THE MEETING.
The next morning George Hagar was early at the pump-room. He found it
amusing to watch the crowds coming and going--earnest invalids and that
most numerous body of middle aged, middle class people who have no
particular reason for drinking the waters, and whose only regimen is
getting even with their appetites. He could pick out every order at a
glance--he did not need to wait until he saw the tumblers at their lips.
Now and then a dashing girl came gliding in, and, though the draft was
noxious to her, drank the stuff off with a neutral look and well bred
indifference to the distress about her. Or in strode the private
secretary of some distinguished being in London, S.W. He invariably
carried his glass to the door, drank it off in languid sips as he leaned
indolently against the masonry, and capped the event by purchasing a rose
for his buttonhole, so making a ceremony which smacked of federating the
world at a common public drinking trough into a little fete. Or there were
the good priests from a turbulent larruping island, who with cheeks
blushing with health and plump waistcoats came ambling, smiling, to their
thirty ounces of noisome liquor. Then, there was Baron, the bronzed,
idling, comfortable trader from Zanzibar, who, after fifteen years of hide
and seek with fever and Arabs and sudden death--wherewith were all manner
of accident and sundry profane dealings not intended for The Times or
Exeter hall, comes back to sojourn in quiet "Christom" places, a lamb in
temper, a lion at heart, an honest soul who minds his own business, is
enemy to none but the malicious, and lives in daily wonder that the wine
he drank the night before gets into trouble with the waters drunk in the
morning. And the days, weeks and months go on, but Baron remains, having
seen population after population of water drinkers come and go. He was
there years ago. He is there still, coming every year, and he does not
know that George Hagar has hung him at Burlington House more than once,
and he remembers very well the pretty girl he did not marry, who also, on
one occasion, joined the aristocratic company "on the line."
This young and pretty girl--Miss Mildred Margrave--came and went this
morning, and a peculiar, meditative look on her face, suggesting some
recent experience, caused the artist to transfer her to his notebook. Her
step was sprightly, her face warm and cheerful in hue, her figure
excellent, her walk the most admirable thing about her--swaying, graceful,
lissom--like perfect dancing with the whole body. Her walk was immediately
merged into somebody else's--merged melodiously, if one may say so. A man
came from the pump-room looking after the girl, and Hagar remarked a
similar swaying impulsion in the walk of both. He walked as far as the
gate of the pump-room, then sauntered back, unfolded a newspaper, closed
it up again, lit a cigar, and, like Hagar, stood watching the crowd
abstractedly. He was an outstanding figure. Ladies, as they waited,
occasionally looked at him through their glasses, and the Duchess of
Brevoort thought he would make a picturesque figure for a reception--she
was not less sure because his manner was neither savage nor suburban.
George Hagar was known to some people as "the fellow who looks back of
you." Mark Telford might have been spoken of as "the man who looks through
you," for, when he did glance at a man or woman, it was with keen
directness, affecting the person looked at like a flash of light to the
eye. It is easy to write such things, not so easy to verify them, but any
one that has seen the sleuthlike eyes of men accustomed to dealing with
danger in the shape of wild beasts or treacherous tribes or still more
treacherous companions, and whose lives depend upon their feeling for
peril and their unerring vigilance can see what George Hagar saw in Mark
Telford's looks.
Telford's glance went round the crowd, appearing to rest for an instant on
every person, and for a longer time on Hagar. The eyes of the two men met.
Both were immediately puzzled, for each had a sensation of some
subterranean origin. Telford immediately afterward passed out of the gate
and went toward the St. Cloud gardens, where the band was playing. For a
time Hagar did not stir, but idled with his pencil and notebook. Suddenly
he started, and hurried out in the direction Telford had gone.
"I was an ass," he said to himself, "not to think of that at first."
He entered the St. Cloud gardens and walked round the promenade a few
times, but without finding him. Presently, however, Alpheus Richmond,
whose beautiful and brilliant waistcoat and brass buttons with monogram
adorned showed advantageously in the morning sunshine, said to him: "I
say, Hagar, who's that chap up there filling the door of the summer house?
Lord, rather!"
It was Telford. Hagar wished for the slightest pretext to go up the
unfrequented side path and speak to him, but his mind was too excited to
do the thing naturally without a stout pretext. Besides, though he admired
the man's proportions and his uses from an artistic standpoint, he did not
like him personally, and he said that he never could. He had instinctive
likes and dislikes. What had startled him at the pump-room and had made
him come to the gardens was the conviction that this was the man to play
the part in the scene which, described by Mrs. Detlor, had been arranging
itself in a hundred ways in his brain during the night--the central
figures always the same, the details, light, tone, coloring, expression,
fusing, resolving. Then came another and still more significant thought.
On this he had acted.
When he had got rid of Richmond, who begged that he would teach him how to
arrange a tie as he did--for which an hour was appointed--he determined,
at all hazards, to speak. He had a cigar in his pocket, and though to
smoke in the morning was pain and grief to him, he determined to ask for a
match, and started. He was stopped by Baron, whose thoughts being much
with the little vices of man, anticipated his wishes and offered him a
light. In despair Hagar took it, and asked if he chanced to know who the
stranger was. Baron did know, assuring Hagar that he sat on the
gentleman's right at the same table in his hotel, and was qualified to
introduce him. Before they started he told the artist of the occurrence of
the evening before, and further assured him of the graces of Miss Mildred
Margrave. "A pearl," he said, "not to be reckoned by loads of ivory, nor
jolly bricks of gold, nor caravans of Arab steeds, nor--come and have
dinner with me to-night, and you shall see. There, what do you say?"
Hagar, who loved the man's unique and spontaneous character as only an
artist can love a subject in which he sees royal possibilities, consented
gladly, and dropped a cordial hand on the other's shoulder. The hand was
dragged down and wrenched back and forth with a sturdy clasp, in time to a
roll of round, unctuous laughter. Then Baron took him up hurriedly, and
introduced him to Telford with the words: "You two ought to know each
other. Telford, traveler, officer of the Hudson's Bay company, et cetera;
Hagar, artist, good fellow, et cetera."
Then he drew back and smiled as the two men, not shaking hands as he
expected, bowed, and said they were happy to meet. The talk began with the
remark by Hagar on the panorama below them, "that the thing was amusing if
not seen too often, but the eternal paddling round the band stand was too
much like marionettes."
"You prefer a Punch and Judy to marionettes?" asked Telford.
"Yes, you get a human element in a Punch and Judy tragedy. Besides, it
has surprises, according to the idiosyncrasy of the man in the greenroom."
He smiled immediately, remembering that his last words plagiarized Mr.
Alpheus Richmond.
"I never miss a Punch and Judy if I'm near it," said Telford. "I enjoy the
sardonic humor with which Punch hustles off his victims. His
light-heartedness when doing bloody deeds is the true temper."
"That is, if it must be done, to do it with a grin is--"
"Is the most absolute tragedy."
Hagar was astonished, for even the trader's information that Telford spoke
excellent French, and had certainly been a deal on red carpet in his time,
did not prepare him for the sharply incisive words just uttered. Yet it
was not incongruous with. Telford's appearance--not even with the red sash
peeping at the edge of his waistcoat.
They came down among the promenaders, and Baron being accosted by some
one, he left the two together, exacting anew the promise from Hagar
regarding dinner.
Presently Hagar looked up, and said abruptly, "You were singing outside my
window last night."
Telford's face was turned away from him when he began. It came slowly
toward him. The eyes closed steadily with his, there was no excitement,
only cold alertness.
"Indeed? What was I singing?"
"For one thing, the chant of the negro woodcutters of Louisiana."
"What part of Louisiana?"
"The county of Tellavie chiefly."
Telford drew a long breath, as though some suspense was over, and then
said, "How did you know it was I?"
"I could scarcely tell you. I got the impression--besides, you are the
only man I've seen in Herridon who looks likely to know it and the song
which you prompted."
"Do I look like a southerner--still? You see I've been in an arctic
country five years."
"It is not quite that. I confess I cannot explain it."
"I hope you did not think the thing too boorish to be pardoned. On the
face of it it was rude to you--and the lady also."
"The circumstance--the coincidence--was so unusual that I did not stop to
think of manners."
"The coincidence--what coincidence?" said Telford, watching intently.
But Hagar had himself well in hand. He showed nothing of his suspicions.
"That you should be there listening, and that the song should be one which
no two people, meeting casually, were likely to know."
"We did not meet," said Telford dryly.
They watched the crowd for a minute. Presently he added, "May I ask the
name of the lady who was singing?"
There was a slight pause, then, "Certainly--Mrs. Fairfax Detlor."
Though Telford did not stir a muscle the bronze of his face went grayish,
and he looked straight before him without speaking. At last he said in a
clear, steady voice, "I knew her once, I think."
"I guessed so."
"Indeed? May I ask if Mrs. Detlor recognized my voice?"
"That I do not know, but the chances are she did not; if you failed to
recognize hers."
There was an almost malicious desire on Hagar's part to play upon this
man--this scoundrel, as he believed him to be--and make him wince still
more. A score of things to say or do flashed through his mind, but he gave
them up instantly, remembering that it was his duty to consider Mrs.
Detlor before all. But he did say, "If you were old friends, you will wish
to meet her, of course."
"Yes. I have not seen her in many years. Where is she staying?"
"At the Tempe hotel. I do not know whether you intend to call, but I would
suggest your not doing so to-day--that is, if you wish to see her and not
merely leave your card--because she has an engagement this morning, and
this afternoon she is going on an excursion."
"Thank you for the generous information." There was cool irony in the
tone. "You are tolerably well posted as to Mrs. Detlor's movements."
"Oh, yes," was the equally cool reply. "In this case I happen to know,
because Mrs. Detlor sits for a picture at my studio this morning, and I
am one of the party for the excursion."
"Just so. Then will you please say nothing to Mrs. Detlor about having met
me? I should prefer surprising her."
"I'm afraid I can make no promise. The reason is not sufficient.
Surprises, as you remarked about Punch and Judy, are amusing, but they may
also be tragical."
Telford flashed a dark, inquiring look at his companion, and then said:
"Excuse me, I did not say that, though it was said. However, it is no
matter. We meet at dinner, I I suppose, this evening. Till then!"
He raised his hat with a slight sweeping motion--a little mocking excess
in the courtesy--and walked away.
As he went Hagar said after him between his teeth, "By Heaven, you are
that man!"
These two hated each other at this moment, and they were men of might
after their kind. The hatred of the better man was the greater. Not from a
sense of personal wrong, but--
Three hours later Hagar was hard at work in his studio. Only those who
knew him intimately could understand him in his present mood. His pale,
brooding, yet masculine face was flushed, the blue of his eyes was almost
black, his hair, usually in a Roman regularity about his strong brow, was
disorderly. He did not know the passage of time. He had had no breakfast.
He had read none of his letters--they lay in a little heap on his
mantelpiece--he was sketching upon the canvas the scene which had
possessed him for the past ten or eleven hours. An idea was being born,
and it was giving him the distress of bringing forth. Paper after paper he
had thrown away, but at last he had shaped the idea to please his severe
critical instinct, and was now sketching in the expression of the girl's
face. His brain was hot, his face looked tired, but his hand was steady,
accurate and cool--a shapely hand which the sun never browned, and he was
a man who loved the sun.
He drew back at last. "Yes, that's it," he said. "It's right, right. His
face shall come in later. But the heart of the thing is there."
The last sentence was spoken in a louder tone, so that some one behind him
heard. It was Mrs. Detlor. She had, with the young girl who had sat at her
feet the evening before, been shown into the outer room, had playfully
parted the curtains between the rooms and entered. She stood for a moment
looking at the sketch, fascinated, thrilled. Her yes filled with tears,
then went dry and hot, as she said in a loud whisper, "Yes, the heart of
the thing is there."
Hagar turned on her quickly, astonished, eager, his face shining with a
look superadded to his artistic excitement.
She put her finger to her lip, and nodded backward to the other room. He
understood. "Yes, I know," he said, "the light comedy manner." He waved
his hand toward the drawing. "But is it not in the right vein?"
"It is painfully, horribly true," she said. She looked from him to the
canvas, from the canvas to him, and then made a little pathetic gesture
with her hands. "What a jest life is!"
"A game--a wonderful game," he replied, "and a wicked one, when there is
gambling with human hearts."
Then he turned with her toward the other room. As he passed her to draw
aside the curtain she touched his arm with the tips of her fingers so
lightly--as she intended--that he did not feel it. There was a mute,
confiding tenderness in the action more telling than any speech. The
woman had had a brilliant, varied, but lonely life. It must still be
lonely, though now the pleasant vista of a new career kept opening and
closing before her, rendering her days fascinating yet troubled, her
nights full of joyful but uneasy hours. The game thus far had gone against
her. Yet she was popular, merry and amiable!
She passed composedly into the other room. Hagar greeted the young girl,
gave her books and papers, opened the piano, called for some refreshments
and presented both with a rose from a bunch upon the table. The young girl
was perfectly happy to be allowed to sit in the courts without and amuse
herself while the artist and his model should have their hour with pencil
and canvas.
The two then went to the studio again, and, leaving the curtain drawn
back, Hagar arranged Mrs. Detlor in position and began his task. He stood
looking at the canvas for a time, as though to enter into the spirit of it
again; then turned to his model. She was no longer Mrs. Detlor, but his
subject, near to him as his canvas and the creatures of his imagination,
but as a mere woman in whom he was profoundly interested (that at least)
an immeasurable distance from him. He was the artist only now.
It was strange. There grew upon the canvas Mrs. Detlor's face, all the
woman of it, just breaking through sweet, awesomely beautiful, girlish
features; and though the work was but begun there was already that
luminous tone which artists labor so hard to get, giving to the face a
weird, yet charming expression.
For an hour he worked, then he paused. "Would you like to see it?" he
said.
She rose eagerly, and a little pale. He had now sketched in more
distinctly the figure of the man, changed it purposely to look more like
Telford. She saw her own face first. It shone out of the canvas. She gave
a gasp of pain and admiration. Then she caught sight of Telford's figure,
with the face blurred and indistinct.
"Oh!" she said with a shudder. That--that is like him. How could you
know?"
"If that is the man," he said, "I saw him this morning. Is his name Mark
Telford?"
"Yes," she said, and sank into a chair. Presently she sprang to her feet,
caught up a brush and put it into his hand. "Paint in his face. Quick!
Paint in his face. Put all his wickedness there."
Hagar came close to her. "You hate him?" he said, and took the brush.
She did not answer by word, but shook her head wearily, as to some one far
off, expressing neither yes nor no.
"Why?" he said quietly--all their words had been in low tones, that they
might not be heard--"why, do you wear that ring, then?"
She looked at her hand with a bitter, pitiful smile. "I wear it in memory
of that girl who died very young"--she pointed to the picture--"and to
remind me not to care for anything too much lest it should prove to be a
lie." She nodded softly to the picture. "He and she are both dead; other
people wear their faces now."
"Poor woman!" he said in a whisper. Then he turned to the canvas and,
after a moment, filled in from memory the face of Mark Telford, she
watching him breathlessly, yet sitting very still.
After some minutes he drew back and looked at it.
She rose and said: "Yes, he was like that; only you have added what I saw
at another time. Will you hear the sequel now?"
He turned and motioned her to a seat, then sat down opposite to her.
She spoke sadly. "Why should I tell you? I do not know, except that it
seemed to me you would understand. Yet I hope men like you forget what is
best forgotten; and I feel--oh, do you really care to hear it?"
"I love to listen to you."
"That girl was fatherless, brotherless. There was no man with any right to
stand her friend at the time--to avenge her--though, God knows, she wished
for no revenge--except a distant cousin who had come from England to see
her mother and herself; to marry her if he could. She did not know his
motives; she believed that he really cared for her; she was young, and
she was sorry for his disappointment. When that thing happened"--her eyes
were on the picture, dry and hard--"he came forward, determined--so he
said--to make the deceiver pay for his deceit with his life. It seemed
brave, and what a man would do, what a southerner would do. He was an
Englishman, and so it looked still more brave in him. He went to the man's
rooms and offered him a chance for his life by a duel. He had brought
revolvers. He turned the key in the door and then laid the pistols he had
brought on the table. Without warning the other snatched up a small sword
and stabbed him with it. He managed to get one of the revolvers, fired,
and brought the man down. The man was not killed, but it was a long time
before he--Mark Telford there--was well again. When he got up, the girl"--
"Poor girl!"
"When he got up the girl was married to the cousin who had periled his
life for her. It was madness, but it was so."
Here she paused. The silence seemed oppressive. Hagar, divining her
thought, got up, went to the archway between the rooms and asked the young
girl to play something. It helped him, he said, when he was thinking how
to paint. He went back.
Mrs. Detlor continued. "But it was a terrible mistake. There was a
valuable property in England which the cousin knew she could get by
proving certain things. The marriage was to him a speculation. When she
waked to that--it was a dreadful awakening--she refused to move in the
matter. Is there anything more shameful than speculation in flesh and
blood--the heart and life of a child?--he was so much older than she! Life
to her was an hourly pain--you see she was wild with indignation and
shame, and alive with a kind of gratitude and reaction when she married
him. And her life? Maternity was to her an agony such as comes to few
women who suffer and live. If her child--her beautiful, noble child--had
lived, she would, perhaps, one day have claimed the property for its
sake. This child was her second love and it died--it died."
She drew from her breast a miniature. He reached out and, first
hesitating, she presently gave it into his hand. It was warm--it had lain
on her bosom. His hand, generally so steady, trembled. He raised the
miniature to his own lips. She reached out her hand, flushing greatly.
"Oh, please, you must not!" she said.
"Go on, tell me all," he urged, but still held the miniature in his hand
for a moment.
"There is little more to tell. He played a part. She came to know how
coarse and brutal he was, how utterly depraved.
"At last he went away to Africa--that was three years ago. Word came that
he was drowned off the coast of Madagascar, but there is nothing sure, and
the woman would not believe that he was dead unless she saw him so or some
one she could trust had seen him buried. Yet people call her a widow--who
wears no mourning" (she smiled bitterly) "nor can until"--
Hagar came to his feet. "You have trusted me," he said, "and I will honor
your confidence. To the world the story I tell on this canvas shall be my
own."
"I like to try and believe," she said, "that there are good men in the
world. But I have not done so these many years. Who would think that of
me?--I who sing merry songs, and have danced and am gay--how well we wear
the mask, some of us!"
"I am sure," he said, "that there are better days coming for you. On my
soul I think it."
"But he is here," she said. "What for? I cannot think there will be
anything but misery when he crosses my path."
"That duel," he rejoined, the instinct of fairness natural to an honorable
man roused in him; "did you ever hear more than one side of it?"
"No; yet sometimes I have thought there might be more than one side.
Fairfax Detlor was a coward; and whatever that other was,"--she nodded to
the picture--"he feared no man."
"A minute!" he said "Let me make a sketch of it."
He got to work immediately. After the first strong outlines she rose, came
to him and said, "You know as much of it as I do--I will not stay any
longer."
He caught her fingers in his and held them for an instant. "It is brutal
of me. I did not stop to think what all this might cost you."
"If you paint a notable picture and gain honor by it, that is enough," she
said. "It may make you famous." She smiled a little wistfully. "You are
very ambitious. You needed, you said to me once, a simple but powerful
subject which you could paint in with some one's life' blood--that sounds
more dreadful than it is * * * well? * * * You said you had been
successful, but had never had an inspiration"--
"I have one!"
She shook her head. "Never an inspiration which had possessed you as you
ought to be to move the public * * * well? * * * do you think I have
helped you at all? I wanted so much to do something for you."
To Hagar's mind there came the remembrance of the pure woman who, to help
an artist, as poverty stricken as he was talented, engaged on the "Capture
of Cassandra," came into his presence as Lady Godiva passed through the
streets of Coventry, as hushed and as solemn. A sob shook in his
throat--he was of few but strong emotions; he reached out, took her
wrists in his hands, and held them hard. "I have my inspiration now," he
said; "I know that I can paint my one great picture. I shall owe all to
you. And for my gratitude, it seems little to say that I love you--I love
you, Marion."
She drew her hands away, turned her head aside, her face both white and
red. "Oh, hush, you must not say it!" she said. "You forget; do not make
me fear you and hate myself. * * * I wanted to be your friend--from the
first, to help you, as I said; be, then, a friend to me, that I may
forgive myself."
"Forgive yourself--for what? I wish to God I had the right to proclaim my
love--if you would have it, dear--to all the world. * * * And I will know
the truth, for I will find your husband, or his grave."
She looked up at him gravely, a great confidence in her eyes. "I wish you
knew how much in earnest I am--in wishing to help you. Believe me, that is
the first thought. For the rest I am--shall I say it?--the derelict of a
life; and I can only drift. You are young, as young almost as I in years,
much younger every other way, for I began with tragedy too soon."
At that moment there came a loud knock at the outer door, then a ring,
followed by a cheerful voice calling through the window--"I say, Hagar,
are you there? Shall I come in or wait on the mat till the slavey arrives.
* * * Oh, here she is--Salaam! Talofa! Aloha!--which is heathen for How
do you do, God bless you, and All hail!"
These remarks were made in the passage from the door through the hallway
into the room. As Baron entered, Hagar and Mrs. Detlor were just coming
from the studio. Both had ruled their features into stillness.
Baron stopped short, open mouthed, confused, when he saw Mrs. Detlor.
Hagar, for an instant, attributed this to a reason not in Baron's mind,
and was immediately angry. For the man to show embarrassment was an ill
compliment to Mrs. Detlor. However, he carried off the situation, and
welcomed the Afrikander genially, determining to have the matter out with
him in some sarcastic moment later. Baron's hesitation, however,
continued. He stammered, and was evidently trying to account for his call
by giving some other reason than the real one, which was undoubtedly held
back because of Mrs. Detlor's presence. Presently he brightened up and
said, with an attempt to be convincing, "You know that excursion this
afternoon, Hagar? Well, don't you think we might ask the chap we met this
morning--first rate fellow--no pleb--picturesque for the box seat--go down
with the ladies--all like him--eh?"
"I don't see how we can," replied Hagar coolly. Mrs. Detlor turned to the
mantelpiece. "We are full up; every seat is occupied--unless I give up my
seat to him."
Mrs. Detlor half turned toward them again, listening acutely. She caught
Hagar's eyes in the mirror and saw, to her relief, that he had no
intention of giving up his seat to Mark Telford. She knew that she must
meet this man whom she had not seen for twelve years. She felt that he
would seek her, though why she could not tell; but this day she wanted to
forget her past, all things but one, though she might have to put it away
from her ever after. Women have been known to live a lifetime on the joy
of one day. Her eyes fell again on the mantelpiece, on Hagar's unopened
letters. At first her eyes wandered over the writing on the uppermost
envelope mechanically, then a painful recognition came into them. She had
seen that writing before, that slow sliding scrawl unlike any other,
never to be mistaken. It turned her sick. Her fingers ran up to the
envelope, then drew back. She felt for an instant that she must take it
and open it as she stood there. What had the writer of that letter to do
with George Hagar? She glanced at the postmark. It was South Hampstead.
She knew that he lived in South Hampstead. The voices behind her grew
indistinct; she forgot where she was. She did not know how long she stood
there so, nor that Baron, feeling, without reason, the necessity for
making conversation, had suddenly turned the talk upon a collision, just
reported, between two vessels in the Channel. He had forgotten their names
and where they hailed from--he had only heard of it, hadn't read it; but
there was great loss of life. She raised her eyes from the letter to the
mirror and caught sight of her own face. It was deadly pale. It suddenly
began to waver before her and to grow black. She felt herself swaying, and
reached out to save herself. One hand caught the side of the mirror. It
was lightly hung. It loosened from the wall, and came away upon her as she
wavered. Hagar had seen the action. He sprang forward, caught her, and
pushed the mirror back. Her head dropped on his arm.
The young girl ran forward with some water as Hagar placed Mrs. Detlor on
the sofa. It was only a sudden faintness. The water revived her. Baron
stood dumbfounded, a picture of helpless anxiety.
"I oughtn't to have driveled about that accident," he said. "I always was
a fool."
Mrs. Detlor sat up, pale, but smiling in a wan fashion. "I am all right
now," she said. "It was silly of me--let us go, dear," she added to the
young girl; "I shall be better for the open air--I have had a headache all
morning. * * * No, please, don't accuse yourself, Mr. Baron, you are not
at all to blame."
"I wish that was all the bad news I have," said Baron to himself as Hagar
showed Mrs. Detlor to a landau. Mrs. Detlor asked to be driven to her
hotel.
"I shall see you this afternoon at the excursion if you are well enough
to go," Hagar said to her.
"Perhaps," she said with a strange smile. Then, as she drove away, "You
have not read your letters this morning." He looked after her for a
moment, puzzled by what she said and by the expression on her face.
He went back to the house abstractedly. Baron was sitting in a chair,
smoking hard. Neither men spoke at first. Hagar went over to the mantel
and adjusted the mirror, thinking the while of Mrs. Detlor's last words.
"You haven't read your letters this morning," he repeated to himself. He
glanced down and saw the letter which had so startled Mrs. Detlor.
"From Mrs. Gladney!" he said to himself. He glanced at the other letters.
They were obviously business letters. He was certain Mrs. Detlor had not
touched them and had, therefore, only seen this one which lay on top.
"Could she have meant anything to do with this?" He tapped it upward with
his thumb. "But why, in the name of heaven, should this affect her? What
had she to do with Mrs. Gladney, or Mrs. Gladney with her?"
With this inquiry showing in his eyes he turned round and looked at Baron
meditatively but unconsciously. Baron, understanding the look, said, "Oh,
don't mind me. Read your letters. My business'll keep."
Hagar nodded, was about to open the letter, but paused, went over to the
archway and drew the curtains. Then he opened the letter. The body of it
ran:
DEAR MR. HAGAR--I have just learned on my return from the Continent
with the Branscombes that you are at Herridon. My daughter Mildred,
whom you have never seen--and that is strange, we having known each
other so long--is staying at the View House there with the Margraves,
whom, also, I think, you do not know. I am going down to-morrow, and
will introduce you all to each other. May I ask you to call on me
there? Once or twice you have done me a great service, and I may prove
my gratitude by asking you to do another. Will this frighten you out
of Herridon before I come? I hope not, indeed. Always gratefully
yours,
IDA GLADNEY.
He thoughtfully folded the letter up, and put it in his pocket. Then he
said to Baron, "What did you say was the name of the pretty girl at the
View House?"
"Mildred, Mildred Margrave--lovely, 'cometh up as a flower,' and all that.
You'll see her to-night."
Hagar looked at him debatingly, then said, "You are in love with her,
Baron. Isn't it--forgive me--isn't it a pretty mad handicap?"
Baron ran his hand over his face in an embarrassed fashion, then got up,
laughed nervously, but with a brave effort, and replied: "Handicap, my
son, handicap? Of course, it's all handicap. But what difference does that
make when it strikes you? You can't help it, can you? It's like loading
yourself with gold, crossing an ugly river, but you do it. Yes, you do it
just the same."
He spoke with an affected cheerfulness, and dropped a hand on Hagar's
shoulder. It was now Hagar's turn. He drew down the hand and wrung it as
Baron had wrung his in the morning. "You're a brick, Baron," he said.
"I tell you what, Hagar. I'd like to talk the thing over once with Mrs.
Detlor. She's a wise woman, I believe, if ever there was one; sound as the
angels, or I'm a Zulu. I fancy she'd give a fellow good advice, eh?--a
woman like her, eh?"
To hear Mrs. Detlor praised was as wine and milk to Hagar. He was about to
speak, but Baron, whose foible was hurriedly changing from one subject to
another, pulled a letter out of his pocket and said: "But maybe this is of
more importance to Mrs. Detlor than my foolishness. I won't ask you to
read it. I'll tell you what's in it. But, first, it's supposed, isn't it,
that her husband was drowned?"
"Yes, off the coast of Madagascar. But it was never known beyond doubt.
The vessel was wrecked and it was said all hands but two sailors were
lost."
"Exactly. But my old friend Meneely writes me from Zanzibar telling me of
a man who got into trouble with Arabs in the interior--there was a woman
in it--and was shot but not killed. Meneely brought him to the coast, and
put him into a hospital, and said he was going to ship him to England
right away, though he thinks he can't live. Meneely further remarks that
the man is a bounder. And his name is Fairfax Detlor. Was that her
husband's name?"
Hagar had had a blow. Everything seemed to come at once--happiness and
defeat all in a moment. There was grim irony in it. "Yes, that was the
name," he said. "Will you leave the telling to me?"
"That's what I came for. You'll do it as it ought to be done; I couldn't."
"All right, Baron."
Hagar leaned against the mantel, outwardly unmoved, save for a numb kind
of expression. Baron came awkwardly to him and spoke with a stumbling kind
of friendliness. "Hagar, I wish the Arabs had got him, so help me!"
"For God's sake think of what you are saying."
"Of course it doesn't sound right to you, and it wouldn't sound right
from you; but I'm a rowdy colonial and I'm damned if I take it back!--and
I like you, Hagar!" and, turning, he hurried out of the house.
Mrs. Detlor had not staid at the hotel long; but, as soon as she had
recovered, went out for a walk. She made her way to the moor. She wandered
about for a half hour or so and at last came to a quiet place where she
had been accustomed to sit. As she neared it she saw pieces of an envelope
lying on the ground. Something in the writing caught her eye. She stopped,
picked up the pieces and put them together. "Oh," she said with misery in
her voice, "What does it all mean? Letters everywhere, like the writing on
the wall!"
She recognized the writing as that of Mark Telford. His initials were in
the corner. The envelope was addressed to John Earl Gladney at Trinity
hospital, New York. She saw a strange tangle of events. John Earl Gladney
was the name of the man who had married an actress called Ida Folger, and
Ida Folger was the mother of Mark Telford's child! She had seen the mother
in London; she had also seen the child with the Margraves, who did not
know her origin, but who had taken her once when her mother was ill and
had afterward educated her with their own daughter. What had Ida Folger to
do with George Hagar, the man who (it was a joy and yet an agony to her)
was more to her than she dared to think? Was this woman for the second
time to play a part--and what kind of part--in her life? What was Mark
Telford to John Gladney? The thing was not pleasant to consider. The lines
were crossing and recrossing. Trouble must occur somewhere. She sat down
quiet and cold. No one could have guessed her mind. She was disciplining
herself for shocks. She fought back everything but her courage. She had
always had that, but it was easier to exercise it when she lived her life
alone--with an empty heart. Now something had come into her life--but she
dared not think of it!
And the people of the hotel at her table, a half hour later, remarked how
cheerful and amiable Mrs. Detlor was. But George Hagar saw that through
the pretty masquerade there played a curious restlessness.
That afternoon they went on the excursion to Rivers abbey--Mrs. Detlor,
Hagar, Baron, Richmond and many others. They were to return by moonlight.
Baron did not tell them that a coach from the View hotel had also gone
there earlier, and that Mark Telford and Mildred Margrave with her friends
were with it. There was no particular reason why he should.
Mark Telford had gone because he hoped to see Mrs. Detlor without (if he
should think it best) being seen by her. Mildred Margrave sat in the seat
behind him--he was on the box seat--and so far gained the confidence of
the driver as to induce him to resign the reins into his hands. There was
nothing in the way of horses unfamiliar to Telford. As a child he had
ridden like a circus rider and with the fearlessness of an Arab; and his
skill had increased with years. This six in hand was, as he said, "nuts to
Jacko." Mildred was delighted. From the first moment she had seen this man
she had been attracted to him, but in a fashion as to gray headed Mr.
Margrave, who sang her praises to everybody--not infrequently to the wide
open ears of Baron. At last she hinted very faintly to the military
officer who sat on the box seat that she envied him, and he gave her his
place. Mark Telford would hardly have driven so coolly that afternoon if
he had known that his own child was beside him. He told her, however,
amusing stories as they went along. Once or twice he turned to look at
her. Something familiar in her laugh caught his attention. He could not
trace it. He could not tell that it was like a faint echo of his own.
When they reached the park where the old abbey was, Telford detached
himself from the rest of the party and wandered alone through the paths
with their many beautiful surprises of water and wood, pretty grottoes,
rustic bridges and incomparable turf. He followed the windings of a
stream, till, suddenly, he came out into a straight open valley, at the
end of which were the massive ruins of the old abbey, with its stern
Norman tower. He came on slowly thinking how strange it was that he, who
had spent years in the remotest corners of the world, having for his
companions men adventurous as himself, and barbarous tribes, should be
here. His life, since the day he left his home in the south, had been
sometimes as useless as creditable. However, he was not of such stuff as
to spend an hour in useless remorse. He had made his bed, and he had lain
on it without grumbling, but he was a man who counted his life
backward--he had no hope for the future. The thought of what he might have
been came on him here in spite of himself, associated with the woman--to
him always the girl--whose happiness he had wrecked. For the other woman,
the mother of his child, was nothing to him at the time of the discovery.
She had accepted the position and was going away forever, even as she did
go after all was over.
He expected to see the girl he had loved and wronged this day. He had
anticipated it with a kind of fierceness, for, if he had wronged her, he
felt that he too had been wronged, though he could never, and would never,
justify himself. He came down from the pathway and wandered through the
long silent cloisters.
There were no visitors about; it was past the usual hour. He came into the
old refectory, and the kitchen with its immense chimney, passed in and out
of the little chapels, exploring almost mechanically, yet remembering what
he saw, and everything was mingled almost grotesquely with three scenes
in his life--two of which we know; the other, when his aged father turned
from him dying and would not speak to him. The ancient peace of this place
mocked these other scenes and places. He came into the long, unroofed
aisle, with its battered sides and floor of soft turf, broken only by some
memorial brasses over graves. He looked up and saw upon the walls the
carved figures of little grinning demons between complacent angels. The
association of these with his own thoughts stirred him to laughter--a low,
cold laugh, which shone on his white teeth.
Outside a few people were coming toward the abbey from both parties of
excursionists. Hagar and Mrs. Detlor were walking by themselves. Mrs.
Detlor was speaking almost breathlessly. "Yes, I recognized the writing.
She is nothing, then, to you, nor has ever been?"
"Nothing, on my honor. I did her a service once. She asks me to do
another, of which I am as yet ignorant. That is all. Here is her letter."