Chapter LXV

THE BLACK ABBOT

I

“Thomas!” … “Yes, m’lord.”

Thomas the footman waited, a look of concentrated interest on his

unprepossessing face, whilst the pale man behind the big library desk

sorted out a small pile of treasury notes. The battered steel box from

which they were taken was full to the brim with bank and treasury

notes of all denominations in hopeless confusion.

“Thomas!” absently.

“Yes, m’lord.”

“Put this money in that envelope--not that one, you fool, the gray

one. Is it addressed?”

“Yes, m’lord. ‘Herr Lubitz, Frankfurterstrasse 35, Leipsic,’ m’lord.”

“Lick it down, take it to the post office and register it. Is Mr.

Richard in his study?”

“No, m’lord, he went out an hour ago.”

Harry Alford, eighteenth Earl of Chelford, sighed. He was on the right

side of thirty, thin of face and pale as students are, his jet-black

hair emphasizing the pallor of his skin. The library in which he

worked was a high-roofed building, the walls bisected by a gallery

that ran round three sides of the room and was reached by a circular

iron staircase in one corner of the apartment. From the roof to the

floor every inch of wall space was covered with bookshelves with this

notable exception. Over the great stone fireplace was a full-length

painting of a beautiful woman. None who had seen his lordship could

make any mistake as to the relationship which existed between himself

and that wild-eyed beauty. It was his mother; she had the same

delicate features, the same raven hair and dark, fathomless eyes. Lady

Chelford had been the most famous débutante of her time, and her

tragic end had been the sensation of the early ’nineties. There was no

other picture in the room.

His eyes strayed to the portrait now. To Harry Alford, Fossaway Manor,

for all its beauty and charm, was a poor casket for such a jewel.

The footman in his sober black livery, his hair powdered white,

lingered.

“Is that all, m’lord?”

“That is all,” said his lordship gravely. Yet when the man had moved

noiselessly to the door--

“Thomas!”

“Yes, m’lord.”

“I heard something by accident as you passed my window this morning

with Filling the groom--er----?”

“He was telling me about the Black Abbot, m’lord.”

The pale face twitched spasmodically. Even in broad daylight, with the

sun streaming through the stained windows and marking the parquet with

arabesques of crimson and blue and amethyst, the very mention of the

Black Abbot set his heart beating faster.

“Any man in my employ who discusses the Black Abbot will be instantly

dismissed. Will you tell your fellow servants that, Thomas? A ghost!

Great God! Are you all mad?”

His face was red now, little veins swelled at his temples, and under

the stream of anger his dark eyes seemed to recede into his head.

“Not a word! You understand? It is a lie! A mischievous wicked lie to

say that Fossaway is haunted! It is a trick played by some of the

louts about the place. That will do!”

He waved the bowing man from his presence and resumed his study of the

black-lettered book that had arrived from Germany that morning.

Once outside the library door, Thomas could afford to twist his sallow

features to a grin. Only for a second, and then he became serious

again. There must be nearly a thousand pounds in that cash box and

Thomas had once served a three-year sentence for a tenth of that sum.

Even Mr. Richard Alford, who knew most things, was unaware of this

interesting fact.

Thomas had a letter to write, for he maintained a lucrative

correspondence with one who had an especial interest in Fossaway

Manor, but first he had to report the gist of the conversation to Mr.

Glover, the butler.

“I don’t care what his lordship says (and why he should tell a footman

and not me, I don’t know) there’s a ghost and all sorts of people have

seen it! I wouldn’t walk down Elm Drive alone at night for fifty

million pounds!”

This portly man shook a head that the years had silvered.

“And his lordship believes it too. I wish he was married, that’s what

I wish. He’ll be more sensible then!”

“And we’ll get rid of Mr. Blooming Alford--eh, Mr. Glover?”

The butler sniffed.

“There’s them that likes him and them that don’t,” said the oracle.

“We’ve never had a cross word, Thomas---- There’s somebody at the

door.”

Thomas hurried to the hall entrance and opened the big door. A girl

was standing under the portico. She was pretty in a bold way, red of

lips and bright of eye and dressed expensively.

Thomas gave her a grin of recognition.

“Good-morning, Miss Wenner--this is a bit of a surprise!”

“Is his lordship in, Thomas?”

The footman pursed his lips dubiously.

“He _is_ in, miss, but I’m afraid I can’t take you in to him. Don’t

blame me, miss, it’s Mr. Alford’s orders.”

“Mr. Alford!” she sneered. “Do you mean to tell me that I’ve come all

the way from London and can’t see Lord Chelford?”

But Thomas kept his hand on the door. He liked the girl who, when she

had been his lordship’s secretary, had never given herself airs (the

unpardonable sin of the servants’ hall) and who always had a smile for

the meanest of the domestic staff. He would gladly have admitted her

and felt that his lordship would have been pleased to see her, but in

the background somewhere hovered Dick Alford, a man of curt speech,

who was not only capable of showing him the door but kicking him

through it.

“I’m very sorry, miss, but orders is orders, as you know.”

“I see!” she nodded ominously. “I’m to be turned away from what might

have been my own door, Thomas.”

He tried to look his sympathy and succeeded in assuming an expression

of imbecility. She smiled at him, shook hands with him graciously, and

turned away from the portico.

“Miss Wenner,” reported Thomas, “her that Alford fired because he

thought his lordship was getting sweet on her----”

The library bell rang at that moment and Thomas hastened to answer the

call. “Who was that lady? I saw her through the window.”

“Miss Wenner, m’lord.”

A cloud passed over Harry Alford’s face.

“Did you--ask her to come in?”

“No, m’lord, Mr. Alford gave orders----”

“Of course… yes. I had forgotten. Perhaps it is just as well. Thank

you.”

He pulled down the green shade over his eyes, for even in the day he

worked by artificial light, such was the gloom in the library, and

resumed his study of the book.

Yet his mind was not wholly concentrated on the work. Once he rose and

walked up and down the library, his hands clasped before him, his chin

on his breast. He stopped before the picture of his mother, sighed,

and walked back to the writing table. There was a press paragraph

which he had cut out of a London newspaper and this he read for the

third time, not ill pleased with the unaccustomed experience of

finding himself the subject of newspaper comment, and yet irritated by

the subject on which the paragraph was based.

Chelfordbury, a sleepy Sussex village, is engaged in the thrilling

sport of ghost-hunting. The Black Abbot of Fossaway has, after a

period of quiescence, again made his appearance. The legend is that

seven hundred years ago, the Abbot of Chelfordbury was assassinated by

order of the Second Earl of Chelford. Since then, from time to time,

his “ghost” has been seen. During the past few years horrific stories

of an Unseen Being that shrieked and howled demoniacally have been

current in the county, but the noisy spook was not actually seen until

last week.

Fossaway Manor has other romances besides ghosts. Four hundred years

ago, a great treasure of gold was, according to legend, hidden

somewhere on the estate; so effectually, in fact, that it has never

been discovered since, although successive Earls of Chelford have

searched diligently for the ancestral hoard.

The present Earl of Chelford, who, by the way, is engaged to be

married to Miss Leslie Gwyn, the only sister of Mr. Arthur Gwyn, the

well-known solicitor, informed our local representative that he had no

doubt that the apparition of the Black Abbot was a practical joke in

very doubtful taste on the part of the foolish youth of the

neighbourhood.

He made as though to tear the paper but thought better of it and put

the cutting under a paper weight.

That reference to the practical jokers of the village was reassuring

and might be a comfort when the night came and he needed

encouragement.

For Lord Chelford believed in the Black Abbot as religiously as he

proclaimed his scepticism.

His restless hand moved to the bell-push on his table.

“Has Mr. Richard returned?”

“No, m’lord.”

Lord Chelford struck the table pettishly with his palm.

“Where on earth does he get to in the mornings?” he asked querulously.

Thomas, very wisely, pretended not to hear.

II

The reapers had laid low the last of the golden heads, and the

sheaves stood like yellow tombstones on Racket Field. Beyond the field

was Chelfordbury, where the gray old spire of the church came up from

a velvety knoll of trees; beyond again, the green and white downs of

Sussex, along the foot of which the railway runs.

Dick Alford sat on a stile on the top of a little hillock and could

see across the weald for fifteen miles. He could turn his head and

take in the home farm and the green roofs and cupolas of Fossaway

Manor, with its broad lawns and its clipped yew hedges. Neither

cornfield nor down, manor house nor pleasaunce, interested him for the

moment. His eyes were fixed and his mind centred upon the girl who was

walking quickly up the winding path that would bring her presently to

where he sat.

She was singing as she walked, the riding crop she carried whirling

round and round like a drum major’s baton. His lips twitched to the

ghost of a smile. Presently she would see him, and he wondered if she

would be annoyed. He had never seen Leslie Gwyn except in such

circumstances that her face was a pleasant mask and her manner

conventionally charming. She had been nicely brought up and taught

that all things are permissible except one: to make one’s equal feel

foolish.

The song ceased. She had seen him, but she did not check her pace and

came quickly up the hill path, slashing at a nettle bush as she

walked.

“Peeping Tom!” she greeted him reproachfully.

She was not so tall as the average English girl, but her slimness gave

her height, and the supple movement of her hinted at greater strength

than her slight figure suggested. Her face, delicately modelled, had

the subtle refinement of her class. Small, beautiful hands and feet, a

head finely poised, eyes of a deep gray, and a red mouth that smiled

easily, Leslie Gwyn in rags would have been unmistakably a beautiful

lady.

Dick had seen her riding; she gripped the withers with her knees,

jockey fashion, and was part of the horse. He had seen her on the

polished dancing floor; there was lissom grace in every line. When he

danced with her, he held in his arms a fragrant something that had

more substance and character than he had thought. The hand on his

shoulder was definitely placed, the body which his arm encircled was

firm; he could feel the tiny muscles ripple under his hand.

She stood now, her little black riding hat askew, her figure clad in

neat black relieved by the lawn collar. Her neatly booted legs were

planted stubbornly apart, one gloved hand holding her waist, the other

swinging the crop. In her gray eyes was an imp of mischief that

gleamed and danced all the merrier for the studied solemnity of every

other feature.

Dick Alford, from his vantage place on the top rail of the stile,

chewed a blade of toddy grass between his white teeth and surveyed her

approvingly.

“Been riding, Leslie?”

“I have been riding,” she said gravely, and added: “a horse.”

He looked round innocently.

“Where is the favoured animal?” he demanded.

She looked at him suspiciously, but not a muscle of the tanned, lean

face so much as twitched.

“I dismounted to pick wild flowers and the beastie ran away. You saw

him!” she accused.

“I saw something that looked like a horse running toward Willow

House,” he confessed calmly. “I thought he had thrown you.”

She nodded.

“For that prevarication you can go and find him--I’ll wait here,” she

said, and, when he got down from the stile with a groan: “I meant you

to do that, anyway. The moment I saw you I said to myself: ‘There’s a

lazy man who wants exercise!’ Sisters-in-law-to-be have privileges.”

He winced a little at this. She may have noticed the cloud that came

momentarily to his face, for she put out her hand and checked him.

“One of the grooms can find him, Dick. He is such a hungry pig that he

is certain to make for his stable… no, I _don’t_ mean the groom. Sit

down; I want to talk to you.”

She swung up to the stile and took the place he had vacated.

“Richard Alford, I don’t think you are enjoying the prospect of my

being the mistress of Fossaway House?”

“Manor,” he corrected.

“Don’t quibble--are you?”

“I count the days,” he said lightly.

“Do you?”

He took a battered silver case from his hip pocket, selected a

cigarette and lit it.

“My dear Leslie----” he began, but she shook her head. She was very

serious now.

“You think I will--interfere with things? With the management of the

estate--I know poor Harry couldn’t manage a small holding--with--oh,

with all sorts of things, but I think you are wrong.”

He blew three smoke rings into the air before he answered.

“I wish you would manage the estate,” he said quietly. “It would be a

blessing to me. No, I’m not worried about that. With your

money--forgive the brutality--the estate will not count. A bailiff

could manage it as well as any second son!”

III

He spoke without bitterness, without a hint of self-pity, and she

was silent. He was the child of a second marriage, and that had made

it worse for him. When old Lord Chelford followed Dick’s mother to the

grave, the second son’s portion was his. The estate, the title, the

very car he had used as his own, passed from him. A tiny estate in

Hertfordshire that brought two hundred a year, some old jewellery of

his mother’s and a thousand pounds came the way of the second son. And

the thousand pounds had never been paid. In some mysterious fashion it

had been swallowed up.

Mr. Arthur Gwyn had settled the estate. In all the circumstances Dick

felt happier when he did not think of that thousand pounds. Yet, for

some reason or other, he thought of it now, and as though she read his

thoughts dimly, and associated his reserve with her brother, she

asked:

“You don’t like Arthur, do you?”

“What makes you say that?” he said, in genuine surprise. He had never

betrayed his aversion to the dandified lawyer.

“I know,” she nodded wisely. “He exasperates me sometimes, and I can

well imagine that a man like you would hate him.”

Dick smiled.

“Harry doesn’t hate him anyway, and he is the person who counts.”

She looked round at him, swinging the crop idly.

“It doesn’t seem real to me that I’m to be married at all--it was such

a funny proposal, Dick, so polite, so formal, so--unreal! I think if

it had come in any other way----” She shook her head.

Dick wondered a little drearily how his brother would propose. Harry

was something of a novice at the love game; once he had had a pretty

secretary, and on a warm June afternoon Dick had interrupted what was

tantamount to a proposal from the enterprising young lady. And the

flustered Harry would have agreed to her matrimonial suggestions, only

Dick had happened along--and the calculating Miss Wenner had left

Fossaway Manor rather hurriedly. He remembered this happening.

“I suppose if he had proposed in the conventional way you wouldn’t

have accepted him?”

“I don’t know,” she said dubiously. “But it was quaint and--queer. I

like Harry awfully. I have often wondered if he would like me if----”

She did not finish her sentence.

“If you weren’t so horribly rich?” smiled Dick. “You’re not paying him

a very high compliment.”

She held out her arms and he lifted her down, though there seemed no

necessity for it, as she was a very agile young person as a rule.

“Dick,” she said, as he crossed the stile and they walked side by side

toward the main road, “what am I to do?”

“About what?” he asked.

“About Harry and everything.”

He had no answer to this.

“Arthur is very keen on my marrying him,” she said. “And really, I’m

not averse--at least, I don’t think so.”

“That is the worst of being a great heiress,” he bantered.

“I wonder?” Her brow wrinkled in a frown. “And am I a great heiress?”

He stopped and looked at her in surprise.

“Aren’t you?”

He seemed so shocked that she laughed.

“I don’t know; my uncle left me a lot of money years and years ago. I

don’t know how much--Arthur has managed my estate for years. I have

all the money I need.”

“Then don’t grouse!” he said crudely, and she laughed again.

“I suppose most girls in my position have their marriages arranged in

the way mine has been arranged, and until quite recently I have

accepted the idea as part of the inevitable.”

“And why have you changed your mind now?” he asked bluntly, and saw

the pink come into her face.

“I don’t know.” Her answer was very short, almost brusque.

And then she saw the look in his eyes--the infinite yearning, the

hopelessness of them. And in a flash there came to her a knowledge of

herself.

For some reason which she could not understand she became of a sudden

breathless, and almost found a difficulty in speaking. She felt that

the thump and thud of her heart must be audible to his ears and strove

desperately to recover her balance. Vividly before her eyes came the

picture of her fiancé, the thin, irritable young man--the weakling

with all that man needed in his hands, save manhood. A pitiable,

nerve-racked creature, now pleading, now bullying--oblivious of the

impression he made on the woman who was to share his life. And from

this mental figure of him, her eyes moved mechanically to the man by

her side; calm, serene, radiant in his strength and self-reliance.

Ten minutes later she was walking back to Willow House, and in her

heart she struggled with a problem that seemed well-nigh insoluble.

Dick Alford, making his slow progress homeward, saw the lank figure of

his brother waiting at the end of the elm drive.

The wind flapped the skirts of his long frock coat; standing, he

stooped slightly and had a trick of thrusting forward his head, which

gave him the appearance of a big, ungainly bird. His face was dark

with anger, Dick saw, as he came up with him.

“I deputize many duties to you, Richard, but I’ll do my own

love-making, understand that!”

The blood came into Dick Alford’s face, but he showed no other sign of

his hurt or anger.

“I will not have it--you understand?” Lord Chelford’s voice was shrill

with childish fury. “I will not have you interfering in my private

affairs. You sent one girl away from me, you shall not take Leslie!”

“I am not----” began his brother hotly.

“You are--you are! You don’t want me to marry! I am not a fool, Dick!

You stand next in the line of succession! I am going to marry Leslie

Gwyn--understand that! You shall not break that engagement.”

For a moment the brutality, the injustice of the accusation, left the

younger man white and shaking, and then, with a supreme effort, he

laughed. Scenes such as this were of almost daily occurrence, but

never before had Harry Chelford gone so far. In ten minutes the storm

would pass, and Harry would be his old lovable self, but for the

moment it was bitterly hard to bear.

“Why do you say such horrible things?” he said. “I got rid of Wenner

because she was not the wife for you----”

“You didn’t want me to marry! You are waiting for my shoes, a dead

man’s shoes!” almost screamed the elder son. “The last thing in the

world you want to see is a new Countess of Chelford. You know it, you

know it!”

Dick Alford was silent. God knew his brother spoke the truth! It would

be a woeful day for him when Harry Chelford brought a wife to this

great house to share the dreadful secret which hung like a cloud over

Fossaway Manor.

IV

Dick Alford was in the little study where he usually worked, a

businesslike room filled with filing cabinets and deed boxes. The

French windows giving to the lawn were open, for though it was

September the night was warm, and he was working in his shirt-sleeves,

a pipe gripped between his teeth, his eyes protected from the overhead

light by a big green shade that he wore affixed by a band to his head.

If there was a resemblance between Lord Chelford and his mother, not

even the keenest observer could trace in Dick Alford the slightest

likeness to his half-brother. He was a creature of the open, a

six-foot athlete, broad of shoulder and slim of flank, and his tanned

face spoke of a life spent on the windy downs. His blue eyes surveyed

the footman with a quizzical smile, as he pushed his battered old

typewriter aside, relit his pipe, and stretched himself.

“Black Abbot? Good Lord! Have you seen him, Thomas?”

“No, sir, I have not seen him. But Mr. Cartwright, the grocer down in

Chelford village…”

He gave a graphic narrative of Mr. Cartwright’s horror, amazement, and

confusion.

“They telephoned up from the Red Lion to ask if his lordship had heard

anything about it.” Even Thomas, who believed in nothing except

Thomas, shivered. “It is the first time he has been seen for years

according to all accounts, though he has been heard howling and

moaning. Nobody knows who set fire to the vicarage when the parson was

away at the seaside----”

“That will do, Thomas. As to Cartwright, he was drunk,” said Dick

cheerily, “or else he saw a shadow.”

He glanced out at the lawn, bathed in the blue-white rays of a full

moon.

“You can see things in the moonlight that never were on land or sea. I

understood that his lordship said that the Black Abbot was not to be

discussed?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then shut up!” said Dick.

Pipe in mouth, he strolled across the hall into the dimly lit library.

The three electroliers that hung from the roof were dark. Only the two

green-shaded reading lamps that flanked each side of the desk were

alight, and these intensified the gloom. Dick closed the door behind

him and lounged over toward the desk, pulling a chair behind him.

Chelford frowned at the sight of his brother.

“Really, Dick,” he said irritably, “I wish to heaven you wouldn’t loaf

about the place in shirt and breeches. It looks fearfully bad.”

“It feels fearfully cool,” said Dick, sitting down. “Will your nerves

sustain the smell of a bit of honest baccy?”

Lord Chelford moved uncomfortably in his chair. Then, reaching out his

hand, he snicked open a gold box and took out a cigarette.

“My pipe against your stinkers for a hundred pounds!” said Dick, with

a cheery smile. “Cigarettes I can stand, but scented cigarettes----”

“If you don’t like them, Dick, you can go out,” grumbled his lordship

fretfully. And then in his abrupt way: “Did you see this newspaper

cutting?”

He pulled the paper from under the crystal weight and Dick skimmed the

lines.

“We are getting into the public eye, Harry,” he said, “but there is

nothing about me--which is unkind.”

“Don’t be stupid. How did that get into the papers?”

“How does anything get into the papers?” asked Dick lazily. “Our spook

is almost as useful as a press agent.”

Harry snapped round on him.

“Can’t you take this seriously? Don’t you see that it is worrying me

to death? You know the state of my nerves--you have no sympathy, Dick,

you’re just as hard as rock! Everybody seems to hate the sight of

you.”

Dick pulled at his pipe glumly.

“That is my unfortunate character. I am afraid I am getting efficient.

That is the only way I can account for my unpopularity. It keeps me

awake at nights----”

“Don’t fool, for heaven’s sake!”

“I’m serious now,” murmured Dick, closing his eyes: “try me with a

hymn!”

Harry Chelford turned away with a gesture of utter weariness, fingered

the manuscript at his hand, and gazed from his brother to the door. It

was a gesture of dismissal and Dick rose.

“Don’t you think you’ve done enough work for to-night, Harry?” he

asked gently. “You look absolutely all in.”

“I never felt better in my life,” said the other emphatically.

Dick slewed round his head to read the printed page from which his

elder brother had been copying, and saw at once that his effort was in

vain; the book was written in Old German, and Dick’s linguistic

abilities ended at a mastery of restaurant French. Lord Chelford put

down the book with a sigh and sat back in his padded chair.

“I suppose you think I’m a fool wasting my time on this”--he raised

his hand toward the serried shelves--“when I could be having a very

amusing time with Leslie?”

Dick nodded.

“Yes, I think you might be more profitably employed out of doors.

Really, for a bridegroom-to-be, you’re the worst slacker I’ve ever

struck.”

There was a superiority in Harry Chelford’s smile.

“Happily, Leslie knows she is marrying a bookworm and not an athlete,”

he said, and, rising, walked over to where Dick was sitting and

dropped his hand on his shoulder. “What would you say if I told you

that I was halfway to discovering the real Chelford Treasure?”

Dick knew exactly what he would say, but replied diplomatically:

“I should say you were three parts on the way to discovering the

philosopher’s stone,” he said.

But his brother was serious. He paced up and down the long library,

his hands behind him, his chin on his breast.

“I expected you to say that,” he said. “I should have been rather

surprised if you hadn’t. But the Chelford Treasure has an existence,

Dick, and somewhere with it is the greatest treasure of all!”

His brother listened patiently. He knew by heart the story of the

thousand bars of pure gold, each bar weighing thirty-five pounds. The

legend of the Chelford treasure was inseparable from the Chelford

estate.

Harry walked quickly to his desk, pulled open a drawer and took out a

small vellum-covered book. The pages were yellow with age and covered

with writing that had faded to a pale green.

“Listen,” he said, and began reading:

“On the fifteenth of the month, the same being the feast day of St.

James, came Sir Walter Hythe, Kt., from his cruise in the Spanish

seas, for the cost of which I raised first three thousand eight

hundred pounds and eight thousand pounds from Bellitti the Lombard,

and Sir Walter Hythe brought with him on ten wagons one thousand

ingots of gold each of thirty-five pounds weight which he had taken

from the two Spanish ships _Esperanza_ and _Escurial_, and these

ingots he shall put away in the safe place if yet the weather be dry

and the drought continue, though rain is near at hand, to judge by the

portents, deeming it wise not to inform my lord Burleigh of the gold

because of the Queen’s Majesty and her covetousness. Also he brought

the crystal flask of Life Water which was given to Don Cortés by the

priest of the Aztec people, a drop of which upon the tongue will

revive even the dead, this being sworn to by Fra Pedro of Sevilla.

This I shall hide with great care in the secret place where the gold

will be stored. To Sir Walter Hythe, Kt., I had given permission that

he keep for himself one hundred bars of like weight and this he did,

thanking me civilly, and sailed off from Chichester in his ship the

_Good Father_ which ship was wrecked on the Kentish coast, Sir Walter

Hythe, his shipmaster, and all his company perishing. Such was his

terrible misfortune. As for myself, being in some danger because of

the part I have taken in promoting the welfare of my true sovereign

lady, Mary----”

Lord Chelford looked up and met the steady eyes of his brother.

“The writing ends there,” he said. “I am certain that he was not

interrupted by the arrival of Elizabeth’s soldiers to arrest him for

his share in the conspiracy to put Mary on the throne. He must have

had time to secrete the treasure. Where is the crystal flask?”

“Where rather is the gold?” asked the practical Dick. “If I know

anything about Queen Elizabeth, she bagged it! Nobody ever found

it--for four hundred years our respected forefathers have been

searching for this gold----”

Lord Chelford made an angry gesture.

“Gold--gold--gold! You think of nothing else! Curse the gold! Find it

and keep it. It is the flask I want!” His voice sank to a whisper, his

face had grown suddenly moist. “Dick, I’m afraid of death. God! You

don’t know how afraid! The fear of it haunts me day and night--I sit

here counting the hours, wondering at which my spirit will go from me!

You’ll laugh--at that--laugh, laugh!”

But Dick Alford’s face was set, unsmiling.

“I do not laugh--but can’t you see, Harry, that such a thing as an

elixir of life is preposterous?”

“Why?” Lord Chelford’s eyes were shining. “Why shouldn’t this

discovery have been made by the ancient civilizations? Why is it more

wonderful than wireless telegraphy or the disintegration of atoms?

Thirty years ago flying was regarded as a miracle. The flask--I want

the flask of Life Water! The gold--throw it into the road--let the

poor devils take it who want it. I want life--do you understand?--life

and the end of fear.”

He dropped heavily into his chair and wiped his streaming forehead.

“The end of fear!” he muttered.

Dick listened, his eyes never leaving his brother’s face. And this was

to be Leslie Gwyn’s husband. He shivered at the thought.

V

If the Honourable Richard Fallington Alford had been regarded by the

compilers of such volumes as being sufficiently important to have his

biography enshrined in a popular work of reference, his life’s work,

his hobby, and his recreation would be described as “looking after the

Chelford estates.” His bailiffs said he knew every blade of grass; the

tenant farmers swore he could price a standing crop to the last penny

of its worth. He knew Fossaway Manor, its strength and weakness,

better than the estate architect--could point out where the

foundations were scamped by the Elizabethan builders. He could trace

the walls of the old castle which Richard of York had burnt and razed,

beheading the fourth earl for his treachery under the great archway,

one crumbling pier of which still showed its gray and battered head

above the roses that now surrounded it. He gave to the broad lands of

Chelford a loyal and passionate devotion which any mistress might

envy.

In the chill of an autumnal morning, when mist blanketed the hollows

and a pale sun was struggling through thin clouds, he strolled across

the park toward the Abbey ruins. There was little of them left. A

truncated tower wrecked by lightning; a high, arched space where an

oriel window had once flamed; mounds of scattered stones left where

Cromwell’s soldiers had overturned them; and, under the carpet of

grass, a “feel” of solid pavement.

He drew at his pipe as he stepped out, and the tobacco smelt sweet and

wholesome in the cold air.

He was on his way to the home farm, and his errand was a prosaic one.

A cow had died in the night, and his cowman had reported symptoms of

cattle fever.

The familiar ruins showed up ahead, the half arch, like a huge

question mark, arrested his eye and raised again the well-argued

problem of restoration. Some day, when the Chelford ship came home,

when that coal vein was proved, or when Harry had a rich wife.…

This was an unpleasant thought. His lips curled in a grimace of

distaste.

He stopped suddenly.

A figure was walking amongst the ruins--a woman. Her back was toward

him and she was obviously unaware of his presence. Something about her

figure seemed familiar--Dick turned from the path and walked toward

her.

Evidently she did not hear him, for when he spoke she started, uttered

a little scream, and turned a frightened face to him.

“Good-morning, Miss Wenner,” he said politely. “You are up and about

very early.”

There was no need for him to wonder whether this girl had ever

forgiven him for the very painful interview that had preceded her

retirement. Recognizing him, her eyes blazed with hate.

“Good-morning, Mr. Alford.” She was civil enough. “I’m staying in the

village and I thought I would like to come up and see the old place.”

He nodded gravely.

“You had a similar thought yesterday,” he said, “and tried to see my

brother.”

“Well?” defiantly.

“I gave you to understand, Miss Wenner, that we should all be much

happier if you never again passed the lodge gates,” he said quietly.

“I hate saying this to any woman, but you ought to be the first to

recognize how very uncomfortable you make me feel. I thought you would

apprehend this.”

“Apprehend” was a stilted word, but he could think of no other.

“Is that so?” The colour had deepened in her face. “Is--that--so!”

“That is so,” he nodded.

She looked at him for a while and her lips curved.

“I’m sorry I’ve annoyed the family chaperon,” she sneered.

He could admire, in a detached way, her wholesome good looks; could

even admire her courage. Her wrathful eyes were fixed on his, the

break in her voice betrayed the fury she strove to conceal. As for

Dick Alford, he felt a brute.

“I’m extremely sorry if you don’t like my calling,” she said, her

voice razor-sharp and tremulous, “but I think the least Lord Chelford

could have done was to see me, considering I’ve worked for him for

three years and after all that has passed between us----”

“The only thing that passed between you, Miss Wenner, was your weekly

wages,” said Dick, with maddening calmness.

But now he had taxed her to the limit of endurance.

“He asked me to marry him and I _would_ have married him if you hadn’t

put your spoke in!” she said shrilly. “I could get thousands and

thousands out of him for breach of promise if I wasn’t a lady! You

second sons and hangers-on poisoned his mind against me! You ought to

be downright ashamed of yourself, you good-for-nothing, penniless

pauper!”

Dick was faintly amused at the redundancy.

“You’ve wrecked and ruined my life,” the pretty virago went on, “with

your interference, and after all the work I’ve done! After all them--I

mean those hours I’ve spent with his lordship workin’ at the treasure

an’ he told me I was the most helpful secretary he’d ever had.…”

He let her talk herself to a sobbing incoherence.

“All this may be true,” he said soothingly, “and probably is. The

point is, your presence here is a little--indelicate.”

Seeing her look round over her shoulder as she was talking, he had

taken a quick survey of the ruins, expecting to discover that she had

a companion. But there was nobody in sight. The ground sloped steeply

from where he stood to the little Ravensrill, the broad brook which

had for a thousand years marked the boundary of the manor. Unless

somebody was concealed behind the fallen masonry she was alone.

“I suppose you want me to clear out now,” she gulped, and he inclined

his head.

“I will walk with you to Fontwell Cutting--that is the nearest way to

the village,” he said, and she was too much occupied with her

manufactured misery to resent his offer.

What had she been doing in the Abbey ruins so early in the morning? He

knew that it was useless to ask her.

As they passed down the steep path to the road she spoke over her

shoulder.

“I wouldn’t marry him for a million pounds!” she said viciously. “He

is going to marry Leslie Gwyn, isn’t he? I wish him joy!”

“I will convey your kind message,” he said ironically, an indiscreet

rejoinder, for it roused the devil in her.

“Mind he doesn’t lose her, that’s all!” she screamed. “I know!

Everybody knows! You want her money too--the Second Son’s in love with

her--that’s a nice lookout for Harry Chelford!”

He sat swinging his legs over the edge of the bluff, watching her till

she was out of sight.

Everybody knew that he loved Leslie Gwyn! And only at that moment he

knew it himself!

VI

In all the City of London there was perhaps no office more elegant

than that in which Mr. Arthur Gwyn spent his leisurely business hours.

It was a large room, panelled in white wood, with pink-shaded wall

brackets of frosted silver. Its floor was covered with a deep rose

carpet into which the feet sank as into an old lawn; and such

furnishing as the room held was of the most costly description.

Visitors and clients who had business with this dainty lawyer were

warned not to smoke in his sacred presence. The windows were doubled

to keep out the noises of Holborn; there were exterior sun blinds to

exclude the fugitive rays of pale sunlight which occasionally bathed

the City; and long velvet curtains, in harmony with the carpet, to

shut out the horrid world that roared and palpitated outside Mr.

Gwyn’s exquisite chamber. In this room was a faint aroma of roses--he

was partial to the more expensive varieties of perfume, and had a

standing order with the best of the Grasse houses.

He was a fair man with an unblemished skin and a small yellow

moustache; a credit to his hosier and shirtmaker. His wasp-waisted

morning coat fitted him without the suspicion of a wrinkle; his gray

waistcoat, the severe dark trousers with the thinnest of white

stripes, the patent shoes, the exact cravat, were all parts of a

sartorial symmetry.

Mr. Gwyn seldom appeared in the courts. His head clerk, a gray-haired

man of fifty, who was generally supposed by Mr. Gwyn’s brother

solicitors to be the brains of the business, prepared most of the

briefs, interviewed the majority of clients, leaving to his employer

the most important.

On a bright morning in the early days of September, Mr. Gwyn’s big

Rolls glided noiselessly to the sidewalk, the youthful footman seated

by the side of the driver sprang out and opened the door, and Arthur

Gwyn stepped daintily forth. There was a small white rose in his

buttonhole, and the passer-by who saw him, noting the perfect shine of

his silk hat, the glitter of his patent shoes, and the ebony stick

that he carried in his gloved hand, thought he was a bridegroom

stopping on his way to church.

He entered the tiny electric lift and was whisked up to the first

floor. A porter opened his door with a little bow and Arthur walked

in, followed by the servitor, who took his hat, gloves, and cane, and

disappeared with them to an inner room. Mr. Gwyn sat down at his desk,

glanced at the letters that had been left opened for his inspection

and pushed them aside. He pressed an onyx bell-push twice, and in a

few seconds his hard-faced managing clerk came in, carrying a wad of

papers in his hand.

“Close the door, Gilder. What are these?”

Gilder threw the papers on the polished table.

“Mostly writs,” he said curtly.

“For me?”

Gilder nodded and Arthur Gwyn turned over the papers idly.

“There is going to be trouble if they give judgment against you for

some of these,” said Gilder. “Up to now, I’ve managed to keep them out

of court, but there are at least three of these which must be paid. I

haven’t had a chance to speak to you since I came back from my

holidays. Did you lose much at Goodwood?”

“Eight or nine thousand,” said Arthur Gwyn lightly. “It may have been

more or less.”

“That means you don’t know because you haven’t paid,” said Gilder

bluntly.

“I paid a few--the more pressing,” the other hastened to assure him.

“What are these?”

He fingered the writs again with his beautifully manicured hand.

“One of them is very serious indeed,” said Gilder, picking it out from

the rest. “The trustees of the Wellman estate are suing you for three

thousand pounds--the loan you had from Wellman.”

“Can’t you fix them?”

Gilder shook his head.

“I can’t fix trustees--you know that. This is going to look ugly if it

comes into court.”

Arthur Gwyn shrugged his shoulders.

“There is nothing ugly about a loan----”

“You were Wellman’s lawyer,” interrupted Gilder. “And he was not

capable of managing his affairs. I tell you that will look ugly, and

the Law Society will be asking questions. You’ll have to raise money

to settle this case out of court.”

“What are the others?” asked Arthur Gwyn sulkily.

“There’s one for twelve hundred pounds, furniture supplied to Willow

House, and another from the vendor of Willow House for balance of

purchase money unpaid.”

Arthur Gwyn leaned back in his chair, took out a gold toothpick and

chewed it.

“What is the full amount?”

“About six thousand pounds,” said Gilder, gathering up the writs.

“Can’t you raise it?”

His employer shook his head.

“A bill?”

“Who is going to back it?” asked the lawyer, looking up.

Gilder scratched his chin.

“What about Lord Chelford?” he asked.

VII

Arthur Gwyn laughed softly.

“And what do you imagine Chelford would say if I went to him with such

a proposal? You seem to forget, my dear fellow, that to Chelford I am

the brother of a young lady who on her twenty-fifth birthday inherits

the greater part of a million pounds. I’m not only the brother, but I

am her trustee. Besides which, I am managing his mother’s estate. What

would he think if I tried? Chelford’s a fool, but he’s not such a fool

as that, and I would remind you that all his business affairs are in

the hands of the Second Son.”

“You mean Alford--why do you call him that?”

“He’s always been known as the Second Son since he was a child,” said

the other impatiently. “He is a shrewd devil, never forget that,

Gilder. I don’t know whether or not he suspects that I’m a fake, and

that Leslie’s fortune is a myth, but there have been times when he has

asked some deucedly uncomfortable questions.”

“Is the fortune a myth?” asked Gilder, and his companion looked at him

slyly.

“You ought to know, my friend,” he said. “We have been living on it

for eight years! The croupiers of Monte Carlo have raked into their

treasury quite a lot of it--various bookmakers I could mention have

built handsome villas out of it. A myth? It wasn’t a myth ten years

ago. It was two hundred thousand pounds short of a myth! But

to-day----”

He spread out his hands and eyed the writs with a whimsical smile.

“What do you expect to get from Chelford?” asked Gilder. “He has no

money.”

Mr. Gwyn chuckled.

“You may be sure that before I went to the expense and trouble of

buying--or nearly buying--a house adjoining Chelford’s place, and

before I took the trouble to bring Leslie and him into touch, I took

the elementary precaution of sizing up his position. He is

comparatively poor, because that brother of his will sell none of the

estates. He has the family obsession--their motto is ‘Hold Fast.’

Harry Chelford is realizable at a quarter of a million--apart from the

buried treasure.”

They both laughed at this.

“You’ve been lucky up to a point,” said Gilder seriously. “It was luck

to inherit his legal business----”

A clerk came in with some letters to sign at this moment, and, after

he was gone:

“Does your sister still think she is an heiress?” asked Gilder.

“She has that illusion,” replied the other coolly. “Of course she

thinks so! You don’t imagine Leslie would lend herself to that kind of

ramp, do you?”

He took a pen from the silver tray before him, dipped it into the ink,

and, drawing a sheet of paper toward him, scribbled down the figures.

“Six thousand pounds is a lot of money,” he said. “I lost three times

that amount when Black Satin was beaten a short head in the Drayton

Handicap. The only thing to do is to rush the wedding.”

“What about the Yorkshire property?” suggested the managing clerk.

Arthur Gwyn made a little grimace.

“I put a man in to buy it. I could have made twenty thousand profit on

that. There’s coal in abundance; that I have proved. But the Second

Son was on the job, damn him!”

There was a long silence.

“What are you going to do?” asked Gilder.

“I don’t know. I’m at my wits’ end.” Arthur Gwyn threw down the pen.

“The position is exquisite torture to a man of my sensibility. Can’t

you suggest anything?”

“Give me five minutes,” said Gilder, and went out.

As Gilder was making his way to his own office, a clerk handed him a

letter. It was addressed to him personally, in an illiterate hand.

Behind the door of his office bureau, he opened the envelope.

The letter began without any preliminary:

His lordship is still working on the treasure. He had an old book sent

to him from Germany last Tuesday, written by a German who was in this

country hundreds of years ago. I cannot read the title because of the

funny printing, which is like old English. His lordship has also had a

plan sent to him from a London bookseller of Fossaway Manor. His

lordship’s brother, Mr. Alford, has sold Red Farm to Mr. Leonard for

£3,500 [here Mr. Gilder smiled]. Miss Gwyn came to tea yesterday with

his lordship and Mr. Alford, and afterward Miss Gwyn and his lordship

went for a walk in the home park. There is some talk about the Black

Abbot having been seen near the old abbey. He was seen by Thomas

Elwin, the half-witted son of Elwin, his lordship’s cowman, but nobody

takes any notice of this. He has now been seen by Mr. Cartwright, the

grocer. His lordship has had an offer for his Yorkshire estate, but I

heard Mr. Alford advise him not to sell as he was sure there was coal

on it.

Gilder nodded, understanding just how his employer’s plan had fallen

through.

… When I was taking tea into the library I heard his lordship say that

he wanted the wedding to take place in October, but Miss Gwyn said she

would like it after Christmas. His lordship said that he didn’t mind

because he was so busy. Mr. Alford said he thought that the marriage

settlement should be fixed by Sampson & Howard, who were the old Lord

Chelford’s solicitors, but his lordship said that he thought the

settlement had better be in Mr. Gwyn’s hands. I did not hear any more

because Mr. Alford told me to get out. Miss Wenner, who used to be his

lordship’s secretary, came down from London yesterday, but Mr. Alford

has given orders that she is not to be admitted. His lordship did not

see her.…

Mr. Fabrian Gilder’s spy reported other minor matters which were less

interesting. He read the letter again, put it in his pocket, and was

busy at his desk for five minutes.

He came back to find his employer leaning over his desk, his head

between his hands, and laid a slip of paper before him.

“What is this?” asked Gwyn, startled.

“A six-months’ bill for seven thousand pounds. I’ve put an extra

thousand in for luck,” said Gilder coolly.

Gwyn read the document quickly. It was a bill, and required only his

signature and that of Harry, Earl of Chelford, to make it convertible

into solid cash.

“I dare not do it--I simply dare not do it!”

“Why tell him it’s a bill at all?” asked Gilder. “You can get him by

himself, spin a yarn--you have a fertile imagination--but I suggest to

you that you tell him you need his signature to release some of your

sister’s property and once his name is on the back of the bill----”

Arthur Gwyn looked up sharply. Was it a coincidence that this excuse

should be suggested? There was nothing in the head clerk’s face to

suggest otherwise.

“But when it comes due?” he asked irresolutely, as he turned the

document over and over in his hands.

“In six months’ time he’ll be married, and if things aren’t better

with you, he’ll either have to meet the bill or hush the matter up.”

The eyes of the two men met.

“You’re on the edge of ruin, my young friend,” said Gilder, “and I’m

rather concerned. If you go down, my livelihood disappears.”

How true this was, Arthur learnt one bitter day.

“You make a deuced sight more out of it than I do,” he grumbled as he

wrote the name of a bank across the face of the bill.

“I spend less than you, and when I get money I know how to keep it.”

“You might even raise the sum yourself,” said his employer, with a

feeble attempt at jocularity.

“I might,” said Gilder grimly, “but, as I said before, I know how to

take care of my own, and lending money to you is not my notion of a

good investment.”

He had been out of the room only a few minutes when he came back, and

closing the door carefully behind him:

“Do you know a Miss Wenner?” he asked.

Mr. Gwyn frowned.

“Yes. What does she want?”

“She says she must see you on an urgent personal matter. Is she one of

your--friends?”

Arthur shook his head.

“N-no--I have met her. She was Chelford’s secretary. Can’t you find

out what she wants?”

“I’ve tried, but it is a matter personal to you. Do you want to see

her?--I can easily stall her.”

Arthur thought for a while. She might have something important to tell

him.

“Ask her to come in,” he said.

A few minutes later Mary Wenner came into the room and greeted him

with a familiar nod.

“Well, my dear, this is an unexpected pleasure. You are getting

prettier every time I see you.”

She accepted the flattery as her right, and sat on the edge of his

desk.

“I’ve been down to Fossaway, Arthur,” she said.

“Silly girl,” he smiled. “But I thought that affair was all over and

done with. You’ve got to be good, Mary. Chelford is going to marry my

sister.”

“Isn’t that grand! And I’m not surprised. I saw you working when I was

at Fossaway.”

She slipped down from the desk and dropped both her hands on his

shoulders.

“Arthur, I’m tired of stenogging! And I want like sin to get back on

that cold-blooded hound Dick Alford. I’ve been fired out once for

proposing to a man--I’m going to take a second chance. We’ve been good

pals, Arthur.”

He murmured something in his alarm.

“Listen--don’t turn down a good thing. You can marry me and I’ll bring

you a bigger dowry than your sister will take to Harry Chelford.”

He stared at her.

“You?… Dowry?” he stammered.

She nodded slowly.

“Marry me, and I’ll take you to the place where you can lay your hands

on fifteen tons of Spanish gold--the Chelford treasure! Two and a half

million pounds!”

VIII

Fifteen tons of gold! Two and a half millions sterling!

Arthur Gwyn stared at the girl incredulously. But she was making no

idle statement, and that she at least believed what she said was clear

from her flushed face and shining eyes. For a second he was

speechless.

“Fifteen tons of gold?” He frowned and smiled at the same time.

“You’re mad, Mary!”

“Mad, am I?” She nodded vigorously. “Oh, indeed, I daresay you think

so, but you won’t be thinking that very long! I have found the

Chelford treasure, I tell you.”

He sat down heavily in his chair, his startled eyes still fixed upon

hers. He was for the moment inarticulate.

“Rubbish!” he managed to say at last. “There is no Chelford treasure!

Living so long in the same house with Harry Chelford has made you as

mad as he!”

She walked slowly to the desk, and, with her palms on the ledge, leant

down over him.

“You think that, do you?” she asked in a steady voice. “I was three

years Lord Chelford’s secretary, and it’s true I had this treasure

stuff dinned into me from morning till night. The sight of a

black-lettered book makes me ill even now, and the plans of Fossaway

Manor that I’ve studied--well, I don’t like to think of them! I’ve

lived with this treasure for three years, Arthur, and there have been

times when I could have screamed when it was mentioned. I got so that

I came to like Dick Alford, just because he never spoke to me about

it. And then one day there came a bundle of plans from London--Harry

had a standing order with an old bookseller to send him anything he

could find about Chelfordbury or Fossaway Manor. Harry had gone up to

town that morning and I had no other work to do, so I went through

these dusty old sheets to index them. And on the third sheet I found

something that made me open my eyes.”

“What was it?” asked Arthur carelessly.

She looked at him with a quiet smile.

“A lot has to happen before I tell you that,” she said. “Arthur, if I

give you this, or your share of this, will you marry me?”

Arthur looked at her steadily.

“If you can put me next to a million, or half a million,” he said

slowly, “I would marry you if you were the plainest woman on the face

of the earth! Instead of being the bonniest, prettiest little

angel----”

“You can keep that stuff for later,” she said practically.

She opened her handbag and took out a paper, and he watched with

fascinated interest. If he expected the secret of the Chelford

treasure to be laid before him in writing, he was to be disappointed.

“I’m not much of a lawyer,” said Mary, as she smoothed out the paper

and laid it on his blotting-pad, “but I think this is binding on both

sides.”

He took up the paper with a wry face and read it.

In consideration of receiving one half of the Chelford treasure, I,

Arthur Gwyn, of Willow House, Chelfordbury, Sussex, agree to bind

myself to Mary Agnes Wenner in the holy bonds of matrimony within one

month of the treasure being found and divided.

“Is that in order?” she asked, watching his face.

He put the paper down.

“My dear girl----” he began, in his suavest manner.

“Listen, Arthur.” She perched herself on the edge of the desk. “This

is the time for ‘yes’s’ and ‘no’s,’ for ‘I will’s’ and ‘I won’t’s’!

I’m not in love with you and you’re not in love with me. But I want a

home and a position. I may not be a lady, but I am ladylike, and I

have lived long enough with swagger people to make no mistakes. Is it

yes or is it no?”

Arthur looked at the paper again.

“Does it strike you,” he said, “that the Chelford treasure is not

yours or mine to divide? That it belongs to Harry Chelford, his heirs

and his successors?”

“It is treasure trove,” she said startlingly. “I know the law of the

country, because I’ve talked this thing over with Harry times without

number. Treasure found hidden after hundreds of years has to be

divided between the State and the finder.”

He shook his head with a smile.

“Our Mary is a lawyer!” he bantered. “You’re wrong, my dear. That is

only the case if the owner of the money cannot be found. In the

present instance there is no doubt whatever that the treasure would

belong to Chelford.”

He saw her face fall and went on:

“I don’t know that that is going to seriously inconvenience us,” he

said, looking her straight in the eyes. “You cannot lose what you

never had, eh?”

She drew a deep sigh of relief.

“It is Harry’s, I suppose, but after the way he has treated me, and

all that I’ve done for him----”

“Yes, yes,” he said soothingly. “We needn’t worry about Harry. The

only question is, have you found the treasure?”

She nodded.

“You’ve actually seen it?”

“No,” she hesitated, “I haven’t seen it. I hadn’t time. But I saw the

boxes through the grating. The door was locked, and I was so excited

that I had to come out and walk around. And then Dick Alford saw me.”

Arthur was puzzled. He knew this girl well enough; they had been good

friends in the days when she was Chelford’s secretary, and she had

been a most useful agent of his.

“Now, let’s get down to brass tacks,” he said brusquely. “Where did

you see this treasure and when?”

“I’ll tell you when. I saw it two days ago,” she said, to his

surprise, for he had thought she was talking about some experience she

had had when she was an inmate of Fossaway Manor.

“Two days ago?” he gasped.

“Two days ago,” she affirmed. “And as to where, well, there’s another

matter to be settled before we get as far as that, Arthur. Will you

sign that agreement?”

He looked at the paper again. His training in the law, his natural

instincts against putting his name under any document which bound him,

urged him to temporize.

“It is yes or no,” she said, as though she read his mind. “I’m not

going to fool around with you unless you mean business. I’ll take it

to Harry, and maybe, if I put him in possession of this gold, he’ll do

the right thing by me.”

And, seeing that he made no move, she took up the paper, folded it

determinedly, and put it in her little satchel.

“What’s the hurry?” he said, in alarm. “Mary, you’re mad to expect me

to take a big decision like this without giving the matter a moment’s

thought. Don’t you realize what you’re asking me to do? You’re

proposing an act of sheer robbery and you’re asking me to become an

accomplice. After all----” He shrugged his shoulders.

“If your conscience is hurting you,” she said, “we’ll leave it. I’m

not the sort of girl who’d throw herself at any man’s head. I’ll take

it along to Harry and see if his conscience is busy.”

She turned to go, but before she reached the door he had intercepted

her.

“Don’t be silly and don’t be unreasonable.” He was more than a little

agitated. “It’s a big thing you’re asking----”

“It’s a big thing I’m giving,” she said impatiently. “Two million and

a half pounds--there’s nothing mean about that.”

He took her by the arm and forcibly drew her back.

“Sit down and don’t be a fool,” he said. “I’ve told you already I’ll

marry you to-morrow, and I’ll go farther and say that there never was

a time when money was sweeter to me than it is at the moment.”

“Will you sign that note?”

He skimmed it through quickly, making sure that he was under no

obligation if the treasure did not materialize, and, picking up a pen,

he made a little correction, she watching suspiciously, and signed

with a flourish.

“What is that you’ve put into the paper?” she demanded.

“An exit for Arthur Gwyn,” he said with a whimsical smile. “The

document reads ‘In consideration of receiving on behalf of my client

Lord Chelford,’ etcetera, etcetera.”

At first she did not understand, and then a slow smile dawned on her

face.

“I see,” she nodded. “That means that if anything comes out, you’re

acting for him and not for yourself. Arthur, there are times when I

think you’re clever!”

Arthur Gwyn smiled as he put his arm about her and led her to the

window. Below, thick streams of road traffic were passing east and

west. A great lorry was under his eyes; he saw an inscription on its

side, “5 tons.” It would require three such lorries to move the

Chelford treasure, he thought, and for a moment his head reeled.

“I’ll tell you how clever I am when I handle the first bar of the

Chelford treasure. And you’ll know how clever you are when I’ve dealt

with the last. There’s two millions in this. Now, tell me, where is

this gold?”

She looked at him for a second, and then, lowering her voice:

“In the vaults of Chelford Abbey,” she said.

For a second neither spoke, and then:

“Will you see your sister, Mr. Gwyn? She has just arrived.”

Arthur Gwyn spun round, an oath on his lips. Gilder had come

noiselessly into the room, his inscrutable eyes fixed upon his

employer. Not a muscle of his face betrayed whether or not he had

overheard the last words.

IX

Leslie Gwyn’s occupations at Willow House were well defined. Though

her brother did not maintain a very expensive or elaborate

establishment, he lived in a style consonant with the position he held

in the county. There were little dinner parties, an occasional dance,

and in the winter, Arthur, who was a good man to hounds and was

ambitious to be master of the local pack, entertained on a lavish

scale the more prominent members of the hunt. In these amenities

Leslie acted as hostess for her brother, and at all times was the real

housekeeper of the establishment. For all his extravagance he was a

careful and grudging house master, required that the necessities of

life should be bought in the cheapest markets, that the best at the

lowest price should be found upon his table.

The resolve to go to town that morning had been born of a sudden

impulse. The day was her own and she could do as she liked with it.

For some reason the idea of lunching alone did not appeal to her. She

had a wild thought of going on to Fossaway Manor, but remembered that

Wednesday was a day that Dick Alford gave up entirely to visiting his

tenant farmers. She did not attempt to explain to herself why the

prospect of lunching tête-à-tête with her fiancé was even more

distasteful than lunching alone. She had got beyond the point of

finding excuses for herself; she felt a certain recklessness; was

conscious that her manner and attitude of mind were defiant. Against

what and whom?

With a lift of her pretty shoulders she shrugged the matter out of

consideration. All that she knew was that the preoccupation of Dick

Alford and the unlikelihood of seeing him, made a visit to Fossaway

Manor not only undesirable but out of the question.

She would go to town: the decision was taken in an instant, and she

went upstairs and dressed hurriedly, whilst the gardener wheeled her

little two-seater to the drive before the house. Five minutes later

she was spinning along the straight road toward the railway station.

She had plenty of time; indeed, there was a certainty that she would

arrive at the rail at least half-an-hour before the train left, even

if it pulled out on time.

As she entered Fontwell Cutting she thought she saw a familiar form

crossing the field toward the road a quarter of a mile away, and her

heart jumped for no known reason. The high walls of the cut road shut

out her view, but when she emerged and slid down the steep little hill

to the village road, she discovered that she had not been mistaken,

and brought her car to a halt as Dick Alford opened a field gate and

came out.

He greeted her with a wave of his hand and a smile, and, to her

consternation, would have passed on had she not called him back.

“You are very jumpy and cross this morning,” she said, and to her

surprise he admitted that fault, though she had seen nothing in his

manner to deserve the challenge she had made.

“I am very annoyed indeed. If there is one thing I don’t want to see,

it is our good farms turned into little residential estates for the

City gentry! I sold Red Farm to Mr. Leonard last week, under the

impression that the old”--he checked a naughty word--“gentleman wanted

to extend his holding, though why on earth he should want to buy Red

Farm, which is the poorest land around here, I couldn’t guess.”

“And what has he done?”

Dick was indeed very much annoyed, she noticed now, and was secretly

amused. She had a woman’s satisfaction in seeing the man she liked

thrown momentarily off his balance and revealing himself in a light

that was new to her.

“And what has the old--gentleman done?” she mocked him.

“He has resold the farm to a wretched man in London--though the

purchaser is not aware that such a sale is invalid without my

signature.”

“A stranger?” she asked.

“Yes; though he has been living in the neighbourhood all summer. He

has a cottage somewhere about here.”

“On the Ravensrill?” she asked, in surprise.

“That is the fellow,” he nodded. “I’ve never seen him, but I

understood he was only staying here for a few months. And now I find

that the beggar’s bought Red Farm and intends putting up something in

stucco with bow windows! And I daresay he will dig an artificial pond,

start a rosary, and turn God’s productive acres into a forcing house

for sickly flowers!”

“Why shouldn’t he?” she asked coolly, and he stared at her. “After

all, you said this was the poorest land round here, and if it cannot

be useful it may as well be beautiful. I rather like artificial ponds

and rosaries.”

In spite of his annoyance he laughed.

“Then probably you’ll go to Mr. Gilder’s house-warming,” he said.

She started.

“Who?” she asked.

“Mr. Gilder. He’s something in the City--probably a deuce of a swell

in his own way, but I wish he’d gone somewhere else. And as to

Leonard, I’ve already told him that I shall not go to his funeral.”

“Dick, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!” she said indignantly.

“Poor old man!” Then, in a different voice: “You don’t know his

Christian name?”

“Whose--Leonard’s?”

“Don’t be stupid--Mr. Gilder’s.”

Dick frowned.

“Fabrian,” he said at last. “What a name! It sounds like a secret

society!”

She wondered if Arthur knew of this enterprise of his clerk: it was

hardly likely that Mr. Gilder would buy property in the neighbourhood

without consulting his chief. For the moment she deemed it prudent to

turn the subject.

“If you were nice and kind and brotherly,” she said, “you would come

along with me to the station and garage my car like a nice man.”

He stood irresolutely, and for a moment she went hot at the implied

rebuff. And then:

“I’m wasting my master’s time,” he said, “but there are occasions when

pleasure must interfere with duty, and this is one of them. Do you

mind if I drive? I have no faith in women drivers.”

“You are very rude,” she said, but nevertheless moved aside to let him

take the wheel.

“How is Harry this morning?”

“Fine,” he said sardonically. And then, heartily ashamed of himself:

“Harry is trying a new patent medicine. You’ve never been in his

bedroom? That is an indelicate question to ask, but have you?”

She shook her head, the hint of laughter in her eyes.

“There are about eight hundred and forty-five varieties of patent

medicines in Harry’s bedroom,” he said grimly. “Once every three

months we have a spring-cleaning and chuck ’em out! Really, there

isn’t very much wrong with Harry, and if he did not read patent

medicine advertisements he would be a happier man. Just now he’s

trying something for his nerves, and if there’s anything left in the

bottle at the end of the week I shall take it myself.”

“Poor Harry!” she said softly.

“Yes, I’m a brute to grouse,” he said, almost gruffly, and seemed to

imply in some subtle fashion that she was a provocative party to his

brutality.

It occurred to her as strange that he never spoke about the time when

she would be mistress of Fossaway Manor. It would have been natural in

him to say, “When you’re married I hope you’ll cure Harry of that

nonsense,” but he had made no such reference. That was the strange

thing about Dick, that he never even suggested or hinted of a coming

time when she would be Countess of Chelford. In one way she was glad

he did not--especially now.

They wound slowly through the leafy lanes, passed a little wood, all

olive, russet, and purple with the decay of autumn, and came to the

station ten minutes ahead of time.

“You have had no further visit from your Black Abbot?” she asked, as

they strolled on to the station platform.

He shook his head.

“No; the police came last night to make inquiries. I don’t suppose it

will go much farther. You read about it in the newspaper, of course?”

She shook her head.

“Servants talk,” she said.

“I really don’t believe in this Black Abbot,” he went on. “It is queer

that Harry is scared of this spook. He never goes outside the house

when the old Abbot is reported in the neighbourhood.”

“You don’t believe either?”

He pursed his lips.

“When I see a ghost I shall believe it. Until then I am politely

sceptical.”

As the train drew out of the station she put her head out of the

window and looked back. He was standing stock still upon the platform

where she had left him; and although she could not see his face, she

felt that he was gazing after her, and thought she detected a certain

tenseness in his very attitude--all of which was very pleasing to Miss

Leslie Gwyn.

X

Strange as it may seem, she had never visited her brother’s office

on High Holborn before she left her taxi at the door and came up in

the elevator to his magnificent suite. Her appearance had a prosaic

cause. She had left the country without a penny: a fact she did not

realize till the ticket collector, working through the train, came

into her compartment and aroused her from a daydream to the

realization that she had neither ticket nor money to pay for it. She

gave the man her card, and a taxi brought her to Holborn.

She was to have another novel experience. A tall, thick-set man, with

iron-gray hair and a strong, attractive face, had come into the

waiting room to meet her. She remembered him as the solitary fisherman

who had sat fishing for hours on the bank of Ravensrill, without,

apparently, catching anything. So this was the redoubtable Mr. Gilder

of whom Arthur had so often spoken. She was not especially curious

about him. He was a head clerk, and, by Arthur’s account, a clever man

at his work; but now that she saw him, she was impressed. He was

distinctive--outside of type. The average of humanity you may pass in

the street without noticing. It would have been impossible to see

Fabrian Gilder once without recognizing him instantly after the

passage of years. The jaw was almost square, his big mouth was so

tightly drawn that he seemed to be lipless; a powerful nose, a pair of

penetrating gray eyes, under straggly, uneven eyebrows; this, and the

breadth of his shoulders, conveyed an imponderable expression of

power.

“You are Miss Gwyn, of course?” he said. “I would have recognized your

relationship with your brother even if I had not known your name.”

It was a little shock to Leslie that she in any way resembled Arthur,

for Arthur’s good looks were of a variety which she neither envied nor

admired.

“He is engaged at the moment. If you’ll sit down I’ll go along and

tell him.”

His eyes did not leave her face. She had often seen in stories the

word “devour” applied to an intensity of gaze, and she thought that

fictional characters must look somehow as Mr. Gilder was looking. He

was not staring; it was the concentration, the probing investigation

of those bright gray eyes, that made her writhe inside. If he had been

impertinent it would have been an easy matter to deal with him, but he

was respect itself. His attitude was deferential, his general manner

was friendly. He was dressed very well and carefully, she thought, and

wondered whether Arthur’s preciosity in the matter of clothing

influenced his staff. The gray homespun, the rather solid shoes, were

set off by the expensiveness of his linen. With a woman’s eye she saw

that in his way this man was something of a dandy too.

“I hear you are going to live near us, Mr. Gilder?” she said, and he

was obviously taken aback.

“Why--yes,” he said awkwardly. “I’ve bought a little place near your

house. I love that part of the country.”

“We shall be neighbours,” she said with a smile, but felt no pleasure

in the prospect.

“Er--yes. I suppose we shall be, Miss Gwyn,” he agreed.

“It will be very nice for Arthur. I suppose it was his suggestion that

you should come down?”

He had a nervous little trick of stroking an invisible moustache, for

he was clean-shaven.

“Well… no,” he said. “I haven’t told Mr. Gwyn yet that I have bought

the property. I thought another time would be more opportune. I bought

it for a song--thirty-five hundred pounds.”

She looked up quickly.

“That is an expensive song,” she said, before she realized an error of

taste.

This time he was visibly disconcerted.

“Yes; I--er, I borrowed the money,” he said.

She had a feeling that he was going to ask her a favour, and guessed

what the favour would be: Leslie had the uncanny gift of reading

people’s minds and gathering their surface thoughts, and in those

moments when Fabrian Gilder dropped his mask he was rather easy. He

opened his lips to speak, thought better of it, meeting, perhaps, the

chill atmosphere of a refusal before it was given, and then:

“I’ll see if your brother is disengaged,” he said, and went into the

room to Arthur Gwyn, his head reeling with the vision which had

emerged through the gray fog of his drab life.

Day after day he had watched her, and she had never known. He had left

his rod and line to steal behind trees that he might see her pass. She

was romance in excelsis--the perfect realization of thirty years of

dreaming.

It took him a second to compose himself before he turned the handle

and walked in, and then he stood stricken dumb by the words that came

to him.

XI

“My sister?” said Arthur quickly. He looked from Gilder to Mary

Wenner. “Come and see me later,” he said in a lower voice. “Gilder,

show Miss Wenner out through the side door.”

Gilder opened the private door and followed the girl into the

corridor.

“Where are you living?” he asked.

There was such a note of authority in his voice that for the moment

the girl was taken off her guard.

“57 Cranston Mansions. Why?” she asked, with a certain archness that

indicated resentment but invited a further offence.

“Because I want to see you,” said Gilder. “Can I come round to your

flat some evening?”

Miss Wenner was shocked a little at this. There were moments when her

sense of propriety was easily outraged. She was curious too; so far

from resenting his commanding address, she rather liked it.

“Yes, any evening you wish, if you will let me know that you are

coming. I will ask a young lady friend to keep me company.”

Gilder’s hard lips curled.

“Unless you particularly want a chaperon, don’t get one,” he said. “I

have much to say to you that I don’t want anybody else to hear.”

He accompanied her to the elevator and on the way extracted a promise

to receive him alone. Miss Wenner was almost as curious to know the

object of that visit as Mr. Gilder was to discover what was behind the

amazing statement he had heard. He passed the closed door of Arthur’s

room and heard voices. He would have given a lot for an excuse to

interrupt brother and sister, but something told him that it would be

wiser if he kept out of his employer’s way until he was absolutely

certain that the girl had not betrayed the very carefully hidden

transaction which had made him the proprietor of Red Farm.

* * *

“You’re a little goose to come up to town without money,” said Arthur,

as he skinned three notes from his pocketbook. “Here is enough to keep

you happy for the rest of your life.”

“Would fifteen pounds do that?” she laughed, and was going, when she

remembered.…

Arthur listened in amazement to the news she had to give.

“Gilder has bought a house at Chelfordbury? Impossible!” he said. “He

would have told me. Why the dickens does he want a house?--besides, he

has no money.”

“Hasn’t he?” she asked, in surprise.

Arthur scratched his chin irritably.

“I suppose the beggar has; but a house at Chelfordbury--that is

extraordinary! I wasn’t even aware that he knew the place.”

“He is the man who has been staying at Ravensrill Cottage all the

summer,” she said.

“The fisherman!” He whistled. “What a close bird he is! Of course,” he

went on quickly, “there is nothing wrong in a man wanting to live at

Chelfordbury, and there’s no reason in life why he shouldn’t buy a

house. But what a sly old fox!”

He was troubled; she saw that he was trying to hide it behind a

flippancy that was transparent to her.

“I knew, of course, that somebody had rented the fisherman’s cottage,

as they call it, and to think that he’s been down all these months and

never once given himself away!”

“He has a car, if he’s the same man who was living at the cottage,”

she nodded. “Dick Alford is furious!”

Arthur chuckled.

“Poor old Dick!” he said good-humouredly. “He loathes this residential

idea, and when I put forward a scheme to cut up one of his northern

estates into residential properties, he nearly bit my head off. Harry

would have done it like a shot, and I hope, my dear, when you’re

married you’ll persuade him…”

He waited expectantly.

“Yes--when I am married,” she said, and her tone made him glance at

her keenly. But he was wise enough to skim over that subject.

“Dick, of course, is a fool,” he said, with good-natured contempt. “He

has a blind faith in the future of agriculture in this country, and

grudges every acre that’s taken out of cultivation. And yet, if you

were to put up a scheme to build huge blocks of cottages to relieve

the slum congestion, or something equally quixotic and unprofitable,

he would jump at the idea. I can well understand that the mere thought

of a successful lawyer’s clerk setting himself up as a country

gentleman would make Dick foam at the mouth!”

“He wasn’t foaming when I left him,” she said drily.

“When you left him?” He was quick to take a point.

“Yes, he came down to the station with me.” And she could not account

for her momentary feeling of embarrassment.

He was still searching her face, and then, laying his hands on her

shoulders, he shook her gently.

“Old girl,” he said, “keep your mind off the Second Son! He’s a

good-looking fellow, and side by side with his brother there’s no

question of choice! But he’s a second son, which means that he’s next

door to being broke. And you can’t live on good looks or----”

She raised her eyes slowly to his.

“What do you mean--I can’t live on good looks?” she said deliberately.

“Why do you emphasize the fact that Dick Alford is poor? Amn’t I an

heiress?”

He did not speak, and then, with a little laugh, dropped his hands.

“Why, of course, chick!” he said lightly. “Only--well, I want you to

do something for yourself. Make a name in the country. It will be

something to have the position which Harry can offer you. Dick is

quite a good fellow--one of the best, although he doesn’t get on very

well with me. But there’s nothing to it with him, Leslie. You might as

well marry some poverty-stricken gentleman farmer----”

He stopped under the steady gaze that met him.

“‘Poverty-stricken’ again, Arthur--without suggesting that I would

rather marry Dick Alford, I wonder why the question of his poverty

interests you so much. If you had called him a commoner and a nobody,

I could have understood, but you insist upon the question of my

possible fiancé’s wealth, and that seems strange to me.”

He laughed long and loudly, but his merriment seemed, to her sensitive

ear, lacking in sincerity.

“You ought to be a lawyer, Leslie! Upon my word, I’ve a good mind to

have you coached for an examination! You’d look simply topping in a

wig and gown! And now, my little girl, you must run away, because I’ve

a tremendous lot of work.”

He put his arm round her shoulders and walked with her to the door,

and breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the whine of the elevator

carrying her down. Closing the door behind him, he rang the bell, and,

to the clerk who came:

“Ask Mr. Gilder to come in, will you, please?”

XII

When Gilder had this message he knew that the girl had told her

brother; and although he had his fair share of moral courage, it

needed a conscious effort on his part to answer the summons.

“Gilder, what is this story of you buying Red Farm?” asked Arthur

sharply.

“Why should I not buy Red Farm?” replied Gilder coolly.

“There is no reason in the world why you shouldn’t,” said Arthur,

after a moment’s thought; “but it is rather curious you never told

me.”

“I thought you might object,” said Gilder. “Business men hate their

workaday associates living anywhere near them. It was stupid of me not

to tell you. I’ve been living in a cottage at Chelfordbury for three

months--was that in itself objectionable? You will forgive me for

saying so, but although I have always regarded you with the respect

that is due to an employer, I have never quite looked upon you as my

feudal lord!”

Arthur grinned for a second.

“Once or twice I thought of coming over to see you,” Gilder went on,

“but I’ve always had what I think to be a natural reluctance to

intrude myself in a social capacity upon my chief. If you had ever

invited me to come and stay a week-end at your place I would have

come, and you would have known all about my presence in the

neighbourhood. As it was, I felt very much in the position of a

servant enjoying himself in his own independent way and feeling no

need to consult his employer as to how he should employ his spare

time--and money.”

“And money,” repeated Arthur. “I didn’t know you were so well off,

Gilder.”

Mr. Gilder inclined his head.

“I have already hinted to you that I have made considerable sums.

There, again, it has never seemed necessary that I should keep you

acquainted with my bank balance.”

“You have had a moderate salary,” said Arthur significantly. “Not a

generous amount, I agree; certainly not an amount from which a man

could save a sum sufficient to buy and rebuild Red Farm and maintain

it.”

For answer Gilder put his hand in his pocket and, taking out a little

Russian-leather note case, laid it on the table. The name in gold

letters upon the cover was that of a bookmaker who carried one of his

employer’s biggest accounts. With this firm Arthur had lost his

largest bets, for Truman’s had offered him facilities which other

houses had denied to him.

“Truman?” He frowned. “What has that to do with it? Have you been

backing horses?”

Gilder shook his head.

“No,” he said simply. “I am Truman.”

Arthur Gwyn gaped at him. Truman! The bookmaker to whom for weeks in

succession he had been paying thousands upon thousands of pounds!

“Then the money you have--is my money!” he gasped.

“Your money?” said the other quietly. “If Truman’s had not taken it,

some other bookmaker would have done so. When you won you were

paid--have you any complaints?”

“My money!” muttered Arthur.

Gilder replaced the book in his pocket.

“You remember five years ago complaining to me that you couldn’t find

bookmakers who would take big bets by telegram within a few minutes of

the race? That little talk gave me an idea. I knew you lost steadily,

that you were one of those--unfortunate people----”

“Say ‘fools’--that was the word on your lips.”

“‘Mug’ was the word,” said Mr. Gilder, with great calmness. “I knew

you were one of those people who couldn’t stop betting. So Truman’s

came into existence. Their book of rules was sent to you, featuring

the important concession that you could wire big sums of money up to

within a few minutes of a race. Do you know how much you’ve lost in

the last five years?”

Arthur was pale with fury, but, mastering himself, shook his head.

“You have lost sixty-three thousand pounds to Truman alone,” said the

other slowly. “And I have won it!”

The colour came and went in Arthur Gwyn’s face. He knew all the time

that his rage and resentment were unreasonable. Hitherto Truman had

been a name on a telegraph form, an address somewhere in the West End

to which his unprofitable telegrams were sent. Who they were he

neither knew nor cared; they might have been people infinitely more

objectionable than Gilder.

But there was a suggestion of duplicity in the man’s confession.

Arthur Gwyn felt that he had been tricked by a servant he trusted, and

he was helpless in face of sixty-three thousand facts, all of which

balanced on the side of the hard-faced man before him.

“You are not Rathburn & Co., I suppose?” he asked, mentioning another

bookmaking firm that had drawn heavily upon his resources.

To his amazement, Gilder nodded.

“I am Rathburn & Company. I am also Burton & Smith. I am, in fact, the

three bookmakers to whom you have been losing money at the rate of

thirty thousand a year for the past five years. There is no sense in

looking like that, Gwyn. I have been guilty of no crime. On the few

occasions when you have won money, you have been paid. Your losses

would not have been so distasteful if they had been made to an unknown

man. I took the risk--my luck against yours. When I started, I staked

my little fortune--three thousand pounds, won through the years by

scrimping and saving. If you had been lucky, I should have been

ruined.”

“Instead of which you were lucky--and I am ruined,” said Arthur Gwyn

huskily. He was shaken from his accustomed calm. “You are quite right,

though it is a little--bewildering.”

He looked curiously at the inscrutable face of his managing clerk,

striving to readjust his estimate of a man whom he had looked upon as

little more than a superior servant. Then the humour of the position

struck him and he laughed.

“If I’m not careful I shall be sorry for myself, and I should hate

that, Gilder! So you’re a rich man, eh? What are you going to do with

your money?”

Gilder’s eyes did not leave his face.

“I am going to settle down in the country,” he said, “and I am going

to marry.”

“Splendid!” There was a note of irony in Arthur Gwyn’s tone. “And who

is the fortunate lady?”

It was a long time before the other replied. He stared open-eyed at

his sometime master, and then, very deliberately and slowly:

“It is my desire and intention to marry Miss Leslie Gwyn,” he said.

Not a muscle of Arthur Gwyn’s face moved; his colour did not change.

But into his eyes came a glare which was malign and devilish. For a

second the imperturbable Gilder was scared. Had he gone too far? Both

men were learning something that day. Gilder had a momentary view of

something that was very ugly and menacing, and then the curtains were

drawn and the inner self of Arthur Gwyn vanished in an enigmatic

smile.

“That is very interesting and very--enterprising of you, Gilder!

Unfortunately, I have other plans.”

He rose leisurely from his chair, walked round the desk and confronted

the other, his hands thrust into his pockets.

“What are you prepared to pay for the privilege of being my

brother-in-law?” he bantered.

Fabrian Gilder took up the challenge.

“The return of half your betting losses for the past five years,” he

said.

Arthur shook his head.

“Not enough,” he smiled.

“The cancellation of four bills,” said Gilder deliberately, “drawn and

accepted by Lord Chelford, the acceptance in each case being forged by

you.”

Arthur Gwyn staggered back to his desk, his face white and drawn, and

Gilder pursued the advantage.

“You didn’t think it was an accident that I suggested you should get

Chelford to back a bill for you, did you? Seventy-five thousand pounds

isn’t enough for you, eh? I’ll give you this alternative: five years

in Dartmoor!”

XIII

Leslie had spent rather a boring afternoon, and not once but many

times she regretted that she had promised to return to Arthur’s

office. He was driving her down to Willow House, and, but for this

arrangement, she would have returned to Chelfordbury by an early

train, for her shopping did not occupy more than an hour.

She rang up her brother to suggest this plan, never doubting that he

would agree, but, to her surprise:

“I think you’d better return with me, girl. Come along to the office

about half-past four instead of five. By the way, Gilder wants us to

go home to his flat to tea. You don’t mind, do you?”

“Mr. Gilder?” she said, in surprise, and he went on hastily:

“We ought to be civil to him. He’s going to be a neighbour of ours,

and he--he’s not a bad sort of fellow.”

Her inclination was to plead a headache and be excused an experience

which, to state the matter mildly, was not wholly to her taste. But

Arthur seldom asked a favour of her, and it was apparent from his tone

that he was anxious she should show this act of civility to his head

clerk; somewhat unwillingly she agreed.

If he detected her reluctance, he made no comment upon it and seemed

in a hurry to hang up. There was no reason in the world why the

projected call should make her uneasy, and yet, for some obscure

reason, this coming experience hung like a cloud over her for the rest

of the afternoon. This time, when she returned to the office, she

entered by Arthur’s private door. He was alone, sitting at his desk in

a familiar attitude, his head between his hands, his gloomy eyes fixed

upon the blotting-pad. She thought his face had less colour than

usual; and in his eyes there was a haggard, hunted expression which

was startling. He forced a smile to greet her, but she was not

deceived.

“Aren’t you well, Arthur?” she asked anxiously.

“Fit as a fiddle,” he laughed; “only I have had a pretty heavy day. I

suppose I look a little washed out.”

He did not seem very anxious to discuss himself, but plunged straight

into the subject of the surprising call they were to make.

“Gilder has a flat off Regent’s Park,” he said. “Be as nice to him as

you can, Leslie. He’s been a pretty useful man. By the way,” he said

awkwardly, “he is a bachelor.”

She smiled at this; in her wildest dreams she would not have imagined

that this statement had any particular interest for herself.

“I had no idea he was such a--that he was so prosperous,” she said.

“No, I don’t mean that bachelorhood is a sign of poverty, but his

estate at Chelfordbury and his flat in Regent’s Park are not exactly

what one would have expected.”

“He isn’t a bad fellow,” repeated Arthur, as he rang the bell. “I

think you’ll like him: he is rather--amusing.”

“Amusing” was not the word he would have used, in all truth, but it

was the only word he could think of at the moment. As though he were

waiting for this summons, Mr. Gilder came in answer to the bell. He

carried a light coat over his arm and a spotless gray felt hat in his

hand. Again she was uncomfortably conscious of the man’s scrutiny.

“You know Mr. Gilder, Leslie?”

His uneasiness and apprehension were communicating themselves to her.

Try as she did, she could not succeed in shaking off her sensation of

disquietude. The atmosphere was electric; she would have been dull

indeed if she had not responded to the strain.

Throughout the journey Mr. Gilder talked almost without interruption.

He had a deep but pleasant voice, and was an easy conversationalist.

Arthur was beginning to know something about the man with whom he had

worked side by side all these years, and to regard him in a new light.

Hitherto, Gilder had been a cipher--a familiar figure that had

appeared from heaven knew where in the morning and had disappeared at

the end of a day’s work into the blue. As though unconscious of his

employer’s wonder and speculation, Gilder chatted on.

Afterward, Leslie catalogued the subjects which were discussed so

one-sidedly in that drive. He talked of aviation, of wireless, of

books he had read--Dumas was his favourite--of the war, of Russia, of

Italy’s renaissance, of American writers, of the weather, polo--of

almost every subject that occupied public attention. She knew that he

was trying to impress her, and saw in this no more than the natural

desire of a man to look well in the eyes of a woman.

The flat was bigger than she had expected, and was in one of many in

the most exclusive apartment house on the Outer Circle. Arthur viewed

its expensive appointments with a glum face. One black week of his at

Ascot must have furnished three such flats as this, he thought, and

the little devil of resentment and loathing grew stronger in his

heart.

Tea was served by two trimly uniformed maids, and Mr. Gilder acted the

part of host to perfection. He had a library of rare old books which

she must see, and he took them to a room the walls of which were

fitted with bookshelves and reminded Leslie, though there was no

resemblance between the two apartments, of the hall wherein her

fiancé spent most of his time.

Gilder was showing the girl a rare first edition when a surprising

thing happened.

“Do you mind if I run out for five minutes, Leslie? I want to see a

fellow who lives on the other side of the Park.”

Arthur Gwyn’s voice was husky, his assumption of ease a miserable

failure. The girl looked at him in astonishment, and then examined the

face of the little watch on her wrist.

“If you want to be back at Willow House in time for dinner----” she

began.

“I sha’n’t be more than a quarter of an hour gone,” he said

desperately. “If you don’t mind…”

Before she could utter a word he had vanished. It was all so

unexpected, so strange, that she could not quite realize what had

happened, and the last thought in the world she could have had was

that Arthur was deliberately leaving her alone with this gray man.

On one point her mind was made up: she did not like Mr. Gilder; and

she was fairly certain that her antipathy was shared by her brother.

His strange manner in the presence of the man, his awkwardness, and,

most convincing proof of all, his silence, puzzled her. Arthur was

intensely selfish, would not go a step out of his way either for

courtesy’s sake or to save the feelings of those whom he regarded as

his dependents. And this sudden desire to oblige his head clerk was

contradictory to her knowledge of him. Yet she felt neither alarm nor

annoyance, finding herself in that little library, alone with this

square-jawed clerk.

As the door closed upon her brother, Fabrian Gilder carefully replaced

on the shelf the book he had been examining.

“I shall be in my new home by the spring,” he said, “and I hope I

shall see more of you, Miss Gwyn.”

She made a conventionally polite reply.

“My ambition has always been to settle in the country and to follow my

two hobbies, which are fishing and reading,” he went on. “Happily, I

am in the position of being able to retire from my profession--your

brother has probably told you that I am a fairly wealthy man.”

Something in his tone focussed her attention. Her heart beat a little

faster, and for the first time she was conscious of being alone with

him.

“I am not an old man--fifty I regard as the prime of life--and I think

I have the capacity for making any woman happy.”

She met his eyes steadily.

“I hope we shall have the pleasure of meeting your wife,” she said.

He made no reply to this, and she grew hot and cold under the scrutiny

of those merciless gray eyes. And then, before she realized what was

happening, his two big hands had closed about her arms and he was

holding her away from him, peering into her face.

“There is one woman in the world for me,” he said, and his voice was

husky with emotion; “one face that fills my eyes day and night!

Leslie, all these months you have not been out of my sight or mind!”

“Let me go!” she cried, struggling to free herself.

“I want you! I’ve worked for you, I’ve schemed for you! Leslie, I love

you as you will never be loved again! I want you--I want you!”

He was drawing her nearer and nearer, his eyes, like coals of fire,

fascinated her to a queer listlessness that was almost quiescence. She

found no reserve to combat him, and could only stare helplessly at the

hard face----

There was a knock at the door. He pushed her aside, his face convulsed

with rage.

“Who is that?” he asked harshly, and the voice of the maid replied:

“Mr. Richard Alford to see you, sir!”

XIV

Dick Alford, waiting in the pretty drawing-room and wondering

exactly how he should introduce what promised to be a very unpleasant

discussion, saw the door flung open and a white-faced girl ran in.

“Oh, Dick, Dick!” she sobbed.

In a moment she was in his arms, her face against his breast.

“For God’s sake, what has happened? How did you come here?” he asked,

bewildered.

Before she could reply, the big figure of Fabrian Gilder filled the

doorway. The man did not speak, but the smouldering rage in his eyes

was eloquent.

“Well, what do you want?” he boomed.

Dick put the girl gently from him.

“Why are you here, Leslie?”

“Arthur brought me,” she gasped. “I’m awfully sorry to make such a

fool of myself, but----”

Dick looked from the girl to the man in the doorway and began dimly to

understand.

“Arthur brought you here?” he said slowly. “And left you alone--with

this man?”

She nodded.

“Is he a friend of yours?”

She shook her head.

“I only met him to-day.”

Gradually the explanation of her distress was beginning to dawn upon

him, and a cold rage filled his heart. An unfortunate moment for

Arthur Gwyn to return. Dick heard the tinkle of a bell, quick

footsteps in the hall, and saw the white face of the lawyer, made

hideous by the smile he forced.

“Hullo, old girl! What’s the trouble?” he asked.

He did not look at his host: this Dick noticed with gathering fury.

“I think you had better take Leslie home,” he said. “I have a little

business to do with Mr. Gilder.”

Gilder had recovered something of his command of himself and his

feelings; the situation, awkward as it was, had brought him violently

into the circle about which so far he had revolved. It were better to

be considered as an undesirable suitor than to be denied consideration

as a factor at all in Leslie Gwyn’s life.

“May I ask by what right you dispose of my guests?” he demanded, but

Dick took no notice of him.

“Look after your sister, Gwyn,” he said, and there was a scarcely

veiled menace in the words. “I will give myself the pleasure of

calling on you this evening.”

He took the girl’s hand in his; she was still white and shaking, but

smiled into his face.

“I’ve made myself rather ridiculous, haven’t I?” she said, in a low

tone that only he could hear. “Dicky--perhaps I’m getting a little

jumpy, and I may have taken offence----”

He patted her hand gently and walked with her past Gilder into the

hall, Arthur following. It was Dick who opened the door, and stood

patiently until they had gone, then he turned to face the enraged

owner of the flat.

“I had some real business to do with you, Gilder, but that can wait.

First of all, I would like to ask, what have you said to Miss Gwyn?”

“That is entirely my business,” said Gilder. His gaze was steady;

again he was completely master of himself, if not of the situation.

“My business also,” said Dick, without heat. “You are aware that Miss

Gwyn is engaged to my brother?”

Gilder licked his dry lips.

“That doesn’t really interest me,” he said. And then, after a second’s

thought: “I’m going to be frank with you, Alford--we may as well clear

the air. I have asked Miss Gwyn to be my wife.”

“Oh, indeed?” said Dick softly. “And what had Miss Gwyn to say to

that?”

“You didn’t give her an opportunity of replying,” said the other, “but

I rather think that there will be no difficulty in the matter.”

Dick did not conceal his smile. A shrewd judge of men, he had rightly

understood the situation when he had seen Arthur’s face on his return

to the flat.

“You mean there will be no difficulty so far as Mr. Gwyn is concerned?

I admit you have an historical precedent. You are not the first lawyer

who wished to marry into his master’s family.”

If Dick had not been angry he would not have said this; immediately

the words were out he was sorry. But Gilder took up the point quickly.

“I am not a Uriah Heep,” he said, with a grim smile. “I am neither

humble nor lowly.”

“I’m sorry, but really I don’t think that matters very much, Gilder.

Whatever Mr. Gwyn’s attitude may be, there will be a considerable

difficulty in respect to Miss Gwyn--and to me.”

“To you?” Gilder’s eyebrows went up and his lips curled. “Are you the

lady’s--er----”

“I am not engaged to Miss Gwyn, but my brother is,” said Dick evenly.

“But that is not the point. I am a friend of Leslie Gwyn’s, and even

if she changed her mind about marrying into my family, that would not

affect the issue.”

Gilder was about to speak, but Dick went on:

“I don’t know what pull you have with Gwyn or what dire threats you

are holding over his head.”

He saw the man start, and laughed.

“That went very near the mark?” he said. “But whatever influence you

have, Gilder, you are not going to marry Leslie Gwyn.”

Gilder’s eyes narrowed.

“Is that a threat?” he asked.

“You can take it as a threat or as a pleasant compliment, or any old

way you choose,” said Dick, with that impish smile of his. “And now,

if you don’t mind, we’ll come to business. You’ve bought a property of

ours--Red Farm. You’ve paid thirty-five hundred pounds to Leonard. I

have come to ask you to call off your bargain and to take five hundred

profit.”

“In other words, you want to buy it back, eh? Well, there’s nothing

doing!” said Gilder harshly. “I intend living at Red Farm, and there

isn’t a law in the land that can stop me. You may not like my

presence, but that is neither here nor there. I am not living at

Chelfordbury for the pleasure of seeing you every day of my life.”

Dick nodded.