CHAPTER I

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A LOST LEADER

by

E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM

Author of "A Maker of History," "Mysterious Mr. Sabin," "The Master

Mummer," "Anna the Adventuress," Etc.

Illustrated by Fred Pegram

Boston

Little, Brown & Company

1907

CONTENTS

BOOK I

Chapter

I Reconstruction

II The Woman with an Alias

III Wanted--A Politician

IV The Duchess Asks a Question

V The Hesitation of Mr. Mannering

VI Sacrifice

VII The Duchess's "At Home"

VIII The Mannering Mystery

IX The Pumping of Mrs. Phillimore

X The Man with a Motive

XI Mannering's Alternative

BOOK II

I Borrowdean makes a Bargain

II "Cherchez la Femme"

III One of the "Sufferers"

IV Debts of Honour

V Love _versus_ Politics

VI The Conscience of a Statesman

VII A Blow for Borrowdean

VIII A Page from the Past

IX The Faltering of Mannering

X The End of a Dream

XI Borrowdean shows his "Hand"

XII Sir Leslie Borrowdean incurs a Heavy Debt

XIII The Woman and--the Other Woman

BOOK III

I Matrimony and an Awkward Meeting

II The Snub for Borrowdean

III Clouds--and a Call to Arms

IV Disaster

V The Journalist Intervenes

VI Treachery and a Telegram

VII Mr. Mannering, M.P.

VIII Playing the Game

IX The Tragedy of a Key

X Blanche finds a Way Out

BOOK IV

I The Persistency of Borrowdean

II Hester Thinks it "A Great Pity"

III Summoned to Windsor

IV Checkmate to Borrowdean

V A Brazen Proceeding

A LOST LEADER

BOOK I

CHAPTER I

RECONSTRUCTION

The two men stood upon the top of a bank bordering the rough road which

led to the sea. They were listening to the lark, which had risen

fluttering from their feet a moment or so ago, and was circling now above

their heads. Mannering, with a quiet smile, pointed upwards.

"There, my friend!" he exclaimed. "You can listen now to arguments more

eloquent than any which I could ever frame. That little creature is

singing the true, uncorrupted song of life. He sings of the sunshine, the

buoyant air; the pure and simple joy of existence is beating in his

little heart. The things which lie behind the hills will never sadden

him. His kingdom is here, and he is content."

Borrowdean's smile was a little cynical. He was essentially of that order

of men who are dwellers in cities, and even the sting of the salt breeze

blowing across the marshes--marshes riven everywhere with long arms of

the sea--could bring no colour to his pale cheeks.

"Your little bird--a lark, I think you called it," he remarked, "may be a

very eloquent prophet for the whole kingdom of his species, but the song

of life for a bird and that for a man are surely different things!"

"Not so very different after all," Mannering answered, still watching the

bird. "The longer one lives, the more clearly one recognizes the absolute

universality of life."

Borrowdean shrugged his shoulders, with a little gesture of impatience.

He had left London at a moment when he could ill be spared, and had not

travelled to this out-of-the-way corner of the kingdom to exchange

purposeless platitudes with a man whose present attitude towards life at

any rate he heartily despised. He seated himself upon a half-broken rail,

and lit a cigarette.

"Mannering," he said, "I did not come here to simper cheap philosophies

with you like a couple of schoolgirls. I have a real live errand. I want

to speak to you of great things."

Mannering moved a little uneasily. He had a very shrewd idea as to the

nature of that errand.

"Of great things," he repeated slowly. "Are you in earnest, Borrowdean?"

"Why not?"

"Because," Mannering continued, "I have left the world of great things,

as you and I used to regard them, very far behind. I am glad to see you

here, of course, but I cannot think of any serious subject which it would

be useful or profitable for us to discuss. You understand me, Borrowdean,

I am sure!"

Borrowdean closely eyed this man who once had been his friend.

"The old sore still rankles, then, Mannering," he said. "Has time done

nothing to heal it?"

Mannering laughed easily.

"How can you think me such a child?" he exclaimed. "If Rochester himself

were to come to see me he would be as welcome as you are. In fact," he

continued, more seriously, "if you could only realize, my friend, how

peaceful and happy life here may be, amongst the quiet places, you would

believe me at once when I assure you that I can feel nothing but

gratitude towards those people and those circumstances which impelled me

to seek it."

"What should you think, then," Borrowdean asked, watching his friend

through half-closed eyes, "of those who sought to drag you from it?"

Mannering's laugh was as free and natural as the wind itself. He had

bared his head, and had turned directly seawards.

"Hatred, my dear Borrowdean," he declared, "if I thought that they had a

single chance of success. As it is--indifference."

Borrowdean's eyebrows were raised. He held his cigarette between his

fingers, and looked at it for several moments.

"Yet I am here," he said slowly, "for no other purpose."

Mannering turned and faced his friend.

"All I can say is that I am sorry to hear it," he declared. "I know the

sort of man you are, Borrowdean, and I know very well that if you have

come down here with something to say to me you will say it. Therefore go

on. Let us have it over."

Borrowdean stood up. His tone acquired a new earnestness. He became at

once more of a man. The cynical curve of his lips had vanished.

"We are on the eve of great opportunities, Mannering," he said. "Six

months ago the result of the next General Election seemed assured. We

appeared to be as far off any chance of office as a political party could

be. To-day the whole thing is changed. We are on the eve of a general

reconstruction. It is our one great chance of this generation. I come to

you as a patriot. Rochester asks you to forget."

Mannering held up his hand.

"Stop one moment, Borrowdean," he said. "I want you to understand this

once and for all. I have no grievance against Rochester. The old wound,

if it ever amounted to that, is healed. If Rochester were here at this

moment I would take his hand cheerfully. But--"

"Ah! There is a but, then," Borrowdean interrupted.

"There is a but," Mannering assented. "You may find it hard to

understand, but here is the truth. I have lost all taste for public life.

The whole thing is rotten, Borrowdean, rotten from beginning to end. I

have had enough of it to last me all my days. Party policy must come

before principle. A man's individuality, his whole character, is assailed

and suborned on every side. There is but one life, one measure of days,

that you or I know anything of. It doesn't last very long. The months and

years have a knack of slipping away emptily enough unless we are always

standing to attention. Therefore I think that it becomes our duty to

consider very carefully, almost religiously, how best to use them. Come

here for a moment, Borrowdean. I want to show you something."

The two men stood side by side upon the grassy bank, Mannering

broad-shouldered and vigorous, his clean, hard-cut features tanned with

wind and sun, his eyes bright and vigorous with health; Leslie

Borrowdean, once his greatest friend, a man of almost similar physique,

but with the bent frame and listless pallor of a dweller in the crowded

places of life. Without enthusiasm his tired eyes followed the sweep of

Mannering's arm.

"You see those yellow sandhills beyond the marshes there? Behind them is

the sea. Do you catch that breath of wind? Take off your hat, man, and

get it into your lungs. It comes from the North Sea, salt and fresh and

sweet. I think that it is the purest thing on earth. You can walk here

for miles and miles in the open, and the wind is like God's own music.

Borrowdean, I am going to say things to you which one says but once or

twice in his life. I came to this country a soured man, cynical, a

pessimist, a materialist by training and environment. To-day I speak of a

God with bowed head, for I believe that somewhere behind all these

beautiful things their prototype must exist. Don't think I've turned

ranter. I've never spoken like this to any one else before, and I don't

suppose I ever shall again. Here is Nature, man, the greatest force on

earth, the mother, the mistress, beneficent, wonderful! You are a

creature of cities. Stay with me here for a day or two, and the joy of

all these things will steal into your blood. You, too, will know what

peace is."

Borrowdean, as though unconsciously, straightened himself. If no colour

came to his cheeks, the light of battle was at least in his eyes. This

man was speaking heresies. The words sprang to his lips.

"Peace!" he exclaimed, scornfully. "Peace is for the dead. The last

reward perhaps of a breaking heart. The life effective, militant, is

the only possible existence for men. Pull yourself together, Mannering,

for Heaven's sake. Yours is the _faineant_ spirit of the decadent,

masquerading in the garb of a sham primitivism. Were you born into the

world, do you think, to loiter through life an idle worshipper at the

altar of beauty? Who are you to dare to skulk in the quiet places, whilst

the battle of life is fought by others?"

Another lark had risen almost from their feet, and, circling its way

upwards, was breaking into song. And below, the full spring tide was

filling the pools and creeks with the softly flowing, glimmering

sea-water. The fishing boats, high and dry an hour ago, were passing now

seaward along the silvery way. All these things Mannering was watching

with rapt eyes, even whilst he listened to his companion.

"Dear friend," he said, "the world can get on very well without me, and

I have no need of the world. The battle that you speak of--well, I have

been in the fray, as you know. The memory of it is still a nightmare to

me."

Borrowdean had the appearance of a man who sought to put a restraint upon

his words. He was silent for a moment, and then he spoke very

deliberately.

"Mannering," he said, "do not think me wholly unsympathetic. There is a

side of me which sympathises deeply with every word which you have said.

And there is another which forces me to remind you again, and again, that

we men were never born to linger in the lotos lands of the world. You do

not stand for yourself alone. You exist as a unit of humanity. Think of

your responsibilities. You have found for yourself a beautiful corner of

the world. That is all very well for you, but how about the rest? How

about the millions who are chained to the cities that they may earn their

living pittance, whose wives and children fill the churchyards, the

echoes of whose weary, never-ceasing cry must reach you even here? They

are the people, the sufferers, fellow-links with you in the chain of

humanity. You may stand aloof as you will, but you can never cut yourself

wholly away from the great family of your fellows. You may hide from your

responsibilities, but the burden of them will lie heavy upon your

conscience, the poison will penetrate sometimes into your most jealously

guarded paradise. We are of the people's party, you and I, Mannering, and

I tell you that the tocsin has sounded. We need you!"

A shadow had fallen upon Mannering's face. Borrowdean was in earnest, and

his appeal was scarcely one to be treated lightly. Nevertheless,

Mannering showed no sign of faltering, though his tone was certainly

graver.

"Leslie," he said, "you speak like a prophet, but believe me, my mind is

made up. I have taken root here. Such work as I can do from my study is,

as it always has been, at your service. But I myself have finished with

actual political life. Don't press me too hard. I must seem churlish and

ungrateful, but if I listened to you for hours the result would be the

same. I have finished with actual political life."

Borrowdean shrugged his shoulders despairingly. Such a man was hard to

deal with.

"Mannering," he protested, "you must not, you really must not, send me

away like this. You speak of your written work. Don't think that I

underestimate it because I have not alluded to it before. I myself

honestly believe that it was those wonderful articles of yours in the

_Nineteenth Century_ which brought back to a reasonable frame of mind

thousands who were half led away by the glamour of this new campaign. You

kindled the torch, my friend, and you must bear it to victory. You bring

me to my last resource. If you will not serve under Rochester, come

back--and Rochester will serve under you when the time comes."

Mannering shook his head slowly.

"I wish I could convince you," he said, "once and for all, that my

refusal springs from no such reasons as you seem to imagine. I would

sooner sit here, with a volume of Pater or Meredith, and this west wind

blowing in my face, than I would hear myself acclaimed Prime Minister of

England. Let us abandon this discussion once and for all, Borrowdean. We

have arrived at a cul-de-sac, and I have spoken my last word."

Borrowdean threw his half-finished cigarette into the ever-widening creek

below. It was characteristic of the man that his face showed no sign of

disappointment. Only for several moments he kept silence.

"Come," Mannering said at last. "Let us make our way back to the house.

If you are resolved to get back to town to-night, we ought to be thinking

about luncheon."

"Thank you," Borrowdean said. "I must return."

They started to walk inland, but they had taken only a few steps when

they both, as though by a common impulse, stopped. An unfamiliar sound

had broken in upon the deep silence of this quiet land. Borrowdean, who

was a few paces ahead, pointed to the bend in the road below, and turned

towards his companion with a little gesture of cynical amusement.

"Behold," he exclaimed, "the invasion of modernity. Even your

time-forgotten paradise, Mannering, has its civilizations, then. What an

anachronism!"

With a cloud of dust behind, and with the sun flashing upon its polished

metal parts, a motor car swung into sight, and came rushing towards them.

Borrowdean, always a keen observer of trifles, noticed the change in

Mannering's face.

"It is a neighbour of mine," he remarked. "She is on her way to the golf

links."

"Golf links!" Borrowdean exclaimed.

Mannering nodded.

"Behind the sandhills there," he remarked.

There was a grinding of brakes. The car came to a standstill below. A

woman, who sat alone in the back seat, raised her veil and looked

upwards.

"Am I late?" she asked. "Clara has gone on--they told me!"

She had addressed Mannering, but her eyes seemed suddenly drawn to

Borrowdean. As though dazzled by the sun, she dropped her veil.

Borrowdean was standing as though turned to stone, perfectly rigid and

motionless. His face was like a still, white mask.

"I am so sorry," Mannering said, "but I have had a most unexpected visit

from an old friend. May I introduce Sir Leslie Borrowdean--Mrs.

Handsell!"

The lady in the car bent her head, and Borrowdean performed an automatic

salute. Mannering continued:

"I am afraid that I must throw myself upon your mercy! Sir Leslie insists

upon returning this afternoon, and I am taking him back for an early

luncheon. You will find Clara and Lindsay at the golf club. May we have

our foursome to-morrow?"

"Certainly! I will not keep you for a moment. I must hurry now, or the

tide will be over the road."

She motioned the driver to proceed, but Borrowdean interposed.

"Mannering," he said, "I am afraid that the poison of your lotos land is

beginning to work already. May I stay until to-morrow and walk round with

you whilst you play your foursome? I should enjoy it immensely."

Mannering looked at his friend for a moment in amazement. Then he laughed

heartily.

"By all means!" he answered. "Our foursome stands, then, Mrs. Handsell.

This way, Borrowdean!"

The two men turned once more seaward, walking in single file along the

top of the grassy bank. The woman in the car inclined her head, and

motioned the driver to proceed.

CHAPTER II

THE WOMAN WITH AN ALIAS

Borrowdean seemed after all to take but little interest in the game. He

walked generally, some distance away from the players, on the top of the

low bank of sandhills which fringed the sea. He was one of those men whom

solitude never wearies, a weaver of carefully thought-out schemes, no

single detail of which was ever left to chance or impulse. Such moments

as these were valuable to him. He bared his head to the breeze, stopped

to listen to the larks, watched the sea-gulls float low over the lapping

waters, without paying the slightest attention to any one of them. The

instinctive cunning which never deserted him led him without any

conscious effort to assume a pleasure in these things which, as a matter

of fact, he found entirely meaningless. It led him, too, to choose a

retired spot for those periods of intensely close observation to which he

every now and then subjected his host and the woman who was now his

partner in the game. What he saw entirely satisfied him. Yet the way was

scarcely clear.

They caught him up near one of the greens, and he stood with his hands

behind him, and his eyeglass securely fixed, gravely watching them

approach and put for the hole. To him the whole performance seemed

absolutely idiotic, but he showed no sign of anything save a mild and

genial interest. Clara, Mannering's niece, who was immensely impressed

with him, lingered behind.

"Don't you really care for any games at all, Sir Leslie?" she asked.

He shook his head.

"I know that you think me a barbarian," he remarked, smiling.

"On the contrary," she declared, "that is probably what you think us. I

suppose they are really a waste of time when one has other things to do!

Only down here, you see, there is nothing else to do."

He looked at her thoughtfully. He had never yet in his life spoken half a

dozen words with man, woman or child without wondering whether they might

not somehow or other contribute towards his scheme of life. Clara

Mannering was pretty, and no doubt foolish. She lived alone with her

uncle, and possibly had some influence over him. It was certainly worth

while.

"I do not know you nearly well enough, Miss Mannering," he said, smiling,

"to tell you what I really think. But I can assure you that you don't

seem a barbarian to me at all."

She was suddenly grave. It was her turn to play a stroke. She examined

the ball, carefully selected a club from her bag, and with a long, easy

swing sent it flying towards the hole.

"Wonderful!" he murmured.

She looked up at him and laughed.

"Tell me what you are thinking," she insisted.

"That if I played golf," he answered, "I should like to be able to play

like that."

"But you must have played games sometimes," she insisted.

"When I was at Eton--" he murmured.

Mannering looked back, smiling.

"He was in the Eton Eleven, Clara, and stroked his boat at college. Don't

you believe all he tells you."

"I shall not believe another word," she declared.

"I hope you don't mean it," he protested, "or I must remain dumb."

"You want to go off and tramp along the ridges by yourself," she

declared. "Confess!"

"On the contrary," he answered, "I should like to carry that bag for you

and hand out the--er--implements."

She unslung it at once from her shoulder.

"You have rushed upon your fate," she said. "Now let me fasten it for

you."

"Is there any remuneration?" he inquired, anxiously.

"You mercenary person! Stand still now, I am going to play. Well, what do

you expect?"

"I am not acquainted with the usual charges," he answered, "but to judge

from the weight of the clubs--"

"Give me them back, then," she cried.

"Nothing," he declared, firmly, "would induce me to relinquish them.

I will leave the matter of remuneration entirely in your hands. I am

convinced that you have a generous disposition."

"The usual charge," she remarked, "is tenpence, and twopence for lunch."

"I will take it in kind!" he said.

She laughed gaily.

"Give me a mashie, please."

He peered into the bag.

"Which of these clubs now," he asked, "rejoices in that weird name?"

She helped herself, and played her shot.

"I couldn't think," she said, firmly, "of paying the full price to a

caddie who doesn't know what a mashie is."

"I will be thankful," he murmured, "for whatever you may give me--even if

it should be that carnation you are wearing."

She shook her head.

"It is worth more than tenpence," she said.

"Perhaps by extra diligence," he suggested, "I might deserve a little

extra. By the bye, why does your partner, Mr. Lindsay, isn't it, walk by

himself all the time?"

"He probably thinks," she answered, demurely, "that I am too familiar

with my caddie."

"You will understand," he said, earnestly, "that if my behaviour is not

strictly correct it is entirely owing to ignorance. I have no idea as to

the exact position a caddie should take up."

"What a pity you are going away so soon," she said. "I might have given

you lessons."

"Don't tempt me," he begged. "I can assure you that without me the

constitution of this country would collapse within a week."

She looked at him--properly awed.

"What a wonderful person you are!"

"I am glad," he said, meekly, "that you are beginning to appreciate me."

"As a caddie," she remarked, "you are not, I must confess, wholly

perfect. For instance, your attention should be entirely devoted to the

person whose clubs you are carrying, instead of which you talk to me and

watch Mrs. Handsell."

He was almost taken aback. For a pretty girl she was really not so much

of a fool as he had thought her.

"I deny it _in toto_!" he declared.

"Ah, but I know you," she answered. "You are a politician, and you would

deny anything. Don't you think her very handsome?"

Borrowdean gravely considered the matter, which was in itself a somewhat

humorous thing. Slim and erect, with a long, graceful neck, and a

carriage of the head which somehow suggested the environment of a court,

Mrs. Handsell was distinctly, even from a distance, a pleasant person to

look upon. He nodded approvingly.

"Yes, she is good-looking," he admitted. "Is she a neighbour of yours?"

"She has taken a house within a hundred yards of ours," Clara Mannering

answered. "We all think that she is delightful."

"Is she a widow?" Borrowdean asked.

"I imagine so," she answered. "I have never heard her speak of her

husband. She has beautiful dresses and things. I should think she must be

very rich. Stand quite still, please. I must take great pains over this

stroke."

A wild shot from Clara's partner a few minutes later resulted in a

scattering of the little party, searching for the ball. For the first

time Borrowdean found himself near Mrs. Handsell.

"I must have a few words with you before I go back," he said,

nonchalantly.

"Say that you would like to try my motor car," she answered. "What do you

want here?"

"I came to see Mannering."

"Poor Mannering!"

"It would be," he remarked, smoothly, "a mistake to quarrel."

They separated, and immediately afterwards the ball was found. A little

later on the round was finished. Clara attributed her success to the

excellence of her caddie. Mrs. Handsell deplored a headache, which had

put her off her putting. Lindsay, who was in a bad temper, declined an

invitation to lunch, and rode off on his bicycle. The rest of the little

party gathered round the motor car, and Borrowdean asked preposterous

questions about the gears and the speeds.

"If you are really interested," Mrs. Handsell said, languidly, "I will

take you home. I have only room for one, unfortunately, with all these

clubs and things."

"I should be delighted," Borrowdean answered, "but perhaps Miss

Mannering--"

"Clara will look after me," Mannering interrupted, smiling. "Try to make

an enthusiast of him, Mrs. Handsell. He needs a hobby badly."

They started off. She leaned back in her seat and pulled her veil down.

"Do not talk to me here," she said. "We shall have a quarter of an hour

before they can arrive."

Borrowdean assented silently. He was glad of the respite, for he wanted

to think. A few minutes' swift rush through the air, and the car pulled

up before a queer, old-fashioned dwelling house in the middle of the

village. A smart maid-servant came hurrying out to assist her mistress.

Borrowdean was ushered into a long, low drawing-room, with open windows

leading out on to a trim lawn. Beyond was a walled garden bordering the

churchyard.

Mrs. Handsell came back almost immediately. Borrowdean, turning his head

as she entered, found himself studying her with a new curiosity. Yes, she

was a beautiful woman. She had lost nothing. Her complexion--a little

tanned, perhaps--was as fresh and soft as a girl's, her smile as

delightfully full of humour as ever. Not a speck of grey in her black

hair, not a shadow of embarrassment. A wonderful woman!

"The one thing which we have no time to do is to stand and look at one

another," she declared. "However, since you have tried to stare me out of

countenance, what do you find?"

"I find you unchanged," he answered, gravely.

"Naturally! I have found a panacea for all the woes of life. Now what do

you want down here?"

"Mannering!"

"Of course. But you won't get him. He declares that he has finished with

politics, and I never knew a man so thoroughly in earnest."

Borrowdean smiled.

"No man has ever finished with politics!"

"A platitude," she declared. "As for Mannering, well, for the first few

weeks I felt about him as I suppose you do now. I know him better now,

and I have changed my mind. He is unique, absolutely unique! Do you think

that I could have existed here for nearly two months without him?"

"May I inquire," Borrowdean asked, blandly, "how much longer you intend

to exist here with him?"

She shrugged her shoulders.

"All my days--perhaps! He and this place together are an anchorage. Look

at me! Am I not a different woman? I know you too well, my dear Leslie,

to attempt your conversion, but I can assure you that I am--very nearly

in earnest!"

"You interest me amazingly," he remarked, smiling. "May I ask, does

Mannering know you as Mrs. Handsell only?"

"Of course!"

"This," he continued, "is not the Garden of Eden. I may be the first, but

others will come who will surely recognize you."

"I must risk it," she answered.

Borrowdean swung his eyeglass backwards and forwards. All the time he was

thinking intensely.

"How long have you been here?" he asked.

"Very nearly two months," she answered. "Imagine it!"

"Quite long enough for your little idyll," he said. "Come, you know what

the end of it must be. We need Mannering! Help us!"

"Not I," she answered, coolly. "You must do without him for the present."

"You are our natural ally," he protested. "We need your help now. You

know very well that with a slip of the tongue I could change the whole

situation."

"Somehow," she said, "I do not think that you are likely to make that

slip."

"Why not?" he protested. "I begin to understand Mannering's firmness now.

You are one of the ropes which hold him to this petty life--to this

philandering amongst the flower-pots. You are one of the ropes I want to

cut. Why not, indeed? I think that I could do it."

"Do you want a bribe?"

"I want Mannering."

"So do I!"

"He can belong to you none the less for belonging to us politically."

"Possibly! But I prefer him here. As a recluse he is adorable. I do not

want him to go through the mill."

"You don't understand his importance to us," Borrowdean declared. "This

is really no light affair. Rochester and Mellors both believe in him.

There is no limit to what he might not ask."

"He has told me a dozen times," she said, "that he never means to sit in

Parliament again."

"There is no reason why he should not change his mind," Borrowdean

answered. "Between us, I think that we could induce him."

"Perhaps," she answered. "Only I do not mean to try."

"I wish I could make you understand," he said impatiently, "that I am in

deadly earnest."

"You threaten?"

"Don't call it that."

"Very well, then," she declared, "I will tell him the truth myself."

"That," he answered, "is all that I should dare to ask. He would come to

us to-morrow."

"You used not to underrate me," she murmured, with a glance towards the

mirror.

"There is no other man like Mannering," he said. "He abhors any form of

deceit. He would forgive a murderer, but never a liar."

"My dear Leslie," she said, "as a friend--and a relative--"

"Neither counts," he interrupted. "I am a politician."

She sat quite still, looking away from him. The peaceful noises from the

village street found their way into the room. A few cows were making

their leisurely mid-day journey towards the pasturage, a baker's cart

came rattling round the corner. The west wind was rustling in the elms,

bending the shrubs upon the lawn almost to the ground. She watched them

idly, already a little shrivelled and tarnished with their endless

struggle for life.

"I do not wish to be melodramatic," she said, slowly, "but you are

forcing me into a corner. You know that I am rich. You know the people

with whom I have influence. I want to purchase Lawrence Mannering's

immunity from your schemes. Can you name no price which I could pay? You

and I know one another fairly well. You are an egoist, pure and simple.

Politics are nothing to you save a personal affair. You play the game of

life in the first person singular. Let me pay his quittance."

Borrowdean regarded her thoughtfully.

"You are a strange woman," he said. "In a few months' time, when you are

back in the thick of it all, you will be as anxious to have him there as

we are. You will not be able to understand how you could ever have wished

differently. This is rank sentiment, you know, which you have been

talking. Mannering here is a wasted power. His life is an unnatural one."

"He is happy," she objected.

"How do you know? Will he be as happy, I wonder, when you have gone, when

there is no longer a Mrs. Handsell? I think not! You are one of the first

to whom I should have looked for help in this matter. You owe it to us.

We have a right to demand it. For myself personally I have no life now

outside the life political. I am tired of being in opposition. I want to

hold office. One mounts the ladder very slowly. I see my way in a few

months to going up two rungs at a time. We want Mannering. We must have

him. Don't force me to make that slip of the tongue."

The sound of a gong came through the open window. She rose to her feet.

"We are keeping them waiting for luncheon," she remarked. "I will think

over what you have said."

CHAPTER III

WANTED--A POLITICIAN

Sir Leslie carefully closed the iron gate behind him, and looked around.

"But where," he asked, "are the roses?"

Clara laughed outright.

"You may be a great politician, Sir Leslie," she declared, "but you are

no gardener. Roses don't bloom out of doors in May--not in these parts at

any rate."

"I understand," he assented, humbly. "This is where the roses will be."

She nodded.

"That wall, you see," she explained, "keeps off the north winds, and the

chestnut grove the east. There is sun here all the day long. You should

come to Blakely in two months' time, Sir Leslie. Everything is so

different then."

He sighed.

"You forget, my dear child," he murmured, "that you are speaking to a

slave."

"A slave!" she repeated. "How absurd! You are a Cabinet Minister, are

you not, Sir Leslie?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"I was once," he answered, "until an ungrateful country grew weary of the

monotony of perfect government and installed our opponents in our places.

Just now we are in opposition."

"In opposition," she repeated, a little vaguely.

"Meaning," he explained, "that we get all the fun, no responsibility,

and, alas, no pay."

"How fascinating," she exclaimed. "Do sit down here, and tell me all

about it. But I forgot. You are not used to sitting down out of doors.

Perhaps you will catch cold."

Sir Leslie smiled.

"I am inclined to run the risk," he said gravely, "if you will share it.

Seriously, though, these rustic seats are rather a delusion, aren't they,

from the point of view of comfort?"

"There shall be cushions," she declared, "for the next time you come."

He sighed.

"Ah, the next time! I dare not look forward to it. So you are interested

in politics, Miss Mannering?"

"Well, I believe I am," she answered, a little doubtfully. "To tell you

the truth, Sir Leslie, I am shockingly ignorant. You must live in London

to be a politician, mustn't you?"

"It is necessary," he assented, "to spend some part of your time there,

if you want to come into touch with the real thing."

"Then I am very interested in politics," she declared. "Please go on."

He shook his head.

"I would rather you talked to me about the roses. You should ask your

uncle to tell you all about politics. He knows far more than I do."

"More than you! But you have been a Cabinet Minister!" she exclaimed.

"So was your uncle once," he answered. "So he could be again whenever he

chose."

She looked at him incredulously.

"You don't really mean that, Sir Leslie?"

"Indeed I do!" he asserted. "There was never a man within my recollection

or knowledge who in so short a time made for himself a position so

brilliant as your uncle. There is no man to-day whose written word

carries so much weight with the people."

She sighed a little doubtfully.

"Then if that is so," she said, "I cannot imagine why we live down here,

hundreds of miles away from everywhere. Why did he give it up? Why is he

not in Parliament now?"

"It is to ask him that question, Miss Mannering," Borrowdean said, "that

I am here. No wonder it seems surprising to you. It is surprising to all

of us."

She looked at him eagerly.

"You mean, then, that you--that his party want him to go back?" she

asked.

"Assuredly!"

"You have told him this?"

"Of course! It was my mission!"

"Sir Leslie, you must tell me what he said."

Borrowdean sighed.

"My dear young lady," he said, "it is rather a painful subject with me

just now. Yet since you insist, I will tell you. Something has come over

your uncle which I do not understand. His party--no, it is his country

that needs him. He prefers to stay here, and watch his roses blossom."

"It is wicked of him!" she declared, energetically.

"It is inexplicable," he agreed. "Yet I have used every argument which

can well be urged."

"Oh, you must think of others," she begged. "If you knew how weary one

gets of this place--a man, too, like my uncle! How can he be content? The

monotony here is enough to drive even a dull person like myself mad. To

choose such a life, actually to choose it, is insanity!"

Borrowdean raised his head. He had heard the click of the garden gate.

"They are coming," he said. "I wish you would talk to your uncle like

this."

"I only wish," she answered, passionately, "that I could make him feel as

I do."

They entered the garden, Mannering, bareheaded, following his guest.

Borrowdean watched them closely as they approached. The woman's

expression was purely negative. There was nothing to be learned from the

languid smile with which she recognized their presence. Upon Mannering,

however, the cloud seemed already to have fallen. His eyebrows were set

in a frown. He had the appearance of a man in some manner perplexed. He

carried two telegrams, which he handed over to Borrowdean.

"A boy on a bicycle," he remarked, "is waiting for answers. Two telegrams

at once is a thing wholly unheard of here, Borrowdean. You really ought

not to have disturbed our postal service to such an extent."

Borrowdean smiled as he tore them open.

"I think," he said, "that I can guess their contents. Yes, I thought so.

Can you send me to the station, Mannering?"

"I can--if it is necessary," Mannering answered. "Must you really go?"

Borrowdean nodded.

"I must be in the House to-night," he said, a little wearily. "Rochester

is going for them again."

"You didn't take a pair?" Mannering asked.

"It isn't altogether that," Borrowdean answered, "though Heaven knows we

can't spare a single vote just now. Rochester wants me to speak. We are a

used-up lot, and no mistake. We want new blood, Mannering!"

"I trust that the next election," Mannering said, "may supply you with

it. Will you walk round to the stables with me? I must order a cart for

you."

"I shall be glad to," Borrowdean answered.

They walked side by side through the chestnut grove. Borrowdean laid his

hand upon his friend's arm.

"Mannering," he said, slowly, "am I to take it that you have spoken your

last word? I am to write my mission down a failure?"

"A failure without doubt, so far as regards its immediate object,"

Mannering assented. "For the rest, it has been very pleasant to see you

again, and I only wish that you could spare us a few more days."

Borrowdean shook his head.

"We are better apart just now, Mannering," he said, "for I tell you

frankly that I do not understand your present attitude towards life--your

entire absence of all sense of moral responsibility. Are you indeed

willing to be written down in history as a philanderer in great things,

to loiter in your flower gardens, whilst other men fight the battle of

life for you and your fellows? Persist in your refusal to help us, if you

will, Mannering, but before I go you shall at least hear the truth."

Mannering smiled.

"Be precise, my dear friend. I shall hear your view of the truth!"

"I do not accept the correction," Borrowdean answered, quickly. "There

are times when a man can make no mistake, and this is one of them. You

shall hear the truth from me this afternoon, and when your days here have

been spun out to their limit--your days of sybaritic idleness--you shall

hear it again, only it will be too late. You are fighting against Nature,

Mannering. You were born to rule, to be master over men. You have that

nameless gift of genius--power--the gift of swaying the minds and hearts

of your fellow men. Once you accepted your destiny. Your feet were firmly

planted upon the great ladder. You could have climbed--where you would."

A curious quietness seemed to have crept over Mannering. When he

answered, his voice seemed to rise scarcely above a whisper.

"My friend," he said, "it was not worth while!"

Borrowdean was almost angry.

"Not worth while," he repeated, contemptuously. "Is it worth while, then,

to play golf, to linger in your flower gardens, to become a dilettante

student, to dream away your days in the idleness of a purely enervating

culture? What is it that I heard you yourself say once--that life apart

from one's fellows must always lack robustness. You have the instincts of

the creator, Mannering. You cannot stifle them. Some day the cry of the

world to its own children will find its echo in your heart, and it may be

too late. For sooner or later, my friend, the place of all men on earth

is filled."

For a moment that somewhat cynical restraint which seemed to divest of

enthusiasm Borrowdean's most earnest words, and which militated somewhat

against his reputation as a public speaker, seemed to have fallen from

him. Mannering, recognizing it, answered him gravely enough, though with

no less decision.

"If you are right, Borrowdean," he said, "the suffering will be mine.

Come, your time is short now. Perhaps you had better make your adieux to

my niece and Mrs. Handsell."

They all came out into the drive to see him start. A curious change had

come over the bright spring day. A grey sea-fog had drifted inland, the

sunlight was obscured, the larks were silent. Borrowdean shivered a

little as he turned up his coat-collar.

"So Nature has her little caprices, even--in paradise!" he remarked.

"It will blow over in an hour," Mannering said. "A breath of wind, and

the whole thing is gone."

Borrowdean's farewells were of the briefest. He made no further allusion

to the object of his visit. He departed as one who had been paying an

afternoon call more or less agreeable. Clara waved her hand until he was

out of sight, then she turned somewhat abruptly round and entered the

house. Mannering and Mrs. Handsell remained for a few moments in the

avenue, looking along the road. The sound of the horse's feet could still

be heard, but the trap itself was long since invisible.

"The passing of your friend," she remarked, quietly, "is almost

allegorical. He has gone into the land of ghosts--or are we the ghosts,

I wonder, who loiter here?"

Mannering answered her without a touch of levity. He, too, was unusually

serious.

"We have the better part," he said. "Yet Borrowdean is one of those men

who know very well how to play upon the heartstrings. A human being is

like a musical instrument to him. He knows how to find out the harmonies

or strike the discords."

She turned away.

"I am superstitious," she murmured, with a little shiver. "I suppose that

it is this ghostly mist, and the silence which has come with it. Yet I

wish that your friend had stayed away from Blakely!"

* * * * *

Upstairs from her window Clara also was gazing along the road where

Borrowdean had disappeared. And Borrowdean himself was puzzling over a

third telegram which Mannering had carelessly passed on to him with his

own, and which, although it was clearly addressed to Mannering, he had,

after a few minutes' hesitation, opened. It had been handed in at the

Strand Post-office.

"I must see you this week.--Blanche."

A few hours later, on his arrival in London, Borrowdean repeated this

message to Mannering from the same post-office, and quietly tearing up

the original went down to the House.

"I cannot tell," he reported to his chief, "whether we have succeeded or

not. In a fortnight or less we shall know."

CHAPTER IV

THE DUCHESS ASKS A QUESTION

Clara stepped through the high French window, and with skirts a little

raised crossed the lawn. Lindsay, who was following her, stopped to

light a cigarette.

"We're getting frightfully modern," she remarked, turning and waiting for

him. "Mrs. Handsell and I ought to have come out here, and you and uncle

ought to have stayed and yawned at one another over the dinner-table."

"You have an excellent preceptress--in modernity," he remarked. "May I?"

"If you mean smoke, of course you may," she answered. "But you may not

say or think horrid things about my best friend. She's a dear, wonderful

woman, and I'm sure uncle has not been like the same man since she came."

"I'm glad you appreciate that," he answered. "Do you honestly think he's

any the better for it?"

"I think he's immensely improved," she answered. "He doesn't grub about

by himself nearly so much, and he's had his hair cut. I'm sure he looks

years younger."

"Do you think that he seems quite as contented?"

"Contented!" she repeated, scornfully. "That's just like you, Richard. He

hasn't any right to be contented. No one has. It is the one absolutely

fatal state."

He stretched himself out upon, the seat, and frowned.

"You're picking up some strange ideas, Clara," he remarked.

"Well, if I am, that's better than being contented to all eternity with

the old ones," she replied. "Mrs. Handsell is doing us all no end of

good. She makes us think! We all ought to think, Richard."

"What on earth for?"

"You are really hopeless," she murmured. "So bucolic--"

"Thanks," he interrupted. "I seem to recognize the inspiration. I hate

that woman."

"My dear Richard!" she exclaimed.

"Well, I do!" he persisted. "When she first came she was all right. That

fellow Borrowdean seems to have done all the mischief."

"Poor Sir Leslie!" she exclaimed, demurely. "I thought him so

delightful."

"Obviously," he replied. "I didn't. I hate a fellow who doesn't do things

himself, and has a way of looking on which makes you feel a perfect

idiot. Neither Mr. Mannering nor Mrs. Handsell--nor you--have been the

same since he was here."

"I gather," she said, softly, "that you do not find us improved."

"I do not," he answered, stolidly. "Mrs. Handsell has begun to talk to

you now about London, of the theatres, the dressmakers, Hurlingham,

Ranelagh, race meetings, society, and all that sort of rot. She talks of

them very cleverly. She knows how to make the tinsel sparkle like real

gold."

She laughed softly.

"You are positively eloquent, Richard," she declared. "Do go on!"

"Then she goes for your uncle," he continued, without heeding her

interruption. "She speaks of Parliament, of great causes, of ambition,

until his eyes are on fire. She describes new pleasures to you, and you

sit at her feet, a mute worshipper! I can't think why she ever came here.

She's absolutely the wrong sort of woman for a quiet country place like

this. I wish I'd never let her the place."

"You are a very foolish person," she answered. "She came here simply

because she was weary of cities and wanted to get as far away from them

as possible. Only last night she said that she would be content never to

breathe the air of a town again."

Lindsay tossed his cigarette away impatiently.

"Oh, I know exactly her way of saying that sort of thing!" he exclaimed.

"A moment later she would be describing very cleverly, and a little

regretfully, some wonderful sight or other only to be found in London."

"Really," she declared, "I am getting afraid of you. You are more

observant than I thought."

"There is one gift, at least," he answered, "which we country folk are

supposed to possess. We know truth when we see it. But I am saying more

than I have any right to. I don't want to make you angry, Clara!"

She shook her head.

"You won't do that," she said. "But I don't think you quite understand.

Let me tell you something. You know that I am an orphan, don't you? I do

not remember my father at all, and I can only just remember my mother. I

was brought up at a pleasant but very dreary boarding-school. I had very

few friends, and no one came to see me except my uncle, who was always

very kind, but always in a desperate hurry. I stayed there until I was

seventeen. Then my uncle came and fetched me, and brought me straight

here. Now that is exactly what my life has been. What do you think of

it?"

"Very dull indeed," he answered, frankly.

She nodded.

"I have never been in London at all," she continued. "I really only know

what men and women are like from books, or the one or two types I have

met around here. Now, do you think that that is enough to satisfy one? Of

course it is very beautiful here, I know, and sometimes when the sun is

shining and the birds singing and the sea comes up into the creeks,

well, one almost feels content. But the sun doesn't always shine,

Richard, and there are times when I am right down bored, and I feel as

though I'd love to draw my allowance from uncle, pack my trunk, and go up

to London, on my own!"

He laughed. Somehow all that she had said had sounded so natural that

some part of his uneasiness was already passing away.

"Yours," he admitted, "is an extreme case. I really don't know why your

uncle has never taken you up for a month or so in the season."

"We have lived here for four years," she said, "and he has never once

suggested it. He goes himself, of course, sometimes, but I am quite sure

that he doesn't enjoy it. For days before he fidgets about and looks

perfectly miserable, and when he comes back he always goes off for a long

walk by himself. I am perfectly certain that for some reason or other

he hates going. Yet he seems to have been everywhere, to know every one.

To hear him talk with Mrs. Handsell is like a new Arabian Nights to me."

He nodded.

"Your uncle was a very distinguished man," he said. "I was only at

college then, but I remember what a fuss there was in all the papers when

he resigned his seat."

"What did they say was the reason?" she asked, eagerly.

"A slight disagreement with Lord Rochester, and ill-health."

"Absurd!" she exclaimed. "Uncle is as strong as a horse."

"Would you like him," he asked, "to go back into political life?"

Her eyes sparkled.

"Of course I should."

"You may have your wish," he said, a little sadly. "I don't fancy he has

been quite the same man since Sir Leslie Borrowdean was here, and Mrs.

Handsell never leaves him alone for a moment."

She laughed.

"You talk as though they were conspirators!" she exclaimed.

"That is precisely what I believe them to be," he answered, grimly.

"Richard!"

"Can't help it," he declared. "I will tell you something that I have no

right to tell you. Mrs. Handsell is not your friend's real name."

"Richard, how exciting!" she exclaimed. "Do tell me how you know."

"Her solicitors told mine so when she took the farm."

"Not her real name? But--I wonder they let it to her."

"Oh, her references were all right," he answered. "My people saw to that.

I do not mean to insinuate for a moment that she had any improper reasons

for calling herself Mrs. Handsell, or anything else she liked. The

explanations given were quite satisfactory. But she has become very

friendly with you and with your uncle, and I think that she ought to have

told you both about it."

"Do you know her real name?"

"No! It is not my affair. My solicitors knew, and they were satisfied.

Perhaps I ought not to have told you this, but--"

"Hush!" she said. "They are coming out. If you like you can take me down

to the orchard wall, and we will watch the tide come in--"

Mannering came out alone and looked around. The full moon was creeping

into the sky. The breath of wind which shook the leaves of the tall elm

trees that shut in his little demesne from the village, was soft, and,

for the time of year, wonderfully mild. Below, through the orchard trees,

were faint visions of the marshland, riven with creeks of silvery sea. He

turned back towards the room, where red-shaded lamps still stood upon the

white tablecloth, a curiously artificial daub of color after the

splendour of the moonlit land.

"The night is perfect," he exclaimed. "Do you need a wrap, or are you

sufficiently acclimatized?"

She came out to him, tall and slender in her black dinner gown, the

figure of a girl, the pale, passionate face of a woman, to whom every

moment of life had its own special and individual meaning. Her eyes were

strangely bright. There was a tenseness about her manner, a restraint in

her tone, which seemed to speak of some emotional crisis. She passed out

into the quiet garden, in itself so exquisitely in accordance with this

sleeping land, and even Mannering was at once conscious of some alien

note in these old-world surroundings which had long ago soothed his

ruffled nerves into the luxury of repose.

"A wrap!" she murmured. "How absurd! Come and let us sit under the cedar

tree. Those young people seem to have wandered off, and I want to talk to

you."

"I am content to listen," he answered. "It is a night for listeners,

this!"

"I want to talk," she continued, "and yet--the words seem difficult.

These wonderful days! How quickly they seem to have passed."

"There are others to follow," he answered, smiling. "That is one of the

joys of life here. One can count on things!"

"Others for you!" she murmured. "You have pitched your tent. I came here

only as a wanderer."

"But scarcely a month ago," he exclaimed, "you too--"

"Don't!" she interrupted. "A month ago it seemed to me possible that

I might live here always. I felt myself growing young again. I believed

that I had severed all the ties which bound me to the days which have

gone before. I was wrong. It was the sort of folly which comes to one

sometimes, the sort of folly for which one pays."

His face was almost white in the moonlight. His deep-set grey eyes were

fixed upon her.

"You were content--a month ago," he said. "You have been in London for

two days, and you have come back a changed woman. Why must you think of

leaving this place? Why need you go at all?"

"My friend," she said, softly, "I think that you know why. It is very

beautiful here, and I have never been happier in all my life. But one may

not linger all one's days in the pleasant places. One sleeps through the

nights and is rested, but the days--ah, they are different."

"I cannot reason with you," he said. "You are too vague. Yet--you say

that you have been contented here."

"I have been happy," she murmured.

"Then you must speak more plainly," he insisted, a note of passion

throbbing in his hoarse tones. "I ask you again--why do you talk of going

back, like a city slave whose days of holiday are over? What is there in

the world more beautiful than the gifts the gods shower on us here? We

have the sun, and the sea, and the wind by day and by night--this! It is

the flower garden of life. Stay and pluck the roses with me."

"Ah, my friend," she murmured, "if that were possible!"

She sank down into the seat under the cedar tree. Her hands were clasped

nervously together, her head was downcast.

"Your words," she continued, her voice sinking almost to a whisper, yet

lacking nothing in distinctness, "are like wine. They mount to the head,

they intoxicate, they tempt! And yet all the time one knows that it is

not possible. Surely you yourself--in your heart--must know it!"

"Not I!" he answered, fiercely. "The world would have claimed me if

it could, but I laughed at it. Our destinies are our own. With our own

fingers we mould and shape them."

"There is the little voice," she said, "the little voice, which rings

even through our dreams. Life--actual, militant life, I mean--may have

its vulgarities, its weariness and its disappointments, but it is, after

all, the only place for men and women. The battle may be sordid, and the

prizes tinsel--yet it is only the cowards who linger without."

"Then let you and me be cowards," he answered. "We shall at least be

happy."

She shook her head a little sadly.

"I doubt it," she answered. "Happiness is a gift, not a prize. It comes

seldom enough to those who seek it."

He laughed scornfully.

"I am not a seeker," he cried. "I possess. It seems to me that all the

beautiful things of life are here to-night. Listen! Do you hear the sea,

the full tide sweeping softly up into the land, a long drawn out

undernote of breathless harmonies, the rustling of leaves there in the

elm trees, the faint night wind, like the murmuring of angels? Lift your

head! Was there anything ever sweeter than the perfume from that hedge of

honeysuckle? What can a man want more than these things--and--"

"Go on!"

"And the woman he loves! There, I have said it. Useless words enough! You

know very well that I love you. I meant to have said nothing just yet,

but who could help it--on such a night as this! Don't talk of going away,

Berenice. I want you here always."

She held herself away from him. Her face was deathly white now. Her eyes

questioned him fiercely.

"Before I answer you. You were in London last week?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I had business."

"In Chelsea, in Merton Street?"

He gave a little gasp.

"What do you know about that?" he asked, almost roughly.

"You were seen there, not for the first time. The person whom you

visited--I have heard about. She is somewhat notorious, is she not?"

He was very quiet, pale to the lips. A strange, hunted expression had

crept into his eyes.

"I want to know what took you there. Am I asking too much? Remember that

you have asked me a good deal."

"Has Borrowdean anything to do with this?" he demanded.

"I have known Sir Leslie Borrowdean for many years," she answered, "and

it is quite true that we have discussed certain matters--concerning you."

"You have known Sir Leslie Borrowdean for many years," he repeated. "Yet

you met here as strangers."

"Sir Leslie divined my wishes," she answered. "He knew that it was my

wish to spend several months away from everybody, and, if possible,

unrecognized. Perhaps I had better make my confession at once. My name

is not Mrs. Handsell. I am the Duchess of Lenchester."

Mannering stood as though turned to stone. The woman watched him eagerly.

She waited for him to speak--in vain. A sudden mist of tears blinded her.

She closed her eyes. When she opened them Mannering was gone.

CHAPTER V

THE HESITATION OF MR. MANNERING

The peculiar atmosphere of the room, heavy with the newest perfume from

the Burlington Arcade, and the scent of exotic flowers, at no time

pleasing to him, seemed more than usually oppressive to Mannering as he

fidgetted about waiting for the woman whom he had come to see. He was

conscious of a restless longing to open wide the windows, take the

flowers from their vases, throw them into the street, and poke out the

fire. The little room, with all its associations, its almost pathetic

attempts at refinement, its furniture which reeked of the Tottenham Court

Road, was suddenly hateful to him. He detested his presence there, and

its object. He was already in a state of nervous displeasure when the

door opened.

The girl who entered seemed in a sense as ill in accord with such

surroundings as himself. She was plainly dressed in black, her hair

brushed back, her complexion pale, her eyes brilliant with a not

altogether natural light. She regarded him with a curious mixture of fear

and welcome. The latter, however, triumphed easily. She came towards him

with out-stretched hand and a delightful smile.

"You;--so soon again!" she exclaimed. "Were there--so many mistakes?"

Mannering's face softened. He was half ashamed of his irritation. He

answered her kindly.

"Scarcely any, Hester," he answered. "Your typing is always excellent."

Her anxiety was only half allayed.

"There is nothing else wrong?" she demanded, breathlessly.

"Nothing whatever," he assured her. "Where is your mother?"

She sat down. The light died out of her face.

"Out!" she answered. "Gone to Brighton for the day. What do you want with

her?"

"Nothing," he answered, gravely. "I only wanted to know whether we were

likely to be interrupted."

"She will not be in for some time," the girl answered. "She is almost

certain to stay down there and dine."

He nodded.

"Hester," he asked, "do you know any one--a man named Borrowdean? Sir

Leslie Borrowdean?"

She shook her head a little doubtfully.

"I have heard mother speak of him," she said.

"He is a friend of hers, then?"

"She met him at a supper party at the Savoy a few weeks ago," she

answered.

"And since?"

"I believe so! She talks about him a great deal. Why do you ask me this?"

"I cannot tell you, Hester," he said, gravely. "By the bye, do you think

that she is likely to have mentioned my name to him?"

The girl flushed up to her eyebrows.

"I--I don't know! I am sorry," she faltered. "You know what mother is. If

any one asked her questions she would be more than likely to answer them.

I do hope that she has not been making mischief."

He left her anxiety unrelieved. For some few moments he did not speak

at all. Already he fancied that he could see the whole pitiful little

incident--Borrowdean, diplomatic, genial, persistent, the woman a fool,

fashioned to his own making; himself the sacrifice. Yet the meaning of it

all was dark to him.

She moved over to his side. Her eyes and tone were full of appeal. She

sat close to him, her long white fingers nervously interlocked.

"I am afraid of you. More afraid than ever to-day," she murmured. "You

look stern, and I don't understand why you have come."

"To see you, Hester," he answered, with a sudden impulse of kindness.

"Ah, no!" she interrupted, choking back a little sob. "We both know so

well that it is not that. It is pity which brings you, pity and nothing

else. You know very well what a difference it makes to me. If I have your

work to do, and a letter sometimes, and see you now and then, I can bear

everything. But it is not easy. It is never easy!"

"Of course it is not," he assented. "Hester, have you thought over what I

said to you last time I was here?"

She shook her head.

"What is the use of thinking?" she asked, quietly. "I could not leave

her."

"You mean that she would not let you go?" Mannering asked.

"No! It is not that," the girl answered. "Sometimes I think that she

would be glad. It is not that."

He nodded gravely.

"I understand. But--"

"If you understand, please do not say any more."

"But I must, Hester," he persisted. "There is no one else to give you

advice. I know all that you can tell me, and I say that this is no

fitting home for you. Your mother's friends are not fit friends for you.

She has chosen her way in life, and she will not brook any interference.

You can do no good by remaining with her. On the contrary, you are doing

yourself a great deal of harm. I am old enough to be your father, child.

Wise enough, I hope, to be your adviser. You shall be my secretary, and

come and live at Blakely."

A faint flush stole into her anæmic. One realized then that under

different conditions she might have been pretty. Her face was no longer

expressionless.

"You are so kind," she said, softly. "I shall always like to think of

this. And yet--it is impossible."

"Why?"

She hesitated.

"It is difficult to explain," she said. "But my being here makes a

difference. I found it out once when I went away for a week. Some of--of

mother's friends came to the house then whom she will not have when I am

here. If I were away altogether--oh, I can't explain, but I would not

dare to go."

Mannering seemed to have much to say--and said nothing. This queer,

pale-faced girl, with her earnest eyes and few simple words, had silenced

him. She was right--right at least from her own point of view. A certain

sense of shame suddenly oppressed him. He was acutely conscious of his

only half-admitted reason for this visit. He had argued for himself. It

was his own passionate desire to free himself from associations that were

little short of loathsome which had prompted this visit. And then what he

had dreaded most of all happened. As they sat facing one another in the

silent, half-darkened room, Mannering trying to bring himself into accord

with half-admitted but repugnant convictions, she watching him

hopelessly, the tinkle of a hansom bell sounded outside. The sudden

stopping of a horse, the rattle of a latchkey, and she was in the room.

Mannering rose to his feet with a little exclamation.

The woman stood and looked in upon them. She wore a pink cloth gown, a

flower-garlanded hat, a white coaching veil, beneath which her features

were indistinguishable. She brought with her a waft of strong perfume.

Her figure was a living suggestion of the struggle between maturity and

the corsetiére. Before she spoke she laughed--not altogether pleasantly.

"You here again!" she exclaimed to Mannering. "Upon my word! I'm not a

ghost! Hester, go and see about some tea, and a brandy and soda. Billy

Foa brought me up on his motor, and I'm half choked with dust."

The girl rose obediently and quitted the room. The woman untwisted her

veil, drew out the pins from her hat, and threw both upon the sofa. Then

she turned suddenly upon Mannering.

"Look here," she said, "the last twice you've been here you seem to have

carefully chosen times when I am out. I don't understand it. It can't be

that you want to see that chit of a girl of mine. Why don't you come when

I ask you? Why do you act as though I were something to be avoided?"

Mannering rose to his feet.

"I came to-day without knowing where you were," he answered, "but I will

admit that I wished to see Hester."

"What for?"

"I have asked her to come and live at Blakely with my niece and myself.

She is an excellent typist, and I require a secretary."

The woman looked at him angrily. Without her veil she displayed features

not in themselves unattractive, but a complexion somewhat impaired by the

use of cosmetics. The powder upon her cheeks was even then visible.

"What about me?" she asked, sharply.

Mannering looked her steadily in the face.

"I do not think," he said, "that such a life would suit you."

She was an angry woman, and she did not become angry gracefully.

"You mean that I'm not good enough for you and your friends in the

country. That's what you mean, isn't it? And I should like to know, if

I'm not, whose fault it is. Tell me that, will you?"

Mannering flinched, though almost imperceptibly.

"I meant simply what I said," he said. "Blakely would not suit you at

all. We have few friends there, and our simple life would not attract you

in the slightest. With Hester it is different. She would have her work,

in which she takes some interest, and I believe the change would be in

every way good for her."

"Well, she shan't come," the woman said, throwing herself into a chair,

and regarding him insolently. "I'm not going to live all alone--and be

talked about. Don't stare at me like that, Lawrence. I'm the child's

mother, am I not?"

"It is because you are her mother," he said, quietly, "that I thought you

might be glad to find a suitable home for her."

"What's good enough for me ought to be good enough for her," she

answered, doggedly.

Mannering was silent for a moment. This woman seemed to belong to a

different world from that with whose denizens he was in any way familiar.

Years of isolation, and a certain epicureanism of taste, from which

necessity had never taken the fine edge, had made him a little

intolerant. He could see nothing that was not absolutely repulsive in

this woman, whose fine eyes were seeking even now to attract his

admiration. She was making the best of herself. She had chosen the

darkest corner of the room, and her pose was not ungraceful. Her skirts

were skilfully raised to show just as much as possible of her long,

slender foot, with the patent shoes and silver buckles. She knew that her

ankles were above reproach, and her dress becoming. A dozen men had paid

her compliments during the day, yet she knew that every admiring glance,

every whispered word which had come to her to-day, or for many days past,

would count for nothing if only she could pierce for a single moment the

unchanging coldness of the man who sat watching her now with the face of

a Sphynx. A slow tide of passion welled up in her heart. Was not he a man

and free, and was not she a woman? It was not much she asked from him, no

pledge, no bondage. His kindness only, she told herself, was all she

craved. She wanted him to look at her as other men looked at her. Who was

he that he should set himself on a pedestal? Perhaps he had grown shy

from the rust of his country life, the slow drifting apart from the world

of men and women. Perhaps--she rose swiftly to her feet and crossed the

room.

CHAPTER VI

SACRIFICE

She leaned over him, one hand on the back of his chair, the other seeking

in vain for his.

"Lawrence," she said, "you grow colder and more unkind every day. What

have I done to change you so? I am a foolish woman, I know, but there are

things which I cannot forget."

He rose at once to his feet, and stood apart from her.

"I thought," he said, "I believed that we understood one another."

She laughed softly.

"I am very sure that I do not understand you," she said. "And as for

you--I do not believe that you have ever understood any woman. There was

a time, Lawrence--"

His impassivity was gone. He threw out his hands.

"Remember," he said, "there is a promise between us. Don't break it.

Don't dare to break it!"

She looked at him curiously. A new idea concerning this man and his

avoidance of her crept into her mind. It was at least consoling to her

vanity, and it left her a chance. She had roused him too, at last, and

that was worth something.

"Why not?" she asked, moving a step towards him. "It was a foolish

promise. It has done neither of us any good. It has spoilt a part of my

life. Why should I keep silence, and let it go on to the end? Do you know

what it has made of me, this promise?"

He shrank back.

"Don't! I have done all I could!"

"All you could!" she repeated, scornfully. "You drew a diagram of your

duty, and you have moved like a machine along the lines. You talk like a

Pharisee, Lawrence! Come! You knew me years ago! Do you find me changed?

Tell me the truth."

"Yes," he admitted, "you are changed."

She nodded.

"You admit that. Perhaps, perhaps," she continued more slowly, "there are

things about me now of which you don't approve. My friends are a little

fast, I go out alone, I daresay people have said things. There, you see

I am very frank. I mean to be! I mean you to know that whatever I am, the

fault is yours."

"You are as God or the Devil made you," he answered, hardly. "You are

what you would have become, in any case."

"Lawrence!"

Already he hated the memory of his words. True or not, they were spoken

to a woman who was cowering under them as under a lash. He was at a

disadvantage now. If she had met him with anger they might have cried

quits. But he had seen her wince, seen her sudden pallor, and it was not

a pleasant sight.

"Forgive me," he said. "I do not know quite what I am saying. You have

broken a compact which I had hoped might have lasted all our days. Let us

be better friends, if you will, but let us keep that promise which we

made to one another."

"It was so many years ago," she said, in a low tone. "I am afraid to

think how many. It makes me lonely, Lawrence, to look ahead. I am afraid

of growing old!"

He looked at her steadily. Yes, the signs were there. She was a

good-looking woman to-day, a handsome woman in some lights, but she had

reached the limit. It was a matter of a few years at most, and then--He

stood with his hands behind his back.

"It is a fear which we must all share," he said, quietly. "The only

antidote is work."

"Work!" she repeated, scornfully. "That is the man's resource. What about

us? What about me?"

"It is no matter of sex," he declared. "We all make our own choice. We

are what we make of ourselves."

"It is not true," she answered, bluntly. "Not with us, at any rate. We

are what our menkind make of us. Oh, what cowards you all are."

"Cowards?"

"Yes. You do what mischief you choose, and then soothe your conscience

with platitudes. You will take hold of pleasure with both hands, but your

shoulders are not broad enough for the pack of responsibility. Don't look

at me as though I were a mile off, Lawrence, as though this were simply

an impersonal discussion. I am speaking to you--of you. You avoid me

whenever you can. I don't often get a chance of speaking to you. You

shall listen now. You live the life of a poet and a scholar, they tell

me. You live in a beautiful home, you take care that nothing ugly or

disturbing shall come near you. You are pleased with it, aren't you? You

think yourself better than other men. Well, you are making a big mistake.

A man doesn't have to answer for his own life only. He has to carry the

burden of the lives his influence has wrecked and spoilt. I know just

what you think of me. I am a middle-aged woman, clinging to my youth and

pleasures--the sort of pleasures for which you have a vast contempt.

There isn't an hour of my days of which you wouldn't disapprove. I'm not

your sort of woman at all. And yet I was all right once, Lawrence, and

what I am now--" she paused, "what I am now--"

Hester came in, followed by a maid with the tea-tray. She looked from

one to the other a little anxiously. The atmosphere of the room seemed

charged with electricity. Mannering's face was grey. Her mother was

nervously crumpling into a ball her tiny lace handkerchief. Mrs.

Phillimore rose abruptly from her seat.

"Have you got the brandy and soda, Hester?" she asked.

"I'm afraid I forgot it, mother," the girl answered. "Mayn't I make you

some Russian tea? I've had the lemon sliced."

The woman laughed, a little unnaturally.

"What a dutiful daughter," she exclaimed. "That's right! I want looking

after, don't I? I'll have the tea, Hester, but send it up to my room. I'm

going to lie down. That wretched motoring has given me a headache, and

I'm dining out to-night. Good-bye, Mr. Mannering, if I don't see you

again."

She nodded, without glancing in his direction, and left the room. The

maid arranged the tea-tray and departed. Hester showed no signs of being

aware that anything unusual had happened. She made a little desultory

conversation. Mannering answered in monosyllables.

When at last he put his cup down he rose to go.

"You are quite sure, Hester," he said. "You have made up your mind?"

She, too, rose, and came over to him.

"You know that I am right," she answered, quietly. "The life you offer me

would be paradise, but I dare not even think of it. I may not do any good

here, perhaps I don't, but I can't come away."

"You are a true daughter of your sex," he said, smiling. "The keynote of

your life must be sacrifice."

"Perhaps we are not so unwise, after all," she answered, "for I think

that there are more happy women in the world than men."

"There are more, I think, who deserve to be, dear," he answered, holding

her hand for a moment. "Good-bye!"

Mannering walked in somewhat abstracted fashion to the corner of the

street, and signalled for a hansom. With his foot upon the step he

hesitated.

CHAPTER VII

THE DUCHESS'S "AT HOME"

"The perfect man," the Duchess murmured, as she stirred her tea, "does

not exist. I know a dozen perfect women, dear, dull creatures, and plenty

of men who know how to cover up the flaw. But there is something in the

composition of the male sex which keeps them always a little below the

highest pinnacle."

"It is purely a matter of concealment," her friend declared. "Women are

cleverer humbugs than men."

Borrowdean shrugged his shoulders.

"I know your perfect woman!" he remarked, softly. "You search for her

through the best years of your life, and when you have found her you

avoid her. That," he added, handing his empty cup to a footman, "is why

I am a bachelor."

The Duchess regarded him complacently.

"My dear Sir Leslie," she said, "I am afraid you will have to find a

better reason for your miserable state. The perfect woman would certainly

have nothing to do with you if you found her."

"On the contrary," he declared, confidently, "I am convinced that she

would find me attractive."

The Duchess shook her head.

"Your theory," she declared, "is antiquated. Like and unlike do not

attract. We seek in others the qualities which we strive most zealously

to develop in ourselves. I know a case in point."

"Good!" Sir Leslie remarked. "I like examples. The logic of them appeals

to me."

The Duchess half closed her eyes. For a moment she was silent. She seemed

to be listening to something a long way off. Through the open windows of

her softly shaded drawing-rooms, odourous with flowers, came the rippling

of water falling from a fountain in the conservatory, the lazy hum of a

mowing machine on the lawn, the distant tinkling of a hansom bell in the

Square. But these were not the sounds which for a moment had changed her

face.

"I myself," she murmured, "am an example!"

A woman who had risen to go sat down again.

"Do go on, Duchess!" she exclaimed. "Anything in the nature of a personal

confession is so fascinating, and you know you are such an enigma to all

of us."

"Am I?" she answered, smiling. "Then I am likely to remain so."

"A perfectly obvious person like myself," the woman remarked, "is always

fascinated by the unusual. But if you are really not going to give

yourself away, Duchess, I am afraid I must move on. One hates to leave

your beautifully cool rooms. Shall I see you to-night, I wonder, at

Esholt House?"

"Perhaps!"

There were still many people in the room. Some fresh arrivals occupied

his hostess's attention, and Borrowdean, with a resigned shrug of the

shoulders, prepared to depart. He had come, hoping for an opportunity to

be alone for a few minutes with the Duchess, and himself a skilful

tactician in such small matters, he could not but admire the way she had

kept him at arm's length. And then the opportunity for a master stroke

came. A servant sought him out with a card. A man of method, he seldom

left his rooms without instructions as to where he was to be found.

"The gentleman begged you to excuse his coming here, sir," the man

whispered, confidentially, "but he is returning to the country this

evening, and was anxious to see you. He is quite ready to wait your

convenience."

Borrowdean held the card in his hand, scrutinizing it with impassive

face. Was this a piece of unparalleled good fortune, or simply a trick of

the fates to tempt him on to catastrophe? With that wonderful swiftness

of thought which was part of his mental equipment he balanced the

chances--and took his risk.

"I should be glad," he said, looking the servant in the face, "if you

would show the gentleman up here as an ordinary visitor. I should like to

find you down stairs when I come out. You understand?"

"Perfectly, sir," the man answered, and withdrew.

Mannering had no idea whose house he was in. The address Borrowdean's

servant had given him had been simply 81, Grosvenor Square. Nevertheless,

he was conscious of a little annoyance as he followed the servant up the

broad stairs. He would much have preferred waiting until Borrowdean had

concluded his call. He remembered his grey travelling clothes, and all

his natural distaste for social amenities returned with unabated force as

he neared the reception-rooms and heard the softly modulated rise and

fall of feminine voices, the swishing of silks and muslin, the faint

perfume of flowers and scents which seemed to fill the air. At the last

moment he would have withdrawn, but his guide seemed deaf. His words

passed unheeded. His name, very softly but very distinctly, had been

announced. He had no option but to pass into the room and play the cards

which fate and his friend had dealt him.

Borrowdean rose to greet his friend. Mannering, not knowing who his

hostess might be, and feeling absolutely no curiosity concerning her,

confined his attention wholly to the man whom he had come to seek.

"I did not wish to disturb you here, Borrowdean," he said, quickly, "but

if your call is over, could you come away for a few minutes? I have a

matter to discuss with you."

Borrowdean smiled slightly, and laid his hand upon the other's shoulder.

"By all means, Mannering," he answered. "But since you have discovered

our little secret, don't you think that you had better speak to our

hostess?"

Mannering was puzzled, but his eyes followed Borrowdean's slight gesture.

Berenice, who at the sound of his voice had suddenly abandoned her

conversation and risen to her feet, was within a few feet of him. A

sudden light swept into Mannering's face.

"You!" he exclaimed softly.

Her hands went out towards him. Borrowdean, with an almost imperceptible

movement, checked his advance.

"So you see we are found out, after all, Duchess," he said, turning to

her. "You have known Mrs. Handsell, Mannering, let me present you now to

her other self. Duchess, you see that our recluse has come to his senses

at last. I must really introduce you formally: Mr. Mannering--the Duchess

of Lenchester."

Berenice, arrested in her forward movement, watched Mannering's face

eagerly. So carefully modulated had been Borrowdean's voice that no word

of his had reached beyond their own immediate circle. It was as though a

silent tableau were being played out between the three, and Mannering, to

whom repression had become a habit, gave little indication of anything he

might have felt. Borrowdean's fixed smile betokened nothing but an

ordinary interest in the introduction of two friends, and the Duchess's

back was turned towards her friends. They both waited for Mannering to

speak.

"This," he said, slowly, "is a surprise! I had no idea when I called to

see Borrowdean here, of the pleasure which was in store for me."

Borrowdean dropped his eyeglass.

"Are you serious, my dear Mannering?" he exclaimed. "Do you mean to say

that you came here--"

"Only to see you," Mannering interrupted. "That you should know perfectly

well. I am sorry to hurry you out, but the few minutes' conversation

which I desired with you is of some importance, and my train leaves in

an hour. I hope that you will pardon me," he added, looking steadily at

Berenice, "if I hurry away one of your guests."

She laughed quite in her natural manner.

"I will forgive anything," she said, "except that you should hurry away

yourself so unceremoniously. Come and sit down near me. I want to talk to

you about Blakeley."

She swept her gown on one side, disclosing a vacant place on the settee

where she had been sitting. For a second her eyes said more to him than

her courteous but half-careless words of invitation. Mannering made no

movement forward.

"I am sorry," he said, "but it is impossible for me to stay!"

She seemed to dismiss him and the whole subject with a careless little

shrug of the shoulders, which was all the farewell she vouchsafed to

either of them. A woman who had just entered seemed to absorb her whole

attention. The two men passed out.

Mannering spoke no word until they stood upon the pavement. Then he

turned almost savagely upon his companion.

"This is a trick of yours, I suppose!" he exclaimed. "Damn you and your

meddling, Borrowdean. Why can't you leave me and my affairs alone? No,

I am not going your way. Let us separate here!"

Borrowdean shook his head.

"You are unreasonable, Mannering," he said. "I have done only what I

believe you were on your way to ask me to do. I have brought you and

Berenice together again. It was for both your sakes. If there has been

any misunderstanding between you, it would be better cleared up."

Mannering gripped his arm.

"Let us go to your rooms, Borrowdean," he said. "It is time we understood

one another."

"Willingly!" Borrowdean said. "But your train?"

"Let my train go," Mannering answered. "There are some things I have to

say to you."

Borrowdean called a hansom. The two men drove off together.

CHAPTER VIII

THE MANNERING MYSTERY

Borrowdean was curter than usual, even abrupt. The calm geniality of his

manner had departed. He spoke in short, terse sentences, and he had the

air of a man struggling to subdue a fit of perfectly reasonable and

justifiable anger. It was a carefully cultivated pose. He even refrained

from his customary cigarette.

"Look here, Mannering," he said, "there are times when a few plain words

are worth an hour's conversation. Will you have them from me?"

"Yes!"

"This thing was started six months ago, soon after those two

bye-elections in Yorkshire. Even the most despondent of us then saw that

the Government could scarcely last its time. We had a meeting and we

attempted to form on paper a trial cabinet. You know our weakness. We

have to try to form a National party out of a number of men who, although

they call themselves broadly Liberals, are as far apart as the very poles

of thought. It was as much as they could do to sit in the same room

together. From the opening of the meeting until its close, there was but

one subject upon which every one was unanimous. That was the absolute

necessity of getting you to come back to our aid."

"You flatter me," Mannering said, with fine irony.

"You yourself," Borrowdean continued, without heeding the interruption,

"encouraged us. From the first pronouncement of this wonderful new policy

you sprang into the arena. We were none of us ready. You were! It is true

that your weapon was the pen, but you reached a great public. The country

to-day considers you the champion of Free Trade."

"Pass on," Mannering interrupted, brusquely. "All this is wasted time!"

"A smaller meeting," Borrowdean continued, "was held with a view of

discussing the means whereby you could be persuaded to rejoin us. At that

meeting the Duchess of Lenchester was present."

Mannering, who had been pacing the room, stopped short. He grasped the

back of a chair, and turning round faced Borrowdean.

"Well?"

"You know what place the Duchess has held in the councils of our party

since the Duke's death," Borrowdean continued. "She has the political

instinct. If she were a man she would be a leader. All the great ladies

are on the other side, but the Duchess is more than equal to them all.

She entertains magnificently, and with tact. She never makes a mistake.

She is part and parcel of the Liberal Party. It was she who volunteered

to make the first effort to bring you back."

Mannering turned his head. Apparently he was looking out of the window.

"Her methods," Borrowdean continued, "did not commend themselves to us,

but beggars must not be choosers. Besides, the Duchess was in love with

her own scheme. Such objections as we made were at once overruled."

He paused, but Mannering said nothing. He was still looking out of the

window, though his eyes saw nothing of the street below, or the great

club buildings opposite. A scent of roses, lost now and then in the

salter fragrance of the night breeze sweeping over the marshes, the magic

of a wonderful, white-clad presence, the low words, the sense of a world

apart, a world of speechless beauty.... What empty dreams! A palace built

in a poet's fancy upon a quicksand.

"The Duchess," Borrowdean continued, "undertook to discover from you what

prospects there were, if any, of your return to political life. She took

none of us into her confidence. We none of us knew what means she meant

to employ. She disappeared. She communicated with none of us. We none of

us had the least idea what had become of her. Time went on, and we began

to get a little uneasy. We had a meeting and it was arranged that I

should come down and see you. I came, I saw you, I saw the Duchess! The

situation very soon became clear to me. Instead of the Duchess converting

you, you had very nearly converted the Duchess."

"I can assure you--" Mannering began.

"Let me finish," Borrowdean pleaded. "I realized the situation at a

glance. Your attitude I was not so much surprised at, but the attitude of

the Duchess, I must confess, amazed me. I came to the conclusion that I

had found my way into a forgotten corner of the world, where the lotos

flowers still blossomed, and the sooner I was out of it the better. Now I

think that brings us, Mannering, up to the present time."

Mannering turned from the window, out of which he had been steadfastly

gazing. There was a strained look under his eyes, and little trace of the

tan upon his, cheeks. He had the air of a jaded and a weary man.

"That is all, then," he remarked. "I can still catch my train."

Borrowdean held out his hand.

"No," he said. "It is not all. This explanation I have made for your

sake, Mannering, and it has been a truthful and full one. Now it is my

turn. I have a few words to say to you on my own account."

Mannering paused. There was a note of something unusual in Borrowdean's

voice, a portent of things behind. Mannering involuntarily straightened

himself. Something was awakened in him which had lain dormant for many

years--dormant since those old days of battle, of swift attack, of

ambushed defence and the clamour of brilliant tongues. Some of the old

light flashed in his eyes.

"Say it then--quickly!"

"We speak of great things," Borrowdean continued, "and the catching of a

train is a trifle. My wardrobe and house are at your service. Don't hurry

me!"

Mannering smiled.

"Go on!" he said.

"The men who count in this world," Borrowdean declared, calmly lighting

a cigarette, "are either thinkers of great thoughts or doers of great

deeds. To the former belong the poets and the sentimentalists; to the

latter the statesmen and the soldiers."

"What have I done," Mannering murmured, "that I should be sent back to

kindergarten? Platitudes such as this bore me. Let me catch my train."

"In a moment. To all my arguments and appeals, to all my entreaties to

you to realize yourself, to do your duty to us, to history and to

posterity, you have replied in one manner only. You have spoken from the

mushroom pedestal of the sentimentalist. Not a single word that has

fallen from your lips has rung true. You have spoken as though your eyes

were blind all the time to the letters of fire which truth has spelled

out before you. Any further argument with you is useless, because you are

not honest. You conceal your true position, and you adopt a false

defence. Therefore, I relinquish my task. You can go and grow your roses,

and think your poetry, and call it life if you will. But before you go I

should like you to know that I, at least, am not deceived. I do not

believe in you, Mannering. I ask you a question, and I challenge you to

answer it. What is your true reason for making a scrap-heap of your

career?"

"Are you my friend," Mannering asked, quietly, "that you wish to pry

behind the curtain of my life? If I have other reasons they concern

myself alone."

Borrowdean shook his head. He had scored, but he took care to show no

sign of triumph.

"The issue is too great," he said, "to be tried by the ordinary rules

which govern social life. Will you presume that I am your friend, and let

us consider the whole matter afresh together?"

"I will not," Mannering answered. "But I will do this. I will answer your

question. There is another reason which makes my reappearance in public

life impossible. Not even your subtlety, Borrowdean, could remove it. I

do not even wish it removed. I mean to live my own life, and not to be

pitchforked back into politics to suit the convenience of a few

adventurous office-seekers, and the Duchess of Lenchester!"

"Mannering!"

But Mannering had gone.

* * * * *

Borrowdean felt that this was a trying day. After a battle with Mannering

he was face to face with an angry woman, to whose presence an imperious

little note had just summoned him. Berenice was dressed for a royal

dinner party, and she had only a few minutes to spare. Nevertheless she

contrived to make them very unpleasant ones for Borrowdean.

"The affair was entirely an accident," he pleaded.

"It was nothing of the sort," she answered, bluntly. "I know you too well

for that. Your bringing him here without warning was an unwarrantable

interference with my affairs."

Borrowdean could hold his own with men, but Berenice in her own room,

a wonderful little paradise of soft colourings and luxury so perfectly

chosen that it was rather felt than seen; Berenice, in her marvellous

gown, with the necklace upon her bosom and the tiara flashing in her dark

hair, was an overwhelming opponent. Borrowdean was helpless. He could not

understand the attack itself. He failed altogether to appreciate its

tenour.

"Forgive me," he protested, "but I did not know that you had any plans.

All that you told us on your return from Blakely was that you had failed.

So far as you were concerned the matter seemed to me to be over, and with

it, I imagined, your interest in Mannering. I brought him here--"

"Well?"

"Because I wished him to know who you were. I wished him to understand

the improbability of your ever again returning to Blakely."

"You are telling the truth now, at any rate," she remarked, curtly, "or

what sounds like the truth. Why did you trouble in the matter at all?

Where I have failed you are not likely to succeed."

Borrowdean smiled for the first time.

"I have still some hopes of doing so," he admitted.

The Duchess glanced at the little Louis Seize time-piece, and hesitated.

"You had better abandon them," she said. "Lawrence Mannering may be

wrong, or he may be right, but he believes in his choice. He has no

ambition. You have no motive left to work upon."

Borrowdean shook his head.

"You are wrong, Duchess," he remarked, simply. "I never believed in

Mannering's sentimentality. To-day, with his own lips, he has confessed

to me that another, an unbroached reason, stands behind his refusal!"

"And he never told me," the Duchess murmured, involuntarily.

"Duchess," Borrowdean answered, with a faint, cynical parting of the

lips, "there are matters which a man does not mention to the woman in

whose high opinion he aims at holding an exalted place."

There was a knock at the door. The Duchess's maid entered, carrying a

long cloak of glimmering lace and satin.

The Duchess nodded.

"I come at once, Hortense," she said, in French. "Sir Leslie," she added,

turning towards him, "you are making a great mistake, and I advise you to

be careful. You are one of those who think ill of all men. Such men as

Lawrence Mannering belong to a race of human beings of whom you know

nothing. I listened to you once, and I was a fool. You could as soon

teach me to believe that you were a saint, as that Mannering had anything

in his past or present life of which he was ashamed. Now, Hortense."

Borrowdean walked off, still smiling. How simple half the world was.

CHAPTER IX

THE PUMPING OF MRS. PHILLIMORE

Hester sprang to her feet eagerly as she heard the front door close, and

standing behind the curtain she watched the man, who was already upon the

pavement looking up and down the street for a hansom. His erect,

distinguished figure was perfectly familiar to her. It was Sir Leslie

Borrowdean again.

She resumed her seat in front of the typewriter, and touched the keys

idly. In a few moments what she had been expecting happened. Her mother

entered the room.

Of her advent there were the usual notifications. An immense rustling

of silken skirts, and an overwhelming odour of the latest Bond Street

perfume. She flung herself into a chair, and regarded her daughter with

a complacent smile.

"That delightful man has been to see me again," she exclaimed. "I could

scarcely believe it when Mary brought me his card. By the bye, where is

Mary? I want her to try to take that stain out of my pink silk skirt. I

shall have to wear it to-night."

"I will ring for her directly," the girl answered. "So that was Sir

Leslie Borrowdean, mother! Why did he come to see you again so soon?"

"I haven't the least idea," Mrs. Phillimore announced, "but I thought

it was very sweet of him. It seems all the more remarkable when one

considers the sort of man he is. He's very ambitious, you know, and

devoted to politics."

"Where did you meet him first?" Hester asked.

"It was at the Metropole at Bexhill," Mrs. Phillimore answered. "We

motored down there one day, and Lena Roberts told me that she heard him

inquiring who I was directly we came into the room. He joined our party

at luncheon. Billy knew him slightly, so I made him go over and ask him."

Hester nodded, and seemed to be absorbed in some trifling defect of one

of the keys of her typewriter.

"Does he still ask you many questions about Mr. Mannering, mother?" she

asked, quietly.

"About Mr. Mannering!" Mrs. Phillimore repeated, with raised eyebrows.

"Why, he scarcely ever mentions his name."

She took up a small mirror from the table by her side, and critically

touched her hair.

"About Mr. Mannering, indeed," she repeated. "Why do you ask me such a

question?"

The girl hesitated.

"Do you really want to know, mother?" she asked.

"Of course!"

"When Mr. Mannering was here last," Hester said, "he asked me whether Sir

Leslie Borrowdean was a friend of yours. I fancy that they are political

acquaintances, but I don't think that they are on very good terms."

Mrs. Phillimore laid down the mirror and yawned.

"Well, there's nothing very strange about that," she declared. "Lawrence

isn't the sort to get on with many people, especially since he went and

buried himself in the country. How pale you are looking, child. Why don't

you go and take a walk, instead of hammering away at that old typewriter?

Any one would think that you had to do it for a living!"

"I prefer to earn my own living," the girl answered, "and I am not in the

least tired. Tell me, are you going to see Sir Leslie Borrowdean again,

mother?"

The woman on the couch smoothed her hair once more, with a smile of

gratification.

"Sir Leslie has asked me to join a small party of friends for dinner at

the Carlton this evening," she announced. "Why on earth are you looking

at me like that, child? You're always grumbling that my friends are a

fast lot, and don't suit you. You can't say anything against Sir Leslie."

The girl had risen to her feet. The trouble in her face was manifest.

"Mother," she said, slowly, "I wish that you were not going. I wish that

you would have nothing whatever to do with Sir Leslie Borrowdean."

"Good Heavens!--and why not?" the woman exclaimed, suddenly sitting up.

"I believe that he only asked you because he has an idea that you can

tell him--something he wants to know about Mr. Mannering," the girl

answered, steadily. "I don't think that you ought to go!"

"Rubbish!" her mother answered, crossly. "I don't believe that he has

such an idea in his head. As though he couldn't ask me for the sake of my

company. And if he does ask me questions, I'm not obliged to answer them,

am I? Do you think that I'm to be turned inside out like a schoolgirl?"

"Sir Leslie is very clever, and he is very unscrupulous," the girl

answered. "I wish you weren't going! I believe that he wants to find out

things."

Mrs. Phillimore frowned uneasily.

"I'm not a fool!" she said. "He's welcome to all he can get to know

through me. I don't know what you want to try to make me uncomfortable

for, Hester, I'm sure. Sir Leslie has never betrayed the least curiosity

about Mr. Mannering, and I don't believe that he's any such idea in his

head. Upon my word I don't see why you should think it impossible that

Sir Leslie should come here just for the sake of improving an

acquaintance which he found pleasant. That's what he gave me to

understand, and he put it very nicely too!"

"I do not think that Sir Leslie is that sort of man, mother."

"And I don't see how you know anything about it," was the sharp response.

"Ring the bell, please. I want to speak to Mary about my skirt."

"You mean to dine with him then, mother?" she asked, crossing the room

towards the bell.

"Of course! I've accepted. To-night and as often as he chooses to ask me.

Now don't upset me, please. I want to look my best to-night, and if I get

angry my hair goes all out of curl."

The girl went back to her typewriter. She unfolded a sheet of copy, and

placed it on the stand before her.

"If you have made up your mind, mother, I suppose you will go," she said.

"Still--I wish you wouldn't."

Mrs. Phillimore shrugged her shoulders.

"If I did what you wished all the time," she remarked, pettishly, "I

might as well drown myself at once. Can't you understand, Hester?" she

added, with a sudden change of manner, "that I must do something to help

me to forget? You don't want to see me go mad, do you?"

The girl turned half round in her chair. She was fronting a mirror. She

caught a momentary impression of herself--pallid, hollow-eyed, weary. She

sighed.

"There are other ways of forgetting," she murmured. "There is work."

Her mother laughed scornfully.

"You have chosen your way," she said, "let me choose mine. Turn round,

Hester."

The girl obeyed her languidly. Her mother eyed her with an attention she

seldom vouchsafed to anything. Her plain black frock was ill-fitting and

worn. She wore no ribbon or jewellery or adornment of any sort.

Negatively her face was not ill-pleasing, but her figure was angular, and

her complexion almost anæmic. The woman on the couch represented other

things. She was tastefully, though somewhat elaborately dressed. She wore

chains and trinkets about her neck, rings upon her fingers, and in her

face had begun in earnest the tragic struggle between an actual forty and

presumptive twenty. She laughed again, a little hardly.

"And you are my daughter," she exclaimed. "You are one of the freaks of

heredity. I'm perfectly certain you don't belong to me, and as for him--"

"Stop!" the girl cried.

The woman nodded.

"Quite right," she said. "I didn't mean to mention him. I won't again.

But we are different, aren't we? I wonder why you stay with me. I wonder

you don't go and make a home for yourself somewhere. I know that you hate

all the things I do, and care for, and all my friends. Why don't you go

away? It would be more comfortable for both of us!"

"I have no wish to go away," the girl said, softly, "and I don't think

that we interfere with one another very much, do we? This is the first

time I have ever made a remark about any--of your friends. To-night I

cannot help it. Sir Leslie Borrowdean is Mr. Mannering's enemy. I am sure

of it! That is why I do not like the idea of your going out with him. It

doesn't seem to be right--and I am afraid."

"Afraid! You little idiot!"

"Sir Leslie Borrowdean is a very clever man," the girl said. "He is a

very clever man, and he has been a lawyer. That sort of person knows how

to ask questions--to--find out things."

"Rubbish!" the woman remarked, sitting up on the couch. "Why do you try

to make me so uncomfortable, Hester? Sir Leslie may be very clever, but

I am not exactly a fool myself."

She spoke confidently, but under the delicate coating of rouge her cheeks

had whitened.

"Besides," she continued, "Sir Leslie has never even mentioned Mr.

Mannering's name in anything except the most casual way. You don't

understand everything, Hester. Of course Lena and Billy Aswell and Rothe

and all of them are all right, but they are just a little--well, you

would call it fast, and it does one good to be seen with a different set

sometimes. Sir Leslie Borrowdean and his friends are altogether

different, of course."

The girl bent over her work.

"No doubt, mother," she answered, "There's Mary stamping on the floor.

I expect she has your bath ready."

An hour or so later Mrs. Phillimore departed in a hired brougham.

Her hair had been carefully arranged by a local expert who had an

establishment in the next street, her pink silk gown had come through the

ordeal of cleansing with remarkable success, and the heels on her new

evening shoes resembled more than anything else, miniature stilts. Her

face was wreathed in smiles, and she possessed the good conscience and

light heart of a woman who feels that she has made a successful toilette.

All the vague misgivings of a short while ago had vanished. She gave her

hair a final touch in the side window of the carriage as she drove off,

and quite forgot to wave her hand to Hester, who was standing at the

window to see her go. If any misgivings remained at all between the two,

they were not with her. She settled herself back amongst the cushions

with a little sigh of content. Sir Leslie was a most charming person, and

evidently not at all insensible to her charms. She was sure that she was

going to have a delightful evening.

* * * * *

Borrowdean, if he possessed no conscience, was not altogether free from

some kindred eccentricity. He was reminded sharply enough of the fact

about one o'clock the next morning, when the door of the little house on

Merton Street was suddenly opened before he could touch the bell. Framed

in a little slanting gleam of light, Hester, still wearing her plain

black gown, stood and looked at him. His careless words of explanation

died away upon his lips. The fire which flashed from her hollow eyes

seemed to wither up the very sources of speech within him. The half

lights were kind to her. He saw nothing of the hollow cheeks. The

weariness of her pose and manner had passed like magic away. She stood

there, erect as a dart, her head thrown back, a curious mixture of scorn,

of loathing, and of fear in her expression. She looked at him steadily,

and he felt his cheeks burn. He was ashamed--ashamed of himself, ashamed

of his errand.

"Your mother," he said, struggling to look away from her, "is--a little

unwell. The heat of the room--"

She swept down the steps and passed him. Before he could reach her side

she was tugging at the handle of the carriage door.

"Mother," she cried, through the window, "undo the door!"

But Mrs. Phillimore made no answer. When at last the door was opened she

was discovered half asleep in a corner. Her hair was in some disorder,

and her cheeks no longer preserved that even colouring which is a result

of the artistic use of the rouge-pot. Her head was thrown back, and she

was apparently asleep. Hester stifled a sob. She took her mother by the

arm, and shook her.

Mrs. Phillimore sat up and smiled a sleepy smile. She made a few

incoherent remarks. They helped her into the house and into an

easy-chair, where she promptly turned her face towards the cushions and

resumed her slumber. Sir Leslie moved towards the door, then hesitated.

"Miss Phillimore," he said, "I cannot tell you how sorry I am that this

should have happened."

She was on her knees before her mother. She turned and rose slowly to

her feet. Sir Leslie never quite forgot her gesture as she motioned him

towards the door. It was one of the most uncomfortable moments of his

life.

"I am afraid--"

She did not speak a word, yet Sir Leslie obeyed what seemed to him more

eloquent than words. He turned and left the room and the house. Without

any change in her tense expression she waited until she heard him go.

Then she sank upon her knees on the hearthrug, and hid her face in her

hands.

CHAPTER X

THE MAN WITH A MOTIVE

Mannering sat alone in the shade of his cedar tree. He had walked in his

rose-garden amongst a wilderness of drooping blossoms, for the season of

roses was gone. He had crossed the marshland seawards, only to find a

little crowd of holiday-makers in possession of the golf links and the

green tufted stretch of sandy shore. The day had been long, almost

irksome. A fit of restlessness had driven him from his study. He seemed

to have lost all power of concentration. For once his brain had failed

him. The shadowy companions who stood ever between him and solitude

remained uninvoked. His cigar had burnt out between his fingers. He threw

it impatiently away. These were the days, the hours he dreaded.

Clara came down the garden from the house, and seeing him, crossed the

lawn and sat down beside him.

"Why, my dear uncle," she exclaimed, "you look almost as dull as I feel!

Let us be miserable together!"

"With all my heart," he answered. "Whilst we are about it, can we invent

a cause?"

"Invent!" she repeated. "I do not think we need either of us look very

far. Every one seems to have gone away whose presence made this place

endurable. Uncle, do you know when Mrs. Handsell is coming back? She

promised to write, and I have never heard a word!"

Mannering turned his head. A little rustling wind had stolen in from

seaward. Above their heads flights of sea-gulls were floating out towards

the creeks. He watched them idly until they dropped down.

"I do not think that she will come back at all," he said, quietly.

"I heard to-day that the place was to let again."

"And Sir Leslie Borrowdean?"

"I think you may take it for granted," Mannering remarked, dryly, "that

we shall see no more of him."

The girl leaned back and sighed.

"Uncle, what is it that makes you such a hermit?" she asked.

"Age, perhaps, and experience," he answered, lightly. "There are not many

people in the world, Clara, who are worth while!"

"Mrs. Handsell was worth while," she murmured.

Mannering did not reply.

"And Sir Leslie Borrowdean," she continued, "was more than just worth

while. I think that he was delightful."

"Very young ladies, and very old ones," Mannering remarked, grimly,

"generally like Borrowdean."

"And what about Mrs. Handsell?" she asked, with a spice of malice in her

tone.

"Mrs. Handsell," Mannering answered, coolly, "was a very charming woman.

Since both these people have passed out of our lives, Clara, I scarcely

see why we need discuss them."

"One must talk about something," she answered. "At least I must talk, and

you must pretend to listen. I positively cannot exist in the house by

myself any longer."

"Where is Richard?" Mannering asked.

"Gone into Norwich to dine at the barracks with some stupid men. Not that

I mind his going," she added, hastily. "I wish he'd stay away for a

month. Of course he's a very good sort, and all that, but he's deadly

monotonous. Uncle, really, as a matter of curiosity, before I get to be

an old woman I should like to see one other young man."

"Plenty on the links just now!"

"I know it. I sat out near the ninth hole all this morning. There are

some Cambridge boys who looked quite nice. One of them was really

delightful when I showed him where his ball was, but I can't consider

that an introduction, can I? Heavens, who's this?"

Behind the trim maid-servant already crossing the lawn, and within a few

yards of them, came a strange, almost tragical, figure. Her plain black

clothes and hat were powdered with dust, there were deep lines under her

eyes, she swayed a little when she walked, as though with fatigue. She

seemed to bring with her into the cool, quiet garden, with its country

odours and general air of peace, an alien note. One almost heard the deep

undercry from a far-away world of suffering--the great, ever-moving

wheels seemed to have caught her up and thrown her down in this most

incongruous of places. Clara, in her cool white dress, her fresh

complexion, her general air of health and girlish vigour, seemed, as she

rose to her feet, a creature of another sex, almost of another world. The

two girls exchanged for a moment wondering glances. Then Mannering

intervened.

"Hester!" he exclaimed. "Why--is there anything wrong?"

"Nothing--very serious," she answered. "But I had to see you. I thought

that I had better come."

He held out his hands.

"You have had a tiring journey," he said. "You must come into the house

and let them find you something to eat. Clara, this is Hester Phillimore,

the daughter of an old friend of mine. Will you see about a room for her,

and lend her anything she requires?"

"Of course," Clara answered. "Won't you come into the house with me?" she

added pleasantly to the girl. "You must be horribly tired travelling this

hot weather, and this is such an out-of-the-way corner of the world!"

Hester lingered for a moment, glancing nervously at Mannering.

"I must go back to-night," she said. "I only came because I thought that

it would be quicker than writing."

"To-night?" he exclaimed. "But, my dear girl, that is impossible. There

are no trains, and you are tired out already. Go into the house with my

niece, and we will have a talk afterwards."

He walked across the lawn with them, talking pleasantly to Hester,

as though her visit were in no sense of the word unpleasant, or an

extraordinary event. But when he returned to his seat under the cedar

tree his whole expression was changed. The lines about his face had

insensibly deepened. He leaned a little forward, looking with weary,

unseeing eyes into the tangled shrubbery. Had all men, he wondered, this

secret chapter in their lives--the one sore place so impossible to

forget, the cupboard of shadows never wholly closed, shadows which at any

moment might steal out and encompass his darkening life? He sat there

motionless, and his thoughts travelled backwards. There were many things

in his life which he had forgotten, but never this. Every word that had

been spoken, every detail in that tragic little scene seemed to glide

into his memory with a distinctness and amplitude which time had never

for one second dimmed. So it must be until the end. He forgot the girl

and her errand. He forgot the carefully cultivated philosophy which for

so many years had helped him towards forgetfulness. So he sat until the

sound of their voices upon the lawn recalled him to the present.

"I will leave you to have your talk with uncle," Clara said. "Afterwards

I will come back to you. There he is, sitting under the cedar tree."

The girl came swiftly over to his side. For a moment the compassion which

he had always felt for her swept away the memory of his own sorrow. Her

pallid, colourless face had lost everything except expression. If the

weariness, which seemed to have found a home in her eyes, was just now

absent, it was because a worse thing was shining out of them--a fear,

of which there were traces even in her hurried walk and tone. He rose at

once and held out his hands.

"Come and sit down, Hester," he said, "and don't look so frightened."

She obeyed him at once.

"I am frightened," she said, "because I feel that I ought not to have

come here, and yet I thought that you ought to know at once what has

happened. Sir Leslie Borrowdean has been coming to see mother. Last night

he took her out to dinner. She came home--late--she was not quite

herself. This morning she was frightened and hysterical. She said--that

she had been talking."

"To Sir Leslie Borrowdean?"

"Yes."

Mannering showed no signs of dismay. He took the girl's thin white hand

in his, and held it almost affectionately.

"I am very glad to know this at once, dear," he said, "and you did what

was right and kind when you came to see me. But Sir Leslie Borrowdean has

no reason to make himself my enemy. On the contrary, just now he seems

particularly anxious to cultivate my friendship."

"Then why," the girl asked, "has he gone out of his way to--to--"

Mannering stopped her.

"He had a motive, of course. Borrowdean is one of those men who do

nothing without a motive. I believe that I can even guess what it is.

Don't let this thing distress you too much, Hester. I do not think that

we have anything to worry about."

"But he knows!"

"I could not imagine a man," Mannering answered, "better able to keep a

secret."

The girl sat silent for a moment.

"I suppose I have been an idiot," she remarked.

"You have been nothing of the sort," Mannering asserted, firmly. "You

have done just what is kind, and what will help me to save the situation.

I must confess that I should not like to have been taken by surprise. You

have saved me from that. Now let us put the whole subject away for a

time. How I wish that you could stay here for a few days."

The girl smiled a little piteously.

"I ought not to have left her even for so long as this," she said. "I

must go back to-morrow morning by the first train."

He nodded. He felt that it was useless to combat her resolution.

"You and I," he said, gravely, "have both our burdens to carry. Only it

seems a little unfair that Providence should have made my back so much

the broader. Listen, Hester!"

The full murmur of the sea growing louder and louder as the salt water

flowed up into the creeks betokened the change of tide. Faint wreaths of

mist were rising up from over the shadowy marshland. Above them were the

stars. He laid his hand upon her shoulder.

"Dear child!" he said, "I think that you understand how it is that the

burden, after all, is easier for me. A man may forget his troubles here,

for all the while there is this eternal background of peaceful things."

Her hand stole into his.

"Yes," she murmured, "I understand. Don't let them ever bring you away."

CHAPTER XI

MANNERING'S ALTERNATIVE

Once again Mannering found himself in the over-scented, overheated room,

which was perhaps of all places in the world the one he hated the most.

Fresh from the wind-swept places of his country home, he found the

atmosphere intolerable. After a few minutes' waiting he threw open the

windows and leaned out. Hester was walking in the Square somewhere. He

had a shrewd idea that she had been sent out of the way. With a restless

impatience of her absence he awaited the interview which he dreaded.

Her mother's coming took him a little by surprise. She seemed to have

laid aside all her usual customs. She entered the room quietly. She

greeted him almost nervously. She was dressed, without at any rate any

obvious attempt to attract, in a plain black gown, and with none of the

extravagances in which she sometimes delighted. Her usual boisterous

confidence of manner seemed to have deserted her. Her face, without its

skilful touches of rouge, looked thin, and almost peaked.

"I am so glad that you came, Lawrence," she said. "It was very good of

you."

She glanced towards the opened windows, and he closed them at once.

"I am afraid," he said, "that you have not been well!"

There was a touch of her old self in the hardness of her low laugh.

"It is remorse!" she declared. "I think that for once in my life I have

permitted myself to think! It is a great mistake. One loses confidence

when one realizes what a beast one is."

He waited in silence. It seemed to him the best thing. She sat down a

little wearily. He remained standing a few feet away.

"I have given you away, Lawrence," she said, quietly.

"So," he remarked, "I understand."

"Hester has told you, of course. I am not blaming her. She did quite

right. Only I should have told you myself. I wanted to be the first to

assure you of this. Our secret is quite safe. The man--with whom I made

a fool of myself--has given me his word of honour."

"Sir Leslie Borrowdean's--word of honour!" Mannering remarked, with slow

scorn. "Do you know the man, I wonder?"

"I know that he wishes to be your friend, and not your enemy," she said.

"He chooses his friends for what they are worth to him," Mannering

answered. "It is all a matter of self-interest. He has some idea of

making me the stepping-stone to his advancement. I have a place just now

in his scheme of life. But as for friendship! Borrowdean does not know

the meaning of the word."

"You speak bitterly," she remarked.

"I know the man," he answered.

"Will you tell me," she asked, "what it is that he wants of you?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Is this worth discussing between us?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Very well, then, you shall know. He wants me to re-enter political life,

to be the jackal to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for him."

"To re-enter political life! And why don't you?"

Mannering turned abruptly round and looked her in the face. He had been

gazing out of the window, wondering how long it would be before Hester

returned.

"Why don't I!" he repeated, a little vaguely. "How can you ask me such a

question as that?"

She was undisturbed. Again he marvelled at the change in her.

"Is it so very extraordinary a question?" she said. "I have often

wondered whether you meant to content yourself with your present life

always. It is scarcely worthy of you, is it? You were born to other

things than to live the life of a country gentleman. You dabble in

literature, they say, and poke your stick into politics through the pages

of the reviews. Why don't you take your coat off and play the game?"

Mannering was silent for several moments. He was, however, meditating his

own reply less than studying his questioner. Her attitude was amazing to

him. She watched him all the time, frowning.

"You are not usually so tongue-tied," she remarked, irritably. "Have you

nothing to say to me?"

"I am wondering," he said, quietly, "what has given birth to this sudden

interest in my proceedings. What does it matter to you how my days are

spent, or what manner of use I make of them?"

"There was a time--" she began.

"A time irretrievably past," he interrupted, shortly.

"I am not so sure!" she declared, doubtfully.

"What has Borrowdean to do with this?" he asked her, abruptly.

"Borrowdean?"

"Surely! Some one has been putting notions into your head."

"Why take that for granted?" she asked, equably. "The pity of the whole

thing is obvious enough, isn't it? Sometimes I think that we were a pair

of fools. We played into the hands of fate. We were brought face to face

with a terrible situation. Instead of meeting it bravely we played the

coward. Why don't you forget, Lawrence, as I have done? Take up your work

again. Set a seal upon--that memory."

"I have outgrown my ambitions," he answered. "Life was hot enough in my

veins then. Desire grows cold with the years. I am content."

"But I," she answered, "am not."

"We each chose our life," he reminded her.

"Perhaps. I am not satisfied with my choice. You may be with yours."

"I am."

She leaned over towards him.

"Once," she said, "you offered me what you called--atonement. I refused

it. Just then it seemed horrible. Now that feeling has passed away. I am

lonely, Lawrence, and I am weary of the sort of life I have been living.

Supposing I asked you to make me that offer again?"

Mannering turned slowly towards her. He was not a man who easily showed

emotion, but there were traces of it now in his face. The hand which

rested on the back of his chair shook. There was in his eyes the look of

a man who sees evil things.

"It is too late, Blanche," he said. "You cannot be in earnest?"

"Why not?" she murmured, dropping her eyes. "I am tired of my life. What

you owed me then you owe me now. Why should it be too late? I am not an

old woman yet, nor are you an old man, and I am weary of being alone."

Mannering walked to the window. His hand went to his forehead. It was

damp and cold. He was afraid! If she were in earnest! And she spoke like

a woman who knew her mind. She was always, he remembered, a creature of

caprice. If she were really in earnest!

"We have drifted too far apart, Blanche," he said, making an effort to

face the situation. "Years ago this might have been possible. To-day it

would be a dismal failure. My ways are not yours. The life I lead would

bore you to death."

"There is no reason why you should not alter it," she answered, calmly.

"In fact, I should wish you to. Blakely all the year round would be an

impossibility. You could come and live in London."

He looked at her fixedly.

"Have you forgotten?" he asked.

She covered her face with her hands for a moment. If indeed she really

felt any emotion it passed quickly away, for when she looked up again

there were no traces left.

"I have forgotten nothing," she declared, defiantly. "Only the horror and

fear of it all has passed away. I don't see why I should suffer all my

life. In fact, I don't mean to. I don't want to be a miserable, lonely

old woman. I want a home, something different from this."

Mannering faced her gravely.

"Blanche," he said, "you are proposing something which would most surely

ruin the rest of our lives. What we might have been to one another if

things had been different it is hard to say. But this much is very

certain. We belong now to different worlds. We have drifted apart with

the years. Even the little we see of one another now is far from a

pleasure to either of us. What you are suggesting would be simply

suicidal."

She was silent. He watched her anxiously. As a rule her face was easy

enough to read. To-day it was impenetrable. He could not tell what was

passing behind that still, almost stony, look. Her silence forced him

again into speech.

"You agree with me, surely, Blanche? You must agree with me?"

She raised her head.

"I am not sure that I do," she answered. "But at least I understand you.

That is something! You want to go on as you are--apart from me. That is

true, isn't it?"

"Yes!"

She nodded.

"At least you are candid. You want your liberty--unfettered. What are you

willing to pay for it?"

He looked at her incredulously.

"I do not quite understand!" he said.

She laughed, and the laugh belonged to her old self.

"Indeed! I thought that I was explicit enough, brutally explicit, even.

What have you to offer me in place of your name and yourself? What

sacrifice are you prepared to make?"

He looked at her furtively, as though even then he doubted the

significance of her words.

"You have already half my income," he said, slowly.

She shrugged her shoulders.

"A thousand a year! What can one do on that? To live decently in town one

needs much more."

"It is as much as I can offer," he remarked, stiffly.

"Then you should earn money," she declared. "It's easy enough for men

with brains. Go back into politics instead of idling your time away down

in Blakely. I mean it! I've no patience with men who have a right to a

place in the world which they won't fill."

"Surely," he remonstrated, "I may be allowed to choose the manner of my

life!"

"If you can afford to--yes," she answered. "But I want one of two things.

The first seems to scare you to death even to think of. The second is

more money--a good deal more money."

"But," he protested, "even if I did as you suggested, and went back into

politics, it would be some time, if ever, before I should be any better

off."

"I will wait until that time comes," she answered, "provided that when it

does, you share with me."

Then Mannering understood.

"Upon my word," he exclaimed, "you are an apt conspirator indeed. All

this time you have been fooling me. I even fancied--bah! How much is

Borrowdean giving you for this?"

"Nothing at all," she answered, coolly. "It is my own sincere desire

for your welfare which has prompted all that I have said to you. I am

ambitious for you, Lawrence. I should like to see you Prime Minister.

I am sure you could be if you tried. You are letting your talents rust,

and I don't approve of it!"

The faint note of mockery in her tone was clearly apparent. Mannering

found it hard to answer her calmly.

"Come," he said, "put it into plain words. What does it mean? What do you

want?"

"Sir Leslie tells me," she said, raising her eyes and looking him in the

face, "that his party is prepared to find you a safe seat to-morrow. I

want you to give up your hermit's life and accept it."

"And the alternative?"

"You have it already before you. Your reception of it was not, I must

admit, altogether flattering."

"I am allowed," he said, "some short space of time for consideration?"

"Until to-morrow, if you wish," she answered. "I imagine you know pretty

well what you mean to do."

He picked up his hat and turned towards the door.

"Yes," he said, "I suppose I do!"

BOOK II

CHAPTER I

BORROWDEAN MAKES A BARGAIN

Borrowdean sank into the chair which Berenice had indicated, with a

little sigh of relief.

"These all-night sittings," he remarked, "get less of a joke as one

advances in years. You read the reports this morning?"

She nodded.

"And Mannering's speech?"

"Every word of it."

"Our little conspiracy," he continued, "is bearing fruit. Honestly,

Mannering is a surprise, even to me. After these years of rust I scarcely

expected him to step back at once into all his former brilliancy. His

speech last night was wonderful."

"I heard it," she said. "You are quite right. It was wonderful."

"You were in the House?" he asked, looking up quickly.

"I was there till midnight," she answered.

Borrowdean was thoughtful for a moment.

"His speech," he remarked, "sounded even better than it read."

"I thought so," she admitted. "He has all the smaller tricks of the

orator, as well as the gift of eloquence. One can always listen to him

with pleasure."

"Will you pardon me," Borrowdean asked, "if I make a remark which may

sound a little impertinent? You and Mannering were great friends at

Blakely. On my first visit there you will remember that you did not

attempt to conceal that there was more than an ordinary intimacy between

you. Yet to-day I notice that there are indications on both your parts of

a desire to avoid one another as much as possible. It seems to me a pity

that you two should not be friends. Is there any small misunderstanding

which a common friend--such as I trust I may call myself--might help

to smooth away?"

Berenice regarded him thoughtfully.

"It is strange," she said, "that you should talk to me like this, you who

are certainly responsible for any estrangement there may be between Mr.

Mannering and myself. Please answer me this question. Why do you wish us

to be friends?"

Borrowdean shrugged his shoulders.

"You and he and myself, with about a dozen others," he answered, "form

the backbone of a political party. As time goes on we shall in all

probability be drawn closer and closer together. It seems to me best that

our alliance should be as real a thing as possible."

Berenice smiled.

"Rather a sentimental attitude for you, Sir Leslie," she remarked. "Have

you ever considered the fact that any coolness there may be between

Lawrence Mannering and myself is entirely due to you?"

"To me!" he exclaimed.

"Exactly! At Blakely we were on terms of the most intimate friendship. I

had grown to like and respect him more than any man I had ever met. I

don't know exactly why I should take you so far into my confidence, but I

am inclined to do so. Our friendship seemed likely to develop into--other

things."

"My dear Duchess--"

"Don't interrupt me! I have an idea that you were perfectly aware of it.

Perhaps it did not suit your plans. At any rate, you made statements to

me concerning him which, as you very well knew, were likely to alter my

entire opinion of him. I had an idea that there was some code of honour

between men which kept them from discussing the private life of their

friends with a woman. You seem to have been troubled with no such

scruples. You told me things about Lawrence Mannering which made it

absolutely necessary that I should hear them confirmed or denied from his

own lips."

"You would rather have remained in ignorance, then?" he asked.

"I would rather have remained in ignorance," she repeated, calmly. "Don't

flatter yourself, Sir Leslie, that a woman ever has any real gratitude in

her heart for the person who, out of friendship, or some other motive,

destroys her ideals. I should have married Lawrence Mannering if you had

not spoken."

Borrowdean was silent. In his heart he was thinking how nearly one of the

most cherished schemes of his life had gone awry.

"I am afraid, then," he said, "that even at the risk of your further

displeasure I have no regrets to offer you."

"I do not desire your regrets," she answered, scornfully. "You did what

it suited you to do, and I presume you are satisfied. As for the rest, I

can assure you that the relations between Mr. Mannering and myself are

such that the balance of your political apple-cart is not likely to be

disturbed. Now let us talk of something else. I have said all that I have

to say on this matter--"

Sir Leslie was not entirely satisfied with the result of his afternoon

call. He walked slowly from Grosvenor Square to a small house in Sloane

Gardens, in front of which a well-appointed victoria was waiting. He

looked around at the well-filled window-boxes, thick with geraniums and

marguerites, at the coachman's new livery, at the evidences of luxury

which met him the moment the door was opened, and his lips parted in a

faint, unpleasant smile.

"Poor Mannering," he murmured to himself. "What a millstone!"

Mrs. Phillimore was at home. She would certainly see Sir Leslie, the

trim parlour-maid thought, with a smile. She left him alone in a

flower-scented drawing-room, crowded with rococo furniture and many

knick-knacks, where he waited more or less impatiently for nearly twenty

minutes. Then Mrs. Phillimore swept into the room, elaborately gowned for

her drive in the park, dispersing perfumes in all directions and

bestowing a dazzling smile upon him.

"I felt very much inclined not to see you at all," she declared. "How

dared you keep away from me all this time? You haven't been near me since

I moved in here. What do you think of my little house?"

"Charming!" he declared.

"Every one likes it," she remarked. "Such a time I had choosing the

furniture. Hester wouldn't help with a single thing. You know that she

has left me?"

"I understood that she had gone to Mr. Mannering as secretary," he

answered. "She has done typing for him for some time, hasn't she?"

Mrs. Phillimore nodded.

"Worships him, the little fool!" she remarked. "I must admit I detest

clever men. You are all so dull, and such scheming brutes, too."

Borrowdean smiled. A certain rough-and-ready humour about this woman

always appealed to him. He looked around.

"You seem to have done very nicely with that little offering," he said.

"Oh, ready money goes a long way," she declared, carelessly.

"And when it is spent?" he asked. "Five thousand pounds is not an

inexhaustible sum."

"By the time it is spent," she answered, "your party will be in, and I

suppose you will make Lawrence something."

Borrowdean regarded the woman thoughtfully.

"Has it ever occurred to you," he asked, "that the time is likely to come

when Mannering might want his money for himself? He might want to marry,

for instance."

She laughed mirthlessly, but without a shade of uneasiness.

"You don't know Lawrence," she declared, scornfully. "He'd never do that

whilst I was alive."

"I am not so sure," Borrowdean answered, calmly. "Between ourselves,

I cannot see that your claim upon him amounts to very much."

"Then you're a fool!" she declared, brusquely.

"No, I'm not," Borrowdean assured her, blandly. "Now I fancy that I could

tell you something which would surprise you very much."

"Has he been making love to any one?" she asked, quickly.

"Something of the sort," he admitted. "Mannering is quixotic, of course,

and that hermit life of his down in Norfolk has made him more so. Now he

has come back again into the world it is just possible that he may see

things differently. I flatter myself that I am a man of common sense. I

know how the whole affair seems to me, and I tell you frankly that I can

see nothing from the point of view of honour to prevent Mannering

marrying any woman he chooses. I think it very possible that he may

readjust his whole point of view."

The woman looked around her, and outside, where her victoria was waiting.

At last she had attained to an environment such as she had all her life

desired. The very idea that at any moment it might be swept away sent a

cold shiver through her. Borrowdean had a trick of speaking convincingly.

And besides--

"Who is the woman?" she asked.

"I had been wondering," Borrowdean said, "whether it would not be better

to tell you, so that you might be on your guard. The woman is the Duchess

of Lenchester."

She stared at him.

"You're in earnest?"

"Absolutely!"

Her face hardened. Whatever other feelings she may have had for

Mannering, she had lived so long with the thought that he belonged to

her, at least as a wage-earning animal, a person whose province it

was to make her ways smooth so far as his means permitted, that the

thought of losing him stirred in her a dull, jealous anger.

"I'd stop it!" she declared. "I'd go and tell her everything."

"I am not sure," Borrowdean continued, smoothly, "that that would be the

best course. Supposing that you were to tell her the story just as you

told it to me. It is just possible that her point of view might be mine.

She might regard Lawrence Mannering as a quixotic person, and endeavour

to persuade him that your claim was scarcely so binding as he seems to

imagine. In any case, I do not think that your story would prevent her

marrying him."

"Then all I can say is that she is a woman with a very queer sense of

right and wrong," Mrs. Phillimore declared, angrily.

Borrowdean smiled.

"A woman," he said, "who is fond of a man is apt to have her judgment

a little warped. The Duchess is a woman of fine perceptions and sound

judgment. But she is attracted by Lawrence Mannering. She admires him.

He is the sort of person who appeals to her imagination. These feelings

might easily become, if they have not already developed into, something

else. And I tell you again that I do not believe your story would stop

her from marrying him."

She leaned a little towards him.

"What would?" she asked, earnestly.

He hesitated.

"Well," he said, "I think I could tell you that!"

She held up her hand.

"Stop, please," she said. "I want to ask you something else. Are you

Lawrence's enemy?"

"I? Why, of course not!"

"Then where do you come in?" she asked, bluntly. "You couldn't persuade

me that it is interest on my account which brings you here and makes you

tell me these things. You don't care a button for me."

Borrowdean took her hand and leaned forward in his chair. She snatched it

away.

"Oh, rot!" she exclaimed. "I may be a fool, but I'm not quite fool enough

for that. I'm simply a useful person for the moment in some scheme of

yours, and I just want to know what that scheme is. That's all! I'm not

the sort of woman you'd waste a moment with, except for some purpose of

your own. You've proved that. You wormed my story out of me very

cleverly, but I haven't quite forgotten it yet, you know. And to tell you

the truth," she continued, "you're not my sort, either. You and Lawrence

Mannering are something of the same kidney after all, though he's worth

a dozen of you. You've neither of you any time for play in the world, and

that sort of man doesn't appeal to me. Now where do you come in?"

Borrowdean looked at her thoughtfully. He had the air of a man a trifle

piqued. Perhaps for the first time he realized that Blanche Phillimore

was not altogether an unattractive-looking woman. If she had desired to

stir him from his indifference she could not have chosen any more

effectual means.

"I am not going to argue with you," he said, quietly. "I have ambitions,

it is true, and the world is not exactly a playground for me.

Nevertheless, I am not an ascetic like Mannering. The world, the flesh

and the devil are very much to me what they are to other men. But in a

sense you have cornered me, and you shall have the truth. I want to marry

the Duchess of Lenchester myself."

She nodded.

"That's right," she said. "Now we know where we are. You want to marry

the Duchess, and therefore you don't want her to have Lawrence. You think

that I can stop it, and as I don't want him married, either, you come to

me. That is reasonable. Now how can I prevent it?"

"By a slight variation from your story," he answered. "In fact, words are

not needed. A suggestion only would be enough, and circumstances," he

added, glancing around, "are strongly in favour of that suggestion."

"You mean--"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Mannering is security for your lease," he remarked. "You pay in his

cheques to your bank every quarter. He occupies just that position which

in a general way is capable of one explanation only."

"Well?"

"Let the Duchess believe him, or continue to believe him, to be an

ordinary man--instead of a fool--and she will never marry him."

"And she will you?"

"I hope so!"

She leaned back in her chair. He could not altogether understand her

silence. Surely she could have no scruples?

"It seems to me," she said at last, "that I am to play your game for

nothing. I don't care so very much, after all, if he marries. He'd settle

all he could on me. In fact, I should have just as much claim on him as I

have now."

"I did not say that you should play it for nothing," he answered. "I want

us to understand each other, because I have an idea that you may be

seeing something of the Duchess at any moment. Let us put it this way.

Suppose I promise to give you a diamond necklace of the value of, say

five thousand pounds, the day I marry the Duchess!"

She rose and put pen and paper before him. He shook his head.

"I can't put an arrangement of that sort on paper," he protested. "You

must rely upon my word of honour."

She held out the pen to him.

"On paper, or the whole thing is off absolutely," she declared.

"You won't trust me?"

She looked at him.

"There isn't much honour about an arrangement of this sort, is there?"

she said. "It has to be on paper, or not at all."

A carriage stopped outside. They heard the bell.

"That," she remarked, "may be the Duchess of Lenchester."

He caught up the pen and wrote a few hurried lines. The smile with which

he handed it to her was not altogether successful.

"After all, you know," he said, "there should be honour amongst thieves."

"No doubt there is," she answered. "Only thieves are a cut above us,

aren't they?"

"I don't believe," Borrowdean said to himself, as he reached the

pavement, "that that woman is such a fool as she seems."