“You will go down to Cornwall for the hot weather, I hope?” he said.

“London is unbearable in August.”

“The class are going for a sketching tour to Normandy,” she said,

“and Mr. Pleydell thought that I might like to join them. It is very

inexpensive, and I should be able to go on with my work all the time.”

He nodded thoughtfully.

“I hear,” he said, “that you have met Mr. Aynesworth again.”

“Wasn’t it delightful?” she exclaimed. “He is quite an old friend of Mr.

Pleydell. I was so glad to see him.”

“I suppose,” he remarked, “you are a little lonely sometimes?”

“Sometimes,” she admitted. “But I sha’n’t be when I get to know the

girls in the class a little better.”

“I have some friends,” he said thoughtfully, “women, of course, who

would come and see you with pleasure. And yet,” he added, “I am not sure

that you would not be better off without knowing them.”

“They are fashionable ladies, perhaps?” she said simply.

He nodded.

“They belong to the Juggernaut here which is called society. They would

probably try to draw you a little way into its meshes. I think, yes, I

am sure,” he added, looking at her, “that you are better off outside.”

“And I am quite sure of it,” she answered laughing. “I haven’t the

clothes or the time or the inclination for that sort of thing. Besides,

I am going to be much too happy ever to be lonely.”

“I myself,” he said, “am not an impressionable person. But they tell me

that most people, especially of your age, find London a terribly lonely

place.”

“I can understand that,” she answered, “unless they really had something

definite to do. I have felt a little of that myself. I think London

frightens me a little. It is so different from the country, and there is

a great deal that is difficult to understand.”

“For instance?”

“The great number of poor people who find it so hard to live,” she

answered. “Some of the small houses round here are awful, and

Mr. Malcolm--he is the vicar of the church here, and he called

yesterday--tells me that they are nothing like so bad as in some

other parts of London. And then you take a bus, it is such a short

distance--and the shops are full of wonderful things at such fabulous

prices, and the carriages and houses are so lovely, and people seem to

be showering money right and left everywhere.”

“It is the same in all large cities,” he answered, “more or less.

There must always be rich and poor, when a great community are herded

together. As a rule, the extreme poor are a worthless lot.”

“There must be some of them, though,” she answered, “who deserve to

have a better time. Of course, I have never been outside Tredowen, where

everyone was contented and happy in their way, and it seems terrible to

me just at first. I can’t bear to think that everyone hasn’t at least a

chance of happiness.”

“You are too young,” he said, “to bother your head about these things

yet. Wait until you have gathered in a little philosophy with the years.

Then you will understand how helpless you are to alter by ever so little

the existing state of things, and it will trouble you less.”

“I,” she answered, “may, of course, be helpless, but what about those

people who have huge fortunes, and still do nothing?”

“Why should they?” he answered coldly. “This is a world for individual

effort. No man is strong enough to carry even a single one of his

fellows upon his shoulders. Charity is the most illogical and pernicious

of all weaknesses.”

“Now you are laughing at me,” she declared. “I mean men like that

Mr. Wingrave, the American who has come to England to spend all his

millions. I have just been reading about him,” she added, pointing to an

illustrated paper on the table. “They say that his income is too vast

to be put into figures which would sound reasonable; that he has estates

and shooting properties, and a yacht which he has never yet even

seen. And yet he will not give one penny away. He gives nothing to the

hospitals, nothing to the poor. He spends his money on himself, and

himself alone!”

Wingrave smiled grimly.

“I am not prepared to defend my namesake,” he said; “but every man has a

right to do what he likes with his own, hasn’t he? And as for hospitals,

Mr. Wingrave probably thinks, like a good many more, that they should be

state endowed. People could make use of them, then, without loss of self

respect.”

She shook her head a little doubtfully.

“I can’t argue about it yet,” she said, “because I haven’t thought

about it long enough. But I know if I had all the money this man has,

I couldn’t be happy to spend thousands and thousands upon myself while

there were people almost starving in the same city.”

“You are a sentimentalist, you see,” he remarked, “and you have not

studied the laws on which society is based. Tell me, how does Mrs.

Tresfarwin like London?”

Juliet laughed merrily.

“Isn’t it amusing?” she declared. “She loves it! She grumbles at the

milk, and we have the butter from Tredowen. Everything else she finds

perfection. She doesn’t even mind the five flights of stone steps.”

“Social problems,” Wingrave remarked, “do not trouble her.”

“Not in the least,” Juliet declared. “She spends all her pennies on

beggars and omnibus rides, and she is perfectly happy.”

Wingrave rose to go in a few minutes. Juliet walked with him to the

door.

“I am going to be really hospitable,” she declared. “I am going to walk

with you to the street.”

“All down those five flights?” he exclaimed.

“Every one of them!”

They commenced the descent.

“There is something about a flat,” she declared, “which makes one

horribly curious about one’s neighbors--especially if one has never had

any. All these closed doors may hide no end of interesting people, and

I have never seen a soul go in or out. How did you like all this

climbing?”

“I’m afraid I didn’t appreciate it,” he admitted.

“Perhaps you won’t come to see me again, then?” she asked. “I hope you

will.”

“I will come,” he said a little stiffly, “with pleasure!”

They were on the ground floor, and Juliet opened the door. Wingrave’s

motor was outside, and the man touched his hat. She gave a little

breathless cry.

“It isn’t yours?” she exclaimed.

“Certainly,” he answered. “Do you want to come and look at it?”

“Rather!” she exclaimed. “I have never seen one close to in my life.”

He hesitated.

“I’ll take you a little way, if you like,” he said.

Her cheeks were pink with excitement.

“If I like! And I’ve never been in one before! I’ll fly up for my hat. I

sha’n’t be a moment.”

She was already halfway up the first flight of stairs, with a whirl of

skirts and flying feet. Wingrave lit a cigarette and stood for a moment

thoughtfully upon the pavement. Then he shrugged his shoulders. His face

had grown a little harder.

“She must take her chances,” he muttered. “No one knows her. Nobody is

likely to find out who she is.”

She was down again in less time than seemed possible. Her cheeks were

flushed and her eyes bright with excitement. Wingrave took the wheel

himself, and she sat up by his side. They glided off almost noiselessly.

“We will go up to the Park,” he said. “It is just the time to see the

people.”

“Anywhere!” she exclaimed. “This is too lovely!”

They passed from Battersea northwards into Piccadilly, and down into the

Park. Juliet was too excited to talk; Wingrave had enough to do to drive

the car. They passed plenty of people who bowed, and many who glanced

with wondering admiration at the beautiful girl who sat by Wingrave’s

side. Lady Ruth, who drive by quickly in a barouche, almost rose from

her seat; the Marchioness, whose victoria they passed, had time to wave

her hand and flash a quick, searching glance at Juliet, who returned

it with her dark eyes filled with admiration. The Marchioness smiled to

herself a little sadly as the car shot away ahead.

“If one asked,” she murmured to herself, “he would try to persuade one

that it was another victim.”

NEMESIS AT WORK

Wingrave was present that evening at a reception given by the Prime

Minister to some distinguished foreign guests. He had scarcely exchanged

the usual courtesies with his host and hostess before Lady Ruth, leaning

over from a little group, whispered in his ear.

“Please take me away. I am bored. I want to talk to you.”

He paused at once. Lady Ruth nodded to her friends.

“Mr. Wingrave is going to take me to hear Melba sing,” she said. “See

you all again, I suppose, at Hereford House!”

They made slow progress through the crowded rooms. Once or twice

Wingrave fancied that his companion hung a little heavily upon his arm.

She showed no desire to talk. She even answered a remark of his in a

monosyllable. Only when they passed the Marchioness, on the arm of one

of the foreign guests in whose honor the reception was given, she seemed

to shiver a little, and her grasp upon his arm was tightened. Once, in

a block, she was forced to speak to some acquaintances, and during

those few seconds, Wingrave studied her curiously. She was absolutely

colorless, and her strange brilliant eyes seemed to have lost all their

fire. Her gown was black, and the decorations of her hair were black

except for a single diamond. There was something almost spectral about

her appearance. She walked stiffly--for the moment she had lost the

sinuous grace of movement which had been one of her many fascinations.

Her neck and shoulders alone remained, as ever, dazzlingly beautiful.

They reached a quiet corner at last. Lady Ruth sank with a little

gesture of relief into an easy chair. Wingrave stood before her.

“You are tired tonight,” he remarked.

“I am always tired,” she answered wearily. “I begin to think that I

always shall be.”

He said nothing. Lady Ruth closed her eyes for a moment as though from

sheer fatigue. Suddenly she opened them again and looked him full in the

face.

“Who was she?” she asked.

“I do not understand,” he replied.

“The child you were with--the ingenue, you know--with the pink cheeks

and the wonderful eyes! Is she from one of the theaters, or a genuine

article?”

“The young lady to whom you refer,” he answered, “is the daughter of

an old friend of mine. I am practically her guardian. She is in London

studying painting.”

“You are her guardian?” Lady Ruth repeated. “I am sorry for her.”

“You need not be,” he answered. “I trust that I shall be able to fulfill

my duties in a perfectly satisfactory manner.”

“Oh! I have no doubt of it,” she answered. “Yet I am sorry for her.”

“You are certainly,” he remarked, “not in an amiable mood.”

“I am in rather a desperate one if that is anything,” she said, looking

at him with something of the old light in her tired eyes.

“You made a little error, perhaps, in those calculations?” he suggested.

“It can be amended.”

“Don’t be a brute,” she answered fiercely.

He shrugged his shoulders.

“That sounds a little severe,” he remarked.

“Don’t take any notice of anything I say tonight,” she murmured softly.

“I am a little mad. I think that everything is going against me! I know

that you haven’t a grain of sympathy for me--that you would rather see

me suffer than not, and yet you see I give myself away entirely. Why

shouldn’t I? Part of it is through you in a way.”

“I rather fancied,” he remarked, “that up to now--”

“Yes! Of course!” she interrupted, “you saved me from ruin, staved it

off at any rate. And you held over the reckoning! I--I almost wish--”

She paused. Again her eyes were searching his.

“I am a little tired of it all, you see,” she continued. “I don’t

suppose Lumley and I can ever be the same again since I brought

him--that check. He avoids being alone with me--I do the same with him.

One would think--to watch the people, that the whole transaction was in

the Morning Post. They smile when they see us together, they grin when

they see you with anybody else. It’s getting hateful, Wingrave!”

“I am afraid,” he said quietly, “that you are in a nervous,

hypersensitive state. No one else can possibly know of the little

transaction between us, and, so far as I am concerned, there has been

nothing to interfere with your relations with your husband.”

“You are right,” she answered, “I am losing my nerve. I am only afraid

that I am losing something else. I haven’t an ounce of battle left in

me. I feel that I should like to close my eyes and wake up in a new

world, and start all over again.”

“It is nothing but a mood,” he assured her. “Those new worlds don’t

exist any longer. They generally consist of foreign watering places

where the sheep and the goats house together now and then. I think I

should play the game out, Lady Ruth, until--”

“Until what?”

“Perhaps to the end,” he answered. “Who can tell? Not I! By this time

tomorrow, it might be I who would be reminding you--”

“Yes?”

“That there are other worlds, and other lives to live!”

“I should like,” she whispered very softly, “to hear of them. But I

fancy somehow that you will never be my instructor. What of your ward?”

“Well! What of her?” he answered calmly.

She shivered a little.

“You were very frank with me once, Wingrave,” she said. “You are a man

whose life fate has wrecked, fate and I! You have no heart left, no

feeling. You can create suffering and find it amusing. I am beginning to

realize that.”

He nodded.

“There is some truth,” he declared, “In what you say.”

“What of that child? Is she, too, to be a victim?”

“I trust,” he answered, “that you are not going to be melodramatic.”

“I don’t call it that. I really want to know. I should like to warn

her.”

“I am not at war with children,” he answered. “Her life and mine are as

far apart as the poles.”

“I had an odd fancy when I saw you with her,” Lady Ruth said slowly.

“She is very good-looking--and not so absurdly young.”

“The fancy was one,” he remarked coldly, “which I think you had better

get rid of.”

“In a way,” she continued thoughtfully, “I should like to get rid of it,

and yet--how old are you, Wingrave? Well, I know. You are very little

over forty. You are barely in the prime of life, you are strong, you

have the one thing which society today counts almost divine--great,

immeasurable wealth! Can’t you find someone to thaw the snows?”

“I loved a woman once,” he answered. “It was a long time ago, and it

seems strange to me now.”

Lady Ruth lifted her eyes to his, and their lambent fires were suddenly

rekindled.

“Love her again,” she murmured. “What is past is past, but there are the

days to come! Perhaps the woman, too, is a little lonely.”

“I think not,” he answered calmly. “The woman is married, she has lived

with her husband more or less happily for a dozen years or so! She is

a little ambitious, a little fond of pleasure, but a leader of society,

and, I am sure, a very reputable member of it. To love her again would

be as embarrassing to her--as it would be difficult for me. You, my dear

Lady Ruth, I am convinced, would be the last to approve of it.”

“You mock me,” she murmured, bending her head. “Is forgiveness also an

impossibility?”

“I think,” he said, “that any sentiment whatever between those two would

be singularly misplaced. You spoke of Melba, I think! She is singing in

the further room.”

Lady Ruth rose up, still and pale. There was fear in her eyes when she

looked at him.

“Is it to be always like this, then?” she said.

“Ah!” he answered, “I am no prophet. Who can tell what the days may

bring? In the meantime...”

The Marchioness was very much in request that evening, and she found

time for only a few words with Wingrave.

“What have you been doing to poor Ruth?” she asked. “I never saw her

look so ill!”

“Indeed!” he answered, “I had not noticed it.”

“If I didn’t know her better,” she remarked, “I might begin to suspect

her of a conscience. Whose baby were you driving about this afternoon?

I didn’t know that your taste ran to ingenues to such an extent. She’s

sweetly pretty, but I don’t think it’s nice of you to flaunt her before

us middle-aged people. It’s enough to drive us to the rouge box. Come to

lunch tomorrow!”

“I shall be delighted,” he answered, and passed on.

An hour or so later, on his way out, he came upon Lady Ruth sitting a

little forlornly in the hall.

“I wonder whether I dare ask you to drop me in Cadogan Square?” she

asked. “Is it much out of your way? I am leaving a little earlier than I

expected.”

“I shall be delighted,” he answered, offering his arm.

They passed out of the door and down the covered way into the street.

A few stragglers were loitering on the pavement, and one, a tall, thin

young man in a long ulster, bent forwards as they came down the steps.

Wingrave felt his companion’s grasp tighten upon his arm; a flash of

light upon the pale features and staring eyes of the young man a few

feet off, showed him to be in the act of intercepting them. Then, at a

sharp word from Wingrave, a policeman stretched out his arm. The young

man was pushed unceremoniously away. Wingrave’s tall footman and

the policeman formed an impassable barrier--in a moment the electric

brougham was gliding down the street. Lady Ruth was leaning back amongst

the cushions, and the hand which fell suddenly upon Wingrave’s was cold

as ice!

RICHARDSON TRIES AGAIN

“You saw--who that was?”

Lady Ruth’s voice seemed to come from a greater distance. Wingrave

turned and looked at her with calm curiosity. She was leaning back in

the corner of the carriage, and she seemed somehow to have shrunk into

an unusual insignificance. Her eyes alone were clearly visible through

the semi-darkness--and the light which shone from their depths was the

light of fear.

“Yes,” he answered slowly, “I believe that I recognized him. It was the

young man who persists in some strange hallucination as to a certain

Mademoiselle Violet.”

“It was no hallucination,” she answered. “You know that! I was

Mademoiselle Violet!”

He nodded.

“It amazes me,” he said thoughtfully, “that you should have stooped to

such folly. That my demise would have been a relief to you I can, of

course, easily believe, but the means--they surely were not worthy of

your ingenuity.”

“Don’t!” she cried sharply. “I must have been utterly, miserably mad!”

“Even the greatest of schemers have their wild moments,” he remarked

consolingly. “This was one of yours. You paid me a very poor compliment,

by the bye, to imagine that an insignificant creature like that--”

“Will you--leave off?” she moaned.

“I daresay,” he continued after a moment’s pause, “that you find him now

quite an inconvenient person to deal with.”

She shuddered.

“Oh, I am paying for my folly, if that is what you mean,” she

declared. “He knows--who I am--that he was deceived. He follows me

about--everywhere.”

Wingrave glanced out of the carriage window.

“Unless I am very much surprised,” he answered, “he is following us

now!”

She came a little closer to him.

“You won’t leave me? Promise!”

“I will see you home,” he answered.

“You are coming on to Hereford House.”

“I think not,” he answered; “I have had enough of society for one

evening.”

“Emily will be there later,” she said quietly.

“Even Lady Emily,” he answered, “will not tempt me. I will see you

safely inside. Afterwards, if your persistent follower is hanging about,

I will endeavor to talk him into a more reasonable frame of mind.”

She was silent for a moment. Then she turned to him abruptly.

“You are more kind to me sometimes than I deserve, Wingrave,” she

remarked.

“It is not kindness,” he answered. “I dislike absurd situations. Here we

are! Permit me!”

Wingrave kept his word. He saw Lady Ruth to her front door, and then

turned back towards his carriage. Standing by the side of the footman, a

little breathless, haggard and disheveled-looking, was the young man who

had attempted to check their progress a few minutes ago.

Wingrave took hold of his arm firmly.

“Get in there,” he ordered, pointing to the carriage.

The young man tried to escape, but he was held as though in a vise.

Before he well knew where he was, he was in the carriage, and Wingrave

was seated by his side.

“What do you want with me?” he asked hoarsely.

“I want to know what you mean by following that lady about?” Wingrave

asked.

The young man leaned forward. His hand was upon the door.

“Let me get out,” he said sullenly.

“With pleasure--presently,” Wingrave answered. “I can assure you that I

am not anxious to detain you longer than necessary. Only you must first

answer my question.”

“I want to speak to her! I shall follow her about until I can!” the

young man declared.

Wingrave glanced at him with a faint derisive smile. His clothes were

worn and shabby, he was badly in need of a shave and a wash. He sat

hunched up in a corner of the carriage, the picture of mute discomfort

and misery.

“Do you know who she is?” Wingrave asked.

“Mademoiselle Violet!” the young man answered.

“You are mistaken,” Wingrave answered. “She is Lady Ruth Barrington,

wife of Lumley Barrington and daughter of the Earl of Haselton.”

The young man was unmoved.

“She is Mademoiselle Violet,” he declared.

The coupe drew up before the great block of buildings in which was

Wingrave’s flat. The footman threw open the door.

“Come in with me,” Wingrave said. “I have something more to say to you.”

“I would rather not,” the young man muttered, and would have slouched

off, but Wingrave caught him by the arm.

“Come!” he said firmly, and the youth obeyed.

Wingrave led the way into his sitting room and dismissed his servant who

was setting out a tray upon the sideboard.

“Sit down,” he ordered, and his strange guest again obeyed. Wingrave

looked at him critically.

“It seems to me,” he said deliberately, “that you are another of those

poor fools who chuck away their life and happiness and go to the dogs

because a woman had chosen to make a little use of them. You’re out of

work, I suppose?”

“Yes!”

“Hungry?”

“I suppose so.”

Wingrave brought a plate of sandwiches from the sideboard, and mixed a

whisky and soda. He set them down in front of his guest, and turned away

with the evening paper in his hand.

“I am going into the next room for some cigarettes,” he remarked.

He was gone scarcely two minutes. When he returned, the room was in

darkness. He moved suddenly towards the electric lights, but was pushed

back by an unseen hand. A man’s hot breath fell upon his cheek, a

hoarse, rasping voice spoke to him out of the black shadows.

“Don’t touch the lights! Don’t touch the lights, I say!”

“What folly is this?” Wingrave asked angrily. “Are you mad?”

“Not now,” came the quick answer. “I have been. It has come to me here,

in the darkness. I know why she is angry, I know why she will not speak

to me. It is--because I failed.”

Wingrave laughed, and moved towards the lights.

“We have had enough of this tomfoolery,” he said scornfully. “If you

won’t listen to reason--”

He never finished his sentence. He had stumbled suddenly against a soft

body, he had a momentary impression of a white, vicious face, of eyes

blazing with insane fury. Quick to act, he struck--but before his hand

descended, he had felt the tearing of his shirt, the sharp, keen pain

in his chest, the swimming of his senses. Yet even then he struck again

with passionate anger, and his assailant went down amongst the chairs

with a dull, sickening crash!

Then there was silence in the room. Wingrave made an effort to drag

himself a yard or two towards the bell, but collapsed hopelessly.

Richardson, in a few moments, staggered to his feet.

He groped his way to the side of the wall, and found the knobs of the

electric lights. He turned two on and looked around him. Wingrave was

lying a few yards off, with a small red stain upon his shirt front.

His face was ghastly pale, and he was breathing thickly. The young man

looked at him for several moments, and then made his way to the side

table where the sandwiches were. One by one he took them from the dish,

and ate deliberately. When he had finished, he made his way once more

towards where Wingrave lay. But before he reached the spot, he stopped

short. Something on the wall had attracted his attention. He put his

hand to his head and thought for a moment. It was an idea--a glorious

idea.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

Lady Ruth’s maid stepped back and surveyed her mistress ecstatically.

“Milady,” she declared, “has never, no never, appeared more charming.

The gown, it is divine--and the coiffure! Milady will have no rivals.”

Lady Ruth looked at herself long and earnestly in the glass. Her face

reflected none of the pleased interest with which her maid was still

regarding her. The latter grew a little anxious.

“Milady thinks herself a trifle pale, perhaps--a little more color?”

Lady Ruth set down the glass.

“No, thank you, Annette,” she answered. “I shall do very well, I

suppose. Certainly, I won’t have any rouge.”

“Milady knows very well what becomes her,” the woman answered

discreetly. “The pallor, it is the more distinguished. Milady cannot

fail to have all the success she desires!”

Lady Ruth smiled a little wearily. And at that moment, there came a

knock at the door. A servant entered.

“Someone wishes to speak to your ladyship on the telephone,” the girl

announced.

“On the telephone, at this time of night?” Lady Ruth exclaimed.

“Ridiculous! They must send a message, whoever they are!”

“Parkins told them so, your ladyship,” the girl answered; “but they

insisted that the matter was important. They would give no name, but

said that they were speaking from Mr. Wingrave’s rooms.”

Lady Ruth raised her eyebrows.

“It is very extraordinary,” she said coldly, “but I will come to the

telephone.”

“IT WAS AN ACCIDENT”

Lady Ruth took up the receiver. Some instinct seemed to have prompted

her to close the door of the study.

“Who is there?” she asked. “Who is it that wants me?”

A thin, unfamiliar voice answered her.

“Is that Lady Ruth Barrington?”

“Yes!”

“Is it--Mademoiselle Violet?”

The receiver nearly dropped from her hand.

“I don’t understand you,” she answered, “I am Lady Ruth Barrington! Who

are you?”

“You are Mademoiselle Violet,” was the answer, “and you know who I am!

Listen, I am in Mr. Wingrave’s rooms.”

She would have liked to have rung off and gone away, but it seemed a

sheer impossibility for her to move! And all the time her knees were

shaking, and the fear of evil things was in her heart.

“What are you doing there?” she asked.

“He brought me in himself,” the thin voice answered. “Can you hear me?

I don’t want to speak any louder for fear anyone else should be

listening.”

“Yes, I can hear,” she answered. “But how dared you ring me up? Say what

you desire to quickly! I am going away.”

“Wait, please,” the voice answered. “I know why you have been angry with

me. I know why you have kept away from me, why you have been so cruel!

It was because I failed. Was it not, dear Mademoiselle Violet?”

She had not the breath or the courage to answer him. In a moment or two

he continued, and there was a note of suppressed exultation in his tone.

“Listen! This time--I have not failed!”

She nearly screamed. The receiver in her hand burned like a live thing.

Her eyes were set in a fixed and awful stare as though she were trying

to see for herself outside the walls of the little room where she stood

into the larger chamber from which the voice--that awful voice--came!

Her own words were hysterical and uncertain, but she managed to falter

them out at last.

“What do you mean? Where is Mr. Wingrave? Tell me at once!”

The voice, without being raised, seemed to take to itself a note of

triumph.

“He is dying--on the floor--just here! Listen hard! Perhaps you can hear

him groan! Now will you believe that I am not a coward?”

Her shriek drowned his words. She flung the receiver from her with a

crash and rushed from the room into the hall. She brushed past her maid

with a wild gesture.

“Never mind my wraps. Open the door, Parkins! Is the carriage waiting?”

“Yes, Milady! Shall--”

But she was past him and down the steps.

“No. 18, Grosvenor Mansions,” she cried to the man. “Drive fast.”

The man obeyed. The servants, who had come to the door, stood there

a little frightened group. She ignored them and everything else

completely. The carriage had scarcely stopped when she sprang out and

crossed the pavement in a few hasty steps. The tall commissionaire

looked in amazement at her. She wore an opera cloak--she was a

bewildering vision of white satin and diamonds, and her eyes were

terrible with the fear which was in her heart.

She clutched him by the arm.

“Come up with me to Mr. Wingrave’s rooms,” she exclaimed. “Something

terrible has happened. I heard through the telephone.”

The man dashed up the stairs by her side. Wingrave’s suite was on the

first floor, and they did not wait for the lift. The commissionaire

put his finger on the bell of the outside door. She leaned forward,

listening breathlessly. Inside all was silence except for the shrill

clamor of the bell.

“Go on ringing,” she said breathlessly. “Don’t leave off!”

The man looked at her curiously. “Mr. Wingrave came in about an hour ago

with a young man, madam,” he said.

“Yes, yes!” she cried. “Listen! There’s someone coming.”

They heard a hesitating step inside. The door was cautiously opened. It

was Richardson, pale, disheveled, but triumphant, who peered out.

“Mademoiselle--Mademoiselle Violet,” he cried. “You have come to see for

yourself. This way!”

She raised her arm and struck him across the face so that, with a little

moan, he staggered back against the wall. Then she hastened forward into

the room towards which he had pointed and the door of which stood open.

The commissionaire followed her. The servants were beginning to appear.

The room was in darkness save for one electric light. A groan, however,

directed them. She fell on her knees by Wingrave’s prostrate figure and

raised his head slightly. His servant, too, was hurrying forward. She

looked up.

“Get me some brandy,” she ordered. “Send someone for a doctor. Don’t let

that young man escape. The brandy, quick!”

She forced some between his lips. There was already a spot of blood upon

the gown which, a few minutes ago, had seemed so immaculate. One of the

ornaments fell from her hair. It lay unnoticed by her side. Suddenly

Wingrave opened his eyes. She saw at once that he was conscious and that

he recognized her.

“Don’t move, please,” she begged. “It will be better for you not to

speak. The doctor will be here directly.”

He nodded.

“I don’t think that I am much hurt,” he said slowly. “Your young friend

was a born bungler!”

She shuddered, but said nothing.

“How on earth,” he asked, “did you get here?”

She whispered in his ear.

“The brute--telephoned. Please don’t talk.”

The doctor arrived. His examination was over in a few moments.

“Nothing serious,” he declared. “The knife was pretty blunt fortunately.

How did it happen? It seems like a case for the police.”

“It was an accident,” Wingrave declared coolly.

The doctor shrugged his shoulders. He was busy making bandages. Lady

Ruth rose to her feet. She was white and giddy. The commissionaire and

Morrison were talking together at the door. The latter turned to Lady

Ruth.

“Do you think that we had better send for the police, your ladyship?” he

asked. “It was the young man who came in with Mr. Wingrave who must have

done this! I thought he was a very wild-looking sort of person.”

“You heard what Mr. Wingrave said,” she answered. “I don’t think that I

should disobey him, if I were you. The doctor says that, after all, it

is not very serious.”

“He can’t have got far,” the hall porter remarked. “He only slipped out

as we came in.”

“I should let him go for the present,” Lady Ruth said. “If Mr. Wingrave

wishes to prosecute afterwards, it will be easy for him to do so.”

She stepped back to where Wingrave lay. He was in a recumbent position

now and, although a little pale, he was obviously not seriously hurt.

“If there is nothing else that I can do,” she said, “I will go now!”

“By all means,” Wingrave answered. “I am exceedingly obliged to you

for your kindness,” he added a little stiffly. “Morrison, show Lady

Barrington to her carriage!”

She spoke a few conventional words of farewell and departed. Outside on

the pavement she stood for a moment, looking carefully around. There was

no sign of Richardson anywhere! She stepped into the carriage and leaned

back in the corner.

AYNESWORTH PLANS A LOVE STORY

Wingrave disappeared suddenly from London. Aynesworth alone knew where

he was gone, and he was pledged to secrecy. Two people received letters

from him. Lady Ruth was one of them.

“This,” she remarked quietly, handing it over to her husband, “may

interest you.”

He adjusted his eye glasses and read it aloud:--

“Dear Lady Ruth,--I am leaving London today for several weeks. With the

usual inconsistency of the person to whom life is by no means a valuable

asset, I am obeying the orders of my physician. I regret, therefore,

that I cannot have the pleasure of entertaining your husband and

yourself during Cowes week. The yacht, however, is entirely at your

disposal, and I have written Captain Masterton to that effect. Pray

extend your cruise, if you feel inclined to.--I remain, yours sincerely,

W.”

Mr. Barrington looked at his wife inquiringly.

“That seems to me entirely satisfactory, Ruth,” he said. “I think that

he might have added a word or two of acknowledgment for what you did for

him. There is no doubt that, but for your promptness, things might have

gone much worse.”

“Yes,” Lady Ruth said slowly, “I think that he might have added a few

words.”

Her husband regarded her critically.

“I am afraid, dear,” he said, “that all this anxiety has knocked you up

a little. You are not looking well.”

“I am tired,” she answered calmly. “It has been a long season. I should

like to do what Wingrave has done--go away somewhere and rest.”

Barrington laid his hand upon hers affectionately. It seemed to him that

the rings hung a little loosely upon the thin, white fingers. She was

pale, too, and her eyes were weary. He did not notice that, as soon as

she could, she drew her hand away.

“Pon my word,” he said, “I wish we could go off somewhere by ourselves.

But with Wingrave’s yacht to entertain on, we must do something for a

few of the people. I don’t suppose he minds whom we ask, or how many.”

“No!” she answered, “I do not suppose he cares.”

“It is most opportune,” Barrington declared. “I wanted particularly to

do something for the Hendersons. He seems very well disposed, and his

influence means everything just now. Really, Ruth, I believe we are

going to pull through after all.”

She smiled a little wearily.

“Do you think so, Lumley?”

“I am sure of it, Ruth,” he answered. “I only wish I could see you a

little more cheerful. Surely you can’t still--be afraid of Wingrave,” he

added, glancing uneasily across the table.

She looked him in the eyes.

“That is exactly what I am,” she answered. “I am afraid of him. I have

always been afraid. Nothing has happened to change him. He came back to

have his revenge. He will have it.”

Lumley Barrington, for once, felt himself superior to his clever wife.

He smiled upon her reassuringly.

“My dear Ruth,” he said, “if only you would reflect for a few moments,

I feel sure you would realize the absurdity of such fancies. We did

Wingrave a service in introducing him to society here, and I am sure

that he appreciated it. If he wished for our ruin, why did he lend us

eight thousand pounds on no security? Why does he lend us his yacht to

entertain our friends? Why did he give me that information which enabled

me to make the only money I ever did make on the Stock Exchange?”

She smiled contemptuously.

“You do not understand a man like Wingrave,” she declared. “Nothing that

he has done is inconsistent with my point of view. He gave you a safe

tip, knowing very well that when you had won a little, you would try

again on your own account and lose--which you did. He lent us the money

to become our creditor; and he lends us the yacht to give another handle

to the people who are saying already that he occupies the position

in our family which is more fully recognized on the other side of the

Channel!”

“You are talking rubbish,” he declared vehemently. “No one would dare to

say such a thing of you--of my wife!”

She laughed unmercifully.

“If you were not my husband,” she said cruelly, “you would have heard

it before now. I have been careful all my life--more careful than most

women, but I can hear the whisperings already. There are more ways to

ruin than one, Lumley.”

“We will refuse the yacht,” Barrington said sullenly, “and I will go to

the Jews for that eight thousand pounds.”

“We will do nothing of the sort,” Lady Ruth answered. “I am not going

to be a laughing stock for Emily and her friends if I can help it.

We’ll play the game through now! Only--it is best for you to know the

risks...”

Wingrave’s second letter was to Juliet. She found it on her table one

afternoon when she came back from her painting class. She tore it open

eagerly enough, but her face clouded over as she read.

“Dear Juliet,--I am sorry that I am unable to carry out my promise to

come and see you, but I have been slightly indisposed for some days, and

am leaving London, for the present, almost at once. I trust that you are

still interested in your work, and will enjoy your trip to Normandy.

“I received your letter, asking for my help towards re-establishing in

life a poor family in whom you are interested. I regret that I cannot

accede to your request. It is wholly against my principles to give money

away to people of this class. I look upon all charity as a mischievous

attempt to tamper with natural laws, and I am convinced that if everyone

shared my views, society would long ago have been re-established on

a sounder and more logical basis. To be quite frank with you, also, I

might add that the gift of sympathy has been denied to me. I am quite

indifferent whether the family you allude to starve or prosper.

“So far as you yourself are concerned, however, the matter is entirely

different. If it gives you pleasure to assist in pauperizing any number

of your fellow creatures, pray do so. I enclose a check for L100. It is

a present to you. Use it entirely as you please--only, if you use it

for the purpose suggested in your letter to me, remember that the

responsibility is yours, and yours alone.--I remain, sincerely yours,

Wingrave Seton.”

Juliet walked straight to her writing table. Her cheeks were flushed,

and her eyes were wet with tears. She drew out a sheet of note paper and

wrote rapidly:--

“My dear guardian,--I return you the check. I cannot accept such

presents after all your goodness to me. I am sorry that you feel as you

do about giving money away. You are so much older and wiser than I am

that I dare not attempt to argue with you. Only it seems to me that life

would be a cruelly selfish thing if we who are so much more fortunate

than many of our fellow creatures did not sometimes try to help them a

little through their misery. Perhaps I feel this a little more keenly

because I wonder sometimes what might not have become of me but for your

goodness.

“I am sorry that you are going away without coming to see me again.

You are not displeased with me, I hope, for asking you this, or for any

other reason? I am foolish enough to feel a little lonely sometimes.

Will you take me out again when you come back?--Your affectionate ward,

Juliet.”

Juliet went out and posted her letter. On the way back she met

Aynesworth.

“Come and sit in the Park for a few minutes,” he begged.

She turned and walked by his side willingly enough.

“Have you been in to see me?” she asked.

“Yes!” he answered. “I have some tickets for the Haymarket for tonight.

Do you think we could persuade Mrs. Tresfarwin to come?”

“I’m sure we could,” she answered, laughing. “Hannah never wants any

persuading. How nice of you to think of us!”

“I am afraid,” he answered, “that I think of you a good deal.”

“Then I think that that also is very nice of you!” she declared.

“You like to be thought of?”

“Who doesn’t? What is the play tonight?”

“I’ll tell you about it afterwards,” he said. “There is something else I

want to say to you first.”

She nodded. She scarcely showed so much interest as he would have liked.

“It is about Berneval,” he said, keeping his eyes fixed upon her face.

“I saw Mr. Pleydell today, and he told me that you were all going there.

He suggested that I should come too!”

“How delightful!” she exclaimed. “Can you really get off?”

“Yes. Sir Wingrave is going away, and doesn’t want me. I must go

somewhere, and I thought that I might go over and take rooms near you

all. Would you care to have me?”

“Of course I would,” she answered frankly. “Oh!” she exclaimed suddenly,

her face clouding over--“I forgot!”

“Well?”

“I am not sure,” she said, “that I am going.”

“Not going?” he repeated incredulously. “Mr. Pleydell told me that it

was all arranged.”

“It was--until today,” she said. “I am a little uncertain now.”

He looked at her perplexed.

“May I know why?” he asked.

She raised her eyebrows slightly.

“You are rather an inquisitive person,” she remarked. “The fact is, I

may need the money I have saved for Berneval for somewhere else.”

“Of course,” he said slowly, “if you don’t go--I don’t. But you can’t

stay in London all through the hot weather!”

“Miss Pengarth has asked me to go down there,” she said.

He laid his hand suddenly upon hers.

“Juliet,” he said.

She shook her head.

“Miss Lundy, please!”

“Well, Miss Lundy then! May I talk to you seriously?”

“I prefer you frivolous,” she murmured. “I like to be amused.”

“I’ll be frivolous enough later on this evening. I’ve been wondering

if you’d think it impertinent if I asked you to tell me about your

guardian.”

“What do you want to know?” she asked.

“Just who he is, and why he is content to let you live with only an old

woman to look after you. It isn’t the best thing in the world for you,

is it? I should like to know him, Juliet.”

She shook her head.

“I am sorry,” she said, “I cannot tell you anything.”

There was a short silence. Aynesworth was disappointed, and showed it.

“It isn’t exactly ordinary curiosity,” he continued. “Don’t think that!

Only I feel that you need someone who has the right to advise you and

look after you. I should like to be your guardian, Juliet!”

She laughed merrily.

“Good!” she declared. “I like you so much better frivolous. Well, you

shall have your wish. You shall be my guardian for the evening. I have

one cutlet for dinner, and I am sure it will be spoilt. Will you come

and share it?”

She rose to her feet and stood looking down upon him. He was struck, for

the first time, by something different in her appearance. The smooth,

delicate girlishness of her young face was, as yet, untroubled. Her eyes

laughed frankly into his, and all the grace of natural childhood seemed

still to linger about her. And yet--there was a change! Understanding

was there; understanding, with sorrow in its wake. Aynesworth was

suddenly anxious. Had anything happened of which he was ignorant? He

rose up slowly. He was sure of himself now! Was he sure of her?

A DEED OF GIFT

Wingrave threw the paper aside with an impatient exclamation. A small

notice in an obscure corner had attracted his attention; the young man,

Richardson, had been fished out of the river half drowned, and in view

of his tearful and abject penitence, had been allowed to go his way by

a lenient magistrate. He had been ill, he pleaded, and disappointed. His

former employer, in an Islington emporium, gave him a good character,

and offered to take him back. So that was an end of Mr. Richardson, and

the romance of his days!

A worm like that to have brought him--the strong man, low! Wingrave

thought with sullen anger as he leaned back in his chair with

half-closed eyes. Here was an undignified hiatus, if not a finale, to

all his schemes, to the even tenor of his self-restrained, purposeful

life! The west wind was rippling through the orchards which bordered

the garden. The muffled roar of the Atlantic was in his ears, a strange

everlasting background to all the slighter summer sounds, the murmuring

of insects, the calling of birds, the melodious swish of the whirling

knives in the distant hayfield. Wingrave was alone with his thoughts,

and he hated them!

Even Mr. Pengarth was welcome, Mr. Pengarth very warm from his ride,

carrying his hat and a small black bag in his hand. As he drew nearer,

he became hotter and was obliged to rest his bag upon the path and mop

his forehead. He was more afraid of his client than of anything else in

the world.

“Good afternoon, Sir Wingrave,” he said. “I trust that you are feeling

better today.”

Wingrave eyed him coldly. He did not reply to the inquiry as to his

health.

“You have brought the deed?” he asked.

“Certainly, Sir Wingrave.”

The lawyer produced a roll of parchment from his bag. In response to

Wingrave’s gesture, he seated himself on the extreme edge of an adjacent

seat.

“I do not propose to read all that stuff through,” Wingrave remarked.

“I take it for granted that the deed is made out according to my

instructions.”

“Certainly, Sir Wingrave!”

“Then we will go into the house, and I will sign it.”

Mr. Pengarth mopped his forehead once more. It was a terrible thing to

have a conscience.

“Sir Wingrave,” he said, “I apologize most humbly for what I am about to

say, but as the agent of your estates in this county and your--er--legal

adviser with regard to them, I am forced to ask you whether you are

quite determined upon this--most unexampled piece of generosity.

Tredowen has been in your mother’s family for a great many years, and

although I must say that I have a great affection for this young lady,

I have also an old fashioned dislike to seeing--er--family property pass

into the hands of strangers. You might, forgive me--marry!”

Wingrave smiled very faintly, otherwise his face was inscrutable.

“I might,” he admitted calmly, “but I shall not. Do you consider me, Mr.

Pengarth, to be a person in possession of his usual faculties?”

“Oh, most certainly--most certainly,” the lawyer declared emphatically.

“Then please do not question my instructions any further. So far as

regards the pecuniary part of it, I am a richer man than you have any

idea of, Mr. Pengarth, and for the rest--sentiment unfortunately

does not appeal to me. I choose to give the Tredowen estates away, to

disappoint my next of kin. That is how you may regard the transaction.

We will go into the house and complete this deed.”

Wingrave rose slowly and walked with some difficulty up the gravel path.

He ignored, however, his companion’s timid offer of help, and led

the way to the library. In a few minutes the document was signed and

witnessed.

“I have ordered tea in the garden,” Wingrave said, as the two

servants left the room; “that is, unless you prefer any other sort of

refreshment. I don’t know much about the cellars, but there is some

cabinet hock, I believe--”

Mr. Pengarth interposed.

“I am very much obliged,” he said, “but I will not intrude upon you

further. If you will allow me, I will ring the bell for my trap.”

“You will do nothing of the sort,” Wingrave answered testily. “You will

stay here and talk to me.”

“I will stay with pleasure if you desire it,” the lawyer answered. “I

had an idea that you preferred solitude.”

“Then you were wrong,” Wingrave answered. “I hate being alone.”

They moved out together towards the garden. Tea was set out in a shady

corner of the lawn.

“If you will forgive my remarking it,” Mr. Pengarth said, “this seems

rather an extraordinary place for you to come to if you really dislike

solitude.”

“I come to escape from an intolerable situation, and because I was ill,”

Wingrave said.

“You might have brought friends,” the lawyer suggested.

“I have no friends,” Wingrave answered.

“Some of the people in the neighborhood would be very glad--” Mr.

Pengarth began.

“I do not wish to see them,” Wingrave answered.

Mr. Pengarth took a peach, and held his tongue. Wingrave broke the

silence which followed a little abruptly.

“Tell me, Mr. Pengarth,” he said, “do I look like a man likely to fail

in anything he sets out to accomplish?”

The lawyer shook his head vigorously.

“You do not,” he declared.

“Nor do I feel like one,” Wingrave said, “and yet my record since I

commenced, shall I call it my second life, is one of complete failure!

Nothing that I planned have I been able to accomplish. I look back

through the months and through the years, and I see not a single purpose

carried out, not a single scheme successful.

“Not quite so bad as that, I trust, Sir Wingrave,” the lawyer protested.

“It is the precise truth,” Wingrave affirmed drily. “I am losing

confidence in myself.”

“At least,” the lawyer declared, “you have been the salvation of our

dear Miss Juliet, if I may call her so. But for you, her life would have

been ruined.”

“Precisely,” Wingrave agreed. “But I forgot! You don’t understand! I

have saved her from heaven knows what! I am going to give her the home

she loves! Benevolence, isn’t it? And yet, if I had only the pluck, I

might succeed even now--so far as she is concerned.”

The lawyer took off his spectacles and rubbed them with his

handkerchief. He was thoroughly bewildered.

“I might succeed,” Wingrave repeated, leaning back in his chair, “if

only--”

His face darkened. It seemed to Mr. Pengarth as he sipped his tea under

the cool cedars, drawing in all their wonderful perfume with every puff

of breeze, that he saw two men in the low invalid’s chair before him. He

saw the breath and desire of evil things struggling with some wonderful

dream vainly seeking to realize itself.

“Some of us,” the lawyer said timidly, “build our ideals too high up in

the clouds, so that to reach them is very difficult. Nevertheless, the

effort counts.”

Wingrave laughed mockingly.

“It is not like that with me,” he declared. “My plans were made down in

hell.”

“God bless my soul!” the lawyer murmured. “But you are not serious, Sir

Wingrave?”

“Ay! I’m serious enough,” Wingrave answered. “Do you suppose a man, with

the best pages of his life rooted out, is likely to look out upon his

fellows from the point of view of a philanthropist? Do you suppose that

the man, into whose soul the irons of bitterness have gnawed and eaten

their way, is likely to come out with a smirk and look around him for

the opportunity of doing good? Rubbish! My aim is to encourage suffering

wherever I see it, to create it where I can, to make sinners and thieves

of honest people.”

“God bless my soul!” the lawyer gasped again. “I don’t think you can

be--as bad as you think you are. What about Juliet Lundy?”

Fire flashed in Wingrave’s eyes. Again, at the mention of her name, he

seemed almost to lose control of himself. It was several moments before

he spoke. He looked Mr. Pengarth in the face, and his tone was unusually

deliberate.

“Gifts,” he said, “are not always given in friendship. Life may easily

become a more complicated affair for that child with the Tredowen

estates hanging round her neck. And anyhow, I disappoint my next of

kin.”

Morrison, smooth-footed and silent, appeared upon the lawn. He addressed

Wingrave.

“A lady has arrived in a cab from Truro, sir,” he announced. “She wishes

to see you as soon as convenient.”

A sudden light flashed across Wingrave’s face, dying out again almost

immediately.

“Who is she, Morrison?” he asked.

The man glanced at Mr. Pengarth.

“She did not give her name, sir.”

Mr. Pengarth and Wingrave both rose. The former at once made his adieux

and took a short cut to the stables. Wingrave, who leaned heavily upon

his stick, clutched Morrison by the arm.

“Who is it, Morrison?” he demanded.

“It is Lady Ruth Barrington, sir,” the man answered.

“Alone?”

“Quite alone, sir.”

FOR PITY’S SAKE

The library at Tredowen was a room of irregular shape, full of angles

and recesses lined with bookcases. It was in one of these, standing

motionless before a small marble statue of some forgotten Greek poet,

that Wingrave found his visitor. She wore a plain serge traveling dress,

and the pallor of her face, from which she had just lifted a voluminous

veil, matched almost in color the gleaming white marble upon which

she was gazing. But when she saw Wingrave, leaning upon his stick, and

regarding her with stern surprise, strange lights seemed to flash in

her eyes. There was no longer any resemblance between the pallor of her

cheeks and the pallor of the statue.

“Lady Ruth,” Wingrave said quietly, “I do not understand what has

procured for me the pleasure of this unexpected visit.”

She swayed a little towards him. Her head was thrown back, all the

silent passion of the inexpressible, the hidden secondary forces of

nature, was blazing out of her eyes, pleading with him in the broken

music of her tone.

“You do not understand,” she repeated. “Ah, no! But can I make you

understand? Will you listen to me for once as a human being? Will

you remember that you are a man, and I a woman pleading for a little

mercy--a little kindness?”

Wingrave moved a step further back.

“Permit me,” he said, “to offer you a chair.”

She sank into it--speechless for a moment. Wingrave stood over her,

leaning slightly against the corner of the bookcase.

“I trust,” he said, “that you will explain what all this means. If it is

my help which you require--”

Her hands flashed out towards him--a gesture almost of horror.

“Don’t,” she begged, “you know that it is not that! You know very well

that it is not. Why do you torture me?”

“I can only ask you,” he said, “to explain.”

She commenced talking quickly. Her sentences came in little gasps.

“You wanted revenge--not in the ordinary way. You had brooded over it

too long. You understood too well. Once it was I who sought to revenge

myself on you because you would not listen to me! You hurt my pride.

Everything that was evil in me rebelled--”

“Is this necessary?” he interrupted coldly. “I have never reproached

you. You chose the path of safety for yourself. Many another woman in

your place would doubtless have done the same thing! What I desire to

know is why you are here in Cornwall. What has happened to make this

journey seem necessary to you?”

“Listen!” she continued. “I want you to know how thoroughly you have

succeeded. Before you came, Lumley and I were living together decently

enough, and, as hundreds of others live, with outside interests for

our chief distraction. You came, a friend! You were very subtle, very

skillful! You never spoke a word of affection to me, but you managed

things so that--people talked. You encouraged Lumley to speculate--not

in actual words, perhaps, but by suggestion. Then you lent me money.

Lumley, my husband, let me borrow from you. Everyone knew that we were

ruined; everyone knew where the money came from that set us right. So

misery has been piled upon misery. Lumley has lost his self respect, he

is losing his ambition, he is deteriorating every day. I--how can I do

anything else but despise him? He let me, his wife, come to your rooms

to borrow money from you. Do you think I can ever forget that? Do you

think that he can? Don’t you know that the memory of it is dragging us

apart, must keep us apart always--always?”

Wingrave leaned a little forward. His hands were clasped upon the handle

of his stick.

“All that you tell me,” he remarked coldly, “might equally well have

been said in London! I do not wish to seem inhospitable, but I am still

waiting to know why you have taken an eight hours’ journey to recite a

few fairly obvious truths. Your relations with your husband, frankly, do

not interest me. The deductions which society may have drawn concerning

our friendship need scarcely trouble you, under the circumstances.”

Then again the light was blazing in her eyes.

“Under the circumstances!” she repeated. “I know what you mean. It is

true that you have asked for nothing. It is true that all this time you

have never spoken a single word which all the world might not hear, you

have never even touched my fingers, except as a matter of formality.

Once I was the woman you loved--and I--well you know! Is this part of

your scheme of torture, to play with me as though we were marionettes,

you and I, with sawdust in our veins, dull, lifeless puppets! Well, it

is finished--your vengeance! You may reap the harvest when you will!

Publish my letters, prove yourself an injured man. Take a whip in your

hand if you like, and I will never flinch. But, for heaven’s sake,

remember that I am a woman! I am willing to be your slave, nurse you,

wait upon you, follow you about! What more can your vengeance need? You

have made me despise my husband, you have made me hate my life with

him! You have forced me into a remembrance of what I have never really

forgotten--and oh! Wingrave,” she added, opening her arms to him with

a little sob, “if you send me away, I think that I shall kill myself.

Wingrave!”

There was a note of despair in her last cry. Her arms fell to her side.

Wingrave was on his way to the further end of the room. He rang the bell

and turned towards her.

“Listen,” he said calmly, “you will return to London tonight. If ever

I require you, I shall send for you--and you will come. At present I do

not. You will return to your husband. Understand!”

“Yes,” she gasped, “but--”

He held out his hand. Morrison was at the door.

“Morrison,” he said, “you will order the motor to be round in half an

hour to take Lady Ruth to Truro, She has to catch the London express.

You will go with her yourself, and see that she has a reserved carriage.

If, by any chance, you should miss the train, order a special.”

“Very good, sir.”

“And tell the cook to send in tea and wine, and some sandwiches, in ten

minutes.”

Once more they were alone. Lady Ruth rose slowly to her feet and,

trembling in every limb, she walked down the room and fell on her knees

before Wingrave.

“Wingrave,” she said, “I will go away. I will do all that you tell me;

I will wear my chains bravely, and hold my peace. But before I go, for

heaven’s sake, say a kind word, look at me kindly, kiss me, hold my

hands; anything, anything, anything to prove to me that you are not

a dead man. I could bear unkindness, reproaches, abuse. I can bear

anything but this deadly coldness. It is becoming a horror to me! Do,

Wingrave--do!”

She clasped his hand--he drew it calmly away.

“Lady Ruth,” he said, “you have spoken the truth. I am a dead man. I

have no affections; I care neither for you nor for any living being. All

that goes to the glory and joy of life perished in that uncountable roll

of days, when the sun went out, and inch by inch the wall rose which

will divide me forever from you and all the world. Frankly, it was not

I who once loved you. It was the man who died in prison. His flesh and

bones may have survived--nothing else!”

She rose slowly to her feet. Her eyes seemed to be dilating.

“There is another woman!” she exclaimed softly. Her voice was like

velvet, but the agony in her face was unmistakable.

“There is no other woman,” he answered.

She stood quite still.

“She is here with you now,” she cried. “Who is it, Wingrave? Tell me the

truth!”

“The truth is already told,” he answered. “Except my cook and her

assistants, there is not a woman in the house!”

Again she listened. She gave a little hoarse cry, and Wingrave started.

Out in the hall a girl’s clear laugh rang like a note of music to their

ears.

“You lie!” she cried fiercely. “You lie! I will know who she is.”

Suddenly the door was thrown open! Juliet stood there, her hands full of

roses, her face flushed and brilliant with smiles.

“How delightful to find you here!” she exclaimed, coming swiftly across

to Wingrave. “I do hope you won’t mind my coming. Normandy is off, and I

have nowhere else to go.”

She saw Lady Ruth and stopped.

“Oh! I beg your pardon!” she exclaimed. “I did not know.”

“This is Lady Ruth Barrington,” Wingrave said; “my ward, Miss Juliet

Lundy.”

“Your--ward?” Lady Ruth said, gazing at her intently.

Juliet nodded.

“Sir Wingrave has been very kind to me since I was a child,” she said

softly. “He has let me live here with Mrs. Tresfarwin, and I am afraid

I sometimes forget that it is not really my home. Am I in the way?” she

asked, looking wistfully towards Wingrave.

“By no means!” he exclaimed. “Lady Ruth is just going. Will you see that

she has some tea or something?”

Lady Ruth laughed quietly.

“I think,” she said, “that it is I who am in the way! I should love

some tea, if there is time, but whatever happens, I must not miss that

train.”

A DREAM OF PARADISE

It seemed to Wingrave that the days which followed formed a sort of

hiatus in his life--an interlude during which some other man in his

place, and in his image, played the game of life to a long-forgotten

tune. He moved through the hours as a man in a maze, unrecognizable to

himself, half unconscious, half heedless of the fact that the garments

of his carefully cultivated antagonism to the world and to his fellows

had slipped very easily from his unresisting shoulders. The glory of

a perfect English midsummer lay like a golden spell upon the land. The

moors were purple with heather, touched here and there with the fire of

the flaming gorse, the wind blew always from the west, the gardens were

ablaze with slowly bursting rhododendrons. Every gleam of coloring,

every breath of perfume, seemed to carry him unresistingly back to the

days of his boyhood. He fished once more in the trout streams; he threw

away his stick, and tramped or rode with Juliet across the moors. At

night time she sang or played with the windows open, Wingrave himself

out of sight under the cedar trees, whose perfume filled with aromatic

sweetness the still night air. Piles of letters came every day, which he

left unopened upon his study table. Telegrams followed, which he threw

into the wastepaper basket. Juliet watched the accumulating heap with

amazement.

“Whatever do people write to you so much for?” she asked one morning,

watching the stream of letters flow out of the post bag.

Wingrave was silent for a moment. Her question brought a sudden and

sharp sting of remembrance. Juliet knew him only as Sir Wingrave Seton.

She knew nothing of Mr. Wingrave, millionaire.

“Advertisements, a good many of them,” he said. “I must send for

Aynesworth some day to go through them all.”

“What fun!” she exclaimed. “Do send for him! He thinks that I am staying

with Miss Pengarth, and I haven’t written once since I got here!”

To Wingrave, it seemed that a chill had somehow stolen into the hot

summer morning. His feet were very nearly upon the earth again.

“I forgot,” he said, “that Aynesworth was--a friend of yours. He came

and saw you often in London?”

She smiled reflectively.

“He has been very, very kind,” she answered. “He was always that, from

the first time I saw you both. Do you remember? It was down in the lower

gardens.”

“Yes!” he answered, “I remember quite well.”

“He was very kind to me then,” she continued, “and you--well, I was

frightened of you.” She stopped for a moment and laughed. Her eyes were

full of amazed reminiscence. “You were so cold and severe! I never

could have dreamed that, after all, it was you who were going to be

the dearest, most generous friend I could ever have had! Do you know,

Walter--I mean Mr. Aynesworth--isn’t very pleased with me just now?”

“Why not?”

“He cannot understand why I will not tell him my guardian’s name. I

think it worries him.”

“You would like to tell him?” Wingrave asked.

She nodded.

“I think so,” she answered.

Wingrave said no more, but after breakfast he went to his study alone.

Juliet found him there an hour later, sitting idly in front of his

table. His great pile of correspondence was still untouched. She came

and sat on the edge of the table.

“What are we going to do this morning, please?” she asked.

Wingrave glanced towards his letters.

“I am afraid,” he said, “that I must spend the day here!”

She looked at him blankly.

“Not really!” she exclaimed. “I thought that we were going to walk to

Hanging Tor?”

Wingrave took up a handful of letters and let them fall through his

fingers. He had all the sensations of a man who is awakened from a dream

of Paradise to face the dull tortures of a dreary and eventless life.

His eyes were set in a fixed state. An undernote of despair was in his

tone.

“You know we arranged it yesterday,” she continued eagerly, “and if you

are going to send for Mr. Aynesworth, you needn’t bother about these

letters yourself, need you?”

He turned and regarded her deliberately. Her forehead was wrinkled a

little with disappointment, her brown eyes were filled with the soft

light of confident appeal. Tall and elegantly slim, there was yet

something in the graceful lines of her figure which reminded him

forcibly that the days of her womanhood had indeed arrived.

She wore a plain white cambric dress and a simple, but much beflowered

hat; the smaller details of her toilet all indicated the correct taste

and instinctive coquetry of her French descent. And she was beautiful!

Wingrave regarded her critically and realized, perhaps for the first

time, how beautiful. Her eyes were large and clear, and her eyebrows

delicately defined. Her mouth, with its slightly humorous curl, was a

little large, but wholly delightful. The sun of the last few weeks had

given to her skin a faint, but most becoming, duskiness. Under his

close scrutiny, a flush of color stole into her cheeks. She laughed not

altogether naturally.

“You look at me,” she said, “as though I were someone strange!”

“I was looking,” he answered, “for the child, the little black-frocked

child, you know, with the hair down her back, and the tearful eyes. I

don’t think I realized that she had vanished so completely.”

“Not more completely,” she declared gaily, “than the gloomy gentleman

who frowned upon my existence and resented even my gratitude. Although,”

she added, leaning a little towards him, “I am very much afraid that

I see some signs of a relapse today. Don’t bother about those horrid

letters. Let me tell Mrs. Tresfarwin to pack us up some lunch, and take

me to Hanging Tor, please!”

Wingrave laughed a little unsteadily as he rose to his feet. One day

more, then! Why not? The end would be soon enough!...

Sooner, perhaps, than even he imagined, for that night Aynesworth came,

pale and travel-stained, with all the volcanic evidences of a great

passion blazing in his eyes, quivering in his tone. The day had passed

to Wingrave as a dream, more beautiful even than any in the roll of its

predecessors. They sat together on low chairs upon the moonlit lawn, in

their ears the murmur of the sea; upon their faces, gathering strength

with the darkness, the night wind, salt and fragrant with all the

sweetness of dying flowers. Wingrave had never realized more completely

what still seemed to him this wonderful gap in his life. Behind it all,

he had a subconsciousness that he was but taking a part in some mystical

play; yet with an abandon which, when he stopped to think of it,

astonished him, he gave himself up without effort or scruple to this

most amazing interlude. All day he had talked more than ever before;

the flush on his cheeks was like the flush of wine or the sun which had

fired his blood. As he had talked the more, so had she grown the more

silent. She was sitting now with her hands clasped and her head thrown

back, looking up at the stars with unseeing eyes.

“You do not regret Normandy, then?” he asked.

“No!” she murmured. “I have been happy here. I have been happier than I

could ever have been in Normandy.”

He turned and looked at her with curious intentness.

“My experience,” he said thoughtfully, “of young ladies of your age is

somewhat limited. But I should have thought that you would have found

it--lonely.”

“Perhaps I am different, then,” she murmured. “I have never been lonely

here--all my life!”

“Except,” he reminded her, “when I knew you first.”

“Ah! But that was different,” she protested. “I had no home in those

days, and I was afraid of being sent away.”

It was in his mind then to tell her of the envelope with her name

upon it in his study, but a sudden rush of confusing thoughts kept him

silent. It was while he was laboring in the web of this tangled dream of

wild but beautiful emotions that Aynesworth came. A pale, tragic figure

in his travel-stained clothes, and face furrowed with anxiety, he stood

over them almost before they were aware of his presence.

“Walter!” she cried, and sprang to her feet with extended hands.

Wingrave’s face darkened, and the shadow of evil crept into his suddenly

altered expression. It was an abrupt awakening this, and he hated the

man who had brought it about.

Aynesworth held the girl’s hands for a moment, but his manner was

sufficient evidence of the spirit in which he had come. He drew a little

breath, and he looked from one to the other anxiously.

“Is this--your mysterious guardian, Juliet?” he asked hoarsely.

She glanced at Wingrave questioningly. His expression was ominous, and

the light faded from her own face. While she hesitated, Wingrave spoke.

“I imagine,” he said, “that the fact is fairly obvious. What have you to

say about it?”

“A good deal,” Aynesworth answered passionately. “Juliet, please go

away. I must speak to your guardian--alone!”

Again she looked at Wingrave. He pointed to the house.

“I think,” he said, “that you had better go.”

She hesitated. Something of the impending storm was already manifest.

Aynesworth turned suddenly towards her.

“You shall not enter that house again, Juliet,” he declared. “Stay in

the gardens there, and presently you shall know why.”

THE AWAKENING

Wingrave had risen to his feet. He was perfectly calm, but there was a

look on his face which Juliet had never seen there before. Instinctively

she drew a little away, and Aynesworth took his place between them.

“Are you mad, Aynesworth?” Wingrave asked coolly.

“Not now,” Aynesworth answered. “I have been mad to stay with you for

four years, to look on, however passively, at all the evil you have

done. I’ve had enough of it now, and of you! I came here to tell you

so.”

“A letter,” Wingrave answered, “would have been equally efficacious.

However, since you have told me--”

“I’ll go when I’m ready,” Aynesworth answered, “and I’ve more to say.

When I first entered your service and you told me what your outlook upon

life was, I never dreamed but that the years would make a man of you

again, I never believed that you could be such a brute as to carry out

your threats. I saw you do your best to corrupt a poor, silly little

woman, who only escaped ruin by a miracle; I saw you deal out what might

have been irretrievable disaster to a young man just starting in life.

Since your return to London, you have done as little good, and as much

harm, with your millions as any man could.”

Wingrave was beginning to look bored.

“This is getting,” he remarked, “a little like melodrama. I have no

objection to being abused, even in my own garden, but there are limits

to my patience. Come to the point, if you have one.”

“Willingly,” Aynesworth answered. “I want you to understand this. I have

never tried to interfere in any of your malicious schemes, although I

am ashamed to think I have watched them without protest. But this one

is different. If you have harmed, if you should ever dare to harm this

child, as sure as there is a God above us, I will kill you!”

“What is she to you?” Wingrave asked calmly.

“She--I love her,” Aynesworth answered. “I mean her to be my wife.”

“And she?”

“She looks upon me as her greatest friend, her natural protector, and

protect her I will--even against you.”

Wingrave shrugged his shoulders.

“It seems to me,” he said, “that the young lady is very well off as she

is. She has lived in my house, and been taken care of by my servants.

She has been relieved of all the material cares of life, and she has

been her own mistress. I scarcely see how you, my young friend, could do

better for her.”

Aynesworth moved a step nearer to him. The veins on his forehead were

swollen. His voice was hoarse with passion.

“Why have you done this for her?” he demanded, “secretly, too, you a

man to whom a good action is a matter for a sneer, who have deliberately

proclaimed yourself an evil-doer by choice and destiny? Why have you

constituted yourself her guardian? Not from kindness for you don’t know

what it is; not from good nature for you haven’t any. Why, then?”

Wingrave shrugged his shoulders.

“I admit,” he remarked coolly, “that it does seem rather a problem; we

all do unaccountable things at times, though.”

“For your own sake,” Aynesworth said fiercely, “I trust that this is

one of the unaccountable things. For the rest, you shall have no other

chance. I shall take her to Truro tonight.”

“Are you sure that she will go?”

“I shall tell her the truth.”

“And if she does not believe you?”

“She will! If you interfere, I shall take her by force.”

“I interfere!” Wingrave remarked. “You need not be afraid of that. The

affair as it stands is far too interesting. Call her, and make your

appeal.”

“I shall tell her the truth,” Aynesworth declared.

“By all means! I shall remain and listen to my indictment. Quite a novel

sensation! Call the young lady, by all means, and don’t spare me.”

Aynesworth moved a few steps up the path. He called to her softly, and

she came through the little iron gates from the rose gardens. She

was very pale, and there was a gleam in her eyes which was like fear.

Aynesworth took her by the hand and led her forward.

“You must be brave, dear,” he whispered. “I am compelled to say some

disagreeable things. It is for your good. It is because I care for you

so much.”

She looked towards Wingrave. He was sitting upon the garden seat, and

his face was absolutely expressionless. He spoke to her, and his cold,

precise tone betrayed not the slightest sign of any emotion.

“Aynesworth,” he remarked, “is going to tell you some interesting facts

about myself. Please listen attentively as afterwards you will be called

upon to make a somewhat important decision.”

She looked at him a little wistfully and sighed. There was no trace

any longer of her companion of the last few weeks. It was the stern and

gloomy stranger of her earlier recollections who sat there with folded

arms.

“Is it really necessary?” she asked.

“Absolutely,” Aynesworth answered hurriedly. “It won’t take long, but

there are things which you must know.”

“Very well,” she answered, “I am listening.”

Aynesworth inclined his head towards the place where Wingrave sat.

“I will admit,” he said, “that the man there, whom I have served for the

last four years and more, never deceived me as to his real character and

intentions. He had been badly treated by a woman, and he told me plainly

that he entered into life again at war with his fellows. Where he could

see an opportunity of doing evil, he meant to do it; where he could

bring misery and suffering upon anyone with whom he came into contact,

he meant to grasp the opportunity. I listened to him, but I never

believed. I told myself that it would be interesting to watch his life,

and to see the gradual, inevitable humanizing of the man. So I entered

his service, and have remained in it until today.”

He turned more directly towards Juliet. She was listening breathlessly

to every word.

“Juliet,” he said, “he has kept his word. I have been by his side, and

I speak of the things I know. He has sought no one’s friendship who has

not suffered for it, there is not a man or woman living who owes him the

acknowledgment of a single act of kindness. I have seen him deliberately

scheme to bring about the ruin of a harmless little woman. I have seen

him exact his pound of flesh, even at the cost of ruin, from a boy. I

tell you, Juliet, of my own knowledge, that he has neither heart nor

conscience, and that he glories in the evil that his hand finds to do.

Even you must know something of his reputation--have heard something of

his doings, under the name he is best known by in London--Mr. Wingrave,

millionaire.”

She started back as though in terror. Then she turned to Wingrave, who

sat stonily silent.

“It isn’t true,” she cried. “You are not--that man?”

He raised his eyes and looked at her. It seemed to her that there was

something almost satanic in the smile which alone disturbed the serenity

of his face.

“Certainly I am,” he answered; “when I returned from America, it

suited me to change my identity. You must not doubt anything that

Mr. Aynesworth says. I can assure you that he is a most truthful and

conscientious young man. I shall be able to give him a testimonial with

a perfectly clear conscience.”

Juliet shuddered as she turned away. All the joy of life seemed to have

gone from her face.

“You are Mr. Wingrave--the Mr. Wingrave. Oh! I can’t believe it,” she

broke off suddenly. “No one could have been so kind, so generous, as you

have been to me.”

She looked from one to the other of the two men. Both were silent, but

whereas Aynesworth had turned his head away, Wingrave’s position and

attitude were unchanged. She moved suddenly over towards him. One hand

fell almost caressingly upon his shoulder. She looked eagerly into his

face.

“Tell me--that it isn’t all true,” she begged. “Tell me that your

kindness to me, at least, was real--that you did not mean it to be for

my unhappiness afterwards. Please tell me that. I think if you asked me,

if you cared to ask me, that I could forgive everything else.”

“Every vice, save one,” Wingrave murmured, “Nature has lavished upon me.

I am a poor liar. It is perfectly true that my object in life has

been exactly as Aynesworth has stated it. I may have been more or less

successful--Aynesworth can tell you that, too. As regards yourself--”

“Yes?” she exclaimed.

“I congratulate you upon your escape,” Wingrave said. “Aynesworth is

right. Association of any sort with me is for your evil!”

She covered her face with her hands. Even his tone was different.

She felt that this man was a stranger, and a stranger to be feared.

Aynesworth came over to her side and drew her away.

“I have a cart outside,” he said. “I am going to take you to Truro--”

Wingrave heard the gate close after them--he heard the rumble of the

cart in the road growing fainter and fainter. He was alone now in the

garden, and the darkness was closing around him. He staggered to his

feet. His face was back in its old set lines. He was once more at war

with the world.

REVENGE IS--BITTER

At no time during his career did Wingrave appear before the public more

prominently than during the next few months. As London began to fill up

again, during the early part of October, he gave many and magnificent

entertainments, his name figured in all the great social events, he

bought a mansion in Park Lane which had been built for Royalty, and the

account of the treasures with which he filled it read like a chapter

from some modern Arabian Nights. In the city, he was more hated and

dreaded than ever. His transactions, huge and carefully thought out,

were for his own aggrandizement only, and left always in their wake ruin

and disaster for the less fortunate and weaker speculators. He played

for his own hand only, the camaraderie of finance he ignored altogether.

In one other respect, too, he occupied a unique position amongst the

financial magnates of the moment. All appeals on behalf of charity he

steadily ignored. He gave nothing away. His name never figured amongst

the hospital lists; suffering and disaster, which drew their humble

contributions from the struggling poor and middle classes, left him

unmoved and his check book unopened. In an age when huge gifts on behalf

of charity was the fashionable road to the peerage, his attitude was

all the more noticeable. He would give a thousand pounds for a piece

of Sevres china which took his fancy; he would not give a thousand

farthings to ease the sufferings of his fellows. Yet there were few

found to criticize him. He was called original, a crank; there were even

some who professed to see merit in his attitude. To both criticism and

praise he was alike indifferent. With a cynicism with seemed only to

become more bitter he pursued his undeviating and deliberate way.

One morning he met Lady Ruth on the pavement in Bond Street. She pointed

to the vacant seat in her landau.

“Get in, please, for a few minutes,” she said. “I want to talk to you. I

will take you where you like.”

They drove off in silence.

“You were not at the Wavertons’ last night,” he remarked.

“No!” she answered quietly. “I was not asked.”

He glanced at her questioningly.

“I thought that you were so friendly,” he said.

“I was,” she answered. “Lady Waverton scarcely knows me now! It is the

beginning of the end, I suppose.”

“You are a little enigmatical this morning,” he declared.

“Oh, no! You understand me very well,” she answered. “Everybody knows

that it is you who keep us going. Lumley has not got quite used to

taking your money. He has lost nearly all his ambition. Soon his day

will have gone by. People shrug their shoulders when they speak of us.

Two years ago the Wavertons were delighted to know me. Society seems

big, but it isn’t. There are no end of little sets, one inside the

other. Two years ago, I was in the innermost, today I’m getting towards

the outside edge. Look at me! Do you see any change?”

He scrutinized her mercilessly in the cold morning light.

“You look older,” he said, “and you have begun to use rouge, which is a

pity.”

She laughed hardly.

“You think so? Well, I don’t want Emily to see my hollow cheeks--or you!

Are you satisfied, Wingrave?”

“I am afraid I don’t understand--” he began.

“Don’t lie,” she interrupted curtly. “You do understand. This is your

vengeance--very subtle and very crafty. Everything has turned out

exactly as you planned. You have broken us, Wingrave! I thought myself a

clever woman, but I might as well have tried to gamble with the angels.

Why don’t you finish it off now--make me run away with you?”

“It would bore us both,” he answered calmly. “Besides, you wouldn’t

come!”

“I should, and you know that I would,” she answered. “Everyone expects

it of us. I think myself that it would be more decent.”

He looked at her thoughtfully.

“You are a strange woman,” he said. “I find it hard sometimes to

understand you.”

“Then you are a fool,” she declared in a fierce little whisper. “You

know what is underneath all my suffering, all my broken pride! You know

that I was fool enough to keep the flame flickering--that I have cared

always and for no one else!”

He stopped the carriage.

“You are the most original woman I ever met,” he said quietly. “I

neither wish to care nor be cared for by anyone. Go home to your

husband, and tell him to buy Treadwells up to six.”

That same afternoon Wingrave met Aynesworth and cut him dead. Something

in the younger man’s appearance, though, perplexed him. Aynesworth

certainly had not the air of a successful man. He was pale, carelessly

dressed, and apparently in ill health. Wingrave, after an amount of

hesitation, which was rare with him, turned his car towards Battersea,

and found himself, a few minutes later, mounting the five flights of

stone steps. Juliet herself opened the door to him. She gave a little

gasp when she saw who it was, and did not immediately invite him to

enter.

“I am sorry,” Wingrave said coldly, “to inflict this visit upon you. If

you are alone, and afraid to ask me in, we can talk here.”

Her cheeks became as flushed as a moment before they had been pale. She

looked at him reproachfully, and, standing on one side to let him pass,

closed the door behind him. Then she led the way into her sitting room.

“I am glad that you have come to see me,” she said. “Won’t you sit

down?”

He ignored her invitation, and stood looking around him. There was a

noticeable change in the little room. There were no flowers, some of the

ornaments and the silver trifles from her table were missing. The place

seemed to have been swept bare of everything, except the necessary

furniture. Then he looked at her. She was perceptibly thinner, and there

were black rings under her eyes.

“Where is Mrs. Tresfarwin?” he asked.

“In Cornwall,” she answered.

“Why?”

“I could not afford to keep her here any longer.”

“What are you doing for a living--painting still?”

She shook her head a little piteously.

“They can’t sell any more of my pictures,” she said. “I am trying to get

a situation as governess or companion or--anything.”

“When did you have anything to eat last?” he asked.

“Yesterday,” she answered, and he was just in time to catch her. She had

fainted.

He laid her upon the sofa, poured some water over her face, and fanned

her with a newspaper. His expression of cold indifference remained

unmoved. It was there in his face when she opened her eyes.

“Are you well enough to walk?” he asked.

“Quite, thank you,” she answered. “I am so sorry!”

“Put on your hat,” he ordered.

She disappeared for a few minutes, and returned dressed for the street.

He drove her to a restaurant and ordered some dinner. He made her drink

some wine, and while they waited he buried himself in a newspaper.

They ate their meal almost in silence. Afterwards, Wingrave asked her a

question.

“Where is Aynesworth?”

“Looking for work, I think,” she answered.

“Why did you not stay down in Cornwall?”

“Miss Pengarth was away--and I preferred to return to London,” she told

him quietly.

“When are you going to marry Aynesworth?” he asked.

She looked down into her glass and was silent. He leaned a little

towards her.

“Perhaps,” he remarked quietly, “you are already married?”

Still she was silent. He saw the tears forced back from her eyes. He

heard the sob break in her throat. Yet he said nothing. He only waited.

At last she spoke.

“Nothing is settled yet,” she said, still without looking at him.

“I see no reason,” he said calmly, “why, until that time, you should

refuse to accept your allowance from Mr. Pengarth.”

“I cannot take any more of your money,” she answered. “It was a mistake

from the first, but I was foolish. I did not understand.”

His lip curled with scorn.

“You are one of those,” he said, “who, as a child, were wise, but as

a young woman with a little knowledge, become--a prig. What harm is my

money likely to do you? I may be the Devil himself, but my gold is not

tainted. For the rest, granted that I am at war with the world, I do not

number children amongst my enemies.”

She raised her eyes then, and looked him in the face.

“I am not afraid of you,” she declared. “It is not that; but I have been

dependent long enough. I will keep myself--or starve.”

He shrugged his shoulders and paid the bill.

“My man,” he said, “will take you wherever you like. I have a call to

make close here.”

They stood upon the pavement. She held out her hand a little timidly.

Her eyes were soft and wistful.

“Goodbye, guardian,” she said. “Thank you very much for my lunch.”

“Ah!” he said gravely, “if you would let me always call myself that!”

She got into the car without a word. Wingrave walked straight back to

his own house. Several people were waiting in the entrance hall, and

the visitors’ book was open upon the porter’s desk. He walked through,

looking neither to the right nor the left, crossed the great library,

with its curved roof, its floor of cedar wood, and its wonderful

stained-glass windows, and entered a smaller room beyond--his absolute

and impenetrable sanctum. He rang the bell for his servant.

“Morrison,” he said, “if you allow me to be disturbed by any living

person, on any pretense whatever, until I ring, you lose your place. Do

you understand?”

“Perfectly, sir.”

Wingrave locked the door. The next hour belonged to himself alone...

When at last he rang the bell, he gave Morrison a note.

“This is to be delivered at once,” he said.

The man bowed and withdrew. Wingrave, with his hands behind him,

strolled out into the library. In a remote corner, a small spectacled

person was busy writing at a table. Wingrave crossed the room and stood

before him.

“Are you my librarian?” he asked.

The man rose at once.

“Certainly, sir,” he answered. “My name is Woodall. You may have

forgotten it. I am at work now upon a new catalogue.”

Wingrave nodded.

“I have a quarto Shakespeare, I think,” he said, “that I marked at

Sotheby’s, also a manuscript Thomas a Kempis, and a first edition of

Herrick. I should like to see them.”

“By all means,” the man answered, hurrying to the shelves. “You have,

also, a wonderful rare collection of manuscripts, purchased from the

Abbey St. Jouvain, and a unique Horace. If you will permit me.”

Wingrave spent half an hour examining his treasures, leaving his

attendant astonished.

“A millionaire who understands!” he exclaimed softly as he resumed his

seat. “Miraculous!”

Wingrave passed into the hall, and summoned his major domo.

“Show me the ballroom,” he ordered, “and the winter garden.”

The little man in quiet black clothes--Wingrave abhorred liveries--led

him respectfully through rooms probably unequaled for magnificence in

England. He spoke of the exquisite work of French and Italian artists;

with a gesture almost of reverence he pointed out the carving in the

wonderful white ballroom.

Wingrave listened and watched with immovable face. Just as they had

completed their tour, Morrison approached.

“Mr. Lumley and Lady Ruth Barrington are in the library, sir,” he

announced.

Wingrave nodded.

“I am coming at once,” he said.

THE WAY OF PEACE

They awaited his coming in varying moods. Barrington was irritable and

restless, Lady Ruth gave no signs of any emotion whatever. She had the

air of a woman who had no longer fear or hope. Only her eyes were a

little weary.

Barrington was walking up and down the room, his hands in his pockets,

his eyes fixed upon his wife. Every now and then he glanced nervously

towards her.

“Of course,” he said, “if he wants a settlement--well, there’s an end of

all things. And I don’t see why he shouldn’t. He hasn’t lent money out

of friendship. He hates me--always has done, and sometimes I wonder

whether he doesn’t hate you too!”

Lady Ruth shivered a little. Her husband’s words came to her with

peculiar brutality. It was as though he were blaming her for not having

proved more attractive to the man who held them in the hollow of his

hand.

“Doesn’t it strike you,” she murmured, “that a discussion like this

is scarcely in the best possible taste? We cannot surmise what he

wants--what he is going to do. Let us wait!”

The door opened and Wingrave entered. To Barrington, who greeted him

with nervous cordiality, he presented the same cold, impenetrable

appearance; Lady Ruth, with quicker perceptions, noticed at once the

change. She sat up in her chair eagerly. It was what she had prayed for,

this--but was it for good or evil? Her eyes sought his eagerly. So much

depended upon his first few words.

Wingrave closed the door behind him. His greetings were laconic as

usual. He addressed Lady Ruth.

“I find myself obliged,” he said, “to take a journey which may possibly

be a somewhat protracted one. I wished, before I left, to see you

and your husband. I sent for you together, but I wish to speak to you

separately--to your husband first. You have often expressed a desire to

see over my house, Lady Ruth. My major domo is outside. Will you forgive

me if I send you away for a few minutes?”

Lady Ruth rose slowly to her feet.

“How long do you wish me to keep away?” she asked calmly.

“A few minutes only,” he answered. “You will find me here when Parkinson

has shown you round.”

He held the door open and she passed out, with a single upward and

wondering glance. Wingrave closed the door, and seated himself close to

where Barrington was standing.

“Barrington,” he said, “twenty years ago we were friends. Since then we

have been enemies. Today, so far as I am concerned, we are neither.”

Barrington started a little. His lips twitched nervously. He did not

quite understand.

“I am sure, Wingrave--” he began.

Wingrave interrupted him ruthlessly.

“I give you credit,” he continued, “for understanding that my attitude

towards you since I--er--reappeared, has been inimical. I intended you

to speculate, and you did speculate. I meant you to lose, and you have

lost. The money I lent to your wife was meant to remain a rope around

your neck. The fact that I lent it to her was intended to humiliate you,

the attentions which I purposely paid to her in public were intended to

convey a false impression to society--and in this, too, I fancy that I

have been successful.”

Barrington drew a thick breath--the dull color was mounting to his

cheeks.

Wingrave continued calmly--

“I had possibly in my mind, at one time,” he said, “the idea of drawing

things on to a climax--of witnessing the final disappearance of yourself

and your wife from the world--such as we know it. I have, however,

ceased to derive amusement or satisfaction from pursuing what we may

call my vengeance. Consequently, it is finished.”

The light of hope leaped into Barrington’s dull eyes, but he recognized

Wingrave’s desire for silence.

“A few feet to your left, upon my writing table,” Wingrave continued,

“you will find an envelope addressed to yourself. It contains a

discharge, in full, for the money I have lent you. I have also ventured

to place to your credit, at your own bank, a sum sufficient to give you

a fresh start. When you return to Cadogan Square, or, at least, this

evening, you will receive a communication from the Prime Minister,

inviting you to become one of the International Board of Arbitration on

the Alaskan question. The position, as you know, is a distinguished one,

and if you should be successful, your future career should be assured.”

Barrington broke down. He covered his face with his hands. Great sobs

shook him. Wingrave waited for a few minutes, and then rose to his feet.

“Barrington,” he said, “there is one thing more! What the world may say

or think counts for very little. Society reverses its own judgments and

eats its own words every day. A little success will bring it to your

feet like a whipped dog. It is for yourself I say this, for yourself

alone. There is no reason why you should hesitate to accept any service

I may be able to render you. You understand me?”

Barrington’s face was like the face of a young man. All the cloud of

suspicion and doubts and fears was suddenly lifted. He looked through

new eyes on to a new world.

“Thank God!” he exclaimed. “Not that I ever doubted it, Wingrave,

but--thank God!”...

Barrington left the house radiant,--Lady Ruth and Wingrave were

alone. She watched him close the door and turn towards her, with a new

timidity. The color came and went in her pale cheeks, her eyes were

no longer tired. When he turned towards her, she leaned to him with a

little seductive movement of her body. Her hands stole out towards him.

“Wingrave!” she murmured.

His first action seemed to crush all the desperate joy which was rising

fast in her heart. He took one hand, and he led her to a chair.

“Ruth,” he said, “I have been talking to your husband. There are only a

few words I want to say to you.”

“There are only three I want to hear from you,” she murmured, and her

eyes were pleading with him passionately all the time. “It seems to me

that I have been waiting to hear them all my life. Wingrave, I am so

tired--and I am losing--I want to leave it all!”

“Exactly,” he answered cheerfully, “what you are going to do. You are

going to America with your husband.”

“What do you mean?” she asked sharply.

He shrugged his shoulders.

“I am rather tired of the game,” he said, “that is all. I am like the

child who likes to build up again the house of bricks which he has

thrown down. I have procured for your husband a seat on the Alaskan

Board. It is a very distinguished position, and you will find that it

will entail considerable social obligations in America. When you return,

he will be able to claim a judgeship, or a place in the Government. You

will find things go smoothly enough then.”

“But you!” she cried; “I want you!”

He looked at her gravely.

“Dear Lady Ruth,” he said, “you may think so at this moment, but you are

very much mistaken. What you really desire is a complete reconciliation

with your husband and a place in the great world which no one shall be

able to question. These things are arranged for you; also--these.”

He handed her a little packet. She dropped it idly into her lap. She was

looking steadfastly away from them.

“You are free from me now,” he continued. “You will find life run quite

smoothly, and I do not think that you will be troubled with me when you

come back from America. I have other plans.”

“There was a slave,” she murmured, “who grew to love her gaoler, and

when they came to set her free and take her back to her own people--she

prayed only to be left in her cell! Freedom for her meant a broken

heart!”

“But that was fiction,” he answered. “For you, freedom will mean other

things. There is work for you to do, honorable work. You must fan the

flame of your husband’s ambition, you must see that he does justice to

his great opportunities. You have your own battle to fight with society,

but you have the winning cards for, before you go, you and your husband

will be received as guests--well, by the one person whose decision is

absolute.”

She looked at him in amazement.

“My word of honor,” he said quietly, “was enough for Lord Marendon. You

will find things go smoothly with you.”

“You are wonderful,” she gasped, “but--you--you spoke of going away.”

“I am going to travel,” he said quietly, “rather a long journey. I have

lived three lives, I am going to try a fourth!”

“Alone?” she asked.

“Quite alone,” he answered.

“Tell me where you are going?” she begged.

“I cannot do that,” he answered. “It is my secret.”

She rose to her feet. She was very pale. She stood in front of him, and

she laid her hands upon his shoulders.

“Wingrave,” she said, “I will obey. I will live the life you have shown

me, and I will live it successfully. But I will know this. Who is it

that has succeeded where I have failed?”

“I do not understand you,” he answered.

“You do!” she declared, “and I will know. For years you have been a man

with a shell upon your heart. Every good impulse, every kind thought

seemed withered up. You were absolutely cold, absolutely passionless!

I have worn myself out trying to call you back to your own, to set

the blood flowing once more in your veins, to break for one moment the

barriers which you had set up against Nature herself. Some day, I

felt that it must come--and it has! Who has done it, Wingrave? It is

not--Emily?”

“Emily!” he exclaimed. “I have not seen her for months. She has no

interest for me--she never had.”

“Then tell me who it is!”

“Nature unaided,” he answered carelessly. “Human intervention was not

necessary. It was the swing of the pendulum, Ruth, the eternal law

which mocks our craving for content. I had no sooner succeeded in my new

capacity--than the old man crept out.”

“But Nature has her weapons always,” she protested. “Wingrave, was it

the child?”

He touched the electric bell. Taking her hands, he bent down and kissed

them.

“Dear lady,” he said, “goodbye--good fortune! Conquer new worlds, and

remember--white is your color, and Paquin your one modiste. Morrison,

Lady Barrington’s carriage.”

“LOVE SHALL MAKE ALL THINGS NEW”

Mr. Pengarth was loth to depart. He felt that all pretext for lingering

was gone, that he had outstayed his welcome. Yet he found himself

desperately striving for some excuse to prolong an interview which was

to all effects and purposes concluded.

“I will do my best, Sir Wingrave,” he said, reverting to the subject of

their interview, “to study Miss Lundy’s interests in every way. I will

also see that she has the letter you have left for her within eight days

from now. But if you could see you way to leave some sort of address so

that I should have a chance of communicating with you, if necessary, I

should assume my responsibilities with a lighter heart.”

Wingrave gave vent to a little gesture of annoyance.

“My dear sir,” he said, “surely I have been explicit enough. I have told

you that, within a week from now, I shall be practically dead. I shall

never return to England--you will never see me again. I have given life

here a fair trial, and found it a failure. I am going to make a new

experiment--and it is going to be in an unexplored country. You could

not reach me there through the post. You, I think, would scarcely care

to follow me. Let it go at that.”

Mr. Pengarth took up his bag with a sigh.

“Sir Wingrave,” he said, “I am a simple man, and life with me has always

been a very simple affair. I recognize the fact, of course, that I am

not in a position to judge or to understand the mental attitude of one

who, like yourself, has suffered and passed through great crises. But I

cannot help wishing that you could find it possible to try, for a time,

the quiet life of a countryman in this beautiful home of yours.”

Wingrave shrugged his shoulders.

“Mr. Pengarth,” he said, “no two men are born alike into this world.

Some are blessed with a contented mind, some are wanderers by destiny.

You will forgive me if I do not discuss the matter with you more fully.

My journey, wherever and whatever it is, is inevitable.”

Mr. Pengarth was braver than he had ever been in his life.

“Sir Wingrave,” he said, “there is one journey which we must all take

in God’s good time. But the man who starts before he is called finds no

welcome at the end. The greatest in life are those who are content to

wait!”

“I am not in the least disposed to doubt it, Mr. Pengarth,” Wingrave

said calmly. “Now I must really send you away.”

So Mr. Pengarth went, but Wingrave was not long destined to remain

in solitude. There was a sound of voices in the hall, Morrison’s

protesting, another insistent. Then the door opened, and Wingrave looked

up with darkening face, which did not lighten when he recognized the

intruder.

“Aynesworth!” he exclaimed, “what are you doing here? What do you want

with me?”

“Five minutes,” Aynesworth answered, “and I mean to have it. You may as

well tell your man to take his hand off my shoulder.”

Wingrave nodded to Morrison.

“You can go,” he said. “Come back when I ring.”

They were alone! Aynesworth threw down his hat and crossed the room

until he was within a few feet of Wingrave.

“Well, sir?”

Aynesworth laughed a little unnaturally.

“I had to come,” he said. “It is humiliating, but the discipline is good

for me! I was determined to come and see once more the man who has made

an utter and complete fool of me.”

Wingrave eyed him coldly.

“If you would be good enough to explain,” he began.

“Oh, yes, I’ll explain,” Aynesworth answered. “I engaged myself to you

as secretary, didn’t I, and I told you the reason at the time? I wanted

to make a study of you. I wanted to trace the effect of your long period

of isolation upon your subsequent actions. I entered upon my duties--how

you must have smiled at me behind my back! Never was a man more

completely and absolutely deceived. I lived with you, was always by your

side, I was there professedly to study your actions and the method of

them. And yet you found it a perfectly simple matter to hoodwink me

whenever you chose!”

“In what respect?” Wingrave asked calmly.

“Every respect!” Aynesworth answered. “Let me tell you two things which

happened to me yesterday. I met a young New York stockbroker, named

Nesbitt, in London, and in common with all London, I suppose, by this

time, I learnt the secret of all those anonymous contributions to the

hospitals and other charitable causes during the last year.”

“Go on,” Wingrave said.

“I have come here on purpose to tell you what I think you are,”

Aynesworth said. “You are the greatest hypocrite unhanged. You affect to

hate your fellows and to love evil-doers. You deceived the whole world,

and you deceived me. I know you now for what you are. You conceived your

evil plans, but when the time came for carrying them out, you funked

it every time. You had that silly little woman on the steamer in your

power, and you yourself, behind your own back, released her with that

Marconigram to her husband, sent by yourself. You brought the boy

Nesbitt face to face with ruin, and to his face you offered him no

mercy. Behind his back you employ a lawyer to advance him your own money

to pay your own debt. You decline to give a single penny away in charity

and, as stealthily as possible, you give away in one year greater sums

than any other man has ever parted with. You decline to help the poor

little orphan child of the village organist, and secretly you have her

brought up in your own home, and stop the sale of your pictures for the

sake of the child whom you had only once contemptuously addressed. Can

you deny any one of these things?”

“No!” Wingrave answered quietly, “I cannot.”

“And I thought you a strong man,” Aynesworth continued, aggrieved and

contemptuous. “I nearly went mad with fear when I heard that it was you

who were the self-appointed guardian of Juliet Lundy. I looked upon this

as one more, the most diabolical of all your schemes!”

Wingrave rose to his feet, still and grave.

“Aynesworth,” he said, “this interview does not interest me. Let us

bring it to an end. I admit that I have made a great failure of my life.

I admit that I have failed in realizing the ambitions I once confided to

you. I came out from prison with precisely those intentions, and I was

conscious of nothing in myself or my nature to prevent my carrying them

out. It seems that I was mistaken. I admit all this, but I do not admit

your right to force yourself into my presence and taunt me with my

failure. You served me well enough, but you were easily hoodwinked, and

our connection is at an end. I have only one thing to say to you. I

am leaving this part of the world altogether. I shall not return. That

child has some foolish scruples about taking any more of my money. That

arises through your confounded interference. She is poor, almost in

want. If you should fail her now--”

Aynesworth interrupted with a hoarse little laugh.

“Wingrave,” he said, “are you playing the simpleton? If Juliet will not

take your money, why should she take mine?”

Wingrave came out from his place. He was standing now between Aynesworth

and the door.

“Aynesworth,” he said, “do I understand that you are not going to marry

the child?”

“I? Certainly not!” Aynesworth answered.

Wingrave remained quite calm, but there was a terrible light in his

eyes.

“Now, for the first time, Aynesworth,” he said, “I am glad that you are

here. We are going to have a complete understanding before you leave

this room. Juliet Lundy, as my ward, was, I believe, contented and

happy. It suited you to disturb our relations, and your excuse for doing

so was that you loved her. You took her away from me, and now you say

that you do not intend to marry her. Be so good as to tell me what the

devil you do mean!”

Aynesworth laughed a little bitterly.

“You must excuse me,” he said, “but a sense of humor was always my

undoing, and this reversal of our positions is a little odd, isn’t it?

I am not going to marry Juliet Lundy because she happens not to care for

me in that way at all. My appearance is scarcely that of a joyous lover,

is it?”

Wingrave eyed him more closely. Aynesworth had certainly fallen away

from the trim and carefully turned out young man of a few months back.

He was paler, too, and looked older.

“I do not understand this,” Wingrave said.

“I do!” Aynesworth answered bitterly. “There is someone else?”

“Someone whom I do not know about?” Wingrave said, frowning heavily.

“Who is he, Aynesworth?”

Aynesworth shrugged his shoulders. He said nothing. Wingrave came a step

nearer to him.

“You may as well tell me.” he said quietly, “for I shall postpone my

journey until I know the whole truth.”

“It is not my secret,” Aynesworth answered. “Ask her yourself!”

“Very well,” Wingrave declared, “I will. I shall return to London

tonight.”

“It is not necessary,” Aynesworth remarked.

Wingrave started.

“You mean that she is here?” he exclaimed.

Aynesworth drew him towards the window.

“Come,” he said, “you shall ask her now.”

Wingrave hesitated for a moment. An odd nervousness seemed to have taken

possession of him.

“I do not understand this, Aynesworth,” he said. “Why is she here?”

“Go and ask her your question,” Aynesworth said. “Perhaps you will

understand then.”

Wingrave went down the path which led to the walled garden and the

sea. The tall hollyhocks brushed against his knees; the air, as mild as

springtime, was fragrant with the perfume of late roses. Wingrave took

no note of these things. Once more he seemed to see coming up the path

the little black-frocked child, with the pale face and the great sad

eyes; it was she indeed who rose so swiftly from the hidden seat. Then

Wingrave stopped short for he felt stirring within him all the long

repressed madness of his unlived manhood. It was the weakness against

which he had fought so long and so wearily, triumphant now, so that his

heart beat like a boy’s, and the color flamed into his cheeks. And all

the time she was coming nearer, and he saw that the child had become a

woman, and it seemed to him that all the joy of life was alight in her

face, and the one mysterious and wonderful secret of her sex was

shining softly out of her eager eyes. So that, after all, when they met,

Wingrave asked her no questions. She came into his arms with all the

graceful and perfect naturalness of a child who has wandered a little

away from home....

“I am too old for you, dear,” he said presently, as they wandered about

the garden, “much too old.”

“Age,” she answered softly, “what is that? What have we to do with

the years that are past? It is the years to come only which we need

consider, and to think of them makes me almost tremble with happiness.

You are much too rich and too wonderful a personage for a homeless

orphan like me; but,” she added, tucking her arm through his with a

contented little sigh, “I have you, and I shall not let you go!”