Almost as John closed the door of the south room Gates began to strike,
in rising and rhythmic cadences, the great dinner-gong that stood in the
hall. The elderly butler turned as John halted at his side.
"Is that the dressing-bell, Gates?" he asked.
"No, Mr. Bernard, the dressing-bell went at the usual time, sir."
John looked at him in surprise. He had heard nothing. During that scene
in the room upstairs, when he had lost possession of himself, the sound
of the bell had passed unheard. John felt no wonder at that; even now
his thoughts whirled through his brain. His temperament was naturally
cool, equable, and determined. Never in his life could he recollect
having completely forgotten himself, as he had forgotten himself with
Elaine a few minutes earlier. The power of love, indeed, had reduced
him to the common standard. His nerve, his self-possession, his swift
power of decision--all the gifts, in fact, that commended him to Dacent
Smith, had deserted him in a flash. For a brief moment--for a space of
a moment--he had forgotten everything, save the fact that he loved a
woman.
He stood now thinking of these things, and was amazed at the blind
passion that had seized him. He began to condemn himself bitterly and
savagely. His deception of Elaine stood before him as a monstrous
thing. The thought that he occupied another's man shoes, and had thus
led her to pour out a love which she would have otherwise concealed,
struck him as a criminal proceeding upon his part. He was obliged to
confess to himself that he had dallied with the situation, that he had
not acted firmly enough. On the other hand--a small voice whispered
this--his deception of Elaine was not his fault; he had not wittingly
deceived her. He had, indeed, acted all through as an honourable man.
This last thought gave him a certain amount of comfort as he crossed the
great hall and entered the drawing-room. Colonel Treves was the sole
occupant of the room, and was standing with his back to the white marble
fire-place, his hand resting on the stick he used as support. John
noticed that in evening clothes the old man looked more imposing and
distinguished than ever. The Colonel drew out his watch.
"Where's Elaine?"
John explained that he had left Elaine upstairs a few moments ago, and
presently Elaine, a little pale, came into the drawing-room. No glance
passed between her and John. With a courtly air, Colonel Treves
advanced towards her and crooked his elbow.
"May I have the honour?" he said.
Elaine slipped her arm into his. In her pale primrose dress, with her
well-coiffeured dark hair emphasising the whiteness of her neck, she
looked scarcely more than a child. John noticed with admiration that
her head was held erect. She smiled and talked graciously to the
Colonel as he led her into the dining-room and placed her upon his right
hand. For John there was no smile.
Just as the south room and the drawing-room were strange to John, so
also was the dining-room. He seated himself opposite Elaine at the head
of a long gleaming white table. Gates moved from place to place softly
and noiselessly. Colonel Treves, who was happier than he had been for
years, made a perfect host. His happiness intensified John's own
loneliness. A sensation of being a pariah came upon him; he felt that
he would have given ten years of his life to be actually sitting there
in the flesh as the real son of the fine old man who headed the table.
As to Elaine, and his relations with Elaine, he dared not let his mind
dwell upon that subject. He was attempting to indicate by his attitude
his complete contrition for what had occurred. He tried to catch
Elaine's eye. She looked at him, but there was something enigmatical in
her expression that he was unable to understand. Her good breeding was
such that to the outward eye--to the Colonel's eye, in fact--their
relationship was exactly as it had been before, and yet John knew that a
barrier had risen between them.
Elaine maintained her air of stately reserve during the rest of the
evening, and at ten o'clock, when she rose to go to her room, the
Colonel politely conducted her to the door. As he closed it upon her he
turned and looked towards John.
"You are a lucky man, Bernard!" he exclaimed.
He came slowly across the room, using his stick, as was his general
habit.
"I hope some day, my boy," he said, "when this place is yours, Elaine
will reign here as graciously and be as well beloved as your dear mother
was."
"I am sure she will, sir," answered John quietly.
The old man slid his arm through his.
"You shall take me up to the library. We can smoke there, and make
ourselves comfortable."
In the library that night John heard much of Colonel Treves's past
history, much of the family history, of the man whose identity he was
wearing, and the more he heard of Bernard Treves the more he realised
what a complete and utter waster that young man was. Often of late he
had thought of Treves in the nursing home, and wondered what were the
conditions of his detention there. Dacent Smith was always reticent
upon that point. The sinking of the _Polidor_ through the agency of
Treves had been a black and irredeemable crime. A time was bound to
come when the young man must answer for that piece of black treachery
against his country. Looking at the matter in the most charitable
light, John regarded Treves, as evidently Dacent Smith regarded him,
that is, as a feeble, will-less creature, whose reason had been
unseated, at any rate temporarily, by the drugs which were a mania with
him.
The fact that Manwitz and Cherriton had plied him with these drugs
showed only the bold unscrupulousness of the German methods. The German
Intelligence Department had used Bernard Treves, and had moulded him to
its purpose as though he had been of wax. And had not Dacent Smith
brilliantly substituted John for Treves, untold disasters would have
ensued.
"Bernard!" The Colonel's voice startled John out of his thought.
"Bernard, I have seen Gosport lately."
John wondered who Gosport might be.
"Yes," went on the Colonel. "I was hasty with you, but I have made
everything right. I have made up my mind to leave everything to you
after all. What do you say to that?"
"It is very generous of you, sir," John answered. He knew that it was
utterly impossible that a penny of the Colonel's possessions should ever
be his.
"No, no, it is only right," responded the Colonel. "You have married
well. You have rehabilitated yourself in every way, and I find you more
what a Treves should be every time we meet." He suddenly gripped John's
hand in his. "You have given me great happiness, Bernard, and one of
the reasons I made haste to change my will is that the doctor has given
me rather a bad report of myself. I don't think you'll have to put up
with me for very long, Bernard!"
"Don't say that, sir!" answered John, quickly and impulsively.
"I fear it is the truth," said the Colonel; "but I can face the next
world with a far better grace than I could have done a year ago."
He was thinking of the fine old house and the properties which a year
ago might have fallen into the hands of a worthless son. Now, as by a
miracle, that son had become a man--a man of honour--and a Treves. The
two things were synonymous in the Colonel's eyes, and the future,
whatever it might be, however soon darkness might come, held for him no
terrors.
It was after eleven that night when the Colonel went to his room.
"I'll sit up and write a few letters at your desk, if I may, father,"
said John, after escorting the elder man to the door of his bedroom.
He went back to the library, shut himself in, and dropped into a chair
at the hearth. What Elaine was doing, what were her thoughts, he could
not guess. He wondered if she was waiting for him, expecting him to
come and ask for forgiveness. Perhaps some time in the dim future, when
the whole truth was told, she might forgive; but for the present he knew
that nothing he could do would right him in her eyes.
He sat in the arm-chair, dozing and thinking, until dawn came.
When the breakfast gong rang next morning Elaine descended and found the
Colonel alone at the table. The old man looked disturbed, but in no way
depressed.
"You will have to content yourself with me, Elaine," he said, "now that
Bernard has deserted us again. He left me a note saying that important
business has arisen, and ran away before I was down. But of course,"
added the old man as an afterthought, "you know all about it."
Elaine inclined her head, and said nothing. Colonel Treves put out his
hand and laid it on her slender fingers.
"When the war is over, you and my boy Bernard will live here together,
and be as happy as crickets."
"It is very, very dear of you to say so, father." Sudden tears
glistened in her eyes. She clasped the Colonel's old, frail fingers in
hers. In that moment it seemed to her that he was the only friend she
possessed in the world.
So far as John was concerned, Elaine dared not let herself think. The
strange scene in the south room had burnt itself into her brain. John's
tremendous anxiety to get away from her, together with the undoubted
fact that he loved her, was bewildering beyond solution. The thought
that her husband had reverted to the drug habit had long been discarded.
None of the symptoms that had marked him in the early days of their
marriage were present--he was as another man in her eyes. She loved
him--she was afraid, and she was bewildered. Every post that came found
her anxiously awaiting a letter from John. But none came; two eventless
days passed. But upon the evening of the second day after John's
departure a dramatic mischance that had been impending--that had,
indeed, been inevitable from the beginning--occurred.
Elaine had made her way alone into the grounds. Her mood was one that
called for solitude, and in the quiet of the long, fir-treed avenue, the
drive which led from the mansion to the road, she found the seclusion
she needed. The evening was clear, and through tree-stems the ocean,
glassily blue and empty of shipping, spread to the far horizon. The
scene was calm, reposeful--everything, in fact, a troubled spirit could
require.
Presently, however, the entrance gate at the end of the drive was pushed
open. A young man in a green felt hat and wearing stiff Sunday clothes
came into the drive and walked slowly forward. Elaine, as the stranger
drew near, noticed that he was a youth, little more than twenty, wearing
a service-rendered badge. The young man wore his green hat slightly on
one side--his complexion was fresh, his cheeks ruddy, and his general
expression one of amiable stupidity.
Elaine glanced at him and was about to pass, thinking he carried a
message to the house, when the visitor halted in his walk and sheepishly
lifted his hat. As he halted he drew from his pocket a crumpled, rather
grimy-looking envelope.
"Is that Colonel Treves's house, miss?"
"Yes," said Elaine.
"I've got a letter for there, miss," went on the young man; "it's
addressed to Mrs. Treves."
"There is no Mrs. Treves," Elaine answered; then quickly remembering,
she smiled the gracious smile that was always so attractive to John.
"I'm Mrs. Bernard Treves."
The young man handed her the letter, and instantly Elaine's casual air
vanished, for the address was in her husband's handwriting, and had been
scrawled hurriedly in pencil.
She tore open the envelope and read the single sheet of notepaper
within.
DEAR ELAINE, ran the note, _I want you to give the bearer of this ten
shillings. Then, if you can, and as soon as you can, you must raise ten
pounds and let him bring it here to me. General Whiston and a person
called Dacent Smith have been keeping me prisoner here. The suggestion
is that I am_ non compos mentis. _I don't know whether my father's in
it or not, so on no account mention this letter to him. Whatever you
do, don't fail me; I have been suffering the tortures of the damned
here. The young man who brings this can get to me, and there is a nurse
here who can help me to get away if I can get hold of ten pounds.
Remember this, Elaine, you are my wife, and I hope you aren't siding
with my father against me. I can't stand the torture of being here any
longer, so I look to you to act quickly. You can act quickly enough when
you want to. I am nearly off my head with being deprived of the
medicine I used to take. The bearer of this would get into trouble if
found out, so don't forget to treat him well._
_Your affectionate husband,_
BERNARD TREVES.
As Elaine slowly read this letter for a second time the colour fled from
her cheeks. Her heart-beat quickened almost to suffocation--she could
make nothing of it.
Her eyes travelled to the head of the missive and read:
"St. Neot's Nursing Home, Ambleside Road, Ryde."
"St. Neot's Nursing Home--St. Neot's Nursing Home." Under her breath
she uttered the words in a dazed, stupefied fashion.
It seemed impossible that her husband, who had been with her only
forty-eight hours before, could be incarcerated there. Then the
strangeness of the letter! ... She read it again, shrinking
instinctively from its tone. Here was her husband as she had known him
from the beginning--querulous and domineering.
For a minute she wondered if there had been some extraordinary and
unexplainable mistake, but she knew his handwriting. Nevertheless, with
a great effort to steady herself, she looked into the face of the
messenger.
"If you will come to the house," she said, "I shall be pleased to give
you something for being so kind as to bring this to me."
"Thank you, miss."
"Are you one of the servants at St. Neot's Home?"
"No, miss. I work for the dairy that supplies them."
Again Elaine glanced at the crumpled letter in her fingers. There was
no possibility of forgery--and yet how came it that Dacent Smith should
wish to detain her husband? She recalled that the brilliant Chief of
the secret service had had nothing but praise for Bernard.
Again she looked quickly into the young man's face.
"Have you seen Mr. Treves lately?"
"I saw him this morning, miss."
It seemed ridiculous to put the question, to dally still with the idea
of forgery. Nevertheless, she put it.
"Could you describe Mr. Treves to me?"
"Yes, miss. He's a good-looking gentleman. Tall, dark hair----"
"Thank you," said Elaine, interrupting him--and her last doubt vanished.
Something had happened to Bernard since yesterday morning, since his
departure from the house without saying good-bye to her. He had
evidently been seized and incarcerated in the nursing home against his
will. Yet, even now, as she strove to accept the fact, her instinct
rebelled against it. The thing seemed so motiveless, so utterly outside
the natural order of events; and Bernard must have been seized almost
immediately after he left his father's house, for she noted that his
letter was dated the day before.
She again questioned the young man.
"How long has Mr. Bernard Treves been at St. Neot's Nursing Home?"
"The first time I saw him there, miss, was about two months ago, when he
asked me to get him something at a chemist's; but he must have been
there more than a month before that. I should think, miss, he's been
there going on for three months or thereabouts."
"Three months!"
"About that, miss."
Elaine looked at him with widened eyes. The thing was impossible and
incredible. Nevertheless, she dared not let the matter rest where it
was. She decided to act, and to act instantly. As yet no suspicion of
the truth had dawned upon her.