Bertie turned away, feeling sick, yet silently agreeing. Who could hope

to pass unharmed through that raging darkness, that tossing nightmare of

great waters? Yet the thought of those three lives beating outward in

agony and terror while he and his friends stood helplessly by took him

by the throat.

Suddenly through a lull of the tempest there came a great shout.

The clouds had drifted asunder and a few stars shone vaguely down on the

wild scene. The dim light showed the doomed vessel wedged among the

rocks that stuck up, black and threatening, through the racing foam.

Nearer at hand, huddled on the stout sea-wall, stood the little group of

watchers, their faces all turned outwards towards the two masts of the

little schooner, which remained faintly discernible through the shifting

gloom.

It was not more than a hundred yards away, Bertie realised. Yet the

impossibility of rescue was as apparent as if it had been a hundred

miles from land. He fancied he could see a couple of figures half-way up

one of the masts, but the light was elusive. He could not be certain of

this.

Suddenly a hand gripped his elbow, and he found Archie Croft beside him,

yelling excitedly.

"Don't let him go!" he bawled. "It's madness--sheer madness!"

Bertie turned sharply. Close to him, his head bare, and clothed still in

evening dress, stood Charlie Cleveland. A coil of rope lay at his feet.

He had knotted one end firmly round his body.

"Listen, you fellows!" he cried. "I'm going to have a shot at it. Pay

out the rope as I go. Count up to five hundred, and if it is limp, pull

it in again. If it holds, make it fast! Got me?"

He turned at once to a flight of iron steps that led off the wall down

into the awful, seething water. But someone, Fisher, sprang suddenly

after him and held him back. Charlie wheeled instantly. The light of a

lantern striking on his face revealed it, unafraid, even laughing.

"You silly ass!" he cried. "Hang on to the rope instead of behaving like

a fellow's grandmother!"

"You shan't do it!" Fisher said, holding him fast. "It is certain

death!"

"All right," Charlie yelled back. "I choose death, then. I prefer it to

sitting still and seeing others die. My life is my own. I choose to risk

it."

He looked at Fisher closely for a moment, then, with one immense effort,

he wrenched himself away. He went leaping down the steps as a boy going

for a summer-morning dip.

Fisher turned round and met Bertie Richmond hurrying to help him.

"Let him go!" Fisher said briefly.

Thereafter came a terrible interval of waiting. The sky was clearing,

but the tempest did not abate. The rope ran out with jerks and pauses.

Fisher stood and counted at the head of the steps, his eyes on the

tumult that had swallowed up the slight active figure of the one man

among them all who had elected to risk his life against those

overwhelming odds.

"He must be dashed to pieces!" Bertie Richmond gasped to himself, with a

shudder.

The rope ceased to run. Fisher had counted four hundred and fifty. He

counted on resolutely to five hundred, then turned and raised his hand

to the men who held the coil. They hauled at the rope. It was limp. Hand

over hand they dragged it in through the foam. Fisher peered downwards.

It came so rapidly that he thought it must have parted among the rocks.

Then he saw a dark object bobbing strangely among the waves. He went

down the steps, that quivered and trembled like cardboard under his

feet.

Clinging to the iron rail, he reached out a hand and guided the rope to

him. A great sea broke over him and nearly swept him off. He saved

himself by hanging with both hands on to the rope. Thus he was dragged

up the steps to safety, and behind him, buffeted, bleeding, helpless,

came two limp bodies lashed fast together.

They cut the two asunder by the light of the lanterns, and one of them,

Charlie, staggered to his feet.

"I've got to go back!" he gasped. "You pulled too soon. There are two

others."

He dashed the blood from his face, seized a pocket flask someone held

out to him, and drained it at a long gulp.

"That's better!" he said. "That you, Fisher? Good-bye, old chap!"

The first pale light of a rising moon burst suddenly through the cloud

drift.

"I'll go myself," Fisher abruptly said.

Even in that roar of sound they heard the boyish laugh that rang out

upon the words.

"No, no, no!" shouted Charlie. "Bless you, dear fellow! But this is my

job--alone. You've got to stay behind--you're wanted."

He stood a few seconds poising himself on the steps, drawing deep

breaths in preparation for the coming struggle. The moonlight smote upon

him. He lifted his face to it, and seemed to hesitate. Then suddenly he

turned to Fisher and laid impetuous hands upon his shoulders.

"Lookers-on see most of the game," he said. "And I've been one from the

first, though I own I thought at one time I should like to take a hand.

Go on and prosper, old boy! You've played a winning game all along, you

know. You're a better chap than I am, and it's you she really cares

for--always has been. That's how I came to know what I'd got to do. I

find it's easy--thank God!--it's very easy."

And with that he plunged down again into the breakers. The tide was on

the turn. The worst fury was over. The awful darkness had lifted.

Those who mutely watched him fancied they heard him laugh as he met the

crested waves.

X

Molly had spent a night of feverish restlessness. It was with a feeling

of relief that she answered a tap that came at her door in the early

dusk of the January morning; but she gave a start of surprise when she

saw Mrs. Langdale enter.

She started up on her elbow.

"Oh, what is it? It has been a fearful night. Has something dreadful

happened?" she cried.

Mrs. Langdale's usually merry face was pale and quiet. She went quickly

to the girl's side and took her hands into a tight clasp.

"My dear," she said, "Gerald Fisher asked me to come and tell you. There

has been a wreck in the night. A vessel ran on to the rocks. There were

three men on board. They could not reach them with an ordinary boat, and

the life-boat was not available."

"Go on!" gasped Molly, her eyes on her friend's face.

Mrs. Langdale went on, with an effort.

"Charlie Cleveland--dear fellow--went out to them with a rope. He

reached them, brought one safely back, returned for the

others--and--and--" Her voice failed. Her hands tightened upon Molly's;

they were very cold. "He managed to get to them again," she whispered,

"but--the rope wasn't long enough. He unlashed himself and bound them

together. They pulled them ashore--both living. But--he--was lost!"

The composure suddenly forsook Mrs. Langdale's face. She hid it on

Molly's pillow.

"Oh, Molly, that darling boy!" she cried, with a burst of tears. "And

they say he went to his death--laughing."

"He would," Molly said, in a strange voice. "I always knew he would."

She lay back again. Her face was suddenly pinched and grey, but she felt

not the smallest desire to cry.

"I wonder why!" she presently said. "How I wonder why!"

Mrs. Langdale recovered herself with an effort. The frozen voice seemed

to give her strength.

"Have we any right to ask that?" she whispered. "No one on this side can

ever know."

"Oh, I think you are wrong," Molly said. "We can't be meant to grope in

outer darkness."

Mrs. Langdale whispered something about "those the gods love." She was

too broken-down herself to be able to offer any solid comfort.

After a painful silence she got up and busied herself with reviving

Molly's fire, which had almost gone out. She felt as she had felt only

once before in her life, and that had been ten years previously, when

her only child had died suddenly. She wished passionately that she were

back in Calcutta with her husband. She hated the bleak English winter,

the cruel English seas.

Molly lay quite still for some time, her young face drawn and stricken.

At length she got up and went to the window. It was a morning of bleak

winds and shifting clouds. The sea was just visible, very far and dim

and grey. She stood a long while gazing stonily out.

"Can I get you anything, darling?" said Mrs. Langdale's voice softly

behind her.

"No, thank you," the girl said, without turning. "Please leave me;

that's all!"

And Mrs. Langdale crept away through the hushed house to her own

apartment, there to lay down her head and cry herself exhausted. Dear,

gallant Charlie! Her heart ached for him. His irrepressible gaiety, his

reckless generosity, these had become the attributes of a hero for ever

in her eyes.

After a while her hostess came to her, pale and tearful, to beg her, if

she possibly could, to show herself at the breakfast table. Captain

Fisher had repeatedly asked for her, she said; and he seemed very

uneasy.

Mrs. Langdale rose, washed her face, and made an effort to powder away

the evidence of her grief. Then she went bravely down and faced the

silent crowd in the breakfast room. No one was eating anything. The very

air smote chill and cheerless as she entered. As if he had been lying in

wait for her, Fisher pounced upon her on the threshold.

"I must speak to you for a moment," he said. "Come into the

smoking-room!"

Mrs. Langdale accompanied him without a word.

"How is she?" he demanded, almost before they entered. "How did she take

it?"

There was something about Fisher just then with which Mrs. Langdale was

wholly unacquainted. He was alert, impatient, almost feverish. She

answered him with brevity.

"I think she is stunned by the news."

He began to pace to and fro with heavy restlessness.

"Ask her to come to me if she is up!" he said at length. "Tell her--tell

her not to be afraid! Say I am waiting for her. I must see her."

Mrs. Langdale hesitated.

"She asked me to leave her alone," she said irresolutely.

Fisher wheeled swiftly round.

"I don't think she will refuse to see me," he said. "At least try!"

There was entreaty in his voice, urgent entreaty, which Mrs. Langdale

found herself unable to withstand.

She departed therefore on her thankless errand and Fisher flung himself

down at the table with his face buried in his hands. In this room but a

few short hours ago Charlie had faced and turned away his anger with all

the courage and sweetness which, combined, had made of him the hero he

was.

It seemed to Fisher, looking back upon the interview, that the boy had

done a braver thing, had offered a sacrifice more splendid, there, in

that room, than any he had done or offered a little later down on the

howling shore.

There came a slight sound at the door and Fisher jerked himself upright.

Molly had entered softly. She was standing, looking at him with a

strange species of wonder on her white face. He rose instantly and went

to meet her.

"I have something to give you, Molly," he said. She raised her eyes

questioningly.

"It was brought to me," he said, controlling his voice to quietness with

a strong effort, "after Mrs. Langdale went to tell you of--what had

happened. I wish to give it to you myself. And--afterwards to ask you a

question."

"What is it?" Molly asked, with a sudden sharp eagerness.

"A note," Fisher said, and gave her a folded paper. "It was found on his

dressing-table, addressed to you. His servant brought it to me."

Molly's hand trembled as she took the missive.

Fisher turned away from her, and stood before the window in dead

silence. There was a long, quiet pause. Then a sudden sound made him

swing swiftly round and stride to the door to turn the key. The next

moment he was stooping over Molly, who had sunk down on the hearth-rug

and was sobbing terrible, anguished sobs.

He lifted her to a chair with no fuss of words, and knelt beside her,

stroking her hair, comforting her, with something of a woman's

tenderness.

Molly suffered him passively, and the first wild agony of her trouble

spent itself unrestrained on his shoulder. Then she grew calmer, and

presently begged him in a whisper to read the message which Charlie had

left behind him.

For a moment Fisher hesitated; then, as she repeated her desire, he took

up the scrawl and deliberately read it through. It had evidently been

written immediately after his interview with the writer.

"Dear Molly," the note said, "It's all right with Fisher, so

don't you worry yourself! I clear out to-morrow, so that there

may be no awkwardness, but we haven't quarrelled, he and I.

Forget all about this business! It's been a mistake from start

to finish. I ought to have known that I was only fit to be a

looker-on when I fell at the first fence. You put your money on

Fisher and you'll never lose a halfpenny! I'm nothing but a

humble spectator, and I wish you--and him also--the best of

luck. If I might be permitted, to offer a little, serious,

fatherly advice, it would be this:

"Don't let yourself get dazzled by the outside shine of any

man's actions! A man isn't necessarily a hero because he

doesn't run away. It is the true-hearted, steady-going chaps

like Fisher who keep the world wagging. They are the solid

material. The others are only a sort of trimming stuck on for

effect and torn off when the time comes for something new. So

marry the man you love, Molly, and forget that anyone else ever

made a fool of himself for your sweet sake!

"Your friend for ever,

"Charlie."

Thus ended, with a simplicity sublime, the few words of fatherly advice

which as a legacy this boy had left behind him.

Fisher laid the note reverently aside and spoke with a great gentleness.

"Tell me, dear," he said, "will it make it any easier for you if I go

away? If so--you have only to say so."

The words cost him greater resolution than any he had ever uttered. Yet

he said them without apparent effort.

Molly did not answer him for many seconds. Her head drooped a little

lower.

"I have been--dazzled," she said at last, and there was a piteous quiver

in her voice. "I do not know if I shall ever make you understand."

"You need never attempt it, Molly," he answered very steadily. "I make

no claim upon you. Simply, I am yours to keep or to throw away. Which

are you going to do?"

He paused for her answer. But she made none. Only in her trouble it

seemed to him that she clung to his support.

He drew her a little closer to him.

"Molly," he said very tenderly, "do you want me, child? Shall I stay?"

And at length she answered him, realising that it was to this man, hero

or no hero, she had given her heart.

"Yes, stay, Gerald!" she whispered earnestly. "I want you."

* * *

Perhaps he understood her better than she thought. Perhaps Charlie's

last words to him had taught him a wisdom to which he had not otherwise

attained. Or perhaps his love was large enough to cover and hide all

that might be lacking in that which she offered to him.

But at least neither then nor later did he ever seek to know how deeply

the glamour of another man's heroism had pierced her heart. She tried to

whisper an explanation, but he hushed the words unuttered.

"It is all right, child," he said. "I am satisfied. It is only the

lookers-on who are allowed to see all the cards. I think when we meet

him again he will tell us that we played them right."

There was a deep quiver in his voice as he spoke, but there was no lack

of confidence in his words. Looking upwards, Molly saw that his eyes

were full of tears.

* * * * *

THE SECOND FIDDLE

A low whistle floated through the slumbrous silence and died softly away

among the sand-dunes.

The man who sat in the little wooden summer-house that faced the sea

raised his head from his hand and stared outwards. The signal had

scarcely penetrated to his inner consciousness, but it had vaguely

disturbed his train of thought. His eyes were dull and emotionless as he

stared across the blue, smiling water to the long, straight line of the

horizon. They were heavy also as if he had not slept for weeks, and

there were deep lines about his clean-shaven mouth.

Before him on the rough, wooden table lay a letter--a letter that he

knew by heart, yet carried always with him. The writing upon it was firm

and regular, but unmistakably a woman's. It began: "Dear Hugh," and it

ended: "Yours very sincerely," and it had been written to tell him that

because he was crippled for life the writer could no longer entertain

the idea of sharing hers with him.

There had been a ring enclosed with the letter, but this he had not

kept. He had dropped it into the heart of a blazing fire on the day

that he had first been able to move without assistance. He had not done

it in anger. Simply the consciousness of possessing it had been a pain

intolerable to him. So he had destroyed it; but the letter he had kept

through all the dreary months that had followed that awful time. It was

all that was left to him of one whom he had loved passionately, blindly,

foolishly, and who had ceased to love him on the day, now nearly a year

ago, when his friends had ceased to call him by the nickname of

Hercules, that had been his from his boyhood.

And this was her wedding-day--a day of entrancing sunshine, of magic

breezes, of perfect June.

He was picturing her to himself as he sat there, just as he had pictured

her often--ah, often--in the old days.

From his place near the altar he watched her coming towards him up the

great, white-decked church. Her eyes were shining with unclouded

happiness. Behind her bridal veil he caught a glimpse of the exquisite

beauty that chained his heart. Straight towards him the vision moved,

and he--he braced himself to meet it.

A sharp pang of physical pain suddenly wrung his nerves, and in a moment

the vision had passed from his eyes. He groaned and once more covered

his face. Yes, it was her wedding-day. She was there before the altar in

all the splendour of her youth and her loveliness. But he was alone

with his suffering, his broken life, and the long, long, empty years

stretching away before him.

He awoke to the soft splashing of the summer tide, out beyond the

sand-dunes, and he heard again the clear, low whistle which before had

disturbed his dream.

He remained motionless, and a dim, detached wonder crossed his mind. He

had thought himself quite alone.

Again the whistle sounded. It seemed to come from immediately below him.

Slowly and painfully he raised himself.

The next instant an enormous Newfoundland dog rushed panting into his

retreat and proceeded to search every inch of the place with violent

haste. The man on the bench sat still and watched him, but when the

animal with a sudden, clumsy movement knocked his crutches on to the

floor and out of his reach, he uttered an exclamation of annoyance.

The dog gave him a startled glance and continued his headlong

investigation. He was very wet, and he left a trail of sea water

wherever he went. Finally he bounded out as hurriedly as he had entered,

and Hugh Durant was left a prisoner, the nearest of his crutches a full

yard away.

He sat and stared at them with a heavy frown. His helplessness always

oppressed him far more than the pain he had to endure. He cursed the dog

under his breath.

"Oh, I am sorry!" a voice said suddenly some seconds later. "Let me get

them for you!"

Durant looked round sharply. A brown-faced girl in a short, cotton dress

stood in the doorway. Her head was bare and covered with short, black,

curly hair that shone wet in the sunshine. Her eyes were very blue. For

some reason she looked rather ashamed of herself.

She moved forward barefooted and picked up Durant's crutches.

"I'm sorry, sir," she said again. "I didn't know there was any one here

till I heard Cæsar knock something down."

She dusted the tops of the crutches with her sleeve and propped them

against the table.

"Thanks!" said Durant curtly. He was not feeling sociable--he could not

feel sociable--on that day of all days in his life's record.

Yet, as if attracted by something, the girl lingered.

"It's lovely down on the shore," she said half shyly.

"No doubt," said Durant, and again his tone was curt to churlishness.

Then abruptly he felt that he had been unnecessarily surly, and wondered

if he was getting querulous.

"Been bathing?" he asked, with a brief glance at her wet hair.

She gave him a quick, friendly smile.

"Yes, sir," she said; and added: "Cæsar and I."

"Fond of the sea, eh?" said Durant.

The soft eyes shone, and the man, who had been a sailor, told himself

that they were deep-sea eyes.

"I love it," the girl said very earnestly.

Her intensity surprised him a little. He had not expected it in one who,

to judge by her dress, must be a child of the humble fisher-folk. His

interest began to awaken.

"You live near here?" he questioned.

She pointed a brown hand towards the sand-dunes.

"On the shore, sir," she said. "We hear the waves all night."

"So do I," said Durant, and his voice was suddenly sharp with a pain he

could not try to silence. "All night and all day."

She did not seem to notice his tone.

"You live in the cottage on the cliff?" she asked.

He nodded.

"I came last week," he said. "I hadn't seen the sea for nearly a year. I

wanted to be alone. And--so I am."

"All alone?" she queried quickly.

He nodded again.

"With my servant," he said. He repeated with a certain doggedness: "I

wanted to be alone."

There was a pause. The girl was standing in the doorway. Her dog was

basking in the sunshine not a yard away. She looked at the cripple with

thoughtful eyes.

"I live alone, too," she said. "That is--Cæsar and I."

That successfully aroused Durant's curiosity.

"You!" he said incredulously.

She put up her hand with a quick movement and pushed the short curls

back from her forehead.

"I am used to it," she said, with an odd womanly dignity. "I have been

practically alone all my life."

Durant looked at her closely. She spoke in a very low voice, but there

were rich notes in it that caught his attention.

"Isn't that very unusual for a girl of your age?" he said.

She smiled again without answering. A blue sunbonnet dangled on her arm.

In the silence that followed she put it on. The great dog arose at the

action, stretched himself, and went to her side. She laid her hand on

his head.

"We play hide-and-seek, Cæsar and I," she said, "among the dunes."

Durant took his crutches and stumbled with difficulty to his feet. The

lower part of his body was terribly crippled and weak. Only the broad

shoulders of the man testified to the splendid strength that had once

been his, and could never be his again as long as he lived. He saw the

girl turn her head aside as he moved. The sunbonnet completely hid her

face. A sharp spasm of pain set his own like a stone mask.

Suddenly she looked round.

"Will you--will you come and see me some day?" she asked him shyly.

Her tone was rather of request than invitation, and Durant was curiously

touched. He had a feeling that she awaited his reply with eagerness.

He smiled for the first time.

"With pleasure," he said courteously, "if the path is easy and the

distance not too great for my powers."

"It is quite close," she said readily, "hardly a stone's throw from

here--a little wooden cottage--the first you come to."

"And you live quite alone?" Durant said.

"I like it best," she assured him.

"Will you tell me your name?" he asked.

"My name is Molly," she answered quietly.

"Nothing else?" said Durant with a puzzled frown.

"Nothing else, sir," she said, with her air of womanly dignity.

He made no outward comment, but inwardly he wondered. Was this odd

little, dark-haired creature some nameless waif of the sea brought up on

the charity of the fisher-folk, he asked himself.

She stood aside for him to pass, drawing Cæsar out of his way. He

stopped a moment to pat the dog's head. And so standing, leaning upon

his crutches, he suddenly and keenly looked into the olive-tinted face

that the sunbonnet shadowed.

"Sorry for me, eh?" he said, and he uttered a laugh that was short and

very bitter.

She bent down over the dog.

"Yes, I am sorry," she said, almost under her breath.

Bending lower, she picked up something that lay on the ground between

them.

"You dropped this," she said.

He took it from her with a grim hardening of the mouth. It was the

letter he had received from his _fiancée_ a year ago. But his eyes never

left the face of the girl before him.

"I wonder--" he said abruptly, and stopped.

There was a pause. The girl waited, her hand nervously caressing the

Newfoundland's curls. She did not raise her eyes, but the lids fluttered

strangely.

"I wonder," Durant said, and his voice was suddenly kind, "if I might

ask you to do something for me."

She gave him a swift glance.

"Please do!" she murmured.

"This letter," he said, and he held it out to her.

"I should like it torn up--very small."

She took the envelope and hesitated. Durant was watching her. There was

unmistakable mastery in his eyes.

"Go on!" he said briefly.

And with a quick, startled movement, she obeyed. The letter fluttered

around them both in tiny fragments. Hugh Durant looked on with a hard,

impassive face, as he might have looked on at an execution.

The girl's hands were shaking. She glanced at him once or twice

uncertainly.

When the work of destruction was accomplished she made him a nervous

curtsey and turned to go.

Durant's face softened a second time into a smile.

"Thank you--Molly," he said, and he put his hand to his hat though she

was not looking at him.

And afterwards he stood among the fragments of his letter and watched

till both the girl and the dog were out of sight.

Twenty-four hours later Hugh Durant stood on the sandy shore and tapped

with his crutch on the large, flat stone that was set for a step on the

threshold of the little, wooden cottage behind the sand dunes.

He had reached the place with much difficulty, persevering with a

doggedness characteristic of him; and there were great drops on his

forehead though the afternoon was cloudy and cool.

A quick step sounded in answer to his summons, and in a moment his

hostess appeared at the open door.

"Why didn't you come straight in?" she said hospitably.

She was dressed in lilac print. Her sleeves were turned up to the

elbows, and she wore a big apron with a bib. He noticed that her feet

were no longer bare.

He took off his hat as he answered.

"Perhaps I might have been tempted to do so," he said, "if I had felt

equal to mounting the step without assistance."

"Oh!" She pulled down her sleeves hastily. "Will you let me help you?"

she suggested shyly.

Durant's eyes were slightly drawn with pain. Nevertheless they were very

friendly as he made reply.

"Do you think you can?" he said.

She took his hat from him with an anxious smile, and then the crutch

that he held towards her.

"Tell me exactly what to do!" she said in her sweet, low voice. "I am

very strong."

"If I may put my arm on your shoulder," Durant said, "I think it can be

managed. But say at once if it is too much for you!"

Her face was deeply flushed as she bent from the step to give him the

help he needed.

"Bear harder!" she said, as he leant his weight upon her. "Bear much

harder!"

There was an odd little quiver in her voice, but, slight as she was, she

supported him with sturdy strength.

The door opened straight into the tiny cottage parlour. A large wicker

chair, well cushioned, stood in readiness. As Durant lowered himself

into it, he saw that the girl's eyes were brimming with tears.

"I've hurt you!" he exclaimed.

"No, no!" she said, and turned quickly away. "You didn't bear nearly

hard enough."

He laughed a little, though his teeth were clenched.

"You're a very strong woman, Molly," he said.

"Oh, I am," she answered instantly. "Now shall you be all right while I

go to fetch tea?"

"Of course," he said. "Pray don't make a stranger of me!"

She disappeared into the room at the back of the cottage, and he was

left alone. The great dog came in with stately stride and lay down at

his feet.

Durant sat and looked about him. There was little to attract the eye in

the simple furnishing of the tiny room. There was a small bookcase in

one corner, but it was covered by a red curtain. Two old-fashioned Dutch

figures stood on the mantelpiece on each side of a cheap little clock

that seemed to tick at him almost resentfully. The walls were tinted

green and bore no pictures or decoration of any sort. There was a plain

white tablecloth on the table, and in the middle stood a handleless jug

filled with pink and white wild roses, freshly gathered. There was no

carpet. The floor was strewn with beach sand.

All these details Durant took in with keen interest. Nothing could have

exceeded the simplicity of this dwelling by the sea. There had obviously

been no attempt at artistic arrangement. Cleanliness and a neatness

almost severe were its only characteristics.

"I hope you like toasted scones, sir," said Molly's voice in the

doorway.

He looked round to see her come forward with the tea-tray.

"Nothing better," he said lightly, "particularly if you have made them

yourself."

She set down her tray and smiled at him. Her short, curling hair gave

her an almost elfish look.

"I've been so busy getting ready," she said childishly. "I've never had

a gentleman to tea before."

"That is a very great honour for me," said Durant.

Molly looked delighted.

"I think the honour is mine," she said in her shy voice. "I am just

going to fetch the wooden chair out of the kitchen."

She departed hastily as if embarrassed, and Durant smiled to himself. It

was wonderful how the oppression had been lifted from his spirit since

his meeting with this lonely dweller on the shore.

When Molly reappeared, he saw that she had assumed a dignity worthy of

the occasion. She sat down behind the brown teapot with a serious face.

He waited for her to lead the conversation, and the result was complete

silence for some seconds.

Then she said suddenly:

"Have you been sitting in the summer-house again?"

"No," said Durant.

"I am glad of that," said Molly.

"Why?" he asked.

She hesitated.

"Isn't it rather a lonely place?" she said.

He smiled faintly.

"You know I came here to be lonely, Molly," he said.

"Yes; you told me," said Molly, and he fancied that he heard her sigh.

"Are you never lonely?" he asked in a kindly tone.

"Often," she said. "Often."

She was pouring the tea as she spoke. Her head was slightly bent.

"And so you took pity on me?" said Durant.

She shook her head suddenly and vigorously.

"It wasn't that, sir," she said in a very low voice. "I--I

wanted--someone--to speak to."

"I see," said Durant gently. He added after a moment: "Do you know, I am

glad I chanced to be that someone."

She smiled at him over the teapot.

"You weren't pleased--at first," she said. "You were angry. I heard you

saying--"

"What?" said Durant.

He looked across at her and laughed naturally, spontaneously, for the

first time.

Molly had forgotten to be either embarrassed or dignified.

"I don't know what it was," she said; "I only know what it sounded

like."

"And that made you want to speak to me?" said Durant.

The brown face opposite to him looked impish. Yet it seemed to him that

there was sadness in her eyes.

"It didn't frighten me away," she said.

"It would need to be a very timid person to be frightened at me now,"

said Hugh Durant quietly.

She opened her eyes wide, and looked as if she were about to protest.

Then, changing her mind, she remained silent.

"Yes," he said. "Please say it!"

She shook her head without speaking.

But he persisted. Something in her silence aroused his curiosity.

"Am I really formidable, Molly?" he asked.

She rose to take his empty cup, and paused for a moment at his side,

looking down at him.

"I don't think you realise how strong you are," she said enigmatically.

He laughed rather drearily.

"I am gauging my weakness just at present," he said.

And then, glancing up, he saw quick pain in her eyes, and abruptly

turned the conversation.

Later, when he took his leave, he stood on her step and looked out to

the long, grey line of sea with a faint, dissatisfied frown on his face.

"You're not afraid--living here?" he asked her at the last moment.

"What is there to fear?" said Molly. "I have Cæsar, and there are other

cottages not far away."

"Yes, I know," he said. "But at night--when it's dark--"

A sudden glory shone in the girl's pure eyes.

"Oh, no, sir," she said. "I am not afraid."

And he departed, hobbling with difficulty up the long, sandy slope.

At the top he paused and looked out over the grey, unquiet sea. The

dissatisfaction on his face had given place to perplexity and a faint,

dawning wonder that was like the birth of Hope.

* * *

During the long summer days that followed, that strange friendship,

begun at the moment when Hugh Durant's life had touched its lowest point

of suffering and misery, ripened into a curiously close intimacy.

The girl was his only visitor--the only friend who penetrated behind the

barrier of loneliness that he had erected for himself. He had sought the

place sick at heart and utterly weary of life, desiring only to be left

alone. And yet, oddly enough, he did not resent the intrusion of this

outsider, who had openly told him that she was sorry.

She visited him occasionally at his hermitage, but more frequently she

would seek him out in his summer-house and take possession of him there

with a winning enchantment that he made no effort to resist. Sometimes

she brought him tea there; sometimes she persuaded him to return with

her to her cottage on the shore.

The embarrassment had wholly passed from her manner. She was eager and

ingenuous as a child. And yet there was something in her--a depth of

feeling, a concentration half-revealed--that made him aware of her

womanhood. She was never confidential with him, but yet he felt her

confidence in every word she uttered.

And the life that had ebbed so low turned in the man's veins and began

to flow with a steady, rising surge of which he was only vaguely

conscious.

Molly had become his keenest interest. He had ceased to think with

actual pain of the woman who had loved his strength, but had shrunk in

horror from his weakness. His bitterness had seemed to disperse with the

fragments of her torn letter. It was only a memory to him now--scarcely

even that.

"This place has done me a lot of good," he said to Molly one day. "I

have written to my friend Gregory Mountfort to come and see me. He is my

doctor."

She looked up at him quickly. She was sitting on her doorstep and the

August sunlight was on her hair. There were wonderful glints of gold

among the dark curls.

"Shall you go away, then?" she asked.

"I may--soon," he said.

She was silent, bending over some work that she had taken up. The man

looked down at the bowed head. The old look of perplexity, of wonder,

was in his eyes.

"What shall you do?" he said abruptly.

She made a startled movement, but did not raise her eyes.

"I shall just--go on," she said, in a voice that was hardly audible.

"Not here," he said. "You will be lonely."

There was an unusual note of mastery in his voice. She glanced up, and

met his eyes resolutely for a moment.

"I am used to loneliness," she said slowly.

"But you don't prefer it?" he said.

She bent her head again.

"Yes, I prefer it," she said.

There followed a pause. Then abruptly Durant asked a question.

"Are you still sorry for me?" he said.

"No," said Molly.

He bent slightly towards her. Movement had become much easier to him of

late.

"Molly," he said very gently, "that is the kindest thing you have ever

said."

She laughed in a queer, shaky note over her work.

He bent nearer.

"You have done a tremendous lot for me," he said, speaking very softly.

"I wonder if I dare ask of you--one thing more?"

She did not answer. He put his hand on her shoulder.

"Molly," he said, "will you marry me?"

"No," said Molly under her breath.

"Ah!" he said. "Forgive me for asking!"

She looked up at him then with that in her eyes which he could not

understand.

"Mr. Durant," she said, steadily, "I thank you very much, and it

isn't--that. But I can only be your friend."

"Never anything more, Molly?" he said, and he smiled at her, very

gently, very kindly, but without tenderness.

"No, sir," Molly said in the same steady tone. "Never anything more."

* * *

"Well," said Gregory Mountfort on the following day, "this place has

done wonders for you, Hugh. You're a different man."

"I believe I am," said Hugh.

He spoke with his eyes upon a bouquet of poppies and corn that had been

left at his door without any message early that morning. It was eloquent

to him of a friendship that did not mean to be lightly extinguished, but

his heart was heavy notwithstanding. He had begun to desire something

greater than friendship.

"Physically," said Mountfort, "you are stronger than I ever expected to

see you again. You don't suffer much pain now, do you?"

"No, not much," said Durant.

He turned to stare out of his open window at the sunlit sea. His eyes

were full of weariness.

"Look here," the doctor said. "You're not an invalid any longer. I

should leave this place if I were you. Go abroad! Go round the world!

Don't stagnate any longer! It isn't worthy of you."

Hugh Durant shook his head.

"It's no good trying to float a stranded hulk, dear fellow," he said.

"Don't attempt it! I am better off where I am."

"You ought to get married," his friend returned brusquely. "You weren't

created for the lonely life."

"I shall never marry," Durant said quietly.

And Mountfort was disappointed. He wondered if he were still vexing his

soul over the irrevocable.

He had motored down from town, and in the afternoon he carried his

patient off for a thirty-mile spin. They went through the depths of the

country, through tiny villages hidden among the hills, through long

stretches of pine woods, over heather-covered uplands. But though it did

him good, Durant was conscious of keenest pleasure when, returning, they

ran into view of the sea. He felt that the shore and the sand-dunes were

his own peculiar heritage.

Mountfort steered for the village scattered over the top of the cliff.

Durant had persuaded him to remain for the night, and he had to send a

telegram. They puffed up a steep, winding hill to the post-office, and

the doctor got out.

"Back in thirty seconds," he said, as he walked away.

Hugh was in no hurry. It was a wonderfully calm evening. The sea looked

like a sheet of silver, motionless, silent, immense. The tide was very

low. The sand-dunes looked mere hummocks from that great height. Myriads

of martens were circling about the edge of the cliff, which was

protected by a crazy wooden railing. He sat and watched them without

much interest. He was thinking chiefly of that one cottage on the shore

a hundred feet below, which he knew so well.

He wondered if Molly had been to the summer-house to look for him; and

then, chancing to glance up, he caught sight of her coming towards him

from the roadside. At the same instant something jerked in the motor,

and it began to move. It was facing up the hill, and the angle was a

steep one. Very slowly at first the wheels revolved, and the car moved

straight backwards as if pushed by an unseen hand.

Hugh realised the danger in a moment. The road curved sharply not a

dozen yards behind him, and at that curve was the sheer precipice of the

cliff. He was powerless to apply the brakes, and he could not even throw

himself out. The sudden consciousness of this ran through him piercing

as a sword-blade.

In every pulse of his being he felt the intense, the paralysing horror

of violent death. For the first awful moment he could not even call for

help. The sensation of falling headlong backwards gripped his throat

and choked his utterance.

He made a wild, ineffectual movement with his hands. And then he heard a

loud cry. A woman's figure flashed towards him. She seemed to swoop as

the martens swooped along the face of the cliff. The car was running

smoothly towards that awful edge. He felt that it was very

near--horribly near; but he could not turn to look.

Even as the thought darted through his brain he saw Molly, wide-eyed,

frenzied, clinging to the side of the car. She was in the act of

springing on to it, and that knowledge loosened his tongue.

He yelled to her hoarsely to keep away. He even tried to thrust her

hands off the woodwork. But she withstood him fiercely, with a strength

that agonised and overcame. In a second she was on the step, where she

swayed perilously, then fell forward on her hands and knees at his feet.

The car continued to run back. There came a sudden jerk, a crash of

rending wood, a frightful pause. The railing had splintered. They were

on the brink. Hugh bent and tried to take her in his arms.

He was strung to meet that awful plunge; he was face to face with death;

but--was it by some miracle?--the car was stayed. There, on the very

edge of destruction, with not an inch to spare, it stood suddenly

motionless, as if checked by some mysterious, unseen force.

As complete understanding returned to him, Hugh saw that the woman at

his feet had thrown herself upon the foot brake and was holding it

pressed down with both her rigid hands.

* * *

"Yes; but who taught her where to look for the brake?" said Mountfort

two hours later.

The excitement was over, but the subject fascinated Mountfort. The girl

had sprung away and disappeared down one of the cliff paths directly

Hugh had been extricated from danger. Mountfort was curious about her,

but Hugh was uncommunicative. He had no answer ready to Mountfort's

question. He scarcely seemed to hear it.

Barely a minute after its utterance he reached for his crutches and got

upon his feet.

"I am going down to the shore," he said. "I shan't sleep otherwise.

You'll excuse me, old fellow?"

Mountfort looked at him and nodded. He was very intimate with Hugh.

"Don't mind me!" he said.

And Hugh went out alone in the summer dusk.

The night was almost ghostly in its stillness. He went down the winding

path that he knew so well without a halt. Far away the light of a

steamer travelled over the quiet water. The sea murmured drowsily as the

tide rose. It was not quite dark.

Outside her cottage-door he stopped and tapped upon the stone. The door

stood open, and as he waited he heard a clear, low whistle behind him on

the dunes. She was coming towards him, the great dog Cæsar bounding by

her side. As she drew near he noticed again how slight she was, and

marvelled at her strength.

She reached him in silence. The light was very dim. He put out his hand

to her, but somehow he could not utter a word.

"I knew it must be you," she said. "I--I was waiting for you."

She put her hand into his; but still the man stood mute. No words would

come to him.

She looked at him uncertainly, almost nervously. Then--

"What is it?" she asked, under her breath.

He spoke at last but not to utter the words she expected.

"I haven't come to say, 'Thank you,' Molly," he said. "I have come to

ask why."

"Oh!" said Molly.

She was startled, confused, almost scared, by the mastery that underlay

the gentleness of his tone. He kept her hand in his, standing there,

facing her in the dimness; and, cripple as he was, she knew him for a

strong man.

"I have come to ask," he said--"and I mean to know--why yesterday you

refused to marry me."

She made a quick movement. His words astounded her. She felt inclined to

run away. But he kept her prisoner.

"Don't be afraid of me, Molly!" he said half sadly. "You had a reason.

What was it."

She bit her lip. Her eyes were full of sudden tears.

"Tell me!" he said.

And she answered, as if he compelled her:

"It was because--because you don't love me," she said with difficulty.

She felt his hand tighten upon hers.

"Ah!" he said. "And that was--the only reason?"

Molly was trembling.

"It was the only reason that mattered," she said in a choked voice.

He leant towards her in the dusk.

"Molly," he said. "Molly, I worship you!"

She heard the deep quiver in his voice, and it thrilled her from head to

foot. She began to sob, and he drew her towards him.

"Wait!" she said, "Oh, wait! Come inside, and I'll tell you!"

He went in with her, leaning on her shoulder.

"Sit down!" whispered Molly. "I'm going to tell you something."

"Don't cry!" he said gently. "It may be something I know already."

"Oh, no, it isn't!" she said with conviction.

She stood before him in the twilight, her hands clasped tightly

together.

"Do you remember a girl called Mary Fielding?" she said, with a piteous

effort to control her voice. "She used to be the friend of--of--your

_fiancée_, Lady Maud Belville, long ago, before you had your accident."

He nodded gravely.

"I remember her," he said.

"I don't suppose you ever noticed her much," the girl continued shakily.

"She was uninteresting, and always in the background."

"I should know her anywhere," said Durant with confidence.

"No, no," she protested. "I'm sure you wouldn't. You--you never gave her

a second thought, though she--was foolish enough--idiotic enough--to--to

care whether you did or not."

"Was she?" he said softly. "Was she? And was that why she came to live

among the sand-dunes and cut off her hair and wore print

dresses--and--and made life taste sweet to me again?"

"Ah! You know now!" she said, with a sound that was like laughter

through tears.

He held out his arms to her.

"My darling," he said. "I knew on the first day I saw you here."

She knelt down beside him with a quick, impulsive movement.

"You--knew!" she gasped incredulously.

He smiled at her with great tenderness.

"I knew," he said, "and I wondered--how I wondered--what you had come

for!"

"I only came to be a friend," she broke in hastily, "to--to try to help

you through your bad time."

"I guessed it must be that," he said softly over her bowed head, "when

you said 'No' to me yesterday."

"But you didn't tell me you cared," protested Molly.

"No," he said. "I was so horribly afraid that you might take me out of

pity, Molly."

"And I--I wasn't going to be second fiddle!" said Molly waywardly.

She resisted him a little as he turned her face upwards, but he had his

way. There was a quiver of laughter in his voice when he spoke again.

"You could never be that," he said. "You were made to lead the

orchestra. Still, tell me why you did it, darling! Make me understand!"

And Molly yielded at length with her arms about his neck.

"I loved you!" she said passionately. "I loved you!"

* * * * *

THE WOMAN OF HIS DREAM

PROLOGUE

It was growing very dark. The decks gleamed wet in the light of the

swinging lamps. The wind howled across the sea like a monster in

torment. It would be a fearful night.

The man who stood clutching at the slanting deck rail was drenched from

head to foot, but, despite this fact, he had no thought of going below.

Reginald Carey had been for many voyages on many seas, but the

fascination of a storm in the bay attracted him irresistibly still. He

had no sympathy with the uneasy crowd in the saloons. He even exulted in

the wild tumult of wind and sea and blinding rain. He was as one

spellbound in the grip of the tempest.

Curt and dry of speech, abrupt at times almost to rudeness, he was a man

of whom most people stood in awe, and with whom very few were on terms

of intimacy. Yet in the world of men he had made his mark.

By camp-fires and on the march, in prison and in hospital, Carey the

journalist had become a byword for coolness and endurance. It was

Carey, caustic of humour, uncompromising of attitude, who sauntered

through a hail of bullets to fill a wounded man's water-tin; Carey who

pushed his way among stampeding mules to rescue sorely needed medical

stores; Carey who had limped beside footsore, jaded men, and whistled

them out of their depression.

There were two fingers missing from Carey's left hand, and the limp had

become permanent when he sailed home from South Africa at the end of the

war, but he was the personal friend of half the army though there was

not a single man who could boast that he knew him thoroughly well. For

none knew exactly what this man, who scoffed so freely at disaster,

carried in his heart.

As he leaned on the rail of the tossing vessel, gazing steadfastly into

the howling darkness, his face was as serene as if he sailed a summer

sea. The great waves that dashed their foam over him as he stood were

powerless to raise fear in his soul! He stood as one apart--a lonely

watcher whom no danger could appal.

It was growing late, but he took no count of time. More than once he had

been hoarsely advised to go below, but he would not go. He believed

himself to be the only passenger on deck, and he clung to his solitude.

The bare thought of the stuffy saloon was abhorrent to him. He marvelled

that no one else had developed the same distaste.

And with the thought he turned, breathless from the buffeting spray of a

mighty wave, to find a woman standing near him on the swirling deck.

She stood poised lightly as a bird prepared for flight, her head bare,

her face upturned to the storm. Her hands were fast gripped upon the

rail, and the gleam of a gold ring caught Carey's eye. He saw that she

was unconscious of his presence. The shifting, uncertain light had not

revealed him. For a space he stood watching her, unperceived, wondering

at the courage that upheld her. Her hair had blown loose in the wind,

and lay in a black mass upon her neck. He could not see her features,

but her bearing was superb.

And then at length, as if his quiet scrutiny had somehow touched in her

a responsive chord, she turned her head and saw him. Their eyes met, and

a curious thrill ran tingling through the man's veins. He had never seen

this woman before, but as she looked at him, with wonderful dark eyes

that seemed to hold a passionate exultation in their depths, he suddenly

felt as if he had known her all his life. They were comrades. It was no

hysterical panic that had driven her up from below. Like himself, she

had been drawn by the magic of the storm.

Impulsively, almost involuntarily, he moved a pace towards her and

stretched out a hand along the dripping rail.

She gave him her own instantly and confidently, responding to his

action with absolute simplicity. It was a gesture of sympathy, of

fellowship. She bore herself as a queen, but she did not condescend to

him.

No words passed between them. Both realised the impossibility of speech

in that shrieking tempest. Moreover, there was no need for speech.

Earth's petty conventions had fallen away from them. They were as

children standing hand in hand on the edge of the unknown, hearing the

same thunderous music, bound by the same magic spell.

Carey wondered later how long a time elapsed whilst they stood thus,

intently watching. It might have been for merely a few minutes, or it

might have been for the greater part of an hour. He never knew.

The spell broke at length suddenly and terribly, with a grinding crash

that flung them both sideways upon the slippery deck. He went down,

still clinging instinctively to the rail, and the next instant, by its

aid, he was on his feet again, dragging his companion up with him.

There followed a pause--a shuddering, expectant pause--while wind and

sea raged all around them like beasts of prey. And through it there came

the sound of the engine throbbing impotently spasmodically, like the

heart of a dying man. Quite suddenly it ceased, and there was a

frightful uproar of escaping steam. The deck on which they stood began

to tilt slowly upwards.

Carey knew what had happened. They had struck a rock in that awful

darkness, and they were going down with frightful rapidity into the

seething, storm-tossed water.

He had never been shipwrecked before, but, as by instinct, he realised

the madness of remaining where he was. A coil of rope lay almost at his

feet, and he stooped and seized it. There had come a brief lull in the

storm, but he knew that there was not a moment to spare. Still

supporting his companion, he began to bind the rope around them both.

She looked up at him quickly, and he saw her lips move in protest. She

even set her hands against his breast, as if to resist him. But he

overcame her almost savagely. It was no moment for argument.

The slope of the deck was becoming every instant more acute. The wind

was racing back across the sea. Above them--very far above them, it

seemed--there was a confusion of figures, but the tumult of wind and

waves drowned all other sound. Carey's feet began to slip on that awful

slant. They were sinking rapidly, rapidly.

He knotted the rope and gathered himself together. An instant he hung on

the rail, breathing deeply. Then with a jerk he relaxed his grip and

leaped blindly into the howling darkness, hurling himself and the woman

with him far into the raging sea.

* * *

It was suffocatingly hot. Carey raised his arms with a desperate

movement. He felt as if he were swimming in hot vapour. And he had been

swimming for a long time, too. He was deadly tired. A light flashed in

his eyes, and very far above him--like an object viewed through the

small end of a telescope--he saw a face. Vaguely he heard a voice

speaking, but what it said was beyond his comprehension. It seemed to

utter unintelligible things. For a while he laboured to understand, then

the effort became too much for him. The light faded from his brain.

Later--much later, it seemed--he awoke to full consciousness, to find

himself in a Breton fisherman's cottage, watched over by a kindly little

French doctor who tended him as though he had been his brother.

"_Monsieur_ is better, but much better," he was cheerily assured. "And

for _madame_ his wife he need have no inquietude. She is safe and well,

and only concerns herself for _monsieur_."

This was reassuring, and Carey accepted it without comment or inquiry.

He knew that there was a misunderstanding somewhere, but he was still

too exhausted to trouble himself about so slight a matter. He thanked

his kindly informant, and again he slept.

Two days later his interest in life revived. He began to ask questions,

and received from the doctor a full account of what had occurred.

He had been washed ashore, he was told--he and _madame_ his

wife--lashed fast together. The ship had been wrecked within half a mile

of the land. But the seas had been terrific. There had not been many

survivors.

Carey digested the news in silence. He had had no friends on board,

having embarked only at Gibraltar.

At length he looked up with a faint smile at his faithful attendant.

"And where is--_madame_?" he asked.

The little doctor hesitated, and spread out his hands deprecatingly.

"Oh, _monsieur_, I regret--I much regret--to have to inform you that she

is already departed for Paris. Her solicitude for you was great, was

pathetic. The first words she speak were: 'My husband, do not let him

know!' as though she feared that you would be distressed for her. And

then she recover quick, quick, and say that she must go--that _monsieur_

when he know, will understand. And so she depart early in the morning of

yesterday while _monsieur_ is still asleep."

He was watching Carey with obvious anxiety as he ended, but the

Englishman's face expressed nothing but a somewhat elaborate

indifference.

"I see," he said, and relapsed into silence.

He made no further reference to the matter, and the doctor discreetly

abstained from asking questions. He presently showed him an English

paper which contained the information that Mr. and Mrs. Carey were among

the rescued.

"That," he remarked, "will alleviate the anxiety of your friends."

To which Carey responded, with a curt laugh: "No one knew that we were

on board."

He left for Paris on the following day, allowing the doctor to infer

that he was on his way to join his wife.

I

It was growing dark in the empty class-room, but there was nothing left

to do, and the French mistress, sitting alone at her high desk, made no

move to turn on the light. All the lesson books were packed away out of

sight. There was not so much as a stray pencil trespassing upon that

desert of orderliness. Only the waste-paper basket, standing behind

_Mademoiselle_ Trèves's chair, gave evidence of the tempest of energy

that had preceded this empty calm in the midst of which she sat alone.

It was crammed to overflowing with torn exercise books, and all manner

of schoolgirls' rubbish, and now and then it creaked eerily in the

desolate silence as though at the touch of an invisible hand.

It was very cold in the great room, for the fire had gone out long ago.

There was no one left to enjoy it except _mademoiselle_, who apparently

did not count. For most of the pupils had departed in the morning, and

those who were left were collected in the great hall speeding one after

another upon their homeward way. All day the wheels of cabs had crunched

the gravel below the class-room window, but they were not so audible

now, for the ground was thickly covered with snow, which had been

drearily falling throughout the afternoon.

It lay piled upon the window-sill, casting a ghostly light into the

darkening room, vaguely outlining the slender figure that sat so still

before the high desk.

Another cab-load of laughing girls was just passing out at the gate.

There could not be many left. The darkness increased, and _mademoiselle_

drew a quick breath and shivered. She wished the departures were all

over.

There came a light step in the passage, and a daring whistle, which

broke off short as a hand impetuously opened the class-room door.

"Why, _mademoiselle!_" cried a fresh young voice. "Why, _chérie!_" Warm

arms encircled the lonely figure, and eager lips pressed the cold face.

"Oh, _chérie_, don't grizzle!" besought the newcomer. "Why, I've never

known you do such a thing before. Have you been here all this time? I've

been looking for you all over the place. I couldn't leave without one

more good-bye. And see here, _chérie_, you must--you must--come to my

birthday-party on New Year's Eve. If you won't come and stay with me,

which I do think you might, you must come down for that one night. It's

no distance, you know. And it's only a children's show. There won't be

any grown-ups except my cousin Reggie, who is the sweetest man in the

world, and Mummy's Admiral who comes next. Say you will, _chérie_, for I

shall be sixteen--just think of it!--and I do want you to be there. You

will, won't you? Come, promise!"

It was hard to refuse this petitioner, so warmly fascinating was she.

_Mademoiselle_, who, it was well known, never accepted any invitations,

hesitated for the first time--and was lost.

"If I came just for that one evening then, Gwen, you would not press me

to stay longer?"

"Bless you, no!" declared Gwen. "I'll drive you to the station myself in

Mummy's car to catch the first train next morning, if you'll come. And

I'll make Reggie come too. You'll just love Reggie, _chérie_. He's my

exact ideal of what a man ought to be--the best friend I have, next to

you. Well, it's a bargain then, isn't it? You'll come and help dance

with the kids--you promise? That's my own sweet _chérie_! And now you

mustn't grizzle here in the dark any longer. I believe my cab is at the

door. Come down and see me off, won't you?"

Yet again she was irresistible. They went out together, hand in hand,

happy child and lonely woman, and the door of the deserted class-room

banged with a desolate echoing behind them.

II

It was ten days later, on a foggy evening, in the end of the year, that

Reginald Carey alighted at a small wayside station, and grimly prepared

himself for a five-mile trudge through dark and muddy lanes to his

destination.

The only conveyance in the station yard was a private motor car, and his

first glance at this convinced him that it was not there to await him.

He paused under the lamp outside to turn up his collar, and, as he did

so, a man of gigantic breadth and stature, wearing goggles, came out of

the station behind him and strode past. He glanced at Carey casually as

he went by, looked again, then suddenly stopped and peered at him.

"Great Scotland!" he exclaimed abruptly. "I know you--or ought to.

You're the little newspaper chap who saved my life at Magersfontein.

Thought there was something familiar about you the moment I saw you. You

remember me, eh?"

He turned back his goggles impetuously, and showed Carey his face.

Yes; Carey remembered him very well indeed, though he was not sure that

the acquaintance was one he desired to improve. He took the proffered

hand with a certain reserve.

"Yes; I remember you. I don't think I ever heard your name, but that's a

detail. You came out of it all right, then?"

"Oh, yes; more or less. Nothing ever hurts me." The big man's laugh had

in it a touch of bitterness. "Where are you bound for? Come along with

me in the car; I'll take you where you want to go." He seized Carey by

the shoulder, impelling him with boisterous cordiality towards the

vehicle. "Jump in, my friend. My name is Coningsby--Major Coningsby, of

Crooklands Manor--mad Coningsby I'm called about here, because I happen

to ride straighter to hounds than most of 'em. A bit of a compliment,

eh? But they're a shocking set of muffs in these parts. You don't live

here?"

"No; I am down on a visit to my cousin, Lady Emberdale. She lives at

Crooklands Mead. I've come down a day sooner than I was expected, and

the train was two hours late. I'm Reginald Carey." He stopped before the

step of the car. "It's very good of you, but I won't take you out of

your way on such a beastly night. I can quite well walk."

"Nonsense, man! It's no distance, and it isn't out of the way. I've only

just motored down to get an evening paper. You're just in time to dine

with me. I'm all alone, and confoundedly glad to see you. I know Lady

Emberdale well. Come, jump in!"

Thus urged, Carey yielded, not over-willingly, and took his seat in the

car.

Directly they started, he knew the reason for his companion's pseudonym,

for they whizzed out of the yard at a speed which must have disquieted

the stoutest nerves.

It was the maddest ride he had ever experienced, and he wondered by what

instinct Major Coningsby kept a straight course through the darkness.

Their own lamps provided the only light there was, and when they

presently turned sharply at right angles he gathered himself together

instinctively in preparation for a smash.

But nothing happened. They tore on a little farther in darkness,

travelling along a private road; and then the lights of a house pierced

the gloom.

Coningsby brought his car to a standstill.

"Tumble out! The front door is straight ahead. My man will let you in

and look after you. Excuse me a moment while I take the car round!"

He was gone with the words, leaving Carey to ascend a flight of steps to

the hall door. It opened at once to admit him, and he found himself in a

great hall dimly illumined by firelight. A servant helped him to divest

himself of his overcoat, and silently led the way.

The room he entered was furnished as a library. He glanced round it as

he stood on the hearth-rug, awaiting his host, and was chiefly struck by

the general atmosphere of dreariness that pervaded it. Its sombre oak

furniture seemed to absorb instead of reflecting the light. There was a

large oil-painting above the fireplace, and after a few seconds he

turned his head and saw it. It was the portrait of a woman.

Young, beautiful, queenly, the painted face looked down into his own,

and the man's heart gave a sudden, curious throb that was half rapture

and half pain. In a moment the room he had just entered, with all the

circumstances that had taken him there, was blotted from his brain. He

was standing once more on the rocking deck of a steamer, in a tempest of

wind and rain and furious sea, facing the storm, exultant, with a

woman's hand fast gripped in his.

"Are you looking at that picture?" said a voice. "It's my wife--dead

now--lost--five years ago--at sea!"

Carey wheeled sharply at the jerky utterance. Coningsby was standing by

his side. He was staring upwards at the portrait, a strange gleam

darting in his eyes--a gleam not wholly sane.

"It doesn't do her justice," he went on in the same abrupt, headlong

fashion. "But it's better than nothing. She was the only woman who ever

satisfied me. Her loss damaged me badly. I've never been the same since.

There've been others, of course, but she was always first--an easy

first. I shall want her--I shall go on wanting her--till I'm in my

grave." His voice was suddenly husky, as the voice of a man in pain.

"It's like a fiery thirst," he said. "I try to quench it--Heaven knows I

try! But it comes back--it comes back."

He swung round on his heel and went to the table. There followed the

clink of glasses, but Carey did not turn. His eyes had left the picture,

and were fixed, stern and unwinking, upon the fire that glowed at his

feet.

Again he seemed to feel the clasp of a woman's hand, free and confiding,

within his own. Again his heart stirred responsively in the quick warmth

of a woman's perfect sympathy.

And he knew that into his keeping had been given the secret of that

woman's existence. The five years' mystery was solved at last. He

understood, and, understanding, he kept silent faith with her.

III

It was two hours later that Carey presented himself at his cousin's

house. He entered unobtrusively, as his manner was, knowing himself to

be a welcome guest.

The first person to greet him was Gwen, who, accompanied by a college

youth of twenty, was roasting chestnuts in front of the hall fire. She

sprang up at the sound of his voice, and, flushed and eager, rushed to

meet him.

"Why, Reggie, my dear old boy, who would have thought of seeing you

to-night? Come right in! Aren't you very cold? How did you get here?

Have you dined? This is Charlie Rivers, the Admiral's son. Charlie, you

have heard me speak of my cousin, Mr. Carey."

Charlie had, several times over, and said so, with a grin, as he made

room for Carey in front of the blaze, taking care to keep himself next

to Gwen.

Carey considerately fell in with the manoeuvre and, greetings over, they

huddled sociably together over the fire, and fell to discussing the

birthday party which was to be held on the morrow.

Gwen was a curious blend of excitement and common sense. She had been

busily preparing all day for the coming festivity.

"There's one visitor I want you both to be very good to," she said, "and

see that she takes plenty of refreshments, whether she wants them or

not."

Young Rivers grimaced at Carey.

"You can have my share of this unattractive female," he said generously.

"It's Gwen's schoolmistress, and I'll bet she's as heavy as a sack of

coals."

"I can't dance. I'm lame," said Carey. "But I don't mind sitting out in

the refreshment room to please Gwen. How old is she, Gwen? About twice

my age?"

Gwen did not stop to calculate.

"Older than that, I should think. Her hair is quite grey, and she's very

sad and quiet. I am sure she has had a lot of trouble. Very likely she

won't want to dance either, so there will be a pair of you. Her name is

_Mademoiselle_ Trèves, but she is only half French, and speaks English

better than I do. She never goes anywhere, so I do want her to have a

good time. You will be kind to her, won't you? I'll introduce you to her

as early as possible. We are all going to wear masks till midnight."

"Stupid things--masks," said Charlie very decidedly. "Don't like 'em."

Gwen turned upon him.

"It's much the fairest way. If we didn't wear them, the pretty girls

would get all the best dances."

"Oh, well, you wouldn't be left out, anyway," he assured her.

At which compliment Gwen sniffed contemptuously, and pointedly requested

Carey to give her a few minutes in strict privacy before they parted for

the night.

He saw that she meant it; and when Charlie had reluctantly taken himself

off he went with his young cousin to her own little sitting-room

upstairs before seeking Lady Emberdale in the drawing-room.

Gwen could scarcely wait till the door was closed before she began to

lay her troubles before him.

"It's Mummy!" she told him very seriously. "You can't think how sick and

disgusted I am. Sit down, Reggie, and I'll tell you all about it! Being

Mummy's trustee, perhaps you will have some influence over her. I have

none. She thinks I'm prejudiced. And I'm not, Reggie. There's nothing to

make me so except that Charlie is a nice boy, and the Admiral a perfect

darling."

She paused for breath, and Carey patiently waited for further

enlightenment. It came.

"Of course," she said, seating herself on the arm of his chair, "I've

always known that Mummy would marry again some day or other. She's so

young and pretty; and I haven't minded the idea a bit. Poor, dear Dad

was always such a very, very old man! But I do want her to marry

someone nice now the time has come. All through the summer holidays I

felt sure it was going to be the Admiral, and I was so pleased about it.

Charlie and I used to make bets about its coming off before Christmas.

He was ever so pleased, too, and we'd settled to join together for the

wedding present so as to get something decent. It was all going to be so

jolly. And now," with a great sigh, "everything's spoilt.

There's--there's someone else."

"Good heavens!" said Carey. "Who?"

He had been suppressing a laugh during the greater part of Gwen's

confidence, but this last announcement startled him into sobriety. A

very faint misgiving stirred in his soul. What if--but no; it was

preposterous. He thrust it from him.

Gwen slid a loving arm about his neck.

"I like telling you things, Reggie. You always understand, and they

never worry me so much afterwards. For I am--horribly worried. Mummy met

him in the hunting field. He has come to live quite near us--oh, such a

brute he is, loud and coarse and bullying! He rode a horse to death only

a few weeks ago. They say he's mad, and I'm nearly sure he drinks as

well. And he and Mummy have chummed up. They are as thick as thieves,

and he's always coming to the house, dropping in at odd hours. The poor,

dear Admiral hasn't a chance. He's much too gentlemanly to elbow his way

in like--like this horrid Major Coningsby. Oh, Reggie, do you think you

can do anything to stop it? I don't want her to marry him, neither does

Charlie. My, Reggie, what's the matter? You don't know him, do you? You

don't know anything bad about him?"

Carey was on his feet, pacing slowly to and fro. One hand--the maimed

left hand--was thrust away out of sight, as his habit was in a woman's

presence. The other was clenched hard at his side.

He did not at once answer Gwen's agitated questioning. She sat and

watched him in some anxiety, wondering at the stern perplexity with

which he reviewed the problem.

Suddenly he stopped in front of her.

"Yes; I know the man," he said. "I knew him years ago in South Africa,

and I met him again to-night. I must think this matter over, and

consider it carefully. You are quite sure of what you say--quite sure he

is attracted by your mother?"

Gwen nodded.

"Oh, there's no doubt of that. He treats her already as if she were his

property. You won't tell her I told you, Reggie? It will simply

precipitate matters if you do."

"No; I shan't tell her. I never argue with women." Carey spoke almost

savagely. He was staring at something that Gwen could not see.

"Do you think you will be able to stop it?" she asked him, with a

slightly nervous hesitation.

His eyes came back to her. He seemed to consider her for a moment. Then,

seeing that she was really troubled, he spoke with sudden kindliness:

"I think so, yes. But never mind how! Leave it to me and put it out of

your head as much as possible! I quite agree with you that it is an

arrangement that wouldn't do at all. Why on earth couldn't your friend

the Admiral speak before?"

"I wish he had," said Gwen, from her heart. "And I believe he does, too,

now. But men are so idiotic, Reggie. They always miss their

opportunities."

"Think so?" said Carey. "Some men never have any, it seems to me."

And he left her wondering at the bitterness of his speech.

IV

The winter sunlight was streaming into Major Coningsby's gloomy library

when Carey again stood within it. The Major was out riding, he had been

told, but he was expected back ere long; and he had decided to wait for

him.

And so he stood waiting before the portrait; and closely, critically, he

studied it by the morning light.

It was the face which for five years now he had carried graven on his

heart. She was the one woman to him--the woman of his dream. Throughout

his wanderings he had cherished the memory of her--a secret and

priceless possession to which he clung day and night, waking and

sleeping. He had made no effort to find her during those years, but

silently, almost in spite of himself, he had kept her in his heart, had

called her to him in his dreams, yearning to her across the

ever-widening gulf, hungering dumbly for the voice he had never heard.

He knew that he was no favourite with women. All his life his reserve

had been a barrier that none had ever sought to pass till this

woman--the woman who should have been his fate--had been drifted to him

through life's stress and tumult and had laid her hand with perfect

confidence in his. And now it was laid upon him to betray that

confidence. He no longer had the right to keep her secret. He had

protected her once, and it had been as a hidden, sacred bond invisibly

linking them together. But it could do so no longer. The time had come

to wrest that precious link apart.

Sharply he turned from the picture. The dark eyes tortured him. They

seemed to be pleading with him, entreating him. There came a sudden

clatter without, the tramp of heavy feet, the jingle of spurs. The door

was flung noisily back, and Major Coningsby strode in.

"Hullo! Very good of you to look me up so soon. Sorry I wasn't in to

receive you. Haven't you had a drink yet?"

He tossed his riding-whip down upon the table, and busied himself with

the glasses.

Carey drew near; his face was stern.

"I have something to say to you," he said, "before we drink, if you have

no objection."

His voice was quiet and very even, but Coningsby looked up with a quick

frown.

"Confound you, Carey! What are you pulling a long face about this time

of the morning? Better have a drink; it'll make you feel more sociable."

He spoke with sharp irritation. The hand that held the spirit-decanter

was not over-steady. Carey watched him--coldly critical.

"That portrait over the mantelpiece," he said; "your wife, I think you

told me?"

Coningsby swore a deep oath.

"I may have told you so. I don't often mention the subject. She is

dead."

"I beg your pardon; I am forced to mention it." Carey's tone was

deliberate, emotionless, hard. "That lady--the original of that

portrait--is still alive, to the best of my belief. At least, she was

not lost at sea on the occasion of the wreck of the _Denver Castle_ five

years ago."

"What?" said Coningsby. He turned suddenly white--white to the lips, and

set down the decanter he was still holding as if he had been struck

powerless. "What?" he said again, with starting eyes upon Carey's face.

"I think you understood me," Carey returned coldly. "I have told you

because, upon consideration, it seemed to me you ought to know."

The thing was done and past recall, but deep in his heart there lurked a

savage resentment against this man who had forced him to break his

silence. He felt no sympathy with him; he only knew disgust.

Coningsby moved suddenly with a frantic oath, and gripped him by the

shoulder. The blood was coming back to his face in livid patches; his

eyes were terrible.

"Go on!" he said thickly. "Out with it! Tell me all you know!"

He towered over Carey. There was violence in his grip, but Carey did

not seem to notice. He faced the giant with absolute composure.

"I can tell you no more," he said. "I knew she was saved, because I was

saved with her. But she left Brittany while I was still too ill to

move."

"You must know more than that!" shouted Coningsby, losing all control of

himself, and shaking his informant furiously by the shoulder. "If she

was saved, how did she come to be reported missing?"

For a single instant Carey hesitated; then, with steady eyes upon the

bloated face above him, he made quiet reply:

"Her name was among the missing by her own contrivance. Doubtless she

had her reasons."

Coningsby's face suddenly changed: his eyes shone red.

"You helped her!" he snarled, and lifted a clenched fist.

Carey's maimed hand came quietly into view, and closed upon the man's

wrist.

"It is not my custom," he coldly said, "to refuse help to a woman."

"Confound you!" stormed Coningsby. "Where is she now? Where? Where?"

There fell a sudden pause. Carey's eyes were like steel; his grasp never

slackened.

"If I knew," he said deliberately, at length, "I should not tell you!

You are not fit for the society of any good woman."

The words fell keen as a whip-lash, and as pitiless. Coningsby glared

into his face like a goaded bull; his look was murderous. And then by

some chance his eyes fell upon the hand that gripped his wrist. He

looked at it closely, attentively, for a few seconds, and finally set

Carey free.

"You may thank that," he said more quietly, "for getting you out of the

hottest corner you were ever in. I didn't notice it yesterday, though I

remember now that you were wounded. So you parted with half your hand to

drag me out of that hell, did you? It was a rank, bad investment on your

part."

He flung away abruptly, and helped himself to some brandy. A

considerable pause ensued before he spoke again.

"Egad!" he said then, with a harsh laugh, "it's a deuced ingenious lie,

this of yours. I suppose you and that imp of mischief, Gwen, hatched it

up between you? I saw she had got her thinking-cap on yesterday. I am

not considered good enough for her lady mother. But, mark you, I'm going

to have her for all that! It isn't good for man to live alone, and I

have taken a fancy to Evelyn Emberdale."

"You don't believe me?" Carey asked.

Somehow, though he had been prepared for bluster and even violence, he

had not expected incredulity.

Coningsby filled and emptied his glass a second time before he answered.

"No," he said then, with sudden savagery: "I don't believe you! You had

better get out of my house at once, or--I warn you--I may break every

bone in your blackguardly body yet!" He turned on Carey, leaping madness

in his eyes.

But Carey stood like a rock. "You know the truth," he said quietly.

Coningsby broke into another wild laugh, and pointed up at the picture

above his head.

"I shall know it," he declared, "when the sea gives up its dead. Till

that day I am free to console myself in my own way, and no one shall

stop me."

"You are not free," Carey said. Very steadily he faced the man, very

distinctly he spoke. "And, however you console yourself, it will not be

with my cousin Lady Emberdale."

Coningsby turned back to the table to fill his glass again. He spilt the

spirit over the cloth as he did it.

"Man alive," he gibed, "do you think she will believe you if I don't?"

It was the weak point of his position, and Carey realised it. It was

more than probable that Lady Emberdale would take Coningsby's view of

the matter. If the man really attracted her it was almost a foregone

conclusion. He knew Gwen's mother well--her inconsequent whims, her

obstinacy.

Yet, even in face of this check, he stood his ground.

"I may find some means of proving what I have told you," he said, with

unswerving resolution.

Coningsby drained his glass for the third time, and, with a menacing

sweep of the hand, seized his riding-whip.

"I don't advise you to come here with your proofs," he snarled. "The

only proof I would look at is the woman herself. Now, sir, I have warned

you fairly. Are you going?"

His attitude was openly threatening, but Carey's eyes were piercingly

upon him, and, in spite of himself, he paused. So for the passage of

seconds they stood; then slowly Carey turned away.

"I am going," he said, "to find your wife."

He did not glance again at the picture as he passed from the room. He

could not bring himself to meet the dark eyes that followed him.

V

Yes; he would find her. But how? There was only one course open to him,

and he shrank from that with disgust unutterable. It was useless to

think of advertising. He was convinced that she would never answer an

advertisement.

The only way to find her was to employ a detective to track her down. He

clenched his hands in impotent revolt. Not only had it been laid upon

him to betray her confidence, but he must follow this up by dragging her

from her hiding-place, and returning her to the bitter bondage from

which he had once helped her to escape.

That she still lived he was inwardly convinced. He would have given all

he had to have known her dead.

But, for that day, at least, there was no more to be done, and Gwen must

not have her birthday spoilt by the knowledge of his failure. He decided

to keep out of her way till the evening.

When he entered the ball-room at the appointed time she pounced upon him

eagerly, but her young guests were nearly all assembled, and it was no

moment for private conversation.

"Oh, Reggie! There you are! How dreadful you look in a mask! This is my

cousin, _mademoiselle_," turning to a lady in black who accompanied her.

"I've been wanting to introduce him to you. Don't forget that the masks

are not to come off till midnight. We're going to boom the big gong when

the clock strikes twelve."

She flitted away in her shimmering fairy's dress, closely attended by

Charlie Rivers, to persuade his father to give her a dance. The room was

crowded with masked guests, Lady Emberdale, handsome and brilliant, and

Admiral Rivers, her bluff but faithful admirer, being the only

exceptions to the rule of the evening.

Carey found himself standing apart with Gwen's particular _protégée_,

and he realised at once that he could expect no help from Charlie in

this quarter. For, though slim and graceful, _Mademoiselle_ Trèves's

general appearance was undeniably sombre and elderly. The hair that she

wore coiled regally upon her head was silver-grey, and there was a

certain weariness about the mouth that, though it did not rob it of its

sweetness, deprived it of all suggestion of youth.

"I don't know if I am justified in asking for a dance," Carey said. "My

own dancing days are over."

She smiled at him, and instantly the weariness vanished. There was magic

in her smile.

"I am no dancer either, except with the little ones. If you care to sit

out with me, I shall be very pleased."

Her voice was low and musical. It caught his fancy so that he was aware

of a sudden curiosity to see the face that the black mask concealed.

"Give me the twelve-o'clock dance," he said, "if you can spare it!"

She consulted the programme that hung from her wrist. He bent over it as

she held it, and scrawled his initials against the dance in question.

"Perhaps I shall not stay for that one," she said, with slight

hesitation.

He glanced up at her.

"I thought you were here for the night."

She bent her head.

"But I may slip away before twelve for all that."

Carey smiled.

"I don't think you will, not anyhow if I have a voice in the matter. I

am Gwen's lieutenant, you know, specially enrolled to prevent any

deserting. There is a heavy penalty for desertion."

"What is it?"

Carey bent again over the programme.

"Deserters will be brought back ignominiously and made to dance with

everyone in the room in turn."

He glanced up again at the sound of her low laugh. There was something

elusively suggestive about her personality.

"May I have another?" he said. "I hope you don't mind holding the card

for me."

"You have hurt your hand?" she asked.

It was thrust away, as usual, in his pocket.

"Some years ago," he told her. "I don't use it more than I can help."

"How disagreeable for you!" she murmured.

He shrugged his shoulders.

"I am used to it. It is worse for others than it is for me. May I have

No. 9? It includes the supper interval. Thanks! And any more you can

spare. I'm only lounging about and seeing that the kids enjoy

themselves. I shall be delighted to sit out with you when you are tired

of dancing."

"You are very kind," she said.

He made her an abrupt bow.

"Then I hope you won't snub my efforts by deserting?"

She laughed again.

"No, lieutenant, I will not desert. I am going to help you."

She spoke with a winning and impulsive graciousness that stirred again

within him that curious sense of groping in the dark among objects

familiar but unrecognisable. Surely he had met this stranger somewhere

before--in a crowded thoroughfare, in a train, possibly in a theatre, or

even in a church!

She looked at him questioningly as he lingered, and with another bow he

turned and left her. Doubtless, when he saw her face he would remember,

or realise that he had been mistaken.

VI

Mademoiselle Trèves kept her word, and wherever the fun was at its

height she was invariably the centre of it. The shy children crowded

about her. She seemed to possess a special charm for them.

Gwen was delighted, and was obviously enjoying herself to the utmost. In

the absence of her _bête noire_ whom she had courageously omitted to

invite, she rejoiced to see that her mother was being unusually gracious

to her beloved Admiral, who was as merry as a schoolboy in consequence.

She was shrewdly aware, however, that the welcome change was but

temporary. Incomprehensible though it was to Gwen, she knew that Major

Coningsby's power over her gay and frivolous young mother was absolute.

He ruled her with a rod of iron, and Lady Emberdale actually enjoyed his

tyranny. The rough court he paid her served to turn her head completely,

and she never attempted to resist his influence.

It was all very distasteful to Gwen, who hated the man with the whole

force of her nature. She was thankful to feel that Carey was enlisted on

her side. She looked upon him as a tower of strength, and, forebodings

notwithstanding, she was able to throw herself heart and soul into the

evening's festivities, and to beam delightedly upon her cousin as she

walked behind him with Charlie to the supper room.

Carey was escorting the French governess. He found a comfortable corner

for her in the thronged room at a table laid for two.

"I am bearing in mind your promise to stand by till twelve o'clock," he

said. "It's the only thing that keeps me going, for I have a powerful

longing to remove my mask in defiance of orders. It feels like a porous

plaster. I shall only hold out till midnight with your gallant

assistance."

He stooped with the words to pick up her fan which she had dropped. He

was obliged to use his left hand, and he knew that she gave a quick

start at sight of it. But she spoke instantly and he admired her ready

self-control.

"It was rather a rash promise, I am afraid."

Her voice sounded half shy and wholly sweet, and again he was caught by

that elusive quality about her that had puzzled him before. It was

stronger than ever, so strong that he felt for a moment on the verge of

discovery. But yet again it baffled him, making him all the more

determined to pursue it to its source.

"You're not going to cry off?" he said, with a smile.

He saw her flush behind her mask.

"Only with your permission," she answered.

He heard the note of pleading in her voice, but he would not notice it.

"Oh, I can't let you off!" he said lightly. "Gwen would never forgive

me. Besides, I don't want to."

She said no more, probably realising that he meant to have his way. They

talked upon indifferent topics in the midst of the general buzz of

merriment till, supper over, they separated.

"I shall come for that midnight dance," were Carey's last words, as he

bowed and left her.

And during the hour that intervened he kept a sharp eye upon her, lest

her evident reluctance to remain should prove too much for her

integrity. He was half amused at his own tenacity in the matter. Not for

years had a chance acquaintance so excited his curiosity.

A few minutes before midnight he was standing before her. The last dance

of the evening had just begun. Gwen had decreed that everyone should

stop upon the stroke of twelve, while every mask was removed, after

which the dance was to be continued to the finish.

"Shall we go upstairs?" suggested Carey.

To his surprise he felt that the hand she laid upon his arm was

trembling.

"By all means," she answered. "Let us get away from the crowd!"

It was an unexpected request, but he showed no surprise. He piloted her

to a secluded spot in the upper regions, and they sat down on a lounge

at the end of a corridor.

A queer sense of uneasiness had begun to oppress Carey, as strong as it

was inexplicable. He made a resolute effort to ignore it. The music

downstairs was sinking away. He took out his watch.

"The dramatic moment approaches," he remarked, after a pause. "Are you

ready?"

She did not speak.

"I'll tell you why I want to see you unmask," he said, speaking very

quietly. "It is because there is something about you that reminds me of

someone I know, but the resemblance is so subtle that it has eluded me

all the evening."

"You do not know me," she said. And he felt that she spoke with an

effort.

"I am not so sure," he answered. "But in any case--"

He paused. The music had ceased altogether, and an expectant silence

prevailed. He looked at her intently as he waited, till aware that she

shrank from his scrutiny.

A long deep note boomed through the house, echoing weirdly through the

intense silence. Carey put up his hand without speaking, and stripped

off his mask. He crumpled it into a ball as the second note struck, and

looked at her. She had not moved. He waited silently.

At the sixth note she made a sudden, almost passionate gesture and rose.

Carey remained motionless, watching her. Swiftly she turned, and began

to walk away from him. He leaned forward. His eyes were fixed upon her.

Three more strokes! She stopped abruptly, turning back as if he had

spoken. Moving slowly, and still masked, she came back to him. He met

her under a lamp. His face was very pale, but his eyes were steady and

piercingly keen. He took her hand, bending over it till his lips touched

her glove.

"I know you now," he said, his voice very low.

Three more strokes, and silence.

A ripple of laughter suddenly ran through the house, a gay voice called

for three cheers, and as though a spell had been lifted the merriment

burst out afresh in tune to the lilting dance-music.

Carey straightened himself slowly, still holding the slender hand in

his. Her mask had gone at last, and he stood face to face with the woman

of his dream--the woman whose hard-won security he had only that morning

pledged himself to shatter.

VII

"You know me," she said.

"Yes; I know you. And I know your secret, too."

The words sounded stern. He was putting strong restraint upon himself.

She faced him without flinching, her look as steady as his own. And yet

again it was to Carey as though he stood in the presence of a queen. She

did not say a word.

"Will you believe me," he said slowly, "when I tell you that I would

give all I have not to know it?"

She raised her beautiful brows for a moment, but still she said nothing.

He let her hand go. "I was on the point of searching to the world's end

for you," he said. "But since I have found you here of all places, I am

bound to take advantage of it. Forgive me, if you can!"

He saw a gleam of apprehension in her eyes.

"What is it you want to say to me?" she asked.

He passed the question by.

"You know me, I suppose?"

She bent her head.

"I fancied it was you from the first. When I saw your hand at supper, I

knew."

"And you tried to avoid me?"

"When you have something to conceal, it is wise to avoid anyone

connected with it."

She answered him very quietly, but he knew instinctively that she was

fighting him with her whole strength. It was almost more than he could

bear.

"Believe me," he said, "I am not a man to wantonly betray a woman's

secret. I have kept yours faithfully for years. But when within the last

few days I came to know who you were, and that your husband, Major

Coningsby, was contemplating making a second marriage, I was in honour

bound to speak."

"You told him?" She raised her eyes for a single instant, and he read in

them a reproach unutterable.

His heart smote him. What had she endured, this woman, before taking

that final step to cut herself off from the man whose name she had

borne? But he would not yield an inch. He was goaded by pitiless

necessity.

"I told him," he answered. "But I had no means of proving what I said.

And he refused to believe me."

"And now?" she almost whispered.

He heard the note of tragedy in the words, and he braced himself to meet

her most desperate resistance.

"Before I go further," he said, "let me tell you this! Slight though you

may consider our acquaintance to be, I have always felt--I have always

known--that you are a good woman."

She made a quick gesture of protest.

"Would a good woman have left the man who saved her life lying ill in a

strange land while she escaped with her miserable freedom?"

He answered her without hesitation, as he had long ago answered himself.

"No doubt the need was great."

She turned away from him and sat down, bowing her head upon her hand.

"It was," she said, her voice very low. "I was nearly mad with trouble.

You had pity then--without knowing. Have you--no pity--now?"

The appeal went out into silence. Carey neither spoke nor moved. His

face was like a stone mask--the face of a strong man in torture.

After a pause of seconds she spoke again, her face hidden from him.

"The first Mrs. Coningsby is dead," she said. "Let it be so! Nothing

will ever bring her back. Geoffrey Coningsby is free to marry--whom he

will."

The words were scarcely more than a whisper, but they reached and

pierced him to the heart. He drew a step nearer to her, and spoke with

sudden vehemence.

"I would help you, Heaven knows, if I could! But you will see--you must

see presently--that I have no choice. There is only one thing to be

done, and it has fallen to me to see it through, though it would be

easier for me to die!"

He broke off. There was strangled passion in his voice. Abruptly he

turned his back upon her, and began to pace up and down. Again there

fell a long pause. The music and the tramp of dancing feet below rose up

in his ears like a shout of mockery. He was fighting the hardest battle

of his life, fighting single-handed and grievously wounded for a victory

that would cripple him for the rest of his days.

Suddenly he stood still and looked at her, though she had not moved,

unless her head with its silvery hair were bowed a little lower than

before. For a single instant he hesitated, then strode impulsively to

her, and knelt down by her side.

"God help us both!" he said hoarsely.

His hands were on her shoulders. He drew her to him, taking the bowed

head upon his breast. And so, silently, he held her. When she looked up

at last, he knew that the bitter triumph was his. Her face was deathly,

but her eyes were steadfast. She drew herself very gently out of his

hold.

"I do not think," she said, "that there is anyone else in the world who

could have done for me what you have done tonight." She paused a moment

looking straight into his eyes, then laid her hands in his without a

quiver. "Years ago," she said, "you saved my life. Tonight--you have

saved something infinitely more precious than that. And I--I am

grateful to you. I will do--whatever you think right."

It was a free surrender, but it wrung his heart to accept it. Even in

that moment of tragedy there was to him something of that sublime

courage with which she had faced the tumult of a stormy sea with him

five years before. And very poignantly it came home to him that he was

there to destroy and not to deliver. Like a wave of evil, it rushed upon

him, overwhelming him.

He could not trust himself to speak. The wild words that ran in his

brain were such as he could not utter. And so he only bent his head once

more over the hands that lay so trustingly in his, and with great

reverence he kissed them.

VIII

It was on a cold, dark evening two days later that Major Coningsby

returned from the first run of the year, and tramped, mud-splashed and

stiff from hard riding, into his gloomy house. A gust of rain blew

swirling after him, and he turned, swearing, and shut the great door

with a bang. It had not been a good day for sport. The ground had been

sodden, and the scent had washed away. He had followed the hounds for

miles to no purpose and had galloped home at last in sheer disgust. To

add to his grievances he had called upon Lady Emberdale on his way back,

and had not found her in. "Gone to tea with her precious Admiral, I

suppose!" he had growled, as he rode away, which, as it chanced, was the

case. The suspicion had not improved his mood, and he was very much out

of humour when he finally reached his own domain. Striding into the

library, he turned on the threshold to curse his servant for not having

lighted the lamp, and the man hastened forward nervously to repair the

omission. This accomplished, he as hastily retired, glancing furtively

over his shoulder as he made his escape.