For a few brief seconds no one seemed inclined to take upon themselves
the onus of speech. Richard's amazement seemed to increase upon
reflection.
“Maderstrom!” he exclaimed. “Bertram! What in the name of all that's
diabolical are you doing here?”
“I am just a derelict,” Lessingham explained, with a faint smile. “Glad
to see you, Richard. You are a day earlier than I expected.”
“You knew that I was coming, then?” Richard demanded.
“Naturally,” Lessingham replied. “I had the great pleasure of arranging
for your release.”
“Look here,” Richard went on, “I'm groping about a bit. I don't
understand. Forgive me if I run off the track. I'm not forgetting our
friendship, Maderstrom, or what I owe to you since you came and found me
at Wittenburg. But for all that, you have served in the German Army and
are an enemy, and I want to know what you are doing here, in England, in
my brother-in-law's house.”
“No particular harm, Richard, I promise you,” Lessingham replied mildly.
“You are here under a false name!”
“Hamar Lessingham, if you do not mind,” the other assented. “I prefer my
own name, but I do not fancy that the use of it would ensure me a very
warm welcome over here just now. Besides,” he added, with a glance
at Philippa, “I have to consider the friends whose hospitality I have
enjoyed.”
In a shadowy sort of way the truth began to dawn upon Richard. His tone
became grimmer and his manner more menacing.
“Maderstrom,” he said, “we met last under different circumstances. I
will admit that I cut a poor figure, but mine was at least an honourable
imprisonment. I am not so sure that yours is an honourable freedom.”
Philippa laid her hand upon her brother's arm.
“Dick, dear, do remember that they were starving you to death!” she
begged.
“You would never have lived through it,” Helen echoed.
“You are talking to Mr. Lessingham,” Philippa protested, “as though he
were an enemy, instead of the best friend you ever had in your life.”
Richard waved them away.
“You must leave this to us,” he insisted. “Maderstrom and I will be
able to understand one another, at any rate. What are you doing in this
house--in England? What is your mission here?”
“Whatever it may have been, it is accomplished,” Lessingham said
gravely. “At the present moment, my plans are to leave your country
to-night.”
“Accomplished?” Richard repeated. “What the devil do you mean?
Accomplished? Are you playing the spy in this country?”
“You would probably consider my mission espionage,” Lessingham admitted.
“And you have brought it to a successful conclusion?”
“I have.”
Philippa threw her arms around her brother's neck. “Dick,” she pleaded,
“please listen. Mr. Lessingham has been here, in this district, ever
since he landed in England. What possible harm could he do? We haven't
a single secret to be learned. Everybody knows where our few guns are.
Everybody knows where our soldiers are quartered. We haven't a harbour
or any secret fortifications. We haven't any shipping information which
it would be of the least use signalling anywhere. Mr. Lessingham has
spent his time amongst trifles here. Take Helen away somewhere and
forget that you have seen him in the house. Remember that he has saved
Henry's life as well as yours.”
“I invite no consideration upon that account,” Lessingham declared. “All
that I did for you in Germany, I did, or should have attempted to do,
for my old friend. Your release was different. I am forced to admit
that it was the price paid for my sojourn here. I will only ask you to
remember that the bargain was made without your knowledge, and that you
are in no way responsible for it.”
“A price,” Richard pronounced fiercely, “which I refuse to pay!”
Lessingham shrugged his shoulders.
“The alternative,” he confessed, “is in your hands.”
Richard moved towards the telephone.
“I am sorry, Maderstrom,” he said, “but my duty is clear. Who is
Commandant here, Philippa?”
Philippa stood between her brother and the telephone. There was a queer,
angry patch of colour in her cheeks. Her eyes were on fire.
“Richard,” she exclaimed, “you shall not do this from my house! I forbid
you!”
“Do what?”
“Give information. Do you know what it would mean if they believed you?”
“Death,” he answered. “Maderstrom knew the risk he ran when he came to
this country under a false name.”
“Perfectly,” Lessingham admitted.
“But I won't have it!” Philippa protested. “He has become our friend.
Day by day we have grown to like him better and better. He has saved
your life, Dick. He has brought you back to us. Think what it is that
you purpose!”
“It is what every soldier has to face,” Richard declared.
“You men drive me crazy with your foolish ideas!” Philippa cried
desperately. “The war is in your brains, I think. You would carry it
from the battlefields into your daily life. Because two great countries
are at war, is everything to go by--chivalry?--all the finer, sweeter
feelings of life? If you two met on the battlefield, it would be
different. Here in my drawing-room, I will not have this black demon of
the war dragged in as an excuse for murder! Take Dick away, Helen!” she
begged. “Mr. Lessingham is leaving to-night. I will pledge my word that
until then he remains a harmless citizen.”
“Women don't understand these things, Philippa--” Richard began.
“Thank heavens we understand them better than you men!” Philippa
interrupted fiercely. “You have but one idea--to strike--the narrow
idea of men that breeds warfare. I tell you that if ever universal peace
comes, if ever the nations are taught the horror of this lust for blood,
this criminal outrage against civilisation, it is the women who will
become the teachers, because amongst your instincts the brutish ones of
force are the first to leap to the surface at the slightest provocation.
We women see further, we know more. I swear to you, Richard, that if you
interfere I will never forgive you as long as I live!”
Richard stared at his sister in amazement. There seemed to be some new
spirit born within her. Throughout all their days he had never known her
so much in earnest, so passionately insistent. He looked from her to the
man whom she sought to protect, and who answered, unasked, the thoughts
that were in his mind.
“Whatever harm I may have been able to do,” Lessingham announced, “is
finished. I leave this place to-night, probably for ever. As for the
Commandant,” he went on with a faint smile, “he is already upon my
track. There is nothing you can tell him about me which he does not
know. It is just a matter of hours, the toss of a coin, whether I get
away or not.”
“They've found you out, then?” Richard exclaimed.
“Only a miracle saved me from arrest a week ago,” Lessingham
acknowledged. “Your Commandant here is at the present moment in London
for the sole purpose of denouncing me.”
“And yet you remain here, paying afternoon calls?” Richard observed
incredulously. “I'm hanged if I can see through this!”
“You see,” Lessingham explained gently. “I am a fatalist!”
It was Helen who finally led her lover from the room. He looked back
from the door.
“Maderstrom,” he said, “you know quite well how personally I feel
towards you. I am grateful for what you have done for me, even though I
am beginning to understand your motives. But as regards the other things
we are both soldiers. I am going to talk to Helen for a time. I want to
understand a little more than I do at present.”
Lessingham nodded.
“Let me help you,” he begged. “Here is the issue in plain words. All
that I did for you at Wittenberg, I should have done in any case for
the sake of our friendship. Your freedom would probably never have been
granted to me but for my mission, although even that I might have tried
to arrange. I brought your letters here, and I traded them with your
sister and Miss Fairclough for the shelter of their hospitality and
their guarantees. Now you know just where friendship ended and the other
things began. Do what you believe to be your duty.”
Richard followed Helen out, closing the door after him. Lessingham
looked down into Philippa's face.
“You are more wonderful even than I thought,” he continued softly. “You
say so little and you live so near the truth. It is those of us who feel
as you do--who understand--to whom this war is so terrible.”
“I want to ask you one question before I send you away,” she told him.
“This journey to America?”
“It is a mission on behalf of Germany,” he explained, “but it is, after
all, an open one. I have friends--highly placed friends--in my own
country, who in their hearts feel as I do about the war. It is through
them that I am able to turn my back upon Europe. I have done my share
of fighting,” he went on sadly, “and the horror of it will never quite
leave me. I think that no one has ever charged me with shirking my duty,
and yet the sheer, black ugliness of this ghastly struggle, its criminal
inutility, have got into my blood so that I think I would rather pass
out of the world in some simple way than find myself back again in that
debauch of blood. Is this cowardice, Philippa?”
She looked at him with shining eyes.
“There isn't any one in the world,” she said, “who could call you a
coward. Whatever I may decide, whatever I may feel towards you, that at
least I know.”
He kissed her fingers.
“At ten o'clock,” he began--
“But listen,” she interrupted. “Apart from anything which Dick might
do, you are in terrible danger here, all the more if you really have
accomplished something. Why not go now, at this moment? Why wait? These
few hours may make all the difference.”
He smiled.
“They may, indeed, make all the difference to my life,” he answered.
“That is for you.”
He followed Mills, who had obeyed her summons, out of the room. Philippa
moved to the window and watched him until he had disappeared. Then very
slowly she left the room, walked up the stairs, made her way to her own
little suite of apartments, and locked the door.