Westwood Court had been in the possession of the family of bankers since the days of George II. It had been built by that Stephen Westwood whose portrait was painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds. In the picture the man's right hand carries a scroll bearing a tracing of the plans of the house. Before it had been completed, however, Sir Thomas Chambers had something to say in regard to the design, the result being sundry additions which were meant to impart to the plain English mansion the appearance of the villa of a Roman patrician.
It was a spacious house situated in the midst of one of the loveliest parks in Brackenshire—a park containing some glorious timber, some brilliant spaces of greensward, and a trout stream that was never known to disappoint an angler, however exacting he might be. It was scarcely surprising that love for this home was the most prominent of the characteristics of the Westwood family. Every member of the family, with but one exception, seemed to have inherited this trait. The one exception was Claude Westwood, the younger brother of Richard.
During his father's lifetime he had been in a cavalry regiment, and while serving in India, had taken part in a rather perilous frontier campaign against a strange set of tribesmen in the northwest. He had become greatly interested in the opening up of the conquered territory, and as soon as his father died he had left the regiment and had done some remarkable exploration work on his own account, both in the northwest of India and in the borderland of Persia.
He returned to England to recover from the effects of a snake-bite, and to stay for a month or two with his brother, to whom he was deeply attached. But when in Brackenshire he had formed another attachment which threatened to interfere with the Future he had mapped out for himself as an explorer. He did not notice any change in his brother's demeanour the day he had gone to him confiding in him that he had fallen in love with Agnes Mowbray, the beautiful daughter of Admiral Mowbray, who had bought a small property known as The Knoll, a mile from the gates of the Court. Richard Westwood had found it necessary for the successful carrying on of the banking business, which he had inherited, to keep himself always well in hand. If his feelings were not invariably under control, his expression of those feelings certainly was so; and this was how it came that, after a pause of only a few seconds, he was able to offer his brother his hand and to say in a voice that was neither husky nor tremulous:
“Dear old chap, you have all my good wishes.”
“I knew that you would be pleased,” Claude had said. “She is the sort of girl one only meets once in a lifetime. I have lived for a good many years in the world now, and yet I never met any girl worthy of a thought alongside Agnes. How on earth you have remained in her neighbourhood for a year without falling in love with her yourself is a mystery to me.”
A sudden flash came to Dick's eyes, and he was at the point of crying out, “Have I so remained?” But his usual habits of self-control prevented his showing to his brother what was in his heart He had merely given a laugh as he said:
“I suppose it must always seem mysterious to a man in love that every one else in the world does not display symptoms of the same malady.”
“I daresay you are right,” Claude had answered, after a pause. “Yes, I daresay—only—ah!—Agnes is very different from all the other girls in the world.”
“You recollect Calverley's lines:
“'I did not love as others do—
None ever did that I've heard tell of?
Ah! you lovers are all cast in the same mould. But how about your projected exploration—you can scarcely expect her to rough it with you at the upper reaches of the Zambesi?”
Claude Westwood looked grave. For some weeks he had talked about nothing else except the splendid possibilities of the Upper Zambesi to explorers; and his brother had offered to share the expenses of an expedition thoroughly well-equipped to do all that Livingstone and Baines left undone in that fascinating quarter of Africa.
“Perhaps she will refuse me,” said Claude.
“Ah! perhaps; but if she does not refuse you?”
There was a long pause. Claude rose from his chair and walked to the window. He looked out over the sloping lawns and the terraced Italian garden; the blue swallows were skimming the surface of the huge marble basin where the water-lilies floated. He seemed greatly interested in the movements of the birds.
At last he turned suddenly round to his brother, and laid his hand on his shoulder, saying:
“Dick, I should like to win her. I should like to offer her a name—the name of a man who has done something in the world. Whatever happens I am bound to make the expedition to the Zambesi.”
Dick Westwood had, while sitting before the empty grate, recalled all the incidents of eight years before—he recollected how a level ray of the red sunlight had flickered through the leaves of the copper beech and made rosy his brother's face—he could still feel the strong clasp of his hand as they had separated to dress for the dinner which Admiral Mowbray was giving that evening. He remembered how Agnes had looked at the head of the table—oh, he had felt even then that she was not for him, but for his brother—how could he have fancied for a moment that he would have a chance of her love when Claude was near?
The expression on Claude's face when they met to go home together told him all; but he did not need to be told anything. He knew that it was inevitable. Agnes had accepted Claude: she had accepted him and told him to go out to Africa; she would wait for him to return, even though he might not return for ten years, she had said, laughingly.
Alas! alas! the lover had gone at the head of his expedition to the Zambesi, and for seven months news had come from him at irregular intervals—for seven months only; after that—silence. No line came from him, no rumour of the fate of the expedition had reached England, though at the end of the second year a large reward had been offered to any one who could throw light on the mystery.
Eight years had now passed since the expedition had set out from Zanzibar, and there was only one person alive who rejected every suggestion that disaster had overtaken Claude Westwood and his companions. It had become an article of faith with Agnes that her lover would return. The lapse of years seemed to strengthen rather than to attenuate her hope. Her father had died when Claude had been absent for two years, and almost his last words to her had been of hope.
“Fear nothing for him; he will return to you. I know what manner of man it is that succeeds in the world, and Claude Westwood is not the man to fail. I shall not see him, but you will. Whatever happens, whatever people round you may say, don't relinquish hope for him.”
Those had been her father's words, and she had obeyed their injunction. She had not given up hope, although no one in the neighbourhood ever thought of mentioning the name of Claude Westwood in her hearing. It seemed that the very memory of the man had died out in Brackenhurst. She had not given up hope although now and again she had been startled to see a grey hair where a brown one had been.
And for eight years Richard Westwood had watched her, wondering what would be the end of her devotion—what would be the end of his own devotion. People in the neighbourhood could not understand him. They took the trouble every now and then to invent a theory to account for his singular rejection of the delicate hints that had been thrown out to him by mothers of many daughters—hints that the head of the house of Westwood had certain duties in life—social duties—to discharge. The theories were more or less ingenious; but even when some of them had come to his ears he remained as obdurate as ever. He merely laughed, and the man who laughs is well known to be the most discouraging of men.
But Cyril Mowbray did not find him very discouraging as he sat with him on this evening after dinner, for the dinner had been an excellent one and his cigars were unexceptional. They were in their easy-chairs in front of a French window, the leaves of which were open. The square of the window enclosed as in a frame an exquisite picture of the dim garden. The sound of cawing rooks in the distant elms was borne through the tranquil air. The scents of the earliest roses stole within the room at mysterious intervals. It was a perfect summer's night, and Cyril felt that though there were troubles in the world, yet on the whole it was a very pleasant place to live in.
There had been a pause in the conversation, which had related mainly to a very pretty young girl named Lizzie Dangan, the daughter of the head gamekeeper at Westwood Court—the man who had touched his hat as the dog-cart drove through the entrance gates. The silence was suddenly broken by Cyril's exclaiming:
“You are a first-rate chap, Dick. Why shouldn't you marry Agnes?”
Dick's eyes flashed upon him for a moment, and it seemed to Cyril that he detected a certain curious drawing in of his breath that sounded like the stifling of a sigh. The exclamation which came from him immediately afterwards seemed incongruous—it was an exclamation that suggested the putting aside of an absurdity.
“Oh, you may say 'psha!' as often as you please,” said Cyril; “it will not alter the fact that Agnes and you would get on very well together. I know that she thinks a lot of you—so do I.”
“That's very kind of you,” said Dick. “But you're talking nonsense—worse than nonsense. Agnes has given her promise to marry my brother Claude. Let us say no more about it.”
“It's all very well for you to say, 'We'll say no more about it,”' cried Cyril, with an air of responsibility—the responsibility of a brother who refuses to allow the affections of his sister to be trifled with. “It's all very well for you to say that; but when I think how long this sort of shilly-shallying has been going on—well, it makes me wild. Agnes is now over thirty—think of that—over thirty, and what's more, she's not getting any younger. I'm anxious to see her settled. I think I've a right to ask if she's engaged to marry Claude. Where's Claude now? Does any sane person believe that he is still in the land of the living?”
“Your sister believes it, and she is sane enough. However, I'm not going to discuss the question with you, my friend; or, for that matter, with anybody else.”
“That's all very well; the fact remains the same. Here's a fine house thrown away upon a bachelor, and there's Agnes, who would suit you down to the ground, waiting”—
“Waiting—waiting—that is exactly her position.”
“Waiting—yes; but for what? For what, I ask you as a man of the world? Your brother is dead, beyond a shadow of a doubt, and here you are alive and hearty. Doesn't it say something in the Bible that when a chap's brother dies”—
“Cyril,” said Dick Westwood, rising with an impatient jesture, “we'll have no more of this. I won't allow you to talk any longer in this strain. Shall we finish our cigars in the garden?”
“All right,” said Cyril, rising. But before they had taken a step toward the open French window, there seemed to arise from the earth the figure of a man, and he stood in the window space looking eagerly at each of them in turn.
The stranger stood with his back to whatever light there was remaining in the sky, but Dick Westwood and his guest could see what manner of man he was. He wore a short beard and moustache. His clothes were shabby, and so was his soft hat. He might have been a foreman of mechanics just left off work.
Westwood stepped to the wall and switched on a lamp. Then he scrutinised the stranger closely. The man had entered the room through the French window.
“Who are you, and what do you want, my good fellow?” said Westwood. “It is customary for visitors to pull the bell at the hall door.”
“I pulled the bell. They told me you were at dinner and could not be disturbed, sir,” replied the man.
No one who heard him speak could think of him as an ordinary mechanics' foreman. He spoke like a person of some culture.
“And they told you what was true,” said Westwood. “Allow me to say that it is most unusual for a total stranger to force himself into a house in this fashion. I must ask you to go away at once unless you have something of importance to communicate to me; unless—good heavens! is it possible that you come with some news of my brother?”
Dick had given a start as the idea seemed to strike him. Cyril also started, and looked at the stranger narrowly.
“I know nothing of your brother, Mr. Westwood,” said the man. “But I know you. I know that it was into your hands I put my money a year ago, and I have come to you for it now. I tried to come before the bank closed, but I missed the connection of the trains at the junction. I live in the North now. I want my money, Mr. Westwood.”
Mr. Westwood turned upon the man.
“You should know well enough that this is not the time or the place to come about any matter of banking business,” said he. “I don't remember ever seeing you before, but even if I did remember you, I could only give you the answer I have already given. I shall be pleased to go into any business question at the bank. I decline to hold any business communication with you at this time or in this place. I have had business enough and to spare for one day. I must ask you to come to the bank in the morning.”
“I've no notion of being put off in that way, Mr. Westwood,” said the man. “How am I to know that your bank will open to-morrow or any other day? I got a telegram at noon telling me that Westwoods' would be the next of the county banks to go to the wall, and I hurried up from Midleigh, where I am employed, hoping to be in time to pluck my savings out of the ruin; but, as I told you, I missed the train connection. But here I am and here”—
“I do not wish to hear anything further about you or your business at this time, my good sir,” said Richard. “I have been courteous to you up to the present. I must now insist on your retiring. It would be insufferable if a man in my position had to be badgered on business matters at any hour of the day and night. Come, sir.”
He had gone to the side of the window and made a motion with his hand in the direction of the garden.
“Look here, Mr. Westwood,” said the man, “you know me well enough. My name is Carton Standish, and I lodged with you just a year ago the six hundred pounds which I had saved for my wife and child. You know that I speak the truth. Psha! What's the use of going over the matter again?”
“That's what I ask too; so I insist”—
“It's not for you but for me to insist,” broke in the man. “It's for me to insist, and I do insist. Come, sir, hand over that money of mine without the delay of another minute. It's my money, not yours, and I decline to be swindled out of it by you or any other cheat of a bankrupt.”
“You have mistaken your man,” said Richard Westwood quietly. “Stay where you are, Cyril.” Cyril had taken an angry step toward the stranger. “Stay where you are; I think I am equal to dealing with this gentleman alone. Come now, Mr. Stand-ish, if that is your name, the last word has passed between us; if you don't clear out of my house inside a minute I shall be forced to throw you out.”
“You infernal swindler!” shouted the man. “This is your last chance—this is my last chance. Hand me over my money or I'll kill you!”
He had drawn a revolver and covered Dick Westwood with it in a second. At the same instant the door of the room opened and a footman appeared.
Cyril had sprung toward the man, but Dick Westwood restrained him by a gesture, and then turning to the servant, said quietly:
“Bentley, show this gentleman out by the hall door.”
The man had lowered his revolver—it had only been pointed at Westwood for a moment. He looked at the weapon strangely, then with an exclamation he tossed it out of the open window. It fell with a soft thud on the grass border of the terrace, but did not explode.
The footman drew a long breath. He did not seem to relish the duty of showing out an excited man with a six-chambered revolver in his hand. He felt that that was outside the usual range of a footman's duties. He went to the door and stood beside it in his usual attitude.
“If you have swindled me, you need not think that you will escape,” said the visitor, striding across the room until he faced Dick. “I have not been a good husband, or perhaps father, at times; but I was making amends for the past. I had saved that money for my wife and child, and now—now—if it's lost, I swear to you that I'll kill you.”
“You'll not do it to-night, at any rate,” said Dick. “Are you so sure? Are you so sure of that?” said the man in a low tone, going still closer to him, his hands clenched in an attitude of menace.
Then he suddenly wheeled about, and walking to the door, left the room without a word. His steps died away up the hall, followed by the soft-treading servant. The sound of the closing of the hall door reached the room before either Westwood or Cyril spoke. Then it was the former who said:
“Is it possible that you have allowed your cigar to go out? Oh, you young chaps; good cigars are thrown away upon you!”
He was smoking his own cigar quite collectedly. Cyril gave a laugh. He did not feel quite so much a man of the world as he had felt when giving his friend the benefit of his advice some minutes before.
“I fancied that something exciting was about to take place to rouse this stagnant neighbourhood,” said he. “Like you, Dick, I'm interested in men. That chap looked a desperate rascal. Do you remember anything of him? Did he actually lodge money with you a year ago?”
“Yes; what he said was quite true,” replied Westwood. “I can't for the life of me recollect who recommended him to the bank, but I'm nearly sure that he opened an account with us. I felt that his arriving here to-night was a sort of last straw so far as I am concerned. Good heavens! haven't I gone through enough to-day to last me for some time, without being badgered by a fellow like that—a fellow whose ideas of diplomacy are shown by his calling one a swindler—a cheat! That was the best way he could set about coaxing a man like me to do him a favour.”
“Is he a dangerous man, do you think? There was a look in his eye that I did not like,” said Cyril.
“A man is not dangerous because of a look in his eye, but rather because of a revolver in his hand; and you saw that that poor fool was more afraid of it than I was,” said Westwood. “Oh, he's a poor sort of fellow after all. No man shows up worse than one who tries to be threatening in a heroic way. He sinks into the mountebank in a moment. He'll be all right in the morning when he handles his money—assuming that he will draw out his balance, which is doubtful. Most likely he will have recovered from his panic, and will apologize. Take another cigar, and don't spoil this one by letting it go out.”
Cyril helped himself from the box, and immediately afterwards the footman entered with a tray with decanters. Cyril took a whisky and Apollinaris, and Dick helped himself to brandy.
“The first spirituous thing I have handled to-day,” he said with a laugh. “And yet before I left the bank I could hear my clerks inquiring anxiously for brandy.”
“What nerves you have!” said Cyril. “I suppose they run in your family. Poor Claude must have had something good in that line.”
“Yes,” said Dick, “he has good nerves.”
Cyril noticed that he declined to accept the past tense in regard to Claude.
“Do you mind testing mine by playing a game of billiards?” asked the younger man.
“I should like a game above all things—but only one. I must be early at the bank in the morning, if only to receive our friend Standish's apology. Come along.”
They went off together to the billiard-room, which was built out at the back of the dining-room; and they had their game, Finishing with the scores so close together that Westwood, who, when Cyril was ninety-seven and he only eighty, ran out with a break of twenty, declared that he had felt more excited by the game than he had at any time of the day—and he confessed that he had found it a rather exciting day on the whole.
It was past eleven when Cyril set out for home, and the night being one of starlight and sweet perfumes, Dick said he would stroll part of the way with him and finish his cigar. They went along together through the shrubbery and across one of the little subsidiary tracks that led from the broad avenue to a small door made in the park wall, half a mile nearer The Knoll than the ordinary entrance gates. Cyril unlocked the door, for the year before Dick had given him a private key for himself and Agnes in order that they might be saved the walk round to the entrance gates when they were visiting the Court. For a few minutes the two men stood chatting on the road, before they said goodnight, and while the one went on in the direction of The Knoll, the other returned to the park, pulling-to the door, which had a spring lock.
The night was wonderfully still. The barking of a dog at King's Elms Farm, nearly a mile away, was heard quite clearly by Richard Westwood, and now and again came the sharp sound of a shot from the warren on Sir Percival Hope's estate, suggesting that a party were shooting rabbits in the most sportsmanlike way, the chances being, on such a night, largely in favour of the rabbits. After every shot one of the peacocks that paraded the grassy terraces of the Court by day, and roosted in the trees by night, sent out a protesting shriek.
All the nocturnal creatures of the woodland were awake, Dick knew. As he paused for a few moments on the track he could hear the stealthy movement of a rat or a weazel among the undergrowth, the flicker of the wings of a bat across the starlight, the rustle of a blackbird among the thick foliage. He had always liked to walk about the park at night, observing and listening, and the result was that none of his gamekeepers had anything like the knowledge which he possessed of the woodland and its inhabitants.
When he reached the house and had let himself in with his latchkey, he went to the drawing-room where he had sat with Cyril after dinner. He threw himself back in his easy-chair, and he seemed to hear once again the voice of Cyril asking him that question:
“Why shouldn't you marry Agnes?”
He asked himself that question as he sat there now. He had put it to himself often during the past two years. Was there any treason toward his brother in the fact that that question had come to him, he wondered. Could any one fancy that his brother was still alive? Could any one believe that the insatiate maw of tropical Africa, which has swallowed up so many brave Englishmen, would disgorge any one of its victims?
He might still pretend that he believed that Claude was still alive, but in his heart he could not feel any hope that he should return. He wondered if Agnes had really any hope—if she too were trying to deceive herself on this matter—if she were not trying by constant references to his return to make herself believe that he would return.
Had Fate ever dealt so cruelly with two people as it had with himself and Agnes? He believed that if any direct evidence had been forthcoming of Claude's death, Agnes might, in course of time, have listened to him, and have believed him when he told her that he loved her—that he had loved her for years—long before Claude had come to tell her that he loved her. Even now.... He wondered if he were to go to her and ask her for his sake to leave the world of delusion in which she was content to live—the atmosphere of self-deception which she was content to breathe and to call it life when she knew it was nothing more than a living death—would she listen to him?
He sat there thinking his thoughts until the sound of the church clock striking the hour of midnight came to him through the still air.
He rose with a long sigh—the sigh of a lover who hopes that hope may come to him before it is too late to dissipate despair, and he was about to switch off the light, when he was startled by the sound of a footstep on the gravel of the walk between the grass of the terrace and the French window. The sound was not that of a person walking on the path, but of one stepping stealthily from the grass.
In another moment there came a tapping on the window—light, but quite distinct.
He switched off the light in an instant, and stepped quickly to one side, for he had no wish to reveal his whereabouts to whatever mysterious visitor might be watching outside. He slipped across the room to the switch of a tall pillar lamp standing close to the window, and when the tapping was repeated, he turned on the light, and looked from behind a screen through the window.
He quite expected to see there the man who an hour and a half before had threatened him, and he was, therefore, greatly surprised when he saw the figure of a girl peering into the room. He hastened to the window and opened it.
“Good heavens, child, what has brought you here at such an hour?” he said. “Lizzie, I'm ashamed of you; it is past midnight.”
“Every one is ashamed of me, sir,” said the girl; she was a very pretty girl of not more than twenty. She was a good deal paler and her features had much more refinement than the face of an ordinary country girl.
She stepped through the window as she spoke. He knew that she did so quite innocently—she would not keep him standing at the open window.
“You have made a little fool of yourself, Lizzie,” he said; “and I fear that you have not learned wisdom yet, or you would not have come here at such an hour. What have you got to say to me? Let us go outside. We can talk better outside. But I hope you haven't got much to say to me. I have to get up early in the morning.”
She stepped outside, and he followed her. They walked half-way round the house until they came to the rosery, which was at the side opposite to that where the servants' rooms were situated.
“I don't want you to fall into worse trouble, my dear,” said he. “Now tell me all that you think I should be told.”
“I knew that I had no chance of speaking to you in an ordinary way, sir,” said the girl, “so I slipped out of Mrs. Morgan's cottage and came here.”
“That was very foolish of you. Well, what have you to say to me?”
“You know my secret, sir. Cyril—I mean Mr. Mowbray, told me that you knew it; but no one else does—not even my father—not even Miss Mowbray—and I'd die sooner than tell it to any one.”
“Yes, yes, I know. To say you were both foolish would be to say the very least of the matter. But you at any rate have been punished.”
“God knows I have, Mr. Westwood.”
“Yes, it is always the woman who has to bear the punishment for this sin. I wish I could lighten yours, my poor child.”
“You can, sir, you can!” The girl had begun to sob, and she could not speak for some time. He waited patiently. “I have come to talk to you about that, sir,” she continued, when she was able to speak once more. “Sir Percival Hope's sister has promised to give me a chance, Mr. Westwood; but only if I agree never to see him again.”
“And, of course, you agreed. You are very fortunate, my girl.”
“Yes, sir, I agreed; but—oh, Mr. Westwood, he has promised to marry me when he gets his money in two years, and I know that he will do it, for I'm sure he loves me, only—oh, sir, I'm afraid that when I'm away, where we may never see each other, he may be led to think different—he may be led to forget me. But you, Mr. Westwood, you will be on my side—you will not let him forget me. That is what I come to implore of you, sir: you will always keep me before him so that he may not forget that he is to marry me?”
“Look here, Lizzie,” said he, after a pause; “if I were you I wouldn't trust to his keeping his promise to you. But I'll tell you what I'll do. I have been talking to Cyril, and he knows what my opinion of his conduct is. He has told me that he would marry you to-morrow if he only had enough money to live on. I advised him to confess all to Miss Mowbray, and if he does so I have made up my mind to send him off to a colony with you, making a provision for your future until he gets his money.”
“Oh, sir—oh, Mr. Westwood!” cried the girl, catching up his hand and kissing it. “Oh, sir, you have saved me from ruin.”
“I hope that I have saved both of you,” said he. “Now, get back to Mrs. Morgan's without delay. I hope that it may not be discovered that you were wandering through the park at midnight. Why, even if Cyril discovered it he might turn away from you.”
After a course of sobs mingled with thanks, the girl went away, and Richard Westwood strolled back toward the house.
It was rather early on the next morning when Agnes Mowbray was visited by Sir Percival Hope. Cyril, who had returned home late on the previous night, and had not gone to bed for nearly an hour after entering the house, was not yet downstairs; but his sister was in her garden when her visitor arrived.
Sir Percival Hope was one of the latest comers to the county. He was the younger son of a good family—the baronetcy was one of the oldest in England—and had gone out to Australia very early in life. In one of the southern colonies he had not only made a fortune, but had won great distinction and had been twice premier before he had reached the age which in England is considered young enough for entering political life. On the death of his father—his elder brother had been killed when serving with his regiment in the Soudan campaign of 1883—he had come to England, not to inherit any estate, for the last acre of the family property had been sold before his birth, but to purchase the estate of Branksome Abbey in Brackenshire, which had once been in his mother's family. He was now close upon forty years of age, and it was said that he was engaged in the somewhat arduous work of nursing the constituency of South Brackenshire. There were few people in the neighbourhood who were disposed to think that when the chance came for him to declare himself he would be rejected. It was generally allowed that he might choose his constituency.
He was a tall and athletic man, with the bronzed face of a southern colonist, and with light-brown hair that had no suggestion of grey about it. As he stood on the lawn at The Knoll by the side of Agnes, and in the shade of one of the great elms, no one would have believed that he was over thirty.
“I got your letter,” said Agnes when she had greeted him with cordiality, for though they had known each other only a year they had become the warmest friends. “I got your letter an hour ago—just when you must have got mine, which I wrote last night. I hope you are able to give me as good news as I gave you.”
“You were able to tell me of the saving of the bank; I hope I can tell you of the saving of a soul,” said Sir Percival.
“I hoped as much,” she cried, her face lighting up as she turned her eyes upon his. “Your sister must be a good woman—as good a woman as you are a man.”
“If you had waited for half an hour when you came to see me yesterday, I could have told you what I come to tell you now,” said he. “But you were in too great a hurry.”
“I had need to make haste,” laughed Agnes. “Every moment was worth hundreds of pounds—perhaps thousands.”
“And the good people were perfectly satisfied with my cheque? Well, they are a good deal more confiding than the colonists to whom I was accustomed in my young days: they would have laughed at the notion of offering them a cheque when they looked for gold, although in the bush cheques are current. Oh no; when they make a run on a bank nothing but gold can satisfy them.”
“I knew what I could do with those people yesterday. They only needed some one to arrest their panic for a moment, and then like sheep they were ready to go off in the opposite direction.”
“And you saved the bank?”
“No, not I. You saved it: the cheque was yours. And now it is through you that that poor girl is to be saved. How good you are. What should we do without you in this neighbourhood?”
“The neighbourhood did without me for a good many years. Never mind. I have come to tell you that my sister will be glad to take your youngprotégéeunder her roof and to give her a chance of—well, may I say, redeeming the past? You are not one of the women who think that for one sin there is no redemption. Neither is my sister. She is, like you, a good woman—not given to preaching or moralising in the stereotyped way, but ever ready to lend a helping hand to a sister, not to push her back into the mire.”
“After all, that is the most elementary Christianity. Was there any precept so urged by the Founder as that? Christianity is assuredly the religion for women.”
“It is the only religion for women—and men. My sister will treat the girl as though she knew nothing of her lapse. There will be no lowering of the corners of her mouth when she receives her. She will never, by word or action, suggest that she has got that lapse forever in her mind. The poor girl will never receive a reproach. In short, she will be given a real chance; not a nominal one; not a fictitious one; not a parochial one.”
“That will mean the saving of her soul. Her father has behaved cruelly toward her. He turned her out of his house, as you know, because she refused to say what was the name of her betrayer.”
“You mentioned that to me. All the people in the neighbourhood seem to be most indignant with the poor girl because of her silence on this point. They seem to feel that their curiosity is outraged. They do not appear to be grateful to her for having stimulated their imagination. And yet I think it was hearing of this attitude of the girl that caused my sister to be attracted to her. That's all I have to say on this painful matter, my dear friend.”
Agnes Mowbray gave him her hand. Her eyes were misty as she turned them upon his face. Several moments had passed before she was able to speak, and then her voice was tremulous. A sob was in her throat.
“You are so good—so good—so good!” she said.
He held her hand for a minute. He seemed to be at the point of speaking as he looked earnestly into her face, but when he dropped her hand he turned away from her without saying a word.
There was a long silence before he said:
“We have been very good friends, you and I, since I came back to England.”
His words were almost startling in their divergence from the subject upon which they had been conversing. The expression on Agnes's face suggested that she was at least puzzled if not absolutely startled by his digression.
“Yes,” she said mechanically, “we have indeed been good friends. I knew in an instant yesterday that it was to you I should go when I was in great need. I knew that you would help me.”
He looked at her gravely and in silence for some moments. Then he suddenly put out his hand to her.
“Good-bye,” he said quickly—unnaturally; and before their hands had more than met for the second time he turned and walked rapidly away to the gate, leaving her standing under the shady elm in the centre of the lawn.
For a moment or two she was too much surprised to be able to make any move. He had never behaved so curiously before. She was trying to think what she had said or what she had suggested that had hurt his feelings, for it seemed to her that his sudden departure might be taken to indicate that she had said something that jarred upon him.
She hastened across the lawn and through the tennis-ground, to intercept him on the road. Only a low privet hedge stood between the road and the gardens of The Kroll, and she reached this hedge and looked over it before he had passed. She saw him approaching; his eyes were upon the ground.
It was his turn to be startled as she spoke his name, looking over the hedge. He looked up quickly.
“Did I say anything that I should not have said just now?” she asked. “Why did you hurry away before our hands had more than met?”
“Shall I come back?” he said, after looking into her eyes with a curious expression in his. “Will you ask me to return?”
“I will—I will—I will,” she cried. “Please return and tell me if I said anything that hurt you. I would not do so for the world. Nothing but gratitude and good feeling for you was in my heart. Oh yes, pray return.”
“If I were wise I should not have returned when you made use of that word 'gratitude,'” said he when he had come beside her, through the small rustic gate which she opened for him from the inside. “Gratitude is the opposite to love, and I love you.”
With a startled cry she took a step or two back from him, and held up her hands as if instinctively to avert a blow.
“I have startled you,” he said. “I was rude; but indeed I do not know of any way of saying that I love you except in those words. I have had no experience either in loving or in confessing my love. I came here this morning to say those words to you, but when I looked at you standing beside me under the elm—when I saw how beautiful you were—how full of God's grace, and goodness, and tenderness, and charity, I was so overcome with the thought of my own unworthiness to love such a one as you, that”—
“Oh no, no; for God's sake, do not say that—do not say that,” she cried, holding out her hands to him in an appealing attitude. “Alas! alas! that word love must never pass between us.”
“Why should not the word pass, when my heart and soul”—
“Ah, let me implore of you. I fancied that you knew all—all my story. I forgot that it happened so long ago that people in this neighbourhood had ceased to speak of it years before you came here.”
“Your story? I will believe nothing but what is good of you.”
“My story—my life's story is that I have promised to love another man.”
He gave a gasp. His head fell forward for a moment. Then he clasped his hands behind him and looked at her in all tenderness and without a suggestion of reproach.
“I had a suspicion of it yesterday,” he said. “The man who is more fortunate than I is Richard Westwood.”
“No, not Richard Westwood, but Claude Westwood,” she replied, in a low tone, and with her eyes fixed upon the ground.
A puzzled look was on his face.
“Claude Westwood—Claude Westwood?” he said. “But there is no Claude Westwood. Was not Claude Westwood the African explorer killed years ago—it must be nearly ten years ago—when trying to reach the Upper Zambesi?”
“Claude Westwood is the man to whom I have given my promise,” said she in an unshaken voice—the voice of one whose faith remains unshaken. “He is not dead. He is alive and our love lives. Ah, my dear friend”—she put out both her hands frankly to Sir Percival and he took them, tenderly and reverently—“my dear friend, you may think me a fool; you may think that I am wasting my life in waiting for an event that is as impossible as the bringing of the dead back to life; but God has brought the dead back to life, and I trust in God to bring the man whom I love back to my love. At any rate, whatever you may think, I cannot help myself; it is my life, this waiting, though it is weary—weary.”
She had turned away from him and was looking with wide, wistful eyes across the long sweep of country that lay between the road and the Abbey woods.
He had not let go her hands. He held them as he said:
“My poor Agnes! my poor Agnes. I had some hope—yes, a little—when I first saw you. I had never thought of loving a woman before, but then... ah, what is the good of recalling what my thoughts were—my hopes? I am strong enough to face my fate. I am strong enough to hope with all my heart that happiness may come to you—that—that—he may come to you—the man who is blessed with such a love as has blessed few men. You know that I am sincere, Agnes?”
“I am sure of it,” she said, and now it was her hand that tightened on his. “Ah, my dear, dear friend, I know how good you are—how true! If I were in trouble it is to you I would go for help, knowing that you would never fail me.”
“I will never fail you,” he said. “There is a bond between us. You will come to me should you ever be in trouble.”
“I give you my promise,” she said.
Her eyes were overflowing with tears as she put her face up to his. He kissed her on the forehead very gently, and without speaking a good-bye turned slowly away to the little gate.
While he was in the act of unlocking it, he started, hearing a cry from the spot where they had been standing a dozen yards away.
He looked round quickly.
Agnes was being supported by a servant. He saw that her face was deathly white, and in her hand that fell limply by her side there was an oblong piece of paper. A telegraph envelope had fluttered to the ground.
He rushed back to her.
“What has happened?” he asked the servant.
“A telegram, sir; I brought it out to her—it had just come, and knew that she was out here. She read it and cried out—I was just in time to catch her. I don't think she has quite fainted, Sir Percival.”
The maid was right. Agnes had not fainted, but she was plainly overcome by whatever news the telegram had conveyed to her.
She opened her eyes as Sir Percival put his arm about her, supporting her to a garden chair that stood at the side of the tennis lawn.
“I think I can walk,” she murmured; and she made an effort to step out, but all her strength seemed to have departed. She would have fallen if Sir Percival had not supported her.
“You are weak,” he said; “but after a rest you will be yourself again. Let me help you.”
“You are so good!” she said, and with his help she was able to take a few steps. But then she gave a sudden gasp and became rigid when she caught sight of the telegram which was crumpled in her hand. She raised it slowly and stared at it. Then she cried out:
“Ah, God is good—God is good! It is no dream. He is safe—safe! Claude Westwood is alive.”