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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Imaginary Marriage, by Henry St. John Cooper
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: The Imaginary Marriage
+
+Author: Henry St. John Cooper
+
+Release Date: February 18, 2005 [eBook #15103]
+[Most recently updated: March 6, 2023]
+
+Language: English
+
+Produced by: Michael Ciesielski, Beginners Projects, Martin Barber and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IMAGINARY MARRIAGE ***
+
+
+
+
+THE IMAGINARY MARRIAGE
+
+Henry St. John Cooper
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+ CHAPTER I. A MASTERFUL WOMAN
+ CHAPTER II. IN WHICH HUGH BREAKS THE NEWS
+ CHAPTER III. JOAN MEREDYTH, TYPIST
+ CHAPTER IV. FACE TO FACE
+ CHAPTER V. “PERHAPS I SHALL GO BACK”
+ CHAPTER VI. “THE ONLY POSSIBLE THING”
+ CHAPTER VII. MR. SLOTMAN ARRIVES AT A MISUNDERSTANDING
+ CHAPTER VIII. THE DREAM GIRL
+ CHAPTER IX. THE PEACEMAKER
+ CHAPTER X. “IN SPITE OF EVERYTHING”
+ CHAPTER XI. THE GENERAL CALLS ON HUGH
+ CHAPTER XII. “I TAKE NOT ONE WORD BACK”
+ CHAPTER XIII. THE GENERAL CONFESSES
+ CHAPTER XIV. THE BEGINNING OF THE TRAIL
+ CHAPTER XV. “TO THE MANNER BORN”
+ CHAPTER XVI. ELLICE
+ CHAPTER XVII. UNREST
+ CHAPTER XVIII. “UNGENEROUS”
+ CHAPTER XIX. THE INVESTIGATIONS OF MR. SLOTMAN
+ CHAPTER XX. “WHEN I AM NOT WITH YOU”
+ CHAPTER XXI. “I SHALL FORGET HER”
+ CHAPTER XXII. JEALOUSY
+ CHAPTER XXIII. “UNCERTAIN—COY”
+ CHAPTER XXIV. “—TO GAIN, OR LOSE IT ALL”
+ CHAPTER XXV. IN THE MIRE
+ CHAPTER XXVI. MR. ALSTON CALLS
+ CHAPTER XXVII. THE WATCHER
+ CHAPTER XXVIII. “HE DOES NOT LOVE ME NOW”
+ CHAPTER XXIX. “WHY DOES SHE TAKE HIM FROM ME?”
+ CHAPTER XXX. “WAITING”
+ CHAPTER XXXI. “IF YOU NEED ME”
+ CHAPTER XXXII. THE SPY
+ CHAPTER XXXIII. GONE
+ CHAPTER XXXIV. “FOR HER SAKE”
+ CHAPTER XXXV. CONNIE DECLARES
+ CHAPTER XXXVI. “HE HAS COME BACK”
+ CHAPTER XXXVII. THE DROPPING OF THE SCALES
+ CHAPTER XXXVIII. “HER CHAMPION”
+ CHAPTER XXXIX. “THE PAYING”
+ CHAPTER XL. “IS IT THE END?”
+ CHAPTER XLI. MR. RUNDLE TAKES A HAND
+ CHAPTER XLII. “WALLS WE CANNOT BATTER DOWN”
+ CHAPTER XLIII. “NOT TILL THEN WILL I GIVE UP HOPE”
+ CHAPTER XLIV. POISON
+ CHAPTER XLV. THE GUIDING HAND
+ CHAPTER XLVI. “—SHE HAS GIVEN!”
+ CHAPTER XLVII. “AS WE FORGIVE—”
+ CHAPTER XLVIII. HER PRIDE’S LAST FIGHT
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+A MASTERFUL WOMAN
+
+
+“Don’t talk to me, miss,” said her ladyship. “I don’t want to hear any
+nonsense from you!”
+
+The pretty, frightened girl who shared the drawing-room at this moment
+with Lady Linden of Cornbridge Manor House had not dared to open her
+lips. But that was her ladyship’s way, and “Don’t talk to me!” was a
+stock expression of hers. Few people were permitted to talk in her
+ladyship’s presence. In Cornbridge they spoke of her with bated breath
+as a “rare masterful woman,” and they had good cause.
+
+Masterful and domineering was Lady Linden of Cornbridge, yet she was
+kind-hearted, though she tried to disguise the fact.
+
+In Cornbridge she reigned supreme, men and women trembled at her
+approach. She penetrated the homes of the cottagers, she tasted of
+their foods, she rated them on uncleanliness, drunkenness, and
+thriftlessness; she lectured them on cooking.
+
+On many a Saturday night she raided, single-handed, the Plough Inn and
+drove forth the sheepish revellers, personally conducting them to their
+homes and wives.
+
+They respected her in Cornbridge as the reigning sovereign of her small
+estate, and none did she rule more autocratically and completely than
+her little nineteen-year-old niece Marjorie.
+
+A pretty, timid, little maid was Marjorie, with soft yellow hair, a
+sweet oval face, with large pathetic blue eyes and a timid, uncertain
+little rosebud of a mouth.
+
+“A rare sweet maid her be,” they said of her in the village, “but
+terribul tim’rous, and I lay her ladyship du give she a rare time of
+it....” Which was true.
+
+“Don’t talk to me, miss!” her ladyship said to the silent girl. “I know
+what is best for you; and I know, too, what you don’t think I know—ha,
+ha!” Her ladyship laughed terribly. “I know that you have been meeting
+that worthless young scamp, Tom Arundel!”
+
+“Oh, aunt, he is not worthless—”
+
+“Financially he isn’t worth a sou—and that’s what I mean, and don’t
+interrupt. I am your guardian, you are entirely in my charge, and until
+you arrive at the age of twenty-five I can withhold your fortune from
+you if you marry in opposition to me and my wishes. But you won’t—you
+won’t do anything of the kind. You will marry the man I select for you,
+the man I have already selected—what did you say, miss?
+
+“And now, not another word. Hugh Alston is the man I have selected for
+you. He is in love with you, there isn’t a finer lad living. He has
+eight thousand a year, and Hurst Dormer is one of the best old
+properties in Sussex. So that’s quite enough, and I don’t want to hear
+any more nonsense about Tom Arundel. I say nothing against him
+personally. Colonel Arundel is a gentleman, of course, otherwise I
+would not permit you to know his son; but the Arundels haven’t a
+pennypiece to fly with and—and now—Now I see Hugh coming up the drive.
+Leave me. I want to talk to him. Go into the garden, and wait by the
+lily-pond. In all probability Hugh will have something to say to you
+before long.”
+
+“Oh, aunt, I—”
+
+“Shut up!” said her ladyship briefly.
+
+Marjorie went out, with hanging head and bursting heart. She believed
+herself the most unhappy girl in England. She loved; who could help
+loving happy-go-lucky, handsome Tom Arundel, who well-nigh worshipped
+the ground her little feet trod upon? It was the first love and the
+only love of her life, and of nights she lay awake picturing his
+bright, young boyish face, hearing again all the things he had said to
+her till her heart was well-nigh bursting with love and longing for
+him.
+
+But she did not hate Hugh. Who could hate Hugh Alston, with his cheery
+smile, his ringing voice, his big generous heart, and his fine
+manliness? Not she! But from the depths of her heart she wished Hugh
+Alston a great distance away from Cornbridge.
+
+“Hello, Hugh!” said her ladyship. He had come in, a man of
+two-and-thirty, big and broad, with suntanned face and eyes as blue as
+the tear-dimmed eyes of the girl who had gone miserably down to the
+lily-pond.
+
+Fair haired was Hugh, ruddy of cheek, with no particular beauty to
+boast of, save the wholesomeness and cleanliness of his young manhood.
+He seemed to bring into the room a scent of the open country, of the
+good brown earth and of the clean wind of heaven.
+
+“Hello, Hugh!” said Lady Linden.
+
+“Hello, my lady,” said he, and kissed her. It had been his habit from
+boyhood, also it had been his lifelong habit to love and respect the
+old dame, and to feel not the slightest fear of her. In this he was
+singular, and because he was the one person who did not fear her she
+preferred him to anyone else.
+
+“Hugh,” she said—she went straight to the point, she always did; as a
+hunter goes at a hedge, so her ladyship without prevarication went at
+the matter she had in hand—“I have been talking to Marjorie about Tom
+Arundel—”
+
+His cheery face grew a little grave.
+
+“Yes?”
+
+“Well, it is absurd—you realise that?”
+
+“I suppose so, but—” He paused.
+
+“It is childish folly!”
+
+“Do you think so? Do you think that she—” Again he paused, with a
+nervousness and diffidence usually foreign to him.
+
+“She’s only a gel,” said her ladyship. Her ladyship was Sussex born,
+and talked Sussex when she became excited. “She’s only a gel, and gels
+have their fancies. I had my own—but bless you, they don’t last. She
+don’t know her own mind.”
+
+“He’s a good fellow,” said Hugh generously.
+
+“A nice lad, but he won’t suit me for Marjorie’s husband. Hugh, the
+gel’s in the garden, she is sitting by the lily-pond and believes her
+heart is broken, but it isn’t! Go and prove it isn’t; go now!”
+
+He met her eyes and flushed red. “I’ll go and have a talk to Marjorie,”
+he said. “You haven’t been—too rough with her, have you?”
+
+“Rough! I know how to deal with gels. I told her that I had the command
+of her money, her four hundred a year till she was twenty-five, and not
+a bob of it should she touch if she married against my wish. Now go and
+talk to her—and talk sense—” She paused. “You know what I mean—sense!”
+
+A very pretty picture, the slender white-clad, drooping figure with its
+crown of golden hair made, sitting on the bench beside the lily-pond.
+Her hands were clasped, her eyes fixed on the stagnant green water over
+which the dragon-flies skimmed.
+
+Coming across the soundless turf, he stood for a moment to look at her.
+
+Hurst Dormer was a fine old place, yet of late to him it had grown
+singularly dull and cheerless. He had loved it all his life, but
+latterly he had realised that there was something missing, something
+without which the old house could not be home to him, and in his dreams
+waking and sleeping he had seen this same little white-clad figure
+seated at the foot of the great table in the dining-hall.
+
+He had seen her in his mind’s eye doing those little housewifely duties
+that the mistresses of Hurst Dormer had always loved to do, her slender
+fingers busy with the rare and delicate old china, or the
+lavender-scented linen, or else in the wonderful old garden, the
+gracious little mistress of all and of his heart.
+
+And now she sat drooping like a wilted lily beside the green pond,
+because of her love for another man, and his honest heart ached that it
+should be so.
+
+“Marjorie!” he said.
+
+She lifted a tear-stained face and held out her hand’ to him silently.
+
+He patted her hand gently, as one pats the hand of a child. “Is—is it
+so bad, little girl? Do you care for him so much?”
+
+“Better than my life!” she said. “Oh, if you knew!”
+
+“I see,” he said quietly. He sat staring at the green waters, stirred
+now and again by the fin of a lazy carp. He realised that there would
+be no sweet girlish, golden-haired little mistress for Hurst Dormer,
+and the realisation hurt him badly.
+
+The girl seemed to have crept a little closer to him, as for comfort
+and protection.
+
+“She has made up her mind, and nothing will change it. She wants you
+to—to marry me. She’s told me so a hundred times. She won’t listen to
+anything else; she says you—you care for me, Hugh.”
+
+“Supposing I care so much, little girl, that I want your happiness
+above everything in this world. Supposing—I clear out?” he said—“clear
+right away, go to Africa, or somewhere or other?”
+
+“She would make me wait till you came back, and you’d have to come
+back, Hugh, because there is always Hurst Dormer. There’s no way out
+for me, none. If only—only you were married; that is the only thing
+that would have saved me!”
+
+“But I’m not!”
+
+She sighed. “If only you were, if only you could say to her, ‘I can’t
+ask Marjorie to marry me, because I am already married!’ It sounds
+rubbish, doesn’t it, Hugh; but if it were only true!”
+
+“Supposing—I did say it?”
+
+“Oh, Hugh, but—” She looked up at him quickly. “But it would be a lie!”
+
+“I know, but lies aren’t always the awful things they are supposed to
+be—if one told a lie to help a friend, for instance, such a lie might
+be forgiven, eh?”
+
+“But—” She was trembling; she looked eagerly into his eyes, into her
+cheeks had come a flush, into her eyes the brightness of a new, though
+as yet vague, hope. “It—it sounds so impossible!”
+
+“Nothing is actually impossible. Listen, little maid. She sent me here
+to you to talk sense, as she put it. That meant she sent me here to ask
+you to marry me, and I meant to do it. I think perhaps you know why”—he
+lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it—“but I shan’t now, I never
+shall. Little girl, we’re going to be what we’ve always been, the best
+and truest of friends, and I’ve got to find a way to help you and Tom—”
+
+“Hugh, if you told her that you were married, and not free, she
+wouldn’t give another thought to opposing Tom and me—it is only because
+she wants me to marry you that she opposes Tom! Oh, Hugh, if—if—if you
+could, if it were possible!” She was trembling with excitement, and the
+sweet colour was coming and going in her cheeks.
+
+“Supposing I did it?” he said, and spoke his thoughts aloud. “Of course
+it would be a shock to her, perhaps she wouldn’t believe!”
+
+“She would believe anything you said...”
+
+“It is rather a rotten thing to do,” he thought, “yet....” He looked at
+the bright, eager face, it would make her happy; he knew that what she
+said was true—Lady Linden would not oppose Tom Arundel if marriage
+between Marjorie and himself was out of the question. It would be
+making the way clear for her: it would be giving her happiness, doing
+her the greatest service that he could. Of his own sacrifice, his own
+disappointment he thought not now; realisation of that would come
+later.
+
+At first it seemed to him a mad, a nonsensical scheme, yet it was one
+that might so easily be carried out. If one doubt was left as to
+whether he would do it, it was gone the next moment.
+
+“Hugh, would you do—would you do this for me?”
+
+“There is very little that I wouldn’t do for you, little maid,” he
+said, “and if I can help you to your happiness I am going to do it.”
+
+She crept closer to him; she laid her cheek against his shoulder, and
+held his hand in hers.
+
+“Tell me just what you will say.”
+
+“I haven’t thought that out yet.”
+
+“But you must.”
+
+“I know. You see, if I say I am married, naturally she will ask me a
+few questions.”
+
+“When she gets—gets her breath!” Marjorie said with a laugh; it was the
+first time she had laughed, and he liked to hear it.
+
+“The first will probably be, How long have I been married?”
+
+“Do you remember you used to come to Marlbury to see me when I was at
+school at Miss Skinner’s?”
+
+“Rather!”
+
+“That was three years ago. Supposing you married about then?”
+
+“Fine,” Hugh said. “I married three years ago. What month?”
+
+“June,” she said; “it’s a lovely month!”
+
+“I was married in June, nineteen hundred and eighteen, my lady,” said
+Hugh. “Where at, though?”
+
+“Why, Marlbury, of course!”
+
+“Of course! Splendid place to get married in, delightful romantic old
+town!”
+
+“It is a hateful place, but that doesn’t matter,” said Marjorie. She
+seemed to snuggle up a little closer to him, her lips were rippling
+with smiles, her bright eyes saw freedom and love, her heart was very
+warm with gratitude to this man who was helping her. But she could not
+guess, how could she, how in spite of the laughter on his lips there
+was a great ache and a feeling of emptiness at his heart.
+
+“So now we have it all complete,” he said. “I was married in June,
+nineteen eighteen at Marlbury; my wife and I did not get on, we parted.
+She had a temper, so had I, a most unhappy affair, and there you are!”
+He laughed.
+
+“All save one thing,” Marjorie said.
+
+“Goodness, what have I forgotten?”
+
+“Only the lady’s name.”
+
+“You are right. She must have a name of course, something nice and
+romantic—Gladys something, eh?”
+
+Marjorie shook her head.
+
+“Clementine,” suggested Hugh. “No, won’t do, eh? Now you put your
+thinking cap on and invent a name, something romantic and pretty. Let’s
+hear from you, Marjorie.”
+
+“Do you like—Joan Meredyth?” she said.
+
+“Splendid! What a clever little brain!” He shut his eyes. “I married
+Miss Joan Meredyth on the first of June, or was it the second, in the
+year nineteen hundred and eighteen? We lived a cat-and-dog existence,
+and parted with mutual recriminations, since when I have not seen her!
+Marjorie, do you think she will swallow it?”
+
+“If you tell her; but, Hugh, will you—will you?”
+
+“Little girl, is it going to help you?”
+
+“You know it is!” she whispered.
+
+“Then I shall tell her!”
+
+Marjorie lifted a pair of soft arms and put them about his neck.
+
+“Hugh!” she said, “Hugh, if—if I had never known Tom, I—”
+
+“I know,” he said. “I know. God bless you.” He stooped and kissed her
+on the cheek, and rose.
+
+It was a mad thing this that he was to do, yet he never considered its
+madness, its folly. It would help her, and Hurst Dormer would never
+know its golden-haired mistress, after all.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+IN WHICH HUGH BREAKS THE NEWS
+
+
+Lady Linden had just come in from one of her usual and numerous
+inspections, during which she had found it necessary to reprove one of
+the under-gardeners. She had described him to himself, his character,
+his appearance and his methods from her own point of view, and had left
+the man stupefied and amazed at the extent of her vocabulary and her
+facility of expression. He was still scratching his head, dazedly, when
+she came into the drawing-room.
+
+“Hugh, you here? Where is Marjorie?”
+
+“Down by the pond, I think,” he said, with an attempt at airiness.
+
+“In a moment you will make me angry. You know what I wish to know. Did
+you propose to Marjorie, Hugh?”
+
+“Did I—” He seemed astonished. “Did I what?”
+
+“Propose to Marjorie! Good heavens, man, isn’t that why I sent you
+there?”
+
+“I certainly did not propose to her. How on earth could I?”
+
+“There is no reason on earth why you should not have proposed to her
+that I can see.”
+
+“But there is one that I can see.” He paused. “A man can’t invite a
+young woman to marry him—when he is already married!”
+
+It was out! He scarcely dared to look at her. Lady Linden said nothing;
+she sat down.
+
+“Hugh!” She had found breath and words at last. “Hugh Alston! Did I
+hear you aright?”
+
+“I believe you did!”
+
+“You mean to tell me that you—you are a married man?”
+
+He nodded. He realised that he was not a good liar.
+
+“I would like some particulars,” she said coldly. “Hugh Alston, I
+should be very interested to know where she is!”
+
+“I don’t know!”
+
+“You are mad. When were you married?”
+
+“June nineteen eighteen,” he said glibly.
+
+“Where?”
+
+“At Marlbury!”
+
+“Good gracious! That is where Marjorie used to go to school!”
+
+“Yes, it was when I went down to see her there, and—”
+
+“You met this woman you married? And her name?”
+
+“Joan,” he said—“Joan Meredyth!”
+
+“Joan—Meredyth!” said Lady Linden. She closed her eyes; she leaned back
+in her chair. “That girl!”
+
+A chill feeling of alarm swept over him. She spoke, her ladyship spoke,
+as though such a girl existed, as though she knew her personally. And
+the name was a pure invention! Marjorie had invented it—at least, he
+believed so.
+
+“You—you don’t know her?”
+
+“Know her—of course I know her. Didn’t Marjorie bring her here from
+Miss Skinner’s two holidays running? A very beautiful and brilliant
+girl, the loveliest girl I think I ever saw! Really, Hugh Alston,
+though I am surprised and pained at your silence and duplicity, I must
+absolve you. I always regarded you as more or less a fool, but Joan
+Meredyth is a girl any man might fall in love with!”
+
+Hugh sat gripping the arms of his chair. What had he done, or rather
+what had Marjorie done? What desperate muddle had that little maid led
+him into? He had counted on the name being a pure invention, and now—
+
+“Where is she?” demanded Lady Linden.
+
+“I don’t know—we—we parted!”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“We didn’t get on, you see. She’d got a temper, and so—”
+
+“Of course she had a temper. She is a spirited gel, full of life and
+fire and intelligence. I wouldn’t give twopence for a woman without a
+temper—certainly she had a temper! Bah, don’t talk to me, sir—you sit
+there and tell me you were content to let her go, let a beautiful
+creature like that go merely because she had a temper?”
+
+“She—she went. I didn’t let her go; she just went!”
+
+“Yes,” Lady Linden said thoughtfully, “I suppose she did. It is just
+what Joan would do! She saw that she was not appreciated; you wrangled,
+or some folly, and she simply went. She would—so would I have gone! And
+now, where is she?”
+
+“I tell you I don’t know!”
+
+“You’ve never sought her?”
+
+“Never! I—I—now look here,” he went on, “don’t take it to heart too
+much. She is quite all right—that is, I expect—”
+
+“You expect!” she said witheringly. “Here you sit; you have a beautiful
+young wife, the most brilliant girl I ever met, and—and you let her go!
+Don’t talk to me!”
+
+“No, I won’t; let’s drop it! We will discuss it some other time—it is a
+matter I prefer not to talk about! Naturally it is rather—painful to
+me!”
+
+“So I should think!”
+
+“Yes, I much prefer not to talk about it. Let’s discuss Marjorie!”
+
+“Confound Marjorie!”
+
+“Marjorie is the sweetest little soul in the world, and—”
+
+“It’s a pity you didn’t think of that three years ago!”
+
+“And Tom Arundel is a fine fellow; no one can say one word against
+him!”
+
+“I don’t wish to discuss them! If Marjorie is obsessed with this folly
+about young Arundel, it will be her misfortune. If she wants to marry
+him she will probably regret it. I intended her to marry you; but since
+it can’t be, I don’t feel any particular interest in the matter of
+Marjorie’s marriage at the moment! Now tell me about Joan at once!”
+
+“Believe me, I—I much prefer not to: it is a sore subject, a matter I
+never speak about!”
+
+“Oh, go away then—and leave me to myself. Let me think it all out!”
+
+He went gladly enough; he made his way back to the lily-pond.
+
+“Marjorie,” he said tragically, “what have you done?”
+
+“Oh, Hugh!” She was trembling at once.
+
+“No, no, dear, don’t worry; it is nothing. She believes every word, and
+I feel sure it will be all right for you and Tom, but, oh Marjorie—that
+name, I thought you had invented it!”
+
+Marjorie flushed. “It was the name of a girl at Miss Skinner’s: she was
+a great, great friend of mine. She was two years older than I, and just
+as sweet and beautiful as her name, and when you were casting about for
+one I—I just thought of it, Hugh. It hasn’t done any harm, has it?”
+
+“I hope not, only, don’t you see, you’ve made me claim an existing
+young lady as my wife, and if she turned up some time or other—”
+
+“But she won’t! When she left school she went out to Australia to join
+her uncle there, and she will in all probability never come back to
+England.”
+
+Hugh drew a sigh of relief. “That’s all right then! It’s all right,
+little girl; it is all right. I believe things are going to be brighter
+for you now.”
+
+“Thanks to you, Hugh!”
+
+“You know there is nothing in this world—” He looked down at the lovely
+face, alive with gratitude and happiness. His dreams were ended, the
+“might-have-been” would never be, but he knew that there was peace in
+that little breast at last.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+JOAN MEREDYTH, TYPIST
+
+
+Mr. Philip Slotman touched the electric buzzer on his desk and then
+watched the door. He was an unpleasant—looking man, strangely corpulent
+as to body, considering his face was cast in lean and narrow mould, the
+nose large, prominent and hooked, the lips full, fleshy, and of
+cherry—like redness, the eyes small, mean, close together and deep set.
+The over—corpulent body was attired lavishly. It was dressed in a fancy
+waistcoat, a morning coat, elegantly striped trousers of lavender hue
+and small pointed—toed, patent—leather boots, with bright tan uppers.
+The rich aroma of an expensive cigar hung about the atmosphere of Mr.
+Slotman’s office. This and his clothes, and the large diamond ring that
+twinkled on his finger, proclaimed him a person of opulence.
+
+The door opened and a girl came in; she carried a notebook and her head
+very high. She trod like a young queen, and in spite of the poor black
+serge dress she wore, there was much of regal dignity about her. Dark
+brown hair that waved back from a broad and low forehead, a pair of
+lustrous eyes filled now with contempt and aversion, eyes shielded by
+lashes that, when she slept, lay like a silken fringe upon her cheeks.
+Her nose was redeemed from the purely classical by the merest
+suggestion of tip-tiltedness, that gave humour, expression and
+tenderness to the whole face—tenderness and sweetness that with
+strength was further betrayed by the finely cut, red-lipped mouth and
+the strong little chin, carried so proudly on the white column of her
+neck.
+
+Her figure was that of a young goddess, and a goddess she looked as she
+swept disdainfully into Mr. Philip Slotman’s office, shorthand notebook
+in her hand.
+
+“I want you to take a letter to Jarvis and Purcell, Miss Meredyth,” he
+said. “Please sit down. Er—hum—‘Dear Sirs, With regard to your last
+communication received on the fourteenth instant, I beg—’”
+
+Mr. Slotman moved, apparently negligently, from his leather-covered
+armchair. He rose, he sauntered around the desk, then suddenly he flung
+off all pretence at lethargy, and with a quick step put himself between
+the girl and the door.
+
+“Now, my dear,” he said, “you’ve got to listen to me!”
+
+“I am listening to you.” She turned contemptuous grey eyes on him.
+
+“Hang the letter! I don’t mean that. You’ve got to listen about other
+things!”
+
+He stretched out his hand to touch her, and she drew back. She rose,
+and her eyes flashed.
+
+“If you touch me, Mr. Slotman, I shall—” She paused; she looked about
+her; she picked up a heavy ebony ruler from his desk. “I shall defend
+myself!”
+
+“Don’t be a fool,” he said, yet took a step backwards, for there was
+danger in her eyes.
+
+“Look here, you won’t get another job in a hurry, and you know it.
+Shorthand typists are not wanted these days, the schools are turning
+out thousands of ’em, all more or less bad; but I—I ain’t talking about
+that, dear—” He took a step towards her, and then recoiled, seeing her
+knuckles shine whitely as she gripped the ruler. “Come, be sensible!”
+
+“Are you going to persist in this annoyance of me?” she demanded.
+“Can’t I make you understand that I am here to do my work and for no
+other purpose?”
+
+“Supposing,” he said, “supposing—I—I asked you to marry me?”
+
+He had never meant to say this, yet he had said it, for the fascination
+of her was on him.
+
+“Supposing you did? Do you think I would consent to marry such a man as
+you?” She held her head very proudly.
+
+“Do you mean that you would refuse?”
+
+“Of course!”
+
+He seemed staggered; he looked about him as one amazed. He had kept
+this back as the last, the supreme temptation, the very last card in
+his hand; and he had played it, and behold, it proved to be no trump.
+
+“I would neither marry you nor go out with you, nor do I wish to have
+anything to say to you, except so far as business is concerned. As that
+seems impossible, it will be better for me to give you a week’s notice,
+Mr. Slotman.”
+
+“You’ll be sorry for it,” he said—“infernally sorry for it. It ain’t
+pleasant to starve, my girl!”
+
+“I had to do it, I had to, or I could not have respected myself any
+longer,” the girl thought, as she made her way home that evening to the
+boarding-house, where for two pounds a week she was fed and lodged. But
+to be workless! It had been the nightmare of her dreams, the haunting
+fear of her waking hours.
+
+In her room at the back of the house, to which the jingle of the
+boarding-house piano could yet penetrate, she sat for a time in deep
+thought. The past had held a few friends, folk who had been kind to
+her. Pride had held her back; she had never asked help of any of them.
+She thought of the Australian uncle who had invited her to come out to
+him when she should leave school, and then had for some reason changed
+his mind and sent her a banknote for a hundred pounds instead. She had
+felt glad and relieved at the time, but now she regretted his decision.
+Yet there had been a few friends; she wrote down the names as they
+occurred to her.
+
+There was old General Bartholomew, who had known her father. There was
+Mrs. Ransome. No, she believed now that she had heard that Mrs. Ransome
+was dead; perhaps the General too, yet she would risk it. There was
+Lady Linden, Marjorie Linden’s aunt. She knew but little of her, but
+remembered her as at heart a kindly, though an autocratic dame. She
+remembered, too, that one of Lady Linden’s hobbies had been to
+establish Working Guilds and Rural Industries, Village Crafts, and
+suchlike in her village. In connection with some of these there might
+be work for her.
+
+She wrote to all that she could think of, a letter of which she made
+six facsimile copies. It was not a begging appeal, but a dignified
+little reminder of her existence.
+
+“If you could assist me to obtain any work by which I might live, you
+would be putting me under a deep debt of gratitude,” she wrote.
+
+Before she slept that night all six letters were in the post. She
+wished them good luck one by one as she dropped them into the
+letter-box, the six sprats that had been flung into the sea of fortune.
+Would one of them catch for her a mackerel? She wondered.
+
+“You’d best take back that notice,” Slotman said to her the next
+morning. “You won’t find it so precious easy to find a job, my girl;
+and, after all, what have I done?”
+
+“Annoyed me, insulted me ever since I came here,” she said quietly.
+“And of course I shall not stay!”
+
+“Insulted you! Is it an insult to ask you to be my wife?”
+
+“It seems so to me,” she said quietly. “If you had meant that—at
+first—it would have been different; now it is only an insult!”
+
+Three days passed, and there came answers. She had been right, Mrs.
+Ransome was dead, and there was no one who could do anything for Miss
+Meredyth.
+
+General Bartholomew was at Harrogate, and her letter had been sent on
+to him there, wrote a polite secretary. And then there came a letter
+that warmed the girl’s heart and brought back all her belief and faith
+in human nature.
+
+
+“MY DEAREST CHILD,
+
+“Your letter came as a welcome surprise—to think that you are looking
+for employment! Well, we must see to this—I promise you, you will not
+have far to look. Come here to me at once, and be sure that everything
+will be put right and all misunderstandings wiped out. I am keeping
+your letter a secret from everyone, even from Marjorie, that your
+coming shall be the more unexpected, and the greater surprise and
+pleasure. But come without delay, and believe me to be,
+
+“Your very affectionate friend,
+“HARRIET LINDEN.”
+
+
+“P.S.—I suggest that you wire me the day and the train, so that I can
+meet you. Don’t lose any time, and be sure that all past unhappiness
+can be ended, and the future faced with the certainty of brighter and
+happier days.”
+
+
+Over this letter Joan Meredyth pondered a great deal. It was a
+warm-hearted and affectionate response to her somewhat stilted little
+appeal. Yet what did the old lady mean, to what did the veiled
+reference apply?
+
+“So you mean going, then?” Slotman asked.
+
+“I told you I would go, and I shall. I leave to-morrow.”
+
+“You’ll be glad to come back,” he said. He looked at her, and there was
+eagerness in his eyes. “Joan, don’t be a fool, stay. I could give you a
+good time, and—”
+
+But she had turned her back on him.
+
+She had written to Lady Linden thanking her for her kindly letter.
+
+
+“I shall come to you on Saturday for the week-end, if I may. I find
+there is a train at a quarter-past three. I shall come by that to
+Cornbridge Station.
+
+“Believe me,
+“Yours gratefully and affectionately,
+“JOAN MEREDYTH.”
+
+
+There was a subdued excitement about Lady Linden during the Thursday
+and the Friday, and an irritating air of secretiveness.
+
+“Foolish, foolish young people! Both so good and so worthy in their
+way—the girl beautiful and clever, the man as fine and honest and
+upright a young fellow as ever trod this earth—donkeys! Perhaps they
+can’t be driven—very often donkeys can’t; but they can be led!”
+
+To Hugh Alston, at Hurst Dormer, seven miles away, Lady Linden had
+written.
+
+
+“MY DEAR HUGH,
+
+“I want you to come here Saturday; it is a matter of vital importance.”
+(She had a habit of underlining her words to give them emphasis, and
+she underscored “vital” three times.) “I want you to time your arrival
+for half-past five, a nice time for tea. Don’t be earlier, and don’t be
+later. And, above all, don’t fail me, or I will never forgive you.”
+
+
+“I expect,” Hugh thought, “that she is going to make a public
+announcement of the engagement between Marjorie and Tom Arundel.”
+
+It was precisely at half-past five that Hugh stepped out of his
+two-seater car and demanded admittance at the door of the Manor House.
+
+“Oh, Mr. Alston,” the footman said, “my lady is expecting you. She told
+me to show you straight into the drawing-room, and she and—” The man
+paused.
+
+“Her ladyship will be with you in a few moments, sir.”
+
+“There is festival in the air here, Perkins, and mystery and secrecy
+too, eh?”
+
+“Yes, sir, thank you, sir,” the man said. “This way, Mr. Alston.”
+
+And now in the drawing-room Hugh was cooling his heels.
+
+Why this mystery? Where was Marjorie? Why didn’t his aunt come?
+
+Then someone came, the door opened. Into the room stepped a tall girl—a
+girl with the most beautiful face he thought he had ever seen in his
+life. She looked at him calmly and casually, and seemed to hesitate;
+and then behind her appeared Lady Linden, flushed, and evidently
+agitated.
+
+“There,” she said, “there, my dears—I have brought you together again,
+and now everything must be made quite all right! Joan, darling, here is
+your husband! Go to him, forgive him if there is aught to forgive. Ask
+forgiveness, child, in your turn, and then—then kiss and be friends, as
+husband and wife should be.”
+
+She beamed on them both, then swiftly retreated, and the door behind
+Joan Meredyth quickly closed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+FACE TO FACE
+
+
+It was, Hugh Alston decided, the most beautiful face he had ever seen
+in his life and the coldest, or so it seemed to him. She was looking at
+him with cool questioning in her grey eyes, her lips drawn to a hard
+line.
+
+He saw her as she stood before him, and as he saw her now, so would he
+carry the memory of the picture she made in his mind for many a day to
+come—tall, perhaps a little taller than the average woman, tall by
+comparison with Marjorie Linden, brown of hair and grey of eye, with a
+disdainfully enquiring look about her.
+
+He was not a man who usually noticed a woman’s clothes, yet the picture
+impressed on his mind of this girl was a very complete one. She was
+wearing a dress that instinct told him was of some cheap material. She
+might have bought it ready-made, she might have made it herself, or
+some unskilled dressmaker might have turned it out cheaply. Poverty was
+the note it struck, her boots were small and neat, well-worn. Yes,
+poverty was the keynote to it all.
+
+It was she, womanlike, who broke the silence.
+
+“Well? I am waiting for some explanation of all the extraordinary
+things that have been said to me since I have been in this house. You,
+of course, heard what Lady Linden said as she left us?”
+
+“I heard,” he said. His cheeks turned red. Was ever a man in a worse
+position? The questioning grey eyes stared at him so coldly that he
+lost his head. He wanted to apologise, to explain, yet he knew that he
+could not explain. It was Marjorie who had brought him into this, but
+he must respect the girl’s secret, on which so much depended for her.
+
+“Please answer me,” Joan Meredyth said. “You heard Lady Linden advise
+us, you and myself, to make up a quarrel that has never taken place;
+you heard her—” She paused, a great flush suddenly stole over her face,
+adding enormously to her attractiveness, but quickly as it came, it
+went.
+
+What could he say? Vainly he racked his brains. He must say something,
+or the girl would believe him to be fool as well as knave. Ideas,
+excuses, lies entered his mind, he put them aside instantly, as being
+unworthy of him and of her, yet he must tell her—something.
+
+“When—when I used your name, believe me, I had no idea that it was the
+property of a living woman—”
+
+“When you used my name? I don’t understand you!”
+
+“I claimed that I was married to a Miss Joan Meredyth—”
+
+“I still don’t understand you. You say you claimed that you were
+married—are you married to anyone?”
+
+“No!”
+
+“Then—then—” Again the glorious flush came into her cheeks, but was
+gone again, leaving her whiter, colder than before, only her eyes
+seemed to burn with the fire of anger and contempt.
+
+“I am beginning to understand, for some reason of your own, you used my
+name, you informed Lady Linden that you—and I were—married?”
+
+“Yes,” he said.
+
+“And it was, of course, a vile lie, an insolent lie!” Her voice
+quivered. “It has subjected me to humiliation and annoyance. I do not
+think that a girl has ever been placed in such a false position as I
+have been through your—cowardly lie.”
+
+He had probably never known actual fear in his life, nor a sense of
+shame such as he knew now. He had nothing to say, he wanted to explain,
+yet could not, for Marjorie’s sake. If Lady Linden knew how she had
+been deceived, she would naturally be furiously angry, and the brunt of
+her anger would fall on Marjorie, and this must not be.
+
+So, silent, unable to speak a word in self-defence, he stood listening,
+shame-faced, while the girl spoke. Every word she uttered was cutting
+and cruel, yet she shewed no temper. He could have borne with that.
+
+“You probably knew of me, and knew that I was alone in the world with
+no one to champion me. You knew that I was poor, Mr. Alston, and so a
+fit butt for your cowardly jest. My poverty has brought me into contact
+with strange people, cads; but the worst, the cruellest, the lowest of
+all is yourself! I had hoped to have found rest and refuge here for a
+little time, but you have driven me out. Oh, I did not believe that
+anything so despicable, so unmanly as you could exist. I do not know
+why you have done this, perhaps it is your idea of humour.”
+
+“Believe me—” he stammered, yet could say no more; and then a sense of
+anger, of outraged honesty, came to him. Of course he had been foolish,
+yet he had been misled. To hear this girl speak, one would think that
+he had deliberately set to work to annoy and insult her, she of whose
+existence he had not even known.
+
+“My poverty,” she said, and flung her head back as she spoke, “has made
+me the butt, the object for the insolence and insult of men like
+yourself, men who would not dare insult a girl who had friends to
+protect her.”
+
+“You are ungenerous!” he said hotly.
+
+She seemed to start a little. She looked at him, and her beautiful eyes
+narrowed. Then, without another word, she turned towards the door.
+
+The scene was over, yet he felt no relief.
+
+“Miss Meredyth!”
+
+She did not hear, or affected not to. She turned the handle of the
+door, but hesitated for a moment. She looked back at him, contempt in
+her gaze.
+
+“You are ungenerous,” he said again. He had not meant to say it; he had
+to say something, and it seemed to him that her anger against him was
+almost unreasonable.
+
+She made no answer; the door closed on her, and he was left to try and
+collect his thoughts.
+
+And he had not even apologised, he reflected now. She had not given him
+an opportunity to.
+
+Pacing the room, Hugh decided what he would do. He would give her time
+to cool down, for her wrath to evaporate, then he would seek her out,
+and tell her as much as he could—tell her that the secret was not
+entirely his own. He would appeal to the generosity that he had told
+her she did not possess.
+
+“Hugh!”
+
+“Eh?” He started.
+
+“What does this mean? You don’t mean to tell me, Hugh, that all my
+efforts have gone for nothing?”
+
+Lady Linden had sailed into the room; she was angry, she quivered with
+rage.
+
+“I take an immense amount of trouble to bring two foolish young people
+together again, and—and this is the result!”
+
+“What’s the result?”
+
+“She has gone!”
+
+“Oh!”
+
+“Did you know she had gone?”
+
+“No, I knew nothing at all about her.”
+
+“Well, she has. She left the house twenty minutes ago. I’ve sent
+Chepstow after her in the car; he is to ask her to return.”
+
+“I don’t suppose she will,” Hugh said, remembering the very firm look
+about Miss Joan Meredyth’s mouth.
+
+“And I planned the reconciliation, I made sure that once you came face
+to face it would be all right. Hugh, there is more behind all this than
+meets the eye!”
+
+“That’s it,” he said, “a great deal more! No third person can interfere
+with any hope of success.”
+
+“And you,” she said, “can let a girl like that, your own wife, go out
+of your life and make no effort to detain her!”
+
+He nodded.
+
+“For two pins,” said Lady Linden, “I would box your ears, Hugh Alston.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+“PERHAPS I SHALL GO BACK”
+
+
+Perhaps she was over-sensitive and a little unreasonable, but she would
+not admit it. She had been insulted by a man who had used her name
+lightly, who had proclaimed that he was her husband, a man who was a
+complete stranger to her. She had heard of him before from Marjorie
+Linden, when they were at school together.
+
+Marjorie had spoken of this man in effusive admiration. Joan’s lips
+curled with scorn. She did not question her own anger. She did not ask
+herself, was it reasonable? Had not the man some right to defend
+himself, to explain? If he had wanted to explain, he had had ample
+opportunity, and he had not taken advantage of it. No, it was a joke—a
+cruel, cowardly joke at her expense.
+
+Poor and alone in the world, with none to defend her, she had been
+subjected to the odious attentions of Slotman. She was ready to regard
+all men as creatures of the same type. She had allowed poverty to
+narrow her views and warp her mind, and now—
+
+“I beg your pardon, ma’am—”
+
+She was walking along the road to the station. She turned, a man had
+pulled up in a small car; he touched his hat.
+
+“My lady sent me after you, Mrs. Alston.”
+
+Joan gripped her hands tightly. She looked with blazing eyes at the
+man—“Mrs. Alston...” Even the servant!
+
+“My lady begs that you will return with me. She would be very much
+hurt, ma’am, if you left the house like this, her ladyship begs me to
+say.”
+
+“Who was your message for?”
+
+“For you, ma’am, of course,” said the man.
+
+“Ma’am—Mrs. Alston!” So this joke had been passed on even to the
+servants, and now she was asked to return.
+
+“Go back and tell Lady Linden that I do not understand her message in
+the least. Kindly say that the person you overtook on the road was Miss
+Joan Meredyth, who is taking the next train to London.” She bent her
+head, turned her back on him, and made her way on to the station.
+
+Half an hour later she was leaning back wearily on the dusty seat of a
+third-class railway carriage, on her way back to the London she hated.
+Now she was going back again, because she had nowhere else to go. As
+she sat there with closed eyes, and the tears on her cheeks, she
+counted up her resources. They were so small, so slender, yet she had
+been so careful. And now this useless journey had eaten deeply into the
+little store.
+
+She had no more than enough to keep her for another week, one more
+week, and then.... She shivered at the thought of the destitution that
+was before her.
+
+Dinner at the boarding-house was over when she returned, but its
+unsavoury and peculiar smell still pervaded the place.
+
+“Why, Miss Meredyth, I thought you were away for the week-end, at
+least,” Mrs. Wenham said. “I suppose you won’t want any dinner?”
+
+“No,” Joan said. “I shall not want anything. I—I—” She paused. “I was
+obliged to come back, after all. Perhaps you could let me have a cup of
+tea in my room, Mrs. Wenham?”
+
+“Well, it’s rather inconvenient with all the washing-up to do, and as
+you know I make it a rule that boarders have to be in to their meals,
+or go without—still—”
+
+“Please don’t trouble!” Joan said stiffly.
+
+The woman looked up the stairs after the tall, slight figure.
+
+“Very well, then, I won’t!” she muttered. “The airs some people give
+themselves! Anyone would think she was a lady, instead of a clerk or
+something.”
+
+There was a letter addressed to Joan waiting for her in her room. She
+opened it, and read it.
+
+
+“DEAR JOAN,
+
+“I suppose you are in a temper with me, and I don’t think you have
+acted quite fairly. A man can’t do more than ask a girl to be his wife.
+It is not usually considered an insult; however, I say nothing, except
+just this: You won’t find it easy to get other work to do, and if you
+like to come back here on Monday morning, the same as usual, I think
+you will be doing the sensible thing.
+
+“Yours,
+“PHILIP SLOTMAN.”
+
+
+She had never meant to go back. This morning she had thanked Heaven
+that she had looked her last on Mr. Philip Slotman, and yet a few hours
+can effect such changes.
+
+The door was open to her; she could go back, and pick up her life again
+where she had dropped it before her journey to Cornbridge. After all,
+Slotman was not the only cad in the world. She would find others, it
+seemed to her, wherever she went.
+
+At any rate, Slotman had opened the door by which she might re-enter.
+As he said, work would be very, very hard to get, and it was a bitter
+thing to have to starve.
+
+“Perhaps,” she said to herself wearily as she lay down on her bed,
+“perhaps I shall go back. It does not seem to matter so very much after
+all what I do—and I thought it did.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+“THE ONLY POSSIBLE THING”
+
+
+For the first time since when, as a small, curly-headed boy, Hugh
+Alston had looked up at her ladyship with unclouded fearless eyes, that
+had appealed instantly to her, he and she were bad friends. Hugh had
+driven back to Hurst Dormer after a brief battle with her ladyship. He
+had seen Marjorie for a few moments, had soothed her, and told her not
+to worry, that it was not her fault. He had kissed her in brotherly
+fashion, and had wondered a little at himself for the slight feeling of
+impatience against her that came to him. He had never been impatient of
+her before, but her tears this afternoon unreasonably annoyed him.
+
+“She’s a dear, sweet little soul, and over tender-hearted. Of course,
+she got me into this mess, and of course, bless her heart, she is
+worrying over it; but it can’t be helped. As for that other girl!” His
+lips tightened. It seemed to him that Miss Joan Meredyth had not shone
+any more than he had. She had taken the whole thing in bad part.
+
+“No woman,” said Hugh to himself, “has any sense of humour!” In which
+he was wrong, besides which, it had nothing to do with the case.
+
+“I am disappointed in Hugh,” Lady Linden said to her niece. “I don’t
+often admit myself wrong; in this matter I do. I regarded Hugh Alston
+as a man utterly and completely open and above board. I find him
+nothing of the kind. I am deeply disappointed. I am glad to feel that
+my plans with regard to Hugh Alston and yourself will come to nothing.”
+
+“But, aunt—”
+
+“Hold your tongue! and don’t interrupt me when I am speaking. I have
+been considering the matter of you and Tom Arundel. Of course, your
+income is a small one, even if I released it, but—”
+
+“Aunt—we—we wouldn’t mind, I could manage on so little. I should love
+to manage for him.” The girl clasped her hands, she looked with
+pleading eyes at the old lady.
+
+“Well, well, we shall see!” her ladyship said indulgently. “I don’t say
+No, and I don’t say Yes. You are both young yet. By the way, write a
+letter to Tom and ask him to dine with us to-morrow.”
+
+“Thank you, aunt!” Marjorie flushed to her eyes. “Oh, thank you so
+much!”
+
+“My good girl, there’s nothing to get excited about. I don’t suppose
+that he will eat more than about half a crown’s worth.”
+
+Meanwhile, Hugh Alston had retired to his house at Hurst Dormer in a
+none too happy frame of mind. He had rowed with Lady Linden, had
+practically told her to mind her own business, which was a thing
+everyone had been wishing she would do for the past ten years, and no
+one had ever dared tell her to.
+
+Altogether, he felt miserably unhappy, furious with himself and angry
+with Miss Joan Meredyth. The one and only person he did not blame was
+the one, only and entirely, to blame—Marjorie!
+
+This Sunday morning Hugh in his study heard the chug-chug of a small
+and badly driven light car, and looked out of the window to see
+Marjorie stepping out of the vehicle.
+
+“Hugh,” she said a few moments later, “I am so—so worried about you. I
+hate to think that all this trouble is through me. Aunt thinks I have
+gone to church, but I haven’t. I got out the car, and drove here
+myself. Hugh, what can I do?”
+
+“There’s one thing you can’t do, child, and that is drive a car! There
+are heaps of things you can do. One of them is to go back and be happy,
+and not worry your little head over anything.”
+
+“But I must, it is all because of me; and, Hugh, aunt has asked Tom to
+dinner to-day.”
+
+“I hope he has a good dinner,” said Hugh.
+
+“Hugh!” She looked at him. “It is no good trying to make light of it. I
+know you’ve been worried. I know you and—and Joan must have had a scene
+yesterday, or she wouldn’t have left the house without even seeing me.”
+
+“We had—a few words; I noticed that she did seem a little angry,” he
+said.
+
+“Poor Joan! She was always so terribly proud; it was her poverty that
+made her proud and sensitive, I think.”
+
+He nodded. “I think so, too. Poverty inclines her to take an
+exaggerated view of everything, Marjorie. She took it badly.”
+
+The girl slipped her hand through his arm. “Is—is there anything I can
+do? It is all my fault, Hugh. Shall I confess to aunt, and then go and
+see Joan, and—”
+
+“Not on your life, you’ll spoil everything. I am out of favour with the
+old lady; she will take Tom into favour in my place. All will go well
+with you and Tom, and after all that is what I worked for. With regard
+to Miss Joan Meredyth—” He paused.
+
+“Yes, Hugh, what about Joan? Oh, Hugh, now you have seen her, don’t you
+think she is wonderful?”
+
+“I thought she had a very unpleasing temper,” he said.
+
+“There isn’t a sweeter girl in the world,” Marjorie said.
+
+“I didn’t notice any particular sweetness about her yesterday. She had
+reason, of course, to feel annoyed, but I think she made the most of
+it, however—” He paused.
+
+“Yes, Hugh, what shall you do? I know you have something in your mind.”
+
+“You are right; I have. I am going to do the only thing that seems to
+me possible just now.”
+
+“And that is?”
+
+“Seek out Miss Joan Meredyth, and ask her to become my wife in
+reality.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+MR. SLOTMAN ARRIVES AT A MISUNDERSTANDING
+
+
+At half-past nine on the Monday morning Miss Joan Meredyth walked into
+Mr. Slotman’s office, and Mr. Slotman, seeing her, turned his head
+aside to hide the smirk of satisfaction.
+
+“Women,” he said to himself, “are all alike. They give themselves
+confounded airs and graces, but when it comes to the point, they aren’t
+born fools. She knows jolly well she wouldn’t get another job in a
+hurry, and here she is.”
+
+But Mr. Slotman made up his mind to go cautiously and carefully. He
+would not let Miss Meredyth witness his sense of satisfaction.
+
+“I am glad you have returned, Miss Meredyth. I felt sure that you
+would; there’s no reason whatever we shouldn’t get on perfectly well.”
+
+The girl gave him a stiff little inclination of her head. She had done
+much personal violence to her sense of pride, yet she had come back
+because the alternative—worklessness, possible starvation and
+homelessness—had not appealed to her. And, after all, knowing Mr.
+Slotman to be what he was, she was forewarned and forearmed.
+
+So Joan came back and took up her old work, and Mr. Slotman practised
+temporarily a courtesy and a forbearance that were foreign to him. But
+Mr. Slotman had by no means given up his hopes and desires. Joan
+appealed to him as no woman ever had. He admired her statuesque beauty.
+He admired her air of breeding; he admired the very pride that she had
+attempted to crush him with.
+
+A woman like that could go anywhere, Slotman thought, and pictured it
+to himself, he following in her trail, and finding an entry into a
+society that would have otherwise resolutely shut him out. For like
+most men of his type, self made, egregious, and generally offensive, he
+had an inborn desire to get into Society and mingle with his betters.
+
+On the Monday morning there had been delivered to Hugh Alston by hand a
+little note from Marjorie; it was on pink paper, and was scented
+delicately. If he had not been so very much in love with Marjorie, the
+pink notepaper might have annoyed him, but it did not. The faint
+fragrance reminded him of her.
+
+She wrote a neat and exquisite hand; everything that she did was neat
+and exquisite, and remembering his hopes of not so long ago, he groaned
+a little dismally to himself as he reverently cut the envelope.
+
+
+“MY DEAR HUGH,
+
+“I have managed to get the address from aunt. It is ‘Miss Joan
+Meredyth, care Mrs. Wenham, No. 7, Bemrose Square, London, W.C.’ I have
+been thinking so much about what you said, and hoping that your plan
+may succeed. I am sure that you would be very, very happy together....”
+
+
+(Hugh laughed unmusically.)
+
+
+“Tom has been here all the afternoon and evening, and aunt has been
+perfectly charming to him. Hugh, I know that everything is going to be
+right now, and I owe it all to you. You don’t know how grateful I am,
+dear. I shall never, never forget your goodness and sweetness to me,
+dear old Hugh.
+
+“Your loving
+“MARJORIE.”
+
+
+With something approaching reverent care, Hugh put the little
+pink-scented note into his pocket-book.
+
+To-night he would go to Town, to-morrow he would interview Miss Joan
+Meredyth. He would offer her no explanations, because the secret was
+not his own, and nothing must happen now that might upset or tell
+against Marjorie’s happiness.
+
+He would express regret for what had happened, ask her to try and
+realise that no indignity and no insult had ever been intended against
+her, and then he would offer her his hand, but certainly not his heart.
+If she felt the sting of her poverty so, then perhaps the thought of
+his eight thousand a year would act as balm to her wounded feelings.
+
+At this time Hugh Alston had a very poor opinion of Miss Meredyth. He
+did not deny her loveliness. He could not; no man in his senses and
+gifted with eyesight could. But the placid prettiness of Marjorie
+appealed to him far more than the cold, disdainful beauty of the young
+woman he had called ungenerous, and who had in her turn called him a
+cad.
+
+It was Mrs. Wenham herself who opened the hall door of the house in
+Bemrose Square to Mr. Hugh Alston at noon on the day following.
+
+Though certainly not dressed in the height of fashion, and by no means
+an exquisite, Mr. Hugh Alston had that about him that suggested birth
+and large possessions. Mrs. Wenham beamed on him, cheating herself for
+a moment into the belief that he had come to add one more to the select
+circle of persons she alluded to as her “paying guests.”
+
+Her face fell a little when he asked for Miss Meredyth.
+
+“Oh, Miss Meredyth has gone to work,” she said.
+
+“To work?”
+
+“Yes, she’s a clerk or something in the City. The office is that of
+Philip Slotman and Company, Number sixteen, Gracebury.”
+
+“You think that I could see her there?” asked Hugh, who had little
+knowledge of City offices and their routine and rules, so far as
+hirelings are concerned.
+
+“I suppose you could; you are a friend of hers?”
+
+He nodded.
+
+“Well, I don’t know that it is usual for visitors to call on lady
+clerks. If I might make a suggestion I’d say send in your card to Mr.
+Slotman, and ask his permission to see Miss Meredyth.”
+
+“Thanks!” Hugh said. “If that’s the right thing to do, I’ll do it.”
+
+Half an hour later Mr. Slotman was examining Hugh’s card.
+
+“Who is he?”
+
+“A tall, well-dressed gentleman, sir; young. Looks as if he’s up from
+the country, but he’s a gentleman all right,” the clerk said.
+
+“Very good, I’ll see him.”
+
+Slotman rose as Hugh came in. He recognised the man of position and
+possessions, a man of the class that Slotman always cultivated.
+
+“I wish to ask your permission to interview Miss Meredyth. I understand
+that, in business hours, the permission of the employer should be asked
+first.”
+
+“Delighted!” Slotman said. “You are a friend of Miss Meredyth’s?” He
+looked keenly at Hugh, and the first spark of jealousy was ignited in
+his system.
+
+“Hardly that, an acquaintance only,” said Hugh.
+
+Slotman felt relieved.
+
+“Miss Meredyth is in the outer general office. You could hardly talk to
+her there. If you will sit down, I will go out and send her to you,
+Mr.—Alston.” He glanced at the card.
+
+“Thanks, perhaps you would be so kind as not to mention my name to
+her,” said Hugh.
+
+“Something up!” Slotman thought. He was an eminently suspicious man; he
+suspected everyone, and more particularly all those who were in his
+pay. He suspected his clerks of wasting their time—his time, the time
+he paid for. He suspected them of filching the petty cash, stealing the
+postage stamps, cheating him and getting the better of him in some way,
+and in order to keep a watch on them he had riddled his suite of
+offices with peepholes, listening holes, and spyholes in every unlikely
+corner.
+
+A small waiting office divided his private apartment from the General
+Office, and peepholes cunningly contrived permitted anyone to hear and
+see all that passed in the General Office, and in his own office too.
+
+He found a young clerk in the waiting office, and sent him to Miss
+Meredyth.
+
+“Ask Miss Meredyth to go to my office at once, not through this way,
+and then you remain in the General Office till I send for you,” said
+Slotman.
+
+This gave him the advantage he wanted. He locked both doors leading
+into the waiting office, and took up his position at the spyhole that
+gave him command of his own office.
+
+He could see his visitor plainly. Hugh Alston was pacing the room
+slowly, his hands behind his back, his face wearing a look of worry.
+Slotman saw him pause and turn expectantly to the door at the far end
+of the room.
+
+Slotman could not see this door, but he heard it open, and he knew by
+the look on the man’s face that Joan had come in.
+
+“Why are you here? How dare you follow me here?”
+
+“I have dared to follow you here, to express my deep regret for what is
+past,” Hugh said. He looked at the girl, her white face, the hard line
+made by a mouth that should be sweet and gentle.
+
+It seemed, he thought, that the very sight of him roused all that was
+cold and bitter in her nature.
+
+“Am I to be tormented and insulted by you all my life?” she asked.
+
+“You are unreasonable! You cannot think that this visit is one that
+gives me any pleasure,” Hugh said.
+
+“Then why do you come?”
+
+“I asked permission of your employer to see you, and he kindly placed
+his office at our disposal. I shall not keep you long.”
+
+“I do not intend that you shall, and in future—”
+
+“Will you hear what I have to say? Surely I am not asking too much?”
+
+“Is it necessary?”
+
+“To me, very! I wish to make a few things plain to you. In the past—I
+had no intention of hurting or of disgracing you—”
+
+Slotman started, and clenched his hands. What did that man mean? He
+wondered, what could such words as those mean?
+
+“But as I have shamed and angered you, I have come to offer the only
+reparation in my power—a poor one, I will admit.”
+
+He looked at her, paused for a moment to give her an opportunity of
+speaking, but she did not speak. She looked at him steadily.
+
+“May I briefly explain my position? I am practically alone in the
+world. My home is at Hurst Dormer, one of the finest old buildings in
+Sussex. I have an income of eight thousand a year.”
+
+“What has this to do with me?”
+
+“Only that I am offering it to you, myself and all I possess. I am
+asking you to do me the honour of marrying me. It seems to me that it
+is the one and the only atonement that I can make for what has passed.”
+
+“You are—very generous! And—and you think that I would accept?”
+
+“I hoped that you might consider the offer.”
+
+Slotman gripped at the edge of the table against which he leaned.
+
+He could scarcely believe his own ears—Joan, who had held her head so
+high, whom he had believed to be above the breath of suspicion!
+
+If it were possible for such a man as Mr. Philip Slotman to be shocked,
+then Slotman was deeply shocked at this moment. He had come to regard
+Joan as something infinitely superior to himself. Self-indulgent, a
+libertine, he had pursued her with his attentions, pestered her with
+his admiration and his offensive compliments. Then it had slowly dawned
+on the brain of Mr. Philip Slotman that this girl was something better,
+higher, purer than most women he had known. He had come to realise it
+little by little. His feelings towards her had undergone a change. The
+idea of marriage had come to him, a thing he had never considered
+seriously before. Little by little it grew on him that he would prefer
+to have Joan Meredyth for a wife rather than in any other capacity. He
+could have been so proud of her beauty, her birth and her breeding.
+
+And now everything had undergone a change. The bottom had fallen out of
+his little world of romance. He stood there, gasping and clutching at
+the edge of the table, while he listened to the man in the adjoining
+room offering marriage to Joan Meredyth “as the only possible
+atonement” he could make her!
+
+Naturally, Mr. Philip Slotman could not understand in the least why or
+wherefore; it was beyond his comprehension.
+
+And now he stood listening eagerly, holding his breath waiting for her
+answer.
+
+Would she take him, this evidently rich man? If so, then good-bye to
+all his hopes, all his chances.
+
+Within the room the two faced one another in momentary silence. A flush
+had come into the girl’s cheeks, making her adorable. For an instant
+the coldness and hardness and bitterness were all gone, and Hugh Alston
+had a momentary glimpse of the real woman, the woman who was neither
+hard, nor cold, but was womanly and sweet and tender.
+
+And then she was her old self again, the bitterness and the anger had
+come back.
+
+“I thank you for making everything so clear to me, your wealth and
+position and your desire to make—to make amends for the insult and the
+shame you have put on me. I need hardly say of course that I refuse!”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Did you ever expect me to accept? I think you did not!”
+
+She gave him a slight inclination of the head and, turning, went out of
+the room, and Hugh Alston stood staring at the door that had closed on
+her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+THE DREAM GIRL
+
+
+“She is utterly without generosity; she is cold and hard and bitter,
+and she has made a mountain out of a molehill, built up a great
+grievance on what was, after all, only a foolish and ill-considered
+statement. She is pleased to feel herself deeply insulted, and she
+hates me for what I did in perfect innocence. I have done all that I
+can do. I have offered to make amends in the only way I can think of,
+and she refuses to accept either that or my apologies. Very well,
+then... But what a lovely face it is, and for just that moment, when
+the hardness and bitterness were gone...” He paused; his own face
+softened. One could not be angry for long with a vision like that,
+which was passing before his mind, conjured up by memory.
+
+Just for that instant, when the flush had come into her cheeks, she had
+looked all those things that she was not—sweet, womanly, tender, and
+gentle, a woman with an immense capacity for love.
+
+“Bah!” said Hugh. “I’m an idiot. I shall go to a theatre to-night,
+forget all about her, and go home to-morrow—home.” He sighed a little
+drearily. For months past he had pictured pretty Marjorie Linden as
+queen of that home, and now he knew that it would never be. His house
+would remain lonely and empty, as must his life be.
+
+He sighed sentimentally, and took out Marjorie’s little pink note from
+his pocket-book. He noticed for the first time that it was somewhat
+over-scented. He realised that he did not like the smell of scent,
+especially on notepaper, and pink was not his favourite colour. In
+fact, he disliked pink. Marjorie was happy, Lady Linden was beaming on
+Tom Arundel, the cloud had lifted from Marjorie’s life. Hugh tore up
+the pink, smelly little missive, and dropped the fragments into the
+grate of the hotel bedroom.
+
+“That’s that!” he said. “And it’s ended and done with!”
+
+He was amazed to find himself not broken-hearted and utterly cast down.
+He lighted his pipe and puffed hard, to destroy the lingering smell of
+the pink notepaper. Then he laughed gently.
+
+“By every right I should now be on my way to the bar to drown dull care
+in drink. She’s a dear little soul, the sweetest and dearest and best
+in the world. I hope Tom Arundel will appreciate her and make the
+little thing happy. I would have done my best, but somehow I feel that
+Tom is the better man, so far as Marjorie is concerned.”
+
+Grey eyes, not disdainful and cold and scornful, but soft, and filled
+with kindliness and gentleness, banished all memory of Marjorie’s
+pretty pathetic blue eyes. Why, Hugh thought, had that girl looked at
+him like that for just one moment? Why had she appeared for that
+instant so different? It was as if a cold and bitter mask had fallen
+from her face, and he had had a peep at the true—the real woman, the
+woman all love and tenderness and gentleness, behind it.
+
+“Anyhow, it doesn’t matter,” said Hugh. “I’ve done what I believed to
+be the right thing. She turned me down; the affair is now closed, and
+we’ll think of something else.”
+
+But it was not easy. At his dinner, which he took in solitary state, he
+had a companion, a girl with grey eyes and flushed cheeks who sat
+opposite to him at the table. She said nothing, but she looked at him,
+and the beauty of her intoxicated him, and the smile of her found an
+answer on his own lips. She ate nothing, nor did the waiter see her; so
+far as the waiter was concerned, there was an empty chair, but Hugh
+Alston saw her.
+
+“Why,” he asked, “why can you look like that, and yet be so different?
+That look in your eyes makes you the most beautiful and wonderful thing
+in this world, and yet...”
+
+He laughed softly to himself. He was uttering his thoughts aloud, and
+the unromantic waiter stared at him.
+
+“Beg your pardon, sir?” he asked.
+
+“That’s all right!” Hugh said. “What won the three-thirty?”
+
+“I don’t think there was any racing to-day, sir,” the man said.
+
+He went away, not completely satisfied as to this visitor’s sanity, and
+Hugh drifted back into dreams and memories.
+
+“You are very wonderful,” he said to himself, “yet you made me very
+angry; you hurt me and made me furious. I called you ungenerous, and I
+meant it, and so you were. Yet when you look at me with your eyes like
+that and the colour in your cheeks, I can’t find one word to say
+against you.”
+
+He went to the theatre that night. It was a successful play. All London
+was talking of it, but Hugh Alston never remembered what it was about.
+He was thinking of a girl with cold disdainful looks that changed
+suddenly to softness and tenderness. She sat beside him as she had sat
+opposite to him at dinner. On the stage the actors talked meaningless
+stuff; nothing was real, save this girl beside him.
+
+“What’s the matter with you, my good fellow, is,” Hugh said to himself,
+as he walked back to the hotel that night, “you’re a fickle man; you
+don’t know your own mind. A week ago you were dreaming of Marjorie; you
+considered blue eyes the most beautiful thing in the world. You would
+not have listened to the claims of eyes of any other colour, and
+now—Bless her dear little heart, she’ll be happy as the day is long
+with Tom Arundel, with his nice fair hair parted down the middle, and
+her pretty scented notepaper. Of course she’ll be happy. She would have
+been miserable at Hurst Dormer, and so should I have been; seeing her
+miserable, I should have been miserable myself. But I shall go back to
+Hurst Dormer to-morrow and start on that renovation work. It will give
+me something to occupy my time and attention.”
+
+That night, much to his surprise, Hugh found he could not sleep.
+
+“It’s the strange bed,” he said. “It’s the noise of the London
+streets.” Sleeplessness had never troubled him before, but to-night he
+rolled and tossed from side to side, and then at last he sat bolt
+upright in the bed.
+
+“Good Lord!” he said. “Good Lord, it can’t be!” He stared into the
+thick darkness and saw an oval face, crowned by waving brown hair, that
+glinted gold in the highlights. He saw a sweet, womanly, tender,
+smiling mouth and a pair of grey eyes that seemed to burn into his own.
+
+“It can’t be!” he said again. And yet it was!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+THE PEACEMAKER
+
+
+“Bless my soul!” said General Bartholomew. He had turned to the last
+page and looked at the signature. “Alicia Linden! I haven’t heard a
+word of her for five and twenty years. A confoundedly handsome girl she
+was too. Hudson, where’s my glasses?”
+
+“Here, General,” said the young secretary.
+
+The General put them on.
+
+“My dear George,” he read.
+
+It was a long letter, four pages closely written in Lady Linden’s
+strong, almost masculine hand.
+
+“...I remember that when she visited me years ago, she told that me you
+were an old friend of her father’s. This being so, I think you should
+combine with me in trying to bring these two wrong-headed young people
+together. I have quarrelled with Hugh Alston, so I can do nothing at
+the moment; but you, being on the spot so to speak, in London, and Hugh
+I understand also being in London...”
+
+“What the dickens is the woman drivelling about?” the General demanded.
+“Hudson!”
+
+“Yes, sir!”
+
+“Read this letter carefully, digest it, and then briefly explain to me
+what the dickens it is all about.”
+
+The secretary took the letter and read it carefully.
+
+“This letter is from Lady Linden, of Cornbridge Manor House,
+Cornbridge. She is deeply interested in a young lady, Miss Joan
+Meredyth. At least—” Hudson paused.
+
+“Joan, pretty little Joan Meredyth—old Tom Meredyth’s girl. Yes, go
+on!”
+
+“Three years ago,” Hudson went on, “Miss Meredyth was married in secret
+to a Mr. Hugh Alston—”
+
+“Hugh Alston, of course—bless me, I know of Hugh Alston! Isn’t he the
+son of old George Alston, of Hurst Dormer?”
+
+“Yes, that would be the man, sir. Her ladyship speaks of Mr. Alston’s
+house, Hurst Dormer.”
+
+“That’s the man then, that’s the man!” said the General, delighted by
+his own shrewdness. “So little Joan married him. Well, what about it?”
+
+“They parted, sir, almost at once, having quarrelled bitterly. Lady
+Linden does not say what about, and they have never been together
+since. A little while ago she received a letter from Miss Meredyth, as
+she still continues to call herself, asking her assistance in finding
+work for her to do. And that reminds me, General, that a similar letter
+was addressed to you by Miss Meredyth, which I sent on to you at
+Harrogate.”
+
+“Must have got there after I left. I never had it—go on!”
+
+“Lady Linden urges you to do something for the young lady, and do all
+in your power to bring her and Mr. Alston together. She says if you
+could effect a surprise meeting between them, good may come of it. She
+is under the impression that they will not meet intentionally. Miss
+Meredyth’s address is, 7 Bemrose Square, and Mr. Alston is staying at
+The Northborough Hotel, St. James. Of course, there is a good deal
+besides in the letter, General—”
+
+“Of course!” the General said. “There always is. Well, Hudson, we must
+do something. I knew the girl’s father, and the boy’s too. Tom Meredyth
+was a fine fellow, reckless and a spendthrift, by George! but as
+straight a man and as true a gentleman as ever walked. And old George
+Alston was one of my best friends, Hudson. We must do something for
+these two young idiots.”
+
+“Very good, sir!” said Hudson. “How shall we proceed?”
+
+The General did not answer; he sat deep in thought.
+
+“Hudson, I am getting to be a forgetful old fool,” he said. “I’m
+getting old, that’s what it is. Before I went to Harrogate I was with
+Rankin, my solicitor. He was talking to me about the Meredyths. I
+forget exactly what it was, but there’s some money coming to the girl
+from Bob Meredyth, who went out to Australia. No, I forget, but some
+money I know, and now the girl apparently wants it, if she is asking
+for influence to get work. Go and ring Rankin up on the telephone.
+Don’t tell him we know where Joan Meredyth is, but give him my
+compliments, and ask him to repeat what he told me the other day.”
+
+Hudson went out. He was gone ten minutes, while the General dozed in a
+chair. He was thinking of the past, of those good old days when he and
+Tom Meredyth, the girl’s father, and George Alston, the lad’s father,
+were all young fellows together. Ah, good old days, fine old days! When
+the young blood coursed strong and hot in the veins, when there was no
+need of Harrogate waters, when the limbs were supple and strong, and
+the eyes bright and clear. “And they are gone,” the old man
+muttered—“both of them, and a lot of other good fellows besides; and I
+am an old, old man, begad, an old fellow sitting here waiting for my
+call to come and—” He paused, and looked up.
+
+“Well, Hudson?”
+
+“I have been speaking to Mr. Rankin, sir. He wished me to tell you—”
+Hudson paused; his face was a little flushed, as with some inward
+excitement.
+
+“Go on!”
+
+“Before his death, which occurred six months ago, Mr. Robert Meredyth,
+who had made a great deal of money in Australia, re-purchased the old
+Meredyth family estate at Starden in Kent, Starden Hall, meaning to
+return to England, and take up his residence there. Unfortunately, he
+died on board ship. His wife was dead, his only son was killed in the
+war, and he had left the whole of his fortune, about three hundred
+thousand pounds, and the Starden Hall Estate, to his niece, Miss Joan
+Meredyth.”
+
+“By George! so the girl’s an heiress!”
+
+“And a very considerable one!”
+
+“We won’t say a word about it—not a word, Hudson. We’ll get the girl
+here, and patch up this quarrel between her and her young husband. When
+that’s done we’ll spring the news on ’em, eh?”
+
+“I think it would be a good idea, General,” Hudson said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+“IN SPITE OF EVERYTHING”
+
+
+Slotman leaned across his table. His eyes were glaring his face was
+flushed a dusky red.
+
+Against the wall, her face white as death, but her eyes unafraid, the
+girl stood staring at him, in silent amazement.
+
+“And you—you’ve given yourself airs, set yourself up to be all that you
+are not! You’ve held me at arm’s length, and all the time—all the time
+you’re nothing—nothing!” the man shouted. “I know all about you! I know
+that a man offered you marriage to atone for the past—to atone—you hear
+me? I tell you I know about you, and yet you dare—dare to give yourself
+airs—dare to pretend to be a monument of innocence—you!”
+
+“You are mad!” the girl said quietly.
+
+“Yes, that’s it—mad—mad for you! Mad with love for you!” Slotman
+laughed sharply. “I’m a fool—a blind, mad fool; but you’ve got me as no
+other woman ever did. I tell you I know about you and the past, but it
+shall make no difference. I repeat my offer now—I’ll marry you, in
+spite of everything!”
+
+It seemed to Joan that a kind of madness came to her, born of her fear
+and her horror of this man.
+
+She forced her way past him, and gained the door, how she scarcely
+remembered. She could only recall a great and burning sense of rage and
+shame. She remembered seeing, as in some distant vision, a man with
+scared eyes and sagging jaw—a man who, an utter coward by nature, had
+given way at her approach, whose passion had melted into fear—fear
+followed later by senseless rage against himself and against her.
+
+So she had made her retreat from the office of Mr. Philip Slotman, and
+had shaken the dust of the place off her feet.
+
+It was all very well to bear up and show a brave and determined face to
+the enemy, to give no sign of weakness when the danger threatened. But
+now, alone in her own room in the lodging-house, she broke down, as any
+sensitive, highly strung woman might.
+
+Joan looked at her face in the glass. She looked at it critically. Was
+it the face, she asked herself, of a girl who invited insult? For
+insult on insult had been heaped on her. She had been made the butt of
+one man’s senseless joke or lie, whatever it might be; the butt of
+another man’s infamous passion.
+
+“Oh!” she said, “Oh!” She clasped her cheeks between her hands, and
+stared at her reflection with wide grey eyes. “I hate myself! I hate
+this face of mine that invites such—such—” She shuddered, and moaned
+softly to herself.
+
+Beauty, why should women want it, unless they are rich and well placed,
+carefully protected? Beauty to a poor girl is added danger. She would
+be a thousand, a million times better and happier without it.
+
+She grew calmer presently. She must think. To-morrow the money for her
+board here would be due, and she had not enough to pay. She would not
+ask Slotman for the wages for this week, never would she ask anything
+of that man, never see him again.
+
+Then what lay before her? She sat down and put her elbows on the
+dressing table with its dingy cheap lace cover, and in doing so her
+eyes fell on a letter, a letter that had been placed here for her.
+
+It was from General Bartholomew, an answer to the appeal she had
+written him at the same time that she had written to Lady Linden. It
+came now, kindly, friendly and even affectionate, at the very eleventh
+hour.
+
+
+“I was away, my dear child, when your letter came. It was forwarded to
+Harrogate to me. Now I am back in London again. Your father was my very
+dear friend; his daughter has a strong claim on me, so pack your
+things, my dear, and come to me at once. I am an old fellow, old enough
+to have been your father’s father, and the little note that I enclose
+must be accepted, as it is offered, in the same spirit of affection. It
+will perhaps settle your immediate necessities. To-morrow morning I
+shall send for you, so have all your things ready, and believe me.
+
+“Yours affectionately,
+“GEORGE BARTHOLOMEW.”
+
+
+She cried over the letter, the proud head drooped over it; bright tears
+streamed from the grey eyes.
+
+Could Hugh Alston have seen her now, her face softened by the gladness
+and the gratitude that had come to her, he would have seen in her the
+woman of his dreams.
+
+The banknote would clear everything. She did not scruple to accept it
+in the spirit of affection in which it was offered. It would have been
+churlish and false pride to refuse.
+
+He had said that he would send for her when the morning came; he had
+taken it for granted that she would go, and there was no need to answer
+the letter. And when the morning came she was ready and waiting, her
+things packed, her last bill to Mrs. Wenham paid.
+
+The maid came tapping on the door.
+
+“Someone waiting for you, miss, in the drawing-room.”
+
+Joan went down. It would be the old fellow, the warm-hearted old man
+himself come to fetch her! She entered the big ugly room, with its
+dingy wall-paper and threadbare carpet, its oleographs in tarnished
+frames, its ancient centre ottoman, its elderly piano and unsafe,
+uncertain chairs. How she hated this room, where of evenings the
+‘paying guests’ distorted themselves.
+
+But she came into it now eagerly, with bright eyes and flushed cheeks,
+and hand held out, only to draw back with sudden chill.
+
+It was Mr. Philip Slotman who rose from the ottoman.
+
+“Joan, I’ve come to tell you I am sorry, sorry and ashamed,” he said.
+“I was mad. I want you to forgive me.”
+
+“There need be no talk of forgiveness,” she said. “You are the type of
+man one can perhaps forget—never forgive!”
+
+He winced a little, and his face changed to a dusky red.
+
+“I said more than I meant to say. But what I said, after all, was right
+enough. I know more about you than I think you guess. I know about that
+fellow, that—what’s his name?—Alston—who came. I know why he came.”
+
+“You are a friend of his, perhaps? I am not surprised.”
+
+“I never saw him before in my life, but I know all about him—and
+you—all the same. He was willing to act fairly to you after all, and—”
+
+“What is this to do with you?” she asked.
+
+“A lot!” he said thickly. “A lot! Look here!” He took another step
+towards her. “Last night I behaved like a mad fool. I—I said more than
+I meant to say. I—I saw you, and I thought of that fellow—and—and you,
+and it drove me mad!”
+
+“Why?” She was looking at him with calm eyes of contempt, the same look
+that she had given to Hugh Alston at their last meeting.
+
+“Why—why?” he said. “Why?” He clenched his hands. “You know why, you
+know I love you! I want you! I’ll marry you! I’ll dig a hole and bury
+the past in it—curse the past! I’ll say nothing more, Joan. I swear
+before Heaven I’ll never try and dig up the past again. I forgive
+everything!”
+
+“You—you forgive everything?” Her eyes blazed. “What have you to
+forgive? What right have you to tell me that you forgive—me?”
+
+“I can’t let you go, I can’t! Joan, I tell you I’ll never throw the
+past in your face. I’ll forget Alston and—”
+
+The door behind the girl opened, the maid appeared.
+
+“Miss,” she said, “there’s a car waiting down below. The man says he is
+from General Bartholomew, and he has come for you.”
+
+“Thank you. I am coming now. My luggage is ready, Annie. Can you get
+someone to carry it down?”
+
+Joan moved to the door. She looked back at Slotman. “I hope,” she said
+quietly, “that we shall never meet again, Mr. Slotman, and I wish you
+good morning!” And then she was gone.
+
+Slotman walked to the window. He looked down and saw a car, by no means
+a cheap car, and he knew the value of things, none better. He waited,
+unauthorised visitor as he now was, and saw the girl come out, saw the
+liveried chauffeur touch his cap to her and hold the door for her, saw
+her enter. Presently he saw luggage brought down and placed on the roof
+of the limousine, and then the car drove away.
+
+Slotman rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Well, I’ll be hanged! And who
+the dickens is General Bartholomew? And why should she go to him,
+luggage and all? Is it anything to do with that fellow Alston? Has she
+accepted his offer after all?” He shook his head. “No, I don’t think
+so.”
+
+The General put his two hands on Joan’s shoulders. He looked at her,
+and then he kissed her.
+
+“You are very welcome, my dear,” he said. “I blame myself, I do indeed.
+I ought to have found out where you were long ago. Your father was one
+of my dearest friends, God rest his soul. I knew him well, and his dear
+little wife too—your mother, my child, one of the loveliest women I
+ever saw. And you are like her, as like her as a daughter can be like
+her mother. Bless my heart, it takes me back when I see you, takes me
+back to the day when Tom married her, the loveliest girl—but I am
+forgetting, I am forgetting. You’ve brought your things?” he asked.
+“Hudson, where’s Hudson? Ring for Mrs. Weston, that’s my housekeeper,
+child. She’ll look after you. And now you are here, you will stay here
+with us for a long time, a very long time. It can’t be too long, my
+dear. I am a lonely old man, but we’ll do our best to make you happy.”
+
+“I think,” Joan said softly, “that you have done that already! Your
+welcome and your kindness, have made me happier than I have been for a
+very, very long time.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+THE GENERAL CALLS ON HUGH
+
+
+Hugh Alston lingered in London, why, he would not admit, even to
+himself. In reality he had lingered on in the hope of seeing Joan
+Meredyth again. How he should see her, where and when, he had not the
+faintest idea; but he wanted to see her even more than he wanted to see
+Hurst Dormer.
+
+He had thought of going to the city and calling on Mr. Philip Slotman
+again. But he had not liked Mr. Slotman.
+
+“If I see her, she will only suggest that I am annoying and insulting
+her,” Hugh thought. “I suppose I thought that I was doing a very fine
+and very clever thing in asking her to be my wife!” His face burned at
+the thought. He had meant it well; but, looking back, it struck him
+that he had acted like a conceited fool. He had thought to make all
+right, by bestowing all his possessions and his person on her, and she
+had put him in his place, had declined even without thanks.
+
+“And serve me jolly well right!” Hugh said. “Who?” he added aloud.
+
+“Gentleman, sir—General Bartholomew,” said the hotel page.
+
+“And who on earth is he?”
+
+“Short, stout gentleman, sir, white whiskers.”
+
+“That’s quite satisfactory then; I’ll see him,” said Hugh.
+
+He found the General in the lounge.
+
+“You’re Hugh Alston,” said the General. “I’d know you anywhere. You are
+your father over again. I hope that you are as good a man.”
+
+“I wish I could think so,” Hugh said, “but I can’t!” He shook hands
+with the General. He had a dim recollection of the old fellow, as one
+of his father’s friends, who in the old days, when he was a child, had
+come down to Hurst Dormer; but the recollection was dim.
+
+“How did you find me out here, sir?”
+
+“Ah, ha! That’s it—just a piece of luck! The name struck me—Alston—I
+thought of George Alston. I said to myself, ‘Can this be his boy?’ And
+you are, eh? George Alston, of Hurst Dormer.”
+
+The General rambled on, but he forgot to explain to Hugh how it was
+that he had found him out at the Northborough Hotel, and presently Hugh
+forgot to enquire, which was what the General wanted.
+
+“You’ll dine with me to-night, eh? I won’t take no—understand. I want
+to talk over old times!”
+
+“I thought of returning to Sussex to-night,” said Hugh.
+
+“Not to be thought of! I can’t let you go! I shall expect you at
+seven.”
+
+The old fellow seemed to be so genuinely anxious, so kindly, so
+friendly, that Hugh had not the heart to refuse him.
+
+“Very well, sir; it is good of you. I’ll come, I’ll put off going till
+to-morrow. I remember you well now, you used to come for the shooting
+when I was a nipper.”
+
+Not till after the old fellow had gone did Hugh wonder how he had
+unearthed him here in the Northborough Hotel. He had meant to ask
+him—he had asked him actually, and the General had not explained. But
+it did not matter, after all. Some coincidence, some easily
+understandable explanation, of course, would account for it.
+
+“And to-morrow I shall go back,” Hugh thought, as he drove to the
+General’s house in a taxicab. “I shall go back to Hurst Dormer, I shall
+get busy doing something and forget everything that I don’t want to
+remember.”
+
+But his thoughts were with the girl he had seen last in Mr. Slotman’s
+office. And he saw her in memory as he had seen her for one brief
+instant of time—softened and sweetened by some thought, some influence
+that had come to her for a moment. What influence, what thought, he
+could not tell; yet, as she had been then, so he saw her always and
+remembered her.
+
+A respectful manservant took Hugh’s coat and hat; he led the way, and
+flung a door wide.
+
+“General Bartholomew will be with you in a few moments, sir,” he said;
+and Hugh found himself in a large, old-fashioned London drawing-room.
+
+“To-morrow,” Hugh was thinking, “Hurst Dormer—work, something to occupy
+my thoughts till I can forget. It is going to take a lot of forgetting,
+I suppose I shall feel more or less a cad all my life, though Heaven
+knows—”
+
+He swung round suddenly. The door had opened; he heard the swish of
+skirts, and knew it could not be General Bartholomew.
+
+But who it would be he could not have guessed to save his life. They
+met again for the third time in their lives. At sight of him the girl
+had started and flushed, had instinctively drawn back. Now she stood
+still, regarding him with a steadfast stare, the colour slowly fading
+from her cheeks.
+
+And Hugh stood silent, dumbfounded, astonishment clearly shown on his
+face.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+“I TAKE NOT ONE WORD BACK”
+
+
+“I will do you the justice, Mr. Alston, to believe that you did not
+anticipate this meeting?”
+
+“You will only be doing me justice if you do not believe it,” Hugh
+said.
+
+The girl bent her proud head. “I did not know that you were a friend of
+General Bartholomew’s?”
+
+“Nor I till to-day, Miss Meredyth.”
+
+“I don’t understand.”
+
+Hugh explained that he had not seen the General since he was a child,
+till the General had unearthed him at the Northborough Hotel that
+afternoon.
+
+Joan frowned. Why had the General done that? Why had he, not three
+minutes ago, patted her on the shoulder, smiled on her, and told her to
+run down and wait for him in the drawing-room? Suddenly her face burned
+with a glowing colour. It seemed as if all the world were in league
+together against her. But this time this man was surely innocent. She
+had seen the look of astonishment on his face, and knew it for no
+acting.
+
+“I came here yesterday,” she said quietly, “in response to a warm
+invitation from the General, who was my father’s friend.”
+
+“My father’s too!”
+
+“I—I wanted a home, a friend, and I accepted his invitation eagerly,
+but since you have come—”
+
+“My presence makes this house impossible for you, of course,” Hugh
+said, and his voice was bitter. “Listen to me, I may never have an
+opportunity of speaking to you again, Joan.” He used her Christian
+name, scarcely realising that he did so.
+
+“You feel bitterly towards me, and with reason. You have made up your
+mind that I have deliberately annoyed and insulted you. If you ask me
+to explain what I did and why I did it, I cannot do so. I have a
+reason. One day, if I am permitted, I shall be glad to tell you
+everything. I came here to London like a fool, a senseless, egotistical
+fool, thinking I should be doing a fine thing, and could put everything
+right by asking you to become my wife in reality. I can see now what
+sort of a figure I made of myself, and how I must have appeared to you
+when I was bragging of my possessions. I suppose I lack a sense of
+humour, Joan, or there’s something wrong with me somewhere. Believe me,
+senseless and crude as it all was, my intentions were good. I only
+succeeded in sinking a little lower, if possible, in your estimation,
+and now I wish to ask your pardon for it.”
+
+“I am glad,” she said quietly, “that you understand now—”
+
+“I do, and I have felt shame for it. I shall feel better now that I
+have asked you to forgive. Joan,” he went on passionately, “listen! A
+fool is always hard to separate from his folly. But listen! That day
+when I saw you in the City, when I made my egregious proposal to
+you—just for a moment you were touched, something appealed to you. I do
+not know what it was—my folly, my immense conceit—for which perhaps you
+pitied me. But it was something, for that one moment I saw you change.
+The hard look went from your face, a colour came into your cheeks, your
+eyes grew soft and tender—just for one moment—”
+
+“What does all this—”
+
+“Listen, listen! Let me speak! It may be my last chance. I tell you I
+saw you as I know you must be—the real woman, not the hard, the
+condemning judge that you have been to me. And as I saw you for that
+one moment, I have remembered you and pictured you in my thoughts; and
+seeing you in memory I have grown to love that woman I saw, to love her
+with all my heart and soul.”
+
+Love! It dawned on her, this man, who had made a sport of her name, was
+offering her love now! Love! she sickened at the very thought of it—the
+word had been profaned by Philip Slotman’s lips.
+
+“I believe,” she thought, “I believe that there is no such thing as
+love—as holy love, as true, good, sweet love! It is all selfish passion
+and ugliness!”
+
+“Just now, Mr. Alston”—her voice was cold and scornful, and it chilled
+him, as one is chilled by a drenching with cold water—“just now you
+said perhaps you lacked humour. I do not think it is that, I think you
+have a sense of humour somewhat perverted. Of course, you are only
+carrying this—this joke one step further—”
+
+“Joan!”
+
+“And as you drove me from Cornbridge Manor, I suppose you will now
+drive me from this house. Am I to find peace and refuge nowhere,
+nowhere?”
+
+“If—if you could be generous!” he cried.
+
+She flushed with anger. “You have called me ungenerous before! Am I
+always to be called ungenerous by you?”
+
+“Forgive me!” His eyes were filled with pleading. He did not know
+himself, did not recognise the old, happy-go-lucky Hugh Alston, who had
+accepted many a hard knock from Fate with a smile and a jest.
+
+“And so I am to be driven from this home, this refuge—by you?” she said
+bitterly. “Oh, have you no sense of manhood in you?”
+
+“I think I have. You shall not be driven away. I, of course, am the one
+to go. Through me you left Cornbridge, you shall not have to leave this
+house. I promise you, swear to you, that I shall not darken these doors
+again. Is that enough? Does that content you?”
+
+“Then I shall have at least something at last to thank you for,” she
+said coldly. And yet, though she spoke coldly, she looked at him and
+saw something in his face that made her lip tremble. Yet in no other
+way did she betray her feelings, and he, like the man he was, was of
+course blind.
+
+It was strange how long they had been left alone, uninterrupted. The
+strangeness of it did not occur to him, yet it did to her. She turned
+to the door.
+
+“Joan, wait,” he pleaded—“wait! One last word! One day I shall hope to
+explain to you, then perhaps you will find it in your heart to forgive.
+For the blunder that I made in Slotman’s office, for the further
+insult, if you look on it as such, I ask you to forgive me now. It was
+the act of a senseless fool, a mad fool, who had done wrong and tried
+to do right, and through his folly made matters worse. To-night perhaps
+I have sinned more than ever before in telling you that I love you. But
+if that is a sin and past all forgiveness, I glory in it. I take not
+one word of it back. I shall trouble you no more, and so”—he paused—“so
+I say good-bye.”
+
+“Good-bye!” He held out his hand to her, but she looked him full in the
+face.
+
+“Good-bye!” she said, and then turned quickly, and in a moment the door
+was closed between them.
+
+He did not see her hurry away, her hands pressed against her breast. He
+did not see the face, all womanly and sweet, and soft and tender now.
+He had only the memory of her brief farewell, the memory of her cold,
+steady eyes—nothing else beside.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+THE GENERAL CONFESSES
+
+
+“My dear, my dear, life is short. I am an old man, and yet looking back
+it seems but yesterday since I was a boy beginning life. Climbing the
+hill, my dear, climbing the hill; and when the top was gained, when I
+stood there in my young manhood, I thought that the world belonged to
+me. And then the descent, so easy and so swift. The years seem long
+when one is climbing, but they are as weeks when the top is passed and
+the descent into the valley begins.” He paused. He passed his hand
+across his forehead. “I meant to speak of something else, of you,
+child, of your life, of love and happiness, and of those things that
+should be dear to all us humans.”
+
+“I know nothing of love, and of happiness but very, very little,” she
+said.
+
+He took her hand and held it. “You shall know of both!” he promised.
+“There is strife, there is ill-feeling between you and that lad, your
+husband.”
+
+She wrenched her hand free, her face flushed gloriously.
+
+“You!” she cried. “You too !”
+
+“Yes, I too! I sought him out yesterday, and asked him to this house on
+purpose that you and he should meet, praying that the meeting might
+bring peace to you both. I knew the lad’s father as I knew yours.
+Alicia Linden wrote to me and told me all about this unhappy marriage
+of yours. She told me that she loved you both, that you were both good,
+that life might be made very happy for you two, but for this
+misunderstanding—”
+
+“Don’t!—don’t. Oh, General Bartholomew, how can I make you understand?
+It is untrue—I am not his wife! I have never been his wife. It was a
+lie! some foolish joke of his that he will not or cannot explain!”
+
+He looked at her, blinking like one who suddenly finds himself in
+strong light after the twilight or darkness.
+
+“Not—not married?”
+
+“I never saw that man in my life before I met him at Lady Linden’s
+house, not two weeks ago. All that he has said about our marriage, his
+and mine, are foolish lies, something beyond my understanding!”
+
+The General waved his hands helplessly.
+
+“It is all extraordinary! Where can that foolish old woman have got
+hold of this story? What’s come to her? She used to be a very
+clear-minded—”
+
+“It is not she, it is the man—the liar!” Joan cried bitterly. “I tell
+you I don’t understand the reason for it. I cannot understand, I don’t
+believe there is any reason. I believe that it is his idea of humour—I
+can’t even think that he wanted to annoy and shame and anger me as he
+has, because we were utter strangers.”
+
+She stood at the window, looking out into the dull, respectable square.
+She saw a man ascend the steps and ring on the hall door-bell, but he
+did not interest her.
+
+“I shall find work to do,” she said, “soon. I am grateful to you
+for—for taking me in, for giving me asylum here for a time—very, very
+grateful. I know that you meant well when you brought that man and me
+face to face last night—that man—” She paused.
+
+She could see him now, that man with eager and earnest pleading in his
+eyes, with hands outstretched to her, as he told her of his love. And
+seeing him in memory, there came into her cheeks that flush that he had
+seen and remembered, and into her eyes the dewy, softness that banished
+all haughtiness, and made her for the moment the tender woman that she
+was.
+
+“So,” she said, “so I shall find work to do, and I will go out again
+and earn my living and—”
+
+“There will be no need!” the General said.
+
+“I cannot stop here and live on your charity!”
+
+“There will be no need,” he repeated.
+
+“Mr. Rankin,” announced a servant. The door had opened, and the man she
+had been watching came in.
+
+He shook hands with the General.
+
+“Joan, this is Mr. Rankin. Rankin, this is Miss Joan Meredyth.”
+
+She turned to him and bowed slightly.
+
+“You will allow me to congratulate you, Miss Meredyth. Believe me, it
+is a great happiness to me that at last, after much diligent seeking, I
+have, thanks to the General here, found you. General—you have told
+her?” He broke off, for there was a puzzled look in the girl’s face.
+
+“Told her nothing—nothing,” said the General; “that’s your business.”
+
+Strangely, their words aroused little or no curiosity in her mind. What
+was it she had been told or not told, she did not know. Somehow she did
+not care. She saw a pair of pleading eyes, she saw the colour rise in a
+man’s cheeks. She saw an outstretched hand, held pleadingly to her, and
+she had repulsed that hand in disdain.
+
+But Mr. Rankin was talking.
+
+“Your uncle, on his way back to this country, died on board ship. His
+only son was killed, poor fellow, in the War. There was no one else,
+the will leaves everything to you unconditionally. Through myself he
+had purchased the old place, Starden Hall, only a few months before his
+death, and it was his intention to live there. So the house and the
+money become yours, Miss Meredyth. There is Starden, and the income of
+roughly fifteen thousand a year, all unconditionally yours.”
+
+And listening, dazed for the moment, there came into her mind an
+unworthy thought—a thought that brought a sense of shame to her, yet
+the thought had come.
+
+Did that man—last night—know of this, of this fortune when he had told
+her that he loved her?
+
+A few days had passed, days that had found Joan fully occupied with the
+many matters connected with her inheritance.
+
+To-day she and the old General were talking in the drawing-room of the
+General’s house.
+
+“Of course, if you prefer it and wish it, my dear.”
+
+“I do!” said Joan. “I see no reason why Lady Linden should be in any
+way interested in me and my affairs. I prefer that you should tell her
+nothing at all. I was very fond of Marjorie, she is a dear little
+thing, and Lady Linden was very kind to me once, that is why I wrote to
+her. But now I would sooner forget it all. I shall go down to Starden
+and live.”
+
+“Alone?”
+
+“I have no one, so I must be alone! Mr. Rankin says that all the
+business formalities will be completed this week, and there will be
+nothing to keep me. Mrs. Norton, the housekeeper at Starden, says the
+house is all ready, so I thought of going down at the beginning of next
+week!”
+
+“Alone?” the old man repeated.
+
+“Since I am alone, I must go alone.”
+
+“My dear, I am an old fellow, and likely to be in the way, but if—my
+society—would—”
+
+Joan smiled, and the smile transfigured her. It brought tenderness and
+sweetness to the young face that adversity had somewhat hardened.
+
+“No, I won’t be selfish, dear,” she said gently. “You would hate it;
+you are at home here, and you have all you want. There you would be
+unhappy and uncomfortable; but I do thank you very, very gratefully.”
+
+“But you can’t go alone, child. Why bless me, there’s my niece Helen
+Everard. She’s a widow, her husband’s people live close to Starden at
+Buddesby. If only for a time, let me arrange with her to go with you.”
+
+“If you like,” she said.
+
+“I’ll write to her at once,” the General said, and Joan nodded, little
+dreaming what the sending of that letter might mean to her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+THE BEGINNING OF THE TRAIL
+
+
+For a while the unrighteous may bask in the sunshine of prosperity, but
+there comes a time of reckoning, more especially in the City of London,
+and things were at this moment shaping ill for Mr. Philip Slotman.
+
+He stood at the door of the general office and surveyed his clerks.
+There were five of them; at the end of the week there would be but two,
+he decided. Next week probably there would be only one.
+
+“Hello, Slotman!” It was a business acquaintance, who had dropped in to
+discuss the financial position.
+
+“Things all right?
+
+“Nothing to complain about,” said Slotman, who did not believe in
+crying stinking fish. Credit meant everything to him, and it was for
+that reason he wore very nice clothes and more jewellery than good
+taste warranted.
+
+In Mr. Slotman’s inner office he and his friend, Mr. James Bloomberg,
+lighted expensive cigars.
+
+“So the pretty typist has gone, of course?” said Bloomberg.
+
+Slotman started. “You mean—?”
+
+“Miss Meredyth; I’ve heard about her.”
+
+“About her. What?”
+
+Bloomberg drew at his cigar. “Of course you know she’s come into money,
+a pot of money and a fine place down in the country. Uncle died, left a
+will—that sort of thing. Rankin acts for me, a sound man. I was talking
+to him the other day, and your name cropped up.”
+
+“Go on!” said Slotman. The cigar shook between, his finger and thumb.
+“My name cropped up?”
+
+“And Rankin was interested, as a young lady he was acting for had just
+come into a pot of money and a fine place down in Kent, and he had
+heard that she used to be employed by you. Ah, ha!” Bloomberg laughed.
+“You oughtn’t to have let her slip away, old man. She was as pretty as
+a peach, and now with some hundreds of thousands she will be worth
+while, eh?”
+
+“I suppose so,” Slotman said, apparently indifferently. “And did you
+hear the name of the place she had come into?”
+
+“I did. Something—Den—all places in Kent are something or other—Den.
+Oh, Starden! That’s it! Well, I must go. But tell me, what’s your
+opinion about those Calbary Reef Preferentials?”
+
+Ten minutes later Slotman was alone, frowning at thought. If it were
+true, then indeed the luck had been against him. Even without money he
+had been willing, more than willing to marry Joan, in spite of the
+past, of which he knew nothing, but suspected much. Yes, he would have
+married her.
+
+“She got hold of me,” he muttered, “and I can’t leave off thinking of
+her, and now she is an heiress, and Heaven knows I want money. If I had
+a chance, if—” He paused.
+
+For a long while Mr. Philip Slotman sat in deep thought. About Joan
+Meredyth there was a mystery, and it was a mystery that might be well
+worth solving.
+
+“I’ll hunt it out,” he muttered. “I’ll have to work back. Let me see,
+there was that old General—General—?”
+
+He frowned, Ah! he had it now, for his memory was a good one.
+
+“General Bartholomew! That was the name,” Slotman muttered. “And that
+is where I commence my hunt!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+“TO THE MANNER BORN”
+
+
+Starden Hall was one of those half-timbered houses in the possession of
+which Kent and Sussex are rich. It was no great mansion, but a
+comfortable, rambling old house, that had been built many a generation
+ago, and had been added to as occasion required by thoughtful owners,
+who had always borne in mind the architecture and the atmosphere of the
+original, and so to-day it covered a vast quantity of ground, being but
+one storey high, and about it spread flower gardens and noble park-land
+that were delights to the eye.
+
+And this place was hers. It belonged to her, the girl who a few short
+weeks ago had been earning three pounds a week in a City office, and
+whose nightmare had been worklessness and starvation.
+
+Helen Everard watched the girl closely. “To the manner born,” she
+thought. And yet there was that about Joan that she would have altered,
+a coldness, an aloofness. Too often the beautiful mouth was set and
+hard, never cruel, yet scornful. Too often those lustrous eyes looked
+coldly out on to a world that was surely smiling on her now.
+
+“There’s something—” the elder woman thought, for she was a clever and
+capable woman—a woman who could see under the surface of things, a
+woman who had loved and suffered, and had risen triumphant over
+misfortunes, which had been so many and so dire that they might have
+crushed a less valiant spirit.
+
+General Bartholomew had explained briefly:
+
+“The child is alone in the world. There is something I don’t quite
+understand, Helen. It is about a marriage—” The old gentleman paused.
+“Look here, I’ll tell you. I had a letter from Lady Linden, an old
+friend, and she begged me to find Joan and bring her and her young
+husband together again.”
+
+“Then she is married?”
+
+“No, that is, I—I don’t know. ’Pon my soul, I don’t know—can’t make
+head or tail of it! She says she isn’t, and, by George! she isn’t a
+girl who would lie; but if she isn’t—well, I’m beaten, Helen. I can’t
+make it out. At any rate, I did bring her and the lad, and a fine lad
+he is too, George Alston’s son, together. And he left the house without
+seeing me, and afterwards the girl told me that he was practically a
+stranger to her, and that there had never been any marriage at all. At
+the same time she asked me not to write to Lady Linden, and she said
+that it was no business of hers, which was true, come to that. And
+so—so now she’s come into this money, and she is utterly alone in the
+world, and wants to go to Starden to live—why, my dear—”
+
+“I see,” Helen said. “I shall be glad to go there for a time you know;
+it’s Alfred’s country.”
+
+“I remembered that.”
+
+“John Everard is living at Buddesby with his sister Constance. They are
+two of the dearest people—the children, you know, of Alfred’s brother
+Matthew.”
+
+“Yes—yes, to be sure,” said the old gentleman, who was not in the
+slightest degree interested.
+
+“And they will be nice for your Joan Meredyth to know,” said Mrs.
+Everard.
+
+“That’s it, that’s it! Take her about; let her see people, young
+people. Make her enjoy herself, and forget the past. I don’t know what
+the past held. Joan is not one to make confidants; but I fancy that her
+past, poor child, has held more suffering than she cares to talk about.
+So try and make her forget it. Get the Everards over from Buddesby, or
+take her there; let her see people. But you know, you know, my dear.
+You’re a capable woman!”
+
+Yes, she was a capable woman, far more capable than even General
+Bartholomew realised. Clever and capable, kindly and generous of
+nature, and the girl interested her. It was only interest at first.
+Joan was not one to invite a warm affection in another woman at the
+outset. Her manner was too cold, too uninviting, and yet there was
+nothing repellent about it. It was as if, wounded by contact with the
+world, she had withdrawn behind her own defences. She, who had suffered
+insult and indignity, looked on all the world with suspicious, shy
+eyes.
+
+“I will break down her reserve. I think she is lovable and sweet when
+once one can force her to throw aside this mask,” Helen Everard
+thought.
+
+So they had come to Starden together.
+
+Joan had said little when she had first looked over the place; but
+Helen, watching her, saw a tinge of colour come into her cheeks, and
+her breast rise and fall quickly, which proved that Joan was by no
+means so unmoved as she would appear.
+
+It was her home, the home of her people. It was to-day almost as it had
+been a hundred years ago, and a hundred years before that, and even a
+hundred years earlier still.
+
+The low-pitched, old-fashioned rooms, with the mullioned windows, the
+deep embrasures, the great open, stone-slabbed hearths, with their
+andirons and dog-grates, the walls panelled with carved linen-fold oak,
+darkened by age alone and polished to a dull, glossy glow by hands that
+would work no more.
+
+Through these rooms, each redolent of the past, each breathing of a
+kindly, comfortable home-life, the girl went, looking about her with
+eyes that saw everything and yet seemed to see nothing.
+
+“You like it, dear?” Helen asked.
+
+“It is all wonderful, beautiful!” Joan said, and yet she spoke with a
+touch of sadness in her voice.... “How—how lonely one might be here!”
+she added.
+
+“You—you must not think of loneliness; you will never be lonely, my
+dear. If you are, it will be of your own choice!”
+
+“Who knows?” Joan smiled sadly. She was thinking of a man who had told
+her that he loved her. There had been more than one, but the one man
+stood out clear and distinct from all others; she could even remember
+the words he had used.
+
+“If, in telling you that I love you, I have sinned past all
+forgiveness, I glory in it, and I take not one word of it back.”
+
+Yet how could he love her? How could he, when he had insulted her, when
+he had used her name, as he had, when he had humiliated and shamed her,
+how could he profess to love her? And they had met but three times in
+their lives.
+
+“Joan, dear,” Helen Everard said, “Joan!”
+
+“Yes? I am sorry, I—I was thinking.” Joan looked up.
+
+Helen had come into the room, an open letter in her hand.
+
+“I wrote to John and Constance Everard, my nephew and niece,” Helen
+said. “I told them I was here with you, and asked them to come over.
+They are coming to-morrow, dear. I think you will like them.”
+
+“I am sure I shall,” Joan said; but there was no enthusiasm in her
+voice, only cold politeness that seemed to chill a little.
+
+“I glory in it,” she was thinking, “and take not one word of it back.”
+She shrugged her shoulders disdainfully and turned away.
+
+“What time will they be coming, Helen?” she asked, for she had made up
+her mind. She would think no more of this man, and remember no more of
+his speeches. She would wipe him out of her memory. Life for her would
+begin again here in Starden, and the past should hold nothing, nothing,
+nothing!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+ELLICE
+
+
+Buddesby, in the Parish of Little Langbourne, was a small place
+compared with Starden Hall. Buddesby claimed to be nothing more than a
+farmhouse of a rather exalted type. For generations the Everards had
+been gentlemen farmers, farming their own land and doing exceedingly
+badly by it.
+
+Matthew, late owner of Buddesby, had taken up French gardening on a
+large scale, and had squandered a great part of his capital on glass
+cloches, fragments of which were likely to litter Buddesby for many a
+year to come.
+
+John, his son, had turned his back on intensive culture and had gone
+back to the old family failing of hops. The Everard family had probably
+flung away more money on hops than any other family in Kent.
+
+The Everards were not rich. The shabby, delightful old rooms, the
+tumble-down appearance of the ancient house, the lack of luxuries
+proved it, but they were exceedingly content.
+
+Constance was a slim, pale, fair-haired girl with a singularly sweet
+expression and the temper, as her brother said often enough, of an
+angel. John Everard was big and broad, brown-haired, ruddy
+complexioned. He regarded every goose as a swan, and had unlimited
+belief in his land, his sister, and the future. There was one other
+occupant of Buddesby, a slight slender, dark-haired girl, with a thin,
+olive face, a pair of blazing black eyes, and a vividly red-lipped
+mouth.
+
+Eight years ago Matthew Everard had brought her home after a brief
+visit to London. He had handed her over to eighteen-year-old Constance.
+
+“Look after the little one, Connie,” he had said. “There’s not a soul
+in the world who wants her, poor little lass. Her father’s been dead
+years; her mother died—last week.” He paused. “I knew them both.” That
+was all the information he had ever given, so Ellice Brand had come to
+Buddesby, one more mouth to feed, one more pair of feet to find shoes
+for.
+
+She had many faults; she was passionate and wilful, defiant and
+impatient of even Connie’s gentle authority. But there was one who
+could quell her most violent outburst with a word—one who had but to
+look at her to bring her to her sane senses, one whom she would,
+dog-like, have followed to the end of the world, from whom she would
+have accepted blows and kicks and curses without a murmur, only that
+Johnny Everard was not in the habit of bestowing blows and curses on
+young ladies.
+
+Constance was twenty-six, John, the master of Buddesby, was a year
+younger, and Ellice was eighteen, her slender body as yet childish and
+unformed, her gipsy-like face a little too thin. But there was beauty
+there, wonderful and startling beauty that would one day blossom forth.
+It was in the bud as yet, but the bud was near to opening.
+
+They were at breakfast in the comfortable, shabby old morning-room at
+Buddesby. It was eight o’clock, and John had been afield for a couple
+of hours and had come back with his appetite sharp set.
+
+They rose early at Buddesby. Constance had been at her housewifely
+duties since soon after six. Only Ellice had lain abed till the ringing
+of the breakfast-bell.
+
+“A letter from Helen,” Constance said.
+
+“Helen? Oh, she’s got to Starden then?” said John.
+
+“And wants us to come over, dear.”
+
+“Of course! We’ll go over next week some time. I’m busy now with—”
+
+“It wouldn’t be kind not to go at once.”
+
+“Who is Helen?” demanded Ellice. She looked fierce-eyed at Connie and
+then at John. “Who is she?” A tinge of colour came into her cheeks.
+
+Connie saw it, and sighed a little. She knew this girl’s secret, knew
+it only too well. Many an hour of anxiety and worry it had caused her.
+
+“Helen is our aunt by marriage,” she said.
+
+“Oh!” Ellice said, “I thought—”
+
+John laughed. He had a jolly laugh, a great hearty laugh that did one
+good to hear.
+
+“What did you think she was, gipsy girl?” he asked, for “gipsy” was his
+pet name for the little dark beauty.
+
+“Did you think she was some young and lovely damsel who was eager to
+meet me again?”
+
+“I should hate her if she was!” the girl said, whereat John laughed
+again.
+
+“Write to Helen, Con,” he said as he rose from the table, “and say
+we’ll come over to-morrow.” He paused, frowning, at thought. “I’ll
+manage it somehow. I’ll drive you over in the trap. It would be useful
+to have a car; I don’t know why I put off getting one.”
+
+Constance did, and she smiled. “Wait till next year, dear.”
+
+He nodded. “Yes, next year we’ll get one. Meanwhile write to Helen, and
+tell her we’ll be over to-morrow afternoon.”
+
+“And I?” Ellice asked.
+
+John looked at her. “Why—no, child, you’ll stop at home and look after
+the house, eh?” He nodded to them and went out.
+
+“Is she there—alone?” Ellice asked.
+
+“Who, dear?”
+
+“This Helen, your aunt. Is it usual to call your aunt just plain
+Helen?”
+
+“No, I suppose it isn’t, and she is not there alone, as you ask. She is
+living with a girl who has just come into a great deal of money—Miss
+Joan Meredyth.”
+
+“What is she like?” the girl asked quickly.
+
+Constance smiled.
+
+“I don’t know, dear. You see, I have never seen her.”
+
+“Then I hope,” Ellice said between her clenched teeth, “I hope she is
+ugly, ugly as sin!”
+
+“I think,” said Constance gently, “that you are very silly and
+foolish!”
+
+Yet when the morrow came it was Ellice and not Constance who sat beside
+John in the trap, and was driven by him the six odd miles to Starden.
+For Constance had one of “her headaches.” It was no imaginary ailment,
+but a headache that prostrated her and filled her with pain, that made
+every sound an agony. She lay in her room, the blinds drawn, and all
+the household hushed.
+
+“I’ll write that we’ll go to-morrow, dear,” John said.
+
+“No, go to-day. I should be glad, Johnny. Go to-day and take Ellice, I
+am so much better alone; and by the time you come home perhaps I shall
+have been able to sleep it off.”
+
+So Johnny Everard drove Ellice over to Starden that afternoon.
+
+Helen Everard received them in the drawing-room. She was fond of Johnny
+Everard and his sister. This dark-faced girl she did not know, though
+she had heard of her. And now she looked at her with interest. It was
+an interesting face, such a face as one does not ordinarily see.
+
+“One day, if she lives, she will be a beautiful woman,” Helen thought.
+“To-day she is a gawky, passionate, ill-disciplined child; and I am
+afraid, terribly afraid, she is very much in love with that great,
+cheery, good-looking nephew of mine.”
+
+“Come,” she said, “Joan is in the garden. I promised that when you came
+I would take you to her. You have heard about her of course?” Helen
+added to John.
+
+“Only a little, that she is an heiress, and has come into Starden.”
+
+“She was very poor, poor child, and I think she had a hard and bitter
+time of it. Then the wheel of fortune took a turn. Her uncle died, and
+left her Starden and a great deal of money. So here she is.”
+
+Helen felt a hand grip her arm, and turned to look down into a thin
+face, in which burned a pair of passionate eyes.
+
+“Is she—pretty?” the girl asked.
+
+“I think,” Helen said slowly, “that she is the most beautiful woman I
+have ever seen.”
+
+Unlike his usual self, John Everard was very silent and thoughtful as
+he drove home later that evening. Helen had said that Joan Meredyth was
+the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. He agreed with her
+whole-heartedly. She had received him and Ellice kindly, yet without
+much warmth, and now as he drove home in the light of the setting sun
+Johnny Everard was thinking about this girl, going over all that had
+happened, remembering every word almost that she had uttered.
+
+“She is very beautiful, wonderfully beautiful,” he thought. And perhaps
+he uttered his thoughts aloud, for the girl, as silent as himself, who
+sat beside him, started and looked up into his face, and into the
+passionate, rebellious heart of her there came a sudden wave of jealous
+hatred.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+UNREST
+
+
+Lady Linden patted the girl’s small white hand.
+
+“Yes, child,” she said comfortably, “Colonel Arundel and I had a nice
+long talk last night, and you may guess what it was about. He and I
+were boy and girl together, there’s no better blood in the kingdom than
+the Arundel’s—what was I saying? Oh yes, we decided that it would be a
+good plan to have a two years’ engagement, or better still, none for
+eighteen months, and then a six months’ engagement. During that time
+Tom can study modern scientific farming and that sort of thing, you
+know, and then when you and he are married, he could take over these
+estates. I am heartily sick of Bilson, and I always fancy he is robbing
+me—what did you say, child?”
+
+“Nothing, auntie.”
+
+“Well, you ought to be a very happy little girl. Run away.”
+
+But Marjorie lingered. “Aunt, you haven’t heard anything of—of Hugh?”
+she asked.
+
+“Hugh—Hugh Alston? Good gracious, no! You don’t think I am going to run
+after the man? I am disgusted with Hugh. His duplicity and, worse
+still, his obstinate, foolish, unreasoning behaviour, have annoyed me
+more than anything I ever remember. But there, my dear child, it is
+nothing to do with you. I have quite altered my opinion of Hugh Alston.
+You were right and I was wrong. Tom Arundel will make you a better
+husband, and you will be as happy as the day is long with him.”
+
+“I shan’t!” Marjorie thought as she turned away. It was wrong, and it
+was unreasonable, and she knew it; but for the last four or five days
+there had been steadily growing in Marjorie’s brain, an Idea.
+
+Stolen fruits are sweetest, stolen meetings, moonlit assignations, shy
+kisses pressed on ardent young lips, when the world is shrouded in
+darkness and seems to hold but two. All these things make for romance.
+The silvery moonlight gives false values; the knowledge that one has
+slipped unseen from the house to meet the beloved one, and that the
+doing of it is a brave and bold adventure, gives a thrill that sets the
+heart throbbing and the young blood leaping—the knowledge that it is
+forbidden, and, being forbidden, very sweet, appeals to the young and
+romantic heart.
+
+But when that same beloved object, looking less romantic in correct
+evening dress, is accepted smilingly by the powers that be, and is sate
+down to a large and varied, many coursed dinner, then Romance shrugs
+her disgusted shoulders and turns petulantly away.
+
+It was so with Marjorie. When the idea first came to her, she felt
+shocked and amazed. It could not be! she said to herself. “I love Tom
+with all my heart and soul, and now I am the happiest girl living.”
+
+But she was not, and she knew it. It was useless to tell herself that
+she was the happiest girl living when night after night she lay awake,
+staring into the darkness and seeing in memory a face that certainly
+did not belong to Tom Arundel.
+
+Hugh Alston had commenced work on the restoration of certain parts of
+Hurst Dormer. He had busied himself with the work, had entered
+whole-heartedly into all the plans, had counted up the cost, and then,
+realising that all his enthusiasm was only forced, that he was merely
+trying to cheat himself, he lost interest and gave it up.
+
+“I’ll go to London,” he said. “I’ll go and see things, and try and get
+thoughts of her out of my mind.” So he went, and found London even more
+uninteresting than Hurst Dormer.
+
+He had promised that he would never molest her, never annoy her with
+his visits or his presence, and he meant religiously to keep his word,
+and yet—if he could just see her! She need not know! If he could from a
+distance feast his eyes on her for one moment, on a sight of her, what
+harm would he do her or anyone?
+
+Hugh Alston did not recognise himself in this restless dissatisfied,
+unhappy man, who took to loitering and wandering about the streets,
+haunting certain places and keeping a sharp lookout for someone who
+might or might not come.
+
+So the days passed. He had gladdened his eyes three times with a view
+of old General Bartholomew. He had seen that ancient man leaning on his
+stick, taking a constitutional around the square.
+
+And that was all! He passed the house and watched, yet saw no sign of
+her. He came at night-time, when tell-tale shadows might be thrown on
+the blinds, but saw nothing, only the shadow of the General or of his
+secretary, never one that might have been hers.
+
+And then he slowly came to the conclusion that Joan Meredyth could no
+longer be there. It had taken him nearly a week to come to that
+decision.
+
+That Joan had left General Bartholomew’s house he was certain, but
+where was she? He had no right to enquire, no right to hunt her down.
+If he knew where she was, how could it profit him, for had he not
+promised to trouble her no more?
+
+Yet still for all that he wanted to know, and casting about in his mind
+how he might find her, he thought of Mr. Philip Slotman.
+
+It was possible that if she had left the General’s she had gone back to
+take up her work with Slotman again.
+
+“I’ll risk it,” he thought, and went to Gracebury and made his way to
+Slotman’s office.
+
+It was a sadly depleted staff that he found in the general office. An
+ancient man and a young boy represented Mr. Philip Slotman’s one-time
+large clerical staff.
+
+“Mr. Slotman’s away, sir, down in the country—gone down to Sussex,
+sir,” said the lad.
+
+“To Sussex? Will he be away long?”
+
+“Can’t say, sir; he may be back to-morrow,” the boy said. “At any rate,
+he’s not here to-day.”
+
+“I may come back to-morrow. You might tell him that Mr. Alston called.”
+And Hugh turned away.
+
+Another disappointment. He realised now that he had built up quite a
+lot of hope on his interview with Slotman.
+
+“Shall I wait till to-morrow, or shall I go back to-day?” Hugh
+wondered. “This is getting awful. I don’t seem to have a mind of my
+own, I can’t settle down to a thing. I’ve got to get a grip on myself.
+How does the old poem go: ‘If she be fair, but not fair to me, what
+care I how fair she be?’ That’s all right; but I do care, and I can’t
+help it!”
+
+He had made his aimless way back to the West End of London. It was
+luncheon time, and he was hesitating between a restaurant and an hotel.
+
+“I’ll go back to the hotel, get some lunch, pack up and leave by the
+five o’clock train for Hurst Dormer,” he decided, and turned to hail a
+taxicab.
+
+And, turning, he came suddenly face to face with the girl who was ever
+in his thoughts.
+
+She had been helping a middle-aged, pleasant-faced woman out of a cab,
+and then, as she turned, their eyes met, and into Joan Meredyth’s
+cheeks there flashed the tell-tale colour that proved to him and to all
+the world that this chance meeting with him meant something to her
+after all.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+“UNGENEROUS”
+
+
+Hugh Alston had raised his hat, and she had given him the coolest of
+bows. He was turning away, true to his promise to trouble her no more,
+and her heart seemed to cry out against it suddenly.
+
+If she could have believed that he had been here of deliberate intent,
+to find her, to see her, she would have felt cold anger against him;
+but it was an accident, and Joan knew suddenly that for some reason she
+was unwilling to let him go.
+
+What she said she hardly knew, something about the unexpectedness of
+meetings that were common enough in London. At any rate she spoke, and
+was rewarded by the look that came into his face. A starving dog could
+not have looked more gratitude to one who had flung him a bone than
+Hugh Alston, starving for her, thanked her with his eyes for the few
+conventional words.
+
+Before he could realise what had happened, she had introduced him to
+her companion.
+
+“Helen, this is Mr. Alston—whom I—I know,” she said.
+
+“Alston.” Helen Everard congratulated herself afterwards that she had
+given no sign of surprise, no start, nothing to betray the fact that
+the name was familiar.
+
+Here was the man then whom Lady Linden believed to be Joan’s husband,
+the man whom Joan had denied she had married, and who she had stated to
+General Bartholomew was scarcely more than a stranger to her.
+
+And, looking at him, Helen knew that if Hugh Alston and she met again,
+he would certainly not know her, for he had no eyes for anything save
+the lovely cold face of the girl before him.
+
+“Oh, Joan,” she said, “there is one of those bags I have been wanting
+to get for a long time past. Excuse me, Joan dear, will you?” And Helen
+made hurriedly to a shop hard by, leaving them together.
+
+Joan felt angry with herself now it was too late. She ought to have
+given him the coldest of cold bows and then ignored him; but she had
+been weak, and she had spoken, and now Helen had deserted her.
+
+“I will say good-bye, Mr. Alston, and go after my friend.”
+
+“No, wait—wait. I want to speak to you, to thank you.”
+
+“To thank me?” She lifted her eyebrows. “For what?”
+
+“For speaking to me.”
+
+“That sounds very humble, doesn’t it?” She laughed sharply.
+
+“I am very humble to you, Joan!”
+
+“Mr. Alston, do you realise that I am very angry with myself?” she said
+coldly. “I acted on a foolish impulse. I ought not to have spoken to
+you.”
+
+“You acted on a generous impulse, that is natural to you. Now you are
+pretending one that is unworthy of you, Joan.”
+
+“I do not think you have any right to speak to me so, nor call me by
+that name.”
+
+“I must call you by the name I constantly think of you by. Joan, do you
+remember what I said to you when we last met?”
+
+“No, I—” She flushed suddenly. To deny, was unworthy of her. “Yes, I
+remember.”
+
+“It is true, remember what I said. I take not one word of it back. It
+is true, and will remain true all my life.”
+
+“My friend—will be wondering—”
+
+“Joan, be a little merciful.”
+
+And now for the first time he noticed that she was not dressed as he
+had seen her last. There was a suggestion of wealth, of ample means
+about her appearance. Clothes were the last thing that Hugh thought of,
+or noticed. Yet gradually Joan’s clothes began to thrust themselves on
+his notice. She was well dressed, and the stylish and becoming clothes
+heightened her beauty, if possible.
+
+“Joan, I have a confession to make.”
+
+She bent her head.
+
+“I couldn’t act unfairly or deal in an underhand way with you.”
+
+“I thought differently!” she said bitterly.
+
+“I remembered my promise made to you at General Bartholomew’s, yet I
+came to London in the hope of seeing you, that was all that brought me
+here. I would not have spoken to you if you had not spoken to me first.
+I only wanted just to see you. I wonder,” he went on, “that I have not
+been arrested as a suspicious character, as I have been loitering about
+General Bartholomew’s house for days, but I never saw you, Joan!”
+
+“I was not there!”
+
+“No, I gathered that at last. You will believe that I had no intention
+of annoying you or forcing myself on your notice. I wanted to see you,
+that was all, and so when I had made up my mind that you were not
+there, I went to the City Office where I saw you last.”
+
+Her face flushed with anger.
+
+“You have taken then to tracking me?” she said angrily.
+
+“I am afraid it looks like it, but not to annoy you, only to satisfy my
+longing to see you. Just now you said I sounded humble. I wonder if you
+could guess how humble I feel.”
+
+“I wonder,” she said sharply, “if you could guess how little I believe
+anything you say, Mr. Alston? I am sorry I spoke to you. It was a
+weakness I regret. Now I will say good-bye. You went to Slotman’s
+office, and I suppose discussed me with him?”
+
+“I did not; he was not there. I was glad afterwards he was not. I don’t
+like the man.”
+
+“It does not matter. In any event Mr. Slotman could not have helped
+you; he does not know where I am living.”
+
+“Won’t you tell me?”
+
+“Why should I, to be further annoyed by you?”
+
+“I think you know that I will not annoy you. Won’t you tell me, Joan?”
+
+“I—I don’t see why I should. Remember, I have no wish to continue
+our—our acquaintance; there is no reason you should know.”
+
+“Yet if I knew I would be happier. I would not trouble you.”
+
+“Surely it does not matter. I am living in the country, then—in Kent,
+at Starden. I—I have come into a little money.” She looked at him
+keenly. She wondered did he know, had he known that night when he had
+told her that he loved her?
+
+“I am glad of it,” he said. “I could have wished you had come into a
+great deal.”
+
+“I have!” she said quietly.
+
+“I am truly glad,” he said. “It was one of the things that troubled me
+most, the thought of you—you forced to go out into the world to earn
+your living, you who are so fine and exquisite and sensitive, being
+brought into contact with the ugly things of life. I am glad that you
+are saved that—it lightens my heart too, Joan.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Haven’t I told you? I hated the thought of you having to work for such
+a man as Slotman. I am thankful you are freed from any such need.”
+
+She had wronged him by that thought, she was glad to realise it. He had
+not known, then.
+
+“My uncle died. He left me his fortune and the old home of our family,
+which he had recently bought back, Starden Hall, in Kent. I am living
+there now with Mrs. Everard, my friend and companion, and now—”
+
+While she had been waiting to be served with a bag that she did not
+particularly require, Helen Everard watched them through the
+shop-window. She watched him particularly.
+
+“I like him; he looks honest,” she thought. “It is all strange and
+curious. If it were not true what Lady Linden said, why did she say it?
+If it is true, then—then why—what is the cause of the quarrel between
+them? Will they make it up? He does not look like a man who could treat
+a woman badly. Oh dear!” Helen sighed, for she had her own plans. Like
+every good woman, she was a born matchmaker at heart. She had a deep
+and sincere affection for John Everard. She had decided long ago that
+she must find Johnny a good wife, and here had been the very thing,
+only there was this Mr. Hugh Alston.
+
+She had been served with the bag, it had been wrapped in paper for her,
+and now Helen came out. She had lingered as long as she could to give
+this man every chance.
+
+“I am afraid I have been a long time, Joan,” she began.
+
+Hugh turned to her eagerly.
+
+“Mrs.—Everard,” he said, “I have been trying to induce Miss Meredyth to
+come and have lunch with me.”
+
+“Oh!” Joan cried. The word lunch had never passed his lips till now,
+and she looked at him angrily.
+
+“I suggest Prince’s,” he said. “Let’s get a taxi and go there now.”
+
+“Thank you, I do not require any lunch,” Joan said.
+
+“But I do, my dear. I am simply famished,” said Helen.
+
+It was like a base betrayal, but she felt that she must help this
+good-looking young man who looked at her so pleadingly.
+
+“And it is always so much nicer to have a gentleman escort, isn’t it?”
+
+“You can’t refuse now, Joan,” Hugh said.
+
+Joan! The name suggested to Helen that Joan had not spoken quite the
+truth when she had told General Bartholomew that she and this man were
+practically strangers. A strange man does not usually call a young girl
+by her Christian name.
+
+“As you like,” Joan said indifferently. She looked at Hugh resentfully.
+
+“I do not consider it is either very clever or very considerate,” she
+said in a low voice, intended for him alone.
+
+“I am sorry, but—but I couldn’t let you go yet. You—you don’t
+understand, Joan!” he stammered.
+
+She shrugged her shoulders; she went with them because she must. She
+could not create a scene, but she would take her revenge. She promised
+herself that, and she did. She scarcely spoke a word during the
+luncheon. She ate nothing; she looked about her with an air of
+indifference. Twice she deliberately yawned behind her hand, hoping
+that he would notice; and he did, and it hurt him cruelly, as she hoped
+it might.
+
+But she kept the worst sting for the last.
+
+“Please,” she said to the waiter, “make out the bills separately—mine
+and this lady’s together, and the gentleman’s by itself.”
+
+“Joan!” he said, as the waiter went his way, and his voice was shocked
+and hurt.
+
+“Oh really, you could hardly expect that I would wish you to spend any
+of your—eight thousand a year on me!”
+
+Hugh flushed. He bent his head. His eight thousand a year that once he
+had held out as a bait to her, and yet, Heaven knew, he had not meant
+it so. He had only meant to be frank with her.
+
+He was hurt and stung, as she meant he should be, and seeing it, her
+heart misgave her, and she was sorry. But it was too late, and she must
+not confess weakness now.
+
+There was a cold look in his face, a bitterness about his mouth she had
+never seen before. When he rose he held out his hand to Mrs. Everard;
+he thanked her for coming here with him, and then he gave Joan the
+coldest of cold bows. He held no hand out to her, he had no speech for
+her. Only one word, one word that once before he had flung at her, and
+now flung into her face again.
+
+“Ungenerous!” he said, so that she alone could hear, and then he was
+gone, and Helen looked after him. And then, turning, she glanced at
+Joan, and saw that there were tears in the girl’s grey eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+THE INVESTIGATIONS OF MR. SLOTMAN
+
+
+“And who the dickens,” said Lady Linden, “is Mister—Philip
+what’s-his-name? I can’t see it—what’s his name, Marjorie?” Lady Linden
+held out the card to the girl.
+
+“It—it is—Slotman, auntie,” Marjorie said.
+
+“Don’t sniff, child. You’ve got a cold; go up to my room, and in the
+medical—”
+
+“I haven’t a cold, auntie.”
+
+“Don’t talk to me. Go and get a dose of ammoniated tincture of quinine.
+As for this Mr. Slotman—unpleasant name—what the dickens does he want
+of me?”
+
+Marjorie did not answer.
+
+Slotman was being shewn into the drawing-room a few moments later. He
+was wearing his best clothes and best manner. This Lady Linden was an
+aristocratic dame, and Mr. Slotman had come for the express purpose of
+making himself very agreeable.
+
+“Oily-looking wretch!” her ladyship thought. “Well?” she asked aloud.
+
+“I am grateful to your ladyship for permitting me to see you.”
+
+“Well, you can see me if that’s all you have come for.”
+
+“No!” he said. “If—if I—” He paused.
+
+“Oh, sit down!” said Lady Linden. “Well, now what is it you want? Have
+you something to sell? Books, sewing machines?”
+
+“No, no!” He waved a deprecating hand. “I am come on a matter that
+interests me greatly. I am a financier, I have offices in London. Until
+lately I was employing a young lady on my staff.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Her name was Meredyth, Miss Joan Meredyth.”
+
+“I don’t want to hear anything at all about her,” said Lady Linden.
+“Why you come to me, goodness only knows. If you’ve come for
+information I haven’t got any. If you want information, the right
+person to go to is her husband!”
+
+“Her—her husband!” Mr. Slotman seemed to be choking.
+
+“You seem surprised,” said Lady Linden. “Well, so was I, but it is the
+truth. If you are interested in Miss Meredyth, the proper person to
+make enquiries of is Mr. Hugh Alston, of Hurst Dormer, Sussex. Now you
+know. Is there anything else I can do for you?”
+
+Slotman passed his hand across his forehead. This was unexpected, a
+blow that staggered him.
+
+“You—you mean, your ladyship means that Miss Meredyth is recently
+married.”
+
+“Her ladyship means nothing of the kind,” said Lady Linden tartly. “I
+mean that Miss Meredyth has for some very considerable time been Mrs.
+Hugh Alston. They were married, if you want to know—and I don’t see why
+it should any longer be kept a secret—three years ago, in June,
+nineteen eighteen at Marlbury, Dorset, where my niece was at school
+with Miss Meredyth. Now you know all I know, and if you want any
+further information, apply to the husband.”
+
+“But—but,” Slotman said, “I—” He was thinking. He was trying to
+reconcile what he had heard in his own office when he had spied on Hugh
+Alston and Joan, when on that occasion he had heard Hugh offer marriage
+to the girl as an act of atonement. How could he offer marriage if they
+were already married? There was something wrong, some mistake!
+
+“But what?” snapped her ladyship, who had taken an exceeding dislike to
+the perspiring Mr. Slotman.
+
+“Is your ladyship certain that they were married? I mean—” he fumbled
+and stammered.
+
+Lady Linden pointed to the door. “Good afternoon!” she said. “I don’t
+know what business it is of yours, and I don’t care. All I know is that
+if Hugh Alston is a fool, he is not a knave, so you have my permission
+to retire.”
+
+Mr. Slotman retired, but it was not till some hours had passed that he
+finally left the neighbourhood of Cornbridge. He had been making
+discreet enquiries, and he found on every side that her ladyship’s
+story was corroborated.
+
+For Lady Linden talked, and it was asking too much of any lady who was
+fond of a chat to expect her to keep silent on a matter of such
+interest. Lady Linden had discussed Hugh Alston’s marriage with Mrs.
+Pontifex, the Rector’s wife, who in turn had discussed it with others.
+So, little by little, the story had leaked out, and all Cornbridge knew
+it, and Mr. Slotman found ample corroboration of Lady Linden’s story.
+
+Not till he was in the train did Mr. Slotman begin to gather together
+all the threads of evidence. “I should not describe Lady Linden as a
+pleasant person,” he decided, “still, her information will prove of the
+utmost value to me. On the whole I am glad I went.” He felt satisfied;
+he had discovered all that was discoverable, so far as Cornbridge was
+concerned.
+
+“Married in eighteen, June of eighteen,” he muttered, “at Marlbury,
+Dorset. I’ll bet she wasn’t! She may have said she was, but she
+wasn’t!” He chuckled grimly. He was beginning to see through it. “I
+suppose she told that tale, and then it got about, and then the fellow
+came and offered her marriage as the only possible way out. I’d like to
+choke the brute!”
+
+Slotman slept that night in London, and early the following morning he
+was on his way to Marlbury. He found it a little quiet country town,
+where information was to be had readily enough. It took him but a few
+minutes to discover that there was a school for young ladies, a school
+of repute, kept by a Miss Skinner. It was the only ladies’ school in or
+near the town, and so Mr. Slotman made his way in that direction, and
+in a little time was ushered into the presence of the headmistress.
+
+“I must apologise,” he said, “for this intrusion.”
+
+Miss Skinner bowed. She was tall and thin, angular and severe, a
+typical headmistress, stern and unyielding.
+
+“I am,” Slotman lied, “a solicitor from London, and I am interested in
+a young lady who a matter of three years ago was, I believe, a pupil in
+this school.”
+
+“Indeed?”
+
+“Miss Joan Meredyth,” said Slotman.
+
+“Miss Meredyth was a pupil here at the time you mention, three years
+ago. It was three years ago that she left.”
+
+“In June?” Slotman asked.
+
+“I think so. Is it important that you know?”
+
+“Very!”
+
+“I will go and look up my books.” In a few minutes Miss Skinner was
+back.
+
+“Miss Meredyth left us in the June of nineteen hundred and eighteen,”
+she said.
+
+“Suddenly?”
+
+“Somewhat—yes, suddenly. Her father was dead; she was leaving us to go
+to Australia.”
+
+“So that was the story,” Slotman thought, “to go to Australia.”
+
+“During the time she was here, may I ask, did she have any visitors?
+Did, for instance, a Mr. Hugh Alston call on her?”
+
+“Mr. Alston, I remember the name. Certainly he called here, but not to
+see Miss Meredyth. He came to see Miss Marjorie Linden, who was, I
+fancy, distantly related to him. I am not sure, Mr. Alston certainly
+called several times.”
+
+“And saw Miss Meredyth?”
+
+“I think not. I have no reason to believe that he did. Miss Linden and
+Miss Meredyth were close friends, and of course Miss Linden may have
+introduced him. It is quite possible.”
+
+“Thank you!” said Slotman. He had found out all that he wanted to know,
+yet not quite.
+
+For the next few hours Philip Slotman was a busy man. He went to the
+church and looked up the register. No marriage such as he looked for
+had taken place between Hugh Alston and Joan Meredyth in June, nineteen
+eighteen, nor any other month immediately before or after. No marriage
+had taken place at the local Registrar’s office. But he was not done
+yet. Six miles from Marlbury was Morchester, a far larger and more
+important town. Thither went Philip Slotman and pursued his enquiries
+with a like result.
+
+Neither at Marlbury, nor at Morchester had any marriage been registered
+in the name of Hugh Alston and Joan Meredyth in the year nineteen
+eighteen; and having discovered that fact beyond doubt, Philip Slotman
+took train for London.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+“WHEN I AM NOT WITH YOU”
+
+
+A fortnight had passed since Johnny Everard’s first visit to Starden,
+and during that time he had been again and yet again. He had never
+taken Ellice with him since that first time.
+
+Two days after the first visit he had driven Constance over, and
+Constance and Joan Meredyth had become instant friends.
+
+“You’ll come again and often; it is lonely here,” Joan had said. “I
+mean, not lonely for me, that would be ungrateful to Helen, but I know
+she is very fond of you, and she will like you to come as often as
+possible, you and your brother.”
+
+“Con,” Johnny said as he drove her home that evening, “don’t you think
+we might run to a little car, just a cheap two-seater? It would be so
+useful. Look, we could run over to Starden in less than half an hour.
+We can be there and back in an hour if we wanted to, and Helen would be
+so jolly glad, don’t you think?”
+
+Constance smiled to herself.
+
+“We haven’t much money now, Johnny,” she said. “Last year’s hops
+were—awful!”
+
+“They are going to be ripping this year. I’ve got that blight down all
+right,” he said cheerily.
+
+“Yes, dear; well, if you think—” She hesitated.
+
+“Oh, we can manage it somehow,” he said hopefully.
+
+Constance looked at him out of the corner of her eyes.
+
+“It will be useful for you to run over to Starden to see Helen—won’t
+it?”
+
+“Yes, to see Helen. She’s a good sort, one of the best, dear old Helen!
+Isn’t it ripping to have her near us again?”
+
+“She could always have come to Buddesby if she had wanted to.”
+
+“Oh, there isn’t much room there!”
+
+“But always room enough for Helen, Johnny. You haven’t told me what you
+think of Joan Meredyth.”
+
+She watched him out of the corners of her eyes. He stared straight
+ahead between the ears of the old horse.
+
+“Joan Meredyth,” he repeated, and she saw a deep flush come stealing
+under the tan of his cheeks. “Oh, she’s handsome, Con. She almost took
+my breath away. I think she is the loveliest girl I ever saw.”
+
+“Yes, and do you—”
+
+“And do I admire her? Yes, I do, but I could wish she was just a little
+less cold, a little less stately, Con.”
+
+“Perhaps it is shyness. Remember, we are strangers to her; she was not
+cold and stately to me, Johnny.”
+
+“Ah!” Johnny said, and went on staring straight ahead down the road.
+
+“Did Helen say much to you, Con?”
+
+“Oh, a good deal!”
+
+“About”—Johnny hesitated—“her?”
+
+“Yes, a little; she thinks a great deal of her. She says that at first
+Joan seemed to hold her at arm’s length. Now they understand one
+another better, and she says Joan has the best heart in the world.”
+
+“Yet she seems cold to me,” said Johnny with a sigh.
+
+Still, in spite of Joan’s coldness, he found his way over to Starden
+very often during the days that followed. He had picked up a small
+secondhand car, which he strenuously learned to drive, and thereafter
+the little car might have been seen plugging almost daily along the six
+odd miles of road that separated Buddesby from Starden.
+
+And each time he got the car out a pair of black eyes watched him with
+smouldering anger and passion and jealousy. A pair of small hands were
+clenched tightly, a girl’s heart was aching and throbbing with love and
+hate and undisciplined passions, as though it must break.
+
+But he did not see, though Constance did, and she felt troubled and
+anxious. She had understood for long how it was with Ellice. She had
+seen the girl’s eyes turned with dog-like devotion towards the man who
+was all unconscious of the passion he had aroused. But she saw it all
+in her quiet way, and was anxious and worried, as a kindly, gentle,
+tender-hearted woman must be when she notices one of her own sex give
+all the love of a passionate heart to one who neither realises nor
+desires it.
+
+So, day after day, Johnny drove over to Starden, and when he came Helen
+would smile quietly and take herself off about some household duty,
+leaving the young people together. And Joan would greet him with a
+smile from which all coldness now had gone, for she accepted him as a
+friend. She saw his sterling worth, his honour and his honesty. He was
+like some great boy, so open and transparent was he. To her he had
+become “Johnny,” to him she was “Joan.”
+
+To-day they were wandering up and down the garden paths, side by side.
+
+The garden lay about them, glowing in the sunshine of the early
+afternoon. Beyond the high bank of hollyhocks and the further hedge of
+dark yew, clipped into fantastic form, one could catch a glimpse of the
+old house, with its steep sloping roof, its many gables, its whitened
+walls, lined and crossed by the old timbers. The hum of the bees was in
+the air, heavy with the fragrance of many flowers.
+
+And Joan was thinking of a City office, of a man she hated and feared,
+a man with bold eyes and thick, sensual lips. And then her thoughts
+drifted away to another man, and she seemed to hear again the last word
+he had spoken to her—“Ungenerous.” And suddenly she shivered a little
+in the warm sunlight.
+
+“Joan, you are not cold. You can’t be cold,” Johnny said.
+
+She laughed. “No, I was only thinking of the past. There is much in the
+past to make one shiver, I think, and oh, Johnny, I was thinking of you
+too!”
+
+“Of me?”
+
+She nodded. “Helen was telling me how keen and eager you were about
+your farm, how difficult it was to get you to leave it for an hour.”
+She paused. “That—that was before you came here, the first time—and
+since then you have been here almost every day. Johnny, aren’t you
+wasting your time?” She looked at him with sweet seriousness.
+
+“I am wasting my time, Joan, when—when I am not with you!” he said, and
+his voice shook with sudden feeling, and into his face there came a
+wave of colour. “To be near you, to see you—” He paused.
+
+Down the garden pathway came a trim maidservant, who could never guess
+how John Everard hated her for at least one moment of her life.
+
+“A gentleman in the drawing-room, miss, to see you,” the girl said.
+
+“A gentleman to see me? Who?”
+
+“He would not give a name, miss. He said you might not recognise it. He
+wishes to see you on business.” Joan frowned. Who could it be? Yet it
+was someone waiting, someone here.
+
+“I shall not be long,” she said to Johnny, and perhaps was glad of the
+excuse to leave him.
+
+“I will wait till you come back, Joan.”
+
+She smiled and nodded, and hastened to the house and the drawing-room,
+and, opening the door, went in to find herself face to face with Philip
+Slotman.
+
+
+Philip Slotman, of all living people! She stared at him in amaze,
+almost doubting the evidence of her sight. What did he here? How dared
+he come here and thrust himself on her notice? How dared he send that
+lying message by the maid, that she might not recognise his name?
+
+“You’ve got a nice place here, Joan,” he said with easy familiarity.
+“Things have looked up a bit for you, eh? I notice you haven’t said you
+are glad to see me. Aren’t you going to shake hands?”
+
+“Explain,” she said quietly, “what you mean by coming here.”
+
+If she had given way to senseless rage, and had demanded how he
+dared—and so forth, he would have smiled with amusement; but the cool
+deliberation of her, the quiet scorn in her eyes, the lack of passion,
+made him nervous and a little uncomfortable.
+
+“I came here to see you—what else, Joan?”
+
+“Uninvited,” she said. “You have taken a liberty—”
+
+“Oh, you!” he shouted suddenly. “You’re a fine one to ride the high
+horse with me! Who the dickens are you to give yourself airs? You can
+stow that, do you hear?” His eyes flashed unpleasantly. “You can stow
+that kind of talk with me!”
+
+“You came here believing, I suppose, that I was practically friendless.
+You knew that I had no relatives, especially men relatives, so you
+thought you would come to continue your annoyance of me. Would you mind
+coming here?”
+
+He went to the window wonderingly. The window commanded a wide view of
+the garden. Looking out into the garden he could see a man, a very tall
+and very broad young man, who stood with muscular arms folded across a
+great chest. The young man was leaning against an old rose-red brick
+wall, smoking a pipe and obviously waiting. The most noticeable thing
+about the young man was that he was exceptionally big and of powerful
+build and determined appearance. Another thing that Slotman noticed
+about him was that he was not Mr. Hugh Alston, whom he remembered
+perfectly.
+
+“Well?”
+
+“That gentleman is a friend of mine, related to the lady who lives with
+me. If I call on him and ask him to persuade you to go and not return,
+he will do so.”
+
+“Oh, he will, and what then?”
+
+“I don’t understand you—what then? Why did you come here uninvited? Why
+did you send an untruthful message by my servant—that I would not
+recognise your name?”
+
+“Trying to bluff me, aren’t you?” Slotman said. He looked her in the
+eyes. “But it won’t come off, Joan; no, my dear, I’ve been too busy of
+late to be taken in by your airs and defiance!” He laughed. “I’ve been
+making quite a round, here, there, and everywhere, and all because of
+you, Joan—all because of you! Among other places I’ve been to,” he went
+on, seeing that she stood silent and unmoved, “is Marlbury You remember
+it, eh? A nice little town, quiet though. I had a long talk with Miss
+Skinner—remember her, don’t you, Joany?”
+
+Her eyes glittered. “Mr. Slotman, I am trying to understand what this
+means. Is it that you are mad or intoxicated? Why do you come here to
+me with all these statements? Why do you come here at all?”
+
+“Marlbury,” he continued unmoved, “a nice, quiet little place. I spent
+some time in the church there, and at the Council offices, looking for
+something, for something I didn’t find, Joany—and didn’t expect to find
+either, come to that, ha, ha!” He laughed. “No, never expected to find,
+but, to make dead sure, I went to Morchester, and hunted there, Joany,
+and still I didn’t find what I was looking for and knew I shouldn’t
+find!”
+
+“Mr. Slotman!”
+
+“You aren’t curious, are you? You won’t ask what I was looking for,
+perhaps you can guess!” He took a step nearer to her. “You can guess,
+can’t you, Joany?” he said.
+
+“I am not attempting to guess. I can only imagine that you are not in
+your sane senses. You will now go, and if you return—”
+
+“Wait a moment. What I was looking for at Marlbury and Morchester and
+did not find—was evidence of a marriage having taken place in June,
+nineteen eighteen, between Hugh Alston and Joan Meredyth. But there’s
+no such evidence, none! Ah, that touches you a bit, don’t it? Now you
+begin to understand why I ain’t taken in by your fine dignity!”
+
+“You—you have been looking for—for evidence of a marriage—my marriage
+with—what do you mean?”
+
+Her face was flushed, her eyes brilliant with anger.
+
+“I mean that I am not a fool, though I was for a time. You took me in—I
+am not blaming you”—he paused—“not blaming you. You were only a girl,
+straight out of school. You didn’t understand things, and the man—”
+
+“What—do—you—mean?” she whispered.
+
+“You left Miss Skinner’s, said you were going to Australia, didn’t you?
+But you didn’t go. Oh no, you didn’t go! You know best where you went,
+but there’s no proof of any marriage at Marlbury or Morchester. Now—now
+do you begin to understand?”
+
+She did understand, a sense of horror came to her, horror and shame
+that this man should dare—dare to think evil of her! She felt that she
+wanted to strike him. She saw him as through a mist—his hateful face,
+the face she wanted to strike with all her might, and yet she was
+conscious of an even greater anger, a very passion of hate and
+resentment against another man than this, against the man who had
+subjected her to these insults, this infamy. She gripped her hands
+hard.
+
+“You—you will leave this house. If you ever dare to return I will have
+you flung out—you hear me? Go, and if you ever dare—”
+
+“No, no you don’t!” he said. “Wait a moment. You can’t take me in now!”
+He laughed in her face. “If I go I’ll go all right, but you’ll never
+hear the end of it. You’re someone down here, aren’t you? I have heard
+about you. You’re a Meredyth, and the Meredyths used to hold their
+heads pretty high about here. But if you aren’t careful I’ll get
+talking, and if I talk I’ll make this place too hot to hold you. You
+know what I mean. I hate threatening you, Joan, only you force me to do
+it.” His voice altered. “I hate threatening, and you know why. It is
+because I love you, and I am willing to marry you—in spite of
+everything, you understand? In spite of everything!”
+
+Joan threw out her hand and grasped at the edge of the table.
+
+“My friend out there—am I to call for him? Are you driving me to do
+that? Shall I call him now?”
+
+“If you like,” Slotman said. “If you do, I’ll have something to tell
+him of a marriage that never took place in June, nineteen eighteen, and
+of a man who came to my office to see you, and offered to marry you—as
+atonement. Oh yes, I heard—trust me! I don’t let interviews take place
+in my offices that I don’t know anything about!”
+
+He was silent suddenly. There was that in her face that worried him,
+frightened him in spite of himself—a wild, staring look in her eyes;
+the whiteness of her cheeks, the whiteness even of her lips. There was
+a tragic look about her. He had seen something like it on the stage at
+some time. He realised that he might be goading her too far.
+
+“I’ll go now,” he said. “I’ll go and leave you to think it all out. You
+can rely on me not to say anything. I shan’t humble you, or talk about
+you—not me! A man don’t run down the girl he means to make his wife,
+and that’s what I mean—Joan! In spite of everything, you understand, my
+girl?” He paused. “In spite of everything, Joan, I’ll still marry you!
+But I’ll come back. Oh, I’ll come back, I—” He paused. He suddenly
+remembered the denuded state of his finances, yet it did not seem an
+auspicious moment just now to ask her for financial help.
+
+“I’ll write,” he thought. He looked at her.
+
+“Good-bye, Joan. I’ll come back; you’ll hear from me soon. Meanwhile,
+remember—not a word, not a word to a living soul. You’re all right,
+trust me!”
+
+Meanwhile Johnny Everard wandered about the sweet, old-world garden,
+and did not appreciate its beauties in the least. He was waiting, and
+there is nothing so dreary as waiting for one one longs to see and who
+comes not.
+
+But presently there came a maid, that same maid who had earned Johnny’s
+temporary hatred.
+
+“Miss Meredyth wished me to say, sir, that she would be very glad if
+you would excuse her. She’s been taken with a bad headache, and has had
+to go to her own room to lie down.”
+
+“Oh!” said Johnny. The sun seemed to shine less brightly for him for a
+few moments. “I’m sorry. All right, tell her I am very sorry, and—and
+shall hope to see her soon!”
+
+Ten minutes later Johnny Everard was driving back along the hot
+high-road, utterly unconscious that the car was running very badly and
+misfiring consistently.
+
+In her own room Joan sat, her elbows on the dressing-table, her eyes
+staring unseeingly out into a garden, all glowing with flowers and
+sunlight.
+
+She was not thinking of Johnny Everard; his very existence had for the
+time being passed from her memory. She was thinking of that man, and of
+what he had said, the horror and the shame of it. And that other
+man—Hugh Alston—had brought this upon her—with his insulting lie, his
+insolent, lying statement, he had brought it on her! Because of him she
+was to be subjected to the shame and humiliation of such an attack as
+Slotman had made on her just now.
+
+“Oh, what—what can I do?” she whispered. “And he—he dared to call me—me
+ungenerous! Ungenerous for resenting, for hating him for the position
+he has put me into. Why did he do it? Why, why, why?” she asked of
+herself frantically, and receiving no answer, rose and for a time paced
+the room, then came back to the table and sat down once again.
+
+Slotman had said he would return, that she would hear. She could
+imagine how that the man, believing her good name in his power, and at
+his mercy, would not cease to torment and persecute her.
+
+What could she do? To whom could she turn? She thought of Johnny
+Everard for a fleeting moment. There was something so big and strong
+and honest about him that he reminded her of some great, noble, clean
+dog, yet she could not appeal to him. Had he been her brother—that
+would have been different—but how explain to him? No, she could not.
+Yet she must have protection from this man, this Slotman. Lady Linden,
+General Bartholomew, Helen Everard, name after name came into her mind,
+and she dismissed each as it came. To whom could she turn? And then
+came the idea on which she acted at once. Of course it must be he!
+
+She rose and sought for pen and paper, and commenced a letter that was
+difficult to write. She crushed several sheets of paper and flung them
+aside, but the letter was written at last.
+
+
+“Because you have placed me in an intolerable position, and have
+subjected me to insult and annoyance past all bearing, I ask you to
+meet me in London at the earliest opportunity. I feel that I have a
+right to appeal to you for some protection against the insults to which
+your conduct has exposed me. I write in the hope that you may possibly
+possess some of the generosity which you have several times denied that
+I can lay claim to. I will keep whatever appointment you may make at
+any time and any place,
+
+“JOAN MEREDYTH.”
+
+
+And this letter she addressed to Hugh Alston at Hurst Dormer, and
+presently went out, bareheaded, into the roadway, and with her own
+hands dropped it into the post-box.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+“I SHALL FORGET HER”
+
+
+Restless and unhappy, Hugh Alston had returned to Hurst Dormer, to find
+there that everything was flat, stale, and unprofitable. He had an
+intense love for the home of his birth and his boyhood, but just now it
+seemed to mean less to him than it ever had before. He watched moodily
+the workmen at their work on those alterations and restorations that he
+had been planning with interested enthusiasm for many months past. Now
+he did not seem to care whether they were done or no.
+
+“Why,” he demanded of the vision of her that came to him of nights,
+“why the dickens don’t you leave me alone? I don’t want you. I don’t
+want to remember you. I am content to forget that I ever saw you, and I
+wish to Heaven you would leave me alone!”
+
+But she was always there.
+
+He tried to reason with himself; he attempted to analyse Love.
+
+“One cannot love a thing,” he told himself, “unless one has every
+reason to believe that it is perfection. A man, when he is deeply in
+love with a woman, must regard her as his ideal of womanhood. In his
+eyes she must be perfection; she must be flawless, even her faults he
+will not recognise as faults, but as perfections that are perhaps a
+little beyond his understanding—that’s all right. Now in the case of
+Joan, I see in her nothing to admire beyond the loveliness of her face,
+the grace of her, the sweet voice of her and—oh, her whole personality!
+But I know her to be mean-spirited and uncharitable, unforgiving,
+ungenerous. I know her to be all these, and yet—”
+
+“Lady Linden, sir, and Miss Marjorie Linden!”
+
+They had not met for weeks. Her ladyship had driven over in the large,
+comfortable carriage. “Give me a horse or, better still, two
+horses—things with brains, created by the Almighty, and not a thing
+that goes piff, piff, piff, and leaves an ungodly smell along the
+roads, to say nothing of the dust!”
+
+So she had come here behind two fine horses, sleek and overfed.
+
+“Hello!” she said.
+
+“Hello!” said Hugh, and kissed her, and so the feud between them was
+ended.
+
+“You are looking,” her ladyship said, “rotten!”
+
+“I am looking exactly as I feel. How are you, Marjorie?” He held the
+small hand in his, and looked kindly, as he must ever look, into her
+pretty round face. Because she was blushing with the joy of seeing him,
+and because her eyes were bright as twin stars, he concluded that she
+was happy, and ascribed her happiness, not unnaturally considering
+everything, to Tom Arundel.
+
+“As the cat,” said Lady Linden, “wouldn’t go to Mahomed—”
+
+“The mountain, you mean!” Hugh said.
+
+“Oh, I don’t know. I knew it was a cat, a mountain or a coffin that one
+usually associates with Mahomed. However, as you didn’t come, I came—to
+see what on earth you were doing, shutting yourself up here in Hurst
+Dormer.”
+
+“Renovations.”
+
+“They don’t agree with you. I expect it’s the drains. You’re doing
+something to the drains, aren’t you?”
+
+“Yes, I believe—”
+
+“Then go and get a suitcase packed, and come back with us to
+Cornbridge.”
+
+He would not hear of it at first; but Lady Linden had made up her mind,
+and she was a masterful woman.
+
+“You’ll come?”
+
+“Really, I think I had better—not. You see—”
+
+“I don’t see! Marjorie, go out into the garden and smell the flowers.
+Keep away from the drains.... You’ll come?” she repeated, when the girl
+had gone out.
+
+“Look here, I know what is in your mind; if I come, it will be on one
+condition!” Hugh said.
+
+“I know what that condition is. Very well, I agree; we won’t mention
+it. Come for a week; it will do you good. You’re too young to pretend
+you are a hermit!”
+
+“You’ll keep that condition; a certain name is not to be mentioned!”
+
+“I am no longer interested in the—young woman. I shall certainly not
+mention her name. I think the whole affair—However, it is no business
+of mine, I never interfere in other people’s affairs!” said Lady
+Linden, who never did anything else.
+
+“All right then, on that condition I’ll come, and it is good of you to
+ask me!”
+
+“Rot!”
+
+Hugh sent for his housekeeper.
+
+“I am going to Cornbridge for a few days. I’ll leave you as usual to
+look after everything. If any letters—come—there will be nothing of
+importance, I may run over in a couple of days to see how things are
+going on. Put my letters aside, they can wait.”
+
+“Very good, sir!” said Mrs. Morrisey. And the first letter that she
+carefully put aside was the one that Joan Meredyth had written, after
+much hesitation and searching of mind, in her bedroom that afternoon at
+Starden.
+
+And during the days that followed Joan watched the post every morning,
+eagerly scanned the few letters that came, and then her face hardened a
+little, the curves of her perfect lips straightened out.
+
+She had made a mistake; she had ascribed generosity and decency to one
+who possessed neither. He had not even the courtesy to answer her
+letter, in which she had pleaded for a meeting. She felt hot with shame
+of herself that she had ever stooped to ask for it. She might have
+guessed.
+
+A week had passed since Slotman’s visit, and since she had with her own
+hands posted the letter to Hugh Alston. A week of waiting, and nothing
+had come of it! This morning she glanced through the letters. Her eyes
+had lost their old eagerness; she no longer expected anything.
+
+As usual, there was nothing from “Him,” but there was one for her in a
+handwriting that she knew only too well. She touched it as if it were
+some foul thing. She was in two minds whether to open and read it, or
+merely return it unopened and addressed to Philip Slotman, Esq.,
+Gracebury, London, E.C. But she was a woman. And it takes a
+considerable amount of strength of will to return unopened and unread a
+letter to its sender, especially if one is a woman.
+
+What might not that letter contain? Apology—retraction, sorrow for the
+past, or further insolent demands, veiled threats, and a repetition of
+proposals refused with scorn and contempt—which was it? Who can tell by
+the mere appearance of a sealed envelope and the impress of a postmark?
+
+Joan put the letter into her pocket. She would debate in her mind
+whether she would read it or no.
+
+“A letter from Connie, dear,” said Helen. “She is coming over this
+afternoon and bringing Ellice Brand with her. Joan, it is a week or
+more since Johnny was here.”
+
+“Yes, about a week I think,” said Joan indifferently. She was thinking
+meanwhile of the letter in her pocket.
+
+Helen looked at her. She wanted to put questions; but, being a sensible
+woman, she did not. She had a great affection for Johnny. What woman
+could avoid having an affection and a regard for him? He was one of
+those fine, clean things that men and women, too, must like if they are
+themselves possessed of decency and appreciation of the good.
+
+Yes, she was fond of Johnny, and she had grown very fond of late of
+this girl. She looked under the somewhat cold surface, and she
+recognised a warm, a tender and a loving nature, that had been
+suppressed for lack of something on which to lavish that wealth of
+tenderness that she held stored up in her heart.
+
+Quite what part Hugh Alston had played in the life of Joan, Helen did
+not know. But she hoped for Johnny. She wanted to see these two come
+together. She was not above worldly considerations, for few good women
+are. It would be a fine thing for Johnny, with his straitened income
+and his habit of backing losers—from an agricultural point of view; but
+the main thing, as she honestly believed, was that these two could be
+very happy together. So she wondered a little, and puzzled a little,
+and worried a little why Johnny Everard should suddenly have left off
+paying almost daily visits to Starden.
+
+“I like Connie, and I shall be glad to see her,” said Joan.
+
+“I wish Johnny were coming instead of—”
+
+“So do I!” said Joan heartily. “I like him, I think, even more than I
+like Connie. There is something so—so honest and straight and good
+about him. Something that makes one feel, ‘Here is a man to rely on, a
+man one can ask for help when in distress.’ Sometimes—” She paused,
+then suddenly she rose, and with a smile to Helen, went out.
+
+So there had been no quarrel, why should there have been? Certainly
+there had not been. Joan had spoken handsomely of Johnny, and she had
+said only what was true.
+
+“I shall tell Connie exactly what Joan said, and probably Connie will
+repeat it to Johnny,” Helen thought, which was exactly what she wished
+Connie would do.
+
+In her own room Joan hesitated a moment, then tore open the envelope,
+and drew out Mr. Philip Slotman’s letter.
+
+
+“MY DEAR JOAN (her eyes flashed at the insolent familiarity of it).
+Since my visit of a week ago, when you received me so charmingly, I
+have constantly thought of you and your beautiful home, and you cannot
+guess how pleased I am to feel that the wheel of fortune had taken a
+turn to lift you high above all want and poverty.”
+
+
+She went on reading steadily, her lips compressed, her face hard and
+bitter.
+
+
+“Unfortunately of late, things have not gone well with me. It is almost
+as if, when you went, you took my luck away with you. At any rate, I
+find myself in the immediate need of money, and to whom should I appeal
+for a timely loan, if not to one between whom and myself there has
+always been warm affection and friendship, to say the least of it? That
+I am in your confidence, that I know so much of the past, and that you
+trust in me so completely to respect all your secrets, is a source of
+pleasure and pride to me. So knowing that we do not stand to one
+another in the light of mere ordinary friends, I do not hesitate to
+explain my present embarrassment to you, and ask you frankly for the
+loan of three thousand pounds, which will relieve the most pressing of
+my immediate liabilities. Secure in the knowledge that you will
+immediately come to my aid, as you know full well I would have come to
+yours, had the positions been reversed, I am, my dear Joan,
+
+“Yours very affectionately,
+“PHILIP SLOTMAN.”
+
+
+The letter dropped from her hands to the carpet. Blackmail! Cunningly
+and cleverly wrapped up, but blackmail all the same, the reference to
+his knowledge of what he believed to be her past! He knew that she was
+one who would read and understand, that she would read, as is said,
+between the lines.
+
+Three thousand pounds, to her a few short weeks ago a fortune; to her
+now, a mere row of figures. She could spare the money. It meant no
+hardship, no difficulty, and yet—how could she bring herself to pay
+money to the man?
+
+She would not do it. She would return the letter, she would write
+across it some indignant refusal, and then—No, she would think it over,
+take time, consider. She was strong, and she was brave—she had faced an
+unkindly world without losing heart or courage. Yet this was an
+experience new to her. She was, after all, only a woman, and this man
+was assailing that thing which a woman prizes beyond all else—her good
+name, her reputation, and she knew full well how he might circulate a
+lying story that she would have the utmost difficulty in disproving
+now. He could fling mud, and some of it must stick!
+
+Charge a person with wrongdoing, and even though it be definitely
+proved that he is innocent, yet people only remember the charge, the
+connection of the man’s name with some infamy, and forget that he was
+as guiltless as they themselves.
+
+Joan knew this. She dreaded it; she shuddered at the thought that a
+breath should sully her good name. She was someone now—a Meredyth—the
+Meredyth of Starden. Three thousand pounds! If she paid him for his
+silence—silence—of what, about what? Yet his lies might—She paced the
+room, her brain in a whirl. What could she do? Oh, that she had someone
+to turn to. She remembered the unanswered letter she had sent to Hugh
+Alston, and then her eyes flashed, and her breast heaved.
+
+“I think,” she said, “I think of the two I despise him the more. I
+loathe and despise him the more!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+JEALOUSY
+
+
+Joan and Constance Everard had taken a natural and instinctive liking
+for one another. But to-day it seemed to Connie that Joan was silent,
+less friendly, more thoughtful than usual. Her mind seemed to be
+wondering, wrestling perhaps with some problem, of which Constance knew
+nothing, and so it was.
+
+“What shall I do? Shall I send this man the money he demands, or shall
+I refuse? And if I refuse, what then?”
+
+She knew that mud sticks, and she dreaded it, feared it. A threat of
+bodily pain she could have borne with a smile of equanimity, but this
+was different. She was so sensitive, so fine, so delicate, that the
+thought of scandal, of lies that might besmirch her, filled her with
+fear and shame and dread. It was weak perhaps, it was perhaps not in
+accord with her high courage, and yet frankly she was afraid.
+
+“I shall send the money.” She came to the decision suddenly. Connie was
+speaking to her, about her brother, Joan believed, yet was not certain.
+Her thoughts were far away with Slotman and his letter and his demand.
+
+“I shall send the money.” And having made up her mind, she felt instant
+relief. Yes, cowardly it might be, yet would it not be wiser to silence
+the man, to pay him this money that she might have peace, that scandal
+and shame might not touch her?
+
+“I wanted him to come with us this afternoon, but he could not. It is
+the hops!” Connie sighed. “You don’t know what a constant dread and
+worry hops can be, Joan. There is always the spraying. Johnny is
+spraying hard now. Of course we are not rich, and a really bad hop
+season is a serious thing.”
+
+“Of course!” Joan said. Yes, she would send the money. She would send
+the man a cheque this very day, as soon as the visitors were gone.
+
+“I think she is worried about something,” Connie thought. “It cannot be
+that she and Johnny have had a disagreement, yet for the last week he
+has been worried, different—so silent, so quiet, so unlike himself. I
+wonder—?”
+
+She had brought the dark-eyed slip of a girl with her to-day, and from
+a distance Ellice sat watching the girl whom she told herself she
+hated—this girl who had in some strange way affected and bewitched
+Johnny, Johnny who belonged to her, Johnny whom she loved with a
+passionate devotion only she herself could know the depth of. How she
+hated her, she thought, as she sat watching the calm, beautiful,
+thoughtful face, with its strange, dreamy, far-away look in the big
+grey eyes.
+
+She realised her beauty; she could not blind herself to it. She felt
+she must admire it because it was so apparent, so glowing, so
+obtrusive; and because she did admire it, she felt that she hated the
+owner of it the more.
+
+“Why can’t she leave Johnny alone? I’ve known him all these years, and
+it seems as if he had belonged to me. He never looked at any other
+girl, and now—now—she is here with all her money and her looks—and he
+is bewitched, he is different.”
+
+Helen rose; she wanted a few quiet words with Connie.
+
+“I want to show you something in the garden, Connie,” she said. “I know
+Joan won’t mind.” And so the two went out and left Joan alone with the
+girl, who watched her silently.
+
+Out in the garden Helen and Constance had what women love and hold so
+dear—a heart-to-heart talk, an exchange of secrets and ideas.
+
+“Do you think she cares for him?”
+
+“I don’t know, dear; but do you think he cares for her?”
+
+“I am certain of it!”
+
+“She spoke of him very nicely to-day. She said—” Helen repeated Joan’s
+exact words.
+
+So they talked, these two in the garden, of their hopes and of what
+might be, unselfish talk of happiness that might possibly come to those
+they loved, and in the drawing-room Ellice Brand eyed this girl, her
+rival, whom she hated.
+
+“Will you excuse me?” Joan said suddenly. “There is a letter I must
+write. I have just remembered that the post goes at five, so—”
+
+“Of course!”
+
+She laughed sharply when Joan had gone out. “If he were here, it would
+be different. She would be all smiles and graciousness, but I am not
+worth while bothering about.”
+
+Joan wrote the cheque. It was for a large sum, the largest cheque not
+only that she had ever drawn, but that she had ever seen in her life.
+But it would be money well spent; it would silence the slanderous
+tongue.
+
+
+“I am sending you the money you demand. I understand your letter
+thoroughly. I am neither going to defend myself, nor excuse myself to
+you. I of course realise that I am paying blackmail, and do so rather
+than be annoyed and tormented by you. Here is your money. I trust I
+shall neither hear of you nor see you again.
+
+“JOAN MEREDYTH.”
+
+
+And this letter Joan posted with her own hand in the same post-box into
+which she had dropped that letter more than a week ago, the letter to a
+man who was without chivalry and generosity. She thought of him at the
+moment she let this other letter fall.
+
+Yes, of the two she despised him and hated him the more.
+
+And then when the letter was posted and gone beyond recall, again came
+the self-questionings. Had she done right? Had she not acted foolishly
+and weakly, to pay this man money that he had demanded with covert
+threats? And too late she regretted, and would have had the letter back
+if she could.
+
+“I have no one, not a soul in the world I can turn to. Even Helen is
+almost a stranger,” the girl thought. “I cannot confide in her. I seem
+to be so—so alone, so utterly alone.” She twisted her hands together
+and stood thoughtful for some moments in the roadway where she turned
+back through the garden gate to the house.
+
+“I feel so—so tired,” she whispered, “so tired, so weary of it all. I
+have no one to turn to.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+“UNCERTAIN—COY”
+
+
+Mr. Tom Arundel, cheerful and happy-go-lucky, filled with an immense
+belief in a future which he was sure would somehow shape itself
+satisfactorily, felt a little hurt, a little surprised, just a little
+disenchanted.
+
+“I can’t think what’s come over her. She used to be such a ripping
+little thing, so sweet and good-tempered, and now—why she snaps a
+chap’s head off the moment he opens his mouth. Goo-law!” said Tom.
+“Supposing she grows up to be like her aunt—maybe it is in the blood!”
+
+The prospect seemed to overwhelm him for a moment. Certainly of late
+Marjorie had been uncertain, coy, and very hard to please. Marjorie had
+suffered, and was suffering. She was contrasting Tom with Hugh, and
+Hugh with Tom, and it made her heart ache and made her angry with
+herself for her own previous blindness. And, womanlike, being in a very
+bad temper with herself, she snapped at the luckless Tom like an
+ill-conditioned terrier, and he never approached her but that she,
+metaphorically, bared her pretty white teeth, ready to do battle with
+him.
+
+“Rum things, girls—never know how to take ’em! She don’t seem like the
+same,” thought Tom. “I wonder—”
+
+There had been a breeze, a distinct breeze. Perhaps Tom, anxious to
+propitiate Lady Linden, had been a little more servile than usual. He
+did not mean to be servile. Alluding to his attitude afterwards to
+Marjorie, he called it “Pulling the old girl’s leg.” And when Marjorie
+had turned on him, her eyes had flashed scorn on him, her little body
+had quivered and shaken with indignation.
+
+“If you think it clever currying favour with aunt by—by crawling to
+her,” she cried, “then I don’t! If you want to—to keep my respect,
+you’ll have to act like a man, a man with self-respect! I—I hate to see
+you cringing to aunt, it makes me detest you. What does it matter if
+she has money? Do you want her money? Do you want her money more than
+you want me?”
+
+“Goo-law, old girl, I—”
+
+“Don’t talk to me!” cried Marjorie. “Be a man, or I shall hate you!”
+And she had left him rubbing his chin thoughtfully, and wondering at
+the ways of women and of Marjorie Linden in particular.
+
+“Blinking little spitfire, that’s what she is!” he thought. “If she
+means to grow like the old girl, then—then—Hello, here’s old Alston!”
+
+Hugh could give Tom Arundel a matter of eight years, and therefore Tom
+regarded him as elderly. “A decent old bird!” was his favourite
+estimate.
+
+“Hello!” said Hugh. “What’s the matter? Not been rowing, have you? Tom,
+not rowing with the little girl, eh?”
+
+Hugh’s face was serious, for he had caught a glimpse of Marjorie a
+while ago hurrying through the garden, and the look on her face had
+sent him to find Tom.
+
+“Not worrying—her or rowing her?”
+
+“No, goodness knows I haven’t said a word, but she flew at me and bit
+me!”
+
+“Did what?”
+
+“Metaphorically, of course,” said Tom. “I say, Alston, do you think
+Marjorie is going to grow like her aunt?”
+
+“Look here,” said Hugh, and he gripped Tom by the shoulder with such
+strength that Tom was surprised and a little pained. “Look here, I
+don’t know what Marjorie is going to grow like, but I know this—that
+she is the sweetest, most tender-hearted, dearest little soul, loyal
+and true and straight, and because you’ve won her love, my good lad,
+you ought to go down on your knees and thank Heaven for it. She’s worth
+ten, fifty, a hundred of you and of me. A good woman—and Marjorie is
+that—a good woman, I tell you, is better, infinitely better, than the
+finest man that walks; and you are not that, not by a long way, Tom
+Arundel. So if you’ve offended the child, go after her. Ask her to
+forgive you and ask her humbly. You hear me? Ask her deucedly humbly,
+my lad! And listen to this—if you bring one tear to her eyes, one tear,
+one little stab to that tender heart of hers, if you—you bring one
+breath of sorrow and sadness into her life, I’ll break your confounded
+neck for you! Have you got that, Tom Arundel?”
+
+A final shake that made Tom’s teeth rattle, and Hugh turned and strode
+away to find Marjorie. Tom Arundel stared after him.
+
+“Well, I—hang me! Hang me if I don’t believe old Alston’s in love with
+her himself!”
+
+Hugh Alston had meant to run over to Hurst Dormer and see how things
+were getting on there, and incidentally to collect any letters that
+might have come for him. But the days passed, and Hugh did not go. Lady
+Linden required her fat horses for her own purposes. Marjorie’s own
+little ancient car had developed a serious internal complaint that had
+put it definitely out of commission, so there was no means of getting
+to Hurst Dormer unless he walked, or wired to his man to bring over his
+own car, but Hugh did not trouble to do that. They did not want him
+there, everything would be all right, so Joan’s letter, with others,
+was propped up on the mantelpiece in his study and dusted carefully
+every morning; and Joan watched the post in vain, and with a growing
+sense of anger and humiliation in her breast.
+
+But of this Hugh knew nothing. He was watching Marjorie and Tom.
+Somehow his sacrifice did not seem to have brought about the happy
+results that he had hoped for.
+
+So Hugh, though he had little understanding of women, felt yet that
+things were not as they should be and as Marjorie of course could not
+possibly be to blame, it must be Tom Arundel, and to Tom he addressed
+himself forcibly.
+
+Tom listened resentfully. “Look here, Alston, I don’t know what the lay
+is,” he said. “I don’t know what’s the matter. I am not conscious of
+having offended her. If I have, I am sorry—why goo-law, I worship the
+ground the little thing treads on!”
+
+And Hugh, looking Tom straight in the eyes, knew that he was speaking
+the truth.
+
+“Good!” he said. “I’m glad to hear it, and she’s worth it!”
+
+“And—and it hurts me, by George it does, Alston,” Tom said, “the way
+she cuts up rough with me. And now you go for me bald-headed, as if I’d
+behaved like a pig to her. Why goo-law, man, I’d lie down and let her
+jump on me. I’d go and drown myself if it would cause her any—any
+amusement.”
+
+There was a distinct suggestion of tears in the boy’s eyes, and Hugh
+turned hastily away.
+
+“Marjorie dear,” he was saying a while later, “what’s wrong? Tell me
+all about it. Tell your old friend Hugh, and see if he can put things
+right.”
+
+“There is nothing—nothing wrong, Hugh!” Marjorie gasped. “Nothing!
+Nothing in the world!” And she belied her statement by suddenly sobbing
+and hiding her face against his shoulder.
+
+“There, there—there!” he said, feeling as awkward as a man must feel
+when a woman cries to him. He patted her shoulder with the
+uncomfortable feeling that he was behaving like an idiot.
+
+“It—it is nothing!” she gasped. “Hugh, it is really nothing!”
+
+“Tom’s a good lad, one of the best—clean through and through!”
+
+“Yes, I know he is, and—and oh, I do know it, Hugh, and it isn’t Tom’s
+fault!”
+
+“Your aunt’s been worrying you?”
+
+“No, it is not that—oh, it is nothing, nothing in the world. It is only
+that I am a—a—little fool, an ungrateful, silly, little fool!”
+
+And Hugh was frankly puzzled.
+
+“You’re going to be as happy as the day is long, little girl,” he said.
+“Tom loves you, worships the ground you walk on; I think you’re going
+to be the happiest girl alive. Dry your tears, dear, and smile as you
+used to in the old days!” He stooped over her and pressed a kiss on her
+shining hair; and there came to her a mad, passionate longing to lift
+her arms and clasp them about his neck and confess all, confess her
+stupidity and her blindness and her folly.
+
+“It is you—you are the man I love. It is you I want—you all the time!”
+She longed to say it, but did not, and Hugh Alston never knew.
+
+Hurst Dormer looked empty, and seemed silent and dull after Cornbridge.
+No place was dull and certainly no place was silent where Lady Linden
+was, and coming back to Hurst Dormer, Hugh felt as if he was then
+entering into a desert of solitude and silence.
+
+“Everything has been quite all right,” said Mrs. Morrisey. “The men
+have got on nicely with their work. Lane has taken advantage of your
+being away to give the car a thorough overhaul, and—and I think that is
+all, sir. There are a few letters waiting for you. I’ll get them.”
+
+From whom this letter? Whose hand this? He wondered. He had never seen
+“Her” writing before, yet instinct told him that this was hers.
+
+Two minutes later Hugh Alston was behaving like a lunatic.
+
+“Mrs. Morrisey! Mrs. Morrisey! When did this letter come?”
+
+“Oh, that one, sir? It came ten days ago—the very day you left, the
+same evening.”
+
+“Then why—why in the name of Heaven—” he began, and then stopped
+himself, for he remembered that he had ordered no letters should be
+sent on.
+
+“I hope it is not important, sir?”
+
+“Important!” he said. “Oh no, not at all, nothing important!” Again he
+read—
+
+
+“Because you have placed me in an intolerable position, and have
+subjected me to insult and annoyance, past all bearing, I ask you to
+meet me in London at the earliest opportunity...”
+
+
+At the earliest opportunity! And those words had been written eleven
+days ago; and she had underscored the word “earliest” three times.
+Eleven days ago! “I feel I have a right to appeal to you for
+protection....”
+
+She had written that, an appeal to him, and he had not until now read
+the written words.
+
+What was she thinking of him? What could she think of his long silence?
+
+He could not blame Mrs. Morrisey. There was only himself to blame, no
+one else! And there had he been, cooling his heels at Cornbridge and
+interfering with other folks’ love affairs, and all the time Joan—Joan
+was perhaps wondering, watching, waiting for the answer that never
+came.
+
+He wanted to send a frantic telegram; but he did nothing of the kind.
+He wrote instead.
+
+
+“I have been away. Only a few minutes ago did your letter reach me. I
+am at your service in all things. Heaven knows I bitterly regret the
+annoyance that you have been caused through me. You ask me to meet you
+in London. Do you not know that I will come most willingly, eagerly. I
+am writing this on the evening of Tuesday. You should receive my letter
+on Wednesday, probably in the evening; but in case it may be delayed, I
+suggest that you meet me in London on Thursday afternoon”—he paused,
+racking his brain for some suitable meeting place—“at four o’clock, in
+the Winter Garden of the Empire Hotel. Do not trouble to reply. I shall
+be there without fail, and shall then be, as I am now, and will ever
+be,
+
+“Yours to command,
+“HUGH ALSTON.”
+
+
+This letter he wrote hurriedly, and raced off with it to catch the
+post.
+
+Seven, eight, ten days ago since Joan had written that letter, and
+there had come no reply. The man had ignored her, had treated her with
+silent contempt. The thought made her face burn, brought a sense of
+miserable self-abasement to her. She had pleaded to him for help, and
+he had treated her with silence and contempt.
+
+Well, what did it matter? She hated him. She had always hated him. She
+laughed aloud and bitterly at her own thoughts. “Yes,” she repeated to
+herself, “I hate him. I feel nothing but scorn and contempt for him. I
+am glad he did not answer my letter. I hope that I shall never see him
+again. If we do meet, by some mischance, then I shall pass him by.”
+
+Several times this morning Helen had looked curiously at Joan. For
+Helen was in a secret that as yet Joan did not share. It was a little
+conspiracy, with Helen as the prime mover in it.
+
+“I am sure that there never was anything between Joan and that Hugh
+Alston. It was some foolish tittle-tattle, some nonsense, probably
+hatched by that stupid old talkative Lady Linden.”
+
+Two days ago had come a letter for Helen Everard, with an Australian
+stamp on it. It was from Jessie, her only sister, urging her to come
+out to her there, reminding her of an old promise to make a home in
+that distant land with her and her children. And Helen knew she must
+go. She wanted to go, had always meant to go, for Jessie’s boys were
+very dear to her. Yet to leave Joan alone in this great house, so
+utterly alone!
+
+Last night Helen had driven over quietly to Buddesby, and she and
+Constance had had a long talk.
+
+“I can’t leave Joan alone. I have written to Jessie, telling her that I
+shall start in three months. I have said nothing to Joan yet; but,
+Connie, I can’t leave her alone!”
+
+“Helen, do you think she could care for Johnny enough to become his
+wife?”
+
+“I believe she is fond of him. I will not say that I think she is
+desperately in love, but she likes him and trusts him, as she must; and
+so, Connie, I hope it may come about. Joan will make an ideal wife. He
+is all a woman could wish and hope for, the truest, dearest,
+straightest man living, and so—Connie—I hope—”
+
+“I will talk to him to-night, and I will suggest that he comes over
+to-morrow and puts his fate to the test. I know he loves her.”
+
+And to-day Johnny Everard should be here, if he had listened to his
+sister’s advice, and that was a thing that Johnny ever did, save in the
+matter of hops.
+
+There was a look of subdued eagerness, of visible nervousness and
+uncertainty, about Mr. John Everard that day. And Helen saw it.
+
+“Joan’s in the garden, John,” she said.
+
+“Yes, I—” He fumbled nervously with his hands.
+
+“Helen, I have been talking to Con, at least Con’s been talking to me!”
+
+“Yes, dear?”
+
+“And she—she says—Con tells me that there is a chance for me—just a
+chance, Helen. And, Helen, I don’t want to spoil my chance, if I have
+one, by rushing in. You understand?”
+
+“I think,” Helen said, “that Joan would like you the better and admire
+you the more for being brave enough to speak out.”
+
+“That’s it! I’ve got to speak out. You know I love her!”
+
+“I do, dear.”
+
+“But she doesn’t love me. It is not likely; how could she? Look at me,
+a great ugly chap—how could such a girl care for me?”
+
+“I think any girl might very easily care for you, Johnny!”
+
+“An ugly brute like me? A farmer. I am nothing more, Helen, and—and—”
+
+“Johnny, she is in the garden. Go to her; take your courage in both
+your hands. Remember—
+
+‘He either fears his fate too much.
+    Or his deserts are small,
+That dares not put it to the touch,
+    To gain or lose it all.’”
+
+
+“I’ll go!” Johnny Everard said. “I can but lose, eh? That’s the worst
+that can happen to me—lose. But, by Heaven! if I do lose, it is going
+to—to hurt, and hurt badly. Helen dear, wish me luck!”
+
+She put both her hands on his broad shoulders and kissed him on the
+forehead. She felt to him as a mother might.
+
+“From my heart, Johnny, I wish you luck and fortune and happiness,” she
+said.
+
+Joan was at the far end of the wide, far-spreading garden. She was
+seated on a bench beside a pool where grew water-lilies, and where in
+the summer sunshine the dragon-flies skimmed on the placid surface of
+the green water—water that now and again was broken into a ripple by
+the quick twist of the tail of one of the fat old carp that lived their
+humdrum, adventureless years in the quiet depths.
+
+She sat here, chin in hand, grey eyes watching the pool, yet seeing
+nothing of its beauties, and her thoughts away, away with a man who had
+insulted her, had brought trouble and shame and anger to her—a man to
+whom she had appealed, and had appealed in vain; a man dead to all
+manhood, a man she hated—yes, hated—for often she told herself so, and
+it must be true.
+
+And then suddenly she heard the fall of a footstep on the soft turf
+behind her, and, turning, looked into the face of a man whose eyes were
+filled with love for her.
+
+So for one long moment they looked at one another, and the colour rose
+in the girl’s cheeks, and into her eyes there came a wistful regret.
+For she knew why this man was here. She knew what he had to say to her,
+to ask of her, here by the green pool.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+“—TO GAIN, OR LOSE IT ALL”
+
+
+“Take your courage in both hands” Helen had said to him, and he was
+doing so; but Johnny Everard knew himself for a coward at this moment.
+
+He felt tongue-tied, more than usually awkward, terribly and shamefully
+nervous. Yet the grey eyes were on his face, and he knew that he must
+speak, must put all to the hazard. And he knew also that if to-day he
+lost her, it would be the biggest and the blackest sorrow of his life,
+something that he would never live down, never forget.
+
+Oh, it was worth fighting for, worth taking his courage in both hands
+for, this girl with the sweet, serious face and the tender mouth, the
+great, enquiring, yet trusting grey eyes. He had seen her cold,
+stately, a little unapproachable, but he had never seen scorn in those
+eyes. He had never seen the red lips curled with contempt. He knew
+nothing of her in this guise, as another man did.
+
+And now the girl seemed to be all woman, tender, sympathetic, and the
+courage came to him; he sate himself beside her and took her hand in
+his, and it gave him hope that she did not draw it away.
+
+What he said, how he said it, how he stumbled over his story of love
+and devotion he never knew. But it was an honest story, a story that
+did him honour, and did honour too to the woman he told it to.
+
+“I love you, dear. I have loved you from the moment I first saw you. I
+know you are high above me. I know what I am, an unlovely sort of
+fellow, rough and—and not fit to touch your hand—” for, being deeply in
+love, his opinion of himself had naturally sunk to zero. The perfection
+of the beloved object always makes an honest man painfully conscious of
+his own inferiority and unworthiness. And so it was with Johnny
+Everard, this day beside the green pool. And the slim, cool hand was
+not withdrawn.
+
+“Johnny, what are you asking me? Why have you come here to me? What do
+you want—of me?” she asked, yet did not look him in the face, but sat
+with eyes resting on the placid water.
+
+“Just to tell you that—to tell you how I love you, Joan.”
+
+Another man had told her that; the echo of his words came back to her
+from the past. How often those words of his had come back; she could
+never forget them. Yet she told herself that she hated him who had
+uttered them, hated him, for was he not a proved craven?
+
+_(“If, in telling you that I love you, is a sin fast all forgiveness, I
+glory in it. I take not one word of it back.”)_
+
+And now another, a worthier, better man, was telling her the same
+story, holding her hand, and, she knew, looking into her face; yet her
+eyes did not meet his.
+
+And, listening to him, her heart grew more bitter than ever before to
+the man who had uttered those words she would never forget, bitter
+against him, yet more against herself. For she was conscious of shame
+and anger—at her woman’s weakness, at the folly of which her woman’s
+heart was capable.
+
+“I know I am not fit for you, not good enough for you, Joan. There
+isn’t a man living who would be—but—I love you—dear, and with God’s
+help I would try to make you a happy woman.”
+
+Manly words, honest and sincere, she knew, as must be all that this man
+said and did—a man to rely on, a very tower of strength; a man to
+protect her, a man to whom she could take her troubles and her secrets,
+knowing full well that he would not fail her.
+
+And while these thoughts passed in her mind she sat there silently, her
+hand in his, and never thought to draw it away.
+
+“Joan, will you be my wife, dear? I am asking for more than I could
+ever deserve. There is nothing about me that makes me worthy of that
+great happiness and honour, save one thing—my love for you.”
+
+“And yet,” she said, and broke her silence for the first time, “there
+is one question that you do not ask me, Johnny.”
+
+“One question?”
+
+“You do not ask me if I love you!”
+
+“How can I ask for the impossible, the unlikely? There is nothing in me
+for such a girl as you to love.”
+
+“There is much in you for any woman to love. There is honesty and truth
+and bravery, and a clean sweet mind. I know all that, I know that you
+are a good man, Johnny. I know that; but oh, I do not love you!”
+
+“I know,” he said sadly. “I know that.” And his hand seemed to slip
+away from hers.
+
+“And you would not—not take me—Johnny, without love?” she asked, and
+her voice trembled.
+
+“Joan, I—I don’t understand. I am a foolish, dense fellow, dear, and I
+don’t understand!”
+
+She turned to him, and now her eyes met his frankly, and never had he
+seen them so soft, so tender, so filled with a strange and wonderful
+light, the light that is born of tenderness and sympathy and
+kindliness.
+
+“Would you make me your wife, Johnny, knowing that I—I do not love you
+as a woman should love the man she takes for her husband.”
+
+“I—I would try to teach you, dear. I would try to win a little of your
+heart.”
+
+“And that would content you, Johnny?”
+
+“It must. I dare not ask too much, and I—I—love you so!”
+
+_(“I glory in it. I take not one word of it lack!”)_
+
+Hateful words, words she could never forget, that came back to torture
+and fill her with a sense of shame. Strange that they were dinning in
+her memory, even now.
+
+_(“I glory in it. I take not one word back!”)_
+
+And then suddenly she made a gesture, as to fling off remembrance. She
+turned more fully to him, and her eyes met his frankly.
+
+“I do not love you, dear, as a woman should love the man she mates
+with; but I like you. I honour you and trust you, and if—if you will
+take me as I am, not asking for too much, not asking, dear, for more
+than I can give—”
+
+“Joan,” he said, “my Joan!”
+
+She bent her head.
+
+“If you will take me—as I am, not asking for more than I can give,
+then—then I will come to you, if you will have it so. But oh, my dear,
+you are worth more than this, far more than this!”
+
+He lifted her hand and held it to his lips, the only embrace that in
+his humility he dare offer her. And even while she felt his lips upon
+her hand, there came back to her memory eyes that glowed with love and
+passion, a deep voice that shook with feeling—
+
+_(“I glory in it, and take not one word of it back!”)_
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+IN THE MIRE
+
+
+Women, chattering over their tea in the lounge of the Empire Hotel,
+followed the tall restless young man with their eyes. He was worth
+looking at, so big and fine, and bronzed, and so worried, so
+anxious-looking, poor fellow.
+
+Four o’clock, a quarter past, half past. She would not come. Of course
+she would not come; he had offended past all forgiveness in taking so
+long to reply to her appeal. Hugh Alston cursed the unlucky star that
+he must have been born under.
+
+Two middle-aged women, seated at a small table, taking their tea after
+strenuous shopping at the sales, watched him and discussed him frankly.
+
+“Evidently here to meet someone!”
+
+“And she hasn’t come!”
+
+“You can see how disappointed he looks, poor fellow.”
+
+“Too bad of her!”
+
+“My dear, what some men can see in some women...”
+
+“And a girl who would keep a man like that waiting deserves to lose
+him.”
+
+“I hope she does. See, he’s going now. I hope she comes later and is
+disappointed.”
+
+“Oh no, I think that must be she. What a handsome girl, but how cold
+and proud looking!”
+
+She had come, even as he was giving up in despair. As he turned to
+leave, she came, and they met face to face.
+
+The two amiable busybodies sipped their tea and watched.
+
+“My dear, she didn’t even offer him her hand—such a cold and stately
+bow. They can’t be lovers, after all!”
+
+“I don’t think I ever saw a more lovely girl!”
+
+“But icily cold. That pink chiffon I bought at Robinson’s will make up
+into a charming evening dress for Irene, don’t you think?”
+
+“I am afraid I am late,” Joan said, and her voice was clear and cold,
+expressionless as a voice could be.
+
+“Surely I deserve that at least, after the unforgivable delay in
+answering your letter.”
+
+“Yes,” she said, “you—you were a long time answering.” And suddenly she
+realised what that delay had meant.
+
+Yesterday, if his answer had come, perhaps she would not have done as
+she had done. But it was done now, past recall.
+
+“I was away. I found Hurst Dormer irksome and lonely. Lady Linden came
+over; she invited me to stay at Cornbridge,” he explained. “So I went,
+and no letters were forwarded. Yours came within a few hours of my
+leaving. I hope you understand that if I had had it—”
+
+“You would have answered it before, Mr. Alston? Yes, I am glad to feel
+the neglect was not intentional.”
+
+“Intentional!”
+
+“I—I thought, judging from the manner in which we last parted, and what
+you then said to me, that you—you preferred not to—see me again.”
+
+“I was hurt then, hurt and bitter. I had no right to say what I said. I
+ask you to accept my apologies, Joan.”
+
+She started a little at the sound of her name, but did not look at him.
+
+“Perhaps you were right. I have thought it over since. Yes, I think I
+acted meanly; it was a thing a woman would do. That is where a woman
+fails—in small things—ideas, mean ideas come to her mind, just like
+that one. A man would not think such things. Yes, I am ashamed by the
+smallness of it. You said ‘ungenerous.’ I think a better expression
+would have been ‘mean-spirited.’”
+
+“Joan!”
+
+“But we need not discuss that. We owe one another apologies. Shall we
+take it that they are offered and accepted?”
+
+He nodded. “Tea?” he asked, “or coffee?” For the hotel servant had come
+for his orders.
+
+“Tea, please,” she said; “and—and this time I will not ask for the
+bill.” The faintest flicker of a smile crossed her lips, and then was
+gone, and he thought that in its place a look of weariness and
+unhappiness came into the girl’s face.
+
+She had sent for him to ask his help. His letter had only reached her
+that morning, and when she had read it, she had asked herself, “Shall I
+go? Shall I see him?” And had answered “No! It is over; I do not need
+his help now. I have someone else to whom I must turn for help, someone
+who will give it readily.”
+
+And yet she had come—that is the way of women. And because she had
+come, she would still ask his help, and not ask it of that other. For
+surely he who had brought all this trouble on to her should be the one
+to clear her path?
+
+The waiter brought the tea, and Hugh leaned back and watched her as she
+poured it out. And, watching her, there came to him a vision of the
+bright morning room at Hurst Dormer, a vision of all the old familiar
+things he had known since boyhood: and in that vision, that day-dream,
+he saw her sitting where his mother once had sat, and she was pouring
+out tea, even as now.
+
+A clearer, stronger vision this than any he had had in the old days of
+Marjorie. He smiled at the thought of those dreams, so utterly broken
+and dead and wafted away into the nothingness of which they had been
+built.
+
+“You sent for me to help you?”
+
+“Yes!” A tinge of colour rose in her cheeks and waxed till her cheeks
+and even her throat were flooded with a brilliant, glorious flush, and
+then, suddenly as it had come, it died away again, leaving her whiter
+than before.
+
+“I wanted your help. I felt that I had a right to ask it, seeing that
+you—you—”
+
+“Have caused you trouble and annoyance? You wrote that,” he said.
+
+She bowed her head.
+
+“What you did, has brought more trouble, more shame, more annoyance to
+me than I can ever explain. I do not ask you to tell me why you did
+it—it was cruel and mean, unmanly; but you did it. And it can never be
+undone, so I ask for no reasons, no explanations. They—they do not
+interest me now. You have brought me trouble and—even danger—and so I
+turned to you, to ask your help. I have the right, have I not the
+right—to demand it?”
+
+“The greatest right on earth,” he said. “Joan, how can I help you?”
+
+But she did not answer immediately, for the answer would be difficult.
+
+“When you played with a woman’s name,” she said, “you played with the
+most fragile, the most delicate and easily breakable thing there is. Do
+you realise that? A woman’s fair name is her most sacred possession,
+and yet you played with mine, used it for your own purpose, and so have
+brought me to shame and misery.”
+
+“Joan,” he leaned towards her, “how—how—tell me how?”
+
+“Three days ago,” she said quietly, “I submitted and paid three
+thousand pounds blackmail, rather than that your name and mine, linked
+together, should be dragged in the mire!”
+
+It was almost as though those white hands of hers had struck him a
+heavy blow between the eyes. Hugh sat and stared at her in amaze.
+
+Her words seemed obscure, scarcely possible to understand, yet he had
+gathered in the sense of them.
+
+“Three days ago I submitted and paid three thousand pounds blackmail
+rather than your name and mine, linked together, should be dragged in
+the mire.”
+
+A girl might well shrink to tell a man what she must tell him, to go
+into explanations that were an offence to the purity of her mind. Yet,
+listening to her, looking at her, at the pale, proud young face, white
+as marble, Hugh Alston knew that he had never admired and reverenced
+her as he did now.
+
+“The story that you told of our marriage, that lie that I can never
+understand, passed from lip to lip. Many have heard it; it has caused
+many to wonder. I do not ask why you uttered it. It does not matter
+now, nothing matters, save that you did utter it, and it has gone
+abroad. Then one day you came to the office where I was employed, and
+the man who employed me put his private room at your disposal, knowing
+that by means of some spyhole he had contrived he could hear all that
+passed between us. And then you offered me marriage—by way of
+atonement. Do you remember? You offered to—to atone by marrying me.”
+
+“In my mad, presumptuous folly, Joan!”
+
+“And it was overheard; the man heard all. He did not understand—how
+should he? His vile mind grasped at other meanings. He went down to
+Marlbury and to Morchester to make enquiries, to look for an entry in a
+register that was never made. He went to General Bartholomew and then
+Cornbridge, where he saw Lady Linden, and heard from her all that she
+had to tell, and then—then he came to me. He told me that he knew the
+truth, and that if I would marry him he would forgive—forgive
+everything!”
+
+Hugh Alston said nothing. He sat with his big hands gripped hard, and
+thinking of Philip Slotman a red fury passed like a mist before his
+eyes.
+
+“I told him to go, and then came a letter from him, a friendly letter,
+a letter that could not cause him any trouble. He assured me of his
+friendship and of his—silence, you understand, his silence—and asked me
+as a friend to lend him three thousand pounds. It was blackmail—oh, I
+knew that. I hesitated, and did not know what to do. There was none to
+whom I could turn—no one. I had no friend. Helen Everard is only a
+friend of a few short weeks. I felt that I could not go to her, I felt
+somehow that she would never understand. And then—then at last,
+because, I suppose, I am a woman and therefore a coward, and because I
+was so alone—so helpless—I sent the money.”
+
+“Oh, that I—”
+
+“Remember,” she said, “remember I had written to you, asking your help.
+I had waited days, and no answer had come. I had no right to believe
+that I could ask your help.”
+
+“Joan, Joan, didn’t you know that you could? Have you forgotten what I
+told you once—that stands true to-day as then, will stand true to the
+last hour of my life. I have brought shame and misery on you, God
+forgive me—yet unintentionally, Joan.” He leaned forward, and grasped
+at her hand and held it, though she would have drawn it free of him. “I
+told you that I loved you that night. I love you now—my love for you
+gives me the right to protect you!”
+
+“You have no rights, no rights,” she said, and drew her hand away.
+
+“Because you will not give me those rights. I asked you to marry me
+once. I came to you, thinking in my small soul that I was doing a fine
+thing, offering atonement—my—my very words, atonement—for the evil I
+had unwittingly done. And you refused to accept the prize!” He laughed
+bitterly. “You refused with scorn, just scorn, Joan. You made me
+realise that I had but added to my offence. I—I to offer you marriage,
+in my lordly way, when I should have sued on my knees to you for
+forgiveness, as I would sue now, humbly and contritely, offering love
+and love alone—love and worship and service to the end of my days, as
+please Heaven I shall sue, Joan.”
+
+“You cannot!” she said quietly. “You cannot, and if you should, the
+answer will be the same, as then!”
+
+“Because you can never forgive?”
+
+“Because I have no power to give what you would ask for!”
+
+“Your love?”
+
+She did not answer. She turned her face away, for she knew she could
+not in truth say “No” to that, for the knowledge that she had been
+trying to stifle was with her now, the knowledge that meant that she
+could not love the man whose wife she had promised to be.
+
+“My—my hand—” she said.
+
+And he, not understanding for the moment, looked at her, and then
+suddenly understanding came to him.
+
+“You—you mean?”
+
+“You—you did not answer my letter, and I—I waited,” she said, and her
+voice was low and muffled. There was no pride in her face now; all its
+hardness, all its bitterness and scorn were gone.
+
+“I waited and waited—and thought—hoped,” she said, “and nothing came.
+And yesterday a man—a man I like and admire, a fine man, a good man,
+honest and noble, a man who—who loves me better than I deserve, came to
+me—and—and so to-day it is too late! Though,” she cried, with a touch
+of scorn for herself, “it would have made no difference—nothing would
+have made any difference. You—you understand that I scarcely know what
+I am saying!”
+
+“You have given your promise to another man?” he asked quietly.
+
+“Yes!”
+
+“And you do not love him?”
+
+“He’s a man,” she cried, “a man who would not make a jest of a woman’s
+name.”
+
+“And even so, you do not love him, because that would not be possible.”
+
+“You have no right to say that,” and she wrenched her hand free.
+
+“I have the right, the right you gave me.”
+
+“I—I gave you no right.”
+
+“You have. You gave me that right, Joan, when you gave me your heart.
+You do not love that man, because you love me!”
+
+Back into the white face came all the hardness and coldness that he so
+well knew. She rose; she looked down on him.
+
+“It is—untrue. I do not. I have but one feeling for you
+always—always—the same, the one feeling. I despise you. How could I
+love a thing that I despise?”
+
+And, knowing that it was a lie, she dared not meet the scrutiny of his
+eyes, and turned quickly away.
+
+“Joan!” he said. He would have followed her, but then came the waiter
+with his bill, and he was forced to stay, and when he reached the
+street she was gone.
+
+“I quite thought that they were going to make it up, and then it seemed
+that they quarrelled again,” one of the ladies at the other table said.
+
+The other nodded. “I think that they do not know their own minds, young
+people seldom do. I wish I had bought three yards more of that cerise
+ninon. It would have made up so well for Violet, don’t you think?”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+MR. ALSTON CALLS
+
+
+Mr. Philip Slotman sat in his office; he was slowly deciphering a
+letter, ill-written and badly spelled.
+
+
+“DEAR SIR,
+
+“According to promise I am writing to you hopeing it finds you as it
+leaves me at present. Dear sir, having some news I am writing to tell
+you saime. Yesterday Mr. John Everard of Buddesby was here and him and
+Miss Jone was in the garden for a long time. I seen them from my
+window, but could not get near enuff to hear. Anyhow I see him kissing
+her hand. Laiter, after he had gone, I seen Miss Jone and Mrs. Everard
+together, and listened as best I could. From what I heard I imadgined
+that Miss Jone and Mr. John Everard is now engaged to be married, which
+Mrs. Everard seems very pleased to hear.
+
+“This morning Miss Jone gets a letter and the postmark is Hurst Dormer,
+like you told me to look out for. She is now gone to London. Please
+send money in accordance with promise and I will write and tell you all
+the news as soon as there is any more.
+
+“Youres truley,
+ “MISS ALICE BETTS.”
+
+
+The door opened, a boy clerk came in. Slotman thrust the letter he had
+been reading into an open drawer.
+
+“What is it? What do you want?”
+
+“A gentleman to see you, sir. Mr. Alston from—”
+
+“I can’t see him!” Slotman said quickly. “Tell him I am out, and that—”
+
+“I am already here, and you are going to see me.” Hugh Alston came in.
+“You can go!” to the boy, who hesitated. “You hear me, you can go!”
+
+Hugh closed the door after the lad.
+
+“You’re not going to be too busy to see me this morning, Slotman, for I
+have interesting things to discuss with you.”
+
+“I am a busy man,” Slotman began nervously.
+
+“Very!” said Hugh—“very, so I hear.”
+
+He stepped into the room, and faced Slotman across the paper-littered
+table.
+
+“I have been hearing about some of your enterprises,” he said, and
+there was that in his face that caused Mr. Slotman a feeling of
+insecurity and uneasiness. “One of them is blackmail!”
+
+“How dare—” Slotman began, with an attempt at bluster.
+
+“That’s what I am here for; to dare. You have been blackmailing a young
+lady whose name we need not mention. You have obtained the sum of three
+thousand pounds from her, by means of threats. I want that money—and
+more; I want a declaration from you that you will never molest her
+again; for if you do—if you do—”
+
+Hugh’s face was not good to see, and Mr. Slotman quivered uneasily in
+his chair.
+
+“The—the money was lent to me. Miss Meredyth worked for me, and—and I
+went to her, explaining that my business was in a precarious condition,
+and she very kindly lent me the money. And I haven’t got it, Mr.
+Alston. I’ll swear I haven’t a penny of it left. I could not repay it
+if I wanted to; it—it was a friendly loan.”
+
+Slotman leaned back in his chair; he looked at Hugh.
+
+“You have done me a cruel wrong, Mr. Alston,” he said, in the tone of a
+deeply injured man. “Miss Meredyth worked for me, and while she was
+here I respected her, even more.” He paused. “At any rate I respected
+her. She attracted me, and, I will confess it, I fell in love with her.
+She was poor; she had nothing then to tempt a fortune hunter, and thank
+Heaven I can say I was never that. I asked her to be my wife, no man
+could do more, no man could act more honourably. You’ll admit that, eh?
+You must admit that?”
+
+“And she refused you?”
+
+“Not—not definitely. It was too good an offer for a girl in her
+position to refuse without consideration.”
+
+“You lie!”
+
+Slotman shifted uneasily. “I cannot force your belief.”
+
+“You’re right, you can’t. Well, go on—what more?”
+
+“She came into this money; my proposal no longer tempted her. She then
+refused me, even though I told her that the past—her past—would be
+forgotten, that I would never refer to it.”
+
+“What past?” Hugh shouted.
+
+“Hers and yours,” Slotman said boldly. “A supposed marriage that never
+took place, her sudden disappearance from her school in June, nineteen
+hundred and eighteen, when that marriage was supposed to have been
+celebrated—but never was. Her story of leaving England for Australia—an
+obvious lie, Mr. Alston. All those things I knew. All those things I
+can prove—against her—and against you—and—and—” Slotman’s voice
+quivered. He leaped to his feet and uttered a shout for help.
+
+The blood-red mist was before Hugh’s eyes, and out of that mist
+appeared a vision of a face, an unpleasant face, with starting eyes and
+gaping mouth.
+
+This he saw, and then his vision cleared, and with a shudder he
+released his hold on the man’s throat, and Philip Slotman subsided
+limply into his chair.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+THE WATCHER
+
+
+Helen Everard’s pleasant face was beaming. Her smile expressed complete
+contentment and satisfaction, for everything was going as everything
+should go. Johnny was an accepted lover, Joan’s future would be
+protected; she herself would be left free to make her long journey to
+the dear ones at the other side of the world. All was well!
+
+Joan had been to London yesterday, had rushed off with scarcely a word,
+and had returned at night, tired and seemingly dispirited.
+
+Joan, quiet and calm, smiled at Helen and kissed her good morning, but
+spoke hardly at all.
+
+“You had a tiring day in Town yesterday, dear?”
+
+“Very!”
+
+“Shopping?”
+
+“No!”
+
+Helen asked no more questions. She thought of Hugh Alston. Could it be
+anything to do with him? She could never quite understand the position
+of Hugh Alston. Of course the talk about a marriage having taken place
+years ago between Hugh Alston and Joan was absurd, was ridiculous. Joan
+was proving the absurdity of it even now by accepting Johnny.
+
+“Connie is coming over this afternoon to see you, Joan,” she said. “She
+sent me a note over yesterday by a boy. Johnny has told her of course,
+and Connie is delighted beyond words. She sends you her dear love.”
+
+“Thank you!” Joan said calmly.
+
+“Of course,” Helen hesitated, “the marriage need not be long delayed.
+You see—” She paused, and then went into explanations about Jessie and
+the children out in Australia, and her own promise to go to them.
+
+“So this afternoon I want you and Connie to have a long, long talk,”
+Helen said. “There will be so much for you to discuss. Connie is the
+business man, you know. Poor Johnny is hopeless when it comes to
+discussing things and—and arrangements. Of course, dear, you quite
+understand that Johnny is not well off.”
+
+“I know, but that does not matter.”
+
+“I know, but even though Johnny is one of the finest and straightest
+men living, it will be better if in some way your own money is so tied
+up that it belongs to you and to you only. Johnny himself would wish
+it. He doesn’t want to touch one penny of your money!”
+
+“I am sure of that.” Joan rose. She went out into the garden. She
+wanted to get away from Helen’s well-meant, friendly, affectionate
+chatter about the future, and about money and marriage. She went to the
+bench beside the pool and sat there, staring at the green water.
+
+“It was true,” she whispered to herself, “all true, what I said. I—I do
+despise him. How could I love a thing that I despised; and I do despise
+him!”
+
+It was not of Johnny Everard she was thinking.
+
+“He said—he said that he had a right, that my love for him gave him the
+right! How dared he?” A deep flush stole into her cheeks, and then died
+out.
+
+She rose suddenly with a gesture of impatience.
+
+“It is a lie! It is wrong, and it is nonsense. I am engaged to marry
+Johnny Everard, and there is no finer, better man living! I shall never
+see that other man again. Yesterday he and I parted for good and for
+always, and I am glad—glad!” And she knew even while she uttered the
+words that she was very miserable.
+
+Connie Everard drove the pony-trap over to Starden. She brought with
+her a boy who would drive it back again. Later in the afternoon Johnny
+would drive the car over for her and take her back.
+
+Connie, having attended carefully to her toilet, descended to the
+waiting pony-trap, and found, to her surprise and a little to her
+annoyance, that Ellice was already seated in the little vehicle.
+
+“Ellice, dear, I am sorry, but—”
+
+“You don’t want to take me, Connie; but, all the same, I am going. I
+want to see—her!”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“I want to see her,” the girl said. A dusky glow of sudden passion came
+into her face. “I want to see her. There is no harm, is there?” She
+laughed shrilly. “I shan’t hurt her by looking at her. I want to see
+her again, the woman that he loves.” There was a shake in her voice, a
+suggestion of passionate tears, but the child held herself in check.
+
+“Ellice, darling, it will be better if you—”
+
+“If I don’t go. I know, but I am going. You—you can’t turn me out,
+Connie. I am too strong; I shall cling to the sides of the cart.”
+
+There was a look, half of laughter, half of defiance, in the girl’s
+eyes.
+
+“Connie, I am going, and nothing shall prevent me!”
+
+Connie sighed, and stepped into the cart and took up the reins. “Very
+well, dear!” she said resignedly.
+
+“You are angry with me, Connie?”
+
+“Why should you want to go to Starden?”
+
+“I want to see her again. I want to—to understand, to—to know things.”
+
+“What do you mean, to understand, to know things?”
+
+“I want to watch her!”
+
+“Ellice, you will make me angry presently. Ellice,” Connie added
+suddenly, “I suppose you don’t intend to make a scene, and make
+yourself foolish and—and cheap?”
+
+“I shall say nothing. I only want to watch and to try and understand.”
+
+“I think you are acting foolishly and wrongly, Ellice. I think you are
+a very foolish child!”
+
+“I wish,” Ellice said, and said it without passion, but with a deep
+certainty in her voice, “I wish that I were dead, Connie.”
+
+“You ought to be thoroughly ashamed of yourself,” said Connie, who
+could think of nothing better to say.
+
+She made one more attempt when Starden was reached.
+
+“Ellice, child, why not go back with Hobbins?”
+
+“I am coming with you,” Ellice said.
+
+“You—you will not—I mean you will—not be silly or rude to—”
+
+Ellice drew herself up with a childish dignity. “I shall not forget
+that I am a lady, Connie,” she said, and said it with such stateliness
+and such dignity that Connie felt no inclination to laugh.
+
+Helen frowned. She was annoyed at the sight of Ellice, frankly she did
+not like the girl. Helen was a good, honest woman who liked everything
+that was good and honest. Ellice Brand might be good and honest, but
+there was something about the girl that was beyond Helen’s ken. She was
+so elfin, so gipsy-like, so different from most girls Helen knew, and
+had known.
+
+During the long afternoon, when they sat for a time in the garden, or
+in the shady drawing-room, Joan was aware of the fixed and intent gaze
+of a pair of dark eyes. Strangely and wonderfully dark were those eyes,
+and they seemed to possess some magnetic power, a power of making
+themselves felt. More than once in the middle of saying something to
+Helen or to Connie, Joan found herself at a loss for words, and
+impelled by some unknown force to turn her head and look straight into
+those eyes that blazed in the little white face.
+
+Why did the girl stare at her so? Why, Joan wondered? A strange,
+elfin-like child, a bud on the point of bursting into a wondrous
+beauty, Joan realised, and realised too that there was enmity in the
+dark eyes that stared at her so mercilessly.
+
+“Ellice, child, go out into the garden,” Helen said presently. “Come
+with me, we will leave Connie and Joan to have a little talk. Come,
+there are lots of things to see. This is a wonderful garden, you
+know—far, far better than Buddesby.”
+
+“It isn’t,” Ellice said quietly. “There’s no garden in the world like
+Buddesby garden, and no place in the world like Buddesby, but I will
+come with you if you want me to.”
+
+“A strange girl!” Joan said.
+
+“A very dear, good, lovable, but passionate child,” Connie said. “Now
+let us talk of you and Johnny, Joan, of the future. Helen has told you
+that—that she—”
+
+“She wishes to leave us soon? Yes.”
+
+“And so,” Connie slipped her hand into Joan’s, “the marriage need not
+be long delayed.”
+
+“Whenever—he wishes it,” Joan said, and for her life she could not put
+any warmth into her voice, and Connie, who noticed most things, noticed
+the chill coldness of it.
+
+“And yet she must love Johnny, or she would not marry him,” Connie
+thought.
+
+“I leave everything to you, and to Helen and to him.”
+
+It seemed almost as if Joan had a strange disinclination to utter
+Johnny’s name. Johnny sounded so babyish, so childlike, so
+affectionate, yet she felt that she could not speak of him as “John.”
+It would sound hard and crude in the ears of those who loved him, and
+called him by the more tender name.
+
+It was another shock to Connie later when Johnny came. She watched for
+the greeting between these two, and felt shocked and startled when
+Johnny took Joan’s hand and held it for a moment, then lifted it to his
+lips. No other kiss passed between them.
+
+And Connie felt her own cheeks burning, and wondered why.
+
+How strange! Lovers, and particularly accepted lovers, always kissed!
+
+There was that about Johnny that for the first time in her life almost
+irritated Connie. She watched him, and saw that his eyes were following
+Joan with that look of strange, dog-like devotion that Connie
+remembered with a start she had herself surprised in Ellice’s eyes
+before now.
+
+And as she watched, so watched another, herself almost forgotten as she
+sat in a corner of the room. The big black eyes were on these two,
+drifting from the face of one to the face of the other, taking no heed,
+and no count of anything else but of these two affianced lovers.
+
+Very clearly and almost coldly Joan had expressed her own wishes.
+
+“If you wish the marriage to take place soon, I am content. I would
+like it to—to be—not very soon—not just yet,” she added, and seemed to
+be speaking against her own will, and as though in opposition to her
+own thoughts. “Still, whatever you arrange, I will willingly agree to.
+I prefer to leave it all to you, Helen, and you, Connie, and—and you,
+Johnny. But it might take place just before Helen goes away. That would
+be time enough, would it not?”
+
+“It was the very thing I was going to suggest,” Helen said. “In three
+months’ time then, Joan.”
+
+Joan bowed her head. “In three months’ time then,” she said.
+
+They were all three very silent as Johnny drove the little car back to
+Buddesby that evening. The sun was down, but the twilight lingered.
+Ellice sat crushed in between Johnny’s big bulk and Connie, and she
+would not have changed places with the queen on her throne.
+
+“There’s Rundle with that horrible lurcher dog of his,” said Johnny,
+and spoke more to make conversation than anything else.
+
+They could see the man, the village poacher, slouching along under a
+hedge with the ever-faithful dog close at heel.
+
+“A horrible, fierce-looking beast,” said Connie. “It fights with every
+dog in the place, and—”
+
+“But it loves him; it loves its master,” Ellice said passionately. “It
+would die for its master, wouldn’t it?”
+
+“Why, I daresay it would, Gipsy,” Johnny said. “But why so excited
+about it, little girl?”
+
+“If you—if you,” Ellice said, “had the offer of two dogs, the one
+splendid, a thoroughbred deerhound, graceful, beautiful, fine to look
+at, but cold and with no love to give its master, and the other—a
+hideous beast like Rundle’s lurcher—but a beast who could love and die
+for its master, and dying lick the hand of the master it loved, glad
+and grateful to—to die for him—which would you have, which would you
+have, Johnny?”
+
+Johnny was hardly listening. He was looking down the dusky road and
+seeing in imagination a face, the most beautiful, wonderful face that
+his world had ever held.
+
+“I don’t know, Gipsy girl,” he said. “I don’t know!”
+
+“No!” Ellice said; and her voice shook and quavered in an unnatural
+laugh. “You don’t know, Johnny; you don’t know!”
+
+And Connie, who heard and understood, shivered a little at the sound of
+the girl’s laughter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+“HE DOES NOT LOVE ME NOW”
+
+
+“Tom,” said Lady Linden, “is by no means a fool, Marjorie.”
+
+“No, aunt.”
+
+“He has ideas. I don’t say that they are brilliant, but he gets the
+germ of a plan into his brain. And now I will tell you what he suggests
+about Partridge’s cottage and land when the lease falls in.”
+
+Lady Linden proceeded to explain Tom Arundel’s idea, and Marjorie sat
+and stared out into the garden and thought of Hugh.
+
+Was he at Hurst Dormer now? If not, where was he? What was he doing?
+What was he thinking about? Did he still love her, or had he fallen in
+love with Joan? And, if he had, would he marry Joan? and if not.
+
+“So there you see, and what do you think of that?” asked Lady Linden,
+coming to the end of her remarks.
+
+“I think it would be very nice!”
+
+“Very nice!” Lady Linden snorted. “Very nice! What a feeble remark. My
+good Marjorie, do you take no intelligent interest in anything? Upon my
+word, now I come to look back I wonder at myself, I do indeed. I wonder
+at myself to think that a man like Hugh Alston, an intellectual,
+deep-thinking man, a man with common-sense and plenty of it—what was I
+saying? Oh yes, I wonder at myself for ever hoping or believing that a
+man like Hugh could fall in love with a silly little donkey like you.
+And yet men do, even clever men—I’ve known several quite clever men
+fall in love with perfect fools of women. But I was wrong, and you are
+right. I see it now. Tom Arundel is the man for you; you are fitted for
+one another. He is not quite a fool, but you are. He’s not clever
+enough to be annoyed by your folly. Hugh, on the other hand, would
+positively dislike you after a month. There! don’t howl, for goodness’
+sake—don’t snivel, child! Run away and play with your doll”
+
+“Patience!” said Lady Linden, when her niece went out—“I have the
+patience of ten Jobs rolled into one. She’s a good little soul, but an
+awful idiot! And bless my wig!” added her ladyship, who did not wear
+one, but her own luxuriant hair, “what’s that hopeless idiot of a
+Perkins doing with those standard roses?” She sallied out, battle in
+her eyes, to tell Perkins, the under-gardener, something about the
+culture of roses, and incidentally to point out what her opinion of
+himself was in plain and straightforward language.
+
+Meanwhile, Marjorie had hurried out. It was not true! She was not so
+stupid and so silly that Hugh could never have fallen in love with her.
+Why, he had fallen in love with her! He had wanted her for his wife,
+and she—she in her blindness and her folly, in her stupidity, which her
+aunt had but now been flinging in her teeth, had not realised that he
+was the one man in her world, the only man, and that she loved him as
+never, never could she love Tom Arundel or anyone else.
+
+The little ancient disreputable car had been repaired by Rodding, the
+village handyman, who by some conjuring trick had made it run again.
+Marjorie started it.
+
+She had made up her mind. She would go to Hurst Dormer, she would see
+Hugh and—and quite what she would do she did not know. Everything was
+on the knees of the gods, only she knew that she was very unhappy, a
+very miserable, unhappy, foolish girl, who had got what she had asked
+for, and found that she did not want it now she had it.
+
+Piff, piff, paff, paff went the car, and Marjorie rolled off with a
+succession of jerks, leaving behind an odoriferous cloud of smoke and
+exhaust gases that lay like a blue mist along the drive, and presently
+made Lady Linden cough and speak in uncomplimentary terms of motoring
+and motorists generally.
+
+On to Hurst Dormer Marjorie plugged, sad at heart, realising her folly.
+
+“It is my fault,” she felt miserably; “it is all my fault, and I am not
+fair to Tom. He doesn’t understand me. I see him look at me sometimes,
+and I don’t wonder at it. He doesn’t understand me a bit; he has every
+right to—to think—I love him, and I don’t—I don’t. I love Hugh!”
+
+It was an hour later that Marjorie put in an appearance at Hurst
+Dormer.
+
+Hugh was there, and Hugh was in. It brought relief. She wanted to cry
+with the relief she felt.
+
+Over the tea-table, where she poured out the tea from the old silver
+Anne teapot, she looked at him, and saw many changes that one not
+loving him, as she knew she did now, might have missed. The cheery
+frank smile was there yet, but it had lost much of its happiness. His
+eyes were no less kind, but they had a tired look about them, a wistful
+look. Oh, that she might cheat herself into believing that their
+wistfulness was for her! But Marjorie was not the little fool her aunt
+called her. She was a woman, and was gifted with a woman’s
+understanding.
+
+“He does not love me now, not as he did. I had my chance, and I said
+no, and now—now it is gone for ever.”
+
+And he, leaning back in his chair, watched her pouring out the tea as
+he had a few days ago watched another pouring out tea in a London
+hotel. The sight of Joan performing that domestic duty had brought to
+him then a vision of this same old room, this very old teapot, that his
+mother had used. And now, seeing Marjorie here, pouring out the tea,
+the only vision, the only remembrance that it brought to him was the
+memory of another girl pouring out tea in a London hotel.
+
+“Hugh, have you seen her—Joan?”
+
+He started—started at the sound of the name that was forever in his
+thoughts.
+
+“Yes, dear,” he said simply, for why should he lie to this child?
+
+“Oh!” she said. “Oh, and—and Hugh, she and you—” She paused, she held
+her face down that he might not see it.
+
+“Joan Meredyth,” he said slowly, “and I met in Town a few days ago. She
+told me then, that she is engaged to be married.”
+
+“Oh!” Marjorie said, and her heart leaped with a new-born hope.
+
+“And I,” Hugh went on, “am worried and anxious about her.”
+
+“Hugh!”
+
+“I can’t worry you, little girl. It is nothing in which you could help;
+it is my fault, my folly!”
+
+“Mine!” she said.
+
+“No, it is mine. The whole idea was mine; I shoulder the blame of it
+all. It has succeeded in what we attempted. You are all right, you and
+Tom. I’ve made a lovely mess of everything else. But that does not
+matter so much. What we wanted, we won, eh?” He smiled at her, little
+dreaming that she had only won dead-sea fruit.
+
+“Why are you worried and anxious about Joan?”
+
+“I am not going to tell you, dear. I can’t very well. Besides, you
+couldn’t help. You are happy, you are all right. Tom is in high favour
+with her ladyship, so that’s good, and you—you and Tom are happy, eh?”
+
+“Yes,” she said miserably.
+
+“He’s a good fellow, Marjorie. Make allowances for him. He’ll need ’em,
+he’s no angel; but he means well, and he’s a good clean, honest man, is
+Tom Arundel, and you’ll be a happy girl when you are his wife; please
+God!” he added, and put his hand on her shoulder, and did not notice
+that she was weeping silently.
+
+He drove her back to Cornbridge in the moonlight, and left her at the
+gates of the Manor House. “Little girl,” he said, “in this life there’s
+a good deal of give and take. Don’t expect too much, and don’t be hurt
+if you don’t get everything that you ask for. Remember this—I—I cared
+for you very much.” “Cared!” she thought. “Cared?” He spoke in the
+past—Cared!”
+
+“But I gave you up because you loved another man; you loved a man more
+worthy than I am. I wouldn’t have stood aside if I had felt that the
+other man was not good enough, that he was a waster and would not make
+you happy; but I knew Tom better than that. Stick to him, don’t ask for
+too much. Believe always that he loves you, and that he is built of the
+stuff that keeps straight and true, and so, God bless you, dear!”
+
+He kissed her frankly as a brother might, and sat there watching her up
+the drive to the house. He did not guess that when she gained the house
+she slipped in by a garden door and ran up to her own room to indulge
+in that relief that a woman may ever find when the grief is not too
+black and too bitter, the relief of tears.
+
+“I am worried about her,” Hugh thought to himself; but “her” to him
+meant Joan, not Marjorie.
+
+When he said, “I am worried about her,” he meant that he was worried
+about Joan. If he said, “She would have liked this,” “She” would mean
+Joan.
+
+“I am worried about her and that blackguard Slotman,” he thought.
+“There is something about that man—snake—toad—something uncanny. She’s
+there; she has money and he’s out for money. If I can sit here and tell
+myself that I have scared Slotman from offending and annoying her
+again, I am an idiot. When there’s money to be gained, a man like
+Slotman will want a lot of scaring off it.”
+
+A week had passed since Marjorie’s visit.
+
+Hugh sent for his housekeeper, Mrs. Morrisey.
+
+“Mrs. Morrisey, I am going to London.”
+
+“Oh, Mr. Alston, when the men are—”
+
+“The men are all right. I have to go to London on business.”
+
+“Very queer and restless he’s been,” Mrs. Morrisey thought. “I never
+known him like it before. When I thought he was in love with that
+pretty little Miss Linden and wanting to marry her, he was not a bit
+like he is now. He kept cheerful and smiling, and now; forever on the
+move. No sooner does he get here than back to London he wants to go.”
+
+“Shall you be away for long, sir?”
+
+“I don’t know,” said Hugh. “Perhaps; perhaps not, I can’t say.”
+
+“I see. Very good, sir. I’ll see to things, of course. And about
+letters, perhaps you won’t want them forwarded as you didn’t last time,
+and—”
+
+“I shall want every letter forwarded, the very hour it arrives,” said
+Hugh quickly.
+
+“Very good, sir. Where shall I send them to?”
+
+“I don’t know yet. I’ll wire you an address.”
+
+Yes, he must go to London. He could not go and watch Joan at Starden,
+but he could go to London and watch Mr. Philip Slotman.
+
+“What I’ll do is this—I’ll have a watch kept on that man. There are
+private detective chaps who’ll do it for me. If he goes down to
+Starden, I’ll be after him hot-foot. And if he does go there to annoy
+and insult Joan—I’ll break his neck!” he added, with cheerful decision.
+
+“And she—she is going to marry another man, a man she doesn’t love—she
+can’t love. I know she cannot love.” He added aloud: “Joan, you don’t
+love him, my darling, you know you don’t. You dared not stay and face
+me that day. Your words meant nothing. You may think you despise me,
+but you don’t: you want to, my dear, but you can’t; and you can’t
+because, thank God, you love me! Oh, fool! Cheer yourself up, slap
+yourself on the back. It doesn’t help you. She may love you as you
+boast, but she’ll never marry you. She wants to hate you, and she’ll
+keep on wanting to hate, and I believe—Heaven help me—that her will is
+stronger than her heart. But—but anyhow, that brute Slotman shan’t
+worry her while I can crawl about.”
+
+He was driven to the station the following morning. And now he was in
+the train for London.
+
+“I’ll find out a firm of detectives and put ’em on Slotman,” he
+thought, “but first I’ll go and have a look round. What’s the name of
+the place?—Gracebury.”
+
+At the entrance to Gracebury, which as everyone knows is a cul-de-sac
+of no considerable extent, Hugh stopped his taxi and got out. He walked
+down the wide pavement till he came to the familiar door.
+
+“I’ll see him,” he thought. “I’ll go in and have a few words with him,
+just to remind him that his neck is in jeopardy.”
+
+He went up the stone steps and paused.
+
+The door of Mr. Philip Slotman’s office was closed. On the door was
+pasted a paper, stating that a suite of three offices was to let.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+“WHY DOES SHE TAKE HIM FROM ME?”
+
+
+“Why—why—why?” Ellice asked herself. Why should this woman who did not
+love him wish to take him away from her, who worshipped the ground he
+trod on, who looked up to him as the best, the finest of all God’s
+created creatures?
+
+That Joan Meredyth did not love John Everard no one understood more
+clearly than Ellice Brand. She had watched them when they were
+together, she had watched the girl apart; and the watcher’s body might
+be that of a child, but her eyes were the eyes of a woman, as was her
+heart too.
+
+“Why should she take him from me?” she asked herself, and all her being
+rose in passionate revolt and resentment.
+
+“Perhaps she does not know that I love him. Perhaps she looks on me
+only as a child—a silly, foolish, infatuated child. But I am not! I am
+not!” Ellice cried. “I am not! I love him. I loved him when I was a
+baby, when I came here eight years ago, and now I am eighteen and a
+woman, and I have never changed and never shall!”
+
+During the days that followed the announcement of Joan Meredyth’s
+engagement to John Everard, Connie watched the girl. She felt troubled,
+anxious, and yet scarcely could say why. She knew the girl’s passionate
+nature. Connie almost dreaded something reckless even tragic. She was
+more worried than she could say and of course she could not consult
+Johnny. There was no one to consult but Helen, and Helen did not
+understand Ellice in the least. Helen was inclined to look down on
+Ellice from her superior height as a wayward, wilful, foolish
+child—nothing more.
+
+“Send her away. I suppose she is really too old to go to school now,
+Connie. How old is she, sixteen?”
+
+“Eighteen.”
+
+“She has the heart and the body of a child.”
+
+“And the soul of a woman!”
+
+“Sometimes, Connie dear,” said Helen sweetly, “you make me almost
+angry. You actually seem to be siding with this foolish little thing!”
+
+Connie sighed. “In—in some ways I do. She loves him so, and I know it.
+I can’t be hard-hearted, I can’t blind myself to the truth. Of course,
+I know that Johnny’s marriage with Joan is the best thing in the world
+for both of them, but—”
+
+“But just because a stupid, self-willed girl of eighteen believes
+herself deeply in love with Johnny—Oh, Connie, do be your own
+reasonable self.”
+
+Johnny Everard, blind as most men are, did not notice how quiet and
+reserved Ellice had grown of late, how seldom she spoke to him, how
+when he spoke to her she only answered him in brief monosyllables, and
+how never came a smile now to her red lips, and certainly never a smile
+into her great dark eyes.
+
+He did not see what Connie saw—the heaviness about those eyes, the
+suggestion of tears during the night, when she came down silently to
+her breakfast. She had changed, and yet he did not see it, and if he
+had seen it might never guess at the cause.
+
+And Connie too, always kindly and gentle, always sweet and unselfish;
+during these days the girl’s unselfishness was something to wonder at.
+
+She had always loved Ellice; she had understood the child as none other
+had. And now there seemed to be a bond between them that drew them
+closer.
+
+Three years ago Johnny had bought a bicycle for Ellice. She had been
+going daily then to Miss Richmond’s school at Great Langbourne, three
+miles away, and he had bought the bicycle that she might ride to school
+and back again. Since she had left school the bicycle had remained
+untouched and rusted in one of the outhouses, but now Ellice had got
+the machine out and cleaned it and put new tyres on it.
+
+Deep down in her mind was a plan, as yet not wholly formed, a desperate
+venture that one day she might embark on, and the old bicycle was part
+of that plan, for she would need it to carry out the plan. She had not
+decided yet, not even if she would ever carry it out, but she might.
+
+Day after day saw her on the road; more often than not her way lay
+towards Starden village. She would ride the six and a half miles to
+Starden, wait there for a time, and then ride back. She never called at
+Starden Hall. Helen knew nothing of these trips.
+
+Connie watched the girl with misgivings and doubts, and Ellice knew
+that the elder girl was watching her.
+
+“Connie, I want to speak to you,” she said quietly one morning.
+
+“Yes, darling?”
+
+Ellice slipped her small brown hand into Connie’s.
+
+“I—I know that you are worrying, dear, that you are anxious—and for
+me.”
+
+Connie nodded, tears came into her eyes.
+
+“I want you to understand, Connie, that I—I promise you I will do
+nothing—nothing, I will never do anything unless I come to you first
+and tell you. I promise you that I will do nothing—nothing that I
+should not do, nothing mad and foolish and wrong, unless I come to you
+first and tell you just what I am going to do.”
+
+“Thank you, dear, for telling me this. It lifts a great weight and a
+great anxiety from my heart. Thank you, dear—oh, Ellice darling, I
+thought once that it would be a fine thing for him, but now—now I could
+wish it otherwise!”
+
+Another moment and the girl was in her arms, clasping her passionately,
+and kissing her passionately and gratefully.
+
+Then suddenly Ellice broke away, and a few minutes later was riding
+hard down the road to Starden.
+
+It was always to Starden that she rode. Always she passed the great
+gates of Starden Hall, yet never even glanced at them. She rode into
+the little village, propped her bicycle against the railings that
+surrounded the old stocks that stood on the village green, and there
+sat on a seat and watched the ducks in the green village pond and the
+children playing cricket. Then, after waiting perhaps an hour, she
+would mount and ride slowly back to Buddesby again.
+
+It was the programme that she carried out this morning. It was twelve
+o’clock when she came in sight of Buddesby village, a mile distant as
+yet.
+
+“Missy! Missy!” Someone was calling. Ellice slowed down and looked
+about her. On the bank beside the road a man sat, and he was nursing an
+ugly yellow lurcher dog in his arms.
+
+“Missy!” the man called, and his voice was broken and harsh with
+suffering.
+
+It was Rundle, the poacher, and his dog, and there was blood on
+Rundle’s hand, blood trickling down from a wound in the dog’s side. The
+man was holding the dog as he might have held a child. The big ugly
+yellow head was against the man’s breast, and in its agony the dog was
+licking the man’s rough hand.
+
+And watching, there came back to Ellice’s memory what she had said of
+this man and his dog.
+
+“You’ll do something for me, missy, something as I—I can’t do myself!”
+He shuddered. “Will you ride on to Taylor’s and ask him to come here
+and bring—his gun?”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“I—I can’t do it myself!”
+
+“He might be cured.”
+
+“There’s only Mister Vinston, the Vet, and he wouldn’t look at this
+poor tyke of mine. He hates him too bad for that, because Snatcher
+killed one of them fancy poodle dogs of his two years ago; and Mr.
+Vinston ain’t never forgot it—and never will. He wouldn’t do nothing to
+save Snatcher, miss. Ask Taylor to come and bring his gun.”
+
+Ellice nodded. She stretched out her hand and touched the shaggy yellow
+head, and in her eyes was infinite pity. Then she mounted the bicycle,
+and rode like the wind to Buddesby. What she said to Mr. Ralph Vinston,
+the smart young veterinary surgeon, only she and Mr. Ralph Vinston
+knew.
+
+He had refused definitely and decidedly. “It’ll be a blessing to the
+place if the beast dies,” he said. “You’d better take his message to
+Taylor. The gun’s the best remedy for Rundle’s accursed dog, Miss
+Ellice.”
+
+And then the girl had talked to him, had talked with flashing eyes and
+heaving breast, and the end of it was that Ralph Vinston made a
+collection of surgical instruments, bandages, and other necessaries,
+bundled them into his little car, and was away down the road with
+Ellice in company within ten minutes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+“WAITING”
+
+
+Hugh Alston had certainly not attempted anything in the way of
+picturesque disguise. There was nothing brigandish or romantic about
+the appearance of the very ordinary-looking young man who put in an
+appearance at Starden village.
+
+Quite what his plans were, what he proposed doing and how he should do
+it, Hugh had not the slightest idea. He mistrusted Slotman. He
+experienced exactly the same feelings as would a man who, hearing that
+there was a savage wild beast let loose where an immense amount of harm
+may be done, puts a gun under his arm and sallies forth.
+
+Even if Joan had not the immense claim on him that she had, he believed
+he would do exactly what he was doing now. He might be wrong about
+Slotman, of course. The man might have cleared out and left the
+country, but Hugh fancied that he had not. Here was a little gold-mine,
+a young girl, rich and unprotected, a girl of whom this villain
+believed certain things, which if true would give him a great power
+over her. That they were not true, Slotman did not know, and he would
+use his fancied knowledge to obtain his ends and to make Joan’s life
+unbearable.
+
+So Hugh Alston was here in rough, shaggy tweeds, sitting on the
+self-same seat beside the old stocks where most mornings Ellice Brand
+came.
+
+“I’m here,” he said to himself, and pulled hard on his pipe. “I am
+here, and here I am going to stay. Sooner or later, unless I am dead
+out in my reckonings, that brute will turn up, and when he does he’ll
+find me here ahead of and waiting for him.”
+
+“The Meredyths,” said Mrs. Bonner, “hev lived at Starden”—she called it
+‘Sta-a-arden’—“oh, I wouldn’t like to say for how long, centuries
+anyhow. Then for a time things got despirit with them, and the place
+was sold. Bought it was by Mr. Gorridge, a London gentleman. Thirty
+years he lived here. I remember him buying it; I would be about
+eighteen then, just before I married Bonner. Master Roger I think it
+was, anyhow one of ’em—the Meredyths I mean—went to Australia and kep’
+sheep or something there, and made money, and he bought the old place
+back, Mr. Gorridge being dead and gone. You’ll see ’is tomb in the
+church, Mr. Alston.”
+
+“Thank you,” Hugh said. “I’ll be sure to look for it.”
+
+“A wonderful expensive tomb, and much admired,” said Mrs. Bonner.
+
+“I am sure it must be in the best taste. And then?”
+
+“Oh, then Mr. Roger died at sea and left it all, Starden Hall and his
+money, to Miss Joan Meredyth. And she lives there now, and I suppose
+she’ll go on living there when she is married.”
+
+“When she is married,” he repeated.
+
+“To Mr. John Everard of Buddesby, a rare pleasant-spoken, nice
+gentleman as no one can speak a word against. Passes here most days in
+his car, he does—always running over from Buddesby, as is but
+natcheral.”
+
+Starden Hall gates stood about a quarter of a mile out of Starden
+village, and midway between the village and the Hall gates was Mrs.
+Bonner’s clean, typically Kentish little cottage.
+
+Artists were Mrs. Bonner’s usual customers. The cottage was old,
+half-timbered and hipped-roofed. The roof was clad with Sussex stone,
+lichen-covered, and a feast of colour from grey and vivid yellow to the
+most tender green. Mrs. Bonner herself was a comfortable body, built on
+ample and generous lines, a born house manager, a born cook, and of a
+cleanliness that she herself described as “scrutinous.”
+
+So Hugh, casting about for a retreat, had happened on Mrs. Bonner’s
+cottage and had installed himself here—for how long he knew not, for
+what purpose he scarcely even guessed at. Yet here he was.
+
+Mrs. Bonner had seen Philip Slotman, as she saw most things and people
+that at one time or another passed within range of her windows.
+
+She recognised him from Hugh’s description.
+
+“It would be about best part of a fortnight ago,” she said. “He had
+shammy leather gloves on, and was in Hickman’s cab. Hickman waited for
+him at the hall gates and then took him back.”
+
+“And he’s not been here since?”
+
+“I fancy, but I ain’t sure, that I did see him one day in a car,” said
+Mrs. Bonner; “but I couldn’t swear to it.”
+
+Twice he had seen “Her” from the window of Mrs. Bonner’s little
+cottage, once a mere glimpse as she had flashed by in a car; the other
+time she had been afoot, walking and alone. He had gazed on the slim
+grace of her figure, himself hidden behind Mrs. Bonner’s spotless white
+lace curtains. He had watched her, his soul in his eyes, the woman he
+loved and who was not for him, could never be for him now, and there
+fell upon him a sense of desolation, of loneliness, of utter
+hopelessness.
+
+Three days had passed since his coming to Starden. He had seen Joan
+twice, he had seen the man she was to marry. Once he had caught a
+glimpse of John Everard hurrying to Starden Hall in his little car, he
+himself had been standing by Mrs. Bonner’s gate. Everard had turned his
+head and glanced at him, with that curiosity about strangers that all
+dwellers in rustic places feel.
+
+“An artist, I suppose,” Johnny thought as he drove on.
+
+Hugh watched him down the road; he had seen Everard’s glance at him,
+and had summed him up. The man was just what he would have imagined, a
+man of his own stamp, no Adonis—just an ordinary, healthy, clean-living
+Englishman.
+
+“I rather like the look of him,” thought Hugh. “He seems all right.”
+And then he smiled at his thoughts a trifle bitterly. “By every right
+on earth I ought to hate him.”
+
+Johnny drove his small car to the doors of the Hall.
+
+“Joan,” he said, “come out. Come out for a spin—the car’s running
+finely to-day. Come out, and we’ll go and have lunch at Langbourne or
+somewhere. What do you say?” His face was eager. “You know,” he added,
+“you have never been out with me in my car yet.”
+
+“If you would like me to.”
+
+“Go and get ready then, and I’ll tell Helen,” he said. “We shan’t be
+back to lunch.”
+
+Hugh had been on his way to the village when he saw Everard in his
+little car. He went to the village because, if he went in the opposite
+direction, it would take him to the Hall gates, and he did not wish to
+go there. He did not wish her to see him, to form the idea that he was
+here loitering about for the purpose of seeing her.
+
+Sooner or later he knew she must be made aware of his presence, then he
+hoped for an opportunity to explain, but he would not seek it yet. So
+he made his way to the village, stopped to give pennies to small
+white-haired children, patted the shaggy dusty heads of vagrant dogs,
+and finally came to anchor on the seat beside the railed-in stocks.
+
+And there on that same seat sat a small, dark-eyed maiden, whose rusty
+bicycle reclined against the railings. She had been here yesterday for
+fifteen minutes or so. He and she had occupied the seat without the
+exchange of a word, according to English custom.
+
+Hugh looked at her. Because he regarded one woman as the embodiment of
+all that was perfect and graceful and beautiful, it did not blind him
+to beauty in others. He saw in this girl what those blinder than he had
+not yet recognised—the dawning of a wonderful, a radiant and glowing
+beauty. And because he had a very sincere and honest appreciation of
+the beautiful, she interested him, and he smiled. He lifted his hat.
+
+The girl stared at him; she started a little as he raised his hat. She
+gave the slightest inclination of her head. It was not encouraging.
+
+Hugh sat down. He was thinking of the man he had seen a while ago—a
+clean, honest, open-faced man, a man he felt he could like, and yet by
+every reason ought to hate.
+
+The girl was studying his profile.
+
+She had the suspicion that is inherent in all shy wild things, and yet,
+looking at him, she felt that this man was no dangerous animal to be
+feared and avoided.
+
+Turning suddenly, he caught her glance and smiled.
+
+“You live here?”
+
+“No!”
+
+“Yet you—oh, I see, you are staying here—”
+
+“No, I live at Little Langbourne.”
+
+He smiled, having no idea where Little Langbourne might be.
+
+They talked—of nothing, of the ducks and geese on the green, of the
+weather, of the sunshine, of the ancient stocks.
+
+“You are staying here?” she asked.
+
+“Yes, at Mrs. Bonner’s.”
+
+“Oh, then you are an artist?”
+
+“Nothing so ornamental, I am afraid. No—quite a useless person.”
+
+“If you are not an artist, and have no friends here, do you not find it
+a little dull?”
+
+“Yes, but I am a patient animal. I am waiting, you see.”
+
+“Waiting—for what?”
+
+Hugh smiled. “For something that may happen, and yet may not. I am
+waiting in case it does. Of course you don’t understand, little girl,
+I—I mean—I am sorry,” he apologised. “I was forgetting, thinking of a
+friend, another girl I know.”
+
+“I am not offended. Why should I be? I am a girl and—and not very big,
+am I?” She rose and smiled at him, and held out her hand.
+
+“Thank you,” Hugh said. He took her hand and held it. “I think you are
+generous.”
+
+“For not being offended by a silly thing like that!” She laughed and
+turned to get the bicycle. But it had slipped, the handle-bar had
+become wedged in the railings; it took all Hugh’s strength to persuade
+the handle-bar to come out.
+
+“I am afraid you can’t ride it like this, the bar’s got twisted. If you
+have a spanner—”
+
+“I haven’t,” said Ellice.
+
+“Then if you will permit I will wheel it into the village. There’s a
+cycle shop there, and I’ll fix it up for you.”
+
+So, he wheeling the bicycle, and she beside him, they crossed the green
+and came to the village street. And down the road came a little
+grey-painted car, which Johnny Everard was driving with more pride than
+he had ever experienced before.
+
+“Why, hello!” thought Johnny. “What on earth is Ellice doing here, and
+who is the fellow she is with? He’s the man I saw at Mrs. Bonner’s gate
+and—”
+
+He turned his head and glanced at Joan. He was going to say something
+to her, something about the unexpectedness of seeing Ellice here, but
+Johnny Everard said nothing. He was startled, for Joan’s face was
+white, and her lips were compressed. And in Joan’s brain was dinning
+the question. “He here—what does he do here? Has he come here to
+torment me further, to pester and plague and annoy me with his speeches
+that I will never listen to? How dare he come here?”
+
+He had seen her, had paused. He lifted his hand to his hat and raised
+it, but Joan stared straight before her.
+
+It was the cut direct, and there came a dusky red into Hugh’s face as
+he realised the fact.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+“IF YOU NEED ME”
+
+
+Naturally enough, Johnny Everard, seeing Ellice, would have stopped. He
+had his foot on the clutch and was feeling for the brake when Joan
+realised his intention.
+
+“Please drive on! Please drive straight on!”
+
+And Johnny, receiving his instructions, obeyed them without hesitation.
+Another moment, and Joan regretted. But it was too late, the car had
+gone on; the two figures, the man and the girl with the bicycle, were
+left behind. It was too late—and the girl felt almost shocked by what
+she had done.
+
+But Joan’s temper was on edge, the day had lost any beauty that it
+might have held for her. She wanted to get back, she wanted to be
+alone, she wanted to decide, to think things out for herself.
+
+Johnny looked at her. This was beyond his understanding. What had
+happened? Was it the man who had caused Joan to look so white and
+angry, or was it Ellice?
+
+It could hardly be the man after all, for she had evidently not known
+him. She had not recognised him in any way.
+
+Johnny was not good at guess-work. Here was something beyond him. If it
+were Ellice, then why should the sight of Ellice upset Joan? And why—it
+came to him suddenly—had Joan cut Ellice?
+
+For in cutting the man Joan had also cut the girl, and had not thought,
+the girl meaning little or nothing to her.
+
+“Johnny, I—I—don’t think me unkind—or ungracious—but—I would like to go
+back soon. I don’t mean—” She paused. “Let’s go back by way of
+Bennerden.”
+
+It meant that she did not want to go back by the same road with the
+chance of seeing those two again.
+
+Ellice’s cheeks were burning, and her eyes were bright with anger. Joan
+Meredyth had cut her, and it seemed to her that Johnny had aided and
+abetted.
+
+Then she happened to glance at Hugh Alston, and intuition prompted her.
+
+“I think you know her,” she said quickly.
+
+“Yes, I—I know her.”
+
+“And she was not pleased to see you?”
+
+“Apparently not!” he laughed, but the laughter was shaky. “Here we are!
+We’ll soon get the bicycle fixed up.”
+
+Ellice stood watching him while with a borrowed spanner he adjusted the
+handle-bars.
+
+What did this man know of Joan, and why had Joan cut him dead? Perhaps
+they were old lovers, perhaps a thousand things? Ellice shrugged her
+shoulders. It was nothing to her. If she must fight this woman, this
+rich, beautiful woman for her love’s sake, she would not fight with
+underhand weapons. There would be no digging in pasts, for Ellice.
+
+“Thank you,” she said. “You have been very kind!” Again she held out
+her hand to him, and gave him a frank and friendly smile. “I hope that
+we shall meet again.”
+
+“I think,” he said, “that we shall often meet again.”
+
+He stood and watched the graceful little figure of her as she sped
+swiftly down the road, then turned and walked slowly back towards Mrs.
+Bonner’s cottage.
+
+So Joan had seen him, and had cut him dead.
+
+“If I was not so dead sure, so dead certain sure that Slotman will turn
+up eventually, I would clear out,” Hugh thought to himself. “I’d go
+back to Hurst Dormer and stick there, whether I wanted to or not.”
+
+Ellice, pedalling homeward, went more slowly now she was clear of the
+village. She wanted to think it all over in her mind, and arrived at
+conclusions. At first she had thought that Joan Meredyth and Johnny too
+had deliberately cut her dead. But that was folly; they had cut her,
+but then in this matter she had not counted. She was gifted with plenty
+of common-sense. Connie’s teaching and precept had not gone for nothing
+with the girl.
+
+“Joan Meredyth knows that man, and he knows her.”
+
+Half a mile out of Little Langbourne, Ellice put on the brake and
+alighted.
+
+“How is Snatcher?” she asked.
+
+Rundle touched his hat. A big and fearsome-looking man was Rundle.
+Village mothers frightened small children into good behaviour by
+threatening them that Rundle would come and take them away—a name to
+conjure with. Little Langbourne only knew peace and felt secure when
+Rundle was undergoing one of his temporary retirements from activity,
+when, as a guest of the State, he cursed his luck and the gamekeepers
+who had been one too many for him.
+
+But there was nothing fearsome about the Rundle who faced little Ellice
+Brand. There was a smile on the man’s lips, in his eyes a look of
+intense gratitude.
+
+Ragged and disreputable person that he was, he would have lain down and
+allowed this little lady to wipe her feet on him, did she wish it.
+
+“How is Snatcher?”
+
+“Fine, missy!” he said. “Fine—fine!” His eyes glistened. “Snatcher’s
+going to pull through, missy. ’Twas a car did hit he,” he added, “and I
+saw the chap who was in it. I saw him, and I saw him laugh when
+Snatcher went rolling over in the dust. I’ll watch out for that man,
+missy.”
+
+“Tell me about Snatcher!”
+
+“Leg broke, and a terrible cut from a great flint; but he’ll pull
+through—thanks to you!”
+
+“To Mr. Vinston, you mean!”
+
+Rundle shook his head. “To you. He wouldn’t ’a come for me, nor
+Snatcher; he hates my poor tyke. But he’s put Snatcher right for all
+that, and because you made him do it, and I don’t wonder!” Rundle
+looked at her. “I don’t wonder,” he added. “There’s be few men who
+wouldn’t do what you’d tell ’em to.”
+
+“Now,” said Ellice, “you are talking absurdly. Of course I just shamed
+Mr. Vinston into doing it. I’d like to come and see Snatcher, Rundle.”
+
+“The queen wouldn’t be as welcome,” he said simply.
+
+Helen expressed no surprise at the unseasonable return of Joan and
+Johnny from their trip. There was no accounting for Joan’s moods; the
+main and the great thing was, it was due to no quarrel between them.
+
+Johnny stayed to lunch. After it, Joan left him with Helen and went to
+her own room. She wanted to be alone, she wanted to think things out,
+to decide how to act, if she were to act at all.
+
+“He called me ungenerous—three times,” she said, “ungenerous and—and
+now I know that I am, I deserve it.” She felt as a child feels when it
+has done wrong and longs to beg for forgiveness. In spite of her pride,
+her coldness and her haughtiness, there was much of the child still in
+Joan Meredyth’s composition—of the child’s honesty and the child’s
+frankness and innocence and desire to avoid hurting others.
+
+“It was cruel—it was cowardly. But why is he here? What right has he to
+come here when I—I told him—when he knows—that I, that Johnny and I—”
+
+And now, with her mind wavering this way and that way, anxious to
+excuse herself and blame him one moment, condemning herself the next,
+Joan took pen and paper and wrote hurriedly.
+
+
+“I am sorry for what I did. It was inexcusable, and it was ungenerous.
+I ask you to forgive me, it was so unexpected. Perhaps I have hurt
+myself by doing it more than I hurt you. If I did hurt you, I ask your
+forgiveness, and I ask you also, most earnestly, to go, to leave
+Starden.”
+
+
+She would have written more, much more, words were tumbling over in her
+brain. She had so much more to say to him, and yet she said nothing.
+She signed her name and addressed the letter to Hugh Alston at Mrs.
+Bonner’s cottage. She took it out and gave it to a gardener’s boy.
+
+“Take that letter and give it the gentleman it is addressed to, if he
+is there. If he is not there, bring it back to me.”
+
+“Yes, miss.” The boy pocketed the letter and a shilling, and went
+whistling down the road.
+
+So she had written, she had confessed her fault and asked for
+forgiveness—that was like Joan. One moment the haughty cold, proud
+woman, the next the child, admitting her faults and asking for pardon.
+
+The letter had been duly delivered at Mrs. Bonner’s cottage, and,
+coming in later, Hugh found it.
+
+“Bettses’ Bob brought it,” said Mrs. Bonner. “From Miss Meredyth at the
+Hall,” she added, and looked curiously at Hugh.
+
+“That’s all right, thanks!”
+
+Mrs. Bonner quivered with curiosity. Who was this lodger of hers who
+received letters from Miss Meredyth, when he had not even admitted that
+he knew her?
+
+“Very funny!” thought Mrs. Bonner.
+
+Hugh read the letter. “I am sorry—for what I did.... I ask you to
+forgive me.... Perhaps I have hurt myself more than I have hurt you
+...”
+
+“Any answer to go back to the Hall?”
+
+“None!”
+
+“Ah!” Mrs. Bonner hesitated. “I didn’t know you knew Miss Meredyth.”
+
+“I am going out,” said Hugh. Avoid Mrs. Bonner while she was in this
+curious mood, he knew he must.
+
+“If there’s one thing I can’t abide, it is secretiveness,” said Mrs.
+Bonner, as she watched him up the road towards the village.
+
+Should he answer the letter? Hugh wondered. Or should he just accept it
+in silence, as an apology for an act of rudeness? He hated that idea.
+She might think that he did not forgive, that he bore malice and
+ill-will.
+
+“No, I must answer it,” he decided, “but what shall I say?” He knew
+what he wanted to say, he knew that he wanted to ask her to meet him,
+and he knew only too well that she would refuse.
+
+“There is no sense,” said Hugh deliberately, “no sense whatever in
+riding for a certain fall.” He was staring at a small flaxen-haired,
+dirty-faced boy as he spoke. The boy grinned at him.
+
+“You have a sense of humour,” said Hugh, “and, no doubt, a sweet
+tooth.” He felt in his pocket for the coin that the Starden children
+had grown to expect from him. The boy took it, yelled and whooped, and
+sped down the street to the sweetstuff shop.
+
+“But the fact remains,” said Hugh to himself, “there is no sense in
+deliberately riding for a fall. If I asked her to meet me, she would
+either refuse or ignore the request, so I shall not ask. Yet, all the
+same, she and I will meet sooner or later, and when we meet, it will be
+by accident, not by—” He paused. Outside the cycle-shop stood a small
+two-seater car that had a familiar look to Hugh. As he glanced at the
+car its owner came out of the shop with a can of petrol in his hand.
+
+He saw Hugh, looked him in the eyes, and nodded in friendly fashion.
+
+“A nice day!” he said.
+
+“Very!”
+
+“I have to thank you for helping my—” Johnny paused; he had almost said
+sister, but of course Ellice was not his sister—“my little friend
+yesterday, about the bike I mean.”
+
+“That’s nothing! Excuse interference on my part, but if you pour that
+petrol into the radiator, you will probably develop trouble.”
+
+Johnny Everard laughed. “I am new to it, and I am always doing odd
+things like that. Of course, that’s for water. Lawson over at Little
+Langbourne generally sees to things for me.”
+
+Hugh nodded. He looked at the man standing but a few feet from him, the
+man who was to gain that which Hugh coveted and desired most in the
+world, looked at him and yet felt no dislike, no great enmity, no
+furious hate.
+
+“It was very good of you to help the kiddie with her bike,” said
+Johnny, as he splashed the petrol into the tank. “If you find yourself
+at any time over at Little Langbourne, we’d be glad to see you. My
+name’s Everard, my place is Buddesby.”
+
+“Thanks! It is very good of you, and I shan’t forget!” He nodded,
+smiled, and walked on, then glanced back. He could see Johnny fumbling
+with the car, and he smiled.
+
+“That’s my hated rival, and he seems a decent sort of chap.”
+
+An hour later he was back at Mrs. Bonner’s cottage.
+
+“The post’s come in since you went, Mr. Alston,” said Mrs. Bonner, “and
+there’s a letter for you.”
+
+It was a bulky envelope from Hurst Dormer. There was a note from Mrs.
+Morrisey, to say that everything was going as it should go, and she
+enclosed all the letters that had come by post.
+
+And the first letter that Hugh opened was one on pink paper, delicately
+scented. How well he remembered that scent! How it brought back to him
+a certain pretty little face, and a pair of sweet blue eyes.
+
+“Dear little maid,” he said. He read the letter, and stared at it in
+astonishment and dismay.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+THE SPY
+
+
+It seemed to Hugh Alston that he had not read the letter aright; it was
+so amazing, so disconcerting, that he felt bewildered. What on earth is
+wrong? he thought, then he took the letter to the better light at the
+window and read again.
+
+
+“MY DEAR HUGH,
+
+“I have been over to Hurst Dormer three times in the car, each time
+hoping and praying that I might find you; but you are never there now,
+so I am writing, Hugh, hoping that you will get my letter. I know I
+have no right to.” (This, Hugh noticed, had been carefully crossed
+out.) “I want to see you so much. I want to ask your advice and help. I
+don’t know what to do, and I am so unhappy, so wretched. Forgive me,
+dear, for troubling you, but if—if only I could see you I am sure you
+would help me, and tell me what it is right I should do. Ever and ever
+
+“Your loving,
+“MARJORIE.”
+
+
+“So unhappy, so wretched!” Hugh read, and it was this that had amazed
+him. Here was a girl engaged to be married to the man she loved, the
+man she had told him she could not live without, the man of her own
+choice, of her own heart—he himself smoothed the way for her, had taken
+away his own undesirable person, had stepped aside, leaving the field
+to his rival, and now ...
+
+Hugh blinked at the letter. “What on earth should she be unhappy about?
+She has had a quarrel with Tom perhaps, and she wants me to go and talk
+to him like a Dutch Uncle. Poor little maid! I daresay it is all about
+twopence! But it seems very real and tragic to her.” Hugh sighed. He
+ought to stay here. This was his place, watching and keeping guard and
+ward for Joan, yet Marjorie wanted him.
+
+“I’ll go. I can be there and back in a couple of days. I’ll go.”
+
+He had just time to write and catch the early outward mail from
+Starden, to-day was Thursday.
+
+
+“MY DEAR MARJORIE,
+
+“I have had your letter, and it has worried me not a little. I can’t
+bear to think of you as unhappy, little girl. I shall come back to
+Hurst Dormer, and shall be there to-morrow, Friday, early in the
+afternoon. Send me a wire to say if you will come, or if you would
+rather that I came to Cornbridge.
+
+“At any rate, be sure that if you are in any trouble or difficulty, or
+are worried and anxious, you have done just the right thing in
+appealing for help to
+
+“Your old friend,
+“HUGH.”
+
+
+He rang the bell for Mrs. Bonner.
+
+“Mrs. Bonner, I find I am obliged to go away for a time.”
+
+“You mean—”
+
+“No,” he said, “I don’t. I mean that my absence will be temporary. I
+can’t say exactly how long I shall be away, but in the meantime I would
+like to keep my rooms here.”
+
+Mrs. Bonner’s face cleared. “Oh yes,” she said, “ezackly, I see!”
+
+“I shall run up to Town to-night, and I will write you or wire you when
+you may expect me back. It may be a week, it may be less; anyhow, I
+shall come back.”
+
+“I am very glad to hear that, Mr. Alston,” said Mrs. Bonner heartily.
+
+“I shan’t take many things with me, just enough for the night. I’ll go
+and pack my bag, and clear off to catch the six o’clock up train.”
+
+Why not go down to Hurst Dormer to-night, and send off this letter to
+Marjorie from Town instead of posting it here? He could see to a few
+things in Hurst Dormer on the morrow, see Marjorie, arrange her little
+troubles and then be back here by Saturday; but as he was not sure of
+his movements he left it that he would wire Mrs. Bonner his probable
+time of returning.
+
+“One thing, I’ll be able to have a good clear-up when he’s gone,” Mrs.
+Bonner thought. Forever her thoughts turned in the direction of soap
+and water. The temporary absence of anyone meant to Mrs. Bonner an
+opportunity for a good clean, and she had already started one that very
+evening when there came a tapping on her door.
+
+“Now, whoever is that worriting this time of the night?” With sleeves
+rolled up over bare and plump arms she went to the door.
+
+“Oh, good evening, Mrs. Bonner. I ’eard about you losing your lodger.”
+
+Mrs. Bonner stared into the darkness.
+
+“Oh, it’s you!” Judging by the expression of her voice, the visitor was
+not a favoured one.
+
+“Yes, it’s me!”
+
+“Well, what do you want, Alice Betts?”
+
+“Oh, nothing. I thought I’d just call in friendly-like.”
+
+“Very good of you, only I’m busy cleaning up.”
+
+“Men do make a mess, don’t they? Fancy ’is going off like that. I
+wonder if the letter had anything to do with it?”
+
+“Letter?”
+
+“Yes, the one Miss Joan give our Bob to bring ’im this afternoon.”
+
+“Ha!” said Mrs. Bonner. “I shouldn’t be surprised.”
+
+“Nor should I. I wonder what he is to her, don’t you?”
+
+“No, I don’t. I ain’t bothered my head thinking. It ain’t none of my
+business, Alice Betts.”
+
+Alice Betts giggled.
+
+“Well, any’ow he’s gone,” she said, and Mrs. Bonner did not contradict
+her. “And gone sudden.”
+
+“Very!”
+
+“Depend on it, it was the letter done it. Well, I won’t be keeping
+you.”
+
+“No, I ain’t got no time for talking,” said Mrs. Bonner, and closed the
+door. “A nosey Parker if ever there was one! Always shoving ’er saller
+face where she ain’t wanted. I can’t abide that gel!”
+
+Miss Alice Betts hurried off to the Bettses’ cottage in Starden.
+
+“I got a letter to write in a ’urry. Give me a paper and envelope,” she
+demanded.
+
+
+“MISTER P. SLOTMAN, Dear sir,” Alice wrote. “This is to imform you, as
+agreed, that Mister Alston has gone. Miss Jone writ him a letter, what
+about cannot say, only as soon as he gets it, he packs up and leaves
+Starden. I have been to Mrs. Bonner’s to make sure and find it is
+correck, him having packed up and gone to London. So no more at present
+from yours truely, MISS ALICE BETTS.”
+
+
+And this letter, addressed to Mr. P. Slotman at the new address with
+which he had furnished her, went out from Starden by the early morning
+mail.
+
+After Mrs. Bonner’s comfortable but restricted cottage, it was good to
+be back in the spacious old rooms of Hurst Dormer. Hugh Alston was a
+home man. He had wired Mrs. Morrisey, and now he was back. To-night he
+slept once again in his own bed, the bed he had slept in since boyhood.
+
+The following morning brought a telegram delivered by a shock-headed
+village urchin.
+
+
+“I will be with you and so glad to see you on Saturday—MARJORIE.”
+
+
+Saturday, and he had hurried so that he might see her to-day.
+
+It was not till late Saturday afternoon that Marjorie came at last, and
+Hugh had been fuming up and down, looking for her since early morning.
+Yet if he felt any ill-temper at her delay it was gone at a sight of
+the little face, so white and woebegone, so frankly miserable and
+unhappy that his heart ached for the child.
+
+“Oh, Hugh, it is so good to see you again.”
+
+He kissed her. What else could he do? And then, holding her hand and
+drawing it through his arm, he led her into the house. He rang the bell
+for tea, for it was tea-time when she came.
+
+“You are going to have a good tea first, then you are going to tell me
+all your troubles, and we are going to put them all straight and right.
+And then—then, Marjorie, you are going to smile as you used to.”
+
+A faint smile came to her lips, her eyes were on his face. “Oh, Hugh,
+if—if you knew how—how good it is to see you again and hear you speak
+to me.”
+
+He put his hand on her shoulders.
+
+“It is always good to me to see you,” he said softly. “You’re one of
+the best things in my world, Marjorie, little maid.”
+
+She bent her head, so that her soft cheek touched his hand, and what
+man could draw his hand away from that caress? Not Hugh Alston.
+
+And now came Phipps with the tea, which he arranged on the small table
+and retired.
+
+“It’s all right between them two,” he announced in the kitchen a little
+later. “She’ll be missus here after all, I’ll lay ten to one.”
+
+“Law bless and save us!” said cook. “I thought it was off, and she was
+going to marry young Mr. Arundel.”
+
+Ordinarily, Marjorie had the sensible appetite of a young country girl.
+To-day she ate nothing. She sipped her tea, and looked with great
+soulful, miserable eyes at Hugh.
+
+“And now, little girl, come, tell me.”
+
+“Oh, Hugh, not now. It is so difficult, almost impossible to tell you.
+I wrote that letter days and days before I posted it, and then I made
+up my mind all of a sudden to post it, and regretted it the moment
+after.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+She shook her head.
+
+“There is something wrong between you and Tom? Tell me, girlie!”
+
+She was silent for a moment. “There is—everything wrong between Tom
+and—and me. But it is my—my fault, not his. Oh, Hugh, it is all my
+fault!”
+
+“How?”
+
+“I—I don’t love him!” the girl gasped.
+
+“Eh?” Hugh started. He sat back and stared at her. “Why—you—I—I
+thought—”
+
+“So did I!” she cried, bursting into tears, “but I was wrong—wrong—all
+wrong. I didn’t understand!” Her breast was heaving, there were sobs in
+her throat, sobs she fought and struggled against.
+
+The dawn of understanding came to him. He believed he saw. She had
+fancied herself in love with Tom, and now she knew she was not—how did
+she know? For the simple reason that she found she was in love with
+someone else. Now who on earth could it be? he wondered.
+
+“Won’t you tell me all about it, dear?”
+
+“I—I can’t. Don’t ask me—I ought not to have written, I ought not to
+have come. I wish—I wish I had not. It is my fault, not Tom’s; he is
+good and kind and—and patient with me, and I know I am unkind and cross
+to him, and I feel ashamed of myself!”
+
+“Marjorie!”
+
+“Yes, Hugh?” She looked up.
+
+“Tell me the truth, dear,” he said gravely. “Do you realise that you
+are not in love with Tom because you know now that you are in love with
+someone else?”
+
+She did not answer in words, nodding speechlessly.
+
+“Is he a good man, dear?”
+
+“The best in the world, Hugh,” she said softly—“the finest, the
+dearest, and best.”
+
+“That’s bad!” Hugh thought. “But I might have guessed that she would
+say that, bless her little heart! Poor Tom!” He sighed. “So, after all,
+this beautiful muddle I have made of things goes for nothing! Do you
+care to tell me who he is, Marjorie?”
+
+“Don’t ask me—don’t ask me! I can’t tell you! I wish I hadn’t come. I
+had no right to ask you to—to listen to me. I wish I hadn’t written
+now!”
+
+He came across to her and put his hand on her shoulder. He bent and
+kissed the bright hair.
+
+“Little girl, remember always that I am your old friend and your true
+friend, who would help you in every way at any time. I am not of much
+use, I am afraid; but such as I am, I am at your service, dear, always,
+always! Tell me, what can I do? How can I help you?”
+
+“Nothing, nothing, you—you can’t help me, Hugh!”
+
+“Can I see Tom?”
+
+“No, oh no, you must not!”
+
+“Can I see—the other? Marjorie, does he know? Has he spoken to you—not
+knowing perhaps of your engagement to Tom?”
+
+She shook her head. “He—he doesn’t know anything!”
+
+Silence fell on them.
+
+“Don’t think about it any more, you can’t help me. Hugh, where have you
+been all this long time?”
+
+“I have been in Kent, at Starden.”
+
+“Is—is that where she—”
+
+“Joan? Yes! she lives there. I have been there, believing I can help
+her, and I shall help her!”
+
+“You—you love her so?”
+
+“Better than my life,” he said quietly, and never dreamed how those
+four words entered like a keen-edged sword into the heart of the girl
+who heard them.
+
+She rose almost immediately.
+
+“I am a foolish, silly girl, and—and, Hugh, I want you to forget what I
+told you. I shall forget it. I shall go back to—to Tom, and I will try
+and be worthy of him, try and be good-tempered and—all he wants me to
+be. Good-bye, Hugh!”
+
+It seemed to him that she had changed suddenly, changed under his very
+eyes; the tenderness and the tears seemed to have vanished. She spoke
+almost coldly, and with a dignity he had never seen in her before, and
+then she went with scarce a look at him, leaving him sorely puzzled.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+GONE
+
+
+“DEAR JOAN,
+
+“I daresay you will wonder at not having heard from me for so long, but
+I have been busy. Things have been going from bad to worse with me of
+late, and I have been obliged to give up the old offices in Gracebury.
+I often think of the days when we were so much together, as I daresay
+you do. Naturally I miss you, and naturally I want to see you again. I
+feel that you seemed to have some objection to my coming to your house.
+That being so, I wish to consult your wishes in every way, and so I am
+writing to suggest that you meet me to-morrow, that is Saturday night,
+on the Little Langbourne Road. I daresay you will wonder why I am so
+familiar with your neighbourhood, but to tell you the truth I am
+naturally so interested in you that I have been down quietly several
+times—motoring, just to look round and hear news of you from local
+gossip, which is always amusing. I have heard of your engagement, of
+course, and I am interested; but we will talk of that when we
+meet—to-morrow night at the gate leading into the field where the big
+ruined barn stands, about half a mile out of Starden on the Little
+Langbourne Road at nine o’clock. This is definite and precise, isn’t
+it? It will then be dark enough for you to be unobserved, and you will
+come. I am sure you will come. You would not anger and pain an old
+friend by refusing.
+
+“I hear that the happy man is a sort of gentleman farmer who lives at
+Buddesby in Little Langbourne. If by any chance I should fail to see
+you at the place of meeting, I shall put up at Little Langbourne, and
+shall probably make the acquaintance of Mr. John Everard.
+
+“Believe me,
+“Your friend,
+“PHILIP SLOTMAN.”
+
+
+It was a letter that all the world might read, and see no deep and
+hidden meaning behind it, but Joan knew better. She read threat and
+menace in every line. The man threatened that if she did not keep this
+appointment he would go to Langbourne and find John Everard, and then
+into John Everard’s ears he would pour out his poisoned, lying,
+slanderous story.
+
+Better a thousand times that she herself should go to Johnny and tell
+him the whole truth, hiding nothing. Yet she knew that she could not do
+that; her pride forbade. If she loved him—then it would be different.
+She could go to him, she could tell him everything, laying bare her
+soul, just because she loved him. But she did not love him. She liked
+him, she admired him, she honoured him; but she did not love him, and
+in her innermost heart she knew why she did not love Johnny Everard,
+and never would.
+
+But the letter had come, the threat was here. What could she do? to
+whom turn? And then she remembered that hard by her own gate was a man,
+the man to whom she owed all this, all her troubles and all her
+annoyance and shame, but a man who would fight for and protect and
+stand by her. Her heart swelled, the tears gathered for a moment in her
+eyes.
+
+He had not answered the letter she had sent him a couple of days ago.
+She had looked for an answer, and had felt disappointed at not
+receiving one, though she had told herself that she expected none.
+
+For long Joan hesitated, pride fighting against her desire for help and
+support. But pride gave way; she felt terribly lonely, even though she
+was soon to be married to a man who loved her. To that man ought she to
+turn, yet she did not, and hardly even gave it a thought. She had made
+no false pretences to Johnny Everard. She had told him frankly that she
+did not love him, yet that if he were willing to take her without love,
+she would go to him.
+
+So now, having decided what she would do, Joan went to her room to
+write a letter to the man she must turn to, the man who had the right
+to help her. She flushed as the words brought another memory into her
+mind; the flush ran from brow to chin, for back into her mind came the
+words the man had uttered. Strange it was how her mind treasured up
+almost all that he had ever said to her.
+
+_“You gave me that right, Joan, when you gave me your heart!”_
+
+That was what he had said, and she would never forget, because she
+knew—that it was true.
+
+She went to her own room, where was her private writing-table. She
+found the room in the hands of a maid dusting and sweeping.
+
+“You need not go, Alice,” she said. “I am only going to write a
+letter.” The girl went on with her work.
+
+“I did not think to appeal to you, yet I find I must appeal for help
+that I know you will give, because but for you I should not need it.
+I—”
+
+She paused.
+
+“Funny, miss, Mrs. Bonner’s lodger going off like that in such a hurry,
+wasn’t it?” said the girl on her knees beside the hearth.
+
+Joan started. “What do you mean, Alice?”
+
+“The gentleman you gave our Bob a letter for—Mr. Alston,” said Alice
+Betts. “Funny his going off like he did in such a hurry.”
+
+“Then you—you mean he is gone?”
+
+“Thursday night, miss.”
+
+Gone! A feeling of desolation and helplessness swept over Joan.
+
+Gone when she had counted so on his help! She remembered what she had
+written: “I ask you earnestly to leave Starden,” and he had obeyed her.
+It was her own fault; she had driven him away, and now she needed him.
+
+The girl was watching her out of the corner of her small black eyes.
+She saw Joan tear up the letter she had commenced to write.
+
+“It was to him, she didn’t know he had gone,” Alice Betts thought, and
+Alice Betts was right.
+
+
+Mr. Philip Slotman had fallen on evil days, yet Mr. Philip Slotman’s
+wardrobe of excellent and tasteful clothes was so large and varied that
+poverty was not likely to affect his appearance for a long time to
+come.
+
+Presumably also his stock of cigars was large, for leaning against the
+gate beside the tumble-down barn he was drowning the clean smell of the
+earth and the night with the more insinuating and somewhat sickly smell
+of a fine Havannah.
+
+Some way down the road, perhaps a quarter of a mile distant, stood a
+large shabby car drawn up against a hedge, and in that car dozed a
+chauffeur.
+
+Mr. Slotman took out his watch and looked at it in the dim light.
+
+It was past nine, and he muttered an oath under his breath.
+
+“She won’t be such a fool as not to come now that fellow’s gone!” he
+thought, and he was right, for a few moments later she was there.
+
+“So you did come?”
+
+“I am here,” Joan said quietly. “You wish to speak to me?”
+
+“Don’t be so confoundedly hold-off! Aren’t you going to shake hands?”
+
+“Certainly not!”
+
+“Oh, very well!” he snarled. “Don’t then. Still putting on your airs,
+my lady!”
+
+“I am here to hear anything you wish to say to me. Any threats that you
+have to make, any bargain that you wish to propose. I thought when I
+paid you that money—”
+
+“That money’s gone; it went in a few hours.”
+
+He felt savagely angry at her calmness, at her pride and superiority.
+Why, knowing what he knew, she ought to be pretty well on her knees to
+him.
+
+“Please tell me what you wish to see me about and let me go. It is
+money, of course?”
+
+Her voice was level, filled with scorn and utter contempt, and it made
+the man writhe in helpless fury.
+
+“Look here, stow that!” he said coarsely. “Don’t ride the high horse
+with me. Remember I know you, know all about you. I know who you are
+and what you are, and—and don’t—don’t”—he was stuttering and stammering
+in his rage—“don’t think you can put me in my place, because you
+can’t!”
+
+Joan did not answer.
+
+“If I want money I’ve got a right to ask for it! And I do. I’ve got
+something to sell, ain’t I?—knowledge and silence. And silence is worth
+a lot, my girl, when a woman’s engaged to be married, and when there’s
+things in her past she don’t care about people knowing of. Yes, Miss
+Joan Meredyth, my lady clerk on three quid a week was one person, but
+Miss Meredyth of Starden Hall, engaged to be married to Mr. John
+Everard of Buddesby, is another, ain’t she?”
+
+“Please say what you have to say,” she said coldly. “I do not wish to
+stay here with you.”
+
+“But you are going to,” he said. “You are going to!” He reached out
+suddenly and gripped her hand. He had expected that she might struggle;
+it would have been human if she had, but she didn’t.
+
+“Please release my hand,” she said coldly. “I do not wish to stay here
+with you!” She paused. “Tell me why you wish to see me!”
+
+He dropped her hand with a snarling oath.
+
+“Well, if you want to know, it is money, and this time it is good
+money. I am up against it, and I’ve got to have money. I’ve been down
+here several times, hunting round, listening to things, hearing things.
+I heard about your engagement. I have heard about you. Oh, everyone
+looks up to you round here—Miss Meredyth of Starden!” He laughed. “And
+it is going to pay Miss Meredyth of Starden to shut my mouth, ain’t it?
+June, nineteen eighteen, ain’t so long ago, is it? Mr. Hugh Alston—hang
+him!—you set him on to me, didn’t you?”
+
+“So you have seen him?”
+
+“I saw him, curse him! He came and—and—”
+
+“Thrashed you?” Joan asked quietly “I thought he might!”
+
+“Stop it! Stop your infernal airs!” he almost shouted. “I am here for
+money, and I want it, and mean to have it—five thousand this time!”
+
+“I shall not pay you!”
+
+“Oh, you won’t—you won’t! Then I go to Buddesby. I’ll have a little
+chat there. I’ll tell them a few things about Marlbury and about a trip
+to Australia that did not come off, and about a marriage that never
+took place. I’ve got quite a lot to chat about at Buddesby, and I
+shan’t be done when I’m through there either. There’s a nice little inn
+in Starden, isn’t there? If one talked much there it would soon get
+about the place!”
+
+Under cover of the darkness her cheeks flamed, but her voice was still
+as cold and as steady as before.
+
+“Have you ever considered,” she asked quietly, “that what you think you
+know, may not be true?”
+
+“It is true! And if it isn’t true, it is good enough for me; but it is
+true!”
+
+“It is not!”
+
+He laughed. “It is—at any rate I think so, and others’ll think so.
+It’ll want a lot of explaining away, Joan, won’t it? if even it isn’t
+true. But I know better. Well, what about it—about the money?”
+
+“I shall consider,” she said quietly. “I paid you before, blackmail! If
+I asked you if this was the final payment, and you said Yes. I know
+that I need not believe you, so—so I shall consider. I shall take time
+to think it over.”
+
+“Oh, you will?”
+
+“Yes!”
+
+Down the road came a cart. It lumbered along slowly, the carter
+trudging at the horse’s head. Slotman looked at the slow-coming figure
+and cursed under his breath.
+
+“When shall I hear?”
+
+“I shall think it over, decide how I shall act, whether I shall pay you
+this money or not,” she said. “In a few days, this day week, not
+before.” She turned away.
+
+“And—and if I go to Buddesby and get talking?”
+
+“Then of course I pay you nothing!” she said calmly.
+
+That was true. Slotman gritted his teeth. Two minutes later the carter
+trudging on his way passed a solitary man smoking by a gate, and far
+down the road a woman walked quickly towards Starden.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+“FOR HER SAKE”
+
+
+Into Hugh Alston’s life had come two women, women he had loved, both
+now engaged to be married to other men, and Hugh Alston was a sorely
+worried and perplexed man about both of them.
+
+“I’ll go to Cornbridge to-morrow,” said Hugh, and he went.
+
+“Where,” asked Lady Linden, “the dickens have you been?”
+
+“In the country!”
+
+“Isn’t your own country good enough for you?” She looked at him
+shrewdly. She saw the worry in his face; it was too open and too honest
+to make concealment of his feelings possible.
+
+Marjorie welcomed him with tearful gladness in her eyes. She said
+nothing, she held his hand tightly. Not till afterwards did she thank
+him for coming.
+
+“I felt you would,” she said. “I knew you would!”
+
+And so he was glad he came.
+
+And was she? She wondered, better a thousand times for her and her
+happiness if she never saw him again. So long as she lived she would
+not forget those four words that had entered like a sword into her
+heart and had slain for ever the last hope of happiness for her—“Better
+than my life!”
+
+It was odd how women remembered Hugh Alston’s words. How even on this
+very day another woman was remembering, and was fighting a fight, pride
+and obstinacy opposed to fear and loneliness and weariness of soul.
+
+Hugh noticed a change in Tom.
+
+“Hello, Alston,” said Tom, and gripped him by the hand; but it was a
+weary and dispirited voice and grip, unlike those of Tom Arundel of
+yore.
+
+They walked about Lady Linden’s model farm together, Tom acting as
+showman with no little pride, and yet behind even the enthusiasm there
+was a weariness that Hugh detected.
+
+“And the wedding, Tom?” Hugh asked him presently. “When is it to be?”
+
+Tom looked up. “I don’t know, Alston, sometimes I think never. Alston,
+you—you’ve seen her. You remember her as she was, the sweetest, dearest
+girl in the world, her eyes and her heart filled with sunshine, and
+now...” The lad’s voice trailed off miserably.
+
+“Hugh, I can’t make her out; it worries me and puzzles me and—and hurts
+me. She is so different, she takes me up so sharply. I—I know I am a
+fool, I know I am not fit to touch her little hand. I know that I am
+not a man—like you, a man a girl could look up to and respect, but I’ve
+always loved her, Hugh, and I’ve kept straight. There are things I
+might have done and didn’t do—for her sake. I just thought of her,
+Hugh, and so—so I’ve lived a decent life!”
+
+Hugh’s eyes kindled, for he knew that what the boy said was truth.
+
+Thursday afternoon saw Hugh back at Hurst Dormer. It was a week now
+since he had left Starden. She had asked him to leave, and he had left,
+yet not exactly for that reason. His coming here had done no good, had
+only given him fresh worry and anxiety, and now he realised that all
+his sympathy was for Tom and not for Marjorie.
+
+“Oh, my Lord! Uncertain, coy and hard to please is correct, and I
+suppose some of them can be ministering angels—yes, God bless them!
+I’ve seen them!” His face softened, his thoughts flew back to other
+days, days of strife and bloodshed, of misery and death, days when men
+lay helpless and in pain, and in memory Hugh saw the gentle,
+soft-footed girls at their work of mercy. Ministering angels—God’s own!
+
+“Mrs. Morrisey, I am going to London.”
+
+“Very good, sir!” Mrs. Morrisey was giving up all hopes of this
+restless young master of hers. “Very good, sir!”
+
+“I shall be back”—he paused—“eventually, if not sooner!”
+
+“Certainly, sir!” said Mrs. Morrisey, who had no sense of humour.
+
+“Meanwhile, send on any letters to the Northborough Hotel. I shall
+catch the seven-thirty,” said Hugh.
+
+“I’ll order the car round, sir,” said Mrs. Morrisey.
+
+And this very day at Starden pride broke down; the need was so great.
+It was not the money that the man demanded, but the bonds that paying
+it would forge about her, bind her for all time.
+
+
+“Please come to me here. I want your help. I am in great trouble, and
+there is no one I can turn to but you.
+
+“JOAN.”
+
+
+And not till after the letter was in the post did she remember that she
+had signed it with her Christian name only.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+CONNIE DECLARES
+
+
+“My dear Connie!” Helen Everard was amazed. “My dear Connie, why talk
+such nonsense? This marriage between Joan and Johnny is the best, the
+very best possible thing in the world for him. Joan is—”
+
+“I know all she is, Helen,” said Connie; “no one knows better than I
+do. I know she is lovely; she is good, she is rich, and she is
+cold—cold to Johnny. She doesn’t love him; and I love him, Helen, and I
+hate to think that Johnny should give his life to a woman who does not
+care for him!”
+
+Helen shrugged her shoulders. “Sometimes, Connie with her queer
+unworldly notions annoys me,” she thought.
+
+“At any rate, dear child, it is all arranged, and whatever you and I
+say will not matter in the least. But, all the same, I am sorry you are
+opposed to the marriage.”
+
+“I am!” said Connie briefly.
+
+She had declared herself, as she had known sooner or later she must,
+and she had declared on the side of the girl who loved Johnny Everard
+better than her life.
+
+At home Johnny wondered at the change that had come to the two women
+whom he loved and believed in. It seemed to him that somehow they were
+antagonistic to him, they seemed to cling together.
+
+Ellice deliberately avoided him. When he asked her to go out, as in the
+old days, she refused, and when he felt hurt Connie sided with her.
+
+“Con, what does it mean?” he cried in perplexity.
+
+“Nothing. What should it mean?”
+
+“But it does. Ellice hardly speaks to me. When I speak to her she just
+answers. You—you”—he paused—“and you are different even. What have I
+done?”
+
+“You have done nothing—yet, Johnny. It is what you are going to do—that
+troubles me and makes me anxious.”
+
+He stared, open-eyed.
+
+“How?”
+
+“Your marriage!”
+
+“With Joan. You mean that you are against her?”
+
+“I am against any woman who would have you for a husband and give you
+none of her heart,” cried Connie.
+
+“Why—why?” he stammered. “Con, you couldn’t expect that Joan would fall
+in love with a chap like me?”
+
+“Then why is she going to marry you? Isn’t marriage a union of love and
+hearts? Oh, Johnny, I am anxious, very anxious. I hate it, this
+loveless marriage—”
+
+“But I love her!” he said reverently.
+
+“Do you—can you go on loving her? Can you? Your own heart starved, can
+you continue to love and give again and again? No, no, I know
+better—the time will come when you will realise you have married a cold
+and beautiful statue, and your heart will wither and shrivel within
+you, Johnny.”
+
+“Con, in time I will make her care for me a little.”
+
+“She never will!”
+
+“Why?”
+
+Connie looked out of the window. “Johnny, dear, if I am saying
+something that will hurt you, will you forgive me?—knowing that I love
+you so dearly, that all I want to see is your happiness, that I hate to
+see you imposed on, made a fool of, made a convenience of!”
+
+“Connie, what do you mean?”
+
+“I mean that I believe that Joan Meredyth will never love you, because
+all the heart she has to give has been given to someone else.”
+
+“You have no right to say that. What do you know? What can you know?”
+
+“I know nothing. I can only guess. I can only stumble and grope in the
+dark. Think! That woman, lovely, sweet, brilliant, could she accept all
+that you offer her and give nothing in return if she were heart-free?
+Wouldn’t your love for her appeal to her, touch her, force some
+tenderness in response? Oh, I have watched her. I have seen, and I have
+guessed what I know must—must be true. For she is all woman; she is no
+cold icicle, but you have not touched her heart, Johnny, and you never
+will, and so—so, my dear,” Connie’s voice choked with a sob, “you’ll
+hate me for this—Johnny!”
+
+He went to her, put his arm about her, and held her tightly and kissed
+her.
+
+“To prove my hate, dear,” he whispered, and then he went out with a
+very thoughtful look on his face.
+
+In the yard he saw Ellice.
+
+“Gipsy girl,” he said, “come with me. Let’s go out—anywhere in the car
+for a ride—it doesn’t matter where. Come with me!”
+
+Her face flushed, then paled.
+
+“No thank you!” she said coldly. “I am busy doing something for Joan.”
+
+Johnny sighed with disappointment, there was pain in his eyes too. In
+the old days she would not have refused; she would have come gladly.
+
+“My little Gipsy girl is against me too!” He walked away slowly and
+dejectedly, and the girl watched him. She lifted her hands and pressed
+them hard against her breast, and then—then Johnny heard the light fall
+of swift-moving feet. He felt a clutch on his arm, and turned. He saw a
+flushed face, bright eyes were looking into his.
+
+“If—if you want me to, I’ll come,” she said. “I’ll come with
+you—anywhere!”
+
+He did not answer. His hands had dropped on to her shoulders; he stood
+there holding her and looking into her face, glowing with a beauty that
+he had never seen in it before, and in his eyes was still that puzzled
+look, the look of a man who does not quite understand.
+
+“Why, Gipsy girl!” he said slowly, “you are a woman—you have grown up
+all suddenly.”
+
+“Yes, I am—I am a woman!” She laughed, but the laughter ended in a sob.
+She bent her head, and Johnny, strangely puzzled, slipped his arm about
+her and drew her a little closer to him.
+
+He had thought her a child; but she was a woman, and he had seen in her
+eyes that which set his dull wits wondering.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+“HE HAS COME BACK”
+
+
+It was exactly a week since his departure that Hugh returned to
+Starden, and found Mrs. Bonner a little surprised, but by no means
+unready.
+
+“You said as you’d send me a message, sir,” she said.
+
+“I did, and I haven’t done it—I’ll take the consequences.” But there
+were no consequences to take. She prepared him an ample meal at the
+shortest notice, and was willing enough to stop and talk to him while
+he ate it.
+
+“Anything new, anything fresh?”
+
+“Nothing!”
+
+“No strangers about Starden?”
+
+“No!”
+
+Had Slotman been? That was what Hugh wanted to know. Presently he asked
+the question direct.
+
+“You don’t happen to have seen that man I described to you some time
+back, a stout man with a lean face, overdressed, thick red lips, small
+eyes?”
+
+“Law bless us! yes. I see him two days ago, drove past he did in a
+car—a shabby-looking car it was, but he didn’t stop. He just stared at
+the cottage as he drove past, and I got an idea he smiled, only I ain’t
+sure. I am sure of one thing, however; he did stare terribul hard at
+this cottage!”
+
+“You are sure it is the man?”
+
+Mrs. Bonner described Mr. Slotman’s appearance vividly, and Mr.
+Slotman, had he been there, might not have been pleased to hear of the
+impression he had made on the good woman.
+
+“A man,” she concluded, “as I wouldn’t trust, not a hinch!”
+
+“It’s the man!” Hugh thought. “And he’s come back, as I thought he
+would. Funny he should look at the cottage! Good Lord! I wonder if he
+has spies about here?”
+
+“Anyone else been? I suppose no one came here to ask about me, for
+instance, Mrs. Bonner?”
+
+“No one, sir, not a soul, no—stay a moment. The day you left that there
+nosey Parker of a gel Alice Betts came. I couldn’t make out whatever
+she came for. Me, I don’t ’old with them Bettses, anyhow she came. It
+was her brother that brought you that letter from Miss Joan Meredyth
+the day you went, sir, and she said something about ’earing as I’d lost
+my lodger.”
+
+“I see. And who is Alice Betts?”
+
+“Her—she be a maid at Starden Hall.”
+
+“I see,” Hugh repeated. “I see! Mrs. Bonner,” he said, “will you do
+something for me?”
+
+“Anything, of course!”
+
+“Will you take a letter for me to Miss Joan Meredyth?”
+
+Would she not? Mrs. Bonner caught her breath. Then there was something
+between these two, even though Miss Joan Meredyth was engaged to marry
+Mr. John Everard of Buddesby!
+
+“Mrs. Bonner,” said Hugh a few minutes later, “I am going to trust you
+absolutely. Miss Meredyth and I—are—old friends. It is urgent that I
+see her. I want you to take this letter to her; tell no one at the Hall
+that the letter is from me, tell no one that I am back. No one knows. I
+did not meet a soul on the road from the station, and I don’t want my
+presence here known. I am trusting you!”
+
+“You can, sir!”
+
+“I am sure of it. Take that note to Miss Meredyth, ask to see her
+personally. Don’t mention my name. Give her that letter, and if, when
+she has read it, she will come with you, bring her here, because I must
+see her, and to-night.”
+
+It was Alice Betts who opened the door to Mrs. Bonner.
+
+“Oh, good evening, Mrs. Bonner!”
+
+“I didn’t come ’ere to bandy no words with you,” said Mrs. Bonner. “I
+never held with you, Alice Betts,” she added severely.
+
+“I don’t see what I’ve done!”
+
+“No pre-aps you don’t. Anyhow, I’m here to see your mistress. You go
+and tell her I am here.”
+
+“If I say I’ve brought a letter that gel will guess who it is from,”
+Mrs. Bonner thought, so, wisely, she held her peace.
+
+A few minutes later Mrs. Bonner was shewn into the drawing-room. She
+dropped a curtsey.
+
+“You want to see me?”
+
+“Yes, miss, but first—excuse me, miss!”
+
+Mrs. Bonner hurriedly opened the door.
+
+“I thought so,” she said. “Didn’t you best be getting off to your
+work?”
+
+Alice Betts went.
+
+“A spy! If I might make so bold, miss, I’d get rid of her. Them Bettses
+never was no good, what with the drink and things. I got a letter for
+you, miss, only I didn’t want that gel to know it.”
+
+“Joan, I am back again. No one knows that I am, here except Mrs. Bonner
+and now yourself. I have reasons for wishing my return to remain
+unknown. But I must see you. You will believe that I would not ask you
+to come to me here if there was not urgent need.”
+
+There was urgent need, and she knew it, for had she not written that
+appeal to him barely twenty-four hours ago? There had been no delay
+this time in his coming.
+
+“And he, Mr. Alston, is at your cottage?”
+
+“Yes, miss, came back only about a hour ago, and he’s waiting there. He
+told me maybe you might come back with me, and he’s trusting me not to
+tell anyone he’s here, miss.”
+
+“Yes, I understand. And, Mrs. Bonner, you think that girl is a spy?”
+
+“I know it. Wasn’t she starting to listen at the keyhole and me hardly
+inside the room?”
+
+Joan was silent for a moment. “Go back! Tell him—I shall
+come—presently. Tell him I am grateful to him for coming so quickly.”
+
+“I’ll tell him.”
+
+Mrs. Bonner was gone, and Joan sat there hesitating. A trembling fit of
+nervousness had come to her, a sense of fear, strangely mingled with
+joy.
+
+“I must go, there is no one else, but—I do not wish to see him,” and
+yet she knew that she did. She wished to see him more than she wanted
+to see anything on earth. So presently when Helen, who retired early,
+had gone upstairs, Joan slipped a cloak over her shoulders and stole
+out of the house as surreptitiously as any maid stealing to a love
+tryst.
+
+In Mrs. Bonner’s tiny sitting-room Hugh was pacing restlessly in the
+confined space, pausing now and again to listen.
+
+She was coming—coming. Presently she would be here, presently he would
+see her, this girl of his dreams, standing before him with the
+lamplight on her sweet face.
+
+But it was not to pour out the story of his love that he had sent for
+her to-night. He must remember that she came unattended, unprotected,
+relying on his chivalry. Hugh took a grip on himself, and now he heard
+the familiar creaking of the little gate, and in a moment was at the
+door. But the excitement, the enthusiasm of just now was passed.
+
+He looked at her standing before him. Looking at her, he pictured her
+as he had seen her before, cold and haughty, her eyes hard and bright,
+her lips curved with scorn for him, and now—he saw her with a flush in
+her cheeks, and the brightness of her eyes was not cold, but soft and
+misty, and her red-lipped mouth trembled.
+
+Once he had seen her as now, all sweetness and tenderness. And so in
+his dreams of her had he pictured her, and now he saw her so again, and
+knew that his love for her and need of her were greater even than he
+had believed.
+
+“I sent for you, Hugh.” She hesitated, and again the colour deepened in
+her cheeks.
+
+“You sent for me, dear?”
+
+“Because I need you. I want your advice, perhaps your help. He—he came
+back again.”
+
+“When?”
+
+“Last Saturday.”
+
+“And I left here Thursday,” he smiled. “Joan, you have a spy in your
+house who reports my movements and yours to Slotman. No sooner was I
+gone from here than he was advised, and so he came. Now do you
+understand why I am here. I knew that man would come. He needs money,
+there is the magnet of your gold. He will never leave you in peace
+while he thinks you alone and unprotected, but while I was here you
+were safe, for he is a very coward.”
+
+“And that was why you came, knowing that he—”
+
+She paused. “And I—I cut you in the street, Hugh.”
+
+“And hurt yourself by doing it,” he said softly.
+
+“Yes.” She bowed her head, and then suddenly she thrust the softness
+and the tenderness from her, for they must be dangerous things when she
+loved this man as she did, and was promised to another.
+
+“I must not forget that—I am—” She paused.
+
+“Promised to another man? But you will never carry out that promise,
+Joan—you cannot, my dear! You cannot, because you belong to me. But it
+was not of that that you came to speak. Only remember what I have said.
+It is true.”
+
+“It cannot be true. I never break a promise! What am I to do? Tell me
+and advise me. You know—what he—he says—what he thinks or—or pretends
+to think.” Again the burning flush was in her cheeks.
+
+“I know!”
+
+“And even though it is all a vile and cruel lie, yet I could not bear—”
+
+“You shall not suffer!”
+
+“Don’t—don’t you understand that if people should think—think of such a
+thing and me—that they should speak of it and utter my name—Lies or
+truth, it would be almost the same; the shame of it would be
+horrible—horrible!” She was trembling.
+
+“Tell me, have you seen this man?”
+
+“Yes, last Saturday. He wrote ordering me to meet him. In every line of
+the letter I read threats. I—I had to go; it was money, of course, five
+thousand pounds.”
+
+“And you didn’t promise?” His voice was harsh and sharp, and looking at
+him she saw a man changed, a man whose face was hard and stern, and
+whose mouth had grown bitter. And, knowing it was for her, she knew
+that she had never admired him before as she did now.
+
+“I promised nothing. I am to meet him again to-morrow night and—and
+tell him what I have decided. It is not the money, but—but to pay would
+seem as if I—I were afraid. And oh, I have paid before!”
+
+“I know! And to-morrow you will meet him?”
+
+“I—but—”
+
+“You will meet him, Joan, but I shall be there also. Tell me where!”
+
+She described the place, and he remembered it and knew it well enough.
+
+“I shall be there, remember that. Go without fear—answer as you decide,
+but remember you pay nothing—nothing. And then I,”—he paused, and
+smiled for the first time—“I will do the paying.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+THE DROPPING OF THE SCALES
+
+
+It was like turning back the pages of a well-loved book, a breath out
+of the past. For this afternoon it seemed to John Everard that his
+little friend, almost sister, had come back to him.
+
+And yet it seemed to Johnny, who studied her quietly, that here was one
+whom he had never known, never seen before. The child had been dear to
+him as a younger sister, but the child was no more.
+
+And to-day, for these few brief hours, Ellice gave herself up to a
+happiness that she knew could be but fleeting. To-day she would be the
+butterfly, living and rejoicing in the sun. The darkness would come
+soon enough, but to-day was hers and his.
+
+How far in his boldness John Everard drove that little car he did not
+quite realise, but it was a slight shock to him to read on a sign-post
+“Holsworth four miles,” for Holsworth was more than forty miles from
+Little Langbourne.
+
+“Gipsy, we must go back,” he said. “We’ll get some tea at the farmhouse
+we passed a mile back, and then we will hurry on. Con will be
+worrying.”
+
+They had tea at the little farmhouse, and sat facing one another, and
+more than ever grew the wonder in Johnny’s mind. Why—why had this girl
+changed so? What was the meaning of it, the reason for it? It was not
+the years, for a few days, a few short weeks had wrought the change.
+And then he remembered with a sense of shame and wrongdoing that,
+strangely enough, he had scarcely flung one thought to Joan all that
+long afternoon.
+
+And now in the dusk of the evening they set off on the homeward
+journey. And at Harlowe happened the inevitable, when one has only a
+small-sized tank, and undertakes a journey longer than the average, the
+petrol ran out. The car stopped after sundry spluttering explosions and
+back-firings.
+
+“Nothing else for it, Gipsy. I must tramp back to Harlowe and get some
+petrol—serves me right, I ought to have thought of it. Are you afraid
+of being left there with the car?”
+
+“Afraid!” She laughed. “Afraid of what, Johnny?”
+
+“Nothing, dear!”
+
+He set off patiently with an empty petrol tin in each hand, and she
+watched him till he was lost in the dusk.
+
+“Afraid!” she repeated. “Afraid only of one thing in this world—of
+myself, of my love for him!” And then suddenly sobs shook her, and she
+buried her face in her hands and cried as if her heart must break.
+
+It took Johnny a full hour to tramp to Harlowe and to tramp back with
+the two heavy tins, and then something seemed to go wrong. The car
+would not start up: another hour passed, and they had a considerable
+way to go, and then suddenly, seemingly without rhyme or reason, the
+car started and ran beautifully, and once more they were off and away.
+
+But they were very late when they came into Starden, and with still
+some six and a half miles to go before they could reassure Connie.
+
+“Connie will be worrying, Gipsy,” Johnny said. “You know what Connie
+is, bless her! She’ll think all sorts of tragedies—and—” He paused, his
+voice faltered, shook, and became silent.
+
+They were running past Mrs. Bonner’s cottage. The door of the cottage
+stood open, and against the yellow light within they could see the
+figure of a man and of a girl, and both knew the girl to be Joan
+Meredyth, and the man to be Mrs. Bonner’s lodger, the man that Joan had
+cut that day in Starden.
+
+The car was a quarter of a mile further down the road before either
+spoke, and then Johnny said, and his voice was jerky and uncertain:
+
+“Yes, Connie will be getting nervous. I shall be glad to have you
+home—Gipsy.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+“HER CHAMPION”
+
+
+Why should Joan have been at Mrs. Bonner’s cottage at such an hour? Why
+should she have been there talking to the very man whom she had a week
+ago cut dead in the village? Why, if she had anything to say to him,
+whoever he was, had she not sent for him rather than seek him at his
+lodgings?
+
+Questions that puzzled and worried Johnny Everard sorely, questions
+that he could not answer. Jealousy, doubt, and all the kindred feelings
+came overwhelmingly. Honest as the day, he never doubted a soul’s
+honesty. If he found out that a man whom he had trusted was a thief, it
+shocked him; he kicked the man out and was done with him, and nothing
+was left but an unpleasant memory, but Joan was different.
+
+Trust Joan? Of course he did, utterly and entirely.
+
+“I should be unworthy of her if I didn’t,” he thought. “In any case, I
+am not worthy of her. It is all right!”
+
+But was it all right?
+
+Connie had been naturally a little anxious. She, womanlike, had built
+up a series of tragedies in her mind, the worst of which was Johnny and
+Ellice lying injured and unconscious on some far distant roadway; the
+least a smashed and disabled car, and Johnny and Ellice sitting
+disconsolate on a roadside bank.
+
+But here they were, all safe and sound, and Connie bustled about,
+hurrying up the long delayed dinner, making anxious enquiries, and
+feeling a sense of relief and gratitude for their safe return, about
+which she said nothing at all.
+
+And now Connie was gone to bed, and Ellice too; and Johnny smoked his
+pipe and frowned over it, and asked himself questions to which he could
+find no answer.
+
+“But I trust her, absolutely,” he said aloud. “Still, if she knows the
+man”—he paused—“why hasn’t she spoken to me about him? I am to be her
+husband soon, thank Heaven, but—”
+
+And then came more doubts and worries crowding into his mind, and his
+pipe went out, and he sat there, frowning at thoughts, greatly worried.
+
+Johnny Everard looked up at the sound of the opening of the door. In
+the doorway stood a little figure. He had never realised how little she
+was till he saw her now, standing there with her bare feet and a thin
+white dressing-gown over her nightdress, her hair hanging in great
+waving tresses about her oval face and shoulders and far down her back.
+
+She looked such a child—and yet such a woman, her great eyes anxiously
+on his face.
+
+“Johnny,” she said softly, “you have been worrying.”
+
+He nodded, speechless.
+
+“Why, Johnny?”
+
+“Because—because, Gipsy, I am a fool—a jealous fool, I suppose.”
+
+“If you doubt her honour and her honesty, Johnny, then you are a fool,”
+she said bravely, “because Joan could not be mean and treacherous and
+underhand. It would not be possible for her.”
+
+“I thought you did not—like Joan?”
+
+“And does that make any difference? Even if I do not like her, must I
+be unjust to her? I know she is fine and honourable and true and
+straight, and you must know that too, so—so why should you worry,
+Johnny? Why should you worry?”
+
+“Why has she never said one word to me about this man? Why did she
+refuse to recognise him that day when she saw you and him together? Why
+does she go to Mrs. Bonner’s cottage to meet him late at night?”
+
+He hurled at her all those questions that he had been asking himself
+vainly.
+
+“I do not know why,” Ellice said gravely, “but I know that, whatever
+the reason is, it is honourable and honest. Joan Meredyth,” she paused
+a little, with a catch of the breath, “Joan Meredyth could not be other
+than honest and true and—and straight, Johnny. It would not be her
+nature to be anything else.”
+
+“Why do you come here? Why do you come to tell me this, Gipsy?” He had
+risen, he stood looking at her—such a little thing, so graceful, so
+lovely with the colour in her cheeks, the light in her eyes, the light
+of her fine generosity. “Gipsy—” He became silent; looking at her,
+strange thoughts came—wild, impossible thoughts, thoughts that come
+when dreams end and one is face to face with reality. So many years he
+had known her, she had been part and parcel of his life, his everyday
+companion, yet it seemed to him that he had never known her till
+now—the fineness, the goodness of her, the beauty of her too, the
+womanliness of this child.
+
+“I came here to tell you, Johnny, because you let yourself doubt,” she
+said. “I heard you moving about the room restlessly, and that is not
+like you. Usually you sit here and smoke your pipe and think or read
+your paper. You never rise and move about the room as to-night.”
+
+“How do you know?”
+
+She laughed shortly. “I know—everything,” she said. “I listen to you
+night after night. I always have for years. I have heard you come up
+and go to your room, always. I always wait for that!”
+
+“Gipsy, why—why should you?”
+
+“Because,” she said—“because—” And then she said no more, and would
+have turned away, her errand done, but that he hastened to her and
+caught her by the hand.
+
+“Gipsy, wait. Don’t go. Why did you come to tell me this of Joan
+to-night?”
+
+“Because since you have asked her to be your wife, you belong to her,
+and you should not doubt her. She is above doubt—she could not be as
+some women, underhand and treacherous, deceitful. That would not be
+Joan Meredyth.”
+
+“And yet you do not like her, dear. Why not?”
+
+“I can’t—tell you.” She tried to wrench her hand free, yet he held it
+strongly, and looked down into her eyes.
+
+What did he see there? What tale did they in their honesty tell him,
+that hers lips must never utter? Was he less blind at this moment than
+ever before in his life? Johnny Everard never rightly understood.
+
+“Good night,” he said, “Gipsy, good night,” and would have drawn her to
+him to kiss her—as usual, but she resisted.
+
+“Please, please don’t!” she said, and looked at him.
+
+Her lips were quivering, there was a glorious flush in her cheeks; and
+in her eyes, a kind of fear. So he let her go, and opened the door for
+her and stood listening to the soft swish of her draperies as she sped
+up the dark stairs.
+
+Then very slowly Johnny Everard came back to his chair. He picked up
+his pipe and stared at it, yet did not see it. He saw a pair of eyes
+that seemed to burn into his, eyes that had betrayed to him at last the
+secret of her heart.
+
+“I didn’t know—I didn’t know,” Johnny Everard said brokenly. “I didn’t
+know, and oh, my God! I am not worthy of that! I am not worthy of
+that!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+“THE PAYING”
+
+
+Once again Mr. Philip Slotman was tainting the fragrant sweetness and
+freshness of the night with the aroma of a large and expensive J.S.
+Muria.
+
+Once again the big shabby old car stood waiting in the shadows, a
+quarter of a mile down the road, while he who hired it leaned against
+the gate under the shadow of the partly ruined barn.
+
+He had not the smallest doubt but that she would come. It was full
+early yet; but she would come, though, being a woman, she would in all
+probability be late.
+
+And she would pay, she dared not refuse him. Yet he needed more than
+the money, he thought, as he leaned at his ease against the gate and
+smoked his cigar.
+
+And now she was coming. He flung the half-smoked cigar away and waited
+as the dark figure approached him in the night.
+
+“You are early to-night, Joan.” He endeavoured to put softness and
+tenderness into his voice.
+
+“I am here at the time I appointed.”
+
+“To give me my answer—yes, but we won’t discuss that now. I want to
+speak to you about something else.”
+
+“Something other than money?”
+
+“Yes, do you think I always put money first?”
+
+“I had thought so, Mr. Slotman.”
+
+“You do me a wrong—a great wrong. There is something that I put far
+ahead of money, of gold. It is you—Joan, listen! you must listen!” He
+had gripped her arm and held tightly, and as before she did not
+struggle nor try to win free of him.
+
+“You shall listen to me. I have told you before many times that I love
+you.”
+
+He tried to drag her closer to him. And now she wrenched herself free.
+
+“I came to discuss money with you, not—not impossibilities.”
+
+“So—so that is it, is it? I am impossible, am I?”
+
+“To me—utterly. I have only one feeling for you, the deepest scorn. I
+don’t hate you, because you are too mean, too paltry, too low a thing
+to hate. I have only contempt for you.”
+
+He writhed under the cold and cutting scorn of her words and her voice,
+the evil temper in him worked uppermost.
+
+“So—so that’s the talk, is it?” he cried with a foul oath. “That’s it,
+is it? You—you two-penny ha’penny—” He choked foolishly over his words.
+
+“You!” he gasped, “what are you? What have you been? What about you
+and—”
+
+Again he was silent, writhing with rage.
+
+“Money—yes, it is money-talk, then, and by thunder I’ll make you pay!
+I’ll bleed you white, you cursed—” Again more foolish oaths, the clumsy
+cursing of a man in the grip of passion.
+
+“You shall pay! It’s money-talk, yes—you shall pay! We will talk in
+thousands, my girl. I said five thousand. It isn’t enough—what is your
+good name worth, eh? What is it worth to you? I could paint you a nice
+colour, couldn’t I? What will this fellow Everard say when I tell him
+what I can tell him? How the village fools will talk it over in their
+alehouse, eh? And in the cottages, how they will stare at Miss Meredyth
+of Starden when she takes her walks abroad. They’ll wink at one
+another, won’t they. They’ll remember! Trust ’em, they’ll never
+forget!”
+
+She felt sickened, faint, and horrified, yet she gave no sign.
+
+“Money you said!” he shouted, “and money it shall be! Ten thousand
+pounds, or I’ll give you away, so that every man and woman in Starden
+will count ’emselves your betters! I’ll give you away to the poor fool
+you think you are going to marry! There won’t be any wedding. I’ll
+swear a man couldn’t marry a thing—with such a name as I shall give
+you! Money, yes! you’ll pay! I want ten thousand pounds! Not five,
+remember, but ten, and perhaps more to follow. And if you don’t pay,
+there won’t be many who will not have heard about your imaginary
+marriage to that dog, Hugh Alston.”
+
+The girl drew a deep shuddering sigh. She pressed her hands over her
+breast. From the shadows about the old barn a deeper shadow moved,
+something vaulted the gate lightly and came down with a thud on the
+ground beside Mr. Philip Slotman.
+
+“Joan,” said a voice, “you will go away and leave this man to me. I
+will attend to the paying of him.”
+
+Slotman turned, his rage gone, a cold sweat of fear bursting out on his
+forehead; his loose jaw sagged.
+
+“A—a trap,” he gasped.
+
+“To catch a rat! And the rat is caught! Joan, go. I will follow
+presently.”
+
+No word passed between the two men as they watched the girl’s figure
+down the road. She walked slowly; once she seemed to hesitate as though
+about to turn back. And it was in her mind to turn back, to plead for
+mercy for this man, this creature. Yet she did not. She flung her head
+up. No, she would not ask for mercy for him: Hugh Alston was just.
+
+So in silence they watched her till the darkness had swallowed her.
+
+“So you refused to accept my warning, Slotman?”
+
+“I—I refuse to have anything to do with you. It is no business of
+yours, kindly allow me—”
+
+Slotman would have gone. Hugh thrust out a strong arm and barred his
+way.
+
+“Wait!” he said, “blackmailer!”
+
+“I—I was asking for a loan.”
+
+“A gift of money with threats—lying, infamous threats. How shall I deal
+with you?” Hugh frowned as in thought. “How can a man deal with a dog
+like you? Dog—may all dogs forgive me the libel! Shall I thrash you?
+Shall I tear the clothes from your body, and thrash you and fling you,
+bleeding and tattered, into that field? Shall I hand you over to the
+Police?”
+
+“You—you dare not,” Slotman said; his teeth were chattering. “It will
+mean her name being dragged in the mud, the whole thing coming out.
+You—you dare not do it.”
+
+“You are right. I dare not, for the sake of her name—the name of such a
+woman must never be uttered in connection with such a thing as
+yourself. How, then, shall I deal with you? It must be the thrashing,
+yet it is not enough. It is a pity the duel has gone out, not that you
+would have fought me with a sword or pistol, Slotman, still—Yes, it
+must be the thrashing.”
+
+“If you touch me—”
+
+Hugh laughed sharply. “If I touch you, what?”
+
+“I shall call for help. I shall summon you. I—”
+
+“Put your hands up.”
+
+“Help! help! help!”
+
+Down the road the tired chauffeur slumbered peacefully on the seat of
+the shabby car. He heard nothing, save some distant unintelligible
+sounds and the cooing of a wood-pigeon in an adjacent thicket.
+
+And then presently there came down the road a flying figure, the figure
+of a man who sobbed as he ran, a man from whom the clothes hung in
+ribbons, a man with wild staring eyes, and panting, labouring chest. He
+stumbled as he ran, and picked himself up again, to fall again. So,
+running, stumbling, falling, he came at last to the car and shrieked at
+the driver to awaken.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+“IS IT THE END?”
+
+
+Lady Linden, wearing a lilac printed cotton sunbonnet, her skirts
+pinned up about her, was busy with a trowel, disordering certain
+flower-beds that presently the gardeners would come and put right.
+
+“Idle women,” said her ladyship, “are my abomination. How a woman can
+moon about and do nothing is more than I can understand. Look at me, am
+I not always busy? From early morning to dewy eve I—Curtis!”
+
+“Yes, my lady?”
+
+“Come here at once,” said her ladyship. “I have dug up a worm. I
+dislike worms. Carry the creature away; don’t hurt it, Curtis. I
+dislike cruelty even to worms. Ugh! How you can touch the thing!”
+
+Curtis, under-gardener, trudged away with a large healthy worm dangling
+from thumb and forefinger, a sheepish grin on his face.
+
+“Those creatures have none of the finer feelings,” thought her
+ladyship. “Yet we are all brothers and sisters according to the Bible.
+I don’t agree with that at all. Curtis, come back; there is another
+worm.”
+
+Marjorie stood at the window, watching her aunt’s operations, yet
+seeing none of them. Her face was set and white and resolute, the soft
+round chin seemed to be jutting out more obstinately than usual.
+
+For Marjorie had made up her mind definitely, and she knew that she was
+about to hurt herself and to hurt someone else.
+
+But it must be. It was only fair, it was only just. Silence, she
+believed, would be wicked.
+
+The door behind her opened, and Tom Arundel came into the room. He was
+fresh from the stable, and smelled of straw.
+
+“Why, darling, is there anything up? I got your note asking me to come
+here at once. Joe gave it to me just as we were going to take out the
+brute Lady Linden has bought. Of all the vicious beasts! I wish to
+goodness she wouldn’t buy a horse without a proper opinion, but it is
+useless talking to her. She said she liked the white star on its
+forehead—white star! black devil, I call it! But I’ll break him in if I
+break my neck—doing it. But—I am sorry. You want me?”
+
+“I want to speak to you.”
+
+“Then you might turn and look at a chap, Marjorie.”
+
+“I—I prefer to—to look out through the window,” she said in a stifled
+voice.
+
+Standing in the room he beheld her, slim and graceful, dark against the
+light patch of the window, her back obstinately turned to him; looking
+at her, there came a great and deep tenderness into his face, the light
+of a very honest and intense love.
+
+“Tell me, sweetheart, then,” he said—“tell me in your own way, what is
+it? Nothing very serious, is it?” There was a suggestion of laughter in
+his voice.
+
+“It is very serious, Tom.”
+
+“Yes?”
+
+“It—it concerns you—me and you—our future.”
+
+“Yes, dear, then it is serious.” The laughter was gone; there came a
+look of fear, of anxiety into his eyes.
+
+It could not be that she was going to discard him, turn him down, end
+it all now? But she was.
+
+“Tom, it is only right and honest of me to tell you that—that”—her
+voice shook—“that I have made a mistake.”
+
+“That you do not love me?” he said, and his voice was strangely quiet.
+
+“Oh, Tom, I believed I did. It all seemed so different when we used to
+meet, knowing that everyone was against us. It seemed so romantic,
+so—so nice, and now ...” Her voice trailed off miserably.
+
+“And now, now, sweet,” and his voice was filled with tenderness and
+yearning, “now I fall far short of what you hoped for.”
+
+“Oh, it isn’t that. It is I—I—who am to blame, not you. I was a
+senseless, romantic little fool, a child, and now I am a woman.”
+
+“You don’t love me, Marjorie?”
+
+Silence for a moment, then she answered in a low voice: “No!”
+
+“Nor ever will, your love can’t come back again?”
+
+“I don’t think it—it was ever there. I was wrong; I did not understand.
+I was foolish and weak. I thought it fine to—to steal away and meet
+you. I think I put a halo of romance about your head, and now—”
+
+“A halo of romance about my head,” he repeated. He looked down at his
+hands, grimed with the work he had been at; he smiled, but there was no
+mirth in his smile.
+
+This was the end then! And he loved her, Heaven knew how he loved her!
+He looked at the unyielding little figure against the light, and in his
+eyes was a great longing and a subdued passion.
+
+“So it—it is the end, Marjorie?”
+
+“I want it to be.”
+
+“Yes, I understand. I knew that I was not good enough, never good
+enough for you—far, far beneath you, dear. Only I would have tried to
+make you happy—that is what I meant, you understand that? I would have
+given my life to making you happy, little girl. Perhaps I was a fool to
+think I could. I know now that I could not.”
+
+“Tom, I am sorry,” she said. “I am sorry.”
+
+He came to her, he put his hand on her arm.
+
+“Don’t blame yourself, dear,” he said, “don’t blame yourself. You can’t
+help your heart; you—you only thought you cared for me for a time, but
+it was just a fancy, and it—it passed, didn’t it? And now it is gone,
+and can never come back again. Of course it must end. Your
+wishes—always—mean everything to me.” He bent, he touched the white
+hand with his lips, and then turned away. Once at the door he looked
+back; but she did not move, the tears were streaming down her cheeks,
+and she did not want him to see them.
+
+How well he had taken it! How well, and yet he loved her! She realised
+now how much he loved her, how fine he was, and generous, even Hugh
+could not have been more generous than he.
+
+And Marjorie stood there like one in a dream, watching, yet seeing
+nothing, going over in her mind all that had passed, suffering the pain
+of it. And she had loved him once! Those mystic moonlight meetings, his
+young arms about her, his lips against hers—oh, she had loved him! And
+then had come the commonplace, the everyday, sordid side of it, he the
+accepted lover, high in Lady Linden’s favour, which meant the gradual
+awakening from a dream, her dream of love.
+
+“I am fickle, I am false. I do not know my own mind, and—and I have
+hurt him. I am not worthy of hurting him. He is better, finer than I
+ever thought.”
+
+Still Lady Linden prodded and trowelled at the neat bed, still she
+demanded occasional help from the patient Curtis; and now came a man,
+breathless and coatless, rushing across the lawn. He had news for her,
+something that must be told; gone was his accustomed terror of her
+ladyship. He told her what he had to say, and she dropped the trowel
+and ran—actually ran as Marjorie had never seen her run.
+
+She could have laughed, but for the pain at her heart. He had taken it
+so well; he had risen to a height she had not suspected him capable of,
+and the fault was hers, hers.
+
+What was that? What were they carrying? God help her! What was that
+they were carrying across the lawn? Why did they walk so quietly, so
+carefully? Why ask?
+
+She knew! Instinct told her. She knew! She flung out her hands and
+gripped at the window-frame and watched. She saw her aunt, her usually
+ruddy face drawn, haggard, and white. She saw something that lay
+motionless on a part of the old barn-door, which four men were carrying
+with such care. She saw a man on a bicycle dashing off down the drive.
+
+Why ask? She knew! And only just now, a few short minutes ago—no, no, a
+lifetime ago—she had told him she did not love him.
+
+“An accident, Marjorie.” Lady Linden’s voice was harsh, unlike her
+usual round tones. “An accident—that brute of a horse—girl, don’t,
+don’t faint.”
+
+“I am not going to. I want to help—him.”
+
+They had brought Tom Arundel into the house, had laid him on a bed in
+an upper room. The village doctor had come, and, finding something here
+beyond his skill, had sent off, with Lady Linden’s full approval, an
+urgent message to a surgeon of repute, and now they were
+waiting—waiting the issues of life and death.
+
+The servants looked at the white-faced, distraught girl pityingly. They
+remembered that she was to have been the dying man’s wife. The whole
+thing had been so sudden, was so shocking and tragic. No wonder that
+she looked like death herself; they could not guess at the
+self-reproach, the self-denunciation, nor could Lady Linden.
+
+“No one,” said her ladyship, “is to blame but me. It was my doing, my
+own pig-headed folly. The boy told me that the horse was a brute, and
+I—I said that he—if he hadn’t the pluck to try and break him in—I would
+find someone who would. I am his murderess!” her ladyship cried
+tragically. “Yes, Marjorie, look at me—look at the murderess of the man
+you love!”
+
+“Aunt!”
+
+“It is true. Revile me! I alone am guilty. I’ve robbed you of your
+lover.” Lady Linden was nearer to hysterics at this moment than ever in
+her life.
+
+“How long? how long?” she demanded impatiently. “How long will it be
+before that fool comes?”
+
+The fool was the celebrated surgeon wired for to London. He had wired
+back that he was on his way; no man could do more.
+
+But the waiting, the horrible waiting; the ceaseless watching and
+listening for the sound of wheels, the strange hush that had fallen
+upon the house, the knowledge that there in an upper chamber death was
+waiting, waiting to take a young life.
+
+Hours, every minute of which had seemed like hours themselves, hours
+had passed. Lady Linden sat with her hands clenched and her eyes fixed
+on nothingness. She blamed herself with all her honest hearty nature;
+she blamed herself even more unsparingly than in the past she had
+blamed others for their trifling faults.
+
+Her self-recriminations had got on Marjorie’s nerves. She could not
+bear to sit here and listen to her aunt when all the time she knew that
+it was she—she alone who was to blame. She had told him that she did
+not love him, that all his hopes must end, that the future they had
+planned between them should never be, and so had sent him to his death.
+
+She waited outside in the big hall, her eyes on the stairs, her ears
+tensioned to every sound from above, and at every sound she started.
+
+Voices at last, low and muffled, voices pitched in a low key, men
+talking as in deep confidence. She heard and she watched. She saw the
+two men, the doctor and the surgeon, descending the stairs; she rose
+and went to meet them, yet said never a word.
+
+She watched their faces; she saw that they looked grave. She saw that
+the face of the great man was worn and tired. She looked in vain for
+something that would whisper the word “Hope” to her.
+
+“Miss Linden is engaged to Mr. Arundel,” the local doctor said.
+
+The great man held out his hand to her. He knew so well, how many
+thousands of times had he seen, that same look of questioning, pitiful
+in its dumbness.
+
+He held her hand closely, “There is hope. That is all I care say to
+you—just a hope, and that is all.”
+
+It was all that he dared to say, the utmost to which he could go. He
+knew that false hopes, raised only to be crushed, were cruelty. And he
+had never done that, never would. “There is yet one ray of hope. He may
+live; I can say no more than that, Miss Linden.”
+
+And, little though it was, it was almost more than she had dared to
+hope for.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+MR. RUNDLE TAKES A HAND
+
+
+Battered and sorely bruised, Philip Slotman lay on his bed in the
+Feathers Inn in Little Langbourne, and cursed his luck. Every time he
+moved he swore to himself.
+
+He was hurt in mind, body, and estate; he was consumed by a great rage
+and a sense of injury. He had suffered, and someone should pay—Joan
+mainly, after Joan, Hugh Alston. But it would be safer to make Joan
+pay. Not in money. Alston had insisted on it that he had nothing to
+expect in the way of cash from Miss Meredyth.
+
+Slotman lay writhing, and cursing and planning vengeance. There were
+few things that he would not have liked to do to Hugh Alston, but
+finally he decided he could better hurt Hugh Alston through Joan, so
+thereafter he devoted his thoughts to Joan.
+
+The church bells of Little Langbourne Church were ringing pleasantly
+when Philip Slotman, with many a grunt and inward groan, rose from his
+couch.
+
+Except for a slight discoloration about the left eye and a certain
+stiffness of gait, there was nothing about Philip Slotman when he came
+down to the coffee-room for his breakfast to suggest that he had seen
+so much trouble the previous evening. But there were some who had seen
+Slotman come in, and among them was the waiter. He put his hand over
+his mouth, and smirked now at the sight of Slotman, and Slotman noticed
+it.
+
+The bells rang no message of peace and good-will to Mr. Slotman this
+morning.
+
+Yes, Joan would be the one. He would make her pay; he would hurt Alston
+through her, and hit her hard at the same time. He would stay here at
+Little Langbourne.
+
+“Buddesby, sir?” said the waiter. “Yes, sir. Mister John Everard’s
+place about a quarter of a mile beyond the village. Very interesting
+old ’ouse, sir, one of the best farms hereabouts. Mr. Everard’s a
+well-to-do gentleman, sir, old family, not—”
+
+“Oh, go away!”
+
+The waiter withdrew. “Anyhow,” he thought, “he got it all right last
+night, and serve him right. Law! what a mess ’e were in when he came
+in.”
+
+A quarter of a mile beyond the village. Slotman nodded. He would go. He
+remembered that Alston had said something last night about this man
+Everard, had suggested all sorts of things might happen to him,
+Slotman, if he communicated in any way with Everard.
+
+“Anyhow I shall tell him, and unless he is a born fool he will soon get
+quit of her. By thunder! I’ll make her name reek, as I told her I
+would. I’ll set this place and Starden and half the infernal country
+talking about her! If she shews her face anywhere, she’ll get stared
+at. I’ll let her and that beast Alston see what it means to get on the
+wrong side of a chap like me.”
+
+A quarter of a mile beyond the village. Thank Heaven it was no further.
+
+The church bells had ceased ringing, from the church itself came the
+pleasant sounds of voices. The village street lay white in the sunlight
+with the blue shadows of the houses, a world of peace and of beauty, of
+sweet scenes and of sweet sounds; and now he had left the village
+behind him.
+
+“Is this Buddesby, my man? Those gates, are they the gates of
+Buddesby?”
+
+“Aye, they be,” said the man. He was a big, gipsy-looking fellow, who
+slouched with hunched shoulders and a yellow mongrel dog at his heels.
+
+“The gates of Buddesby they be, and—” He paused; he stared hard into
+Slotman’s face.
+
+“Oh!” he said slowly, “oh, so ’tis ’ee, be it? I been watching out for
+’ee.”
+
+“What—what do you mean?”
+
+“I remember ’ee, I do. I remember your grinning face. I’ve carried it
+in my memory all right. See that dawg?” The man pointed to the lurcher.
+“See him: he’s more’n a brother, more’n a son, more’n a wife to me.
+That’s the dawg you run over that day, and you grinned. I seen it—you
+grinned!” The man’s black eyes sparkled. He looked swiftly up the road
+and down it, and Slotman saw the action and quivered.
+
+“I’ll give you—” he began. “I am very sorry; it was an accident. I’ll
+pay you for—”
+
+But the man with the blazing eyes had leaped at him.
+
+“I been waiting for ’ee, and I’ve cotched ’ee at last!” he shouted.
+
+
+Johnny Everard, hands in pockets, mooning about his stock and rickyard,
+this calm Sunday morning, never guessed how near he had been to
+receiving a visitor.
+
+He had not seen Joan since that night when, with Ellice beside him, he
+had seen her and the man at the door of Mrs. Bonner’s cottage.
+
+He had meant to go, but had not gone. He was due there to-day; this
+very morning Helen would expect him. He had never missed spending a
+Sunday with them since the engagement; and yet he felt loath to go, and
+did not know why.
+
+He had seen Connie off to Church. Con never missed. Ellice had not
+gone. Ellice was perhaps a little less constant than Con. He wondered
+where the girl was now, and, thinking of her, the frown on his face was
+smoothed away.
+
+Always there was wonder, a sense of unreality in his mind; a feeling
+that somehow, in some way, he was wrong. He must be wrong. Strangely
+enough, these last few days he had thought more constantly of Ellice
+than of Joan. He had pictured her again and again to himself—a little,
+white-clad, barefooted figure standing against the dusky background of
+the hallway, framed by the open door. He remembered the colour in her
+cheeks, and her brave championship of the other woman; but he
+remembered most of all the look in her eyes when she had said to him,
+“Please, please don’t!”
+
+“I shall never kiss her again,” he said, and said it to himself, and
+knew as he said it that he was denying himself the thing for which now
+he longed.
+
+He had kissed Joan’s cold cheek, he had kissed her hand, but her lips
+had not been for him. He had wondered once if they ever would be, and
+he had cared a great deal; now he ceased to wonder.
+
+“I shall never kiss Gipsy again,” he thought, and, turning, saw her.
+
+“So you—you didn’t go to Church, Gipsy?”
+
+“I thought you had gone to Starden.”
+
+They stood and looked at one another.
+
+“No. I don’t think I shall go to Starden to-day.”
+
+“But they expect you.”
+
+“I—I don’t think I shall go to-day, Gipsy. Shall we go for a walk
+across the fields?”
+
+“You ought to go to Starden,” she said. “She—she will expect you.”
+
+But a spirit of reckless defiance had come to him.
+
+“She won’t miss me if I don’t go.”
+
+“No, she won’t miss you,” the girl said softly, and her voice shook.
+
+“So—so come with me, Gipsy girl.”
+
+“If you wish it.”
+
+“You know I do.”
+
+Yet when they went together across the fields, when they came to the
+edge of the hop-garden and saw the neatly trailing vines, which this
+year looked better and more promising than he could ever remember
+before, they had nothing to say to one another, not a word. Once he
+took her hand and held it for a moment, then let it go again; and at
+the touch of her he thrilled, little dreaming how her heart responded.
+
+He scarcely looked at her. If he had, he might have seen a glow in her
+cheeks, a brightness in her eyes, the brightness born of a new and
+wonderful hope.
+
+“After all, after all,” the girl was thinking. “I believe he cares for
+me a little—not so much as he loves her, but a little, a little, and I
+love him.”
+
+Connie smiled on them as they came in together. It was as she liked to
+see them. She noticed the deep colouring in the girl’s cheeks, the new
+brightness in her eyes, and Connie, who always acted on generous
+impulses, kissed her.
+
+“What’s that for?” Johnny cried. “Haven’t you one for me too, Con?”
+
+“Always, always,” she said. She put her arms about his neck and hugged
+him.
+
+It seemed as if the clouds that had so long overcast this little house
+had drifted away this calm Sabbath day, and the sun was shining down
+gloriously on them.
+
+For some time Connie had been quietly watching the girl. There came
+back into her memory a promise given long ago. “I will do nothing,
+nothing, Con, unless I tell you first.”
+
+She knew Ellice for the soul of honour; she had felt safe, and now she
+was waiting.
+
+“Well, Ellice, have you anything to say to me?” Johnny was gone after
+dinner to his tiny study to wrestle with letters and figures that he
+abhorred.
+
+“Yes,” Ellice said.
+
+“I thought you had—well?”
+
+“I am going to Starden,” the girl said. “I am going to Starden this
+afternoon, Con.”
+
+“What for?”
+
+“To see—her?”
+
+“Why—why, darling, why?”
+
+“To ask her if she can be generous—and oh, I believe she can—to ask her
+why she is taking him away from me when I love him so, and when—oh,
+Con—Con, when I believe that he cares a little for me.”
+
+Con held out her arms, she caught the girl tightly.
+
+“My love and my prayers and my wishes will go with you, darling.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII
+“WALLS WE CANNOT BATTER DOWN”
+
+
+“Why?” Helen asked. “Why isn’t Johnny here to-day, Joan?”
+
+“I do not know,” Joan said. She had scarcely given a thought to Johnny
+Everard that morning. All her thoughts had been of two men, the men she
+had left in the darkness by the roadside. She blamed herself bitterly
+now that she had left them; she trembled to think what might have
+happened.
+
+“Helen, if Johnny Everard does come, I wish to speak to him. I have a
+good deal to say to him. I want to be alone with him for some time.”
+
+“Of course, darling.” But there was anxious enquiry in Helen’s face.
+
+Surely, surely there had been no quarrel between them? Johnny was not
+one to quarrel with anyone, yet it was strange that he had not been
+here for so many days, and that this being Sunday still he was not
+here.
+
+“When he comes,” Joan was thinking, “I shall tell him—everything.” She
+knew she would hate it; she knew that she would feel that in some way
+she was lowering herself. It would be a horrible confession for one
+with her stubborn pride to have to make. Not of guilt and wrongdoing,
+but that such should be ascribed to her.
+
+Helen was watching from the window, her mind filled with worries and
+doubts.
+
+A man had turned in by the gates, was walking slowly up the winding
+drive.
+
+It was Johnny, of course. Helen saw it all. The car had gone wrong, but
+Johnny, not to miss this Sunday, had walked.
+
+“Joan, Johnny is coming,” she called out. “He is walking. He—” She
+paused; it was not Johnny. She was silent; she stared for a moment. The
+man looked familiar, then she knew who it was.
+
+“Joan, it is Mr. Alston,” she said quietly. “What does he want here?”
+And Helen’s voice was filled with suspicion.
+
+“Thank Heaven,” Joan thought, “thank Heaven that he is here.”
+
+For the first time Hugh Alston knocked for admission on the Starden
+door. A score of times he had asked himself, “Shall I go?” And he could
+find no answer. He had come at last.
+
+“What can he want? I did not know he was here in Starden. I didn’t even
+know that he knew where Joan was. I don’t understand this business at
+all,” Helen was thinking.
+
+A servant shewed him in. Joan shook hands with him. Helen did so, under
+an air of graciousness which hid a cold hostility. What was this man
+doing here? If he was nothing to Joan, and Joan was nothing to him, why
+did he come? And how could he be anything to Joan when she was to marry
+Johnny?
+
+So this was her home! A fit setting for her loveliness, and yet he knew
+of a fitter, of another home where she could shine to even greater
+advantage. They talked of commonplace things, hiding their feelings
+behind words, waiting, Joan and Hugh, till Helen should leave them. But
+Helen lingered with less than her usual tact, lingered with a mind
+filled with vague suspicions, wondering why Johnny had not come.
+
+Sitting near the window she could see the drive, and presently a young
+girl on an old bicycle coming up it. Helen stared.
+
+“Why, here is Ellice Brand,” she said, and fears took possession of
+her. There was something wrong! Johnny was ill, or had met with an
+accident. Ellice had ridden over to tell them.
+
+“I’ll go and see her, Joan,” she said, and so at last was gone.
+
+Hugh closed the door after her.
+
+“You’ve been anxious?” he said briefly.
+
+“Naturally!”
+
+“There was no need. I had to give him what I had promised him, one must
+always keep one’s word. It was rather a brutal business, Joan, but I
+had to go through with it. I’d sooner not tell you anything more. I am
+not proud of it.”
+
+“I—I understand, and you can understand that I was anxious.”
+
+“For him?”
+
+“For—for you.”
+
+“For me?” He took two long strides to her. “Joan, are you going to let
+your pride rear impassable walls between us for ever? Can’t you be
+fair, generous, natural, true to yourself? Can’t you see how great, how
+overwhelming my love for you is?”
+
+“There is—is something more than pride between us, Hugh.”
+
+“There is nothing—nothing that cannot be broken; that cannot be forced
+and broken down,” he said eagerly. “You are to marry a man you do not
+love. Why should you? Would it be fair to yourself? Would it be fair to
+me? Would it be fair to your future? Think while there is time.”
+
+“I cannot,” she said. “I have given him my promise—and I shall stand by
+it.” She drew her hands away. “It is useless, Hugh. Useless now—if I
+did rear walls of pride between you and myself. I confess it now, I
+did; but they are so strong that we may not break them down.”
+
+“They shall be broken down!” he said. “Answer me this—this question
+truthfully, and from your soul. Look into my eyes, and answer me in one
+word, yes or no?” He held her hands again; he held her so that she must
+face him, and so holding her, looking into her eyes, he asked her: “Do
+you love me? Have you given to me some of your heart, knowing that I
+have given all of mine to you, knowing that I love you so, and need you
+and long for you? Do you love me a little in return, Joan?”
+
+She was silent; her eyes met his bravely enough, yet it seemed as if
+she had no control upon her lips, the word would not come. Once before
+she had lied to him, and knew that she could not lie again, not with
+his eyes looking deep into hers, probing the very secrets of her soul.
+
+“Joan, do you love me? My Joan, do you love me?” And then the answer
+came at last—“Yes.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII
+“NOT TILL THEN WILL I GIVE UP HOPE”
+
+
+“There is nothing wrong, nothing the matter with Johnny or Connie?”
+
+“Nothing.”
+
+“Then why—why did not Johnny come?”
+
+“He is busy.”
+
+“But you—”
+
+“I came to see Joan Meredyth,” said Ellice quietly. She and Helen did
+not like one another; they were both frank in their dislike. Helen
+looked down on Ellice as a person of no importance, who was entirely
+unwanted, a mere nuisance, someone for ever in the way.
+
+Ellice looked on Helen as the promoter of this engagement and marriage,
+as the woman who was responsible for everything. She did not like her.
+She resented her; but for Helen, there would never have been any break
+in the old happy life at Buddesby.
+
+“So you wish to see Joan, why?”
+
+“Privately.”
+
+“My dear child, surely—”
+
+“I am not a child, and I wish to see Joan Meredyth privately, and
+surely I have the right, Mrs. Everard?”
+
+Helen frowned. “Well, at any rate you cannot see her now. She is
+engaged, a friend is with her.”
+
+“I can wait.”
+
+“Very well,” Helen said. “If you insist. Does Johnny know that you are
+here?” she asked with sudden suspicion.
+
+“No; Connie knows. I told her, and I am willing to wait.”
+
+Helen looked at her. Helen was honest. “I thought the child pretty,”
+she reflected, “and I was wrong; she is beautiful. I don’t understand
+it. In some extraordinary way she seems to have changed.” But her
+manner towards Ellice was as unfriendly as before.
+
+“I do not in the least know how long Joan will be. You may have to wait
+a considerable time.”
+
+“I shall not mind.”
+
+In the room these two stood, Joan had made her confession frankly,
+truthfully. She had admitted her love for him, but of hope for the
+future she had none. That she loved him now, in spite of all the past,
+in spite of the troubles and shame he had brought on her, was something
+that had happened in spite of herself, against her will, against her
+desire; but because it was so, she admitted it frankly.
+
+“But my love for you, Hugh, matters nothing,” she said. “Because I love
+you I shall suffer more—but I shall never break my word to the man I
+have given it to.”
+
+“When you stand before the altar with that man’s ring on your finger,
+when you have promised before God to be his wife, then and not till
+then will I give up hope. And that will be never. It is your pride,
+dear, your pride that ever fights against your happiness and mine; but
+I shall beat it down and humble it, Joan, and win you in the end. Your
+own true, sweet self.”
+
+“I don’t think I have any pride left,” she said. “I was prouder when I
+was poor than I am now. My pride was then all I had; it kept me above
+the sordid life about me. I cultivated it, I was glad of it, but since
+then—Oh, Hugh, I am not proud any more, only very humble, and very
+unhappy.”
+
+And because she was still promised to another man, he could not, as he
+would, hold out his arms to her and take her to his breast and comfort
+her. Instead, he took her hand and held it tightly for a time, then
+lifted it to his lips and went, leaving her; yet went with a full hope
+for the future in his heart, for he had wrung from her the confession
+that she loved him.
+
+In the hall a girl, sitting there waiting patiently, looked at him with
+great dark eyes, yet he never saw her. A servant let him out, and then
+the servant came back to her. “Tell Miss Meredyth that I am here
+waiting to see her,” Ellice said.
+
+And as the man went away she wondered what had brought Hugh Alston here
+to-day, why he should be here so long with Joan when she could so
+distinctly remember Joan’s lack of recognition of him in the village.
+She could also remember the sight of them that night, their dark shapes
+against the yellow glow of the lamplight in Mrs. Bonner’s cottage.
+
+How would she find Joan? she wondered. Softened, perhaps even confused,
+some of her coldness shaken, some of her self-possession gone? But no,
+Joan held out a hand in greeting to her.
+
+“I did not know that you were here, Miss Brand,” she said. “Have you
+not seen Mrs. Everard?”
+
+“I have seen her,” Ellice said, “but I didn’t come here to-day to see
+her. I came to see you.”
+
+“To see me?” Joan smiled—a conventional smile. “You will sit down,
+won’t you? Is it anything that I can do? It is not, I hope, that Mr.
+Everard is ill?”
+
+“And—and if he were,” the girl cried, “would you care?”
+
+Joan started, her face grew colder.
+
+“I do not understand.”
+
+“Yes, you—you do. Why are you marrying him? Why are you taking him from
+me when—”
+
+“Taking him from—you?” Joan’s voice was like ice water on flames of
+fire. Ellice was silent.
+
+“Miss Meredyth, I came here to-day to see you, to speak to you, to—to
+open my heart to you.” Her lips trembled. “Perhaps I am wrong, perhaps
+I have no right to be here to say what I am going to say. I told
+Connie; she—she knows that I have come here, and she knows why.”
+
+“Yes; go on.”
+
+“If—if you loved him it would be different. I would not dare think of
+saying anything then. I think I would be glad. I could, at any rate, be
+reconciled to it, because it would be for his happiness. If you loved
+him—but you don’t—you don’t! He is a man who could not live without
+love. It is part of his life. He might think, might believe that he
+would be content to take you because you are lovely and—and good and
+clever, and all those things that I am not, even though you do not love
+him, but the time would come when his heart would ache for the love you
+withheld. Oh, Joan—Joan, forgive me—forgive me, but I must speak. I
+think you would if you were in my place!”
+
+The cold bitterness was passing slowly from Joan’s face. There came a
+tinge of colour into her cheeks; her eyes that watched the girl grew
+softer and more tender.
+
+“Go on,” she said; “go on, tell me!”
+
+“I have nothing more to say.”
+
+“Yes, you have—you have much more. You have this to say—you love him
+and want him, you wish to take him from me. Is that it, Ellice?”
+
+“If you loved him I would not have dared to come. I would have told
+myself that I was content. But you don’t. I have watched you—yes, spied
+on you—looking for some sign of tenderness that would prove to me that
+you loved him; but it never came. And so I know that you are marrying
+Johnny Everard with no love, accepting all the great love that he is
+offering to you and giving him nothing in exchange. Oh, it is not
+fair!”
+
+“It is not fair,” Joan said; “it is not fair, and yet I thought of
+that. I told him just what you have told me, and still he seemed to be
+content.”
+
+“Because he loves you so, and because he has hope in the future,
+because in spite of everything he still hopes that he might win your
+heart, and I know that he never can.”
+
+“How do you know that?”
+
+“Because I—I think you have already given your heart away.”
+
+And now Joan’s eyes flamed, the anger came back. “By what right do you
+say that? How dared you say that?”
+
+“It is only what I believed. I believed that a woman so sweet, so
+beautiful, so good as you, must love. You could not live your life
+without love. If it has not come yet, then it will come some day, and
+then if you are his—his wife, it will come too late. You are made for
+love, Joan, just as he is. You could not live your life without it—you
+would feel need for it. Oh yes, you think I am a child, a foolish,
+romantic schoolgirl, a stupid little thing, talking, talking, but in
+your heart you know that I am right.”
+
+“But if he—loves me,” Joan said softly, “if he loves me, little Ellice,
+then how can I break my word to him?”
+
+“I do not ask you to break your word to him, only tell him, tell him
+the truth again. Tell him what I have told you, tell him—if there is
+someone else, if you have already met someone you care for—tell him
+that too, so that he will know how impossible it must ever be that you
+will give him the love he hoped to win. Tell him that, be frank and
+truthful. Remember, it is for all your lives—all his life and all
+yours. When he realises that your heart can never be his, do you think
+he will not surfer more, will not his sufferings be longer drawn out
+than if you told him so frankly now? If the break was to come now, to
+come and be ended for ever—but to live together, to live a mock life,
+to live beneath the same roof, to share one another’s lives, and yet
+know one another’s souls to be miles and miles apart—oh, Joan, you
+would suffer, and he too, he perhaps even more than you.”
+
+“And you love him?” Joan said softly. “You love him, Ellice?”
+
+“With all my heart and soul. I would die for him. It—it sounds foolish,
+this sort of thing is foolish, the kind of words a silly girl would
+say, yet it is the truth.”
+
+“I think it is,” Joan said. “But then, dear, if he loves me, he could
+not love you?”
+
+“I think he might,” Ellice said softly.
+
+She was thinking of the morning, of the look she had seen in his eyes,
+the awakening look of a man who sees things he has been blind to.
+
+“I think he might,” her heart echoed. “I think he might, in time, in a
+little time.” And did not know, could not guess, that even at this
+moment Johnny Everard, sitting alone in his little study with untended
+papers strewn about him, was thinking of her—thinking of the look he
+had seen in her eyes that very day, out in the sunshine of the fields.
+
+“So you came to me to tell me. It was brave of you?”
+
+“I had to come. I could not have come if you had been different from
+what you are.”
+
+“Then, even though I am taking away the man you love from you, you do
+not hate me?”
+
+“Hate you? Sometimes I think I wished I could—but I could not. If I had
+hated you, if I had thought you cold and hard to all the world, I would
+not be here. I have come to plead to you because you are generous and
+honest, true and good. I could not have come otherwise.”
+
+“What must I do, little Ellice?”
+
+“Tell him the truth, if there is—”
+
+“There is—yet that could never come to anything.”
+
+“Why not?”
+
+“Because—ah, you can’t understand.”
+
+“Still, your heart is not your own; you could never give it to Johnny
+Everard.”
+
+“And I must tell him so, and then—”
+
+“And then you will ask him if he would be content to live all his life
+without love, knowing that he will never, never win your heart, because
+it would be impossible.”
+
+“But I have given him my promise, Ellice.”
+
+“I know, I know; and you will not break it, because you could not break
+a promise. But you will tell him this, and offer him his freedom; it
+will be for him to decide.”
+
+Joan stood for many moments in silence, her hand still resting on the
+girl’s shoulder. Then she drew Ellice to her; she thrust back the
+shining hair, and kissed the girl’s forehead. “I think—yes, I think I
+shall do all this, Ellice,” she said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV
+POISON
+
+
+“Johnny! Johnny! Have you gone to sleep, dear? There is someone here to
+see you.”
+
+“Eh?” Johnny started into wakefulness, he huddled his untidy papers
+together. “I must have been dozing off. I was thinking. Con, is Gipsy
+back yet?”
+
+“Not yet, and I am getting a little anxious about her; it is almost
+dusk. But there is someone here asking for you.”
+
+“Who?”
+
+“A man, a—a—gentleman, I suppose. He looks as if he has been drinking,
+though.”
+
+“A nice sort of visitor for a Sunday evening. What is his name, Con?”
+
+“Slotman.”
+
+“Don’t know it. I suppose I’d better see him. Wait, I’ll light the
+lamp. If Ellice isn’t back soon I shall go and hunt for her. Do you
+know which direction she went in?”
+
+“I—I think—” Connie hesitated; she was never any good at concealment.
+“I think she went towards Starden.”
+
+“Then when we’ve got rid of this fellow I’ll get out the car and go and
+find her. Show him in, Con.”
+
+Mr. Philip Slotman, looking shaken, bearing on his face several patches
+of court plaster, which were visible, and in his breast a black fury
+that was invisible, came in.
+
+“Mr. Slotman?”
+
+“Yes, you are Mr. Everard?”
+
+Johnny nodded pleasantly. “If it is business, Sunday evening is hardly
+the time—”
+
+“It is personal and private business, Mr. Everard.”
+
+The man, Johnny decided, was not, as Con had supposed, drunk, but he
+had evidently been in the wars. It was surprising the number of places
+in which he seemed to be wounded. He walked stiffly, he carried his
+right arm stiffly. His face was decorated with plaster, and his
+obviously very good clothes were torn; for what Hugh Alston had
+commenced so ably last night, Rundle had completed this morning.
+
+“It is private and personal, my business with you. I understand you are
+engaged to be married to a lady in whom I have felt some interest.”
+
+Johnny looked up and stiffened.
+
+“Well?”
+
+“I allude to Miss Joan Meredyth, for some time engaged by me as a
+typist in my city office.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Miss Meredyth did not always hold the position in society that she
+does now.”
+
+“I am aware of that.”
+
+“There may be a great deal that you are not aware of,” said Slotman;
+and Slotman was quivering with rage at the indignities he had been
+subjected to.
+
+“You will forgive me,” said Johnny, “but I do not propose to discuss my
+future wife with a stranger—with anyone at all, in fact, and certainly
+not with a stranger.”
+
+“And you will forgive me,” said Slotman, “but when you have heard what
+I have to say, I very much doubt if you will regard Miss Joan Meredyth
+in the light of your future wife.”
+
+Johnny moved towards the door and opened it.
+
+“I think it will be better if you go,” he said quietly.
+
+“If you do, you will be sorry when it is too late. I come here as a
+friend—”
+
+“You will go!”
+
+“In June, nineteen hundred and eighteen, when Joan Meredyth was a girl
+at school—”
+
+“I have told you that I will not listen.”
+
+“She gave it out that she was leaving England for Australia. She never
+went in reality, she—
+
+“Once more I order you to go before I—”
+
+“In reality she was living with Mr. Hugh Alston as his wife—”
+
+Philip Slotman laughed nervously.
+
+“Liar!”
+
+“I had to tell you in spite of yourself, and it is true. It is true.
+Ask Lady Linden of Cornbridge; she knows. She believes to this day that
+Joan Meredyth and Alston were married, and they never were. I have
+searched the registers at Marlbury and—”
+
+“Will you go? You seem to have been hurt. You have probably carried
+this lying story elsewhere and have received what you merited. I hardly
+like to touch you now, but unless you go—”
+
+“I am going.” Slotman moved stiffly towards the door. “Ask Lady Linden
+of Cornbridge. She believes to this day that Joan Meredyth is Hugh
+Alston’s wife.”
+
+“By heavens! If you don’t go—”
+
+Slotman glanced at him; he saw that he was over-stepping the
+danger-line. Yes, he must go, and quickly, so he went. But he had
+planted the venom; he had left it behind him. He had forced this man to
+hear, even though he would not listen.
+
+“First blow,” Slotman thought, “the first blow at her! And I ain’t done
+yet! no, I ain’t done yet. I’ll make her writhe—”
+
+He paused. He had not carried out his intention in full, this man had
+not given him time. Of course, if it was only Joan’s money that this
+fellow Everard was after, the story would make little or no difference.
+The marriage would go on all the same, if it was a matter of money,
+but—
+
+Philip Slotman retraced his painful steps. Once again he tapped on the
+door of Buddesby.
+
+“There was something that I wished to say to Mr. Everard that I
+entirely forgot—a small matter,” he said to the servant. “Don’t
+trouble, I know the way.”
+
+He pushed past the girl into the house. Johnny, staring before him into
+vacancy, trying to realise this incredible, impossible thing that the
+man had told him, started. He looked up. In the doorway stood Mr.
+Slotman.
+
+“By Heaven!” said Johnny, and sprang up. “If you don’t go—”
+
+“Wait! You don’t think I should be such a fool as to come to you with a
+lying story, a story that could not be substantiated? What I have told
+you is the truth. You may not believe it, because you don’t want to.
+You are marrying a young lady with ample possessions; that may weigh
+with you. Now, rightly or wrongly, I hold that Miss Meredyth owes me a
+certain sum of money. I want that money. It doesn’t matter to me
+whether I get it from her or from you. If you like to pay her debt, I
+will guarantee silence. I shall carry this true story no further if you
+will undertake to pay me immediately following your marriage with her
+the sum of ten thousand—”
+
+In spite of his stiffness and his sores, Mr. Slotman turned; he fled,
+he ran blindly down the hall, undid the hall door, and let himself out,
+and then without a glance behind, he fled across the wide garden till
+he reached the road, panting and shaking. And now for the first time he
+looked back, and as he did so a blinding white glare seemed to strike
+his eyes; he staggered, and tried to spring aside. Then something
+struck him, and the black world about him seemed to vomit tongues of
+red and yellow flame.
+
+The occupants of the fast-travelling touring car felt the horrible jolt
+the car gave. A woman shrieked. The chauffeur shouted an oath born of
+fear and horror as he applied his brakes. He stood up, yet for a moment
+scarcely dared to look back. The woman in the car was moaning with the
+shock of it; and when he looked he saw something lying motionless, a
+dark patch against the dim light on the road.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV
+THE GUIDING HAND
+
+
+Tom Arundel opened his eyes to the sunshine. He had left behind him a
+world of darkness and of pain, a curiously jumbled unreal world, in
+which it seemed to him that he had played the part of a thing that was
+being dragged by unseen hands in a direction that he knew he must not
+go, a direction against which he fought with all his strength. And yet,
+in spite of all his efforts, he knew himself to be slipping, slowly but
+surely slipping.
+
+Then out of the blackness and chaos grew something real and tangible, a
+pair of small white hands, and on the finger of one of these hands was
+a ring that he remembered well, for it was a ring that he himself had
+placed on that finger, and the hands were held out to him, and he
+clutched at them.
+
+Yet still the fight was not over, still the unseen force dragged and
+tugged at him, yet he knew that he was winning, because of the little
+white hands that yet possessed such wonderful strength.
+
+And now he lay, wide-eyed in the sunshine, and the blackness and chaos
+were gone, but he could still see the hands, for one of them was
+clasped in his own, and lifting his eyes he saw the face that he knew
+must be there—a pale face, thinner than when he had seen it last, a
+face that had lost some of its childish prettiness. Yet the eyes had
+lost nothing, but had gained much. There was tenderness and pity and
+joy too in them.
+
+“Marjorie,” he said, and the weakness of his own voice surprised him,
+and he lay wondering if it were he who had spoken. “Thank you,” he
+said. He was thanking her for the help those little hands had given
+him, yet she was not to know that. So for a long time he lay, his
+breath gentle and regular, the small hand clasped in his own. And now
+he was away in dreams, not the black and terrifying dreams of just now,
+but dreams of peace and of a happiness that might never be. And in
+those dreams she whom he loved bent over him and kissed him on the
+lips, and said something to him that set the thin blood leaping in his
+veins.
+
+Tom Arundel opened his eyes again, and knew that it had been no dream.
+Her lips were still on his; her face, rosy now, almost as of old, was
+touching his.
+
+“Marjorie,” he whispered, “you told me—”
+
+“I told you what was not true, but I thought it was—oh, I believed it
+was, dear. I believed it was the truth—but I knew afterwards it was
+not.”
+
+“I—I got hurt, didn’t I? I can’t remember—I remember but dimly—a horse,
+Marjorie. You don’t think—you don’t think I did that on purpose after
+what you said?”
+
+“No, no!” she said. “I know better. Perhaps I did think it, but oh,
+Tom, I was not worth it! I was not worth it!”
+
+“You are worth all the world to me,” he said, “all the world and more.”
+
+Lady Linden opened the door. She came in, treading softly; she came to
+the bedside and looked at him and then at the girl.
+
+“You were talking. I heard your voice. Was he conscious?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Thank God!” Lady Linden looked at the girl severely. “I suppose you
+will be the next invalid—women of your type always overdo it. How many
+nights is it since you had your clothes off?”
+
+“That does not matter now.”
+
+“By rights you should go to bed at once.”
+
+“Aunt, I shall not leave him.”
+
+Lady Linden sniffed. “Very well; I can do nothing with you.”
+
+“Defiant!” she thought to herself. “She is getting character, that
+girl, after all, and about time. Well, it doesn’t matter, now that Tom
+will live.”
+
+Lady Linden went downstairs. “Obstinate and defiant, new role—very
+well, I am content. She is developing character, and that is a great
+thing.”
+
+He was going to live. It was more than hope now, it was certainty,
+after days, even weeks of anxiety, of watching and waiting; and this
+bright morning Lady Linden felt and looked ten years younger as she
+stepped out into the garden to bully her hirelings.
+
+Jordan, her ladyship’s coachman, was sunning himself at the stable
+door. He took his pipe out hurriedly and hid it behind his back.
+
+“Jordan,” said Lady Linden, “you are an old man.”
+
+“Not so wonderful old, my lady.”
+
+“You have lived all your life with horses.”
+
+“With ’osses mainly, my lady.”
+
+“How long would it take you, Jordan, to learn to drive a motor car?”
+
+“Me?” He gasped at her in sheer astonishment.
+
+“Jordan, we are both old, but we must move with the times. Horses are
+dangerous brutes. I have taken a dislike to them. I shall never sit
+behind another unless it is in a hearse—and then I shan’t sit. Jordan,
+you shall learn to drive a car.”
+
+“Shall I?” thought Jordan as her ladyship turned away. “We’ll see about
+that.”
+
+Again Tom opened his eyes, and he saw that face above him, and even as
+he looked the head was bent lower and lower till once again the red
+lips touched his own.
+
+“Marjorie, is it only pity?” he whispered.
+
+But she shook her head. “It is love, all my love—I know now. It is all
+ended. I know the truth. Oh, Tom, it—it was you all the time, and after
+all it was only you!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI
+“—SHE HAS GIVEN!”
+
+
+Never so slowly as to-day had John Everard driven the six and a half
+miles that divided Buddesby and Little Langbourne from Starden. Never
+had his frank and open and cheerful face been so clouded and overcast.
+Many worries, many doubts and fears and uncertainties, were at work in
+John Everard’s mind.
+
+No doubts and uncertainties of anyone but of himself. It was
+himself—his own feelings, his own belief in himself, his own belief in
+his love that he was doubting. So he drove very slowly the six and a
+half miles to Starden, because he had many questions to ask of himself,
+questions to which answers did not come readily.
+
+“Gipsy is right, she always is,” he thought. “She is finer-minded,
+better, more generous than I am. Her mind could not harbour one doubt
+of anyone she loved, and I—” He frowned.
+
+Helen Everard, from an upper window, saw his arrival, and watching him
+as he drove up the approach to the house, marked the frown on his brow,
+the lack of his usual cheerfulness.
+
+“There is something wrong; there seems to be nothing, but something
+wrong all the time,” she thought with a sigh.
+
+“If, after all the trouble I have taken, my plans should come to
+nothing, I shall be bitterly disappointed. I blame Connie. Con’s
+unworldliness is simply silly. Oh, these people!”
+
+“It is a long time since I saw you, Johnny—four or five days, isn’t
+it?” Joan said. She held out her hand to him, and he took it. He seemed
+to hesitate, and then drew a little closer and kissed her cheek.
+
+Something wrong. She too saw it, but it did not disturb her as it did
+Helen.
+
+“Yes, four days—five—I forget,” he said, scarcely realising what an
+admission was this from him, who awhile ago had counted every hour
+jealously that had kept them apart.
+
+For a few minutes they talked of indifferent things, each knowing it
+for a preliminary of something to follow.
+
+He had come to tell her something, Joan felt.
+
+“She has something to say to me,” Johnny knew. So for a few minutes
+they fenced, and then it was he who broke away.
+
+He rose, and began to move about the room, as a man disturbed in his
+mind usually does. She sat calm and expectant, watching him, a faint
+smile on her lips, a kindness and a gentleness in her face that made it
+inexpressibly sweet.
+
+“I think, Johnny, you have something to say to me.”
+
+“Something that I hate saying. Joan, last night a man—a man I have
+never seen before—came to see me.”
+
+She stiffened. The faint smile was gone; her face had become as a mask,
+hard and cold, icy.
+
+“Yes?”
+
+“A man who had something to tell me—you will do me the justice to
+believe that I did not wish to hear him, that I tried to silence him,
+but he would not be silenced. He told me lies! foul lies about you!
+lies!” Johnny said passionately, “things which I, knowing you, know to
+be untrue. Yet he told them. I drove him out of the place. Then he came
+back. He had remembered what his errand was—blackmail. He came to me
+for money. But—but he did not stay, and then—” Johnny paused. He had
+reached the window, and stood staring out into the garden, yet seeing
+nothing of its beauty.
+
+“You know,” he went on, “that I do not ask you nor expect you to
+deny—there is no need. What he said I know to be untrue. The man was a
+villain, one of the lowest, but he has been paid.”
+
+“Paid?” she said. She stared.
+
+“Not in money,” Johnny said shortly, “in another way.”
+
+“You—you struck him?”
+
+“No. I would have; but he saw the danger and fled from it—fled from the
+punishment that I would have meted out to him to a harder that Fate had
+in store for him.”
+
+“I don’t understand.”
+
+“Just outside my gate he was knocked down by a car and very badly
+injured; it is hardly probable that he will live. The people who
+knocked him down came hammering on my door. We got him to the Cottage
+Hospital. In spite of everything I felt sorry for the poor wretch—but
+that has nothing to do with it now. I came to tell you what happened.”
+
+“And yet do not ask me to explain?”
+
+“Of course not!” He swung round and faced her for a moment. “Do you
+think I would put that indignity on you, Joan?”
+
+“You are very generous, Johnny—why?”
+
+She waited, listening expectantly for his answer. It was some time in
+coming.
+
+“I am not generous. I simply know that for you to be other than
+honourable and innocent, pure and good, would be an impossibility.”
+
+“Why do you know that?”
+
+“Because I know you.”
+
+She smiled. The answer she had almost dreaded to hear had not come. Yet
+it should have been so simple, so ample an answer to her question. Had
+he said, “Because I love you,” it would have been enough; but he had
+said, “Because I know you”; and so she smiled.
+
+“Johnny, I have something to say to you. Do you remember the day when
+you asked me to be your wife? I was frank and open to you then, was I
+not?”
+
+“You always are.”
+
+“I told you that if you wished it I would agree, but that I did not
+love you as a woman should love the man to whom she gives her life.”
+
+“I do not forget that.”
+
+“Perhaps in your heart you harboured a hope that one day the love that
+I denied you then might come?”
+
+“I think I did.”
+
+“You were giving so much and asking for so little in return. That was
+not fair, and it would not be fair for me to allow you to harbour a
+hope that can never come true.”
+
+He turned slowly and looked at her.
+
+“A woman cannot love—twice,” she said slowly.
+
+Johnny Everard flushed, then paled.
+
+“Why do you say that?”
+
+“Because it is true.” She paused; the red dyed her cheeks. “What you
+were told last night were lies—poor lies. You do not ask me to deny
+them, dear, and so I won’t. Yet, behind those lies, there was a little
+truth. There is a man, and I cared for him—care for him now and always
+shall care for him. He has been nothing to me, and never will be; but
+because he lived, because he and I have met, the hope that you had in
+your heart that day, can come to nothing. And now—now I have something
+more to tell you. It is this. You, who can love so finely, must ask for
+and have love in return. You think you love me, yet because I do not
+respond you will tire in time of that love. You will realise how bad a
+bargain you have made, and then you will regret it. Is there not
+someone”—her voice had grown low and soft—“someone who can and does
+give you all the love your heart craves for, someone who will be
+grateful to you for your love, and who will repay a thousandfold? Would
+not that be better than a long hopeless fight against lovelessness,
+even—even if you loved her a little less than you believe you love—me?
+Remember that it would rest with you and not with another, you who are
+generous, who could not refuse to give when so much is given to you.”
+Joan’s voice faltered for a moment. “It would be your own heart on
+which you would have to make the call, Johnny, not on the heart of
+another. You would have more command over your own heart than you ever
+could over the heart of another.”
+
+“Joan, what do you mean? What does this mean?”
+
+“I am trying so hard to be plain,” she said almost pitifully.
+
+“Who is this other you are talking about, this other—who loves me?”
+
+She was silent.
+
+“What do you know of her, Joan, this other?”
+
+And still she was silent, for how could she betray Ellice’s secret?
+
+“Tell me,” he said.
+
+“Don’t you know? Can’t you guess?”
+
+His face flushed. A week ago he might have answered, “I cannot guess!”
+To-day he knew the answer, yet how did Joan know?
+
+“I gave you my promise,” she said, “and I will abide by that promise.
+It is for you to decide, and no one else. My life, your own and—and the
+life of another is in your hands—three futures, Johnny, decide—”
+
+“You want to—to give me up?”
+
+“Is that generous?”
+
+“No, it isn’t,” he admitted. He took a turn up and down the room. “And
+you say this other—this girl—cares for me?”
+
+“I know she does?”
+
+“Did she tell you?”
+
+“Must I answer?”
+
+“Why not?”
+
+“Why not?” Joan repeated. “Yes, she did. She came to me, openly and
+frankly, straightforward child that she is, and she said to me, ‘Why
+are you marrying him, not loving him? If you loved him, and he loved
+you, I would not come to you; but you do not love him, and it is not
+fair. You are taking all and giving nothing!’ And, she was right!”
+
+“And she—she—” he said in a low voice, “would give—”
+
+“Has given.”
+
+A silence fell between them. Then he turned to her, and it seemed as if
+the cloud had lifted from him. He held out his hands and smiled at her.
+
+“I understand. You and she are right. A starved love could not live for
+ever; it must die. Better it should be strangled almost at birth, Joan.
+So—so this is good-bye?”
+
+She shook her head. “Friends, always, Johnny,” she said.
+
+“Friends always, then.”
+
+She came close to him. She lifted her hand suddenly, and thrust back
+the hair from his forehead, she looked him in the eyes and, smiling,
+kissed him on the brow.
+
+“Go and find your happiness—a far, far better than I could ever offer
+you.”
+
+“And you?”
+
+She shook her head, and her eyes, looking beyond him into the garden,
+were dreamy and strangely soft.
+
+“Tell me about that man, Johnny,” she said. “Will you take me back to
+Little Langbourne with you?”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“To see him.”
+
+“But he maligned, he lied—”
+
+“He is hurt, and why should I hate him? You did not believe. Will you
+take me back with you?”
+
+“You know I will.”
+
+Helen, watching from the upper window, saw them drive away together,
+never had they seemed better friends. The cloud had passed completely
+away, and so too had all Helen’s plans; yet she did not know it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII
+“AS WE FORGIVE—”
+
+
+Slotman opened dazed eyes and looked up into a face that might well
+have been the face of an angel, so soft, so pitying, so tender was its
+expression.
+
+“Joan!” he whispered.
+
+She nodded and smiled.
+
+“But,” he said—“but—” and hesitated. “Joan, I went to Buddesby to see—”
+
+“I know.”
+
+“And yet you come here?”
+
+“Of course. Hush! you must not talk. You are going to get well and
+strong again. The Matron says I am allowed to come sometimes and see
+you, and sit beside you, but you must not talk yet. Later on we are
+going to talk about the future.”
+
+He lay staring at her. He could not understand. How could such a mind
+as his understand the workings of such a mind as hers? But she was
+here, she knew and she forgave, and there was comfort in her presence.
+
+God knew he had suffered. God knew it.
+
+“When you are better, stronger, you and I are going to talk, not till
+then; but I want to tell you this now. I want to help you, all the past
+is past. I knew about that night, about your visit. It does not matter;
+it is all gone by. It is only the future that matters, and in the
+future you may find that I will give and help willingly what I would
+not have given under compulsion. Now, hush for the Matron is coming.”
+She smiled down at him.
+
+“I don’t understand,” Slotman said; “I’ll try and understand.” He
+turned his face away, realising a sense of shame such as he had never
+felt before.
+
+He had been her enemy, and yet perhaps in his way, a bad and vile way,
+selfish and dishonourable, he had loved her; but as she had said, all
+that was of the past. Now she sat beside the man, broken in limb and in
+fortune, a wreck of what he had been; and for him her only feeling was
+of pity, and already in her mind she was forming plans for his future.
+For she had said truly she could give of her own free will and in
+charity and sympathy that which could never be forced from her.
+
+Connie looked at her brother curiously.
+
+
+“I saw you just now. You drove past the gate with Joan. You took her to
+Langbourne, didn’t you?”
+
+“To the hospital. She went to see that fellow, Con.”
+
+“He told you something about Joan last night, Johnny?”
+
+“He lied about the truest, purest woman who walks this earth.”
+
+“She is incapable of evil,” Con said quietly.
+
+“Utterly. Con, I have something to tell you.”
+
+She turned eagerly.
+
+“It is ended,” he said quietly—“our engagement. Joan and I ended it
+to-day—not in anger, not in doubt, dear, but liking and admiring each
+other I think more than ever before, and—and, Con—” He paused.
+
+“Oh, I am glad, glad,” she said, “glad! Have you told—her?”
+
+He shook his head.
+
+“Will you wait here, John? I will send her to you.”
+
+John Everard’s face coloured. “I will wait here for her, for Gipsy,” he
+said. “Send her here to me, and I will tell her, Con.”
+
+And a few moments later she came. She stood here in the doorway looking
+at him, just as she had looked at him from that same place that night,
+that night when a light had dawned upon his darkness.
+
+And now, because his eyes were widely opened at last, he could see the
+tell-tale flush in her cheeks, the suspicious brightness in her eyes,
+and it seemed to him that her love for him was as a magnet that drew
+his heart towards her.
+
+“Con has told you?”
+
+She nodded silently.
+
+Then suddenly he stretched out his arms to her, a moment more and she
+was in them, her face against his breast.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII
+HER PRIDE’S LAST FIGHT
+
+
+“... I came to Starden because I believed you might need me. You did,
+and the help that you wanted I gave gladly and willingly. Now your
+enemy is removed; he can do you no more harm. You will hear, or perhaps
+have heard why, and so I am no longer necessary to you, Joan, and
+because I seem to be wanted in my own place I am going back. Yet should
+you need me, you have but to call, and I will come. You know that. You
+know that I who love you am ever at your service. From now onward your
+own heart shall be your counsellor. You will act as it dictates, if you
+are true to yourself. Yet, perhaps in the future as in the past, your
+pride may prove the stronger. It is for you and only you to decide.
+Good-bye,
+
+“HUGH.”
+
+
+She had found this letter on her return from Little Langbourne. She had
+gone hurrying, as a young girl in her eagerness might, down to Mrs.
+Bonner’s little cottage, to learn that she was too late. He had gone.
+
+Mrs. Bonner, with almost tears in her eyes, told her.
+
+“Yes, miss. He hev gone, and rare sorry I be, a better gentleman I
+never had in these rooms.”
+
+Gone! With only this letter, no parting word, without seeking to see
+her, to say good-bye. The chill of her cold pride fell on Joan. Send
+for him! Never! never! He had gone when he might have stayed—when, had
+he been here now, she would have told him that she was free.
+
+Very slowly she walked back to the house, to meet Helen’s questioning
+eyes.
+
+“I am glad, dear, that there seems to be a better understanding between
+you and Johnny,” Helen said.
+
+“There is a perfect understanding between us. Johnny is not going to
+marry me. He is choosing someone who will love him more and understand
+him better than I could.”
+
+“Then—then, after all, it is over? You and he are to part?”
+
+“Have parted—as lovers, but not as friends.”
+
+“And after all I have done,” Helen said miserably.
+
+Hugh had gone home. He had had a letter from Lady Linden telling about
+the accident to Tom Arundel, about his serious illness, and Marjorie’s
+devoted nursing. And now he was shaping his course for Hurst Dormer. He
+had debated in his mind whether he should wait and see her, and then
+had decided against it.
+
+“She knows that I love her, and she loves me. She is letting her pride
+stand between us. Everard is too good and too fine a fellow to keep her
+bound by a promise if he thought it would hurt her to keep it. Her
+future and Everard’s and mine must lay in her own hands.” And so, doing
+violence to his feelings and his desires, he had left Starden, and now
+was back in Hurst Dormer, wandering about, looking at the progress the
+workmen had made during his absence. He had come home, and though he
+loved the place, its loneliness weighed heavily on him. The rooms
+seemed empty. He wanted someone to talk things over with, to discuss
+this and that. He was not built to be self-centred.
+
+For two days and two nights he bore with Hurst Dormer and its shadows
+and its solitude, and then he called out the car and motored over to
+Cornbridge.
+
+“Oh, it’s you,” said her ladyship. “I suppose you got my letter?”
+
+“Yes; I had it sent on to me.”
+
+“It’s a pity you don’t stay at home now and again.”
+
+“Perhaps I shall in future.”
+
+She looked at him. He was unlike himself, careworn and weary, and a
+little ill.
+
+“Tom is mending rapidly, a wonderful constitution; but it was touch and
+go. Marjorie was simply wonderful, I’ll do her that credit. Between
+ourselves, Hugh, I always regarded Marjorie as rather weak,
+namby-pamby, early Victorian—you know what I mean; but she’s a woman,
+and it has touched her. She wouldn’t leave him. Honestly, I believe she
+did more for him than all the doctors.”
+
+“I am sure she did.”
+
+Marjorie was changed; her face was thinner, some of its colour gone.
+Yet the little she had lost was more than atoned for in the much that
+she had gained. She held his hand, she looked him frankly in the eyes.
+
+“So it is all right, little girl, all right now?”
+
+She nodded. “It is all right. I am happier than I deserve to be. Oh,
+Hugh, I have been weak and foolish, wavering and uncertain. I can see
+it all now, but now at last I know—I do know my own mind.”
+
+“And your own heart?”
+
+“And my own heart.”
+
+She wondered as she looked at him if ever he could have guessed what
+had been in her mind that day when she had gone to Hurst Dormer to see
+him. How full of love for him her heart had been then! And then she
+remembered what he had said, those four words that had ended her dream
+for ever—“Better than my life.” So he loved Joan, and now she knew that
+she too loved with her whole heart.
+
+Death had been very close, and perhaps it had been pity for that fine
+young life that seemed to be so near its end that had awakened love.
+Yet, whatever the cause, she knew now that her love for Tom had come to
+stay.
+
+“And Joan?” Marjorie asked.
+
+“Joan?” he said. “Joan, she is in her own home.”
+
+“And her heart is still hard against you, Hugh?”
+
+“Her pride is still between us, Marjorie,” he said, and quickly turned
+the conversation, and a few minutes later was up in the bedroom talking
+cheerily enough to Tom.
+
+“It’s all right, Alston, everything is all right. Lady Linden wanted to
+shoot the horse; but I wouldn’t have it. I owe him too much—you
+understand, Alston, don’t you? Everything is all right between Marjorie
+and me.”
+
+And then Hugh went back to Hurst Dormer—thank, Heaven there was some
+happiness in this world! There was happiness at Cornbridge, and after
+Cornbridge Hurst Dormer seemed darker and more solitary than ever.
+
+It was while she had been talking to Hugh that Marjorie had made up her
+mind.
+
+“I am going to tell Joan the whole truth, the whole truth,” she
+thought. And Hugh was scarcely out of the house before Marjorie sat
+down to write her letter to Joan.
+
+
+“... I know that you have always blamed him for what was never his
+fault. He did it because he is generous and unselfish. He loved me in
+those days. I know that it could not have been the great abiding love;
+it was only liking that turned to fondness. Yet he wanted to marry me,
+Joan, and when he knew that there was someone else, and that he stood
+in the way of our happiness, the whole plan was arranged, and we had to
+find a name, you understand. And he asked me to suggest one, and I
+thought of yours, because it is the prettiest name I know; and he,
+Hugh, never dreamed that it belonged to a living woman. And so it was
+used, dear, and all this trouble and all this misunderstanding came
+about. I always wanted to tell you the truth, but he wouldn’t let me,
+because he was afraid that if Aunt got to hear of it, she might be
+angry and send Tom away. But now I know she would not, and so I am
+telling you everything. The fault was mine. And yet, you know, dear, I
+had no thought of angering or of offending you. Write to me and tell me
+you forgive me. And oh, Joan, don’t let pride come between you and the
+man you love, for I think he is one of the finest men I know, the best
+and straightest.
+
+“MARJORIE.”
+
+
+Marjorie felt that she had lifted a weight from her mind when she put
+this letter in the post.
+
+Long, long ago Joan had acquitted Hugh of any intention to offend or
+annoy her by the use of her name. Yet why had he never told her the
+truth, told her that it had never been his doing at all? She read
+Marjorie’s letter, and then thrust it away from her. Why had he not
+written this? Did he care less now than he had? Had she tired him out
+with her coldness and her pride? Perhaps that was it.
+
+Yesterday Ellice had come over on the old bicycle—Ellice with shining
+eyes and pink cheeks, glowing with happiness and joy, and Ellice had
+hugged her tightly, and tried to whisper thanks that would not come.
+
+She was happy now. Marjorie was happy. Only she seemed to be cut off
+from happiness. Why had he gone without a word, just those few written
+lines? He had not cared so much, after all.
+
+And so the days went by. Joan wrote a loving, sympathetic letter to
+Marjorie. She quite understood, and she did not blame Hugh; she blamed
+no one.
+
+It was a long letter, dealing mainly with her life, with the village,
+with the things she was doing and going to do. But of the
+future—nothing; of the past, in so far as Hugh Alston was
+concerned—nothing.
+
+And when Marjorie read the letter she read of an unsatisfied, unhappy
+spirit, of a girl whose whole heart yearned and longed for love, and
+whose pride held her in check and condemned her to unhappiness.
+
+Scarcely a day passed but Joan drove over to Little Langbourne. Philip
+Slotman came to look for her, and counted it a long unhappy day if she
+failed him; but it was not often.
+
+She had discovered that he was well-nigh penniless, and that it would
+be months before he would be fit to work again. And so she had quietly
+supplied all his needs.
+
+“When you are well and strong again, you shall go back. You shall have
+the capital you want, and you will do well. I know that. I shall lend
+you the money to start afresh, and you will pay me back when you can.”
+
+“Joan, I wonder if there are many women like you?”
+
+“Many better than I,” she said—“many happier.”
+
+At Buddesby she was welcomed by a radiant girl with happy eyes, a girl
+who could not make enough of her, and there Joan saw a home life and
+happiness she had never known—a happiness that set her hungry heart
+yearning and longing with a longing that was intolerable and
+unbearable.
+
+“Send for me, and I will come,” he had written; and she had not sent.
+She would not, pride forbade it, and yet—yet to be happy as Ellice was
+happy, to feel his arms about her, to rest her head against his breast,
+to know that during all the years to come he would be here by her side,
+that loneliness would never touch her again.
+
+“I won’t!” she said. “I won’t! If he needs me, it is he who must come
+to me. I will not send for him.”
+
+It was her pride’s last fight, a fine fight it made. For days she
+struggled against the yearning of her heart, against the wealth of
+love, pent-up and stored within; valiantly and bravely pride fought.
+
+To-day she had been to the hospital. She had stopped, as she often did,
+at Buddesby. There was talk of a marriage there. Many catalogues and
+price-lists had come through the post, and Con and Ellice were busy
+with them. For they were not very rich, and money must be made to go a
+long way; and into their conclave they drew Joan, who for a time forgot
+everything in this new interest.
+
+They had all been very busy when the door had opened and Johnny Everard
+had come in, and, looking up, Joan caught a look that passed between
+Johnny and Ellice—just a look, yet it spoke volumes. It laid bare the
+secret of both hearts.
+
+Later, when she said good-bye, he walked to the gate where her car was
+waiting. They had said but little, for Johnny seemed shy and
+constrained in her presence.
+
+“Joan, I have much to be very, very grateful to you for,” he said, as
+he held her hand. “You were right. Life without love would be
+impossible, and you have made life very possible for me.”
+
+She was thinking of this during the lonely drive back to Starden;
+always his words came back to her. Life without love would be
+impossible, and then it was that the battle ended, that pride retired
+vanquished from the field.
+
+
+“I want you to come back to me because I am so lonely. Please come back
+and forgive.
+“JOAN.”
+
+
+The message that, in the end, she must write was written and sent.
+
+And now that pride had broken down, was gone for ever, so far as this
+man was concerned, it was a very loving anxious-eyed, trembling woman
+who watched for the coming of the man that she loved and needed, the
+man who meant all the happiness this world could give her.
+
+
+She had called to him, and this must be his answer. No slow-going
+trains, no tedious broken journeys, no wasted hours of delay—the
+fastest car, driven at reckless speed, yet with all due care that none
+should suffer because of his eagerness and his happiness.
+
+It seemed to him such a very pitiful, humble little appeal, an appeal
+that went straight to his heart—so short an appeal that he could
+remember every word of it, and found himself repeating it as his car
+swallowed the miles that lay between them.
+
+He asked no questions of himself. She would not have sent for him had
+she not been free to do so. He knew that.
+
+And now the landscape was growing familiar, a little while, and they
+were running through Starden village. Villagers who had come to know
+him touched their hats. They passed Mrs. Bonner’s little cottage, and
+now through the gateway, the gates standing wide as in welcome and
+expectation of his coming.
+
+And she, watching for him, saw his coming, and her heart leaped with
+the joy of it. Helen Everard saw, too, and guessed what it meant.
+
+“Go into the morning-room, Joan. I will send him to you there.”
+
+And so it was in the morning-room he found her. Flushed and
+bright-eyed, trembling with happiness and the joy of seeing him, gone
+for ever the pride and the scorn, she was only a girl who loved him
+dearly, who needed him much. She had fought the giant pride, and had
+beaten it for ever for his sake, and now he was here smiling at her,
+his arms stretched out to her.
+
+“You wanted me at last, Joan,” he said. “You called me, darling, and I
+have come.”
+
+“I want you. I always want you. Never, never leave me again, Hugh—never
+leave me again. I love you so, and need you so.”
+
+And then his arms were about her and hers about his neck, and she who
+had been so cold, so proud, so scornful, was remembering Johnny
+Everard’s words, “Life without love would be impossible.”
+
+And now life was very, very possible to her.
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
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