CHAPTER XVII.Lady Rossland's reception for the New Shoreham candidate on the evening preceding the nomination day was a thing of note.For the space of ten hours, Britton had been out among his constituents with Lord Rossland, Ainsworth, and Trascott, who had come down from his London work to witness the honors bestowed upon his friend. At seven o'clock, Rex returned alone to Britton Hall, the curate and the lawyer having gone on with Rossland to his country-seat, where the function was to be held.The strain of canvassing had been more wearisome than a day of Yukon mushing, but dinner and a bath refreshed him. Upstairs, he called his wife's maid."At what time has your mistress ordered the carriage?" he asked."Nine o'clock, sir,–if that will suit you." The maid spoke almost timidly, as if she recognized some gulf between husband and wife, and feared that their plans for the evening might conflict."That will do very well," Britton decided. "Tell her I will await her at nine."He crossed to his own suite and entered the bedroom, where Bassing, his man, had laid out his clothes. He knew the room of old, and a glow of possession thrilled him. The magnificence of its appointing was a delight. The heavy furniture, the lofty fretted ceiling, the ponderous chandelier, and thick Oriental curtains, unaltered in setting for three generations, gave an impression of stability which had a far-reaching effect. His grandfather had slept, as he himself slept, in the high canopied bed with its massive carved corner posts, and ancestral pride buoyed up Britton to the heights of egotism.He dressed slowly and carefully, with a due consciousness of the relation between appearance and personality, and descended the stairs at five minutes to nine. The carriage had not yet drawn up in the driveway, nor had Mercia come from her apartments. By the door stood Crandell, the footman who had served his uncle, and who regarded the advent of the young master with satisfaction.For five minutes Rex waited, and the carriage wheels shrieked on the gravel as the driver wheeled his horses sharply in front of the great arched entrance. A silver-chimed clock pealed nine in the drawing-room, and the soft rustle of Mercia's garments sounded on the stairway.Britton looked up involuntarily, his face flushing slightly. His wife's beauty was a revelation to which no man could deny homage; she carried herself with distinction enhanced by a peculiar, free rhythm of movement which is a heritage of the life in the open. Her individuality seemed a blending of youthful bloom with a certain mature, womanly power born of the true conception of existence.And marring her sweet winsomeness, was a scarcely observable flaw, a cold reserve maintained, apparently, not of inward intention but by the outward pressure of circumstance. This unbidden attribute matched Britton's unemotional, respectful attitude, presenting, as it were, foil to foil in the guarding of a common neutrality."Let me hold your cloak," he said deferentially.She suffered his help with a distant, though polite, acknowledgment, and Crandell opened the door. The horses pranced impatiently upon the white sand before the portico, and Mercia hurried out. Her husband followed quickly, handed her in, and they dashed away.The drive to Rossland House was made practically in silence. Britton spoke once, remarking on the hot night and predicting rain.Outside Lord Rossland's grand country-seat their equipage fell in line, stopped at the steps, and let them down. They found themselves traversing the length of the front hall, which opened on the splendid reception-rooms.It was nearly twelve months since Britton had mingled with society of this class, that is, of his own county, and he experienced the feeling of an actor who plays an unfamiliar part. The sensation stamped his bearing and augmented that chill reserve which had never been present before he left England. He attempted to shake it off in the exchange of greetings with Lord and Lady Rossland and others. In this he succeeded to a certain degree, and when he had made the round of presentation as the coming member, the contact with his fellows wore away the shyness.He was separated from his wife, and, flattered by Rossland's patronage and amused by Ainsworth's ironic comment on everything they saw, Britton's affability grew more marked.Toward the supper-hour he found Mercia again in the rooms, in company with Lady Rossland."Here is the truant," cried her ladyship, laughing. "We searched everywhere for you, sir.""No truant, my dear," put in Lord Rossland. "I have been heaping his responsibilities upon him.""But here is a responsibility he has forgotten–his wife," objected Lady Rossland, in feigned reproach. "Reginald, take her in to supper. A score of men have begged the honor, but I have been obdurate for your sake!"Britton bowed ostentatiously, catching her ladyship's bantering spirit, yet a shade of that cloudy reserve dampened his manner as he took his wife's arm. They passed on to the supper-rooms, with the Rosslands leading and his lordship's sister behind with Kinmair, editor and owner ofThe Daily Challenge, one of the most powerful organs in London. Kinmair, next to Lord Rossland, was Britton's staunchest supporter.They made a merry group at the profusely decorated tables, and because the evening grew so warm in spite of wide open doors and swinging casements, the quarter-hour's refreshment proved grateful."Now," announced her ladyship, when they emerged from the roses and palms, "you are thrown upon your own resources. There are the galleries, the gardens, billiards, and cigars! You may play bridge up-stairs, dance in the drawing-rooms, row upon the river, or interview the spirit reader in the conservatory."Britton raised his eyebrows."Ah!" he smiled, "–a new departure?""It is all the rage in London now," explained Lord Rossland's sister, Dora. "Everyone has a theosophist at their evening functions to give a séance or read futures."Rex laughed a little, thinking of the great, tight-locked Yukon where the issues of life and death prohibited any such toys or trifling."I–I am afraid I am somewhat behind the times," he ventured, looking at Mercia for a brief instant."Then you shall be initiated into the mysteries at once," cried Lady Rossland, "and I must conduct you to Madame Spiritualist. A politician should know his future. Should he not, Mrs. Britton?""If I were a politician, I should hardly dare to gaze on it," Mercia smiled. "Disappointment might be lying somewhere in wait.""Men have no such fears," Lord Rossland blustered in his kindly way. "If they had, they would never reach the top, and Britton has, I believe, a brilliant career waiting for him. But, my dear, if you are going to act as his guide, I shall take Mrs. Britton through the galleries. She wished to see the paintings.""Thank you, yes," said Mercia. "I have heard of your famous pictures, and I adore the art.""She has the great gift, Rossland," observed Rex, turning aside with her ladyship, "and she may tell you things even about your own canvases."Kinmair and Lord Rossland's sister went into the garden among the fountains, while Lady Rossland took her recruit to the conservatory. On the way they passed the billiard-rooms and saw Ainsworth engaged in his customary game with the redoubtable Trascott. Her ladyship smiled at their earnest devotion to the stroke."Your friends are fine men," she remarked appreciatively. "I doubt if there are in England two grander representatives of their respective professions.""I believe you," agreed Britton, with a sudden gravity approaching severity, "but here we are."They had reached the conservatory, and Lady Rossland's nephew came out with a slip of paper in his hand. Her ladyship bad commissioned him to act as the theosophist's assistant and play the part of scout. He was a slim, light-haired youth, and his aunt had insisted at his christening that he should be named Guy."Hello," said Guy, "your palmist has given me a list of guests for whom she wants to gaze. Here it is! You're first on the paper, Britton. See? Now go along and get through while I bring your successor."He pushed Rex inside and closed the door, taking his aunt away with him."Now was that name on the list coincidence or design?" Britton asked himself before he came to the end of the conservatory's corridor.One corner of the cool place had been curtained off with blue silk hangings as a retreat for the spiritualist. Her tiny tent was closed and lighted from within by a red-globed lamp which gave a subdued effect. The pavilion was arranged thus to give the palmist the advantage of illumination while her subject stood outside in partial darkness.Rex felt awkward and ill at ease at the weighty sense of desolation which filled the long, empty conservatory. His footsteps paused uncertainly, but the waiting priestess heard them."Come closer please," she said in a muffled tone that sounded disguised.Britton obeyed the summons with an increasing sensation of awkwardness for which he was at a loss to account. He stood so near the soft curtains that they brushed his body without weight, like fine cobwebs, and he could perceive a small horizontal slit in the pavilion's side which was not noticeable before. Set back of it, so as to block the vision and prevent an inspection of the interior, was a Japanese screen in weird colors.His mind was filled with an irritation aroused by the feminine whim that had sent him to this place. The whole environment jarred on him as possessing an illusion disproportionate to his mental vision."Well?" he demanded in a voice which set the responsibility for his coming on the head of the person within the gaudy pavilion.There was a noise inside that seemed like a smothered exclamation of surprise together with a vague rustle of woman's garments, and the same muffled tone as before became audible, though it seemed shaken and difficult to control."Extend your palms through the opening," was the subdued order of the spirit reader.Rex hesitated. The incongruity of this dallying imbued a sort of rankling disgust for its exponent and an ashamed opinion of himself."You are a doubter?" the unseen spiritualist asked. Her inflection was one of sarcasm.Britton laughed scornfully. "It is hardly worth while," he replied."But still you belong to the sceptic class," the voice insisted. "Please extend your hands. I promise you that you will be surprised at my methods."Rex stirred his feet, the motion making an inordinately loud noise in the deserted place. He listened when the echoes ceased, but young Guy Rossland had not returned. He was doubtless having some trouble in finding Britten's successor."I promise to surprise you," repeated the palmist."Surprise!–yes," Rex assented. "Convincing is a different matter. You know I have not followed the fad.""Nevertheless, I think conviction is hard upon you," came the declaration from the tent. "Will you give me a trial?" There was a defiant note in the question."That is but fair, now you speak of it," said Britton, mockingly. He thrust his arms through the slit with a total lack of ceremony.A pair of soft, electric palms took his, and the current of the hidden woman's presence flowed through every vein in his body.Rex stood immovable as if a secret shock had fixed his feet. He cried out with an inarticulate exclamation because he knew the touch, but his paralyzed vocal organs would frame no speech. A short, dramatic silence succeeded his outcry. The drone of a clumsy, waking fly beat distinctly on the panes; the creak of oar-locks on the river rose insistently through the open conservatory windows; beneath the sills the gentle plashing of the fountain water changed to a gurgle of wicked glee.In the silence, Britton was beginning to find his self-possession, when the sorceress spoke, her voice now undisguised."It's centuries and ages since we were so close, Rex," she said–and the magnetic hands were glued to his in a melting, appealing touch. "Isn't it ages and ages?" she continued passionately.Britten's answer was a cry like that of a trapped bear. He wrenched his hands loose, swept away the intervening curtains, as he once swept the silken portières from an old-time boudoir, and stood face to face with the siren it had held. She had taken off her veiled turban, and her eyes shone like stars, with a former potent lure.CHAPTER XVIII.Everything whizzed about Britton for a few seconds. In the red glow of light from the demolished pavilion, the floor throbbed and rocked like the deck of a yacht, and the glass walls of the conservatory tilted up sharply. Rex put a hand on the wire which had held the curtains and steadied himself."So it was design," he said harshly, accusingly.One glance at his face told Maud Morris that honeyed words could not subjugate him. Appeal was rendered useless for her purpose; there remained compulsion. She stepped back a little at his grim anger till she leaned against some flowering vine in the corner window-box. Between them stood a small table on which rested the adjuncts of her pretended art."Yes," she corroborated, with a flicker of satire, "it was design. You know, Rex, that I have no faith whatever in coincidence. You believed me to be thousands of miles away in Dawson City?""Why have you dogged me?" demanded Britton, bluntly. "To impersonate Mrs. Grundy as you did last winter in that same place?""Was it so illy done?" she questioned in turn, with a cruel intonation. Her fingers broke a bloom from the vine, and she caressed it with her lips."It was art–fine art," Rex bitterly declared, "and it accomplished the intended purpose of involving me in an intricacy of despair. Your appearance here hints at a repetition of that trouble. Is that your object? Have you trailed me in order to work fresh mischief?" He spoke with the air of a man driven to bay, one whose impulse is to face and have done with a difficulty once for all."The question of mischief-making rests with yourself," Maud Morris temporized. "I admit that I followed you, faked connections with the Mahatma Institute in order to be present to-night––""Why to-night?" Britton interrupted, regarding the soulless thing searchingly."I wished to see you before tomorrow," the woman answered, "before you accept that nomination." She turned away a little to the open window and looked indifferently out upon the long, shadowed gardens, as if placing no weight upon her observation.The action vindicated a former power of command, and a momentary triumph was obtained. Rex dropped his uplifted hand from the wire so swiftly that the tautened metal sang in a high-pitched crescendo, and he took two quick steps to her side."You are deeper than any Mahatma witch," he said tersely, "and there is something behind your words. Why did you wish to see me before the Convention tomorrow?"There was a short pause while she picked reflectively at the sleeve of the loose Oriental gown which enveloped her supple body. Then she faced Britton squarely, her blue-green eyes glowing into his."Because you will never accept that nomination," she answered dramatically.The unexpected shot told. Rex started, but the necessity of the moment recalled his sang-froid, and he showed no sign of inward perturbation."I surprise you?" She was feeling for the effect with both voice and eye."Surprise?" Rex parleyed. "Why should I be surprised at anything you do or say? My experience with and observation of you has been infinitely varied and valuably instructive. No, I am not at all astonished, only mystified. You will, of course, explain!"She bit her lip in obvious displeasure at her failure to move him and at his cool criticism of her fickle, spiteful disposition, which had been revealed all too fully in times that were dead to Britton. She made a slight, almost imperceptible motion that brought her nearer to him."You will, of course, explain," Rex repeated, coldly attentive."Willingly!" she abruptly exclaimed. "The man who came alone out of Five Mountain Gulch can never represent New Shoreham when New Shoreham knows the facts connected with that great Five Mountain strike!" She met Britton's intense gaze with a level glance full of a subtle confidence and waited for his utter confusion, the anticipated result of her significant explanation.But the anticipated result was not realized in that way! The perturbing effect she expected did not follow her pointed words. That they had any influence on Britton was shown only by the stiffening of his shoulders and the squaring of his stern jaw. The absence of fear, the presence of which had been exultingly foreseen by Maud Morris, tended to vaguely disconcert her."Your impression does not coincide with mine?" she asked at last, indecision being noticeable in her tone.Britton reached out both arms, resting his palms heavily on the window-sill, and looked at her with head turned sidewise. His profile in the subdued red light was grim and powerful as granite sculpturing."Suppose," he began brusquely, "that New Shoreham knows. What is left for the man?"Maud Morris smiled. "Your intuition is almost womanly," she said with returning assurance. "For the man? I should surely suggest some far-away, far-away part where no one knows or cares. There the man would easily find respite, especially if he had the companionship of, say, a very old friend, a–a friend whom perhaps he once regarded highly." Her meaning was flagrantly vivid. The night breeze stirred her garments, wafting a faint, enervating perfume to Britten's nostrils. The fountain water plashed timidly now, and the spectral shadows crouched on the clipped lawns. Over the thick woodland copse the angry lightning clawed the black horizon into a million red-edged fragments. Rex found himself in a position singularly difficult and unpleasant. It bordered even on the dangerous. Mingled irresolution and indignation handicapped him in a measure, but he decided to persevere in sounding this woman's intentions to the very bottom."Granted that the oblivion you speak of and the escape from consequence could be so found," Britton said, "there is a thing which you persist in overlooking, the possibility of the man having a wife."A warning note of wrath accompanied Britton's last word. Any keen ear might have recognized it, but Maud Morris was so engrossed with the working out of the systematic project upon which she had embarked that she missed the voiced danger signal."I do not overlook that," she remarked with an inconsequent shrug. "I ignore it!"All Britton's suppressed anger broke bounds and flamed to the surface. He whirled suddenly and struck his clenched right hand in the open palm of his left."Look here," he cried, coming to the point with a graphic directness which was a most creditable trait of his character, "I think I have grasped your meaning and your proposition. I must refuse this nomination, desert my wife, and disappear in a foreign country or you will tell what you know of Five Mountain Gulch. Am I right?""On the whole, yes," she replied, maintaining her brazen serenity in the face of his wrath. "I swore I would separate you from that little saint, and, before heaven, I will!""Why did you not act before, in Dawson?""I learned what I know at Samson Creek when Morris died," she said impetuously. "You had started for England when I got back to Dawson. I came on your heels, and I am to have my revenge.""So your informant was Morris," Rex commented with a certain relief. "Do you expect to intimidate me by the use of a dying man's delirium, by means of some irrational tale? Let me tell you, Maud Morris, that I have walked too close to real danger to be frightened by a phantom!""Morris knew everything," she cried vehemently. "He followed you all the way up the Klondike to Five Mountain Gulch and saw you shoot Lessari."Britton reeled, self-control shocked out of him."Morris did?" he stammered–"but it was self-defence–""Was it?" she interrupted, leering into his face with supercilious smiles. "Would the public believe it? Have you an atom of proof? You may say that the lack of proof, of substantiation, works both ways. That may be, but proof is not necessary for my purpose. The simple statement, the all-pervading rumor, the unpreventable scandal, will do far better. Do you see where you are now, Rex,–the old, proud Rex? Do you know where you are? Yes, you do–in my hand!" She slowly closed her outstretched fingers.Egotistical triumph gleamed in her every lineament. Britton, wrestling with his deep problem, did not mark her expression, for he had made a vital discovery which filled him with mental disgust."I know now the mysteries of the poisoned dogs and the sled plunging into the abyss," he announced in a horrified way, "and I can tell you where your husband is at this moment. Morris is in hell, suffering torment for a double murder! Twice in that frozen wilderness he apparently compassed our destruction with the most diabolical intent. He is as guilty as if Lessari and myself had both died at his hand."Britton's awful earnestness embarrassed her, but she made a pretence of laughing sceptically. Distant thunder echoed with her laugh in low growlings and mutterings, and the far-off rising downs were nakedly etched by vivid, incessant streaks of lightning as if the mountain spirits were working themselves up to a climax of passion that must culminate in a ruthless and pathetic tragedy.The strains of the orchestra in the drawing-rooms were drowned by the threatenings of the storm, and Rex could hear people hurrying in from the gardens and lawns and from the river to reach cover and escape the expected deluge. An unconscious wonderment as to whether young Guy Rossland had lost himself in searching for the next man whose name was on the theosophist's list passed through Britton's mind. The false theosophist herself interrupted his pondering."If Morris is guilty through intent," she said, "what of your own deed?" The shallow mockery of her glance belied the sense of judicious importance she tried to attach to her utterance. Rex commenced to see at last that the woman was but playing for a stake and holding all the trumps."I feel no guilt, nothing but remorse," he replied, "for I stand clear of any deliberate act.""But you cannot prove it," she cautioned. "Picture public condemnation and horror when they know!""Go and tell them," Rex fiercely returned, accepting with his accustomed thrill the combat which could not be averted."Ah!" she exclaimed. "Then with such permission I shall tell your wife first."Britton winced visibly, and his face was bereft of its ruddy color. He caught the woman's wrists with the motion of crushing a venomous thing."Good God, you vampire!" he cried.She had used some weapon known only to themselves, and, judging by its effect on the two standing thus, the weapon was one of incalculable cruelty.CHAPTER XIX.The conservatory door flew open with a rattle of shattered glass, admitting Lady Rossland and Mercia fleeing from the gardens amid the spattering raindrops."Oh!" they exclaimed simultaneously, on catching sight of the tableau where the silken tent had stood. "Oh!" Mercia's voice was low and hurt. Lady Rossland's rose up, pitched higher in an outraged tone.Britton dropped the wrists he had grasped and turned toward the two women, humiliation written on his grave face, but the pride of Mercia would not allow her to wait for a forthcoming apology."I fancy we intrude," she said coldly. "Come, Lady Rossland, we can probably reach the house." Her ladyship wheeled across the doorstep, flashing back scornful eyes, and took Mercia's arm as they hurried out.Rex gave an eager, pleading cry and darted forward."Wait," he cried entreatingly. "You are misjudging–"But they were gone in the darkness, having raced up the gravel walk to the great illuminated house! The big, round drops wetted Britton's cheeks and dashed on his head. A moment he stood on the flags at the door, yearning to follow and explain, but a more vital and immediate necessity lay behind him in the conservatory.He turned back, keeping himself forcibly in hand, determined on a summary and decisive dealing with the pregnant issue thrust upon him by Maud Morris."That," he said to her, "was the most humiliating thing any wife could see, yet it meant nothing at all!"A change had come over her since the sudden apparition of the two women in the doorway. The fear of failure, inspired by the sweet, pure beauty of Mercia, seemed to hold her in its grip, and she called to her aid the old resource of alluring appeal."Don't say that, Rex," she pleaded, with a touch of pathos. "Have you altogether forgotten the old days? There must be memories sometimes!""No," said Britton, doggedly, "I could not remember them if I would.""You are very trying," she murmured, petulant as a crossed child. "Can you not listen to reason?""There is only one way of reasoning soundly and in accordance with universal law," Rex answered with conviction. "That reasoning is along the line of right. I am prepared to follow it to the bitter end."She looked up in amazement during a short interval."Do you realize all that your words imply?" she questioned incredulously. "I cannot think you do!""Yes, everything they imply," he answered, filled with the weary languor attendant upon nervous strain.She was not left to surmise. Britton's meaning was plain. Her confidence began to shake."The alternative!" she began plaintively, "–surely you have understood me!""Too well," laughed Britton, harshly, "and I would rather go to prison–which I shall certainly not do, since, as you say, there is no proof!"The woman's cheeks and brow went crimson with annoyance coupled with shame; she felt the demoralizing force of man's scorn."Rather than take that alternative, you will suffer me to tell Mercia?" she asked uncertainly."No," Rex answered in a ringing voice, "for I am going to tell her!"She gasped. "You!" she exclaimed precipitately. "It is suicide! Are you entirely mad?"There was in the woman's manner the recognition of an impending catastrophe, the knowledge of immeasurable possibilities. Britton instinctively felt her disappointment, and it helped to bring back to him, in a fair degree, his original assurance, confidence, and reliance."It will be the sanest thing I ever did," he declared.Then the mask of the woman's plotting and machination fell, and she stood revealed in her uncertain status of life, fighting for what she loved in her own contemptible way."Rex, Rex," she cried incoherently, "I can't let you do that. My God, you know what it would mean!"She grasped his hands in her intolerable fear, but he rescued them with a calm gesture. The action saved them from a second surprise.The greenhouse door burst open more violently than before, and Guy Rossland stamped up and down in a pair of rain-soaked pumps, sending the wet flying in all directions."Ruined," he said woefully, regarding his pulpy patent leathers. "By Jove, but it's a beastly night. Hello! tent blown down?""A gust through that open window," explained the theosophist, who had resumed her veil. "Please close it and help me with the curtain. I am afraid the rain has frightened all my subjects.""Couldn't find Kinmair," lamented Guy, climbing on the sill to fasten the casement. "The bally idiot! He's next after Britton. Hunted him through all the gardens, and then they told me he'd gone punting. Went on the river and got caught–worse luck! Jove, my feet feel as if I were barefoot in the marsh.""Kinmair can postpone his visit," Rex said. "Indeed, the storm will cause a general postponement. No one can come through this rain. I think I'll make a run for it!"But he walked, seeming not to notice the violence and the downpour. The coolness was pleasing on his face, and the damp lowered the feverish temperature of his heated blood, though it proved disastrous to his immaculate dress clothes.He could see neither Mercia nor Lady Rossland when he entered, but he encountered Trascott elaborating on philanthropies to a penniless dowager. The curate did not note Britton's personal appearance, so deep was he in a cherished plan of building orphan homes and reading rooms for the poor of London, a plan involving the expenditure of something like two millions of money."It's admirable," murmured the dowager, who herself had to scrape to keep up appearances. "It's a most beautiful scheme, Mr. Trascott. You have every technicality well within your grasp. What is to prevent the carrying out of those details?""The money," Britton heard Trascott answer sadly. "It exists as yet only in my dreams. I have advanced my theories and worked for their realization, but the unthinking rich have not responded. Sometimes I feel as if I shall never live long enough to see my project undertaken either by my own hand or by that of a more competent man.""Still, it is ideal," the dowager returned, as Rex moved on past them. "And it is something to cherish an ideal to the end of one's life, even if one never enjoys its realization."Britton took the thought as applied to his own existence, especially in its present crisis, and turned it over and over in his mind while he searched the different rooms for Ainsworth.Within Rossland's great country mansion the gaiety of the occasion was undiminished. The games, the talk, the dancing, all went on as merrily as if no tempest raged outside. The decorated chambers were illuminated with such a blaze of light that the flashes of the sky's electric current were scarcely in evidence through drawn blinds. Only the spaced, resounding roll of thunder and the crash of giant trees in the woodland groves told that a terrific storm was in progress.In the centre of the music salon he saw the Rosslands with a crowd of guests, lamenting the disagreeable night that had driven them from the river. Mercia was not with them, and Rex felt that after the incident of the conservatory he must avoid Lady Rossland for the moment.He crossed the hall and ran into young Guy, who, looking very flushed and disturbed, appeared to have emerged from some more or less inglorious conflict. Guy had on dry shoes, but they had not sufficed to smooth his apparently ruffled feelings."What's wrong?" asked Britton, remembering the youth's capacity for getting into trouble. "Been quarreling with someone in the house?""Quarreling? Not much–worse luck!" the boy blurted out ingenuously. "But, by Jove, aunt has the beastliest temper in Sussex! She's down on the theosophist she hired about something or other. Packed her off in the rain!""What?" Rex asked, interestedly. "Lady Rossland packed off the hired Mahatma woman?""Just that," Guy answered. "In a cab with James, through all the beastly rain–to the Crystal Hotel. That's the best in New Shoreham, and aunt told James to pay the bill."Rex was thinking retrospectively. If his own concerns had not compelled the deepest gravity, he would have been inclined to laugh. As it was, he gave Guy a speculative look."Beastly temper aunt has," the youth continued. "Jove, didn't she rate me! Gave me fits for not holding down my position–guess it must have been on account of the tent. How'd I know the stuffy thing would blow? And Kinmair, the bally idiot, on the river with Dora! drat him!"The nephew rattled on with the frank tongue of youth, and a smile grew by degrees around Britton's mouth and eyes. It was like the smile of a soldier in the firing line when he gets an unexpected respite and forgets for a brief moment the lurking danger and the strain."I wouldn't take it to heart," Rex said while the smile lasted. "It wasn't your fault, Guy, and, now I come to think of it, perhaps–I–I should have closed that conservatory window."In the smoking-room Britton found Ainsworth whom he had been seeking."Stay with the pole instead of the punt?" asked Ainsworth, lightly, surveying his friend's wet clothes."Never in my life," replied Britton, very seriously."Jump into the river or one of the fountains to rescue somebody?" the lawyer continued in the same bantering way, but Rex had not the heart to match his flippancy."Can you get Trascott away and follow us home?" he asked instead, speaking what was on his mind. "I would like you both to give me an hour after we reach the Hall. I want to get some advice and some opinions."Ainsworth looked at him with awakened interest."Something on the political side, eh?" he questioned smilingly."Yes, partly," Rex responded. "This convention affair is involved.""Ah!" laughed Ainsworth, "I recognize in you the true politician's trait, namely the utter inability to draw a hard and fast line between business and pleasure. But go on with your wife! Trascott and I will not be far behind if Rossland will send us in one of his carriages, and of course he will. I am indefatigable in your interests, my dear fellow, and we can talk for three hours if you like."The lawyer went out to break Trascott's conversation with the stout dowager. Britton remained in the smoking-room a moment, writing two short letters, one to Lord Rossland and one to Kinmair. It seemed a very odd proceeding when he was inside one man's house and within reach of the other man, but it was in keeping with Britton's secret resolve.Crossing the drawing-room in search of Mercia, he met her alone. She greeted him with the same cold, reserved smile that she habitually gave him. Her beauty forced its way to his heart and left an aching pang."Your view of that incident to-night was entirely wrong," he said gravely. "In an hour or two you will have the right of it. This is hardly the place for explanations."She inclined her head with a regal air which became her well, but which few women could assume because they had not the royal cast of loveliness to support it."Explanations are quite unnecessary," she quietly returned. "I do not ask for any.""Yet I proffer them–at the right time," Britton said. "Please do not misunderstand me." There was courteous pleading in his voice, and it did not escape Mercia.When they bade Lady Rossland good-night, with their own carriage and that supplied the other men standing in wait, Britton spoke to the hostess of the same thing."Lady Rossland," he said, "there is an explanation due you. My wife will ease your mind when I have explained to her. You will have no cause for resentment.""I am glad of that," her ladyship observed with a bright smile, pressing his hand more warmly. "Indeed, I am very pleased to hear it. I was sure there must be some mistake."Britton gave her the two letters. "Another favor!" he begged. "Kindly hand these to Lord Rossland and Kinmair in the morning. My request is a little strange, but I would like to have these delivered as I say.""Certainly," laughed her ladyship. "You do not amaze me. You politicians are always involved in some intricate or uncommon scheme. These shall be handed to my husband and to Kinmair in the morning as you have requested. Good-night to you all. Take good care of your wife, sir!"The rain thrummed on the canopy covering the walk like a hundred small drums beating tattoos as they hastened to the carriages.Britton's stood first, the horses frantic with the roar of the sky's heavy artillery. Rex took advantage of a lull in their plunging and handed Mercia in.They dashed away into the oppressive darkness, thick as a North Sea fog, seeing but little beyond the pale circle cast by their carriage lamps. Intermittent wicked blue flashes revealed the surrounding country at intervals of a second's duration, and a fleeting, dreary panorama was unrolled. These momentary glimpses showed the winding black road running in murky rivulets; they uncovered copses and groves with foliage bedraggled and rent, with branches torn from the trunks, so that their white scars flickered ghost-like beneath the lightning's glare; they photographed a flooded stretch of down lashed by the descending cloud-torrents and vanishing mysteriously into the ungauged distance.Mercia leaned back upon the carriage cushions without speaking. Her diamonds quivered when the lightning came, and Britton could mark her wonderful profile.A startling sense of the unreality of his married life lay upon him; the impassableness of the secret gulf separating him from his wife was most poignantly impressed."Mercia," he began, "I–I wonder–" and paused hesitatingly."What?" she asked, gravely meeting his eyes in a spasmodic flash of electricity."I wonder if you remember that evening we came over the trail by Indian River," Britton continued, "the night you saved my life!""Yes, I remember," she answered, studiously calm. "That was the beginning." Her voice showed that she did not wish to continue in that train of thought. Rex sighed and pressed as close to his side of the vehicle as he could till they swept through the curved drive of Britton Hall.Rossland's borrowed carriage bowled up behind, bearing the lawyer and the curate.Ainsworth bounced upon the lighted porch beside the husband and wife."Awful night!" he shivered. "Must be a pack of fiends abroad! Say–what was in those letters, Britton? Anything new turned up?""Yes," Rex answered, "they contained my refusal of the candidature.""The devil!" said Ainsworth.
CHAPTER XVII.
Lady Rossland's reception for the New Shoreham candidate on the evening preceding the nomination day was a thing of note.
For the space of ten hours, Britton had been out among his constituents with Lord Rossland, Ainsworth, and Trascott, who had come down from his London work to witness the honors bestowed upon his friend. At seven o'clock, Rex returned alone to Britton Hall, the curate and the lawyer having gone on with Rossland to his country-seat, where the function was to be held.
The strain of canvassing had been more wearisome than a day of Yukon mushing, but dinner and a bath refreshed him. Upstairs, he called his wife's maid.
"At what time has your mistress ordered the carriage?" he asked.
"Nine o'clock, sir,–if that will suit you." The maid spoke almost timidly, as if she recognized some gulf between husband and wife, and feared that their plans for the evening might conflict.
"That will do very well," Britton decided. "Tell her I will await her at nine."
He crossed to his own suite and entered the bedroom, where Bassing, his man, had laid out his clothes. He knew the room of old, and a glow of possession thrilled him. The magnificence of its appointing was a delight. The heavy furniture, the lofty fretted ceiling, the ponderous chandelier, and thick Oriental curtains, unaltered in setting for three generations, gave an impression of stability which had a far-reaching effect. His grandfather had slept, as he himself slept, in the high canopied bed with its massive carved corner posts, and ancestral pride buoyed up Britton to the heights of egotism.
He dressed slowly and carefully, with a due consciousness of the relation between appearance and personality, and descended the stairs at five minutes to nine. The carriage had not yet drawn up in the driveway, nor had Mercia come from her apartments. By the door stood Crandell, the footman who had served his uncle, and who regarded the advent of the young master with satisfaction.
For five minutes Rex waited, and the carriage wheels shrieked on the gravel as the driver wheeled his horses sharply in front of the great arched entrance. A silver-chimed clock pealed nine in the drawing-room, and the soft rustle of Mercia's garments sounded on the stairway.
Britton looked up involuntarily, his face flushing slightly. His wife's beauty was a revelation to which no man could deny homage; she carried herself with distinction enhanced by a peculiar, free rhythm of movement which is a heritage of the life in the open. Her individuality seemed a blending of youthful bloom with a certain mature, womanly power born of the true conception of existence.
And marring her sweet winsomeness, was a scarcely observable flaw, a cold reserve maintained, apparently, not of inward intention but by the outward pressure of circumstance. This unbidden attribute matched Britton's unemotional, respectful attitude, presenting, as it were, foil to foil in the guarding of a common neutrality.
"Let me hold your cloak," he said deferentially.
She suffered his help with a distant, though polite, acknowledgment, and Crandell opened the door. The horses pranced impatiently upon the white sand before the portico, and Mercia hurried out. Her husband followed quickly, handed her in, and they dashed away.
The drive to Rossland House was made practically in silence. Britton spoke once, remarking on the hot night and predicting rain.
Outside Lord Rossland's grand country-seat their equipage fell in line, stopped at the steps, and let them down. They found themselves traversing the length of the front hall, which opened on the splendid reception-rooms.
It was nearly twelve months since Britton had mingled with society of this class, that is, of his own county, and he experienced the feeling of an actor who plays an unfamiliar part. The sensation stamped his bearing and augmented that chill reserve which had never been present before he left England. He attempted to shake it off in the exchange of greetings with Lord and Lady Rossland and others. In this he succeeded to a certain degree, and when he had made the round of presentation as the coming member, the contact with his fellows wore away the shyness.
He was separated from his wife, and, flattered by Rossland's patronage and amused by Ainsworth's ironic comment on everything they saw, Britton's affability grew more marked.
Toward the supper-hour he found Mercia again in the rooms, in company with Lady Rossland.
"Here is the truant," cried her ladyship, laughing. "We searched everywhere for you, sir."
"No truant, my dear," put in Lord Rossland. "I have been heaping his responsibilities upon him."
"But here is a responsibility he has forgotten–his wife," objected Lady Rossland, in feigned reproach. "Reginald, take her in to supper. A score of men have begged the honor, but I have been obdurate for your sake!"
Britton bowed ostentatiously, catching her ladyship's bantering spirit, yet a shade of that cloudy reserve dampened his manner as he took his wife's arm. They passed on to the supper-rooms, with the Rosslands leading and his lordship's sister behind with Kinmair, editor and owner ofThe Daily Challenge, one of the most powerful organs in London. Kinmair, next to Lord Rossland, was Britton's staunchest supporter.
They made a merry group at the profusely decorated tables, and because the evening grew so warm in spite of wide open doors and swinging casements, the quarter-hour's refreshment proved grateful.
"Now," announced her ladyship, when they emerged from the roses and palms, "you are thrown upon your own resources. There are the galleries, the gardens, billiards, and cigars! You may play bridge up-stairs, dance in the drawing-rooms, row upon the river, or interview the spirit reader in the conservatory."
Britton raised his eyebrows.
"Ah!" he smiled, "–a new departure?"
"It is all the rage in London now," explained Lord Rossland's sister, Dora. "Everyone has a theosophist at their evening functions to give a séance or read futures."
Rex laughed a little, thinking of the great, tight-locked Yukon where the issues of life and death prohibited any such toys or trifling.
"I–I am afraid I am somewhat behind the times," he ventured, looking at Mercia for a brief instant.
"Then you shall be initiated into the mysteries at once," cried Lady Rossland, "and I must conduct you to Madame Spiritualist. A politician should know his future. Should he not, Mrs. Britton?"
"If I were a politician, I should hardly dare to gaze on it," Mercia smiled. "Disappointment might be lying somewhere in wait."
"Men have no such fears," Lord Rossland blustered in his kindly way. "If they had, they would never reach the top, and Britton has, I believe, a brilliant career waiting for him. But, my dear, if you are going to act as his guide, I shall take Mrs. Britton through the galleries. She wished to see the paintings."
"Thank you, yes," said Mercia. "I have heard of your famous pictures, and I adore the art."
"She has the great gift, Rossland," observed Rex, turning aside with her ladyship, "and she may tell you things even about your own canvases."
Kinmair and Lord Rossland's sister went into the garden among the fountains, while Lady Rossland took her recruit to the conservatory. On the way they passed the billiard-rooms and saw Ainsworth engaged in his customary game with the redoubtable Trascott. Her ladyship smiled at their earnest devotion to the stroke.
"Your friends are fine men," she remarked appreciatively. "I doubt if there are in England two grander representatives of their respective professions."
"I believe you," agreed Britton, with a sudden gravity approaching severity, "but here we are."
They had reached the conservatory, and Lady Rossland's nephew came out with a slip of paper in his hand. Her ladyship bad commissioned him to act as the theosophist's assistant and play the part of scout. He was a slim, light-haired youth, and his aunt had insisted at his christening that he should be named Guy.
"Hello," said Guy, "your palmist has given me a list of guests for whom she wants to gaze. Here it is! You're first on the paper, Britton. See? Now go along and get through while I bring your successor."
He pushed Rex inside and closed the door, taking his aunt away with him.
"Now was that name on the list coincidence or design?" Britton asked himself before he came to the end of the conservatory's corridor.
One corner of the cool place had been curtained off with blue silk hangings as a retreat for the spiritualist. Her tiny tent was closed and lighted from within by a red-globed lamp which gave a subdued effect. The pavilion was arranged thus to give the palmist the advantage of illumination while her subject stood outside in partial darkness.
Rex felt awkward and ill at ease at the weighty sense of desolation which filled the long, empty conservatory. His footsteps paused uncertainly, but the waiting priestess heard them.
"Come closer please," she said in a muffled tone that sounded disguised.
Britton obeyed the summons with an increasing sensation of awkwardness for which he was at a loss to account. He stood so near the soft curtains that they brushed his body without weight, like fine cobwebs, and he could perceive a small horizontal slit in the pavilion's side which was not noticeable before. Set back of it, so as to block the vision and prevent an inspection of the interior, was a Japanese screen in weird colors.
His mind was filled with an irritation aroused by the feminine whim that had sent him to this place. The whole environment jarred on him as possessing an illusion disproportionate to his mental vision.
"Well?" he demanded in a voice which set the responsibility for his coming on the head of the person within the gaudy pavilion.
There was a noise inside that seemed like a smothered exclamation of surprise together with a vague rustle of woman's garments, and the same muffled tone as before became audible, though it seemed shaken and difficult to control.
"Extend your palms through the opening," was the subdued order of the spirit reader.
Rex hesitated. The incongruity of this dallying imbued a sort of rankling disgust for its exponent and an ashamed opinion of himself.
"You are a doubter?" the unseen spiritualist asked. Her inflection was one of sarcasm.
Britton laughed scornfully. "It is hardly worth while," he replied.
"But still you belong to the sceptic class," the voice insisted. "Please extend your hands. I promise you that you will be surprised at my methods."
Rex stirred his feet, the motion making an inordinately loud noise in the deserted place. He listened when the echoes ceased, but young Guy Rossland had not returned. He was doubtless having some trouble in finding Britten's successor.
"I promise to surprise you," repeated the palmist.
"Surprise!–yes," Rex assented. "Convincing is a different matter. You know I have not followed the fad."
"Nevertheless, I think conviction is hard upon you," came the declaration from the tent. "Will you give me a trial?" There was a defiant note in the question.
"That is but fair, now you speak of it," said Britton, mockingly. He thrust his arms through the slit with a total lack of ceremony.
A pair of soft, electric palms took his, and the current of the hidden woman's presence flowed through every vein in his body.
Rex stood immovable as if a secret shock had fixed his feet. He cried out with an inarticulate exclamation because he knew the touch, but his paralyzed vocal organs would frame no speech. A short, dramatic silence succeeded his outcry. The drone of a clumsy, waking fly beat distinctly on the panes; the creak of oar-locks on the river rose insistently through the open conservatory windows; beneath the sills the gentle plashing of the fountain water changed to a gurgle of wicked glee.
In the silence, Britton was beginning to find his self-possession, when the sorceress spoke, her voice now undisguised.
"It's centuries and ages since we were so close, Rex," she said–and the magnetic hands were glued to his in a melting, appealing touch. "Isn't it ages and ages?" she continued passionately.
Britten's answer was a cry like that of a trapped bear. He wrenched his hands loose, swept away the intervening curtains, as he once swept the silken portières from an old-time boudoir, and stood face to face with the siren it had held. She had taken off her veiled turban, and her eyes shone like stars, with a former potent lure.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Everything whizzed about Britton for a few seconds. In the red glow of light from the demolished pavilion, the floor throbbed and rocked like the deck of a yacht, and the glass walls of the conservatory tilted up sharply. Rex put a hand on the wire which had held the curtains and steadied himself.
"So it was design," he said harshly, accusingly.
One glance at his face told Maud Morris that honeyed words could not subjugate him. Appeal was rendered useless for her purpose; there remained compulsion. She stepped back a little at his grim anger till she leaned against some flowering vine in the corner window-box. Between them stood a small table on which rested the adjuncts of her pretended art.
"Yes," she corroborated, with a flicker of satire, "it was design. You know, Rex, that I have no faith whatever in coincidence. You believed me to be thousands of miles away in Dawson City?"
"Why have you dogged me?" demanded Britton, bluntly. "To impersonate Mrs. Grundy as you did last winter in that same place?"
"Was it so illy done?" she questioned in turn, with a cruel intonation. Her fingers broke a bloom from the vine, and she caressed it with her lips.
"It was art–fine art," Rex bitterly declared, "and it accomplished the intended purpose of involving me in an intricacy of despair. Your appearance here hints at a repetition of that trouble. Is that your object? Have you trailed me in order to work fresh mischief?" He spoke with the air of a man driven to bay, one whose impulse is to face and have done with a difficulty once for all.
"The question of mischief-making rests with yourself," Maud Morris temporized. "I admit that I followed you, faked connections with the Mahatma Institute in order to be present to-night––"
"Why to-night?" Britton interrupted, regarding the soulless thing searchingly.
"I wished to see you before tomorrow," the woman answered, "before you accept that nomination." She turned away a little to the open window and looked indifferently out upon the long, shadowed gardens, as if placing no weight upon her observation.
The action vindicated a former power of command, and a momentary triumph was obtained. Rex dropped his uplifted hand from the wire so swiftly that the tautened metal sang in a high-pitched crescendo, and he took two quick steps to her side.
"You are deeper than any Mahatma witch," he said tersely, "and there is something behind your words. Why did you wish to see me before the Convention tomorrow?"
There was a short pause while she picked reflectively at the sleeve of the loose Oriental gown which enveloped her supple body. Then she faced Britton squarely, her blue-green eyes glowing into his.
"Because you will never accept that nomination," she answered dramatically.
The unexpected shot told. Rex started, but the necessity of the moment recalled his sang-froid, and he showed no sign of inward perturbation.
"I surprise you?" She was feeling for the effect with both voice and eye.
"Surprise?" Rex parleyed. "Why should I be surprised at anything you do or say? My experience with and observation of you has been infinitely varied and valuably instructive. No, I am not at all astonished, only mystified. You will, of course, explain!"
She bit her lip in obvious displeasure at her failure to move him and at his cool criticism of her fickle, spiteful disposition, which had been revealed all too fully in times that were dead to Britton. She made a slight, almost imperceptible motion that brought her nearer to him.
"You will, of course, explain," Rex repeated, coldly attentive.
"Willingly!" she abruptly exclaimed. "The man who came alone out of Five Mountain Gulch can never represent New Shoreham when New Shoreham knows the facts connected with that great Five Mountain strike!" She met Britton's intense gaze with a level glance full of a subtle confidence and waited for his utter confusion, the anticipated result of her significant explanation.
But the anticipated result was not realized in that way! The perturbing effect she expected did not follow her pointed words. That they had any influence on Britton was shown only by the stiffening of his shoulders and the squaring of his stern jaw. The absence of fear, the presence of which had been exultingly foreseen by Maud Morris, tended to vaguely disconcert her.
"Your impression does not coincide with mine?" she asked at last, indecision being noticeable in her tone.
Britton reached out both arms, resting his palms heavily on the window-sill, and looked at her with head turned sidewise. His profile in the subdued red light was grim and powerful as granite sculpturing.
"Suppose," he began brusquely, "that New Shoreham knows. What is left for the man?"
Maud Morris smiled. "Your intuition is almost womanly," she said with returning assurance. "For the man? I should surely suggest some far-away, far-away part where no one knows or cares. There the man would easily find respite, especially if he had the companionship of, say, a very old friend, a–a friend whom perhaps he once regarded highly." Her meaning was flagrantly vivid. The night breeze stirred her garments, wafting a faint, enervating perfume to Britten's nostrils. The fountain water plashed timidly now, and the spectral shadows crouched on the clipped lawns. Over the thick woodland copse the angry lightning clawed the black horizon into a million red-edged fragments. Rex found himself in a position singularly difficult and unpleasant. It bordered even on the dangerous. Mingled irresolution and indignation handicapped him in a measure, but he decided to persevere in sounding this woman's intentions to the very bottom.
"Granted that the oblivion you speak of and the escape from consequence could be so found," Britton said, "there is a thing which you persist in overlooking, the possibility of the man having a wife."
A warning note of wrath accompanied Britton's last word. Any keen ear might have recognized it, but Maud Morris was so engrossed with the working out of the systematic project upon which she had embarked that she missed the voiced danger signal.
"I do not overlook that," she remarked with an inconsequent shrug. "I ignore it!"
All Britton's suppressed anger broke bounds and flamed to the surface. He whirled suddenly and struck his clenched right hand in the open palm of his left.
"Look here," he cried, coming to the point with a graphic directness which was a most creditable trait of his character, "I think I have grasped your meaning and your proposition. I must refuse this nomination, desert my wife, and disappear in a foreign country or you will tell what you know of Five Mountain Gulch. Am I right?"
"On the whole, yes," she replied, maintaining her brazen serenity in the face of his wrath. "I swore I would separate you from that little saint, and, before heaven, I will!"
"Why did you not act before, in Dawson?"
"I learned what I know at Samson Creek when Morris died," she said impetuously. "You had started for England when I got back to Dawson. I came on your heels, and I am to have my revenge."
"So your informant was Morris," Rex commented with a certain relief. "Do you expect to intimidate me by the use of a dying man's delirium, by means of some irrational tale? Let me tell you, Maud Morris, that I have walked too close to real danger to be frightened by a phantom!"
"Morris knew everything," she cried vehemently. "He followed you all the way up the Klondike to Five Mountain Gulch and saw you shoot Lessari."
Britton reeled, self-control shocked out of him.
"Morris did?" he stammered–"but it was self-defence–"
"Was it?" she interrupted, leering into his face with supercilious smiles. "Would the public believe it? Have you an atom of proof? You may say that the lack of proof, of substantiation, works both ways. That may be, but proof is not necessary for my purpose. The simple statement, the all-pervading rumor, the unpreventable scandal, will do far better. Do you see where you are now, Rex,–the old, proud Rex? Do you know where you are? Yes, you do–in my hand!" She slowly closed her outstretched fingers.
Egotistical triumph gleamed in her every lineament. Britton, wrestling with his deep problem, did not mark her expression, for he had made a vital discovery which filled him with mental disgust.
"I know now the mysteries of the poisoned dogs and the sled plunging into the abyss," he announced in a horrified way, "and I can tell you where your husband is at this moment. Morris is in hell, suffering torment for a double murder! Twice in that frozen wilderness he apparently compassed our destruction with the most diabolical intent. He is as guilty as if Lessari and myself had both died at his hand."
Britton's awful earnestness embarrassed her, but she made a pretence of laughing sceptically. Distant thunder echoed with her laugh in low growlings and mutterings, and the far-off rising downs were nakedly etched by vivid, incessant streaks of lightning as if the mountain spirits were working themselves up to a climax of passion that must culminate in a ruthless and pathetic tragedy.
The strains of the orchestra in the drawing-rooms were drowned by the threatenings of the storm, and Rex could hear people hurrying in from the gardens and lawns and from the river to reach cover and escape the expected deluge. An unconscious wonderment as to whether young Guy Rossland had lost himself in searching for the next man whose name was on the theosophist's list passed through Britton's mind. The false theosophist herself interrupted his pondering.
"If Morris is guilty through intent," she said, "what of your own deed?" The shallow mockery of her glance belied the sense of judicious importance she tried to attach to her utterance. Rex commenced to see at last that the woman was but playing for a stake and holding all the trumps.
"I feel no guilt, nothing but remorse," he replied, "for I stand clear of any deliberate act."
"But you cannot prove it," she cautioned. "Picture public condemnation and horror when they know!"
"Go and tell them," Rex fiercely returned, accepting with his accustomed thrill the combat which could not be averted.
"Ah!" she exclaimed. "Then with such permission I shall tell your wife first."
Britton winced visibly, and his face was bereft of its ruddy color. He caught the woman's wrists with the motion of crushing a venomous thing.
"Good God, you vampire!" he cried.
She had used some weapon known only to themselves, and, judging by its effect on the two standing thus, the weapon was one of incalculable cruelty.
CHAPTER XIX.
The conservatory door flew open with a rattle of shattered glass, admitting Lady Rossland and Mercia fleeing from the gardens amid the spattering raindrops.
"Oh!" they exclaimed simultaneously, on catching sight of the tableau where the silken tent had stood. "Oh!" Mercia's voice was low and hurt. Lady Rossland's rose up, pitched higher in an outraged tone.
Britton dropped the wrists he had grasped and turned toward the two women, humiliation written on his grave face, but the pride of Mercia would not allow her to wait for a forthcoming apology.
"I fancy we intrude," she said coldly. "Come, Lady Rossland, we can probably reach the house." Her ladyship wheeled across the doorstep, flashing back scornful eyes, and took Mercia's arm as they hurried out.
Rex gave an eager, pleading cry and darted forward.
"Wait," he cried entreatingly. "You are misjudging–"
But they were gone in the darkness, having raced up the gravel walk to the great illuminated house! The big, round drops wetted Britton's cheeks and dashed on his head. A moment he stood on the flags at the door, yearning to follow and explain, but a more vital and immediate necessity lay behind him in the conservatory.
He turned back, keeping himself forcibly in hand, determined on a summary and decisive dealing with the pregnant issue thrust upon him by Maud Morris.
"That," he said to her, "was the most humiliating thing any wife could see, yet it meant nothing at all!"
A change had come over her since the sudden apparition of the two women in the doorway. The fear of failure, inspired by the sweet, pure beauty of Mercia, seemed to hold her in its grip, and she called to her aid the old resource of alluring appeal.
"Don't say that, Rex," she pleaded, with a touch of pathos. "Have you altogether forgotten the old days? There must be memories sometimes!"
"No," said Britton, doggedly, "I could not remember them if I would."
"You are very trying," she murmured, petulant as a crossed child. "Can you not listen to reason?"
"There is only one way of reasoning soundly and in accordance with universal law," Rex answered with conviction. "That reasoning is along the line of right. I am prepared to follow it to the bitter end."
She looked up in amazement during a short interval.
"Do you realize all that your words imply?" she questioned incredulously. "I cannot think you do!"
"Yes, everything they imply," he answered, filled with the weary languor attendant upon nervous strain.
She was not left to surmise. Britton's meaning was plain. Her confidence began to shake.
"The alternative!" she began plaintively, "–surely you have understood me!"
"Too well," laughed Britton, harshly, "and I would rather go to prison–which I shall certainly not do, since, as you say, there is no proof!"
The woman's cheeks and brow went crimson with annoyance coupled with shame; she felt the demoralizing force of man's scorn.
"Rather than take that alternative, you will suffer me to tell Mercia?" she asked uncertainly.
"No," Rex answered in a ringing voice, "for I am going to tell her!"
She gasped. "You!" she exclaimed precipitately. "It is suicide! Are you entirely mad?"
There was in the woman's manner the recognition of an impending catastrophe, the knowledge of immeasurable possibilities. Britton instinctively felt her disappointment, and it helped to bring back to him, in a fair degree, his original assurance, confidence, and reliance.
"It will be the sanest thing I ever did," he declared.
Then the mask of the woman's plotting and machination fell, and she stood revealed in her uncertain status of life, fighting for what she loved in her own contemptible way.
"Rex, Rex," she cried incoherently, "I can't let you do that. My God, you know what it would mean!"
She grasped his hands in her intolerable fear, but he rescued them with a calm gesture. The action saved them from a second surprise.
The greenhouse door burst open more violently than before, and Guy Rossland stamped up and down in a pair of rain-soaked pumps, sending the wet flying in all directions.
"Ruined," he said woefully, regarding his pulpy patent leathers. "By Jove, but it's a beastly night. Hello! tent blown down?"
"A gust through that open window," explained the theosophist, who had resumed her veil. "Please close it and help me with the curtain. I am afraid the rain has frightened all my subjects."
"Couldn't find Kinmair," lamented Guy, climbing on the sill to fasten the casement. "The bally idiot! He's next after Britton. Hunted him through all the gardens, and then they told me he'd gone punting. Went on the river and got caught–worse luck! Jove, my feet feel as if I were barefoot in the marsh."
"Kinmair can postpone his visit," Rex said. "Indeed, the storm will cause a general postponement. No one can come through this rain. I think I'll make a run for it!"
But he walked, seeming not to notice the violence and the downpour. The coolness was pleasing on his face, and the damp lowered the feverish temperature of his heated blood, though it proved disastrous to his immaculate dress clothes.
He could see neither Mercia nor Lady Rossland when he entered, but he encountered Trascott elaborating on philanthropies to a penniless dowager. The curate did not note Britton's personal appearance, so deep was he in a cherished plan of building orphan homes and reading rooms for the poor of London, a plan involving the expenditure of something like two millions of money.
"It's admirable," murmured the dowager, who herself had to scrape to keep up appearances. "It's a most beautiful scheme, Mr. Trascott. You have every technicality well within your grasp. What is to prevent the carrying out of those details?"
"The money," Britton heard Trascott answer sadly. "It exists as yet only in my dreams. I have advanced my theories and worked for their realization, but the unthinking rich have not responded. Sometimes I feel as if I shall never live long enough to see my project undertaken either by my own hand or by that of a more competent man."
"Still, it is ideal," the dowager returned, as Rex moved on past them. "And it is something to cherish an ideal to the end of one's life, even if one never enjoys its realization."
Britton took the thought as applied to his own existence, especially in its present crisis, and turned it over and over in his mind while he searched the different rooms for Ainsworth.
Within Rossland's great country mansion the gaiety of the occasion was undiminished. The games, the talk, the dancing, all went on as merrily as if no tempest raged outside. The decorated chambers were illuminated with such a blaze of light that the flashes of the sky's electric current were scarcely in evidence through drawn blinds. Only the spaced, resounding roll of thunder and the crash of giant trees in the woodland groves told that a terrific storm was in progress.
In the centre of the music salon he saw the Rosslands with a crowd of guests, lamenting the disagreeable night that had driven them from the river. Mercia was not with them, and Rex felt that after the incident of the conservatory he must avoid Lady Rossland for the moment.
He crossed the hall and ran into young Guy, who, looking very flushed and disturbed, appeared to have emerged from some more or less inglorious conflict. Guy had on dry shoes, but they had not sufficed to smooth his apparently ruffled feelings.
"What's wrong?" asked Britton, remembering the youth's capacity for getting into trouble. "Been quarreling with someone in the house?"
"Quarreling? Not much–worse luck!" the boy blurted out ingenuously. "But, by Jove, aunt has the beastliest temper in Sussex! She's down on the theosophist she hired about something or other. Packed her off in the rain!"
"What?" Rex asked, interestedly. "Lady Rossland packed off the hired Mahatma woman?"
"Just that," Guy answered. "In a cab with James, through all the beastly rain–to the Crystal Hotel. That's the best in New Shoreham, and aunt told James to pay the bill."
Rex was thinking retrospectively. If his own concerns had not compelled the deepest gravity, he would have been inclined to laugh. As it was, he gave Guy a speculative look.
"Beastly temper aunt has," the youth continued. "Jove, didn't she rate me! Gave me fits for not holding down my position–guess it must have been on account of the tent. How'd I know the stuffy thing would blow? And Kinmair, the bally idiot, on the river with Dora! drat him!"
The nephew rattled on with the frank tongue of youth, and a smile grew by degrees around Britton's mouth and eyes. It was like the smile of a soldier in the firing line when he gets an unexpected respite and forgets for a brief moment the lurking danger and the strain.
"I wouldn't take it to heart," Rex said while the smile lasted. "It wasn't your fault, Guy, and, now I come to think of it, perhaps–I–I should have closed that conservatory window."
In the smoking-room Britton found Ainsworth whom he had been seeking.
"Stay with the pole instead of the punt?" asked Ainsworth, lightly, surveying his friend's wet clothes.
"Never in my life," replied Britton, very seriously.
"Jump into the river or one of the fountains to rescue somebody?" the lawyer continued in the same bantering way, but Rex had not the heart to match his flippancy.
"Can you get Trascott away and follow us home?" he asked instead, speaking what was on his mind. "I would like you both to give me an hour after we reach the Hall. I want to get some advice and some opinions."
Ainsworth looked at him with awakened interest.
"Something on the political side, eh?" he questioned smilingly.
"Yes, partly," Rex responded. "This convention affair is involved."
"Ah!" laughed Ainsworth, "I recognize in you the true politician's trait, namely the utter inability to draw a hard and fast line between business and pleasure. But go on with your wife! Trascott and I will not be far behind if Rossland will send us in one of his carriages, and of course he will. I am indefatigable in your interests, my dear fellow, and we can talk for three hours if you like."
The lawyer went out to break Trascott's conversation with the stout dowager. Britton remained in the smoking-room a moment, writing two short letters, one to Lord Rossland and one to Kinmair. It seemed a very odd proceeding when he was inside one man's house and within reach of the other man, but it was in keeping with Britton's secret resolve.
Crossing the drawing-room in search of Mercia, he met her alone. She greeted him with the same cold, reserved smile that she habitually gave him. Her beauty forced its way to his heart and left an aching pang.
"Your view of that incident to-night was entirely wrong," he said gravely. "In an hour or two you will have the right of it. This is hardly the place for explanations."
She inclined her head with a regal air which became her well, but which few women could assume because they had not the royal cast of loveliness to support it.
"Explanations are quite unnecessary," she quietly returned. "I do not ask for any."
"Yet I proffer them–at the right time," Britton said. "Please do not misunderstand me." There was courteous pleading in his voice, and it did not escape Mercia.
When they bade Lady Rossland good-night, with their own carriage and that supplied the other men standing in wait, Britton spoke to the hostess of the same thing.
"Lady Rossland," he said, "there is an explanation due you. My wife will ease your mind when I have explained to her. You will have no cause for resentment."
"I am glad of that," her ladyship observed with a bright smile, pressing his hand more warmly. "Indeed, I am very pleased to hear it. I was sure there must be some mistake."
Britton gave her the two letters. "Another favor!" he begged. "Kindly hand these to Lord Rossland and Kinmair in the morning. My request is a little strange, but I would like to have these delivered as I say."
"Certainly," laughed her ladyship. "You do not amaze me. You politicians are always involved in some intricate or uncommon scheme. These shall be handed to my husband and to Kinmair in the morning as you have requested. Good-night to you all. Take good care of your wife, sir!"
The rain thrummed on the canopy covering the walk like a hundred small drums beating tattoos as they hastened to the carriages.
Britton's stood first, the horses frantic with the roar of the sky's heavy artillery. Rex took advantage of a lull in their plunging and handed Mercia in.
They dashed away into the oppressive darkness, thick as a North Sea fog, seeing but little beyond the pale circle cast by their carriage lamps. Intermittent wicked blue flashes revealed the surrounding country at intervals of a second's duration, and a fleeting, dreary panorama was unrolled. These momentary glimpses showed the winding black road running in murky rivulets; they uncovered copses and groves with foliage bedraggled and rent, with branches torn from the trunks, so that their white scars flickered ghost-like beneath the lightning's glare; they photographed a flooded stretch of down lashed by the descending cloud-torrents and vanishing mysteriously into the ungauged distance.
Mercia leaned back upon the carriage cushions without speaking. Her diamonds quivered when the lightning came, and Britton could mark her wonderful profile.
A startling sense of the unreality of his married life lay upon him; the impassableness of the secret gulf separating him from his wife was most poignantly impressed.
"Mercia," he began, "I–I wonder–" and paused hesitatingly.
"What?" she asked, gravely meeting his eyes in a spasmodic flash of electricity.
"I wonder if you remember that evening we came over the trail by Indian River," Britton continued, "the night you saved my life!"
"Yes, I remember," she answered, studiously calm. "That was the beginning." Her voice showed that she did not wish to continue in that train of thought. Rex sighed and pressed as close to his side of the vehicle as he could till they swept through the curved drive of Britton Hall.
Rossland's borrowed carriage bowled up behind, bearing the lawyer and the curate.
Ainsworth bounced upon the lighted porch beside the husband and wife.
"Awful night!" he shivered. "Must be a pack of fiends abroad! Say–what was in those letters, Britton? Anything new turned up?"
"Yes," Rex answered, "they contained my refusal of the candidature."
"The devil!" said Ainsworth.