the other man's ill temper just as Anthony Trent intended it should.
"If you are quite finished, sir," Castoon cried, "I should be glad to hear."
"As an American," Trent began airily, "I like the old family servant tradition. Lady Daphne is talking over her childhood days with Mrs. Bassett. My mother was from the Southern states and I suppose I inherit a liking for that sort of thing."
"Will you come to the point, sir?" Castoon exclaimed.
"I thought I told you that Lady Daphne was talking over nursery reminisences with an old servant."
"She may be doing that now, but what was she doing before? I'll tell you; she was talking to you. Do you deny it?"
"My dear man," Trent cried in apparent surprise, "Deny it? I boast about it! It is the only thing I hope will be printed in my obituary notices."
"I'm not sure I should be desolated at reading your obituary notices," Castoon said keeping his temper back. He could say no more for Lady Daphne came hurrying along the hydrangea-bordered path to the gate.
"I'm dreadfully sorry, Mr. Castoon," she cried.
"I can forget everything now that you are here," he returned gallantly, "even the humour of this young man whose name I don't know."
"Mr. Anthony Trent of New York," she told him. "You'll meet him at luncheon tomorrow."
"That will make it a very pleasant function," the financier said grimly. He could say no more because the horses reared impatiently and for a moment there was danger.
"That off horse nearly came over backward," Castoon said when the team had settled down a little and the farm was a half mile behind.
"But it didn't," Lady Daphne said calmly, "so why worry?"
"It would have been his fault," Castoon said venomously.
"You don't seem to like him," she said smiling.
"I hate any man who looks at you as he does."
"How does he look?" she asked with an air of innocence.
"He looks at you as if he was in love with you, and I hate any man to do that."
"You have no right to resent it Mr. Castoon," she said coldly. "I have told you a hundred times that you concern yourself far too much with my affairs."
"I'm going to marry you," he said doggedly. "I never fail. Look at my life history and see where I have been beaten. I know you don't care for me yet. You'll have to later."
"My father doesn't care for you either."
Rudolph Castoon sniffed impatiently.
"His type is dying out. He still remains ignorant that money has displaced birth."
"It's the one thing money won't buy, though," she reminded him.
"Birth can't buy power," the financier said quickly, "and money means power. Your father has had both. It would have been easier for me to marry Daphne, daughter of the Earl of Rosecarrel, Viscount St. Just, Baron Wadebridge, Knight of the Garter, and Ambassador to Turkey, and all the rest of it, than it will be to marry you now your father has abandoned his career."
"That sounds merely silly to me," she exclaimed.
"Someday I will explain to you how very sensible it is. You will understand exactly."
"Do you mean you are so inordinately vain you would rather marry an ambassador's daughter than the daughter of a man who isn't a power politically any more?"
"At least I can say I don't mean that. I am vain,that's true, but I wish you were one of the daughters of a tenant farmer on these purple moors instead of being an earl's daughter." He sighed a little. Then the recollection of Anthony Trent came back. "Who is this man Trent?" he demanded.
"A delightful man," she said, "an American who knows how to behave. I met him at a houseparty somewhere or other. He used to know Arthur."
Castoon could not keep back a sneer.
"That vouches for him of course."
"At least he wouldn't say anything as underbred as that," she cried angrily, and touched one of her high-mettled chestnuts with a lash. Castoon hung on to the seat as the pair tried to get away.
"You'll kill yourself some day driving such horses as these," he said later. He was not a coward; but unnecessary risk always seemed a childish thing to create and he believed himself heir to a great destiny.
If Anthony Trent thought he was to be the guest at a small luncheon party where he could meet Arthur under friendlier circumstances and talk to Daphne intimately, he was mistaken.
Castoon was staying at the castle and a number of people motored over from Falmouth as well as the owner of a big yacht lying for the time in the Fowey river.
Lord Rosecarrel was very amiable. He seemed intensely grateful that Trent gave up a morning's shooting to attend a luncheon. There was no trace of suspicion about him. He had been told that Mr. Trent, an American of means, had been a guest at Dereham Old Hall. His daughter had not informed him of Alicia Langley's letter.
But he was most interested to know that his son had saved the visitor's life. It was the one good act in the black years which had given him so much sorrow.
Also Daphne had told him that Arthur liked Trent and would be a good companion. The physicians who were watching Arthur's case recommended that he should be kept interested. They desired that theapathy which threatened to take hold on him should be banished. The Earl was growing more and more to leave things to the girl. The death of his two sons had been a terrible blow and he was beginning to find in solitary yachting and fishing trips a certain refreshing solace.
From the deference that most of the people paid to Rudolph Castoon it was evident that he was a man of great influence and promise.
Trent sat next to a rather pretty dark girl, a Miss Barham, who had come over from her father's yacht.
"Everybody seems to hang on his words," he said. "Why?"
"He's phenomenally rich," she answered, "and he has a career. He'll probably be Chancellor of the Exchequer in the next cabinet. Finance is bred in the bone of his sort. Hasn't he a brother in your country?"
"A great power in Wall Street," Trent told her, "but we suspect a capitalist; and while Rudolph may get a title and much honor, Alfred in America couldn't get a job as dog catcher."
"Of course you've seen he's simply mad about Daphne?" Miss Barham said later.
"I've seen his side of it," Trent said frowning a little, "but what about Lady Daphne?"
"Power is always attractive," Miss Barham said wisely, "and we English women love politics. One can never tell. I think the earl would be furious but Daphne always gets her way and after all Mr. Castoon is a great catch whichever way you look at it.There's nothing financially shady about him and if Daphne should ever get bitten with the idea of making asalon, he's the man to marry."
"What a brutal way to look at it," he said gloomily.
"Are you young enough to believe in those delightful love matches, Mr. Trent?" the girl asked. "I did till I was almost fifteen."
Anthony Trent should have been amused to find himself on the side of the angels. As a rule life had provoked cynicism in him and here he was fighting for ideals.
"I talked like that until I was fifteen," he smiled, "and I meant it."
Ada Barham turned her dark brilliant eyes on him. She rather envied the girl who had captured him. She felt it was a lover talking.
"Of course you are in love," she retorted. "I always meet the really nice men too late. Dare you confess it?"
"I admit it," he said a little confused.
"American girls are very charming," Miss Barham declared. "I stayed at Newport a month last year. Of course you know Newport?"
"Fairly well," he admitted.
Oddly enough the recollection of his Newport triumphs was not as pleasing as usual. He had made some of his richest hauls in the Rhode Island city.
What an amazing thing, he reflected, that he was here as a guests among people on whom, as a class, hehad looked as his lawful prey. Castoon with his millions was the sort of man he would like to measure his wit against. When Castoon looked across the table at him with a kind of innocent stare he decided that it would be a delightful duel.
He knew English women wore little jewelry during the day so he could not estimate the value of what they owned at a luncheon, but he was certain Miss Barham's mother, who was addressed as Lady Harriet, had family jewels worth the risk of seeking to get. A woman whose husband owned a two-hundred feet steam yacht was distinctly among those whom in former days he had been professionally eager to meet.
Before the luncheon Lady Daphne had explained that her brother would not be at the table. The family was anxious that he should not be subjected to the confusion of professing ignorance of some man or event which he ought to know. By degrees he was getting his bearings and reading through files of old newspapers the main events of the years that had been wiped from his mind.
Anthony Trent was taken to the big room by a footman, the same room he had entered unannounced.
"You must have thought me awfully rude," Arthur Grenvil said cordially, "but my sister had told you the reason. She says I used to know you." Grenvil looked at him wistfully, "I think she said I had saved your life."
"You did," Trent answered promptly. And then,because he was sorry for the ex-"Tommy" but more because he loved the other's sister, he plunged into a stirring account of the incident omitting the part of the exchange of confidences.
"Apparently," said Grenvil, "it was the only decent thing I did during those dreadful forgotten years. If you knew the agony of not knowing what I did and dreading every day to learn something more of my career you'd pity me. I couldn't meet Castoon. They say I was a sort of secretary to him for six months and he had to send me away. All I remember of him is that he was my father's private secretary when I was a small boy of ten and my father ambassador at Constantinople. I'm afraid to see any of the people who come here."
"That will pass," Trent said reassuringly, "you'll get a grip on yourself as your health improves."
"That's what Daphne says," Arthur answered, "Isn't she splendid?"
"Indeed she is," Trent said not daring to put the fervor in his voice that he felt. There was almost an uncanny feeling in talking with this new Arthur Grenvil. As a judge of men, and as a man who had met a great number of criminals and could estimate them accurately, Trent had known even in the darkness of the dug-out that Private William Smith was bad.
Despite the absence of coarseness from the speech of the unseen man Trent had felt that he was evil and dangerous, a man to watch carefully. And this same man stripped of his mantle of black deeds wasnow sitting talking to him with the deferential air of the junior listening with respect to his superior in years and his superior in knowledge.
What arôlefor Anthony Trent, master criminal! But he played it as well as any of the parts he had set himself to enact. He became the elder brother, the sage counsellor, the arbiter, the physical trainer and the constant companion. In the beginning he cheerfully set out to play the part in order to win Daphne's approval. Later he really liked Arthur. He taught him to drive the high powered Lion car that was seldom used by the earl's chauffeurs and discovered in him an aptitude for mechanics which delighted his father.
"You have done more for my son than I imagined could be done by anyone," Lord Rosecarrel said gratefully.
"I owe him no small debt," Anthony Trent retorted, "and it's a very pleasant way of trying to pay it."
It was not often that he saw the earl. Occasionally they played a game of billiards after dinner but the elder man was constantly occupied with reading when he was not aboard his boat. Since he had come to Cornwall, Trent had discovered what an important personage Lord Rosecarrel had been in the political life of his country until his sudden resignation a year before the war. Every now and then Trent would see regret expressed in a London paper or weekly review that he would not place his vast knowledge of the near East at his country's disposal.
There was still considerable trouble centering about the Balkans; and since the earl had been minister or ambassador at Belgrade, Bucharest and Constantinople he knew the country as few could hope to do without his experience.
The prime minister himself, snatching a few days of golf at Newquay, motored over to the castle to lunch and asked his host personally to come from his retirement. It happened that Trent was lunching at the castle and heard the earl's decision not to leave private life. There was an incident in connection with this which made a curious impression on the American.
When he had declined to represent his country finally, Lord Rosecarrel looked over the table at his son who was talking gaily and did not observe the glance. It was a look almost of hate that the earl flashed at him. Then it passed and was succeeded by the melancholy which the old aristocrat's face habitually wore. Trent was certain none had seen but he and he had never seen an evidence of it before.
He reflected that Arthur was never wholly at ease in his father's company. Again and again he had caught a certain shamed look when the earl was speaking. Of course it was the knowledge of how in the forgotten years he had disgraced an honored name. That was understandable. But why should the father who knew all and had forgiven suddenly throw this look of hate over the table at the unconscious son?
"Arthur," said Trent one day to Lady Daphne, "looks as if he were still begging forgiveness. Why?"
"It must be fancy on your part," she said and changed the subject instantly.
He supposed it was some other skeleton, from that full closet, whose rattling bones had not been buried yet. There was something which still rankled in the earl's memory. He knew he would never find its origin from Daphne.
His intimacy with the Grenvils began to alarm him. It was a fellowship which must sooner or later come to an end. He was utterly without vanity when it came to his relationship with Lady Daphne; but his love for her gave him such an insight and sympathy with her that he could not but be conscious that of late a softer mood had come to her when they were alone together.
He knew that she looked for his presence where before she had been indifferent. Sometimes when they touched hands at parting there was the faint, lingering hold which said more than looks or spoken words. It distressed him to hear that she had defended him valiantly when the wife of a nearby landowner had referred to him as an American adventurer and fortune hunter. Daphne had sprung to his rescue in a flash. Half the country gossiped about it. It was very loyal of her, he felt, but also very unwise.
The earl had heard of it and was displeased. But he trusted his daughter and Trent was working amazing changes with Arthur. It was only whenthe prime minister spoke of the American that Lord Rosecarrel knew he must not ignore the thing any longer.
"And who is the good looking lad upon whose words your daughter hangs?"
"A delightful fellow," the earl said, "I don't know what Arthur would have done without him. He is reconstructing the poor boy."
And indeed the earl was fond of the stranger. But his daughter must marry into her own station in life. His other girl's home was in France and he wanted Daphne to remain in England. It occurred to him as very strange that he had made so few inquiries into Trent's antecedents. He supposed it was the man's personal charm and the fact that he was himself not in good health that had allowed him to be careless. One day at a dinner that came in the week after the prime minister's visit, a dinner to which Trent alone was bidden, he said:
"We shall miss you very much when you have to go, Mr. Trent, but I suppose your affairs in America call you imperatively."
Anthony Trent made no answer for the moment. It was as though sentence of death had been passed upon him. He could only admit that this was the logical if long-delayed end to the pleasantest days of his life. He had brought it on himself by his own weakness. For all his strength he was in some ways deplorably weak. He had been weak to leave the ways of honest men. Primarily he had none of those grudges against organized society which drive somemen to crime. He had fallen because he was tired of narrow ways of life and a toil which offered few high rewards.
And, more than all, he had been weak in that he had encouraged an intimacy with a family of this type. The Lady Daphne was not for him. He called to mind a phrase that Miss Barham had said about Castoon at this very table. She had said there was nothing financially shady about him which might prevent marriage between him and Daphne. No matter how much Anthony Trent sought to deceive himself about his way of crime and comfort himself with the reflection he never despoiled the poor or worthy but inevitably set himself against the rich and undeserving, he knew he stood condemned in the eyes of decent men and women. He was aware that Daphne and Arthur were listening for his answer. Daphne's face was white.
"I shall miss you all, sir," he said, "more than I can say."
"You are not really going?" Arthur cried.
"I must," he said. "My affairs at home need looking after and I have lingered on here forgetting everything."
Lady Daphne said nothing. He did not dare to look at her. He knew she was thinking that but for her father's mention of his leaving she might not have known until he chose to tell; and he had told another first.
Because he was grateful that Trent had been quick to take the hint the Earl of Rosecarrel was particularlygracious to his guest and proposed a game of billiards.
It was while the old nobleman was making a break that Daphne dropped into a chair at Trent's side.
"Are you really going?" she asked.
"I ought never to have stayed so long," he answered.
"Do you want to go?"
"You know I don't," he said passionately.
"And is your business so important?"
"Wait," he said rising to his feet when his opponent had finished a break of fifty-three. "It's my turn."
"I have never," said the earl, chalking his cue, "seen you miss that particular shot before."
Anthony Trent came to the girl's side.
"We can't talk here," he whispered. "The hounds meet at Michaelstowe tomorrow and draw the Trenewth covers. Will you be out?"
"Yes," she said, "but what chance shall we have to talk there?"
"We can lose the field," he said, "and ride back over the moors alone."
Arthur Grenvil had taken the mastership of the North Cornwall Foxhounds and persuaded Trent to follow them. The American had added a couple of better-bred faster horses to his hack and now enjoyed the gallop after a fox as much as any hardened foxhunter of them all.
A fox was discovered almost immediately whenthe Trenewth covers were drawn and got well away making in a westerly direction for the Wadebridge road. Daphne and Trent made a pretense of following but soon drew apart from the rest. The music of hounds became fainter and they turned back to the moors.
"You might have told me," she said reproachfully.
"I didn't know," he answered, "I only realized when your father spoke that it was more or less a command."
"My father may be the lord-lieutenant of the county," she said, "but he has no power to send a man away if the man doesn't want to go."
"Can you think I want to go?" he demanded.
"I only know you are not going to stay."
She touched her horse lightly on the shoulder and put him to a canter. Trent saw that she was heading for Rough Tor, one of the two mountains guarding the moorlands. Once or twice they had ridden to its rocky top and looked at the hamlets through whose chimneys the peat smoke rose, and those strange hut circles of a prehistoric people. The path along which she went was too narrow to permit him to ride by her side and he was forced to ride in silence for almost an hour.
When she dismounted at Rough Tor and he tethered the horses to a short wind shorn tree he could see she was not the same cheerful girl of yesterday.
"Why did you stay here so long?" she asked presently.
"Because I love you," he answered.
"Why do you go away?"
"Because I love you better than I knew."
She looked at him with a faint smile.
"That is very hard to understand, Tony."
It was the first time she had ever called him by the name her brother used. He took one of her gauntleted hands and kissed it.
"My dear," he said tenderly, "it is crucifixion for me."
She looked at him still with the little wistful smile on her face.
"And are you the only one to suffer?"
The knowledge that she cared as much as he did brought a look of misery to his face where only triumph should have reigned.
"Ada Barham told me about the girl in America," she continued. "Of course I imagined there would be a girl somewhere whom you cared for but I think you might have confided in me. Weren't we good friends enough for that?"
"There is no girl anywhere," he said. "I told Miss Barham that because I didn't want her to suspect it was you."
"Then why must you go away?" There was almost a wail in her voice.
"I have told you," he answered, trying desperately to keep his voice even, "I must go because I love you better than anything else in life."
She laughed a little bitterly.
"And so that is how men behave when they are in love!"
"When a man really loves a girl he should think first of her happiness."
She looked at him simply. There was none of the false shame that lesser natures might feel in avowing love.
"Don't you understand," she said in a low voice, "that you are my happiness?"
For a moment the devil tempted him even as the Son of Man had been tempted upon a mountain top. Why should he think of the future when today was so sweet? In the big Lion car in the castle garage he could make Southampton in time enough for the White Star liner which went out tomorrow. They could be married on board or at any rate directly they reached America. Then with the money he had saved they could be happy. She was the woman he wanted, the woman he worshipped.
Then the other side of the picture presented itself. He saw them married on board and radiantly happy as they approached the land that was to be her home. Then the hard-faced men who showed official badges and informed him he was wanted for a series of crimes which would keep him away from wife and home and liberty until she was an old woman. One ending to the trip was just as likely as the other. Situated as he was he could never be certain of safety. This period in quiet Cornwall was the first time since he had taken to crime that he had become almost careless. He would break Daphne's heart for she was of the kind who would never love another man. And the disgrace he wouldbring upon this kindly family of hers which had suffered enough already. The screeching headlines in the press of the earl's daughter who married a crook. It was not to be thought of.
"Dear," he said softly, "if there were any obstacles which could be removed by human effort I should not say goodbye like this. Please don't ask me to tell you anything more."
"You said at Dereham that you felt you could sell your soul for a past. Is that it?"
"That is the irrevocable thing," he told her.
"Pasts can be lived down," she whispered.
"Not mine," he said dismally. "Daphne I have not been here all this time without knowing you and the sort of people from whom you spring. It is because of your tradition of honor that you felt Arthur's misfortunes so much. I can bring upon you and yours a greater disgrace than he could."
"I won't believe it," she cried.
"I don't want you to," he said gratefully. "I remember the thing said about your family, 'the Grenvils for Loyalty' and I love you for it, but Lady Polruan was right when she called me an unknown adventurer from America. The other countrymen of mine you meet here, like Conington Warren for instance, have their place at home. I haven't. I am without the pale. They don't know me and I can't know them. There is that great gulf fixed which you can never understand. I want to go away leaving you still my friend. If you ask me questions about myself and I answer them truly Imay have to carry away with me the picture of your scorn. Be kind, Daphne and don't ask any more."
"I should never scorn you," she cried.
He put his arms about her and kissed her.
"My dear," he whispered, "my sweet, believe always that there is something God himself could not alter or I would never give you up like this."
"It is very hard," she said presently, "to have found love and then to know it must only be a little dream that passes."
"It is my just punishment," he answered.
"When do you go?"
"Tomorrow."
She put her arms about his neck and looked him full in the eyes.
"Darling," she said, "I shall never love anybody but you. Girls always say that, I know, but I have always been a little afraid of love and its exactions and the sorrow it brings. You see I was right in being afraid for directly I find you I must lose you." She leaned forward, one elbow on her knee, and looked at the countryside spread out at her feet. "I shall probably live here to be an old woman and look after other old women and see they have tea and warm wraps for the bad weather, and give the old men tobacco. That's all I look forward to. Tony, Tony, why is it one can't die on the day when one is killed?"
He sat in silence. Bitterly as he regretted his past which had risen to prevent happiness, he regrettedhis staying here in Cornwall even more. If he alone had suffered it were well enough, part indeed of the punishment he merited. But to have dragged this girl into it and to have made her love a man who could never marry her was the blackest of all. Perhaps she suspected it for she turned to him and put her hand on his.
"Poor Tony," she said caressingly, "it's no good blaming yourself. It had to be. I think I've always loved you. Before it is too late and you are gone away, are you sure this thing that stands between us cannot be banished or atoned or paid for in money? You know I have a large fortune of my own and it is all yours if you need it. Don't let any little thing stand between us. Where one loves wholly one can forgive all. I shall not ask you again; but, my dear, if any human agency can give you to me let me know."
Anthony Trent thought of the view he once had of a great penitentiary in which a man he used to know was serving a life sentence. The prison was set among arid country in sandy plains. Along the top of the stone walls sentries were placed at intervals, men with sawed-off shot guns waiting the opportunity to kill such as sought to escape the dreary days and dreadful nights. His friend made the desperate attempt and died as warders crowded about him and congratulated the guard on his markmanship. It was this place which might at any moment receive the person of Anthony Trent.
He could not think of the law as a human agency.That was one of the differences between the Anthony Trent, writer and Anthony Trent, crook. The writer regarded the law and its officers with a certain meed of respect but the criminal hated them.
"There is nothing that can help me," he said.
There was silence for a little; then she rose to her feet and pointed out scarlet coated men in the distance and galloping horses. Arthur's hounds had lost their fox in Tregenna woods and had found another stout dog fox headed for his earth on the moors.
"We can follow after all," she said, with an attempt to be cheerful.
They kissed silently and then remounted the impatient hunters. By devious ways they joined the field again. The moorland was a dangerous country to ride. Great stone walls divided small fields and there were sunken roads and paths by which, thousands of years before, the Phœnicians had taken their way.
It was observed with what recklessness the American rode.
"He'll break his neck if he isn't careful," said a rosy faced old "hunting parson," as Trent set his horse at a great granite barrier.
He was not to know that Anthony Trent would have welcomed just such an end.
Lord Rosecarrel who was out with the hounds that day was riding ahead of his daughter when she and her escort joined the field. He was a finely built man and looked exceedingly well in hunting costume. He wore a closely trimmed beard, now almost white, and seemed, so Trent thought, more than his sixty-five years. It was a fine, sensitive face, and the earl had all his days until this strange retirement mixed with the great of the earth and taken part in the councils of nations. This mystery connected with his withdrawal from public affairs intrigued the American. He believed Daphne knew. He was wondering what it was when the earl reined in his horse.
"I am told you leave no later than tomorrow, Mr. Trent, I hope you will dine with us tonight."
Anthony Trent hesitated a moment before answering.
"Thank you," he said, "I should like to."
He knew it would only reopen old wounds but the temptation to see Daphne again was not to be resisted.
It would have been a dull dinner but for the earl. Whether or not he saw Daphne's depression, thedisappointment of his son and the disinclination of the visitor to talk, he was entertaining and witty. He asked a number of questions about the United States where his son and heir was. While he played billiards with Arthur, Trent and the girl watched them. In truth they paid little attention to the scores or strokes.
It was not easy to get back to the intimacy of the morning. There was a certain reserve in the girl's manner, and a look of sadness that immeasurably distressed Trent.
"Ours is a tragic family," she said, when he tried to bring her to a brighter mood. "We used to be so happy. My mother was wonderful. She is gone, my two brothers are dead, St. Just is away and my father simply pining away of a dreadful thing that wasn't his fault."
"I wish you would tell me what it is," he said.
"Impossible," she said decisively. "It poisons his whole life."
"It was Arthur's fault, wasn't it?" he demanded.
"What makes you say that?" she returned.
"I know it," he said emphatically, "and whatever he did can be undone and if it's humanly possible I can do it. Is someone blackmailing him?"
He could see she was startled. He must have hit on something not far removed from the truth.
"Not that," she said, looking at where her father was standing apprehensively. "And I'm sure you could do nothing."
"I can try," he said earnestly. "Listen to me,Daphne. I feel that there is nothing in life for me but the memory of you. I want more than anything else to do something for you to prove my love. I have nothing in all life to lose. I have no relations, no friends to speak of. My life has been made up of," he hesitated, "of adventures where I pitted myself against the world and won."
She thought of that night in Dereham. Was that one of his adventures? Certainly he had given her the impression of great strength and resolution. Of all the men she met Rudolph Castoon and Anthony Trent most radiated this uncommon quality.
She looked across the big room to her father. Arthur was making a big break and the earl was not watching him; she knew he was not thinking of the game. He was thinking of that insuperable obstacle which barred him from the work he loved, the work in which he was needed. He looked a sad, broken man and reminded Trent of the portrait of Julius the second, by Raphael, which he had seen in Florence.
"I dare not tell," she said. "It touches big things and would involve many names and would lead you into great peril."
"It would not be the peril for me that you think," he insisted. "I shall know when my hour is to strike. Darling, let me try to do something for the woman I love, for the family where I found such happiness and such sorrow. I have brought so much trouble on you that I want to feel I did something to atone."
He felt for a fleeting moment the warm clasp of her hand.
"You have often been in danger?" she asked.
"It has been my life," he said simply.
"I am afraid to tell my father," she confessed.
"Must he know?" Trent asked.
"Yes. I know the whole hideous thing only in the barest outline."
"I shall broach the subject," he said confidently, "after all I have nothing to lose. I go tomorrow anyway."
She hesitated a moment.
"My father may think you are doing it at a price."
"Instead of which I am offering to help you as atonement."
The light died from her eyes and the hope left her heart. Nothing could alter his decision, nothing apparently blot out the past that held them asunder.
The Earl of Rosecarrel heard Anthony Trent's request for a private interview with a rather troubled mind. He had no doubt it had to do with his daughter. He told himself he had been very careless.
"By all means my dear fellow," he said cordially, "come to my library where we shall be quite alone."
Never had Trent been bidden to this great book lined chamber. It was open neither to those who came on visitors' day nor to the casual guest. It was here the earl and the prime minister were closeted for several hours.
"My lord," Trent began, "I am going to say somethingthat will first of all astonish you and then probably make you angry at what seems presumption."
"I hardly think you will do that," the other said urbanely. He was sure now it had to do with Lady Daphne.
"You have said," Trent went on, "that you are grateful to me for my help to your son, Arthur."
"I am profoundly grateful," the earl said quickly, "you have made a new man of him."
"Then promise me you will not interrupt me by ringing for a servant to show me out."
"I will promise that blindly," smiled the nobleman.
"I owe a debt to your family. Arthur saved my life and I am still a debtor. Since I have been here I have found out a great deal about your life work. I found out also that at a moment when the Empire most needed you you retired. I know at the present moment your name is being mentioned everywhere as the most suitable for one of the highest offices under the crown. I know the prime minister made a golfing trip to Newquay the excuse to call on you personally. I know that in this very room you refused a request from your sovereign."
There was no doubting the agitation this statement produced in the ex-ambassador. But he was mindful of his promise.
"I know," the inexorable Trent went on, "that your refusal has something to do with what your son did when he was irresponsible. I saw you throwa terrible glance at him during the prime minister's talk over the luncheon table. It told me plainly that remotely or not it was because of something he did that you remain here eating your heart out. Afterwards you were especially kind to him. It was as though you repented your momentary anger. My lord, am I right so far?"
"I do not pretend to understand how you have learned these facts," the earl said slowly, "but you have made no error. What happened is over, dead and done with."
"I'm not so sure," Trent cried. "Perhaps because there was a day when I wrote stories of a rather lurid type I can think of half a hundred things that might seem final to you but which would yield to my type of mind. Nothing is final to us Americans."
Lord Rosecarrel looked at him shrewdly.
"What you say is preposterous, Mr. Trent, but nevertheless it interests me. What causes could this fertile mind of yours suggest?"
"Blackmail first of all," Trent said. Lord Rosecarrel did not give any indication whether the shot told or not. "Blackmail can be sub-divided into many heads."
"And is there a remedy for blackmail, then?" the earl asked blandly.
"A remedy can always be found for things," Trent said confidently.
"It amounts to this," the diplomat continued calmly as though he were discussing an interesting phase in another man's life, "that you suppose I amheld inactive here because of the hold some man or government has on me. Admitting for a moment that this is true, do you not suppose that I should have strained every nerve, called upon my every resource to remove the obstacle which you admit has a remedy?"
"I think you have tried and failed," Trent said.
"It is curious," said the earl still impersonally, "how fiction of the type you used to write has taken possession of the public mind."
"I should not fail," Trent said steadily.
"You still persist in making the imaginary real," the earl said good humouredly.
"Why do you fence with me at a time like this?" Trent said making a gesture of despair. "Can't you see I am in earnest?"
"You rate your powers so highly then?"
"You employed amateurs, my lord, I am a professional adventurer."
"What are you doing in my house?"
"Living honest hours and learning that a past can't be undone. I know very well that you thought I wanted to see you because I love your daughter. It is true. I do love her. And it is because I love her that I am going. And it is because I want to prove that I am only truthful when I say that, I offer to undertake anything that may help you."
"But the reward?"
"To have done something for her is the reward."
The earl was silent for a minute. Then he paced the room. Trent watched his tall, bent form wondering what was to be the outcome.
"Mr. Trent," said the earl pausing before him, "you are either a scoundrel or else the most chivalrous gentleman I have ever known. For the moment I hardly know what to think, or say, or do. If I give you my confidence and you abuse it the public will share the knowledge of a disgrace which now only my enemy knows. If you set me free from my bondage you put me under an obligation that I can never pay. If I let you make the attempt in which two men have given their lives and you fail I shall never forgive myself."
"But my lord," Trent reminded him, "I am a professional. I have never failed. I detest a brawl but I love danger, and life means less to me than you might suppose. If I fail you will never be compromised. I shall want no help nor send any plea for assistance. I work alone—always."
The earl did not answer him directly.
"The hounds met at Michaelstowe this morning," he said, "and I took the opportunity of sending off a wire in reply to this post card which came last night."
Trent looked at it. It was in a language unknown to him.
"It is in Hungarian," Lord Rosecarrel told him, "and it says, 'Please let me know that the report in today's Times that you have accepted office is incorrect.' The telegram I sent to the writer said: 'The report is wrong. I have refused.' There you have my secret. The man who sent the post card, in effect, threatened me with exposure if I came out of retirement."
"Then it is blackmail," Trent breathed.
"I am going to trust you," the earl said suddenly. "I am going to think of you as the chivalrous gentleman. The man who wrote the post card is a very big figure in the politics of what used to be calledmittel Europa. Our interests clashed. He was on one side and I on the other. It happened that I was usually able to out manœuvre him because my training had been such that no man in public life knew the Balkans as I did, and do still, the wheels within wheels, the inner hidden things that make national sentiment so dangerous at times or so valuable as the case may be. In time he came to think me the one man who could comprehend his activities and check them. He set out to ruin me. He believed his ends justified other methods than I used. I was shot at on theFerencz Jozsef rakpartfor example and a companion killed."
"Do you still seem a menace to him?" Trent asked.
"More than ever if I take the position offered me in the near East. You see the rumour in the Times brings instant recognition. I knew he was in London."
Trent looked at the speaker and wondered what it could be which kept him from the work his country demanded of him. Assuredly it was not lack of courage.
"He was in London when he obtained the hold over me that keeps me buried here. Arthur was at the moment a secretary of Rudolph Castoon. Onenight he opened a strong box of mine and took some bank notes to pay a racing debt. It was a terrible blow to think he had fallen so low, but I was more alarmed to find a tentative draft of a treaty which was never made effective, a document in my own writing, had disappeared. At the time it might have incensed a country since allied with us almost to the point of a declaration of war. Arthur told me it was gibberish to him and he had thrown it on the fire. A month later I was summoned to a cabinet meeting. A friend told me I was to be asked to produce the treaty draft. I called Arthur to see me. I told him my honor was involved and that if he had not destroyed it or was holding it to sell another power I must know. He gave me his solemn word of honor, uttered in the most convincing manner, that he had thrown it into the open fire.
"When the prime minister asked for the draft I told him I had destroyed it thinking its value gone and fearful of the danger of having it at my house in Grosvenor Place. At the moment I was absolutely convinced that my son had been honest with me. It was obvious I could not tell the cabinet I had caught him stealing money or that he had torn up the draft. I gave the cabinet my word of honor that it was destroyed and I allowed them to assume that I did it. It was a lie and I do not justify its use, but first and foremost my son's protection seemed necessary. It was less than three months later that I received a visit from the man who wrote that post card.
"It was in Paris where I was staying with my daughter. He said that at last he had a weapon which would wound me. Arthur had sold him the draft. He had it concealed where none could get it. Unless I retired from public life and activities he would show it to the same cabinet which had heard me swear I had destroyed it with my own hands. The inference would be that I had sold it. It was known that I had lost money through the failure of a London bank. No matter what the cabinet thought my honor was smirched and I should rightly be considered unfit for high office. There, Mr. Trent, is the real reason."
"Do you know where the draft of the treaty is hidden?"
"In his almost inaccessible castle in Croatia."
"You are certain?"
"Two men have died so that the knowledge might be mine."
"I should imagine he would keep it in the deposit box of a bank where he could get at it quickly."
"Banks can be broken into easier far than his strong room. He lives, despite the changes wrought by the war, in a style almost feudal. He owns and controls twenty square miles of the country where his home is. What chance, I ask you, has a stranger of getting near without incurring suspicion. There are many men who can speak German or French like natives but Hungarian is a different matter, a non-Aryan tongue."
"It should be done from the inside," Trent mused.
"One of them was," the earl told him, "the man who tried was skillful, adroit and courageous. He had flirted with death a hundred times, just as you have done Mr. Trent, but they set a trap for him there which a fool would have passed by; a trap so skillfully baited that only a clever man would have tried to use it to further his cause. Yet he failed. You have no idea of the household at that fantastic castle in the mountains. You have no idea of the imperious temper and power of the man who owns it, the multitude of servitors who would kill did he but suggest it, the motley company he entertains there."
This mention of many visitors interested Trent.
"He entertains a great deal then?"
"Only those he knows, men and women. The life there as reported to me reads like a chronicle of medieval days."
"The other man who failed—what did he go as?"
"A steeple chase jockey. The count kept a great stud and raced all over Continental Europe. He owned Daliborka the great horse which won theGrand Prix."
"The horse that was stolen?"
"Exactly. Daliborka and three other thoroughbreds were missing from the stables. The man who pretended to be a jockey and was instead a man of lineage and wealth secreted the horses at intervals along the forest road that runs from the castle to the coast. It was his idea when he had obtained the draft to make his way by relays to the nearest harbour.The poor fellows never had the opportunity to throw a leg across any of them. You see, Mr. Trent, there is no chance at all."
"I will make one," the American said confidently, "I am going to enjoy this."
"After what I have said you still persist?"
"Because of it," laughed Anthony Trent. He had forgotten everything but the prospect of coming danger, the duel that was to be fought between him and this fabulous magnate. It was characteristic of Trent that he swept aside all other possible inmates of the lonely castle as beneath his notice. His business was with the superior.
"How do you know he is still in London?" Trent demanded.
"I keep myself informed," the earl said. "A newspaper clipping concern sends me every notice of him."
"I want them," the younger man observed, "I want everything that will help me."
He read through the brief notices eagerly and wished English papers discussed personalities with the detail American periodicals employed. The only item that interested him deeply was a notice that Count Michæl Temesvar had visited the automobile show at the Crystal Palace and seemed interested in the new twelve cylinder Lion car.
"Rather humorous in its way," the earl said smiling, "since I own a great deal of stock in that company. That's why I have that inordinatelyhigh powered car in the garage which you and Arthur seem to like."
"Humorous!" Trent repeated, "I don't know that it isn't more humorous than you know. Do you think he has any idea you are interested in the company?"
"Few know it," the earl said, "and I don't see why he should when even my friends are ignorant."
"How much of it do you own?" Trent asked eagerly.
"More probably than any one stockholder."
"And a letter from you to the manager would make me solid." He explained the slang, "I mean if you wrote a letter to the manager asking that I be given certain powers would he honor it?"
"Most certainly," the earl answered. "There can be no doubt about it."