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diff --git a/78149-0.txt b/78149-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6cb4240 --- /dev/null +++ b/78149-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9109 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78149 *** + + + + + EAGLE SERIES NO. 448 + + WHEN LOVE DAWNS + + BY + + ADELAIDE STIRLING + + [Illustration] + + STREET & SMITH :: PUBLISHERS :: NEW YORK + + + + +_Copyright Fiction by the Best Authors_ + +NEW EAGLE SERIES + +A Big New Book Issued Weekly in this Line. + +An Unequaled Collection of Modern Romances. + + +The books in this line comprise an unrivaled collection of copyrighted +novels by authors who have won fame wherever the English language is +spoken. Foremost among these is Mrs. Georgie Sheldon, whose works +are contained in this line exclusively. Every book in the New Eagle +Series is of generous length, of attractive appearance, and of +undoubted merit. No better literature can be had at any price. Beware +of imitations of the S. & S. novels, which are sold cheap because +their publishers were put to no expense in the matter of purchasing +manuscripts and making plates. + + +ALL TITLES ALWAYS IN PRINT + + TO THE PUBLIC:--These books are sold by news dealers everywhere. If + your dealer does not keep them, and will not get them for you, send + direct to the publishers, in which case four cents must be added to + the price per copy to cover postage. + + +=Quo Vadis= (New Illustrated Edition) =By Henryk Sienkiewicz= + + 1--Queen Bess By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 2--Ruby’s Reward By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 7--Two Keys By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 12--Edrie’s Legacy By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 44--That Dowdy By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 55--Thrice Wedded By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 66--Witch Hazel By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 77--Tina By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 88--Virgie’s Inheritance By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 99--Audrey’s Recompense By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 111--Faithful Shirley By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 122--Grazia’s Mistake By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 133--Max By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 144--Dorothy’s Jewels By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 155--Nameless Dell By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 166--The Masked Bridal By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 177--A True Aristocrat By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 188--Dorothy Arnold’s Escape By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 199--Geoffrey’s Victory By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 210--Wild Oats By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 219--Lost, A Pearle By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 222--The Lily of Mordaunt By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 233--Nora By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 244--A Hoiden’s Conquest By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 255--The Little Marplot By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 266--The Welfleet Mystery By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 277--Brownie’s Triumph By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 282--The Forsaken Bride By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 288--Sibyl’s Influence By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 291--A Mysterious Wedding Ring By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 299--Little Miss Whirlwind By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 311--Wedded by Fate By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 339--His Heart’s Queen By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 351--The Churchyard Betrothal By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 362--Stella Rosevelt By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 372--A Girl in a Thousand By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 373--A Thorn Among Roses By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + Sequel to “A Girl in a Thousand” + 382--Mona By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 391--Marguerite’s Heritage By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 399--Betsey’s Transformation By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 407--Esther, the Fright By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 415--Trixy By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 419--The Other Woman By Charles Garvice + 433--Winifred’s Sacrifice By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 440--Edna’s Secret Marriage By Charles Garvice + 451--Helen’s Victory By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 458--When Love Meets Love By Charles Garvice + 476--Earle Wayne’s Nobility By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 511--The Golden Key By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 512--A Heritage of Love By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + Sequel to “The Golden Key” + 519--The Magic Cameo By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 520--The Heatherford Fortune By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + Sequel to “The Magic Cameo” + 531--Better Than Life By Charles Garvice + 537--A Life’s Mistake By Charles Garvice + 542--Once in a Life By Charles Garvice + 548--’Twas Love’s Fault By Charles Garvice + 553--Queen Kate By Charles Garvice + 554--Step by Step By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 555--Put to the Test By Ida Reade Allen + 556--With Love’s Aid By Wenona Gilman + 557--In Cupid’s Chains By Charles Garvice + 558--A Plunge Into the Unknown By Richard Marsh + 559--The Love That Was Cursed By Geraldine Fleming + 560--The Thorns of Regret By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller + 561--The Outcast of the Family By Charles Garvice + 562--A Forced Promise By Ida Reade Allen + 563--The Old Homestead By Denman Thompson + 564--Love’s First Kiss By Emma Garrison Jones + 565--Just a Girl By Charles Garvice + 566--In Love’s Springtime By Laura Jean Libbey + 567--Trixie’s Honor By Geraldine Fleming + 568--Hearts and Dollars By Ida Reade Allen + 569--By Devious Ways By Charles Garvice + 570--Her Heart’s Unbidden Guest By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller + 571--Two Wild Girls By Mrs. Charlotte May Kingsley + 572--Amid Scarlet Roses By Emma Garrison Jones + 573--Heart for Heart By Charles Garvice + 574--The Fugitive Bride By Mary E. Bryan + 575--A Blue Grass Heroine By Ida Reade Allen + 576--The Yellow Face By Fred M. White + 577--The Story of a Passion By Charles Garvice + 579--The Curse of Beauty By Geraldine Fleming + 580--The Great Awakening By E. Phillips Oppenheim + 581--A Modern Juliet By Charles Garvice + 582--Virgie Talcott’s Mission By Lucy M. Russell + 583--His Greatest Sacrifice; or, Manch By Mary E. Bryan + 584--Mabel’s Fate By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller + 585--The Ape and the Diamond By Richard Marsh + 586--Nell, of Shorne Mills By Charles Garvice + 587--Katherine’s Two Suitors By Geraldine Fleming + 588--The Crime of Love By Barbara Howard + 589--His Father’s Crime By E. Phillips Oppenheim + 590--What Was She to Him? By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller + 591--A Heritage of Hate By Charles Garvice + 592--Ida Chaloner’s Heart By Lucy Randall Comfort + 593--Love Will Find the Way By Wenona Gilman + 594--A Case of Identity By Richard Marsh + 595--The Shadow of Her Life By Charles Garvice + 596--Slighted Love By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller + 597--Her Fatal Gift By Geraldine Fleming + 598--His Wife’s Friend By Mary E. Bryan + 599--At Love’s Cost By Charles Garvice + 600--St. Elmo By Augusta J. Evans + 601--The Fate of the Plotter By Louis Tracy + 602--Married in Error By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller + 603--Love and Jealousy By Lucy Randall Comfort + 604--Only a Working Girl By Geraldine Fleming + 605--Love, the Tyrant By Charles Garvice + 606--Mabel’s Sacrifice By Charlotte M. Stanley + 608--Love is Love Forevermore By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller + 609--John Elliott’s Flirtation By Lucy May Russell + 610--With All Her Heart By Charles Garvice + 611--Is Love Worth While? By Geraldine Fleming + 612--Her Husband’s Other Wife By Emma Garrison Jones + 613--Philip Bennion’s Death By Richard Marsh + 614--Little Phillis’ Lover By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller + 615--Maida By Charles Garvice + 617--As a Man Lives By E. Phillips Oppenheim + 618--The Tide of Fate By Wenona Gilman + 619--The Cardinal Moth By Fred M. White + 620--Marcia Drayton By Charles Garvice + 621--Lynette’s Wedding By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller + 622--His Madcap Sweetheart By Emma Garrison Jones + 623--Love at the Loom By Geraldine Fleming + 624--A Bachelor Girl By Lucy May Russell + 625--Kyra’s Fate By Charles Garvice + 626--The Joss By Richard Marsh + 627--My Little Love By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller + 628--A Daughter of the Marionis By E. Phillips Oppenheim + 629--The Lady of Beaufort Park By Wenona Gilman + 630--The Verdict of the Heart By Charles Garvice + 631--A Love Concealed By Emma Garrison Jones + 633--The Strange Disappearance of Lady Delia By Louis Tracy + 634--Love’s Golden Spell By Geraldine Fleming + 635--A Coronet of Shame By Charles Garvice + 636--Sinned Against By Mary E. Bryan + 637--If It Were True! By Wenona Gilman + 638--A Golden Barrier By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller + 639--A Hateful Bondage By Barbara Howard + 640--A Girl of Spirit By Charles Garvice + 641--Master of Men By E. Phillips Oppenheim + 642--A Fair Enchantress By Ida Reade Allen + 643--The Power of Love By Geraldine Fleming + 644--No Time for Penitence By Wenona Gilman + 645--A Jest of Fate By Charles Garvice + 646--Her Sister’s Secret By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller + 647--Bitterly Atoned By Mrs. E. Burke Collins + 648--Gertrude Elliott’s Crucible By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 649--The Corner House By Fred M. White + 650--Diana’s Destiny By Charles Garvice + 651--Love’s Clouded Dawn By Wenona Gilman + 652--Little Vixen By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller + 653--Her Heart’s Challenge By Barbara Howard + 654--Vivian’s Love Story By Mrs. E. Burke Collins + 655--Linked by Fate By Charles Garvice + 656--Hearts of Stone By Geraldine Fleming + 657--In the Service of Love By Richard Marsh + 658--Love’s Devious Course By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller + 659--Told in the Twilight By Ida Reade Allen + 660--The Mills of the Gods By Wenona Gilman + 661--The Man of the Hour By Sir William Magnay + 662--A Little Barbarian By Charlotte Kingsley + 663--Creatures of Destiny By Charles Garvice + 664--A Southern Princess By Emma Garrison Jones + 666--A Fateful Promise By Effie Adelaide Rowlands + 667--The Goddess--A Demon By Richard Marsh + 668--From Tears to Smiles By Ida Reade Allen + 670--Better Than Riches By Wenona Gilman + 671--When Love Is Young By Charles Garvice + 672--Craven Fortune By Fred M. White + 673--Her Life’s Burden By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller + 674--The Heart of Hetta By Effie Adelaide Rowlands + 675--The Breath of Slander By Ida Reade Allen + 676--My Lady Beth By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 677--The Wooing of Esther Gray By Louis Tracy + 678--The Shadow Between Them By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller + 679--Gold in the Gutter By Charles Garvice + 680--Master of Her Fate By Geraldine Fleming + 681--In Full Cry By Richard Marsh + 682--My Pretty Maid By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller + 683--An Unhappy Bargain By Effie Adelaide Rowlands + 684--Her Enduring Love By Ida Reade Allen + 685--India’s Punishment By Laura Jean Libbey + 686--The Castle of the Shadows By Mrs. C. N. Williamson + 687--My Own Sweetheart By Wenona Gilman + 688--Only a Kiss By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller + 689--Lola Dunbar’s Crime By Barbara Howard + 690--Ruth, the Outcast By Mrs. Mary E. Bryan + 691--Her Dearest Love By Geraldine Fleming + 692--The Man of Millions By Ida Reade Allen + 693--For Another’s Fault By Charlotte M. Stanley + 694--The Belle of Saratoga By Lucy Randall Comfort + 695--The Mystery of the Unicorn By Sir William Magnay + 696--The Bride’s Opals By Emma Garrison Jones + 697--One of Life’s Roses By Effie Adelaide Rowlands + 698--The Battle of Hearts By Geraldine Fleming + 700--In Wolf’s Clothing By Charles Garvice + 701--A Lost Sweetheart By Ida Reade Allen + 702--The Stronger Passion By Mrs. Lillian R. Drayton + 703--Mr. Marx’s Secret By E. Phillips Oppenheim + 704--Had She Loved Him Less! By Laura Jean Libbey + 705--The Adventure of Princess Sylvia By Mrs. C. N. Williamson + 706--In Love’s Paradise By Charlotte M. Stanley + 707--At Another’s Bidding By Ida Reade Allen + 708--Sold for Gold By Geraldine Fleming + 710--Ridgeway of Montana By William MacLeod Raine + 711--Taken by Storm By Emma Garrison Jones + 712--Love and a Lie By Charles Garvice + 713--Barriers of Stone By Wenona Gilman + 714--Ethel’s Secret By Charlotte M. Stanley + 715--Amber, the Adopted By Mrs. Harriet Lewis + 716--No Man’s Wife By Ida Reade Allen + 717--Wild and Willful By Lucy Randall Comfort + 718--When We Two Parted By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller + 719--Love’s Earnest Prayer By Geraldine Fleming + 720--The Price of a Kiss By Laura Jean Libbey + 721--A Girl from the South By Charles Garvice + 722--A Freak of Fate By Emma Garrison Jones + 723--A Golden Sorrow By Charlotte M. Stanley + 724--Norna’s Black Fortune By Ida Reade Alien + 725--The Thoroughbred By Edith MacVane + 726--Diana’s Peril By Dorothy Hall + 727--His Willing Slave By Lillian R. Drayton + 728--Her Share of Sorrow By Wenona Gilman + 729--Loved at Last By Geraldine Fleming + 730--John Hungerford’s Redemption By Mrs. Georgie Sheldon + 731--His Two Loves By Ida Reade Allen + 732--Eric Braddon’s Love By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller + 733--Garrison’s Finish By W. B. M. Ferguson + 734--Sylvia, the Forsaken By Charlotte M. Stanley + 735--Married for Money By Lucy Randall Comfort + 736--Married in Haste By Wenona Gilman + 737--At Her Father’s Bidding By Geraldine Fleming + 738--The Power of Gold By Ida Reade Allen + 739--The Strength of Love By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller + 740--A Soul Laid Bare By J. K. Egerton + 741--The Fatal Ruby By Charles Garvice + 742--A Strange Wooing By Richard Marsh + 743--A Lost Love By Wenona Gilman + 744--A Useless Sacrifice By Emma Garrison Jones + 745--A Will of Her Own By Ida Reade Allen + 746--That Girl Named Haze By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller + 747--For a Flirt’s Love By Geraldine Fleming + 748--The World’s Great Snare By E. Phillips Oppenheim + 749--The Heart of a Maid By Charles Garvice + 750--Driven from Home By Wenona Gilman + 751--The Gypsy’s Warning By Emma Garrison Jones + 752--Without Name or Wealth By Ida Reade Allen + 753--Loyal Unto Death By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller + 754--His Lost Heritage By Effie Adelaide Rowlands + 755--Her Priceless Love By Geraldine Fleming + 756--Leola’s Heart By Charlotte M. Stanley + 757--Dare-devil Betty By Evelyn Malcolm + 758--The Woman in It By Charles Garvice + 759--They Met by Chance By Ida Reade Allen + 760--Love Conquers Pride By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller + 761--A Reckless Promise By Emma Garrison Jones + 762--The Rose of Yesterday By Effie Adelaide Rowlands + 763--The Other Girl’s Lover By Lillian R. Drayton + 764--His Unbounded Faith By Charlotte M. Stanley + 765--When Love Speaks By Evelyn Malcolm + 766--The Man She Hated By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller + 767--No One to Help Her By Ida Reade Allen + 768--Claire’s Love-Life By Lucy Randall Comfort + 769--Love’s Harvest By Adelaide Fox Robinson + 770--A Queen of Song By Geraldine Fleming + 771--Nan Haggard’s Confession By Mary E. Bryan + 772--A Married Flirt By Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller + 773--The Thorns of Love By Evelyn Malcolm + 774--Love in a Snare By Charles Garvice + 775--My Love Kitty By Charles Garvice + 776--That Strange Girl By Charles Garvice + 777--Nellie By Charles Garvice + 778--Miss Estcourt; or, Olive By Charles Garvice + 779--A Virginia Goddess By Ida Reade Allen + 780--The Love He Sought By Lillian R. Drayton + 781--Falsely Accused By Geraldine Fleming + 782--His First Sweetheart By Lucy Randall Comfort + 783--All for Love By Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller + + + + + WHEN LOVE DAWNS + + OR, + + DARK MAGDALEN + + + BY + ADELAIDE STIRLING + + AUTHOR OF + + “Nerine’s Second Choice,” “The Purple Mask,” + “Lover or Husband?” etc. + + [Illustration: S AND S NOVELS] + + NEW YORK + STREET & SMITH, PUBLISHERS + 79-89 SEVENTH AVENUE + + + + + Copyright, 1900 + By STREET & SMITH + + + When Love Dawns + + + + +_THE BEST OF EVERYTHING!_ + + +Our experience with the American reading public has taught us that +it expects better reading than readers of any other nationality. +Why? Because Americans, as a rule, are better educated and more +intelligent. We make it a point to cater to all classes of readers +with our paper-covered novels. If a man likes adventure or detective +stories, he can find more and better ones in the S. & S. novel list +than he can among the cloth books. If a woman wants love, society, or +mystery stories, the S. & S. catalogue again contains just what she +wants at the lowest possible price. If a boy wants up-to-date baseball, +athletic, or treasure-hunt stories, he cannot get anything that will +please him so much as the books in the MEDAL and NEW MEDAL LIBRARIES, +no matter how much he has to spend for his reading matter. + +Here are a few suggestions: + + +BOOKS FOR MEN. + +The Nick Carter stories in the NEW MAGNET LIBRARY. + +The Howard W. Erwin stories in the FAR WEST LIBRARY. + +The William Wallace Cook stories in the NEW FICTION LIBRARY. + +The Dumas stories in the SELECT LIBRARY. + + +BOOKS FOR WOMEN. + +The Mrs. Georgie Sheldon stories in the NEW EAGLE SERIES. + +The Charles Garvice stories in the NEW EAGLE SERIES. + +The Bertha Clay stories in the BERTHA CLAY LIBRARY. + +The Southworth stories in the SOUTHWORTH LIBRARY. + +The Mrs. Mary J. Holmes stories in the EAGLE and SELECT LIBRARIES. + + +BOOKS FOR BOYS. + +The Burt L. Standish stories in the NEW MEDAL LIBRARY. + +The Horatio Alger stories in the MEDAL and NEW MEDAL LIBRARIES. + +The Oliver Optic stories in the MEDAL and NEW MEDAL LIBRARIES. + +The Edward C. Taylor stories in the NEW MEDAL LIBRARY. + +Send for our complete catalogue and look these stories up. It will pay +you. + + +STREET & SMITH, _Publishers_, NEW YORK + + + + +Why Take a Chance? + + +Most everybody thinks that the public library is a mighty fine +institution--teaches people to read, and all that. Well, so it does, +but does any one ever think of the great risk that a person, who takes +a book out of a public library, runs of catching some contagious +disease? + +Every time a bacteriological examination is made of the public-library +book, germs of every known disease are found among its pages. Probably, +from your own experience, you know that lots of people never think of +taking a book from the public library, until some one in their family +is sick and wants something to read. + +As records prove that ninety per cent of the demand for books at the +public libraries is for works of fiction, it strikes us that the +reading public would do better to patronize the S. & S. novel list +which contains hundreds of books to be found in the public libraries, +and many hundreds of others just as good and interesting. + +The price of the S. & S. novels is a low one indeed to pay for +protection from disease-laden literature. Why run the risk, then, when +you can get a fresh, clean book for little money and thus insure your +health? + + + STREET & SMITH, _Publishers_ + NEW YORK + + + + +WHEN LOVE DAWNS. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER I. PROFITS OF A PAST. + CHAPTER II. WHEN THE PRESENT’S QUESTIONABLE. + CHAPTER III. EYES THAT LOOKED INTO EYES. + CHAPTER IV. AN OUTCAST. + CHAPTER V. “I NEVER KNEW HIM.” + CHAPTER VI. A GOLDEN FUTURE. + CHAPTER VII. ACROSS CLYDE WATER. + CHAPTER VIII. MAGDALEN DREAMS. + CHAPTER IX. DOLLY’S PREDICAMENT. + CHAPTER X. BETWEEN TWO EVILS. + CHAPTER XI. THE EYES BEHIND THE GLASS. + CHAPTER XII. IN THE CHAPEL. + CHAPTER XIII. STRATHARDEN “SEES THEM OFF.” + CHAPTER XIV. “MURDER!” + CHAPTER XV. DOLLY SEES DAYLIGHT. + CHAPTER XVI. “DARK MAGDALEN.” + CHAPTER XVII. FOR THE HOUSE OF BARNYSDALE. + CHAPTER XVIII. EYES TO THE BLIND. + CHAPTER XIX. “GOOD LORD, DELIVER US!” + CHAPTER XX. DOLLY TAKES FEAR BY THE THROAT. + CHAPTER XXI. IN DISGUISE. + CHAPTER XXII. WHEN LOVE DAWNS. + CHAPTER XXIII. THE NAKED FOOTSTEP. + CHAPTER XXIV. AT AUNT MANETTE’S. + CHAPTER XXV. “BUFF OGILVIE!” + CHAPTER XXVI. A CURTAIN AND A SHADOW. + CHAPTER XXVII. “WHY SHOULD I TRUST YOU?” + CHAPTER XXVIII. ONLY A BIT OF GOLD FILIGREE. + CHAPTER XXIX. THE GREEN BAIZE DOOR. + CHAPTER XXX. LORD STRATHARDEN BEGINS. + CHAPTER XXXI. THE BLIND GUIDE. + CHAPTER XXXII. IN THE HOUSE OF AH LEE. + CHAPTER XXXIII. IN THE HOUSE OF HER DREAM. + CHAPTER XXXIV. ONE THAT WAS LOST. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +PROFITS OF A PAST. + + +“Why didn’t you tell me?” The girl had her back turned on the +extravagant, luxurious room and its one other occupant. Her voice was +full of anger and she stared out of the window as though she had not +patience to meet the other woman’s eyes. + +“What good would it have done?” Mrs. Arden lay stretched full length on +the sofa, her untidy dressing-gown disposed gracefully about her. + +“I could have done something?” + +“What? Gone without meat on Fridays and had bread without butter? You +may as well turn round, Magdalen! I know you’re raging.” + +“I’m not.” She wheeled slowly. “It wasn’t my money, it was yours. But +if I’d known I wouldn’t have helped you waste it, I’d have worked, I +wouldn’t have lived on you. Oh, Doll!” hotly, “can’t you see it’s been +madness? What have you ever got for all you’ve thrown away?” + +“We’ve had a good time,” calmly. “What’s the use of talking about it? +My money’s s-p-e-n-t, spent--and that’s the end of it. Now we’ve got to +live on our wits.” + +Magdalen Clyde looked at her stepsister curiously, as though she saw +her for the first time--her fragile, waxen prettiness; her careless +mouth! her eyes, half tired and half mocking. For all the soft lines of +her face there was something reckless in it this morning. + +“Don’t stare at me,” cried Dolly petulantly. “You’ve seen me before and +I’m not looking my best on this delightful occasion. And what you’re +thinking is a waste of time! I’m not going to look for a place as +housekeeper while you go out as a nursery governess. I’m thirty years +old and the world owes me a living. It wasn’t my fault that I came into +it.” + +“Why did you take me on your shoulders? I could have worked for myself.” + +A curious expression flitted across Dolly’s face. But whatever caused +it she kept to herself. Perhaps for only one second had she meant to +tell why she had taken Magdalen. + +“Don’t talk rubbish!” she said shortly. “Mother died--I had the money. +You went to school and I got married; not for long, thank the powers! +And anyhow, here we are without one penny. Your assets, I believe,” +and she laughed, “are two black frocks, three indifferent hats and a +red head. Mine are: Item--one husband, kindly removed by desertion; +item--one small boy of three and _ad infinitum_--do you like my +delicate wit?--debts, debts and duns. My looks I will leave out of +the question; perhaps they are a little frayed around the edges. But +my reputation, thanks to your eternal vigilance, is good! You’ve been +quite worth your keep, my beloved!” + +“What does your reputation matter?” hastily; with sense enough not +to say what was on her tongue. Dolly Arden’s reputation! A hundred +lucky slides over cracking ice, a habit of knowing no women who could +talk about her escapades or her parties, a childlike callousness that +thought the world both deep and blind. If these things build up a +good reputation, Dolly Arden had one. The girl dismissed the long +list of men who had adorned her stepsister with various jewelry and +vanished--though their presents stayed--and asked her question over +again scornfully: + +“What does your reputation matter?” + +“Everything,” returned Mrs. Arden calmly. “It’s my stock in trade. I’m +going to become a British matron; well-dressed, too. I’m going to drive +through the rest of my life in a carriage and have bishops’ wives to +tea.” + +“You don’t mean”--there was never much color in Magdalen’s face, but +now it was as white as paper--“he isn’t--you’re not going to dare to +get married again?” + +“On the contrary, I’m going to become a widow! You don’t look pretty +with your mouth open like a codfish, my child, and your horror’s +wasted. He,” significantly, “is not going to marry me. It’s my previous +history that will enable me to consort with bishops’ wives when +convenient, not my future.” + +“Do you mean the kind who abide in asylums?” trenchantly. “For +goodness’ sake, Doll, speak out! What do you mean? I know something’s +happened. Last night you walked the floor, for I heard you, and this +morning you’re a different creature.” + +“Last night I saw no resource for us but to turn costermongers on +half a crown capital! This morning”--a queer look, half excitement, +half determination, came on her face; she stood up with her torn +dressing-gown let hang as it liked--“this morning, Magdalen, Lord +Barnysdale’s dead!” + +“Oh, sit down,” wrathfully. “You look like Crazy Ann. I’m too tired for +jokes. I never heard of Lord Barnysdale when he was alive; what does +his being dead matter to us?” + +Mrs. Arden laughed; then pirouetted with a childish, careless grace. + +“Everything!” she cried. “Barnysdale’s dead, I’m a widow--a widow!” and +she waltzed round the room. + +“Dolly, for Heaven’s sake!” said Magdalen furiously, yet her pale face, +with its level black brows and somber eyes, might have been a picture +in black and white for all the life there was in it as she caught the +small dancing figure gently enough. “Are you demented or do you think I +am?” + +“Neither,” panting. “I mean Barnysdale’s dead and I’m rich!” + +“You don’t mean he was--Arden?” blankly. + +For all she knew about her stepsister’s marriage was that it had been +unhappy, that the man had deserted her and that Dolly, in a moment of +unwonted frankness, had once said his name was not Arden; though what +it was she had not disclosed. For all her gaiety and her recklessness +there was never a more secretive woman on earth--about her own +affairs--than Dolly. + +“Yes, I do.” Dolly’s lips grew very pale, her eyes defiant. “Let go +of me and sit down while I tell you. But for Heaven’s sake poke the +fire first! I’m frozen,” with a shiver, as if all her dancing had not +quickened her blood. + +“This is the last of the coal.” Magdalen’s hand dropped from her +stepsister’s arm, but she did not move to the ugly, dull fire. + +“The last? You idiot, I’m a countess! I’ll never worry about coal again +as long as I live.” + +“Dolly,” said Magdalen slowly, “I don’t believe you!” + +For one second there was on Dolly Arden’s face a look that might have +been terror. The next her small, fair head went back defiantly; if she +found her voice by an effort it was imperceptible. + +“You’ll have to,” she returned. “Look here,” pointing to the morning +paper she had calmly taken from the door of the next flat, “Barnysdale +died last night; there’s the notice. And here’s the rest!” she pulled +an envelope from her pocket and threw it to Magdalen. + +As the girl took out the three papers that were in it Mrs. Arden +looked, not at her, but at her own stone-cold hands. Her small face +was bloodless; every fine line time--or other things--had marked on it +showed out in the gray November light. If she were thirty and owned to +it she looked forty, with that dreadful tenseness on her face as if she +were trying an experiment she dared not watch. + +But Magdalen had no eyes for her. + +There, in black and white, staring her in the face, was the marriage +certificate of Dorothy Deane and John Ogilvie, Earl of Barnysdale, +Viscount Stratharden; the baptismal register of Ronald, their only son. + +“Doll!” she exclaimed, “why did you never tell me? And why did you +worry like you’ve been doing? Why didn’t you go to him while he was +alive? He would have had to do something for you.” + +“I couldn’t,” hoarsely. “Read the last paper and you’ll see why!” but +her mouth had grown suddenly lax as if with relief, and as she looked +up her beautiful, shallow eyes were for the first time steady. + +“Was he out of his mind?” said Magdalen, gathering the sense of that +third paper incredulously. + +“No,” doubtfully, hesitating, “only tired, I--I think. He----” She gave +herself an angry little shake. Why was she telling her story as though +it were that of some one else? + +“Here,” she cried roughly, “give me the papers. I’ll tell you the whole +thing! You know when mother died I went on the stage. Well, I wasn’t a +success--that’s the long and short of it! And I got ill. I went down +to Hastings to a good hotel, with the last money I had. I thought I +would eat and drink that, and then, if nothing turned up, the sea would +be convenient. You were at that convent; you were only a girl I hardly +knew. Anyhow”--as if she were defending herself--“you’ve never known, +as I have, what it was to be afraid of life because you were poor.” + +“Poor! But you’d mother’s money.” + +“Not then,” impatiently. “Can’t you remember? When she died there was +just a lump sum and some stock in a mine that hadn’t paid for eight +years; but of that lump sum I paid the money down for the rest of +your education; you were only fifteen then and I didn’t want you with +me, and the rest I kept for myself. It was only a hundred pounds and +it went like that”--snapping her fingers--“and I went to Hastings. I +didn’t care a straw for you in those days.” + +The girl nodded. She remembered that well enough. + +“Well, I met him there!” with a hard breath through pinched nostrils. +“We were married; not a soul knew but the registrar. He had his yacht +there and we went away in her, and I was never called anything but Mrs. +Arden! I didn’t care, because I had good clothes and enough to eat, but +he told me plainly enough he didn’t mean to announce his marriage. He +said he was sick of the people he lived among and--well, I suppose I +wasn’t much like them,” bitterly, yet somehow with the bitterness of +the actress she once had been. “We left the yacht and lived in London. +My God! how dull it was! He was out all day long. I never knew a +creature except my own maid.” + +She moistened her lips, stiff and dry; it was harder to tell all this +than she had thought. “Then Ronald was born and he--he was furious! +I can see him now raging up and down. He wouldn’t have the child +christened--wouldn’t look at him. But when I got better”--every word +seemed dragged out of her and, seeing the humiliation of her story, +Magdalen could not wonder--“I had it done; and the next week he left +me. That charming document,” pointing to the largest of the three +papers on her lap, “was what he left behind him. You see that it’s to +the point, genuine; no one,” with a crooked smile, “would ever think of +making up or inventing a letter like that!” + +Magdalen read it once more, this time aloud. It was scrupulously signed +and dated, but it began with neither formality nor affection: + + “When this is handed to you I shall be gone. To my regret I find the + atmosphere of middle-class domesticity even less bearable than my + former surroundings. I have no fault to find with either your conduct + or your character, which are flawless to the utmost boredom--at least + they have produced that in me. I leave in your hands, chiefly because + I cannot avoid it, irrefragable proofs of your marriage to me; and I + rely on your affection and your honor not to use them. + + “My heir I leave to your care, and I also leave you a sufficient + amount of money for present expenses. When that is done, you + understand that there will be no more, nor do I mean to acknowledge + you in any way. You may say that you can force me to do so, which is + perfectly true; but you doubtless know me well enough by this time to + realize what the consequences of that course of action would be. + + “If, on the contrary, you obey my instructions--and I think I do not + build too greatly on your wifely and motherly affection--I make you + the following offer: At my death you are free to claim your rights + for yourself and your son. As I am nearly thirty years your senior, + you may not have long to wait. I will leave a letter, written at + the same time as this, with my lawyers, acknowledging the legality + of your marriage and the legitimacy of my son’s birth. If I seemed + annoyed at the latter event it was merely momentary. I married you + for a purpose which I find you cannot fulfil. My son’s existence is, + during my lifetime, of no importance; after my death, very much the + reverse; but during my life I have no desire to be hampered with + either you or him. I leave you--since you are a woman, and must have + reasons--because you can neither please, interest nor amuse me. + Kindly let me know your decision on this matter by a telegram to the + enclosed address. Any letter will only be returned to you. + + “I have, madam, the honor to remain, + + “Your husband, + “BARNYSDALE. + + “P. S.--I should advise you to dismiss your maid, who deserves a + less confined sphere for her delightfully outspoken tongue. As for + your livelihood I have no fears, remembering how many times you have + assured me that it would gratify you to be allowed to return to your + profession.” + +“Of all the wicked letters!” began Magdalen Clyde slowly, and sat +looking at the unspeakable document. “What did you do? I would +have”--her beautiful mouth straightened, her eyes grew veiled and +evil--“I would have made him acknowledge me that very day or I’d have +killed him!” + +“You didn’t know him,” sharply. “I did. And nothing, not Ronald’s +future nor starvation, would have made me live with him a single day +when I’d once got rid of him! I sent the telegram.” + +“You agreed! To be thrown over like that?” + +“I did. I wired that in accordance with his wishes I would make no +claim on him during his lifetime. I hated him. I was thankful, thankful +to have him out of my sight.” + +“And you never heard from him?” + +“I never heard.” All her old lightness had come back to her and a +certain something her stepsister had never seen in her. “He’s dead!” +she cried with dreadful, venomous joy. “He’s cold, and they’ll put him +in the ground. And I’m alive and warm and a countess!” + +“Hush! Stop! It’s unlucky,” Magdalen said sharply. “You’re not a +countess yet.” + +“It’s all the same. We’re made, Magdalen! I need never worry again +about what my clothes cost. And now you can lend me your black hat and +I’ll hasten to my defunct John’s lawyers. John was his name. Fancy an +earl named John!” + +“You’d better not go while you look like you do, wild with joy,” +bluntly. + +But Dolly only kissed her hand as she went out. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +WHEN THE PRESENT’S QUESTIONABLE. + + +Dolly--headlong, hard, pretty Dolly--a countess! + +“I don’t believe it,” said Magdalen Clyde to herself, even after seeing +Dolly depart in a black gown--got, Heaven knows where--and the borrowed +black hat. + +Exactly what she had done to make herself look so pathetic and yet +so dignified her stepsister did not know. She looked precisely as a +deserted wife should look; tremulously brave, meek, yet determined. But +even so, and in the face of those certificates and that letter there +was cold, lurking disbelief in the heart of the girl she left behind. + +“I don’t know what ails me,” she thought angrily. “Dolly tells lies, +of course, but not to me. And this couldn’t be a lie, or she wouldn’t +dare. But how on earth she can ever be a countess? Dolly, who hates +everything conventional and never was civil to a woman in her life. +Bah!” with sudden self-contempt, “it isn’t that and I know it. It’s +that I’m frightened. I’d rather go and sing in a music-hall than have +to live with Dolly if they find her story’s true.” + +She looked round her with a queer feeling of being in a dream. Here in +this little rose-colored room she and Dolly had lived for two years. +She remembered how dumfounded she had been when Dolly appeared at the +convent and calmly announced that she wanted her sister. Her maid was +dead and she was too young to live alone. With hostile eyes under level +black brows, Magdalen had stared at the pretty, exquisitely dressed +stepsister whom she barely knew. She had gone with her distastefully +enough. And now---- + +“Now I’m glad I did,” she thought. “Dolly’s right; she’d have been +talked about long ago if it hadn’t been for me. We sailed too close +to the wind as it is. If I’d known what might hang on Dolly’s +‘reputation,’” quoting unconsciously, “I’d have made more fuss than +I did about the men who gave parties for us. But it doesn’t really +matter. She’s never lived alone since that man left her. A few dinners +and suppers,” mendaciously, “can’t matter. She said we had a good time. +Well,” with that sudden dark look, “she may have; we didn’t. I never +enjoyed one of the parties she dragged me to. I hated the men and their +suppers. I wish we’d never seen one of them,” and not even to herself +did she say what she meant; that only one man of all they knew was +loathsome to her. + +Too full of suspense to settle to anything, not daring to go out lest +Dolly should come home, she sat down, listlessly wishing that Dolly had +not seen fit to take Ronald with her. The child’s society would have +been better than her own. + +The striking of the clock startled her. Five strokes, and two hours +since Dolly went. + +“Well, I’ve got to eat!” said she frowning, “even if it’s only bread. +And I feel as if I’d sell my soul for a leg of mutton,” for luncheon, +except for Ronald, had been an empty name. + +She strolled into the servantless kitchen, where there was no fire and +nothing to make one, and with a distasteful shrug provided herself with +all there was--dry bread and tea. With these and a black kettle she +returned to the sitting-room fire. The half pint of milk must be kept +for Ronald. + +She was an incongruous figure enough in the little rose-hung room +that she hated. Her black gown was only a shade neater than Dolly’s +dressing-gown, but out of it rose a throat and face that in their +strange way had no match in London. For if ever there was a beauty that +was wild and uncanny it was Magdalen Clyde’s as she sat huddled by the +grate trying to make a sooty kettle boil. Her almost white skin--and +not a woman in ten thousand has a white skin--her black eyes that had +bottomless depths in them under narrow, level brows blacker than they, +were lovely enough. But under the crown of thick hair that waved back +from her forehead their black and whiteness was a thing to marvel at. +For her hair was the color of rusted iron--not red nor brown, but +glorious; and she hated it every time she combed it. But her thoughts +were anywhere but on her looks as she made tea to-day. + +She had the steaming, comfortless cup at her lips when a knock came at +the door. Not a loud knock, but a peculiar one. Miss Clyde set down her +cup with absolute noiselessness and smiled. + +“You can knock,” she thought, “but knocking never opened a door. I hate +you, hate you, and if you could feel it through that door you’d----” +But the queer uneasiness that had been on her ever since Dolly’s +extraordinary tale was told deepened suddenly. + +If the man at the door knew how she loathed him he would simply knock +all the harder. And just as if he read her thoughts the would-be +visitor gave the door a vicious shake. The girl sat without breathing +till she heard him go away. + +She had forgotten that man when she said she would even sing at +music-halls for a living. If she and Dolly lost all their belongings +and had to live by their wits they would never get rid of him. But if +Dolly could prove her claims he would not dare to trouble them. + +“Oh, I can pray she can!” Magdalen thought passionately, all her +distrust and terror lost in something far more tangible. “We mayn’t +know how to be great ladies, but Dolly need never be civil to a man +like that again.” + +She took up her tea and drank it thirstily, though it was flat and +lukewarm. If Dolly were really Countess of Barnysdale there would be +cream every day and---- + +The latch clicked, the door flew open and banged behind some one. + +It was Dolly. Dolly, half crying, half laughing, her demure hat on the +back of her head, her gown unspotted by the rain that had set in out of +doors. And the pretty, fragile child beside her had an armful of toys. + +“Well?” said Magdalen thickly. Her cup went over as she jumped up and +she let the tea lie in a pool on the rose-velvet table-cloth. “Well?” + +“That’s just what it is! I went. I asked for Mr. Barrow, and--oh, it +was awful! I was kept waiting in a musty little room and I could hear +people talking behind a glass door. It made me frantic, for I knew they +were talking about me.” + +“They couldn’t have been!” + +“They were. When Mr. Barrow came in I saw he knew all about us; he +wasn’t surprised.” + +“You don’t mean to say he observed you were very welcome, and could +walk in to-morrow and take possession?” scornfully. + +“No, he was non-committal enough. But he was civil and---- Magdalen, +they can’t have any hope that I’m not Barnysdale’s wife, not a ghost of +a hope! For Barrow gave himself away. He let me have ten pounds; I told +the bare, plain fact that I was starving, but I might have starved ten +times if that smug, respectable lawyer had not thought I was going to +win.” + +“I wouldn’t have taken it,” doubtfully. “But--oh, Dolly! you’re sure +it’s all right? There isn’t anything they can bring up against you? +Think! Because if we have to fight them we must fight well. There +mustn’t be any surprises.” + +“There’s nothing,” slowly. “Every step of my life since Barnysdale left +me is clear and plain. I went from the rooms I was in to others, but +always respectable. In the last of them my maid died when Ronald was a +year old. And the day she was buried I went for you.” + +“It’s only three years,” Magdalen said hopefully. “The people in the +house where Barnysdale left you would know you. They could identify +you.” + +Mrs. Arden’s face flushed. + +“Don’t rely on that,” she sharply returned. “The woman who kept those +lodgings is dead. The place is turned into offices. All the others, +though,” with a vehement confidence, “will know me.” + +“Barnysdale may have left a photograph of you in his papers, too.” + +“A photograph!” Dolly had turned her back and was locking away the +papers she had been too cautious to trust to Barnysdale’s lawyer. For +a moment she stood with the key half turned, as motionless as a woman +painted on canvas. “No,” she said slowly, breathlessly, “I don’t think +there was any photograph. I--I would remember.” Her face was almost +gray as she turned round, though it was only a very small proof to be +missing. + +“Where’s the money he gave you?” said Magdalen, pitifully. “I must get +Ronald something to eat.” + +“I bought things. They’re in the hall.” + +She shivered as she sat down by the fire. Why could they not put her +out of her misery to-day? If Magdalen kept on harping about the thing +she would never be able to bear it. + +“I must think it’s all right,” she muttered feverishly, “or I’ll fail. +After everything it would kill me if I failed,” and watching Ronald at +his tea, Dolly Arden for once was hungry and could not eat. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +EYES THAT LOOKED INTO EYES. + + +“Magdalen!” she said with a sudden sharp appeal as the girl came back +from putting Ronald to bed, “I can’t stand this. It’s only seven and +I won’t sit thinking till twelve. Go and get Mrs. Taylor to sit with +Ronald and we’ll go out to dinner. We’ve money.” + +“Oh, don’t--to-night!” quickly. “We daren’t go anywhere with Barnysdale +lying dead. It wouldn’t be decent.” + +“Who’ll know?” contemptuously. “I tell you I’ll go alone if you won’t +come. I can’t sit here.” + +There was never any arguing with Dolly, and Magdalen knew it. With a +heavy heart she went for the janitor’s wife, who was used to taking +charge of Ronald; with a heart heavier still she put on her hat while +Dolly’s strained voice called to her to hurry. + +“I am hurrying,” she said sullenly, “but I think you’re doing a wild +thing. We’re sure to meet some one who knows us. And I forgot to tell +you, Starr-Dalton was here to-day!” significantly. + +“What did you tell him?” Mrs. Arden turned sharply from the glass, her +pinched face almost ugly. + +“You don’t think I let him in! I let him kick till he was tired. It was +just before you came. Didn’t you meet him?” + +“No! I was in a hansom with the glass down. He’d never think of me in a +hansom unless he paid for it.” + +“Doll, you’ll pay him, won’t you, with the first money you get?” +Magdalen’s voice was wistful. + +“Yes. Don’t talk about it, please. I mayn’t get it, after all,” and +the look she gave her own reflection was that of one hunted from one +desperate extremity to another. + +“Come on,” she cried impatiently. “I suppose we’ve got to eat. Let’s go +to some place where we’re not known--somewhere that the band plays.” + +Once out in the air she thought her nerves would steady, but in Oxford +Street she caught Magdalen by the arm. + +“Here’s Krug’s,” she cried; “it’s as good as any. My knees won’t stop +shaking. I can’t go any further.” + +Magdalen looked at the flaring restaurant. “All right,” she said, but +as soon as they were inside the red-carpeted place she wished they had +gone anywhere else. The smoke, the women’s hats, a certain silence that +fell as the newcomers found a table, were all obvious signs enough. +The girl rose deliberately and changed her seat so that she faced the +looking-glassed wall instead of the room. + +“It’s beastly!” she muttered trenchantly. “Look at the men and the +women!” + +“It’s cheap,” studying the menu. “The people don’t matter. Anyhow, it’s +better than sitting at home and worrying,” her lips quivering--Dolly’s, +who never cried. + +“Don’t worry now,” said Magdalen gently. She had no idea what a +striking figure she was in her plain black dress and hat, nor that half +the men in the room were twisting round in the effort to see her face +in the glass. But something made her look to her left and then sharply +back again. + +A tall man in evening clothes, with a hard-cut, brown face, was looking +intently at her. There was something sweet in his gaze, though his eyes +were not soft at all, but steely, and the line of his thin cheek and +jaw was grim. + +He had the grace to look down at his dinner as for one second he caught +the tragic, fathomless glance fate had put into Magdalen Clyde’s eyes. +But he looked up again at the lovely profile against the blue-walled +room, at the strange rusty-iron hair, the languorous power in the firm, +dull-rose lips. He was not especially sensitive, but to see such a face +in this place angered him. There was blood in it and breeding, but +there was as well a strange, pure beauty that took his breath. + +When his dinner was finished he rose. The girl did not concern him, +and might be like all the others, but he had a curious dislike to +seeing her beside the riotous, rouged women at the next table. He never +noticed Dolly Arden at all. As he turned to get his coat there was a +sudden commotion in a distant corner. + +A pale man with the hall-mark of death on his face had sprung up on +drunken legs; he was gazing across the heads of his party and their +mock diamonds at the two women in black. + +“Doll!” he shouted. “By ----, it’s Doll!” He knocked over his chair, +lurched against the next table and stood pointing, glassy-eyed, at +Dolly Arden. + +“Don’t move!” Magdalen whispered. “Don’t look! Oh, Doll, he can’t mean +you! You don’t know him!” + +Dolly turned her eyes and not her head; sat ghastly, immovable. + +The man began to cross the room toward her; nearly fell over a girl, +who screamed; struck passionately at the man with her; came nearer +every instant to Dolly, whose lips were curled away from her teeth as +if she saw death. + +If she meant to or not, Magdalen never knew. She rose, turned and met +the eyes of the dark, hard-faced man who was putting on his coat; met +them with terror in hers, that were inky in the pallor of her face. + +To be in a restaurant before Barnysdale was buried was bad enough; to +be involved in the drunken row that was spreading like an epidemic from +table to table, would ruin them. And worse than all was the look on +Dolly’s face. She knew that consumption-wasted, staggering man who was +getting closer every minute, calling more loudly on Dolly’s name. + +“We must get out, quick!” Magdalen whispered, but her eyes never left +those hard one’s that met them comprehendingly. + +Dolly never answered, never stirred. It was as though she heard nothing +but her own name over the hubbub; for as the author of the disturbance +passed each table he hurled insults at the occupants, and the women who +were concerned demanded loud vengeance. + +“Quick, Dolly--come!” Magdalen repeated. + +And just as if he had heard her the hawk-faced man opposite made +a quick step, which was instantly retraced. He was too late. That +drunken beast would be at the girl’s side before he was and, if he knew +anything, would be unmanageable. He nodded sharply to the white-faced +girl who had sprung before the other woman; moved carelessly against +the wall and touched something with his elbow. + +The room was in black darkness. He had switched off the electric light. + +A hand that was light, yet firm as iron, fell on Magdalen Clyde’s +shoulder. + +“Come, both of you,” said a voice she would never forget to her dying +day. “Hurry!” + +The girl, clutching Dolly’s hand, felt herself pushed out of the room +like a child. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +AN OUTCAST. + + +The dark man’s knowledge of the restaurant was evidently as accurate +as his acquaintance with the locality of the switch which would plunge +it in darkness. How he piloted them Magdalen could not tell, but in a +breathless instant she found herself in a back street. Behind them she +saw the lights flash up in Krug’s windows. + +“Call a hansom,” she said, for to walk might be to come straight on the +man, who by this time was sure to have been put out. “Oh, I haven’t +thanked you! I can’t. What made you do it?” + +The man whistled for a cab before he answered her, and then +lied--scrupulously. + +“I’ve seen rows here before,” with a shrug. “I fancy you haven’t.” He +could not tell the girl that what he had done was simply for what he +had seen in her great eyes--for the pride and shame and anger in them. + +“We never were here before!” she cried sharply. “We were lonely, +we’d”--with truth--“no cook, so we came out to dinner. My sister was +tired, and we thought Krug’s would do. How dare they let in men like +that?” Even in the dim street he could see the dark fire in her glance. +“He was coming straight for us, and I never saw him in my life.” + +“He was ‘running amuck,’” he coolly remarked. “Suppose we walk on to +meet a cab!” + +He had no desire to be discovered on the back steps by an outraged +proprietor. Half-a-dozen people must have seen who put out the lights. + +Dolly, hanging heavily on Magdalen’s arms, had never opened her mouth. +The girl gave her an impatient shake. + +“Come,” she said, “and do thank the man, Doll! If it hadn’t been for +him we should have been in the papers; say something civil.” + +But Dolly was past speaking. Limp and lifeless, she slipped through +Magdalen’s arm to the pavement. The girl stooped and lifted her like a +child. + +“She’s fainted,” she said. “She was frightened to death. Where’s that +hansom?” + +“Here,” as one drew up beside the curb. “Please let me take her. You +can’t manage it,” taking her words for gospel. + +Dolly had had her back to him in the restaurant; he had no idea it +was her name the man was bawling, though he might have put two and +two together if he had seen her face. But Magdalen turned an abrupt +shoulder as he would have taken Dolly from her. + +“I can carry her,” she said with a queer feeling that she had been +carrying Dolly all the time they had been together, and would have to +carry her as long as they lived. The man stepped back quietly as she +lifted the other woman into the hansom. He knew it was all she could +do, yet she managed to look as if it were effortless. He had never +thought a girl could be so strong. But, for all her strength she was +panting as she turned to him and held out a slim bare hand. + +“Good-night,” she said; “it’s no use trying to thank you, for I can’t. +But if it hadn’t been for you there would have been--oh, I can’t think +of it! But I want you to believe something. I didn’t know that man. +I don’t see why he should have been coming straight for--me!” with a +hesitation so short he did not see it. + +“He imagined he knew you. They often do,” almost roughly. “Don’t thank +me; I saw you didn’t want a row, that was all. But if you’ll forgive +me, I’d keep out of restaurants you know nothing about. Worse things +might happen than a man calling across the room to you.” + +The girl gave him a sudden glance. If it was full of uneasiness it was +also somewhat threatening. + +“It was not my name he called,” she said slowly, as if she were +thinking between each word. “My name is Magdalen.” + +Before he could answer she had slipped into the hansom, said to the +driver something he did not catch and was gone. Her benefactor was left +on the curbstone, with the vanishing cab the only object in view. + +“Magdalen!” he thought, remembering the wonderful white and blackness +of the girl, her strange, rusty hair. “Well, it’s no concern of mine, +for I’ll never lay my eyes on her again, but I wish to Heaven she’d +been called something else. For all the faces ever made for tragedy and +passion that’s one of the most striking I have ever seen!” + +But the girl was none of his business, of all men’s on earth. For which +reason probably he turned and went back to the restaurant, in spite +of his conviction that all the breakages during the evening would be +put down to the person who had dared to take the law in his own hands +and turn off Harry Krug’s electric light. Of money he had little +enough, or he would never have entered the half-caste place, but it +had suddenly come over him that the black-browed girl who could lift +another woman like a feather and make a man who never acted on impulse +play the fool to get her out of a tight place could also forget her +unpaid-for-dinner. Really forget, or he would never have stirred a peg +for her in spite of Krug’s long arm. + +And so it happened that a tall man, with a cool and guiltless +countenance, appeared to the head-waiter in the now calm dining-room +and paid “Magdalen’s” bill; also to his own surprise was caught and +thanked by the proprietor for his evil action. + +“In the dark he was removed,” said Krug gaily. “Next minute lights +and--as you see! All compose themselves. You save me, sir, much noise, +also police. Have at least a Benedictine?” + +His benefactor was almost too surprised to decline, but he did and got +out; to stand on the pavement outside with a grim hand in his pocket. + +He had one penny. + +Yesterday his prospects had been gorgeous, even from his point of view; +to-night---- + +“By George, I’d forgotten!” he said with a blank face enough. “Well, +my dinner’s paid for, and I’ve often despised breakfast. I suppose the +governor”--but his eyes hardened. + +After to-day he had no desire to apply to his father for breakfast or +anything else. With a whistle that was not gay this new pauper pursued +his way past his club. That his subscription was unpaid had been quite +unimportant yesterday; to-night he had no desire to go into a place +where next week he would be posted. Besides, for all he knew, the thing +might be common gossip, and a pitying look would make him wish to kick +his best friend. + +It was the melodrama of the thing that annoyed him; next week all the +papers would have “Curious Case in High Life. Great Sensation.” And the +papers, thank God! would not begin to know how curious the case might +have been if it were known. In a black humor he made his way to the +uncomfortable rooms he had called home since yesterday, when he had +dashed out of his father’s house for the last time. And there he sat +down and reviewed the situation. + +Assets--one penny and a large wardrobe. Occupation--none. Former +employment--waiting for dead men’s shoes. Prospects--_nil_. + +His glance fell on a book lying open on the table, as it had fallen +from a hastily unpacked portmanteau. And his excellent eyesight was no +pleasure to him as it marked a sentence in his brain. + +“Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of +merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now to +mock your own grinning! Quite chopfallen!” + +Where indeed? The man shut the book quietly. + +“Chopfallen I won’t be,” he said to himself. “After all, I believe I’m +glad: I never liked my father. What does knowing him a little better +matter? And if things turn out as I think they will, I’m done with the +whole brood. To-morrow I’ll set about making my living!” + +The last sentence sounded so ludicrous that he laughed alone in the +chilly, untidy bedroom. He who had never been taught to do anything but +spend an allowance, to talk of earning. + +With a real yawn he cast his troubles behind him and went to bed. And +the curious thing was that instead of dreaming of his own probable +starvation he only saw in his sleep a strange face, with black eyes and +rusty-iron hair, a face that cried to him for help. + +In his dream he thought he turned away laughing. + +“The girl’s name,” he said, “is Magdalen!” + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +“I NEVER KNEW HIM.” + + +In their pink drawing-room the sisters sat at breakfast, both neat in +black gowns, since goodness knew who might come to see Dolly; both +oddly silent; both looking furtively at the cheerful little boy on the +floor, whose existence might be going to change the whole face of life. +Not one word had Dolly on the way home, or after, about that queer +scene at Krug’s. She had crawled out of the hansom to her own room and +locked the door, but this morning she knew by Magdalen’s face that the +thing had to be thrashed out. + +“You may as well say it,” she exclaimed harshly. “I know you’re +thinking that last night’s affair wasn’t an accident. I suppose you +imagine that beast was some one who knew me, and would spoil my luck. +But you’re wrong. I never knew the man,” with a hard-set lip. “He +frightened me because I thought he called me, and everything might +matter now, even a drunken man and the straws in the gutter,” bitterly. +“But if you’re thinking I knew him you’re cherishing a mare’s nest. I +never knew him,” her small face assuming a curiously absent expression +as if she raked in a half-forgotten past. + +“I wasn’t thinking that at all.” The answer was unexpected. “I did +think it, if you want to know, but in cold blood I know that if you’d a +pleasant friend like that with a hold on you you’d not dare to play the +game you’re at. You’re not brave, Dolly!” + +“How do you mean?” viciously. + +“You temporize. Starr-Dalton, for instance! Why didn’t you tell him +long ago, before you borrowed from him, that you hated him? That he +couldn’t come here? You can’t bear him. I’ve seen you quiver with rage +at him.” + +“I mayn’t like him, but he’s been kind.” + +“Kind!” with a discordant laugh. “Because he lent you money? So would a +Jew. And a Jew would only ask fifty per cent., while Starr-Dalton will +want all you’ve got. But it’s not that,” trenchantly, “for if things +are all right you can pay him--cash, not interest! It’s that it came +over me while we were driving home last night that I saw Starr-Dalton +in Krug’s restaurant--thick lips, blue eyes and all.” + +“Magdalen!” It was a whispered shriek, if there is such a thing. “Why +didn’t you tell me?” + +“Because you made a fool of yourself and fainted, and then locked your +door on me. I had enough to do with thanking a strange man who may have +got himself into an awful scrape for sheer kindness. You needn’t look +as if I’d seen a tiger!” grimly. + +“It might have mattered if you’d known that pasty-looking, shouting +man.” + +But Dolly only shook her head. + +“Tell me about him. Where was he?” she said. + +“I think he was at the end table of all, behind the man when he got +up. But I can’t be sure, for you know I’d my back to the room. It +was only just before I saw our man,” with a half laugh, “intended to +turn off the lights that I seemed to know Starr-Dalton was looking +at us over that hurly-burly of noise. When I got out, as I said, I +had an impression of his face, and it seemed to me that he was behind +everyone, and instead of trying to help us just sat with that thick +smile of his and waited. Luckily it’s no matter. And if he was there, +and says so, we’ll have an excuse for being chilly to him hereafter.” + +“After we’ve paid him! You can’t snub a man when you owe him a hundred +pounds,” but it was not the money she thought of. Before her there rose +that hateful restaurant, seen with Starr-Dalton’s eyes. + +“I wish we knew what became of the man! Where he went afterward,” she +said, getting up restlessly. + +“Why? Since he doesn’t know you it would be all the same if he and +Starr-Dalton walked out arm-in-arm!” + +“Don’t,” said Dolly, and her face was livid. “Let me forget it. +Ronald, come to mother. You love her, don’t you?” catching him to her +passionately. “You trust mother?” + +“Loves mummy!” he returned gaily. “Put me down.” + +But Magdalen’s laugh was undeserved. There had been no affectation in +Dolly’s sudden clutching of the child. In her fierce, frivolous way she +was devoted to him. He was a trust to her, the only trust of her life +that she meant to keep. + +The postman’s electric summons made her put her boy down weakly. Her +nerves were like water this morning. For a moment she literally could +not read as she tore open the letter Magdalen brought in. The blue +envelope was ominous. She had not expected any letter. Mr. Barrow had +said--but the sense of the few lines suddenly pierced her terrified +brain: + + “DEAR MADAM: The funeral of the late Lord Barnysdale takes place + to-morrow morning from his town house. It is for you to say whether + you will attend it or not. If you will meet Lord Stratharden and + myself at my office at three o’clock on the same day we will, after + the reading of the late peer’s will, give your documents and claims + every consideration. Your obedient servant, + + “JAMES BARROW.” + +Lord Barnysdale’s widow sank into a chair and laughed; laughed till +her stepsister shook her, till tears ran down her face. + +“Let me alone,” she sobbed. “Can’t you see it’s going to be all right. +He says----” + +“He doesn’t say anything, as far as I can see.” + +Dolly sat up, a different Dolly from the one who had pushed away her +breakfast. + +“You little fool!” she cried; “he says I may go to the funeral. Do you +think they’d have me there if they were doubtful? And can’t you see he +says Lord ‘Stratharden’? If he meant to fight he would have said Lord +Barnysdale.” + +“What do you mean? Who’s Stratharden?” + +“Barnysdale’s brother. I never saw him. But if it were not for Ronald +it’s he who would be Lord Barnysdale now.” + +Every worry of last night’s adventure had gone from her. There was, +as Magdalen said, nothing to matter. The Countess of Barnysdale and a +drunken man seen in a doubtful restaurant would be no more likely to +meet again than Barnysdale to get up out of his shroud. Starr-Dalton +she forgot completely. + +“Dolly,” Magdalen broke the silence curiously, “what about the funeral? +You won’t go, will you?” + +Dolly poured out fresh tea and drank it. + +“Yes,” she said, “I’ll go of course! In a carriage. I’d be a fool not +to. It wouldn’t look well to stay away.” + +It was a queer reason for attending the funeral of a husband, but it +struck Magdalen that Dolly, for all her talk, had cared for the man. +That was the only thing that explained her acceptance of his insulting +terms, her quiet endurance of his desertion. + +Oddly enough the girl was right; Lord Barnysdale’s wife had loved him. + +“Will you go to the house and see--him?” she hesitated. + +“No!” With a violence her sister did not know was in her Dolly turned. +“I won’t see him! I won’t! I hated him!” + +She recoiled from the very thought of the dead man in his coffin; not +for ten earldoms would she look on that face. + +“He might be smiling!” she cried hysterically. “I couldn’t bear it if +he were dead and smiling, Magdalen. You don’t think dead people can see +us, do you?” + +“Not they,” practically. “Why should they care? Don’t look like that, +Dolly; there’s no need for you to see him. I only asked you.” + +“No, I’m sure there’s no need,” eagerly. “I can’t help being silly, +Magdalen. I’m so nervous. But it will soon be over now; things always +come right just when you’re despairing. When I’d spent the money +Barnysdale left behind him and didn’t know which way to turn, that +mine stock that mother left proved useful, although it hasn’t paid any +dividends for the past six years. I sold out the stock and we’ve lived +on it till now. I was in as low water then as we are to-day. And after +to-morrow”--her small, pretty face confident, though she did not lift +her eyes--“we’ll never want money again!” + +But Magdalen was not listening. She had never noticed before that Dolly +had cat’s teeth--white, narrow, sharp. It was queer she should think of +that instead of Dolly’s prospects. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +A GOLDEN FUTURE. + + +Dolly Arden was right. Mr. Barrow’s letter meant more than it expressed. + +There was no shadow of doubt to cast on her claims; the dead man had +kept his word and left a will that made them irrefutable. Without talk +of law or courts, with merely a triumphal proving of his mother’s +identity by the owners of the houses in which she had lodged with her +baby and maid, three-year-old Ronald entered into his inheritance, Earl +of Barnysdale, without let or hindrance. + +And Dolly, with her old name, shook away all the haunting fears she had +done her best to keep to herself. She asked for only one thing, that +there should be as little publicity as possible. + +“Of course,” she said with a pathetic face, “I know it will have to be +in the papers, but I’ve led a hard life. I was humiliated and--surely, +Mr. Barrow, you can understand! All this has been so abhorrent to me it +was only for Ronald’s sake that I felt I had no right to remain silent.” + +She breathed freely as she saw how short and how matter-of-fact the +newspaper comments were. There was no nine days’ wonder about it, no +staring headlines. She, Dolly Arden, was triumphant, was tasting the +sweet after the bitter. It had been worth it after all. She had been a +fool ever to doubt. + +Barnysdale had been rather poor, for a peer, but to the new Lady +Barnysdale her son’s revenues, or all she could touch of them, seemed +inexhaustible. But at the thought of the gloomy house in Berkeley +Square, where Barnysdale died, she shivered. She could not live +there--not yet. Besides, for many reasons, it would be better to get +out of London. The men who had been welcome to Mrs. Arden would be +doubtful acquaintances for Lady Barnysdale. + +No, she would go to Scotland, to Ardmore Castle. It might be dull, but +it was the right thing to be dull. She would not think any more on the +matter, but pack up and go. + +If Lady Barnysdale was triumphant, her sister was busy. It was she +who bought new clothes, paid bills, engaged a nurse for Ronald. And +so it chanced that when Lord Stratharden--who, for excellent reasons, +had made up his mind to welcome the sister-in-law he could not cast +out--came to offer her any information or help she needed, he did not +see Magdalen Clyde. If he pictured Dolly’s sister to himself it was her +double--small, fair, bloodlessly pretty--and not quite a lady. + +If he could have seen her at that moment, with her dull hair, her +pale, smooth cheeks, her dark, fathomless eyes lovely under her black +hat, perhaps nothing on earth would have made him believe she was Lady +Barnysdale’s sister. + +Dolly walking up Fleet Street in the afternoon would have had eyes for +every man she met. Magdalen never even saw that their heads turned as +she passed, till one man, coming out of a dingy doorway, nearly fell +over her and stopped dead, as she did; for neither had ever expected to +see the other again. + +Her first thought as he took off his hat and greeted her was +that he was both thinner and older than she had fancied him, yet +infinitely--oh! infinitely, better-looking. Tanned, strong, tall, his +lean face like no face she had ever seen, he stood in front of her. +And as he smiled his eyes grew suddenly sweet. + +Under them she was for one moment speechless. What long lashes he had! +She wished he would not throw back his head and look at her through +them. + +“Fancy my meeting you!” was what she said; and if she was confused she +did not show it. “You must let me thank you again now. I hope you heard +no more of it.” + +“Oh! I did,” he said, and laughed, for she had to thank him for more +than she knew--all his worldly wealth but one penny. “I went back and +was thanked by the proprietor. You see,” softly, “it saved him a row.” + +“The proprietor,” Magdalen started. “Oh!” she said. “My--our dinner. I +never paid him!” + +“You forget,” with calm mendacity. “You or your sister left the money +on the table. I hope she’s all right--quite forgotten your friend?” + +“Did he tell you so? Krug, I mean?” for it was not like Dolly to leave +money anywhere. + +Her nameless acquaintance nodded, and with some haste changed the +subject. + +“Do you often honor Fleet Street?” he said. He had a way of drawling +that was not like the speech of Dolly’s friends, any more than his look +of perfect cleanliness resembled their rather tumbled fashion. + +“No! I came on an errand for--my sister.” She dared not say Dolly. “Do +you?” + +For the first time he saw her smile, and Magdalen Clyde’s smile was +a thing to live to see. The unworn youth of it, the lovely lips and +teeth, the sudden light in her deep eyes, took away the man’s breath. + +“I live here, work and have my being!” he returned as if there were +humor in it. “I work at a photographer’s up-stairs,” with a backward +fling of his head. + +If he had said he broke stones it could not have amazed her any more. + +“You don’t look as though you worked!” she said with involuntary truth. + +“I assure you I earn my own bread--and consider myself lucky.” + +He had quietly fallen into her step and was walking beside her toward +Charing Cross. For the life of him he could not help wondering who she +was and where she lived. + +But she had evidently no idea of enlightening him, for at the end of +the Strand she stopped. + +“I’m late,” she said, and her face changed. “I must take a cab. But +first will you tell me something? Why did you do that the other night? +We were nothing to you.” Something in her straight, direct look made +him tell the plain truth. + +“Because I never saw any woman like you,” he said, as if he were +remarking on the weather, “and it annoyed me to see you put in such a +position.” + +She put her hand to her hair sullenly. + +“There isn’t another like me,” she retorted as if he had hurt her. +“Luckily for them! Do you suppose I like being black and white and red +like a poster? I’m tired of being stared at, tired of--but it doesn’t +matter!” bruskly. “I’m leaving London for good to-morrow. And I’m glad.” + +“Why?” He left her looks alone with late wisdom. + +“I hate it. I’m afraid of it. I haven’t a friend. Oh, yes!” stopping +him coolly. “I know plenty of men, but I hate men. I don’t think I like +anyone in the world but my sister; and I know I don’t trust anyone.” + +“You’re trusting me,” said the man quietly. “Now let me tell you +something. It wasn’t because I thought you handsome that I turned out +those lights, but because there was such a curious, lonely look about +you, and, though you mayn’t think it, I’m lonely, too. I did what I +could for some one who was like me, without a soul on earth to turn to. +And if ever I can do anything for you again I will. My name,” with a +little halt, for he was not used to it yet, “is Lovell--Dick Lovell. +Now I shall call a hansom for you.” + +The girl stood on the curbstone and looked at him. This was not the +manner of the men Dolly knew. He meant what he was saying. Though his +face was hard, almost indifferent, she had an odd feeling that for the +first time in her life she had made a friend. + +“You’ve done enough for me,” she said slowly. “If I ever see you again +it will be my turn. Good-by.” + +But as she got into her hansom a strange feeling came over her, as if +in this utter stranger she were leaving behind some one known before, +dear to her; some one, too, who would get nothing but ill for helping +her. She held out her hand with a smile, though there were quick tears +in her eyes. + +“Good-by and good luck to you!” she cried, senselessly enough, and as +she drove off remembered he knew no more of her name than Magdalen. +Well, it was no matter--and her strange beauty hardened, darkened; the +less he knew the less he would be likely to hear of Starr-Dalton and +the others; of her reputation, that must be written down with Dolly’s. +Dolly, who was Countess of Barnysdale and had given up cakes and ale! + +“You’re a fool,” she said to herself. “The man’s nothing to you,” and +knew she would have sold her soul for him. She, Magdalen Clyde, who had +always boasted to herself that she was like a man who could not get +drunk--she could not care. + +With Dick Lovell’s face--and even the set of his collar--before +her eyes she came into Lady Barnysdale’s flat. And there, smug, +thick-lipped, too polite by far, sat Starr-Dalton with a gardenia in +his coat. Magdalen could not be even civil, and Dolly was nervously, +profusely so. When Starr-Dalton said good-by she turned on Magdalen +viciously. + +“Why did you look at him like that?” + +“Do you mean you hadn’t paid him?” + +“Oh, I paid him,” slowly. “Magda, you’re right. He isn’t kind. I wish +we’d never seen him.” + +Mr. Starr-Dalton would not have echoed the wish. Divided between fury +and amusement he was fingering the notes in his pocket. + +“So,” he thought, “I’ve been useful, useful! And now I’m to discreetly +vanish. It’s not good enough, Dolly,” and he turned toward Krug’s +restaurant that he had never mentioned to her. It was raging passion, +half love, half hatred, that made his thick smile evil as he strolled. +For in his way he loved her, and what Mr. Starr-Dalton wanted he +usually got, cleanly or otherwise. + +But Dolly was singing, as she thought she would never see him again. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +ACROSS CLYDE WATER. + + +“Ardmore Castle!” said the station-master in broad Scotch; “ye’ll be +going there? Well, they’ve no sent for ye. Ye can get a fly to the +ferry.” And he turned away. + +“I’m----” Dolly was going to say Lady Barnysdale, but Magdalen caught +her arm. + +“It’s none of his business who you are,” she said angrily. “What does +he mean about the ferry?” + +“Ardmore’s across the Firth of Clyde. There’s no station; it’s an +island. How dare the servants behave like this? I telegraphed.” + +“Perhaps they didn’t get it,” indifferently. For it was cold, nearly +dark, and she was tired of Dolly’s new grandeur, full of senseless, +terrified depression that grew on her with each mile from London. If +she could have done it decently she would have turned on the dirty +little station and taken the first train back. But there was no leaving +Dolly in a strange place to fight her own battles. + +“Though there can’t be any to fight,” the girl thought scornfully as +she collected the luggage and pushed Dolly into the moldy fly. It +seemed a week before they stopped at a long pier, and even in the dusk +could see the dark, swirling river between them and the opposite hills. + +“And that’s what I’m named after!” exclaimed Dolly. + +Magdalen turned from the roaring tide that held death in it to the +black hills, the flying clouds. “I always knew I should hate it. I +always knew it was just like this.” + +The ferry was only a rowboat. It seemed there was no regular ferry to +Ardmore. And to the girl’s foreboding spirit every wave and eddy of the +Clyde seemed to snatch at them threateningly, every whine of the wind +from the hills to mock them. + +“The tide runs strong the night,” said one of the two boys who rowed. +“They say Clyde has its nights, and this’ll be one of them.” + +“What do you mean?” said Magdalen fiercely. + +“Night’s that it drowns,” carelessly. “Ye’re here. This is Ardmore.” + +The girl looked at the towering shore. It would be pitch-dark among +those rocks and bushes. + +“Show us the way,” she said. “I’ll pay you.” And so it was that Lady +Barnysdale came for the first time to her husband’s house--by a back +way, in the dark, and with no more state than one sulky boy could lend +her. + +“They’ll no’ be expecting you,” said the boy insolently as they rounded +a turn and saw the castle black against the sky, not a light in all the +height of it. + +Lady Barnysdale knocked and rang furiously at her own door without +noticing him. + +To her surprise it opened almost instantaneously, and an old man peered +out. + +“What’s wanting?” he said, standing with bleared eyes and a hanging, +repulsive lip. + +“Open the door!” cried Dolly furiously. “Did you not get my telegram +that I’m left to come here like this? I’m Lady Barnysdale.” + +“Mrs. Keith’s away,” the old man returned dully. “There was a telgram. +I did na’ open it. I ask your ladyship’s pardon.” + +He took the bag she gave him, but he bestowed neither glance nor word +on the new earl, who, being three years old, was placidly asleep in his +nurse’s arms. Magdalen saw the servant was very old and half palsied, +and a queer shudder came over her. + +What a home-coming! A doddering old man, who had not a word of welcome, +a great stone hall, cold as a vault, with no fire in its wide hearth, +one candle to light its lurking shadows. + +It was all she could do to lift her foot and cross the threshold. She +would as soon have entered a den of thieves as this house. Something +tangible seemed to warn her out of the chilly, echoing place to go +back; something evil seemed lying in wait for her, just as every wave +of the river had seemed to snatch at her. Was she getting nerves like +Dolly’s? + +With a queer effort the girl stepped forward. + +“Is there no one here but you?” she asked kindly. + +“There’s Grizel and Sophy,” doubtfully. “Mrs. Keith’s away,” he +repeated, as if that explained everything. + +“Mrs. Keith’s the housekeeper,” interrupted Dolly. “Please fetch one of +the other servants and bring the telegram. Hurry!” furiously, conscious +of the wondering gaze of Ronald’s grand new nurse, she stamped her foot +at the old man. + +It was a long while before a footstep came from the door by which he +had vanished. And then it was only an obsequious country girl, with +Lady Barnysdale’s unopened telegram in her hand. + +“I suppose there are beds in the house,” Dolly cried, opening her +own telegram and showing it to the girl. “Here is a letter from Lord +Stratharden to Mrs. Keith. As she’s away perhaps you had better open +it.” + +“I wouldn’t dare, my lady!” the girl faltered. “I’ll give it to David. +He’s Mrs. Keith’s husband; but you’ll have seen he’s doddering. Grizel +is lighting the fires in the guest-rooms, if you’ll please to come with +me.” + +“Guest-rooms!” cried Dolly. “Didn’t Mrs. Keith get my letter either? +Why are my rooms not ready?” + +“I couldn’t say, my lady. I’ll do my best,” nervously; “but you’ll +understand we’d heard nothing but that his lordship was dead, and----” + +“Oh, never mind!” sharply. “Take me to a fire, my good girl, and get +us something to eat.” She would not have her antecedents aired before +Ronald’s nurse. + +But when she saw the bare, half-warmed rooms got ready for her she +looked at Ronald with terror. The child might get his death here! + +About one room only was there any semblance of comfort. It was +small, with chintz-hung walls, less barnlike and drafty than the +others. With her own hands Dolly--whom Magdalen had never known to do +anything--aired sheets, piled wood on the fire, saw Ronald bathed and +fed before she went down to her own dinner, and even then gave sharp +instructions to his nurse not to leave him. As she opened the nursery +door on the cold stone passage old David stood there. + +“Dinner is served, your ladyship,” he said dully, as if he were +repeating a lesson. + +Dolly, with a queer impulse, drew the old man into the warm room behind +her. + +“Won’t you welcome Lord Barnysdale home?” she said almost piteously, +pointing to the pretty child in his cot. + +The nurse was for the moment in the next room and could not hear the +tremor in her voice. + +The old man glanced at the boy with a momentary flash in his old eyes. + +“That’s no him!” he said contemptuously. + +Dolly turned on him savagely, her grand manner all forgotten. Not +Barnysdale’s son! This child at whom she looked with terror sometimes, +lest she should see his father’s likeness in him; her trust for whom +she had faced the whole world. + +“How dare you say he’s not Barnysdale’s son?” she cried, her muffled +voice furious. + +But the old man never even looked at her. + +“Barnysdale’s son,” he mumbled toothlessly. “Oh, ay! Ye’re dinner is +served.” + +Magdalen looked from Dolly to him as he shuffled out. + +“Never mind him,” she said contemptuously. “Can’t you see he’s +childish?” + +“He can go and be childish somewhere else then!” Dolly’s fury was more +like that of a lady’s-maid than a countess. “Every servant in this +house shall go packing, except that Sophy girl. She did her best.” + +She swept out into the bare stone passage, where a hanging lamp shone +pale and every footstep rang. Down-stairs a fire had been lit on the +wide hearth in the hall, but the crackling logs gave only light as they +roared up the chimney. + +Old David shambled forward and pointed to the dining-room door. As +Magdalen followed Dolly in the quaintness of the room pleased her, for +there was no stone here, only high oak wainscoting that shone with age +and blackness. With shaded lights, new, brisk servants, a cook--and +she laughed as she saw the new countess’ home-coming dinner was cold +mutton--this room at least would lose the eery look of the rest of the +house. + +She looked behind her and was not so sure. + +A long, low window in the wall opened into the great hall itself. +Through it weird shadows from the sputtering fire seemed to nod at her. +It looked a place for spying, for eavesdropping. + +“Is there a curtain outside?” Involuntarily she had turned to David. +“Then draw it, please.” + +But it was Sophy, who was quicker-witted, that obeyed her. The old man +only gave her a cunning glance as he lifted a decanter with a shaking +hand. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +MAGDALEN DREAMS. + + +In the cold dawn Magdalen Clyde got out of the hideous four-poster +where she had tossed all night, and with shaking hands rekindled +the dead fire. When a blaze was roaring up the chimney she bathed +and dressed, as if cold water and clean linen could drive away the +senseless terrors of the night. + +“I’ll never sleep in this room again,” she thought crossly. “No wonder +I had bad dreams in a bed walled in with purple rep!” She shuddered, +as if the bare memory of her dream sickened her. “I was tired; I’d +nightmare. What should I ever have to do with a Chinaman?” She scoffed +at herself, and for distraction went to the window, where a cold rain +beat upon the glass. + +Outside lay a sodden, wind-swept garden, behind it black-clefted, +threatening hills. In her ears as she leaned out, regardless of the +wet, the muffled sound of the Clyde water that she hated, beyond +reach, except that it seemed like a living jailer to keep her in this +cheerless place. She drew back shivering and shut out the sound of the +river with the raw, cold morning, as some one knocked at her door. + +It was Ronald’s nurse with a cup of tea in her hand, and the neat woman +stood staring at Miss Clyde. + +“Good morning, miss,” she said. “I heard you stirring, and as I’d +made my tea I brought you some. Oh, you do look ill this morning! Is +anything the matter?” + +For in the dull-gray light the girl’s eyes were inky in her dead white +face, uncanny under her queer, dull-red hair. + +“The matter? No!” And then she laughed. What was she making a mystery +about? “I had a bad dream, Pearce; but don’t tell your mistress. Thank +you for the tea; it was very thoughtful of you.” + +“My lady’s not awake, miss. She was very tired. His lordship seems +well. But if I might advise you I should go back to bed.” This was +vague, if well meaning, advice. + +“Bed!” Miss Clyde glanced at the purple catafalque. “Oh, I couldn’t! +But you’re right, I don’t feel well. Do you believe in dreams, Pearce?” + +“No, miss,” she cheerfully replied. + +“Well, neither do I! But this was so vivid that I’ve felt weak ever +since.” She laughed at the fancy that came over her that if she told +the thing she would forget it, and yet it drove her on, restlessly. “It +was absurd. I thought I was sitting in a small room off a large one; +it had two doors, one leading into a passage, the other into the big +room, exactly opposite a long glass. It was that queer light you see +in dreams, and I noticed everything that was reflected in the glass; +just a bare, empty room. And then--I heard something. Some one moving +with very quiet feet outside in the passage, and I heard the creaking +of the door that led from it into the large room. I couldn’t move--in +my dream; I sat and stared at the door in front of me, and I can’t tell +you the awful terror that was on me. Just the terror of death, and +nothing else. + +“I couldn’t see anything, only hear that noise like some one moving, +crawling. And then I knew that if I sat there one second longer it +would have me--I’d be killed! I got up and went out into the passage, +and I meant to run out of the house, but I felt there was some one +between me and the entrance and I couldn’t. + +“I looked from the passage into the big room, and over by the fireplace +I saw a woman standing with her back to me. I didn’t know her. But +between her and me, going to her step by step, was a Chinaman. He was +directly in the light that seemed to come from a street lamp outside, +and I could see his side face. He looked like a devil--a stooping, +yellow devil, with a hideous white scar on his neck. I don’t know how I +saw it, but I did. + +“He had long, long nails, and he held his hands out crooked and wicked. +I knew he was going to pounce on the woman by the fireplace and +strangle her with those long, wicked fingers. I ran and tried to catch +him, but I was too late. + +“He had jumped at the woman. And as she turned--and if you can +understand me, the silence of it all was the dreadful part, for she +never screamed--I saw her face, and it was me. Me! And then I wasn’t +watching any longer, for it was I, not she, who was struggling with +him; I felt his claws of hands on my throat as we rolled over and over +on the floor. I could see his face, all yellow and distorted, but his +eyes were the worst. They looked like dead eyes, fixed and glassy. + +“I think I must have fainted then; I was cold and wet when I woke up. +It was only half-past twelve; I couldn’t have been in that bed,” with a +glance of detestation, “more than an hour, and I’ve never slept since. +Ugh! I can feel those nails on my throat yet.” + +“It was horrid, miss,” said Pearce, “but it was only nightmare. You +know, miss, you couldn’t have seen yourself.” + +“But I did,” she firmly persisted. “I saw my own self looking at me to +save her. Yet at first I was sure it was a stranger, for the figure was +more like Lady Barnysdale’s than mine. I think if I were to see the +mildest-looking Chinaman I should run miles!” + +Pearce smiled respectfully. + +“You’re not likely to, miss--not here! But I shouldn’t tell her +ladyship; she seemed nervous enough in this strange house last night. +I hope it will be more comfortable soon. The maids tell me the +housekeeper returns to-day.” + +“I shan’t mention it, but it did me good to tell you,” smiling at the +woman as if she liked her. “You have plenty of sense, Pearce.” + +“You need it, Miss Clyde, when you earn your living,” returned the +nurse soberly. + +When she was gone a queer thought overtook Lady Barnysdale’s +stepsister. In spite of the absurdity of that dream she would not +stay, or let Dolly stay, another night in this house, if it held two +rooms like those in her dream--rooms opening into each other, with +right-angled outside doors forming the corner of a corridor. + +She ran down the stone stairs and went methodically from room to room +of the large, rambling place. Some doors were open and some locked, but +in no passage up-stairs or down were there two close together in the +way her dream made vivid. + +With a laugh at her own folly Magdalen ran down again to breakfast. + + * * * * * + +“Magdalen!” cried Dolly blankly, flying into the small room they had +elected to sit in instead of the cold and hideous drawing-room. “Did +you ever hear anything like it? I can’t send her away!” + +“Who?” lazily questioned Magdalen. She had been out roaming the lonely +hillsides in the wet, and if Ardmore Castle were not a bright abode it +was better to come back to than an unpaid-for flat, with no prospect +of dinner. + +“Mrs. Keith,” with wrath. “You know when she came back yesterday I +thought everything would be all right. She was civil enough for a sour +old Scotch woman. You haven’t seen her, have you?” breaking off. + +“No!” She had no fancy for bothering about other people’s servants. +Pearce was different since it was she, not Dolly, who had engaged her. +“Why?” + +“Because she’s an insolent old hag,” vindictively. “To-day, when you +were out, I thought I’d go over the house and see what rooms I’d take +instead of the barns we have. I want Ronald to have all the sunshine +there is in this dismal country,” with a cross glance at the rain that +had never ceased since their arrival. “I saw the old woman looking +at me over the stairs as I rambled round, and when I got up to that +cross-corridor on the second story there she was, with both maids, and +a perfect storm of sweeping--in the afternoon. I told them to stop, and +Mrs. Keith never took any notice. Said it was the regular day. Then I +ordered her to get the keys of the locked rooms down-stairs; so she +did. And when I opened them I saw her grin, for they were all empty. +Just bare, cobwebbed holes. When we got up to that corridor again I +marched over Sophy and the tea-leaves,” with fresh annoyance, “and +found three locked doors at the very end of it, quite cut off from our +part of the house. I asked for the keys--and what do you think she +said? That they were Stratharden’s rooms, and not to be opened without +his leave. Stratharden’s rooms in my own house!--and the very best +southern aspect in the place, for up-stairs there are no windows on +that side. Mrs. Keith looked at me as if I were just nobody, and didn’t +even pretend to obey me.” + +“Perhaps he was always allowed those rooms,” Magdalen pondered. “You +don’t know, Dolly!” + +“I know I’m not going to have shut-up rooms in my house, and I said +so. I told her she must get more servants, that I would not have that +doddering old David to wait on table; he drops things so frequently +that I cannot resist screaming.” + +“What did she say?” + +“Said there were servants enough for people who came from the Lord +knows where. So then I told her to go, bag and baggage.” + +“Then we’d better write to London to-night. Did she seem routed?” + +“She turned round and said I was wasting breath. That old David +and she could not be sent away by me, Mr. Stratharden, or anyone. +That his lordship’s will--and she didn’t mean Barnysdale’s, but his +father’s--forbade it. And her eyes were just like gimlets in her horrid +old head.” + +Magdalen sat up. + +“I suppose they can be retired as superannuated,” she observed. “The +old lady doesn’t seem to think of that. We can’t live like this. I’ve +rung for tea four times and not a soul has come.” + +“Superannuated! I’ll have her put in jail,” violently. “Do you know +Pearce has gone?” + +“Pearce! Who sent her? What for?” + +“Mrs. Keith. I went up and found Ronald alone, and rang for Pearce. By +and by Sophy came and said she had gone, that Mrs. Keith had dismissed +her for impertinence and had her ferried over to the station.” + +“But why did Pearce take her warning?” Magdalen asked utterly +confounded. “She could have come to you, to me!” + +“You were out. I was exploring the garrets. I found a note from +Pearce, who had evidently thought I had deputed Mrs. Keith to get rid +of her. So then I sent for the old woman again. She said, quite coolly, +that she could not bear strange women about the place, and that she’d +paid Pearce and told her I should not require her any longer. Then she +turned her back on me and walked out just as if she were the mistress, +not I.” + +“She must be mad. Pearce was a fool to go,” with a cold anger, very +different from Dolly’s. + +“What could the poor soul do? Mrs. Keith said I sent her, paid her and +carted her off. And the unlucky part of it was that Pearce was stupid +about Ronald this morning, and I was angry with her. She must have +thought her dismissal was because of that.” + +“Don’t worry,” said Magdalen as calmly as if she were not raging. +“We’ll get her back. You go and bring Ronald down here and I’ll make +somebody bring tea. I don’t care who does, but bring it they shall.” + +“Good gracious! You do look awful when you scowl,” and Dolly really +started. “You ought to be able to manage people. I shouldn’t like to +quarrel with a girl with eyes like yours and a dead-white face. You’ll +never be pretty, Magdalen, but you could be dangerous.” + +For the courage and power in her stepsister’s face had suddenly flashed +on Dolly like a revelation, though she was blind to the wild beauty of +it. + +“You couldn’t quarrel with me,” Magdalen laughed, in spite of herself, +remembering the times when Dolly had tried it and failed. “Go on, I’ll +get the tea.” + +And when Dolly came back it was there, and Magdalen was laughing. + +“Poor Sophy!” she observed. “She was between the devil and the deep +sea. Now, Dolly, what are you going to do? Give in to Mrs. Keith and +take charge of Ronald?” + +Dolly’s cat’s teeth showed. + +“I’m going to write to Stratharden this minute and ask if what she said +was true, about my not being able to dismiss her. I’ll give the letters +to the postboy when he comes with the papers. My dear Mrs. Keith would +probably claw it out of the bag. Does she think I am to be bullied in +my own house?” + +Magdalen laughed. + +“If we can’t send her away I’ll wrestle with her,” she said. “I don’t +believe you understand Scotch people. You have to get the upper hand +once and for all.” + +“How on earth do you know?” + +“I!” The girl gave a queer laugh. “I don’t know exactly, but they’re +just like the Clyde--precisely as I knew they would be. I’ve the +funniest feeling in this house, Dolly, as if I’d seen it all before,” +her wonderful eyes clouding. + +“Then I’ve no opinion of your sense. If I’d known what it was like, as +you think you did, wild horses wouldn’t have got me here. I’d rather be +in London, snubbing Starr-Dalton.” + +“What made you think of him?” + +“I only just remembered that I’d never asked him if he were at Krug’s +that night. Perhaps it was just as well I didn’t. He knows my name’s +Dolly.” + +“What does it matter since you weren’t the Dolly the man meant?” + +Lady Barnysdale opened her mouth and shut it again with ill-considered +words still in it. In silence she wrote and despatched her outraged +letter to Stratharden, beseeching him to deal with Mrs. Keith and send +a proper staff of servants. + +It was two days before she got his answer. Forty-eight hours, when she +fretfully refused to go out or leave Ronald, even to let Magdalen try +to put the fear of God into Mrs. Keith. + +“What’s the good when we don’t know whether we can do anything?” she +demanded sensibly enough, and Magdalen agreed with a shrug of her +lovely shoulders. But she could stay in no four walls even for Dolly. +She tramped up the high hill above Ardmore Castle on the second day and +looked down on all Ronald’s property, on the rushing Clyde water that +hemmed Ardmore in. And not till then did the full loneliness of the +place come over her. + +Ardmore had been a famous stronghold in its day; even now it was +nothing but a rocky island, some five miles long and half as wide. +There was not a village or a house on it, but some fishermen’s huts +that she could scarcely see in the dazzle of the low sunlight. They +were far below her on the shore, and three miles off if a yard. + +As she watched she saw a small steamer touch at a point and go off +again. That must be the ferry Sophy said you must cross by when the +Clyde ran too heavily for a rowboat. The opposite shore was Ronald’s, +too, and a queer possession it looked, all rolling hills black against +the sunset. + +Magdalen turned and saw on the other side of the river from which they +had come to Ardmore, more wild hills, higher, more desolate, showing +their teeth of crags and gullies as the sun dropped. + +“Well, I’ve got my bearings, and much good may it do me,” she said, +little knowing. But the walk and the air had raised her spirits. + +She went into the castle humming a song Dolly assuredly had never +heard, and gazed with astonishment when the door was opened to her by +an immaculate London footman. Lord Stratharden then had not let the +grass grow. The man must have come by that steamer she had seen touch +at the point this afternoon. + +“Stratharden must be a marvel,” she said, finding Dolly by her +sitting-room fire. “Catch me getting servants for a lady who’d +supplanted me and my son! And such an immaculate footman, too!” + +But there was no jubilation on Dolly’s face. + +“He’s done the best he can,” she returned, “but even he says Mrs. Keith +can’t be dismissed, and begs I’ll be patient with her. Where’s his +letter? Oh, here! Listen: ‘I know Keith’s cross-grained ways must be +a sore trial to you, and for her unpardonable conduct in dismissing +your maid I can of course offer no excuse. I can only ask you to be +patient with her, and remember that she was my son’s nurse, and is +broken-hearted that he is no longer heir to Ardmore. I hope you can +find some capable country girl to look after your boy, and in the +meantime, as I am going abroad, it is both a pleasure and a convenience +to me to send you my two men servants, hoping you may keep them till +I return. James is a capable servant and used to managing Keith. My +Chinese butler you will find better than any nurse, and most useful +to----’” + +“The what?” cried Magdalen. + +“The Chinese butler. He’s dressed like an Englishman and he speaks +perfectly. What about him?” + +But Magdalen sat staring, every drop of blood drained from her cheeks +and lips. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +DOLLY’S PREDICAMENT. + + +It is hard to tell how commonplace things grow slowly into terror, +intangible and unseen, but sure as death. Into the dull life at Ardmore +Castle horror had crept; even Dolly could not be blind to it, and it +haunted Magdalen Clyde by night and day. + +The awful loneliness of the place began to hang over them like a pall. +For a month they had been installed, and not a visitor from all the +countryside had been near them. + +“Not even a grocer’s boy!” Dolly said to herself uncomfortably, though +there was nothing remarkable in that. Their meat was home-killed, their +other stores came once a year from Edinburgh. And in spite of the +silver-decked table and Stratharden’s invaluable servants, there was +no doubt that Mrs. Keith barely doled them out enough to eat--that was +eatable. + +The horses, in spite of reiterated orders, had never come. James made +one respectful and well-grounded excuse after another--“next week,” +“to-morrow”--and neither brought them. As for rowing across the +Clyde it was not to be done. One winter storm after another made it +angry, and not a servant in the house could row. Magdalen, going to +the tumble-down boathouse to see the boats, found none; she screamed +herself hoarse in trying to hail a boat from the opposite shore that +was two miles off; and found herself civilly assisted by James, at +whose appearance she turned about and went home. + +After long wet days in the house, when the clouds broke at sundown +she would drag Dolly out to walk in the evergreen shrubberies. But in +a little while Dolly’s eyes would meet hers and they would go indoors +quickly, Ronald angrily protesting from his aunt’s shoulder. But to the +lonely, unhappy women it had been certain that stealthy feet kept pace +with them behind the dripping firs, that eyes were on them hungrily as +they walked. + +“It’s nerves,” said Dolly in an angry whisper; “nerves, or Mrs. Keith.” + +They had long ago moved into those forbidden rooms of Stratharden’s, +but neither of them felt any better for the change. The southern aspect +was a mockery in a Scotch winter. + +Ronald grew paler every day, had a queer little asthmatic cough and +seized every chance of spending his time with Ah Lee, who seemed to +fascinate him. On Mrs. Keith Magdalen had never laid eyes. Sometimes +in the long nights she fancied she could hear the old woman’s skirts +brushing against her door, and would get up silently and creep there +and then on to Dolly’s and Ronald’s apartments, for the three rooms +connected; would feel that the bolts were all shot home, and slip back +to bed again, not even owning to herself that it was not terror of Mrs. +Keith that made her do it. + +She turned now to where Dolly sat on her bed taking off her wet boots +after one of those garden outings that had been worse than usual. + +“It may be nerves, but it isn’t Keith,” she began, and then decided, +for the fiftieth time, that it would be madness to frighten Dolly about +Ah Lee because of a dream. + +“Do you know what I found out just now?” for she had sent Dolly and +Ronald to the house, while she ran back in a towering rage to ransack +the shrubberies. “I ran along by the garden wall till I came out on the +avenue, ever so far from the house; and there was the postboy! He was +giving letters and papers to James.” + +“Then the boat can cross again! Hurrah!” cried Dolly quite gay again. + +“It never stopped crossing,” Magdalen dryly replied, “except for two +days. I asked the boy.” + +“Then where--why--what did James say?” with incoherent energy. + +“James explained,” more dryly than ever, “he had been no wiser than +we, etc. Mrs. Keith must have done it to annoy us. He would take great +care in future; could not be too glad that he had been tempted to +investigate--but he did not say it before the boy! Here are some papers +and a letter for you.” + +But Dolly looked at neither. + +“Who do you think it is? And what do they mean?” she said, with a queer +look in her shallow eyes. “I think James told the truth, and it’s just +old Keith, who, because she hates us, wants to drive us away.” + +Magdalen threw open the door into the passage. It was empty, dark and +cold, and she shut it again. For a moment she stood facing Dolly, stood +stretching like a cat, as if she were trying every muscle in her body. + +“Oh, don’t do gymnastics; talk!” cried Dolly pettishly. “Don’t you +think the old wretch wants to drive us away?” + +“She takes a queer way to do it,” Magdalen gravely answered, seating +herself close to Dolly and speaking in a subdued tone. “Hasn’t it +struck you that being a countess here is extremely like being in jail? +Suppose we say we’re going to London to-morrow? Well! there are no +horses to take us the five miles to the steamer that comes here, and +you and Ronald can’t walk.” + +“We can go the way we came!” sharply. + +“We can’t, for I’ve tried it! We’ve no boat, and it’s no more use to +try and hail one from the other side than to sit here. There’s a rocky +point between us and the mainland; no one can see us.” + +“You’re talking nonsense.” The familiar obstinacy was in Dolly’s voice. +“I’m mistress in my own house, I suppose. It’s rubbish to say I can’t +get away from it. But I don’t mean to be driven out to please Mrs. +Keith. It’s she who’s always crawling after us. She shan’t think she +can frighten me.” + +It was not Mrs. Keith who was frightening Magdalen. She looked at Dolly +with veiled black eyes and lay back on the bed, a lovely, careless +figure; against the old embroidered coverlet her rusty hair seemed to +catch all the light left in the room. There was only one thing to be +done--get away from here and tell Dolly afterward. The very inaction +of the quiet face showed the utter strength in it as she thought of +something that had never entered Dolly Barnysdale’s head. + +“I wouldn’t fuss over Mrs. Keith’s feelings,” she observed calmly. +“It’s deadly dull here, and some one hates us, it doesn’t matter who. +And I don’t think Ronald’s well.” + +Dolly jumped up, scattering her papers and her dirty boots. + +“What do you mean?” she angrily cried. “Are you trying to frighten me? +Of course I know he’s pale and has a cough, but he was always pale.” +There was something wild and untamed about her small figure as she +stood over the quiet girl on the bed. + +“He wasn’t always--drowsy!” said Miss Clyde slowly. “Look at him now.” + +Dolly whirled round, took a quick step and stood still. There on the +hearthrug in the middle of his toys lay Ronald--asleep! He was pale +indeed, and round his open mouth and his closed eyes were faint blue +stains. + +Lady Barnysdale shook as she saw them; yet for a moment her face was +that of a woman looking at a child she saw for the first time. The next +instant she had the boy in her arms with the fierce, soft tenderness +Magdalen hated. “Do you mean----” she began in a hushed rage not like +her. + +“I don’t mean anything. The boy’s ill and we’re not comfortable, so +don’t let us stay.” + +“Don’t be superior,” said Dolly sharply. “You as good as said Keith +was drugging the boy, and now you try to back out of it. But we’ll go +to-morrow.” Her voice rose hysterically. “She hates me because she’s +just devoted to Stratharden, and she’s capable of anything.” + +“I don’t think she has anything to do with it,” Magdalen coolly +declared. “She wouldn’t dare. But we’ll go to-morrow. I’ll be only too +glad.” There was no use in telling Dolly things till they were away +from this house. + +But Dolly was no fool. + +“It couldn’t be!” she said barely over her breath. + +“He was kind, he----” + +“We’ll see to-morrow,” Magdalen Clyde said to herself. Outwardly she +only shrugged her shoulders and turned away. + +Dolly sat clutching Ronald like a woman possessed. She never touched +the dinner sent up to her--for she had no intention of letting the +boy from her sight while Mrs. Keith was in the house--and never even +thought of her unread London letter till Magdalen came back from the +meal she had made as short as possible, under Ah Lee’s hateful eyes. + +The girl glanced at Dolly’s set little face, the tension of her figure. +She had been a fool to get her into a state like this, but---- + +“If I hadn’t waked her up to it Ronald would never have left this +house alive!” she thought, for she had not lived in London for nothing, +nor for nothing haunted the slums near Dolly’s house, while Dolly had +men to tea. “Here’s your letter,” she said in a matter-of-fact way; +“aren’t you going to read it? I’ll put Ronald to bed.” + +She was half-way into the next room when a queer sound made her turn +sharply; she had no fear of waking the boy she had taken from Dolly’s +tired clasp. + +“What’s the matter?” she cried, for on Lady Barnysdale’s face was the +look Dolly Arden had worn that night in Krug’s restaurant. + +“It’s----” The words came stammering, incoherent. “We must get out of +this. It’s Starr-Dalton. He wants to come here.” + +It seemed to Magdalen that even Starr-Dalton would be better than no +one. Had Dolly no sense? Did not she see what was plain as print? + +“Well, he’s hateful,” she said slowly; “but--what does he say?” + +Magdalen put out a hand as if to take the letter, but Dolly ran to the +fire and threw it into the blaze. + +“What does it matter what he says?” she cried contemptuously. +“Starr-Dalton! I didn’t half read the thing.” + +There was no earthly reason that it should matter, yet as she turned +away Magdalen knew Dolly was lying. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +BETWEEN TWO EVILS. + + +For once the sun shone into those southern rooms next morning when Lady +Barnysdale woke, and for an instant it cheered her. Rain would have +meant another day in this dull, eery house, where some one hated her, +where at any moment Starr-Dalton might arrive with his two days’ worn +collars and his coarse smile. + +She got up and dressed with feverish haste, yet when she looked at +Ronald she felt as if the worst fear of all had vanished. He looked a +different child after his night’s rest. Magdalen had frightened her for +nothing; the thing was too monstrous; no one, even in this house, would +harm a little child. + +Magdalen read her face like a book; and the relief on it made her shrug +her shoulders. She had not told Dolly even half of the queer things she +had seen yesterday afternoon; in consequence “everything was lovely and +the goose hung high” this morning to that lady. But tell she would not +till the last pinch. + +“Well!” she said, “are we going to-day, or not? Because I want to know +what boots to put on.” + +Dolly started without seeing. + +To go meant a five-mile walk to a doubtful ferry; Ronald was himself +again; there was no need--but suddenly she saw Starr-Dalton’s envelope +that she had forgotten to burn. + +“Go! Of course we’re going!” she said sharply; for nothing on earth +would make her stay where that man could find her. “But I’m sure you’re +wrong about Ronald. Look at him.” + +“I dare say,” responded Magdalen carelessly enough. Her heart gave a +bound at the thought that Dolly was absolutely moved to do something; +saw that she had no desire to be friendly with Starr-Dalton, though, if +she had not been so full of other things, that might have seemed the +worst sign of all. + +“Well, after breakfast then!” she said cheerfully. + +After all it only took a little resolution to cut most coils, and this +one was disappearing like an ugly fog. All they had to do was to walk +out of Ardmore Castle, and there would be no more remembrance of queer +dreams, nor terrors of servants. + +It was not at breakfast or lunch that Magdalen had any fears for +Ronald; it was his milk at night, his cups of soup during the day. But +after to-day there would be no more of that. + +Miss Clyde’s thought turned gaily to that big, safe London she had once +said she hated; to a little house somewhere, with nice women servants; +to--and the blood flashed into her pale face and sank again--the chance +sight of a calm, self-possessed face and clear eyes that were like no +others. + +“I’m a fool; he’s forgotten me by this time,” she thought scornfully, +and set herself to the business in hand. + +There was to be no mention of their purpose, even to Ronald. They would +just stroll out in the garden as usual, and once out of sight of the +castle windows make for the highroad leading those five long miles to +the fishing village, by a short cut over the hills. Those long prowls +of hers had been useful, for all Dolly’s growls at them. + +Magdalen turned where she stood in the garden, waiting for Dolly--and +bit her lip with helpless annoyance at a very small thing. + +Lady Barnysdale stood at her elbow with Ronald, and instead of her +short country skirt and her sailor hat, was attired from head to foot +in her best and most becoming widow’s weeds. + +“You might as well have given out your intentions,” Magdalen dryly +observed. “For Heaven’s sake, Dolly, what possessed you to dress like +that?” + +“I’m not going to London looking like a sweep!” she smartly replied. +“Besides I want my veil; we might meet Starr-Dalton.” + +“As if it mattered!” Magdalen contemptuously replied, but Dolly seemed +deaf. + +“Come on,” she said, picking up her long skirt. “You needn’t think I’m +going back to change; it’s no use glaring at me.” + +It was certainly no use to stand there, with Dolly’s purpose advertised +in her town clothes; but all the girl’s gaiety was gone as she took +Ronald’s hand silently and led the way hastily into a screen of shrubs. +Yet no one could have been spying on them so early in the morning, for +there was assuredly not a soul about the devious paths that led out on +the wide moor they must cross to get to the highroad. It was steep, +but it cut off two miles; and even Dolly never grumbled as she toiled +along, her elegant train cast over her arm. Magdalen with Ronald on her +back panted a little as she led the way. To carry even a light child +piggy-back is harder work than one knows. + +“There!” she cried, stopping on the brow of the hill and pointing +down. “There’s the road and now it’s only a mile to the store. We must +keep to this little track that goes through that cluster of firs. It’s +frightfully swampy on each side.” + +Success and exertion had painted Magdalen’s cheeks a pale-rose; she was +a sight to make an old man young as she stood with the child on her +back, her gorgeous hair catching the sun and her deep eyes blacker than +ever. + +Dolly, exhausted and bedraggled with holding up her finery, was another +story. Her smart widow’s bonnet was over on one side and her whole +appearance worthy of bedlam, between mud and bushes. + +“I think we’ve made frightful fools of ourselves,” she said crossly as +they neared the bleak grove of stunted firs. “I wish to goodness I’d +just said I was going and made James get a boat. Of course he would +have done so. It was just your nonsense that he wouldn’t; like you +thinking that stuff about Ronald.” + +“Perhaps it was,” returned Magdalen dryly. + +She was staring at the path where it entered the firs with a curious +sense of danger. A cloud swept over the sun and made her shiver; from +the time she was a tiny child she had always hated stray clouds to +obscure the sun. She shifted Ronald to her shoulders and let Dolly pass +her. + +As she was moving on a shriek of rage made her spring forward wildly. + +Dolly had disappeared in the firs and her angry voice came back on the +wind. Who was she talking to? + +Magdalen clutched Ronald’s thin, black legs and tore down the hill. + +Well inside the cluster of firs stood Dolly with her back to her; in +front of her, completely blocking up the narrow path between the thick +trees, stood a gamekeeper in worn velveteen; a burly, respectable +person with a smooth-shaven face, remarkably pale for a person who +spent his life out of doors. And Dolly was storming at him like a fury. + +“Pass? Why shouldn’t I pass?” she cried, and her rakish bonnet was +ludicrous, her held-up skirts filthy. “How dare you stop me on my own +place? I’m Lady Barnysdale.” + +“That may be,” returned the gamekeeper, with a grin, and Magdalen saw +he was not Scotch, “but you don’t pass here.” + +“What’s all this?” said she from behind, and the man’s face changed a +little as he saw her, but he never budged. + +“You can’t go through here, and that’s all about it,” he said, taking +no notice of Dolly’s furious tongue. + +“Are you mad?” So taken aback was Magdalen that she was scarcely angry. + +The man burst out laughing. + +“No, not I,” he coolly returned. “But this is no place for walks and +you’d better go back.” + +“Nonsense!” Magdalen’s temper had come to her at that laugh. “Lady +Barnysdale and I are going to the village. Get out of the way at once.” + +“Then you’ll not go this way,” with impudent admiration of the tall +girl’s black eyes. + +“I suppose you’re Lady Barnysdale’s servant,” said Magdalen icily. “Do +you mean to disobey her orders?” + +“Just that,” he said rudely. “Get back now the both of you. My orders +are that no one’s to go to the village--even if it were the queen!” + +There was something in his face that made Dolly shrink. She sprang to +Magdalen’s side. + +“Oh,” she said in a whisper, “who is he? I don’t believe he’s a +servant. I’m afraid of him. Come away.” + +Magdalen looked the man up and down. If he had been respectful she +could have dealt with him; as it was she suddenly remembered that they +were two women on a lonely hillside, and their way was obstructed by a +burly blackguard. + +As she thought it he stretched a hand to clap her on the shoulder, +half threatening, all insolent. And for a second her black eyes +staggered even him. + +“You’re lying, and you know it,” she said composedly. “There’s no +excuse for your not letting us pass. But if you won’t get out of our +way we can get out of yours. Come, Dolly!” and she had Dolly turned and +safe in front of her before she took her eyes from that evil face. + +Magdalen’s knees were shaking as she followed, leaving the man +laughing. She tried to believe he was a poacher and that to pass him +would mean insult, perhaps robbery--and Dolly had fifty pounds in her +pocket. But she knew quite well that, whoever he was, he was all of a +piece with every other thing in Ardmore Castle. + +“Come,” she said bravely and not casting a glance behind her. “We’ll +have to go back and take to the highroad, where we came out of the +garden. We won’t be stopped by a tramp.” + +Dolly gave her no answer, but a feverish cry to hurry. The one cloud +had stretched all over the sky and rain was spitting in their faces. By +the time they got back to their starting-point all three were drenched, +Dolly’s crape a reeking, flabby mass. + +White as death, her breath coming hardly, she turned on Magdalen. + +“We must go home. It would kill Ronald to do anything else,” she said, +and if her voice was hoarse it was not cowed. “Anyhow it seems to me +we’d have no better luck on the highroad. That man was no accident; but +one more in my little score against Mrs. Keith.” + +“I don’t know,” said Magdalen dully. “Get on, Doll; we can’t stand here +in the rain.” + +She looked sharply at James as he met them in the hall, with a face of +commiserating wonder at their plight. + +“Oh, my lady!” he said quite naturally, “I had no idea you were out +till you did not come to luncheon. I was just going to look for you +with umbrellas.” + +“It would have been quite useless,” said Dolly quietly. “Please send +Sophy up with hot tea at once. It’s too late for lunch.” + +At the man’s concerned look as he hurried away Magdalen began to wonder +if the balance of her mind were right, and she was not imagining stuff +because of that coincidence of her own dream about a Chinaman. That +man on the hill might have been a poacher; but if there were any truth +in what she really thought of him it lay deeper than any old woman’s +hatred for Dolly. No housekeeper, sour as she might be, would dare to +play a trick like that. And it was all very well to sneer at herself +for a superstitious fool, but it was after Stratharden’s men came, and +not before, that some one had been always haunting their footsteps; let +alone that thing of yesterday, of which she had not told Dolly. + +With a shiver that was only half weariness she busied herself in +getting off Ronald’s wet clothes. When the tea came--with a separate +jug of milk for Ronald--she quickly gave him cream and hot water +instead. + +In exhausted silence Dolly lay back and watched her. They were both +thinking the same thing, with a different theory behind it; but before +Ronald, who loved Ah Lee, Magdalen dared not let Dolly speak of it. + +At Ronald’s bedtime the two looked at each other. There were no keys to +the nursery door, and during dinner they must leave the child alone. It +was in Magdalen’s room that they left him, sound asleep and locked in. + +With the keys in her pocket Dolly talked at dinner with her old, +reckless gaiety. Neither James nor Ah Lee should be able to report to +Mrs. Keith that her ladyship had met with a reverse in her morning walk. + +But Ah Lee, after the soup, disappeared; and James was unaccountably +lazy in bringing the pudding. + +“That brute Keith!” exclaimed Dolly angrily. “If I wasn’t still hungry +I wouldn’t wait. Oh, Magdalen, can’t you think of something?” bursting +out with what she had had on her mind all dinner-time. “Some plan of +getting away, for after to-day----Oh! I’m frightened! The place is just +our jail.” + +“I know,” said Magdalen softly. “I----” She gazed at her own reflection +in the glass above the high mantel-shelf as she tried to think what was +the best thing to do. If she were right, and not Dolly, it looked as if +they must stay here till some one had had his way with Ronald. + +As she stared at her own pale reflection a quick astonishment came +into her eyes; why she shaded them with her hand she best knew, and +certainly her answer was a queer one--to the miserable appeal that had +been in Dolly’s eyes. + +“I dare say it’s very nice in summer,” and the slow, irrelevant words +were utterly indifferent. “Don’t let’s wait for pudding, Dolly. I’m +tired.” + +Magdalen got up and stood waiting, her eyes still on the glass. Dolly +stared at her. Too amazed to speak she pushed back her chair and +followed Magdalen out. + +“What’s the matter with you?” she began crossly when they were in her +room. She unlocked the door leading into Magdalen’s, and was turning +back to her own fire when she saw her stepsister’s face. + +“Come here in my room,” said the girl very softly, passing her like a +noiseless wind and drawing the bolt across the door. + +“What is it?” Dolly whispered. “For Heaven’s sake, what makes you look +like that?” + +Magdalen sat down and looked her straight in the face. + +“Doll,” she said soberly, “who is the man?” + +“Man!” Lady Barnysdale cried. “Do you mean the one we met this morning? +How on earth should I know?” + +“No! The man who’s living in this house.” + +“Do you mean a servant?” Dolly amazedly asked. + +“No!” roughly. “A gentleman.” + +“A gentleman! You’re mad,” said Dolly. Surely she had enough to worry +her without being told things like this. “There can’t be anyone in the +house but us.” + +A queer thought came over Magdalen. + +“Dolly,” she said slowly, “you really have no idea where Lord +Stratharden is?” + +“If I had I wouldn’t be here. What in the world are you driving at?” + +“Listen!” and there was something in the hushed voice that made Dolly +quiet. “Is your brother-in-law dark-haired, with light eyes sunk in +wrinkles? Has he a way of smiling--that isn’t smiling--when he’s +interested? And eyebrows like”--she signed with her fingers over her +own level ones--“crooked, you know, and very finely marked?” + +“You never saw him!” said Dolly, recoiling as from a too life-like +portrait. “You said so.” + +“I never did--till to-night.” + +“To-night! How could you? He’s away abroad,” with scornful eyes on +the girl who sat between her and the light, uncanny in her black and +whiteness. “What do you mean?” + +“I mean he’s here,” said Magdalen grimly. “I saw him to-night in this +house.” + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +THE EYES BEHIND THE GLASS. + + +Lady Barnysdale’s tongue clicked against the roof of her mouth; her dry +lips shaped the words she could not say. She sprang to the bell and a +hand drew hers from the bell-rope. + +“Don’t be so mad!” said Magdalen quietly. “Sit down.” + +Dolly looked at her. + +“But if Stratharden’s here--oh, you don’t understand; he was more than +kind to me--all I have to do is to tell him about Keith. But--he can’t +be here! He wouldn’t arrive and I not know. You couldn’t have seen him.” + +“Be quiet,” said her stepsister with a sudden, hushed force. + +She stood a second listening; then, as if she heard what she expected, +pushed Dolly back into her chair. She pulled a note-book from her +pocket and wrote furiously, thankful that Dolly had sense enough to sit +silent, and presently pointed imperiously at the page. + +The penciled lines swam before Dolly Barnysdale’s eyes. + +“Don’t speak,” she read. “I hear some one in the corridor. I saw the +man I told you of to-night when we were at dinner. I was looking in the +glass, and that curtained window leading into the hall was reflected +there. Some one lifted a corner of the curtain outside and I saw a +man’s face--a gentleman’s. He must be living in the house, for I saw +the collar of his smoking-jacket. If it was Stratharden what is he +doing here secretly? Why does he spy at what you do?” + +“You mean----” said Dolly huskily. + +Magdalen took the book and wrote again. + +“I mean we can’t get away, and I found out--never mind how--that +Ronald’s milk was being drugged. Is Stratharden poor because of him and +you?” + +“Yes.” + +“Very poor? In difficulties?” + +“I don’t know.” + +“You knew his brother!” wrote the girl cruelly. “You were married to +him.” + +“My God!” said Dolly exactly as if she were praying in church. “But +Stratharden could not be like him.” + +The words were not over her breath--a queer thing for Dolly; her lips +parted as if she were going to faint. + +Magdalen owned no smelling-bottle. She moved sharply into Dolly’s room +to get hers, and something made her glance at the door she had bolted +and then go into Ronald’s empty nursery. When she came back no one +could have suspected the awful terror in her soul. + +“Do you bolt your doors at night?” she said softly, for Dolly at that +minute could not have read another line to save her life. + +Dolly nodded dumbly, and Magdalen waited patiently till the color came +back to her sister’s lips. Then she wrote something she dared not say, +wondering all the time if she were a fool to let Dolly know it. + +“Then lock them,” she scowled; “there’s only one screw in each bolt +socket--and leave the keys crossways in the keyholes.” + +Slowly, like an uneducated woman, Lady Barnysdale wrote a sentence that +was barely readable. + +“There are no keys. You knew that. There’s nothing to help me.” + +Magdalen gave her a queer look. + +“There’s me!” she wrote with a half laugh. And if she were Dolly’s +sister there must have been good blood in her somewhere, for a sudden +courage shone in her face; while Dolly sat more dead than alive, her +lower lip drawn away from her teeth. Magdalen could not think looking +at Dolly, and think she must. She moved noiselessly into her sister’s +room and stood there checking off her thoughts on her fingers. + +“First, there’s Ronald! He looks just like Mrs. Malone’s boy there was +all the fuss about--and a Chinaman was at the bottom of that! Then +here’s a house miles from anywhere, Scotch servants who believe some +lie--no matter what--about Dolly; a footman and a Chinaman”--once more +that horrid thrill of fear came over her--“who belong to a man who’s +supposed to be abroad and is in this house! I wonder how long he’s been +here! I’ll go bail Mrs. Keith had excellent reasons for not letting +Dolly explore! If I know anything about faces he is clever, but he was +frightened, too, because we so nearly got off to-day. A frightened man +does things in a hurry.” + +She drew a long breath. With three men and an old woman against her it +was long odds against Magdalen Clyde; but even so she would be harder +to handle than Dolly. + +“One good thing, he can’t know I saw him. I covered my eyes too +quickly,” she ended and turned to go back to Dolly as quietly as if she +did not hear in the corridor outside a step that crept foot by foot +with hers. Half-way in her own room she stopped and looked behind her. + +There was a little click, a gleam, as the polished brass handle of +the door leading into the corridor slipped--evidently from the hold +of some one outside--back into its place, then turned again slowly, +noiselessly, evilly. + +She stared at the moving convex of shining brass, and stepping quietly +into her own room bolted the door behind her. With herself, Dolly and +Ronald inside and a good door at her back it was not worth while to +worry. + +“You’re done up, Dolly,” she said softly. “Get into bed beside Ronald +and I’ll take the sofa. I don’t want to sleep alone to-night.” + +Dolly shuddered; nothing would have made her go into her own room. + +“If you’re right, and he’s here,” she said, “what shall I say?” + +“I don’t imagine for one second that he’ll show up. If he does I’d hold +my tongue, except to inform him that we’re going at once. You mustn’t +tell him about Ronald.” + +Dolly was shivering as she lay down by the boy. + +“Surely he’ll explain,” she said. + +Magdalen gasped. If she had been a man she would have had fists first +and explanations afterward in the police court. As she sat wearily +on the sofa the incongruity of the whole thing came over her. The +homelike room with the candle-light on Ronald’s waxen face; down-stairs +the evil, scarred Chinaman; the man peering through the window. She +dared think no longer, remembering the look in those pale eyes behind +the glass; except that with daylight they must get away from this +evil house, over the swirling firth where the tide raced like death +incarnate, back to the safety of the packed streets of London town. + +She had meant to keep awake, but her tired bones were too much for her. +When she started up, at a loud knocking at the door of Dolly’s vacant +room, it was half-past eight and broad daylight. + +“What is it?” she cried, half awake. + +“Mrs. Keith,” said Dolly, utterly astounded. She jumped up and hurried +into her own room at the woman’s call. + +Magdalen tumbled off her sofa and peered through the crack of the door. + +A gaunt old woman in a white cap and print gown stood in the middle of +Dolly’s room staring at the unused bed; a terrible old woman, but, as +Magdalen had all along felt certain, an honest one. + +“What capers are these?” she cried harshly. “What for did ye no’ sleep +in your own bed? No wonder Sophy could na wake ye. His lordship’s here. +I’m to tell you; and he’d like to see ye at once.” + +“Stratharden!” cried Dolly. “Then he----” She pulled herself together +viciously. “When did he come?” she asked. + +“I did no’ let him in,” returned Mrs. Keith calmly, and Magdalen saw +she meant to say no more. “But ye’d do well to make haste.” + +“That’s for me to say,” said Dolly valiantly. + +“You can send Miss Clyde’s breakfast up here. She’s tired,” for Ronald +could neither breakfast with Stratharden and spill egg on his pinafore, +nor be left alone. + +“I’ll do no such a thing,” announced the retainer. “There’s breakfast +in the dining-room and she can go there. It seems to me ye’ll have +queer ways when ye’ll eat alone and sleep three in a bed!” and she +marched out. + +“What on earth shall I do?” said Dolly. + +“Don’t do anything. Just say we’re going away to-day. Brace up, Doll; +you’re clever enough! I never saw you like this.” + +“Sometimes I think I used up all my strength in London,” Dolly muttered +with an odd flatness. + +“Shall I come?” + +“No! I get on better alone with men, even with a brother-in-law,” and +at last there was something of the old Dolly in the way she said it. + +“I want my breakfast,” Ronald announced when she was gone and he was +dressed. + +“So do I,” said his aunt. But as she glanced at the boy’s pallor and +the unnatural circles round his eyes she had no desire to get that meal +as served by Ah Lee. A quiet idea took her. + +“Come,” she cried; “you and I, your lordship, will go and look for +breakfast! Do you know the way to the kitchen?” + +“Yes, but Mrs. Keith’s cross, Aunt Magdalen.” + +“We’re not afraid of her,” said the aunt cheerfully, and hand-in-hand +with the small person who had been unwise enough to succeed to an +earldom, Miss Clyde made her way through deserted passages to an +enormous kitchen, where one woman sat at her breakfast, her back turned +to the door, neither hearing nor seeing the intruders. + +For one moment Magdalen surveyed her in silence. She was alone, and so +much the better. + +“Good morning, Mrs. Keith!” she cried maliciously. “I want some +breakfast.” + +The housekeeper bounced in her chair, turned round with an ungainly +wrench, then sat gaping open-mouthed, her lean, knotted hands flung out. + +“Who are ye?” she said in a kind of shriek. “My woman, who are ye?” + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +IN THE CHAPEL. + + +“Her ladyship’s sister,” said Magdalen smartly. + +It was nonsense Mrs. Keith’s pretending not to know when she had been +in the house more than a month, and had been followed wherever she went +for a week. + +Was the old housekeeper crazy? + +For, like a woman startled out of her senses, she was coming over to +the intruders, peering at them under her bushy brows till her eyes were +like green sparks. Ronald began to cry at the look on the gnarled face +that was pushed so close to Magdalen’s. + +“Speak out!” cried Mrs. Keith. “What’s your name?” + +“You’re frightening the child,” cried Magdalen indignantly. “You know +perfectly well who I am--Lady Barnysdale’s sister. As for my name, it’s +Clyde--though I can’t see how it matters to you what it is. Get me some +breakfast,” she commanded, for her patience was exhausted. + +“Heavens! ’tis the very speech of him!” said the housekeeper to +herself. “Clyde, she says----” She put a knotted work-worn hand on the +girl’s shoulder. “Speak out,” she muttered; “ye can! I’m Mrs. Keith.” + +“I have spoken out.” Magdalen stamped her foot, for in this house it +was waste of time to be either polite or considerate, knowing what she +knew. “Now get me some breakfast. You can see for yourself I can’t take +such a little child as this to breakfast with Lord Stratharden.” + +Mrs. Keith stood looking at her. + +“If I was wrong,” she said, “you’ll pardon me! Ye have a look of one I +knew that’s dead, and for the sake of him ye’ll have all that’s in this +house. Though,” under her breath, and turning away, “if ye were aught +to him ye’d not hold that child by the hand!” + +For want of an answer Magdalen sat down on a spotless wooden chair and +took Ronald on her lap. + +Mrs. Keith, with that queer surprise still on her face, went to and fro +awkwardly, putting such a meal on the kitchen-table as Lady Barnysdale +had assuredly never seen in that house; and Magdalen’s black eyes +followed her every movement. Through the open door into the dairy she +saw the milk taken fresh from the pan; at her very elbow watched the +boiling of the eggs, the slicing of the bacon. There might be dislike +of the new Lord Barnysdale here, but there were certainly no underhand +tricks with his food. To her surprise the grim old woman laid the table +with fine china, not the thick crockery she had used herself. + +“Ye’re served,” she said briefly; and if ever the words were welcome it +was to half-starved Magdalen Clyde. + +“Will ye be living here for good?” said the housekeeper suddenly. + +“No. I’m going back to London as soon as I can,” something beyond her +control making her tell the truth as better than lies. + +But Mrs. Keith made no comment. + +In silence Magdalen finished the breakfast that was putting courage +into her with every mouthful, and then lifted Ronald from his chair. + +“Say good morning to Mrs. Keith, boy,” she cried lightly, “and thank +her for such a good breakfast!” with her lovely laugh. + +“Ye needn’t prompt him. I’ll have none of his thanks, the spawn!” + +The sudden, harsh voice made the child clutch Magdalen in silent terror. + +“How dare you speak like that?” she cried, turning angrily on the +housekeeper. “He’s a child, not three years old. It isn’t his fault +that he supplanted the boy you nursed.” + +The woman looked at her. + +“Who may ye be meaning?” she quietly asked. + +“Lord Stratharden’s son,” Magdalen replied, seeing no reason for the +question. + +“Stratharden’s? Oh, ay!” and her eyes narrowed oddly. “He’s a guid lad +enough, Buff Ogilvie. But if ye come here to teach me my duty ye’d best +be going back to your own affairs.” + +“I’m at them!” with a sudden inspiration. Hateful, half daft, as this +old woman seemed, she was yet the one soul in the house who could be +trusted even half-way. “While I think of it,” she continued boldly, +“why are all the screws drawn from the bolt-sockets in her ladyship’s +room?” + +“Who told ye so?” but she did not look the least put out. + +“My eyes.” + +“Ye’ll see the same thing in a madhouse,” said Mrs. Keith, dryly, +and her hearer wondered if she had ever been shut up in one. “Come +ye’re ways with me,” the housekeeper went on hastily. “I’ll show +ye something, and for the sake of him that ye favor I’ll tell ye +something, too. I’d not be so free with your tongue in a place ye know +nothing about!” Having uttered the advice she turned away. + +Without answering Magdalen picked up Ronald and followed the gaunt old +figure so strangely set off in a blue cotton gown. Up-stairs, through +long passages, across a wide hall--where it seemed to her that her +guide fairly ran, and had no desire to be seen--and into a closed room +that was curiously high and dark. + +The housekeeper whipped a candle from somewhere and lighted it. +Magdalen Clyde drew back with a startled cry. + +They stood in a deserted, dismantled chapel. Over the bare, dusty altar +was the despairing agony of Mary Magdalen at the foot of the cross; all +else of religion was gone from the place. The windows were boarded up, +the dust of years was soft on the floor--and in the dim candle-light +that flickered in the close air that other Magdalen turned on the +housekeeper. + +“Why do you bring me here?” she demanded. “Take me away. The place +smells of death.” + +“It may well; it may well.” Mrs. Keith’s face was drawn and livid, and +Magdalen saw suddenly that she was a very, very old woman. “I brought +ye here for this--and for the look on your face!” + +She turned, pointing behind the girl’s shoulder. + +Magdalen wheeled. There, over the door by which they had entered, hung +a second picture, facing the Mary Magdalen over the altar. And but for +a something in the cut of the mouth it might have been her own face +that was painted there, though the picture was not that of a woman, but +of a man. + +A man of five-and-twenty, with a face of burned-out sorrow; yet the +eyes of it were brave still. + +“That was the boy I nursed!” cried the housekeeper under her breath. +“Because ye had a look of him I fed ye. And now, if ye’re wise, ye’ll +get away to your home. His hair--that’s black in the painting--was the +color of yours when he was a child.” + +Magdalen stared at the picture. + +The boy Mrs. Keith nursed! Did she mean----Oh, it was not Stratharden, +nor never had been. Was it Dolly’s husband? + +“Was he----” she began, and did not know why she stopped short. “It’s a +curious chance that I should look like him!” she said with bewilderment. + +“There’s no such thing as chance. We’re all born to an ending.” The +words were so low and dreary that Miss Clyde looked sharply at the +withered old speaker. + +There were tears in the woman’s hard eyes. She brushed them away as she +motioned the girl to follow her. + +To Magdalen’s surprise only two short, dingy passages lay between the +desolate chapel and her own room, at the door of which Mrs. Keith +stopped abruptly. + +“I’ll bring your luncheon to ye,” she said harshly, “if you’re meaning +not to go down. And if ye’ve any wit of your own ye’ll say nothing +about what I showed ye. Did ye say ye were going away from here?” she +suddenly inquired. + +“As soon,” said Miss Clyde truthfully, “as ever I can.” + +“Oh, ay! Well, when ye’re wanting to leave ye’ll tell me!” She turned +and was gone. + +“Well!” Magdalen thought, staring after her, “of all the unearthly +houses and people! But my black and whiteness has done me some good at +last. I never thought I should get a good breakfast because I had the +luck to look like a dead man’s picture. It’s a pity Dolly couldn’t get +on the right side of Mrs. Keith!” But even as she thought it she knew +it was impossible; it was no light hatred that had fired Mrs. Keith’s +face when she looked at Ronald. And--that queer answer about the +madhouse flashed suddenly clear to Magdalen. It was Dolly the woman had +meant was mad! + +In spite of her substantial breakfast Miss Clyde sat down limply. She +had thought of many things, but never of this. The pale indoor face of +the man who had barred their way yesterday sprang up before her with a +sudden horrid significance, and then the devilish cleverness that was +at the bottom of it all turned her cold. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +STRATHARDEN “SEES THEM OFF.” + + +“Well?” + +But it was cold rage, not cold fright, that had kept Magdalen from even +hearing a foot on the floor till Dolly’s hand was on her shoulder. + +“Well?” Magdalen said, and there was only curiosity in her voice. “How +did you get on? What did he say?” + +Dolly sat down on the rug by Ronald and snatched him to her. + +“Say?” she cried. “It was I that said! We’re to go to-night--to London. +The horses came this morning anyhow. Magdalen,” with a sudden doubt, +“I don’t know what to think about him. Before I could ask him when he +arrived he said he came late last night and feared to disturb me.” + +Late--at dinner-time? But she did not say it. + +“Then you didn’t let out that I saw him?” + +“No,” she responded not too comfortably. She had been, as she said, a +failure on the stage; she knew her surprise at seeing Stratharden had +been acting of the same class. + +“What did you tell him?” + +“Nothing, except what I said in my letters. I didn’t think it would +do to say we’d tried to get away and couldn’t. He said it was my +letter that brought him; he was anxious to see for himself that I was +comfortable.” + +“What did you say?” + +“That we weren’t, and I didn’t think Ronald’s food agreed with him +here.” + +Magdalen’s face grew perfectly expressionless. Truly, Dolly must have +used up all her wits in London! She had said the very last thing she +should have let out she knew. If she was going to tell everything the +less she knew the better; if it once dawned on her that she was here in +the character of a madwoman she would do her best to behave like one. + +“Why aren’t we going till to-night?” Magdalen asked. “It seems to me +the ferry-boat comes here at three in the day.” + +“It did, but it’s changed. It comes at eight now.” + +“Oh!” said the girl carelessly. If that were true it made Stratharden a +liar when he said he came last night. Nothing could have got him over +five miles and into a smoking-jacket by seven minutes past eight. But +he must be a poor sort of villain to give in so easily and let them go. +She felt strangely uneasy for a person whose trouble would be over in +eight hours; it did not seem possible that a man who had gone to such +pains to keep them here should let them go at the bare asking. She was +so sure that all the queer things in Ardmore Castle were Stratharden’s +work that she would not trust herself to see him; as for going to +luncheon with him she would as soon have dined with the devil. + +When Dolly would have taken Ronald to see him she called her a fool to +her face. It might be their last day under Stratharden’s auspices, but, +all the more, she would not let the child out of her own keeping for +five minutes. + +“You can go on saying he’s not well, since you’ve already admitted it,” +she remarked obdurately, “and I’m packing.” + +But if Stratharden kept his word, and she packed to any purpose, she +knew she would be pleasurably astounded. + +To her utter amazement he did. + +At seven Dolly flew up-stairs. + +“The carriage is here!” she cried. “Stratharden has gone on to the +ferry to see us on board.” + +“Is he coming, too?” + +“No. He’ll come back in the carriage and stay here a day or two. Then +he’s going to Russia. Come on, and for Heaven’s sake be civil when he +meets us at the boat, no matter what you think.” + +“I don’t know what to think,” she replied in perplexity, for the actual +carriage at the door had knocked all her theories to bits. As for +telling Mrs. Keith she was going--with an uneasy remembrance of the +woman’s words--for all she knew, that might stop them. The housekeeper +might be innocent about Ronald, but what she said about a madhouse had +fitted in too well with the face of the man who had turned them back +yesterday. + +“My going away might be very different to my taking Dolly!” Magdalen +thought swiftly, and with Ronald in her arms followed Dolly down-stairs. + +It was odd how slowly her heart beat. It should have been thumping with +joy that she was turning her back on this hateful house forever, and +need never again think of Ah Lee and her dream of him, need only see +his hateful face this once more as she passed by him to the carriage. + +She looked over Dolly’s shoulder and saw she was spared even one more +sight of the man. There was no one in the hall but James, holding the +front door wide. And outside, in the seven-o’clock darkness, was a +closed carriage and a pair of strong young horses pawing the gravel. At +the blessed sight the girl’s black eyes were suddenly alive in her pale +face. + +She looked at the horses like friends; at her old acquaintance, the +red-headed boy, who sat alone on the box; followed Dolly into the +carriage with a laugh of pure gaiety, and fell back into her seat as +James shut the carriage door behind her with a bang that made the +horses start nearly out of their skins. + +They were off, after all her doubts! Ardmore and its mysteries were +behind them; her dream and the Chinaman off her mind forever. + +“I’d like to shout hurrah,” she cried. “Oh! Dolly, wouldn’t you?” + +“We’re going awfully fast,” said Dolly irrelevantly. “Is it down-hill?” + +Magdalen looked out of the window. + +There was nothing to see but bare hills, dark against the watery +night-sky. + +“The horses are fresh,” she returned comfortably. “It’s all right.” She +wished she were as sure about the boat; it was queer how quickly her +exultation left her. + +In a little while Magdalen put her head out of the window again and +caught her breath with surprise. Surely they had never come five miles. +For before her was the Firth of Clyde; and black against its dark water +there lay a long pier, like a pointing finger. They were at the ferry. + +The horses dropped into a walk half-way out on the ramshackle pier, +stopped and stood uneasily. There was no Stratharden, no ferry-boat; no +sign that anyone ever came to the desolate place. + +The wind whined from the hills once and again; the tide sucked at the +shaky wharf; overhead it was spitting rain. To a London girl’s eyes the +pier was horribly narrow. If anything frightened the horses there would +be no room to turn. + +“Do you see Stratharden?” asked Dolly quickly. + +“No. He’s not here, Dolly; there’s no ferry-boat here either!” + +Dolly shut her teeth. + +“I won’t go back if I wait till daylight,” she said. “Do you think +Stratharden’s done it on purpose and there won’t be any boat? Can’t you +see him?” + +“Wait,” said Magdalen, peering into the darkness. + +In the deadly quiet she could have heard the lightest footstep on +the pier, as she heard her own heart and the spattering rain on the +carriage. Wherever Lord Stratharden was he was not here. + +She got out noiselessly and stood, a darker shadow in the dark. The +carriage door swung under her hand as the horses shifted restlessly in +the chilly wind, the boy on the box---- + +“Get out!” said Magdalen suddenly, thrusting her head into the dim +carriage. “Get out! Don’t speak!” + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +“MURDER!” + + +Magdalen had noted that there was something queer about the boy on the +box, something terrifying in the look of him where he sat in a hunched +heap, regardless of the driving rain or the horses pulling the reins +through his listless fingers as they tossed and fretted at their bits. + +Suddenly she could no longer distinguish him. A black rain-squall fell +from the sky and shut her in, she could not see Dolly and Ronald at her +elbow, or her own hand on the carriage door. By some instinct she shut +it softly. + +“Keep still,” she said, and felt her way round the hind wheels to wake +the red-headed boy. How dared he sleep here? It was not safe, it----” + +A narrow flash, strangely red for lightning, blinded her; the carriage +backed and knocked her down. + +In an instant she was on her feet, clutching Dolly in the dark. + +“Don’t scream!” she fiercely breathed. “Hold on to my skirts and come.” + +Stooping, gasping, she felt her way off that pier, its wooden coping +her only guide. + +The noise of wheels, of tearing hoofs, of a horse’s scream, tore the +air--the latter a sound to stop the heart. + +“What was that?” Dolly stood paralyzed. + +“Murder!” said Magdalen to herself as she felt solid ground under her +groping hands, and stood up. “Come on.” + +She dragged Dolly and Ronald behind some bushes she could feel more +than see. + +“Oh, what was it?” Dolly repeated tremulously. + +“The carriage is in the Clyde,” Magdalen briefly replied, “and if we’re +not quiet we’ll be there, too.” + +For that red flash had done more than frighten the horses; it had +showed the end of the pier to Magdalen Clyde, with a stout post at each +corner of it, the top of the right-hand one square and blank against +the flare. + +On the other post, squatting motionless, like some horrible heathen +god, was the Chinese butler, waiting. For what? + +“For just what he saw!” thought Magdalen with a terror that would have +been unreasonable in broad daylight or in another place. “That flash +wasn’t an accident. The carriage was meant to go over with us inside. +The boy was drugged! Oh!”--with a sick shudder--“the poor boy! The poor +horses!” + +It was useless for common sense to assure her that she was all wrong; +that Stratharden had for some reason not come himself to see them off, +but sent the butler; and that the obvious thing to do was to call to +the Chinaman, tell him how miraculously they had escaped, and go back +to Ardmore till the morning. For if common sense said all this instinct +clamored louder that if the man had been there to help them, he would +have come over to the carriage; that if he had perched himself on the +post, it was to be safe when the carriage and horses tore past him! + +Trembling she cleared the rain from her face and strained eyes to the +pier-end. If all were right human flesh and blood could not have kept +silent when the carriage crashed into the water. Yet the Chinaman had +not made a sound. + +Through the dark she could see nothing; could hear only the lap of the +water, the pattering rain; but through it the man might be creeping +on them, step by step, might have guessed the carriage was empty, +might---- + +“Come away,” she whispered, and her lips were stone-cold. “Don’t let +Ronald cry,” for the shrill child’s voice could be heard above the +storm. + +“Come where?” muttered Dolly. “Not back! I won’t go back.” + +There was no fear of Ronald’s crying; he was nearly fainting with +terror; the feel of his rigid little body in her arms made her swear to +herself that for nothing on earth would she take him back to the house +where they hated him. + +“Back? No! Anywhere out of this.” + +Step by step they crept along the hillside, away from the pier; edging +from one clump of grass to another, from one stunted fir to the next; +since, for all they knew, their figures might be plain enough if a man +had a night-glass. + +Every now and then Magdalen stopped to listen to the noise of the +river. They must go up-stream, not down. Anyone who wanted to make sure +of wreckage would go down. Suddenly her feet felt the smoothness of a +well-worn path leading downward to the water. It seemed better than +aimless zigzagging on the hillside, and she followed it with Dolly +treading on her heels. It came to an end on the very edge of the frith, +with a sharp turn where a boulder and some low firs made a shelter from +the rain. + +“We can’t go on,” she whispered, feeling the turf under the trees; +“it’s dry here. Sit down. Is Ronald wet?” + +“No; he’s covered with my cloak.” Under the strain Dolly’s nerve had +come back to her; the vicious fury of a woman who has lived by her wits +was in her voice. “I’ll keep him dry somehow. He shan’t die in my arms +when we kept him safe in that awful house,” she fiercely added. + +“They meant to murder us,” said Magdalen in a husky voice. “Did you +think that flash was lightning? It was some kind of devilish firework, +and it did what they meant--but it saved us, too, for I saw him!” + +“Stratharden?” + +“No; the Chinaman. I don’t believe Stratharden ever left the house. +Can’t you see now that he was at the bottom of everything? Keith was +only his tool, that he lied to. He told her you were mad.” + +Dolly caught her by the hand. + +“What do I care what he said? If it hadn’t been for you I would have +stayed in the carriage,” she whispered--Dolly, who had never been +grateful in her life before! + +“We might just as well have stayed if Ah Lee’s at our heels,” said +Magdalen grimly. “Don’t talk,” and in odd contrast to her hard voice +she stooped gently and covered the huddled pair with her own heavy +traveling-coat that she had stripped off in the dark. If she shivered +as she tucked it round Ronald it was only half from cold. + +“For we can’t stay here,” she thought. “I must do something. And I’m +afraid to move or even to breathe! It’s no use to mince things, I +daren’t go back to that house, even if I could find the way in the +dark. Mrs. Keith might help me but she’d hang before she’d help Dolly. +And if I dared go back to the pier--but I daren’t and that’s the end of +it!” + +She slipped down beside Dolly and spoke in her ear. + +“Dolly,” she said, “do you know where we are? For I don’t. All I know +is that this pier isn’t the one the boat comes to at all, for I saw +that one from the top of the hill one day, and there were cottages all +round the head of it. Do you suppose we could find our way there?” + +“I don’t know. You forget I never was out of the garden but that once +when the man turned us back. We can’t do anything but sit here till +daylight. If the Chinaman knows we weren’t in the carriage he’ll be +scouring every path. If he found us he wouldn’t dare to let us go; he’d +know we knew something, and----” + +“Hush!” Magdalen breathed. “Hush! I hear some one! Don’t let Ronald +move.” + +“He’s asleep,” whispered Dolly. + +Magdalen leaned in the supposed direction of the sound and listened. +It was all very well to think that she needed her coat less than the +delicate child in Dolly’s arms, but thinking could not stop her teeth +chattering. She bit fiercely into her own hand. + +“It’s a boat--oars----” she muttered. “It’s----Crawl in behind the +rock, between it and the fir trees--quick!” and as Dolly obeyed her she +huddled herself in after, face down, a shapeless heap in the dark. + +Motionless, scarcely breathing, terrified lest Ronald should wake and +cry, they heard a boat crunch on the pebbly beach not three yards away. + +“If it’s a fisherman,” Magdalen thought, trying to check those horrible +shivers, “we’re saved! If it’s not----” + +A man’s quick spring from the boat sounded loud on the stones, and in +the dull grind of the keel as it was pulled up a foot or so over the +pebbles, Magdalen flattened herself under the fir branches. + +That quick foot on the shore was not the heavy thud of country-made +boots. It was the Chinaman! They were found, they---- + +The steps came closer, were so near that----He was stopping! + +The girl felt he must hear those thin, crawling shivers that swept her +body. She gathered herself up to spring and face him, when a slither of +falling stones, an oath that was not the swearing of a foreigner, nor +yet a fisherman, drew her very strength out of her. + +The voice was a gentleman’s, and Dolly’s hand gripped her fiercely. + +“Where the devil’s the path?” went on the voice that, for all its +irritation, was like silk. “Oh, here! The boat can go to the devil. +I’ve had enough of it. I’m dirty enough to have been in ten accidents. +Even Ah Lee----” and he laughed. + +At the most evil sound of that laughter rage made one listener start; +but the squish of the wet moss and mud under the man’s groping feet +covered it. + +It seemed hours before that slow tread died away; hours when it was not +safe to move or breathe. + +When there was no sound but the rain Magdalen sat up. + +“Did you hear?” Dolly’s whisper sounded like a shriek to her. “That was +Stratharden--and he laughed!” + +“He’s looking for our bodies,” with stern coolness. + +“Well, he won’t find them. The fool has saved us. Come quick; he’s left +his boat!” + +With a man’s strength Magdalen lifted Dolly to her feet and got her +to the beach. In the quiet the crunch of the pebbles sounded like +pistol-shots as they felt their way to the boat. + +“Get in,” Magdalen whispered. “Don’t stumble.” And when Dolly was +seated she lifted the bow of the clumsy tub Stratharden had been good +enough to leave behind him; the keel made no sound as the boat slipped +out and Magdalen swung herself into the bow. + +Drenched to the skin she crept to the oars, and knew she dared not row, +for the noise they would make against the thole-pins. Yet if she let +the boat drift the current would sweep them broadside on against the +pier. She crawled into the bow again and paddled desperately with one +oar, knowing she could never get out into midstream, but hoping against +hope. + +Her strong strokes were making no difference; broadside on they were +drifting down to the pier--and there was a light there! + +“We’re done!” she muttered to herself, and nearly fell flat where she +knelt. + +The boat had fairly leaped under her, had swung round, was going out +into midstream, bows on. The outgoing tide had snatched them from the +shore eddy; they were flying on it like a chip or a straw. Every minute +was taking them further from Stratharden, further from the island that +had been their prison. Triumph shook the girl like a leaf. + +When the light on the pier was but a distant star she set the oars +boldly into the thole-pins and began to row. + +“Where shall we go?” said Dolly feverishly. “Can’t you see any lights +on the banks? We must land at the first village.” + +“All right,” said her stepsister, thanking Heaven that she had learned +to row on the lake at her country convent. “We’ll be in London +to-morrow, Dolly,” she added cheerfully, as if in her heart she did +not know she was lost on the wide black frith, and for all she knew +was rowing out to sea in the cold, stinging rain that hid the shore on +either hand. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +DOLLY SEES DAYLIGHT. + + +“What next?” said the toneless voice from the bed. “What next?” + +The girl who sat by the fire started. That ceaseless question of all +last night had been silent for the last four hours; she had thought +that when Dolly had slept she would wake quite sensible. + +“There’s no next,” Magdalen patiently answered just as if it were not +for the twentieth time. “I rowed and rowed. Daylight finally dawned +and we were close to a rocky shore. When we got out I pushed the boat +out into the river and we walked. We came to a town and a station, and +that’s all. You had plenty of money.” + +“I know all that, you idiot!” The unexpected retort was hoarse, but +unmistakably to the point. “I mean what are we going to do next? I feel +awfully ill. I must have taken a chill.” + +“Chill!” said Magdalen. She got up and went over to the bed. “I thought +you’d got your death. You couldn’t hold your head up when we got to +Euston. I had to come here and send for a doctor, and nothing he gave +you would keep you quiet.” + +“It was that powder he gave me,” said Dolly crossly. “Those things +don’t quiet me; they only make me silly. I remember all that, and your +lugging me into the Euston Hotel, and the doctor, and the awful pain in +my head. Did I talk?” + +“You kept saying ‘What next?’ all the time. I thought you were +beginning it again,” looking at the drawn face. “Have some tea, Dolly; +it’s just after lunch.” + +“No. I feel sick. Oh, how sore I am! It was sitting in those wet +clothes. But I kept Ronald dry,” with a laugh that hurt her. + +“Dry as a bone! And I was rowing; I didn’t get chilled. I forgot how +easily you took cold, and you would go straight to the train, wet +clothes and all.” + +“I’d had enough of Scotland,” she admitted with a shudder. “Magdalen, +you didn’t write our names here--our own names, I mean?” Dolly +questioned to sudden panic. + +“I wrote ‘Mrs. Morton, child and maid,’ just as badly as I could. I +don’t know why I did it; for it’s we who have the whip-hand now,” +Magdalen musingly replied. + +“Whip-hand?” Dolly sat up rather dizzily. + +“Oh! Stratharden, you mean?” she said. Then, as her head ceased to +swim, she continued, “I don’t know but I’m glad you didn’t write down +Lady Barnysdale; it would have made me nervous; the other gives us time +to think. Magdalen, I will have tea, if it’s there. I’m all right now, +except that I ache all over.” + +She drank the tea and lay quiet, revolving a thousand things in her +mind. Some were good and some bad, but to her worn-out nerves the bad +predominated. She tossed restlessly in the wide bed. The good thing +was that Ronald was safe and well; her eyes fairly devoured him where +he played on the floor. The bad things, or one of them, was that her +cleverness seemed to have deserted her. She could not think. + +“Magdalen,” she said sharply, “talk! Have you heard anything? +Countesses can’t get drowned and have nothing said about it.” + +“Oh, there’s been something said about it,” Magdalen observed without +much spirit. “Look here.” + +She brought the evening paper to the bedside and pointed to a paragraph +among the telegraphic despatches. + +“Terrible accident at Ardmore. Death of Lady Barnysdale and her son.” + +“Death!” cried Dolly. “Then he must have been sure!” + +“Read this.” Magdalen turned over to “Notes of the News,” and Dolly +Barnysdale looked dull-eyed on her own name. + + “The sad death of Lady Barnysdale and her young son in a carriage + accident will be a lesson to those ladies who allow half-trained + stable-boys to drive them at night. The unfortunate countess, + accompanied by her sister and her little boy, was driving from + Ardmore Castle to Ardmore Pier, but on her way must have discovered + that she had mistaken the hour of the daily ferry-boat’s arrival + there, and given orders to the lad who was driving her to go to a + nearer pier long since disused by the ferry, but where, by taking a + rowboat always kept there, she might cross the Firth of Clyde and + still be in time to catch the night-train for London. On the steep + descent to the water the horses bolted, and as they were completely + unmanageable by the poor boy on the box, took the carriage over the + pier-end into the Clyde. So far neither the carriage nor its contents + have been found, as there is a strong current in that part of the + frith. One of the drowned horses was washed ashore at Pirn. Lord + Stratharden, who was staying at Ardmore Castle, is greatly shocked + and distressed at the death of his sister-in-law, of whom it will be + remembered he was a firm friend under difficult circumstances. The + late Lady Barnysdale had been living at Ardmore in great seclusion + and quite unknown in the neighborhood. The tragic event of course + returns the succession to its original channel.” + +“Does it?” said Dolly. She dropped the paper furiously. “I’ll show +him whether I’m dead or not! I’ll----” She stopped with the sentence +unfinished. + +The rage went from her face as if it had been wiped off. To be dead +would be to be rid of Starr-Dalton. It was curious how an unimportant +thing like getting rid of a distasteful lover could weigh against +decent punishment of or retaliation against a man who had done his best +to murder her; but it did. + +More than all the real terrors that had surrounded her at Ardmore +Castle could do, that letter which she had said was unimportant, +that was assuredly affectionate--as Mr. Starr-Dalton understood +affection--had shaken Dolly Barnysdale’s nerve and paralyzed her wits. + +Her brain seemed to clear in a flash. In spite of her feverish cold, +her aching bones, it was the old Dolly who suddenly laughed where she +sat huddled in the bedclothes. She could be a match for them both +now--for Stratharden and his murderous plots, and Starr-Dalton and his +hateful love-letters. + +“I know now,” she said slowly, “what I’ll do. I suppose you’re all +ready for lawyers and detectives and exposure.” + +“What else?” said Magdalen. “It’s all plain enough. James and Mrs. +Keith were told that you were crazy, and that man who turned us back +was just an attendant from an asylum. The screws were out of your +door-locks, so that you could be overlooked at night, and the reason +we never felt alone in the garden was that we never were alone. That +gamekeeper man was always following us.” + +“How do you know for certain?” + +“Because I’m not a fool. I know. And the only man who was in +Stratharden’s confidence was Ah Lee. It was he who drugged Ronald’s +milk, for I saw him do it! I was in one of those deep windows in the +corridor outside of our sitting-room door, just at tea-time that day--I +found out about the postboy. I was just standing there thinking, and +along came James with a tea-tray and set it down on the hall table. I +thought it was ours, and I was hungry, so I went to see what was on +it, but it was only Ronald’s food. + +“I went back to the window again to get my hat, which I’d left there, +and I heard some one walking so softly that I walked softly, too. +I looked out in the hall and there was Ah Lee with his back to me, +putting something out of a bottle into the milk-jug. He heard James +coming with the other tray before I did, and he slipped off before I +could pounce on him--not toward the pantry, but up-stairs. By the time +I got to the table where the milk was James was behind me with our +tray. I should think these things were enough to make some fuss about! +And as for the carriage--I defy them to make it out an accident. I saw +Ah Lee as plainly as I see you, and you know as well as I do that it +was no old pier you meant to drive to, and that Stratharden lied to you +about the boat. Why on earth shouldn’t I be ready to help you show him +up?” + +“Because,” said Dolly, and she laughed, “I don’t mean to.” + +“Are you going to stay dead?” Magdalen contemptuously asked, “because +you’re afraid of a man?” + +Dolly’s face reddened angrily. + +“What man?” she cried. “I’m not afraid of any man. + +“Do you think, after all I did to be a countess, and have money, and do +Ronald justice, I’m going to sit by and lose it all?” + +“You’d be a fool if you did,” observed Miss Clyde, looking at Dolly +with half-closed eyes that were very black, and with uncombed hair and +flushed face. “But you hadn’t to do so much. Only put on a black gown +and pretend a little.” + +“Pretend!” Was it fancy that Dolly’s little figure grew suddenly rigid +under the bedclothes? + +She spoke out suddenly, just as she had done long ago in the little +pink drawing-room. + +“I don’t know what you mean,” she said. “If you think it was easy to go +and tell all these things about myself it wasn’t. Do you mean you think +I made them up?” + +“No, for I know you couldn’t. Don’t go off at a tangent, Dolly; say +what you mean to do.” + +Dolly’s heart knocked against her ribs like a woman who has seen a +danger pass by. + +“I’m tired,” she said, and there were tears in her eyes. “If it weren’t +for Ronald I’d stay dead. I----You don’t know how hard it’s all been!” + +Magdalen put a hand on the frail ones that had suddenly covered +Dolly’s eyes. For the first time she saw what nervous hands Dolly had, +what nervous, pointed nails. No hands for a woman who must fight her +own battles. The girl looked at her own hand that was so white and +hard, and a sudden compassion swept over her. It was true indeed that +she must deal gently with Dolly. Of late she had been impatient and +scornful enough with her. “Whatever you want I’ll do, Doll,” she said +softly. It was Dolly’s eyes and not hers that were hard as she let her +hands drop from under Magdalen’s. + +“Look here,” she said, “if I were not the only soul on earth Ronald has +to trust to I’d----” She pulled herself up sharply. “I suppose you’re +saying to yourself that you’re not afraid of Stratharden?” + +“Why should I be? We’ve the whip-hand.” + +“That’s just the reason. We know too much. And I don’t think,” Dolly +continued slowly, “that we’d be able to prove anything! I know that +if Barnysdale had done what Stratharden has”--groping in the past she +so seldom spoke of--“he would have done it too well to be found out. +He’s cast one doubt on my sanity; I think he’d only cast a great many +more--and perhaps get appointed as Ronald’s guardian. We’ve got to +be cleverer than that. We want to be alive and publish we’re alive; +I must be able to draw my money and educate Ronald; and yet not let +Stratharden know where we are--or anyone else,” she added musingly. +“I’ve no desire to have any of my dear old friends hanging round me and +cadging for money.” + +“How can we do all that?” + +Magdalen, sitting on the bed, was curiously graceful, and somehow every +line of her was curiously hard. Dolly’s words were true enough; why did +her stepsister have the old distrustful thought that she was not saying +all she meant?--there was a hidden mainspring to it all. + +“Easily,” said Dolly, yet she was trembling. “Only I’ve got to do it +now. Get me my clothes!” + +“You can’t get up!” + +“I can; and I would if it killed me! We’ve no time to lose. I’ll get +dressed, you pay the bill here, and we’ll go into the station and take +a cab as if we’d just come from the train.” + +“A cab! Where to? Don’t be a fool, Doll; you might get pneumonia.” + +“I’ll get brain fever if I lie here and think,” Dolly sharply +responded. “I’m going straight to Mr. Barrow. It’s madness to be here +under a made-up name.” + +“But you said----” + +“I know! I hadn’t got my wits back.” + +“You weren’t going to expose Stratharden,” Magdalen finished as if +Dolly had not spoken. + +“Neither I am,” said Dolly with a sudden laugh, and if her hands were +frail and nervous as she hurried into her clothes they were also +the insincere, unscrupulous hands of a woman who could outwit most +men. “I’m going to know nothing, think nothing, but that a stupid +stable-boy took us to the wrong pier and we got out of the carriage +just before something startled the horses and they bolted. You and I +were terrified; started of course for Ardmore to get help; lost our +way; found a boat, and could not row back to the castle against the +stream. After which we drifted ashore and lost the train to London, +where we’ve just arrived and seen the papers. Ronald was ailing and +I have been so terrified that I never even remembered till I saw the +account in the _Star_ that Stratharden must be thinking us drowned. Mr. +Barrow will telegraph to my anxious brother-in-law at once, and I--with +my nerves horribly shaken by the whole thing, and especially by seeing +my own death notice--leave to-night for Paris. It will be too late to +go to the bank, so Barrow will cash a good, solid check for me--and +there you are!” + +“Paris!” cried Magdalen blankly. “That we don’t know at all, and +Stratharden probably knows like a book. If you want to keep out of his +way----” + +Dolly’s laugh stopped her. + +“We won’t go there! Exactly. We’re going to stay here in London. It’s +big enough,” recklessly. “I was a fool ever to leave it. Help me, +Magdalen--I feel so dizzy and queer.” + +But the girl made no motion toward handing her the cloak she held. + +“Doll, don’t do it!” she gravely begged. “I don’t like the look of it. +Better tell the truth a hundred times; there’s no sense in acting a +silly lie about Paris, or in pretending that you saw nothing queer at +Ardmore. Speak out.” + +Dolly dragged the cloak from her. + +“I won’t!” she said. “Never mind hunting for reasons. I’m ill, for one, +and I want to go to bed and be ill. I don’t want to have anything to +do with lawyers and prosecutions and Stratharden.” She fastened her +cloak and turned, with her rain-spoiled sailor hat in her hand. “All +I want,” she cried with a reckless passion in her face, pointing with +the crooked, warped hat to Ronald, “is to keep him safe till he’s +twenty-one; to have enough to eat and drink and wear; and to rest. I’m +tired; I’ve borne all I can. I’m not fit to fight--openly! You must let +me manage my life in my own way.” Tired and ill Dolly had announced her +intentions. The girl who looked at her saw she was more than either. +An hour ago she had looked driven, hunted, desperate; now there was +a triumph in her eyes as if from a dark prison she saw daylight and +liberty. + +There was reason enough for triumph; it is not everyone who escapes +scotfree from being murdered. But it was not that which had lighted +Dolly’s eyes and got her out of her bed, regardless of the bad cold +that at any other time would have made her send for two doctors and +declare she was dying. + +“Don’t stand like a stuck pig, my good child,” she cried, “unless +you want Stratharden to get to London before we’ve vanished. I know +what you’re thinking; but Ronald’s my child, and the whole show’s my +business. And I know,” she declared with confidence, “that I’m doing +the best thing I can. Who would listen to a woman like me if I said +that in a Christian country I’d been shut up by my own brother-in-law, +and only escaped with my life through luck--and you?” with a moment’s +softening. + +Who, indeed? + +“After all,” Magdalen said to herself, “Dolly’s right. It’s her +business.” + +Yet it was with a heavy heart that she paid the bill and followed Dolly +into the station and the four-wheeler. It was not by lies and hiding +they would escape from Stratharden, but---- + +A cold suspicion gripped her and a senseless one that. She looked at +Dolly’s feverish little face and held her tongue. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +“DARK MAGDALEN.” + + +Mr. Lovell sat earning his salary. + +In a black temper he plodded through his developing, washed his +hands, decided the afternoon was too gray for photographic printing, +and walking out incontinently crossed Fleet Street and turned into a +labyrinth of dingy thoroughfares. If his brown face were a little paler +from spending his days over stuffy chemicals and his eyesight somewhat +strained on retouching ugly people’s portraits, his long, light step +was as usual. Half-a-dozen women glanced at the man as he passed them, +with his look of being clean outside and in, of careless strength, of +immaculate smartness in old blue serge clothes. + +But Mr. Lovell had no eye for women, being engaged inwardly in +cursing his nearest relative up in heaps. Not that he had learned +anything new about him, nor heard anything tangibly annoying. But he +had a perfectly involuntary trick of putting two and two together +correctly; and the result to-day sickened him. So much so that as he +walked he deliberately assured himself that he had imagined the whole +thing--items added up and the result; after which he instantly reduced +several fractions to a common denominator and did the whole thing over +again. + +“I wish to Heaven he’d marry again and migrate,” he thought in +exasperation, and turned impatiently into a tobacconist’s and bought a +handful of cigarettes. Good tobacco was wicked on a pound a week, and +Mr. Lovell, to be accurate, was hungry. Also it was tea-time, and for +a moment there came into his mind the carnal vision of his late club, +where there were comfortable chairs, hot toast and men of his own class +to speak to. His mouth set hard on his extravagant cigarette. + +“I’ll go back when I’ve money to go,” he said to himself grimly, +“unless I find it necessary to return and put the fear of God into a +fool!” and his face was so forbidding that a girl who was coming down +the street almost changed her mind. For it was all very well to clear +out of an unpleasant and dependent situation, but when black suspicions +followed you that you were playing into some one’s hands by so doing it +spelled of cowardice. + +“I’m ---- if it’s any business of mine!” thought Mr. Lovell angrily. +“Let him hang himself;” but in his soul he knew it was not that which +haunted him, but something quite Quixotic and outside the sympathy of a +man who had fallen from high estate to retouching photographs. + +A woman’s black skirt brushed his boot and he drew back civilly. + +The next second he threw a just-lighted cigarette into the street and +looked straight into a girl’s eyes. + +“Mr. Lovell!” said Magdalen Clyde, her cheeks a pale flame, her eyes a +dark one. + +Lovell made no answer, good or bad, and she turned white as she looked +away. + +The lifting of his hat, the quick throwing away of his cigarette, had +been ordinary good manners; his eyes were hard as steel, his face +forbidding, and she had been glad to see him, gladder than of anything +else she had ever known. There was no earthly reason that he should be +pleased at seeing a girl he had only met twice in his life; but all the +same her shamed disappointment made her angry. + +“‘A hard man with a soft manner,’” she quoted to herself involuntarily, +her eyes still on a grocer’s window opposite, so that she did not see +the change on Dick Lovell’s face as he looked down at her. + +“It was odd, my meeting you,” she said indifferently. “I was startled. +Good-by,” with a little nod that she did not know was languid any more +than that her averted face was beautiful. + +“Odd?” said Mr. Lovell, taking a quick step to her side as she would +have walked on. “I don’t know--I suppose so,” without a glimmer of just +how odd it was. “It’s a great pleasure at all events. I had no idea you +were even in town.” + +“I came back three weeks ago,” she said, still without looking at him. + +In Scotland, in a bad place, it had seemed so sure that this man was +a friend; here and now she knew the thought had been the thought of +a fool. She and Dolly, masquerading, could not dare to have friends +picked up at random. In the waning light she turned, her face +repellant, her eyes cold. She was worrying over unhatched chickens; Mr. +Lovell had made no sign of either friendliness or pleasure at seeing +her. + +The sudden, sweet light in the eyes she met sent the blood to her +face. She stood for one breathless instant stock-still, three times +more beautiful than he had even dreamed, and all Dick Lovell’s uneasy +thoughts were gone at the lovely sight. + +“I feel as if you’d waked me from a bad dream,” he said slowly. “Do you +know for a moment I could scarcely believe my eyes?” + +“I know you terrified me,” observed Miss Clyde, marching on with a +queer feeling that she must get away from his eyes if she were wise. “I +never in my life saw anyone look more bad-tempered than you did when I +spoke to you.” + +Lovell laughed, and looked ten years younger for it. + +“Was that why you wouldn’t look at me?” he said boyishly. “I’ve been +in a black rage all day; more fool I! Are you going anywhere in +particular?” with a sudden knowledge that she meant to dismiss him, and +as sudden a determination that he would not submit to it. + +“I’m going to that French bakery,” pointing across the street. + +“So am I,” he calmly remarked. “I was going to have tea there. I +wonder--if you----” he stammered. Lovell, who had been the best-beloved +and worst-spoiled man in town, stammering at asking a girl to have tea! + +A hundred thoughts went through Magdalen’s head before she answered. +She was tired out, lonely; why should she never be happy because of +Dolly’s cares? She threw the whole bundle of them aside and answered +the half-finished question demurely: + +“I would, if there were little hot cakes.” + +In Lovell’s pocket was the change those cigarettes had left from ten +shillings; his eyes smiled into hers with the reckless consciousness of +wealth. + +“There shall be,” he averred, and he also cast a black care behind him +as they entered the little shop where the coffee was wonderful and the +tea weird. + +Lovell, as he gave an order to the white-capped man behind the counter, +did not notice his companion pause and look back into the dingy +street. She made a little self-contemptuous movement, as no one of the +passers-by so much as glanced at Dufour’s. + +It must have been fancy that ever since she stopped to speak to Lovell +some one had never let her get out of sight. + +“I’m getting to be an awful fool,” the girl reflected swiftly. “This +hole-and-corner business of Doll’s, and her eternal cautions, are +making me nervous. We’re all right; we’ve sunk in London like stones +till I met him to-day. I don’t know why I’m so stupid; it was all so +much easier and quicker than I thought. It all went swimmingly.” + +It certainly had. At three o’clock one day three weeks ago “Mrs. +Morton, child and maid” had departed from the Euston Hotel; at five +Lady Barnysdale--after nearly frightening Mr. Barrow into a fit by her +appearance, when he had just wired diplomatic condolences on her death +to Lord Stratharden--had left the lawyer’s office for Charing Cross and +Paris, with a hundred pounds in her pocket; at seven Mrs. Morton and +party had reappeared again at a modest hotel, the poorer by the price +of unused tickets to Paris, and Dolly had gone to bed and stayed there +for a week, after which she had emerged quite recovered and gayer than +the gay, had boldly gone out, trusting in a thick crepe veil and a +plausible tongue, and taken the upper part of a house in Hare Street. + +To the vacating tenant, a milliner, she gave an extra ten pounds for +leaving her plate on the door, which was easily earned money to that +lady, who was retiring in disgust from a phantom business. It was, +therefore, from behind the neglected door-plate and the respectable +blinds of “Madame Aline, Robes and Modes,” that Miss Magdalen Clyde +had come out to-day in search of French bread; come out with an eye at +every corner and a firm determination to take to her heels at the sight +of the most innocuous Chinaman in London, and ended in Dufour’s shop, +with a dismissal of all her nervous tremblings and groundless fears +because a man’s hawk eyes were the eyes of a comrade as he came back to +her side. + +“I ordered coffee,” said Lovell, and perhaps he had no idea what a +pleasant voice he had, nor what a tower of strength he looked in his +worn blue serge. “Their tea is horrible, but the little hot cakes!” +and he laughed as he stood back to let her pass into Mr. Dufour’s +respectable family tea-room. + +To his surprise “the girl whose name was Magdalen” sat down at the +little marble table with undisguised fatigue. He wondered swiftly who +and what she was. His quick glance took in her smart black gown, her +chinchilla furs, the immaculate dressing of her lovely rust-colored +hair, her long, white hands as she took off her gloves. The left one +was no business of his, but a senseless pleasure made him smile as he +looked at it. Whoever she was she was nobody’s wife; Mr. Lovell had no +leaning toward other people’s property. + +That she was a lady he did not even say to himself; it was too evident. +No one who put on make-up every night could have that sort of skin; +she was not an actress. Yet, somehow, she did not look like a girl who +did nothing; he was pretty certain that care and responsibility fell +on those shoulders; for every line of her was tired and lax in Mr. +Dufour’s hard chair; and yet she looked anything but poor. + +That a girl he had met in Krug’s half-caste restaurant without benefit +of introduction, had followed it up by making no bones about coming to +tea with him, never entered the man’s head. The very look of her told +him there was never a girl in the world more unconscious of her strange +beauty than she. + +“This isn’t a very grand place to bring you to,” he said with a sudden +consciousness that, for all he knew, she might be used to Prince’s +Restaurant. “But it’s quiet.” + +Remembering Krug’s, he kept his tongue from “respectable.” + +“Yes,” she said simply. She looked straight at him. “I suppose I should +not have come,” she observed calmly; “but I wanted to. I was tired. We +have just found new quarters--my sister and I. And--did you ever move?” +she suddenly and tragically inquired. + +“I did. But as I had only myself and some clothes it was not +fatiguing,” rather grimly, remembering the house from which he had +departed in haste. “You look as if your removal had been tiresome. Will +you pour out the coffee, or shall I?” + +“You,” with the smile that made her lovely. “I don’t do those things +well.” + +“Non-sense!” said Lovell with a drawling sweetness that made the curt +word civil. + +In complete happiness, such as neither had ever tasted in their lives, +the two sat at their little table. If for a moment the ghosts of the +many rebukes she had given with some point to Dolly, on the subject of +going to tea with unknown men, arose before Magdalen Clyde, she put +them behind her with determination. Dolly’s men and this man were not +alike; and for once she would let herself go, be young and gay and +happy like other girls, with no silly hiding to worry them. As for +Lovell, he was like a lost dog who has suddenly got home. No one would +ever have said he was grave and unhappy to-day. + +The economical soul of Mr. Dufour had not lighted the gas in his +tea-room, which was getting dusky. With his hand on the matches, he +glanced with pleased sympathy at the two who took their coffee so +gaily, and were so appreciative of his hot cakes; glanced back at his +shop window, and drew a curtain noiselessly over the tea-room door. + +M. Dufour, where a pretty woman was concerned, was a man of impulse, to +his own mind one of great insight; and---- + +He was putting cakes on a tray deliberately as a man entered his shop. +If M. Dufour had not liked his looks from outside he liked them still +less from in. + +“The fat and furious husband!” said he to himself, with his best shop +smile. He did not move from his place by the tea-room door. + +“Monsieur wanted?” he asked blandly. “Bread, cakes?--all of the best.” + +The man laughed. If his manner meant to be pleasant it was not. M. +Dufour observed that utter silence reigned in his tea-room. + +“Good food for women,” the new visitor returned patronizingly. “No; let +me have a light, will you? By the way, did a lady come in here half an +hour ago?” + +“Several, monsieur.” M. Dufour’s box of matches was obsequiously held +out on a tray. + +“Oh, damn the several! A pale girl with reddish hair?” + +M. Dufour was a judge of beauty and his gorge rose. + +“I did not observe,” he said with a shrug, “any red hair. One tall lady +arrived and has just departed through that door,” with a slighting wave +of his hand to his back entrance. + +“You’ve a tea-room,” the visitor bluntly remarked in spite of a +thick-lipped smile. “I’ll have tea.” + +“I regret it is impossible,” said the Frenchman smoothly. “My tea-room +is to-day closed. My wife is indisposed.” + +He was too clever to give the man any idea that he was lying; he began, +apologetically, to recommend his little cakes. But it was to empty air. + +The unwelcome customer--who had not paid for his box of matches--had +left the shop by the little-used back door. + +To the proprietor’s eyes rose the bland light of the successful +diplomatist. The denied tea was of course a loss to business, but what +M. Dufour had begun to oblige his old customer, M. Lovell, he had +finished for personal dislike of a disagreeable man. He did not grudge +his sixpence thrown away. + +“Also, I can charge extra for the coffee!” he thought with a pleasant +consciousness of having done a kind and tactful action. + +It was a pity he could not have seen the reason for the sudden silence +in the tea-room. Magdalen, sitting very straight, had held up a warning +hand and sat listening. There was no mistaking Starr-Dalton’s voice; it +was odd that he had been in her thought all day. + +As the door closed behind him she rose with a little laugh. + +“Did you hear?” she said. “That man was looking for me. He used to come +to see us, and we hated him. We didn’t mean him to know we were in +London.” + +There was careless scorn in her face, but there was also the cold, +intuitive hatred many a girl has for a bad man. + +Lovell regarded her in silence. Whoever and whatever she was, there was +nothing milk-and-water about her. + +“He shan’t know now if you don’t want him to,” he said. “You’re not +going because of him?” for she had risen. + +“No,” truthfully enough. “It is quite time I was at home, though.” + +Starr-Dalton was neither here nor there to her; it was not he who could +shatter the dream of peace that had come to her; the time was gone by +when she must be civil to him for the sake of borrowed money; she +could afford to be angry at his insolence in dogging her. + +“I won’t have it,” she thought. “He shan’t follow me home and find +Dolly. I’ll drive,” but even as she thought her face fell; she had only +sixpence; a hansom was impossible, and to walk might mean running into +Starr-Dalton at the first corner. + +She looked up and met Lovell’s eyes. + +“Ready?” said he simply. “I’m going to take you home in a hansom if I +may.” + +At the modest door where Madame Aline’s door-plate shone meagerly in +the gaslight she turned to him. + +“You’ve been very kind,” she said a little uncomfortably, “and you +don’t even know my name”--for “Madame Aline’s sister” had not thought +of one, and did not dare to make one up on the spur of the moment. + +“No.” Mr. Lovell perhaps helped her out with some haste. “I know--that +is--Madame Aline is quite enough for me!” with a glance at the +tarnished sign. + +But when she had gone in and the hansom had driven off he put the two +shillings that remained to him into his pocket and laughed. Her name +had been settled for him long ago. + +“Good-night, Dark Magdalen,” said he to a shut door, and lifted his hat +as he turned away. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +FOR THE HOUSE OF BARNYSDALE. + + +Up and down the empty corridors of an empty house Mrs. Keith walked, +gaunt and old. Never in all her seventy years had it come home to her +that Ardmore Castle was an eery house when the rain rained every day +and the wind whined through the long nights, but she knew it now. + +“Soft David” sat by the kitchen fire caring for nothing but his meals; +in the maid’s room Sophy and Grizel were cheerful in a Scotch and sour +way, but the housekeeper could take no rest. Something that she had +never spoken of had shaken her nerve, for her old eyes grew fiercer +every day as she went on those needless errands through the silent +house. + +Stratharden and his men had gone, after being interrupted in their +useless search of Clyde waters by that telegram from Mr. Barrow, which +for a second time snatched the bread from a needy man’s mouth. + +Perhaps he was too busy in keeping a decent pleasure on his own face +to notice other people’s; he did not see the sudden twitch of the +housekeeper’s hard old mouth as she heard in silence that the usurpers +of Ardmore were better employed than in tossing drowned and stark in +the Clyde. It was queer that as the days ran on to weeks a restlessness +grew on the old woman. + +It took her day after day to watch for the post-boy, who never came. +Her restlessness led her everywhere in the house but into the locked-up +chapel, where no step but hers had been these twenty years gone. +Perhaps she did not know herself what she expected, nor why she could +not sleep at night for thinking of the dead, but when one day the big +bell of the front door rang in the silence of twilight, the old blood +leaped in her worn-out veins. + +“Bide where ye are!” she cried fiercely to Sophy, and ran past her, a +gaunt, ungainly figure in her clean cotton gown. + +Her hand shook on the door-handle as she turned the key; but when the +door stood wide it was steady as stone and colder. + +It was Stratharden who waited on the step. + +“Were you all asleep?” said he with that smile which was not smiling. +“I’ve nearly rung the house down.” He could not see her face as he +stepped into the cold, dark house, nor did he think of looking at it. + +“Ye were not expected, Stratharden,” and if the words were apologetic +the tone was not. “Yer bed’ll not be aired.” + +“Oh, air it, then, and don’t talk!” said the man with a sudden +irritation not usual to him; but the next instant his voice and manner +were his own again and smooth as silk. “My dear woman I’m tired and +anxious, that’s why I’m here. Get me some dinner like a good soul, and +then I’ll talk to you. I assure you I’m worn out.” + +“Ye’re looking well,” she dryly returned in the way he had known since +childhood. + +She walked before him and knelt with cracking joints to light the fire +that was already laid in the dining-room. But the air of the deserted +room struck chill to Lord Stratharden’s bones. + +“I’ll come to your room till this is habitable,” he said urbanely. “I’m +sure you keep yourself warmer than this.” + +“At your pleasure,” was all she said, but he was used to her hard +speech and had not expected better. Armed neutrality had reigned +between the two for twenty years, except for that brief time when they +had combined against a common foe. + +“Hard old devil!” said Lord Stratharden to himself, as he sat down in +her comfortable sitting-room. “She’d have let me freeze rather than +offer it. But she is a very faithful, well-meaning woman.” He smiled to +himself and said it over again as if it pleased him. + +When she had finished serving his dinner--and if Dolly had been +half-starved, Stratharden was scrupulously well fed--he stopped her +as she put the decanter in front of him before leaving the room. The +old woman was too well used to him to notice that he would have been +a good-looking man, for all his forty-five years, if he could have +learned to keep his crooked eyebrows quiet in an otherwise impassive +face. One was lifted higher than the other now as he turned round in +his chair to her. + +“Have you heard from Lady Barnysdale?” he quietly asked. + +“Not I.” She never moved a muscle. “Did ye expect me to?” + +“No, I didn’t.” He looked at the port in his glass, tasted it, put it +down again. “In fact, I should have been surprised if you had. But Lady +Barnysdale--I may as well tell you--is not in Paris, never has been +there. I am more troubled than I can say.” + +Mrs. Keith sat down unbidden. + +“I’m to close the house, then?” said she stolidly. + +Stratharden looked round the half-warmed dining-room with a shrug. + +“How do I know?” he responded. “You take your orders from Lady +Barnysdale, not me.” + +“A woman that ye said was crazy,” scornfully. + +It never occurred to Stratharden to look for the root of the +contemptuous fling. + +“I suppose it isn’t in nature that you should like it,” he said kindly, +“but till Lady Barnysdale does something mad, before all the world, you +can’t call anyone else mistress here. No woman in her senses would have +gone off to London without so much as letting us know she was safe, nor +have seen fit to disappear ever since, by pretending to go to Paris. I +don’t know what to do. For all I know it isn’t safe to leave the little +boy in her care. I ought, in all prudence, to know at least where she +is.” + +Mrs. Keith sat in open, unalloyed indifference. Lady Barnysdale, with +her furious rages, her flighty speech, which the old Scotch woman +thought indecent and unintelligible, had borne out Stratharden’s +warnings about her well enough; her attempt to escape from Ardmore in +her best widow’s weeds on a wet day would have clinched them, had it +been needed. Mad or sane, she cared not a jot about Lady Barnysdale, +but for some reason she did not say so. + +“Ye can find out,” said she coolly. He could not dream her gnarled +hands were clasped hard under her apron as she waited for him to answer. + +“Unfortunately I cannot personally!” and she saw the uncontrolled rage +in his eyes. “I have to go away, out of England, on business.” + +“I always said ye were a fool to traffic with the Jews,” she dryly +remarked. + +Her apt guess at the cold truth made him laugh, as another man would +have sworn. There was not a man in England that night more embarrassed +than Lord Stratharden. + +“Let that be,” said he softly. “Some one has to find Lady Barnysdale, +and I can’t do it.” + +“What ails yer heathen?” + +“Just that--he’s a heathen--and people look at him when he walks in the +street. Look here, Keith--in common humanity that woman must be found +and looked after. You remember how we had to watch her here.” + +“What may be ye’re meaning, Stratharden?” said the old woman quietly. + +“Just what I’ve said. Lady Barnysdale, to my knowledge and belief, is +as irresponsible as a child. I have to go away, but I ought to know at +least where Barnysdale’s son is--and I want you to go to London and +find out.” + +“There’s detectives.” Her eyes were dull under their thin lashes. + +“And policemen on the street corners. I want neither. You’re faithful, +if you do care more for the name than for me; you know London----” + +A dull red burned to the woman’s cheek; she had reason to know London, +but it was not Stratharden who should tell her so. + +“Would ye have me knock at every door in the place and inquire if my +Lady Barnysdale is within?” she wrathfully cried. + +“Don’t, don’t treat me like a fool!” he answered smilingly. + +“Oh, I’d put that past ye!” she said politely, but his eyebrows +twitched. + +“I want you to take a lodging opposite the bank she must go to for +her money,” he said, with a sudden savage earnestness. “I’m certain +she’s in London, in spite of that fool Barrow. And she’ll have to +have money. If I know her sort, a hundred pounds won’t last her long. +And now you can take it or leave it. I’ll pay your expenses and wages, +besides what you’re getting, and all you’ll do for them will be to sit +at your window in banking hours and wait till she goes in. Then you can +take a cab, follow her home, and telegraph to me where she is. Then you +can take the first train for home. For the honor of the name, that boy +must be taken care of.” + +“And supposing she does not go herself? How long will I be in London +then? She’d a sister that I never laid eyes on but once,” she musingly +remarked. “Maybe she’d go in and out before my eyes and I not know +her--but that she’d dark hair.” + +“Dark? You’re dreaming! Dull-red, that doesn’t grow on every bush. And +tall--you’d know her.” + +“Oh, ay! Tall? And dark-eyed?” + +“I never saw her eyes.” + +“You peeked through the windows hard enough,” she bluntly asserted. + +“She had her back to me. Why the devil do you harp on her? If you won’t +go, say so. I suppose Ah Lee can look through a window as well as you.” + +Mrs. Keith took one glance at him. + +“I’ll go,” she said. “He’ll perhaps not know London ‘as I do.’” + +Ah, he did not know how the words had made an old and savage score +against him leap to life. + +Lord Stratharden leaned back in his chair as if he were suddenly tired. +He had, in very truth, no one to send on his philanthropic errand but +this old woman. Without James he could not hope to leave England, +and leave he must; and he had no desire that Ah Lee, suavely and +conspicuously exotic, should do what an elderly Scotch woman could do +unnoticed. + +“Thank you, Keith,” he said. “Here is your money.” And truly it was +hard-earned and ill-spared. + +“You have never failed the house, have you?” his voice light with +relief. + +The housekeeper stood up with a curious pride. + +“I’ve never failed the house, my lord,” said she. “But I’ll take no +wages for doing your work. I’m well paid. And where will I let ye know +when I find the lady?” + +He wrote on a card and gave it to her. + +“And Buff Ogilvie, too?” she said dryly, when she read it. + +“No, not Buff! And if you see him, the thing is no concern of his,” +casually. “But you’d better take the money.” + +“Ye’ll not be too throng of it there!” she returned, with a cool glance +at the card. + +Out in the hall she paused and spat upon the ground. + +“I’ll take no blood-money for the work I’ll do for the house of +Barnysdale,” she said, under her breath. “And I’ll do my work well.” + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +EYES TO THE BLIND. + + +Aunt Manette sat alone in her neat room at her eternal knitting. +If her blind eyes could not see the comfort of her glowing coal +fire and her shining lamp, perhaps she felt it, for night after +night she sat between them, as women do who can see. There was a +curious, dull depression on her clear-cut old face to-night; even her +knitting-needles moved slowly. There was no sense in the work; when it +was done, she did not need the money; no sense in her life that from +her third-story room in Hare’s Rents was one interminable, helpless +search after the lost things of this world. + +“I’m old,” she thought to herself, with a sudden sick tremor. “Old; and +I’ll die alone, with it all undone;” for, in plain words, the man who +had patiently done her work for her had given it up to-day. She did not +know where to turn for another who could be trusted to be eyes to the +blind. + +“But I’ll find one,” she thought, with an ugly gentleness that her +fingers copied in their slowing knitting. “If I’ve time,” and she +laughed. + +There was time in plenty, if nothing else, for a woman who sat her +days out in blindness. A sound on the stairs made her lift her head, +lean forward to listen, as blind people do. She put down her knitting +with a curiously dainty gesture for a woman who lived in Hare’s Rents, +and pulled the string that opened her door. The steps came closer and +paused in the flood of cheerful light from the narrow doorway. + +“What!” cried a voice, and the low, rich note of it struck pleasantly +on the woman’s ears. “Sitting idle, Aunt Manette? Upon my honor, you’re +degenerating. You’ll be getting quite human next.” + +Aunt Manette breathed through her nose; from the hall came a scent that +brought back a thousand things. She crossed the room briskly and laid +her small hand on the man’s arm unerringly, without effort. + +“I was waiting for you!” she cried--though she had never given him a +thought. “Come in, my friend! I had the spleen. I said to myself, ‘I +will make a little festival for my photographer and me.’” + +Dick Lovell looked down at the handsome old face kindly. + +“That is just what you would not let me be!” said he smiling. “But am +I really to come in?” Compared to his dreary bedroom up-stairs, this +room, full of firelight, of blossoming flowers, was like another world. + +“Oh, yes! Have I not waited?” she composedly asked. “Never mind the +door; you cannot shut it.” + +She moved to her chair as lightly as a girl and undid the stout cord +twisted round a knob on the arm. + +“So that’s how you do it--and sit still!” said Lovell laughingly. “It’s +clever, Aunt Manette,” and he looked at the cord that ran round the +wall on two pulleys. + +“Not clever, but useful,” observed his hostess, rather dryly. “Sit +down, monsieur.” + +For a moment he could not rid himself of the idea that she could see +him, for she stood as if thinking, her bright brown eyes full on his +face. But she turned away with that pathetic groping movement of the +blind which she so seldom allowed herself. + +“Let me,” he cried, jumping up, as she took a shining white table-cloth +from a chair. + +“You would confuse me,” she said laughing. “I have not the eyes to +oversee a clumsy young man.” With that curious seeing glance at him +that was but the remnants of an old habit when the eyes of Manette +Duplessis had never missed their man. + +Without a mistake or hesitation she laid her table for two, produced +from a cupboard a bottle, of which the seal made Lovell’s eyes open, +and went to her brick hearth. A pot stood there, and, as she lifted its +cover, the odor of it was more suited to a prince’s kitchen than a room +in Hare’s Rents. + +“A dish?” Lovell said, seeing her pause. + +“To ruin it! No, no; you help yourself from my pot--so!” and she deftly +twisted a napkin round the earthenware jar. “A French dish,” she said; +“and you are English. But you will not wish it were roast beef.” + +A French dish! He saw with wonder as she helped him that it was +something even few French cooks make. Pheasant, boned and filleted, +cooked in Madeira with mushrooms, truffles, numerous things that were +not cheap. As he took up his fork he saw it was silver, with a crest on +it; and because his hostess could not see him do it, did not look at +the device. + +“A poor feast, this,” said Aunt Manette, gaily as a girl. “But the main +dish I made myself.” + +“You!” He was surprised out of his manners. + +“The secret,” she went on gravely, “is to keep the cover tight with a +seal of paste. Oh, I can cook many things, Mr. Lovell. To eat well is +an art. It keeps the blood young.” + +And young she looked as she sat opposite him, her face smooth under her +nunlike head-dress, her hands white and fine. He wondered somehow that +anyone so clever as she looked could be so kind, and to an acquaintance +who had begun by unwittingly annoying her. + +It never struck him that her invitation had been pure selfishness. Her +thoughts had been heavy, hopeless; though she would not think so. And +he was a gentleman, of a class she seldom came in contact with; was +young; he would distract her with his talk, cheer her with his company, +which was cheap at the price of some pheasant and a bottle of wine. +She was more interested, too, than she had imagined possible. Her keen +sense felt there was a change to-night in the man. His step, that was +always light, had been gay as he ran up the stairs, when she waylaid +him. She held up her glass of red wine with a gesture foreign enough to +Hare’s Rents. + +“I drink,” said she, “to the good fortune that has come to you to-day.” + +Lovell leaned forward and touched her glass with his, but there was +surprise in his face. + +“Are you a witch, Aunt Manette?” he said slowly. “How did you know?” + +“You told me,” with a smile. “You come up-stairs three steps at a +time--from work that you dislike! You stop to call me idle, who have +before begged me to rest; and--it was very extravagant tobacco, Mr. +Lovell!” she gravely declared. + +He laughed, throwing back his handsome head in a way many women had +loved who were not blind. His whole face lit into sweetness as he +looked at her. Perhaps she felt it, for she wished for the first time +that she could see him. + +“The tobacco was before the luck,” he said, “so you’re out in your +sorcery. But it’s been all luck to-day. I was going to dine on a baked +potato when you asked me to dine here. But I’d better go--since I reek +of Turkish tobacco!” + +“Egyptian,” she corrected. She got up and brought over a brass +coffee-pot from the brick hob. “On the contrary, you will smoke more of +it--here! And you will prepare a cigarette for an old woman.” + +If Mr. Lovell was surprised he did not show it. He saw her go back to +her big chair and draw slowly, daintily, at the cigarette he lighted +for her, and saw that the scent of it made her face soft, as if it +brought back her youth. But he did not see that to smoke a cigarette +like this was to let herself remember that youth was dead--and +fruitless. She broke the silence suddenly. + +“Was it the tobacco or the good luck that reduced your pocket to a +naked potato?” she asked. + +“It is always the tobacco!” returning the glance he eternally forgot +was blind. + +“But tell me of her--your good luck; is she beautiful? But, of course, +since I shall see her only in your thoughts of her,” not without +sarcasm. “Fair and small and blond, since you are brown-skinned and +tall.” + +“She is none of the three, but----” he stopped himself. + +“How do I know how you look? Oh, you need not beg my pardon! It is not +a secret that I am blind. You have a pleasant voice, you walk easily, +with long legs--not quick, quiet, like the short. That is simple +enough. But now about your good luck--who is not fair?” + +The man stared at the fire. Old, lonely and blind, there was no reason +he should not tell her all she cared to know. That an old woman--with +a history--who had come down--for some reason that was not poverty--to +Hare’s Rents--should praise her beauty, could not hurt Dark Magdalen. + +“I can hardly tell you what she’s like,” he said slowly. “It sounds +so strange, so ugly, if you have not seen her. She is tall, she has a +graceful neck--long, round, with a curve.” + +The old woman nodded. He was not a fool, then, since he began with that +neck. + +“Oh,” he said rather desperately. “I can’t tell you very well. She’s +tall and slim, and strong; but you don’t think of that, because she +has an indescribable kind of grace. And she’s black and white and red.” + +It is to be hoped he did not see his hearer shudder. + +“So exquisite, those English apple cheeks,” she returns, too politely. + +“Apple cheeks!” he laughed out. “Good Heavens, Aunt Manette, I didn’t +mean she had red cheeks! She’s white, dead-white, with the blackest +eyes and eyebrows I ever saw. All the red of her is in her hair; and +that’s not red, either, but dull--almost the color of rusty iron.” + +Aunt Manette said one word in French. It might have been anything, but +it was so low that Lovell never noticed it. She turned her indifferent +face away a fraction. + +“Hair _chatain foncé_?” she said. + +“No, not dark-chestnut at all. Duller, richer--you could not know +unless you saw her.” + +“I shall see on the judgment day, in the afternoon,” she cried, with +sudden, fierce profanity. “Bah! Go on. Never mind my feelings; you have +not hurt them. The make of her face, her features?” Under her black +gown her foot tapped hard on the floor. + +“Curious,” he said, shutting his eyes to bring that face up on a black +swimming background. “Very delicate and very strong, like a profile on +a coin; cut in a little at the sides of the chin; a mouth perfectly +brave, perfectly generous; a little too firm--for a woman.” + +Aunt Manette got up, almost feebly. The next minute a cold breath +rushed through the room from the window she had flung up. Her voice +came back a little uncertainly as she leaned out. + +“A strong cigarette when one is unaccustomed to the habit,” she said. +“You will forgive me?” She closed the window and came back to her seat; +certainly she was pale. + +“I’ve tired you,” Lovell said contritely. “Wouldn’t you like me to go?” + +Go! She would have stuck a knife into him sooner than let him go now. +She laughed rather sharply. + +“No, no!” she said. “I forget that one should only do foolish things +when one is young. I like to hear you talk. I----”--her face was +strangely pathetic--“would you, M. Lovell, tell a woman who is but a +blind old wreck and cannot leave her own four walls, the name of that +girl who is black and white and red?” + +Lovell moved uneasily on his chair. + +“The only name she has, to my knowledge,” he said softly, “is +Magdalen--Dark Magdalen.” + +The French woman’s face froze over. + +“You mean--she is----” There was anger in her voice. + +“No,” he abruptly cut in. “She’s a lady; she makes dresses, or hats, +or something. Her name is Magdalen. She has ‘Madame Aline’ on her +door-plate, and that’s all I know about her.” + +Aunt Manette nodded with a curious relief. + +“The name,” she said, “frightened me. And do you go to see her, this +lady who makes hats in Bond Street?” + +There was something so wistfully kind in her blind face that Lovell +said something he had not meant to. + +“She doesn’t live in Bond Street; she lives just round the corner, in +this very block of buildings. That’s part of my luck.” + +“But,” the old woman was bewildered; “this building, so poor, so--who +would come here for hats?” + +“I forgot you couldn’t know,” he gently explained. “It is like this, +Aunt Manette. Our side of the buildings is un-get-at-able, except +through that dirty lane. No one would take the rooms, they tell me, so +they let them to poor people cheaply. We live on the west side; you go +out round the corner to the north side, which is better than this; the +east side, where she lives, has shops underneath and offices and flats +above. It is as if it were twenty miles from our side.” + +“And what is between?” + +“Oh, a dark court.” + +The woman to whom all the world was dark closed her eyes as if they +hurt her. + +“She perhaps lives with her mother,” she suggested indifferently. + +“I don’t know.” Lovell rose, for his hostess was leaning back wearily. +“Good night, Aunt Manette,” he said, with that graceful manner she +could not see. + +Her fine, small hand closed on his for an instant. + +“You will come again, of your good heart,” she said gently. “It is a +good deed to the blind.” + +When he was gone she sat for a long time without moving, till suddenly +she cried out in a kind of passion. + +“A lucky, lucky star, but not yours, my photographer! And yet--why +should I think it? It will go like the rest. Oh!”--and uncertainty +caught her brave old heart and tore it--“Oh, this Dark Magdalen that I +cannot see.” + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +“GOOD LORD, DELIVER US!” + + +For a woman come to London on Lord Stratharden’s unselfish business, +Mrs. Keith behaved peculiarly, and according to no one’s lights but her +own. + +She took a lodging opposite the Court Street branch of the London and +Provincial Bank, certainly, but she was seldom in it, and never once +looked out of the window. There was plenty of time for that, though +if Stratharden had been in England she might not have thought so. +But his lordship was tightly and financially tied up at Ostend, and +likely to be so till kingdom come. Mrs. Keith did not take him into her +calculations at all. + +She went her way to Mr. Barrow’s office at a time when he was certain +not to be there--and interviewed his head clerk, a Scotchman and an old +friend. The two--who were reticent enough to the outside world--unbent +in cheerful conversation; Mr. Fleming had not spent so pleasant an hour +for many a day. But when Mrs. Keith left the office, a respectable, +unnoticed old person in decent black, her face changed. + +“The devil’s in playhouses,” said she, “but I doubt I’m over old to be +affected,” and she stopped an omnibus. Two addresses had Mr. Fleming +let fall in the joy of conversing in broad Scotch; Mrs. Keith, who +“knew London,” proceeded to both of them by bus. It took some time, but +it was her own money she was spending; and time was more plenty than it +was. + +When she got home to her lodgings she was worn out. She sat over her +tea as if she could not rouse herself. + +It was queer; but she was only disappointed that it was not queerer. + +“I’ve spent ninepence on gadding,” she said to herself, bringing her +hard fist down on the table, “and all I’ve found out is that the daft, +flighty body Barnysdale married never had any sister. The manager man, +with his smirks, was sure about that. ‘Miss Dorothy Deane,’” with a +mincing imitation like anything on earth but her model, “‘was quite +alone in the world. He remembered her perfectly, since she had never +been employed anywhere but at his theater. He had been delighted to +hear she had done so well for herself. Of course, when she married no +one had any idea that she had married an earl. She was a pretty little +thing, with her fair hair, and was very popular at the theater. It had +always been a marvel to him that she did not return to the stage. That +was a lucky escape she had had, by the way, from that terrible carriage +accident.’” + +Sentence by sentence Mrs. Keith went over all the information she had +gained, and found it wanting. + +“It’s not Dorothy Deane,” and she sniffed contemptuously, “that I’m +wanting. It’s a woman named Duplessis. You can’t climb a tree from +the top. I’ll begin at the weary old root again. Her name was Ninon +Duplessis, and she’s been dead fifteen years. I’ll write it down. I’m +not good at saying it the way he did.” + +She finished her tea deliberately, and got out ink and paper. When +she was done, it was a curious document her knotted old fingers had +written. She blotted the last wet lines of it on clean white blotting +paper, and put it in her petticoat pocket. + +“That’ll make it clear to him,” said she contentedly, “when it’s +time to go to the prying man. But that’s not yet. First, I’ll put my +finger--and that’s not Stratharden’s--on my Lady Barnysdale!” And at +the look of her Dolly might have shaken in her shoes. There was no +pity for her or Ronald in Mrs. Keith. + +During the next day or two she went about in queer places, but she +might as well have stayed at home. She came on nothing, met the same +old stumbling-blocks that had tripped her fifteen years ago. When the +week was out it might have edified Lord Stratharden to see the faithful +Keith seated all day long at her second-floor window, even if he were +not pleased that her spectacles raked the street in vain. + +“I’ll take the air,” she thought one fine morning, being cramped to +death from the inactive life. “I’ll be back before the bank opens,” and +it was odd that she had not cared when first she came to London how +many times Lady Barnysdale might have got money without her knowledge, +while now she watched for her as if life and death depended on it. But +at a quarter to nine in the morning the most zealous watch would be +wasted. Mrs. Keith put on her unornamental bonnet and went out. + +When, on the stroke of ten, she returned, she stood aghast and +indignant on her threshold. A man sat by the table, perfectly at home, +for his strong cigar made even Keith cough. + +“Get out of my room, ye----” she began furiously, when he turned his +face to her. Strong old woman as she was, she leaned against the +door-post. + +“Stratharden!” she cried, and would sooner have seen the devil. “How +came ye here?” + +“To see how you’re getting on”--to her startled senses his voice was +ominously smooth--“and to help you. Come in, my good soul, and shut the +door! This isn’t Ardmore Castle.” + +If she had been staggered she recovered herself finely. + +“Ye terrified me,” said she grimly. “Have ye no sense better than to +come where they might jail ye for debt?” and she shut the door before +she said it. + +“Might have--not might,” corrected his lordship. “I’m a free man, +Keith; I needn’t trouble you any longer. My debts are paid, at least +enough to whitewash me.” + +“Then there’s fools in the world,” was the woman’s calm comment. + +“Thank Heaven!” + +“It was not them that lent the money I was meaning,” she responded +significantly, but the next minute she wished with late wisdom that +she had held her tongue. There was something she did not like in her +visitor’s manners; she looked at him angrily, and spoke to cover her +foolish fling at him, in a sudden, dreadful uneasiness that he might +know what it meant. + +“Think of it, Stratharden!” she cried. “Can ye not see ye’ll be in +bondage to her for that paying of yer debts? And that money--I’d have +seen ye in jail before ye’d borrowed it!” + +“You’re a Presbyterian, my faithful Keith,” returned the man lazily. +“And now, having borrowed, and being out of jail, I’ll let you go home, +and I’ll find out my poor little sister-in-law by myself. I’m afraid +you’re a poor detective; but you think it underhand work I dare say.” + +Mrs. Keith’s hand was on her pocket; but the folded paper was there. +She executed a nimble flank movement and established herself fair and +square in the window. + +“If you mean I’ve been neglecting my orders,” she said sturdily, “I +haven’t. There’s been no Lady Barnysdale at that bank yet. Would ye +have me sit here at five in the morning? I was out, but ye saw me come +back ere they opened their doors.” + +He could not see that she was looking up and down the street in an +agony of terror. Fool that she had been to let things take their +course, to trust to time. She should have ransacked all London, have +had her finished business in her hand to meet him with. Blood and bone +she knew Stratharden, and there was that in his soft manner that told +her that he had been too sharp for her. What should she do, if this +day, of all days, Lady Barnysdale should come to the bank? She threw +the window up and leaned out. + +“You’re a zealous, faithful creature, Keith!” observed his lordship +kindly. “But I shan’t need you any more. I dare say you’ll be glad to +get back to Davie.” + +The paper in the old woman’s pocket crackled as she leaned against the +window-sill, and the sound of it did her good. “He was always like +that,” she reflected, “as if he knew something you did not want known,” +but there was something he could not know while that paper was safe +in her pocket. If only Lady Barnysdale did not come to the bank this +morning! And for a woman who had a contemptuous hatred for another, it +was odd that Mrs. Keith prayed, standing, that she might not so come; +odder, too, that, like a woman in agony, she only knew she prayed, and +not that all her prayer was one sentence over and over, and that from +no Presbyterian petition. + +“You’ll strain your eyes out, Keith,” observed the kind Stratharden. +“And my poor little sister-in-law, who was terrified of you, could see +you yards away. Give me your place!” + +“Good Lord, deliver us! Good Lord, deliver us!” If a mind can jabber, +hers did it then. But she never moved. + +There was a hired brougham coming down the street. She knew, like a +woman possessed, who was in it. And Stratharden sat still behind her. +If she faced him she might keep him there, but never long enough, never. + +“Ye’re very anxious for one that’s no fool, Stratharden,” said she +acridly. “I’ll draw back from the window when it’s time I should not be +seen there.” + +Was he moving? She dared not look to see, so fast was that brougham +coming down the street. + +“Good Lord, deliver us!” she thought faster than ever. Her stiff old +arm was bent from the elbow close against her breast; she dared not +fling it out, dared not call. But her hand Stratharden could not see. +She motioned with it from the wrist, frantically; her body between it +and Stratharden, her arm and shoulder still; caught a look from black +eyes in the brougham window, pointed again with her gnarled fingers, +and saw a hand fall from the unpulled check-string. + +They were gone, the street was empty; she had won--for to-day. + +Stratharden’s hand fell on her shoulder; she hardly felt it, yet +somehow it had thrust her aside like a reed. + +He had leaned past her, and had flung his cigar into the street. + +There was fury and triumph in her eyes as she watched his apparently +unconscious, careless gesture, and the next second a startling +suspicion aroused her. + +Stratharden had turned and laughed softly in her face. + +“So you’ve a friend with black eyes,” he said. “You seem exhausted, +Keith; you don’t look well. Come with me, and we’ll take your ticket +for home. There’s a train at twelve.” + +“And your bidding not done,” she remarked, careless which way he took +it. + +“There’s no hurry about it. Besides, I don’t think you’ll be able to do +it. Go and pack your clothes.” + +A terrible old woman Magdalen Clyde had thought her. She gritted her +teeth in weakness, and turned on him, terrible once more. “I took none +of your money, Stratharden,” she said. “I’ll take none of your orders. +I’ll leave when I’m ready. And now ye can go.” + +“Oh, if that’s it, we won’t quarrel over it!” he said easily. “I didn’t +know it was a holiday jaunt. But if you’re wise, you’ll go to Ardmore. +You’re getting old, my good soul, old and perhaps a little foolish. You +can forget all I said about finding Lady Barnysdale, for I don’t know +that I care especially where she is. I won’t forget how you tried to +help me, and that’s the great thing. Good-by and, by the way, Keith, +what you have in your mind is a mare’s nest, and I think you’ll find it +so.” His laugh was so real that the housekeeper turned away her head. +When she looked around he was gone. + +She looked round the room wildly; then, lest each flying second should +mean something, she sat herself down to think. He knew! And what she +had written out was in her pocket, unless she had been a fool and made +a mistake. + +But it was not that. What she had written was in her hand, and she had +asked no question anywhere that could have come to his ears. He might +have searched the room while she was out, and found nothing. + +With a snarl of rage she saw something, and ran to it with shaking +knees. The blotting-book lay humped on the table, as she had not left +it; and the hump, as she flung it open, was made of a tiny mirror such +as some men carry about with them. She saw, and did not know what it +meant; but as she jerked the mirror up against the edge of the book, +the reflection in it caught her eye--the writing, left to right in the +glass, plain. + +“And me that did not know,” said Mrs. Keith. “And he’s found me out!” +She dropped her face on her hands. “Good Lord, deliver us!” + +For there would be no doing what she meant to do now. The girl herself +was the only key, and Stratharden had seen her and her black eyes, +knew all that Keith thought, prayed, hoped. She lifted her head, and +her face was gray. + +“He was oversoft,” she thought painfully, for the horror that was +on her had stunned her. “He saw that, and he saw her, and, for all +I know----” A thrill shook her to her deadened soul. By her very +door-steps had she not seen a Chinaman pass by as she entered, and +had not so much as looked at his face! “I’ll never see her more,” she +moaned. “I’ll never know.” Without speech with the girl, there was no +detective in England who could help her, and she knew it; knew, too, +that Stratharden’s Chinaman had followed Lady Barnysdale and her sister +home, at his bidding, when he threw his cigar into the street. + +“He shan’t do it!” she thought. “I’ll warn the police----” She abruptly +stopped. + +Warn them of what? A foolish surmise, a tissue of imaginations? End her +days in a madhouse for telling a story without a leg to stand on. Her +gray head dropped on her hands. + +“Good Lord, deliver us, indeed!” + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +DOLLY TAKES FEAR BY THE THROAT. + + +In the brougham Magdalen sat petrified with amazement. It had been +Mrs. Keith, and no other, at the window, crooked bonneted, wild-eyed, +motioning frantically to her not to stop. Keith, whom Dolly had thought +the trusted ally of Stratharden. She could not understand it. + +Dolly caught her by the arm. + +“Did you see them?” she cried. “That old wretch, and Stratharden behind +her? They saw us; perhaps they’ll follow us home. I won’t be found. I +won’t!” + +She poked her head out of the carriage window. + +“Charing Cross Station!” she ordered. “And be quick.” She thanked +Heaven they had walked to a livery stable and taken the man there. He +knew no address, if he were asked for one. + +She sat in feverish silence till they got out in the crowded station, +scarcely spoke till they were lost in the busy throng, had emerged in +a maze of back streets that would take them home. Then she stamped her +foot as she walked, with Ronald running by her side. + +“How dare he watch for me? It’s no business of his where I am,” she +said. “And if he’s living opposite the bank, with that wicked old devil +Keith, I can’t get any money; for I won’t have them following me home.” + +“You’re walking too fast for Ronald,” said Magdalen; she picked him up +in her strong young arms. “Dolly, I can’t understand you. I don’t think +I ever could. If you don’t want to go to the bank, make a check payable +to Madame Aline, and I’ll go with it.” + +“And Providence will identify you, I suppose,” she dryly remarked; +“and old Keith won’t know your black-and-white face and her head! She +could follow you home as well as me, couldn’t she? You know yourself +they tried their hardest to get him out of the way,” her keen fixed +eyes on Ronald. “If they find us they’ll do it again.” + +“Look here,” said Magdalen. “I can’t see any sense in all this. +Stratharden knows you’re here. Why don’t you snap your fingers at him +and go about openly? Anyone would think you’d been going to steal from +the bank! It’s your own money. Why don’t you face Stratharden, and +speak out what we know? But hold your tongue if you like, but stop this +idiotic hiding.” + +“I’m afraid,” and thick fear was in her voice. “Afraid for Ronald.” + +For an instant Magdalen paused. There was one thing that made her think +there was sense in this madness of Dolly’s. Mrs. Keith had been afraid, +too. It was that desperate, earnest terror in the old woman’s face that +had made Magdalen drop the check-string unpulled. With all her soul +the housekeeper had warned them not to stop. But in the safe, busy +London streets common sense spoke loud to her. Here there could be no +hole-and-corner poisoning, no keeping them prisoners here. + +“Be reasonable, Dolly!” she cried. “What could they do if they found +us, a hundred times? Or, if you’re really afraid of them, tell the +police. And if you won’t, I will. Why should we hide like criminals?” + +“Do you want to kill me with your police? Isn’t it enough that I’m +frightened, that I’ve no money----” + +“Oh, Dolly,” her stepsister’s voice cut her short with a kind of +despair in it, “why won’t you trust me? You’ve something behind all +this. Tell me, let me help you.” + +“It’s nothing,” said Lady Barnysdale. “Noth----” The words died on her +lips. + +Face to face with them, a gardenia in his creased frock coat, an +immaculate tie round a twice-worn collar, was Starr-Dalton. + +He stopped, flushed dull-red with incredulous triumph, and stood hat in +hand, barring the way. It was no news to him that Dolly was in London, +but he had thought her harder to find than this. His coarse smile was +odious. + +“Dolly, oh, forgive me--Lady Barnysdale!” he cried, his red-rimmed eyes +on hers. “What a charming meeting! But somehow I fancied you wouldn’t +stay long out of London.” + +Fancied! Magdalen’s blood boiled. When she knew that he knew. Was she +to be worried with Starr-Dalton, when Dolly was already doing her best +to give Stratharden an excuse for calling her crazy? And Dolly, the +color of ashes, was stopping. + +“Come on!” said Magdalen sharply. + +Not a word had she said about Lovell, for fear of Dolly’s laughter +and worse; not a word about the dogging of her steps by the man who +stood smiling before her, but it came back to her now with all its +intolerable impertinence. + +She took no notice of Mr. Starr-Dalton by word or look; she could have +shaken Dolly in her fury that in the middle of things that mattered she +should care whether a man like this met them or not. For she looked as +if she would faint in the street. + +“Come, Dolly!” she cried. “Here’s a hansom”--for it was the only way to +be rid of him; she knew of old how he stuck. + +Dolly’s little, nervous hand caught her arm like a claw. + +“I’m going to walk,” she said, and something in her voice turned the +girl’s heart cold. “Don’t you know Mr. Starr-Dalton, Magdalen?” + +“Quite as well as I want to.” + +Even Starr-Dalton, who did not admire her, saw the stare she gave him +was superb. + +“Don’t talk nonsense about walking, Dolly. Here’s a cab.” + +“How have I offended Miss Magdalen?” Mr. Starr-Dalton gazed fishily at +the sky. “I apologize until I hear. But if she says you are to drive +home she is probably right.” + +He held up a hand to summon a second hansom. + +Magdalen was livid with fury. + +“She’s got one,” she retorted, and for a minute thought Dolly would +back her. For Lady Barnysdale had waved away the second hansom, had +leaned for one breathless instant on Magdalen’s arm. + +“There’s hardly room for three of us in one,” Dolly said, and if her +voice was not steady there was a sudden courage in the look she gave +Mr. Starr-Dalton; evil courage, if Magdalen had known it. “I must hurry +home now, but perhaps you’ll come to tea this afternoon.” + +Miss Clyde, with Ronald in her arms, hung paralyzed, half in and half +out of her hansom. Dolly, with her old smile, was giving their address, +Madame Aline and all, to the man. + +“For Heaven’s sake,” she said when she had tumbled to her seat and +Dolly was beside her, “what ails you? He’s a hateful, disreputable +beast and you know it. How can you worry with a man like that when you +ought to be thinking.” She bit her lip. When Dolly looked at her like +that there was no sense in talking to her. + +“Because he’ll be useful,” said Lady Barnysdale. “He loves the ground I +walk on”--in which she was wrong; he was only hugging to himself when +she left him the thought of a very different thing. “I must have some +one to help me and he’ll do it. Leave me in peace for a week to manage +my own affairs and we won’t need your dear police.” + +“Help you! Like he helped us in Krug’s restaurant,” she scornfully +retorted. + +“Was that why you were so rude to him? You did your best to”--she +hesitated--“to make him detest us.” + +“In his conduct at Krug’s? No!” She poured out what she had never meant +Dolly to know about Lovell and the bakery and Starr-Dalton. + +“What!” cried Dolly; her laugh cut like a knife. “You! Having tea with +a man you don’t know! For you can’t know him; I never heard of any +Lovell in my life.” The mirth died out of her face. “What’s he like? Is +he a gentleman? Does he know who you are?” + +“You ought to know whether he is a gentleman or not!” The laugh had +touched her temper. “He put out the lights in Krug’s restaurant.” + +Dolly sat dumb. From every quarter wherever she looked something +threatened her; things, people, the very straws in the street menaced +her, and only her own wits to match against them all. + +She turned to the only soul in the world who cared for her, except the +child between them. + +“You go out like a chorus girl and meet a man!” she cried, trembling +with rage. “You, that were always fussy as one of your nuns if I spoke +to a man I knew. You’re nothing but a hypocrite!” It was odd that she +looked just like a chorus girl herself in her temper. “How do you know +who the man is? He may have gone straight away and told Stratharden!” + +“That’s absurd! For goodness’ sake, Doll, don’t let us fight!” +Something had caught the blood at her heart. It was not that she had +never seen Dolly in such a temper, but that, after all, she might be +right. She got out of the hansom in silence. + +There was more there than she knew. Dolly was afraid of Starr-Dalton! +Think as she would she could not see why, but she knew it; and knew, +too, that Dolly’s reasons for hiding were trumped-up lies. Her old +uneasiness about Dolly’s turning into a countess swept back on her. + +“If she only would not make so many mysteries!” she thought. But the +biggest mystery of all was that Dolly should turn penniless away from +an almost untouched bank-account rather than face Stratharden. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +IN DISGUISE. + + +“My dear Dolly!” said Mr. Starr-Dalton; he looked round him with an +air of lordly disgust. “You’ll forgive my saying that this--this +surrounding--is a very queer freak for a little countess.” + +Dolly, a little pale, a little roused, regarded him calmly. Before she +told him things she must find out what he knew. It was well that Miss +Magdalen Clyde, seated in dudgeon in the kitchen, could not see her +stepsister’s face. + +“It’s extremely dull being a countess,” said she. “The Scotch house +appalled me, the town one was worse--I’d have seen Barnysdale’s ghost +on the stairs!” For reasons of her own her shudder was real. “Anyhow, +I prefer this to a suburban flat full of crying babies and women +who wonder whether you’re respectable. Now, here you go in past the +tailor’s shop, up one flight that no one uses but us and you’re at our +front door--with a most respectable door-plate--if it were polished!” + +“You’ve the whole house, then?” + +“The two top stories,” she carelessly responded. “Down here this +sitting-room, my room, Ronald’s; upstairs Magdalen’s, the dining-room +and kitchen. It’s so convenient and comfortable.” + +Mr. Starr-Dalton remembered the neglected passage, the cold stairs; +looked at the gray and hideous wallpaper, the half-completed +furnishings, and would have thought if it had not been for his hostess’ +toilet that she was in lower water than ever since he had known her. + +“Convenient and comfortable!” He gave one of those short, hateful +laughs that always made Magdalen start. “I think it is. Can I have a +whisky-and-soda? You know I don’t take tea.” + +“There’s none in the house,” she calmly replied. + +“Oh, send the housemaid for it. You’re getting very starched, my lady.” + +“If you want it you’ll have to go for it,” returned Dolly unmoved. +“I’ve had no time to look for servants. There’s no housemaid.” + +No time? To his certain knowledge that red-haired sister had been in +town for a week. + +For a moment the horrid conviction came over him that some one had +spoiled the show--that he was too late to make any bargain. And the +antique-furniture business was worse than ever. + +“Do you remember my letters?” he said slowly. + +Dolly sat up and looked at him. + +“Letters? How many did you write? And how dared you write to me at all?” + +“Dare! Oh, come now!” and his laugh was meant to be soothing. “You and +I are too old friends to say ‘dare’ to each other.” + +“How many did you write?” she repeated, thinking of the post-bag and +Stratharden’s servants. + +“I only wrote one; I didn’t mean to say letters,” Starr-Dalton said +truthfully. “You got it?” + +He was surprised at the relief on her face. + +“I got it,” she carelessly observed, sinking back in her chair again. +“I didn’t understand it. Why?” + +“Look here, Dolly,” said the man not unkindly, “you may as well make a +clean breast of it. You treated me d---- badly and you know it; paid +me my money like a tradesman and gave me the cold slip. But I’m fond +of you and I don’t bear malice, though I know well enough you’d never +have sent for me if I hadn’t met you by chance and you were afraid,” he +added significantly. + +“Chance? You’ve been hanging round for days.” + +“Say! I tried to catch up with your sister in the street and you’ll +soon learn the truth.” For the first time he spoke unpleasantly. “But +that’s neither here nor there. Are you here because you’ve been found +out?” with a disparaging glance at the uncomfortable room. + +“What do you mean?” She never moved, never looked either angry or +startled. They were getting to the point, just as she had meant all +along. “I’m here because it suits me.” + +“Oh, rot!” ejaculated Mr. Starr-Dalton politely. “I found you out long +ago; don’t you know that, Dolly?” + +She knew it or she would not have been sitting behind Madame Aline’s +door-plate; but she only shook her head. + +“You’ll have to explain,” she deliberately returned. “I can’t talk in +the dark.” + +“Terms!” The word leaped in Mr. Starr-Dalton’s head exultingly. But +he steadied himself as he remembered that it might be too late for +a bargain with a countess who had retired incognito to a milliner’s +discarded rooms. + +“Oh, I’ll explain!” He was carefully picking out each blunt word. “I +saw you at Krug’s that night when Churchill made all the shouting at +you. I found out who he was; I saw him; I know all about you and him,” +oblivious that he had found out from anyone but the man himself. + +“Churchill!” Dolly Barnysdale became white. She had nearly said what +could never have been recalled when she realized that Starr-Dalton was +again speaking. + +“Yes, just him! And do you mean to tell me that if some of your fine +relations hadn’t found out that you were married to him before you +were to Barnysdale you’d be here?” + +“Churchill! Married to him! Barnysdale!” The thoughts rang like bells +in her brain. Was this all he knew--this? + +She put out her hand and touched Starr-Dalton; called him for the first +time by his Christian name. + +“Jack, you’re all wrong,” she said. “Not a soul of them even dreams of +anything like that. I’ll tell you presently--and you can believe me or +not, as you like--why I’m here. Only first tell me what on earth you’ve +got hold of about Churchill.” Her voice was very earnest, very natural. + +“Just what I said. It’s enough, Dolly. Don’t put on frills. I saw your +face when Churchill made all that row and it set me thinking----” + +“You didn’t think about stopping him or helping me,” she sharply +remarked. + +“That pal of Magdalen’s was too quick for me, anyhow”--truthfully. “I +don’t know that I thought about helping you. I was too--interested.” + +“What? Before you knew I was Lady Barnysdale?” But she said it without +malice. + +He nodded. + +“I thought you cleverer than to let any man have a hold on you,” he +said simply. “I don’t mind saying that it didn’t occur to me to find +out who Churchill was till you paid me my money and told me to go. And +then I was angry. I went straight to Krug’s and a waiter told me all I +wanted to know. It struck me----” Here he paused, neglecting to say, +“there was money in it.” + +“About me? I don’t believe it.” + +“No! Who the man was and where he lived. I went there.” + +“Where?” + +“Just behind this very house. In the place off the lane. But he’s not +there now; so you needn’t be frightened. He got hold of a little money +and went away to die on it--he looked like dying.” + +“And he told you he was married to me?” There was a queer look on her +pretty face, the look of a woman who finds a live spark in the dead +ashes of her heart. + +Mr. Starr-Dalton considered a moment. Truth might be stranger than +fiction, but it was certainly safer. + +“He said he didn’t know any Dolly and didn’t want to. But--he wasn’t +alone when he said it!” + +Dolly nodded. The growing spark had gone out again. + +“Then who told you he married me?” + +“Maltby. I asked him--oh, not that!--but just about Churchill in +general. He told me he married a girl named Dolly Deane and deserted +her--told me the year. But it was just casual gossip. He thought I knew +Churchill well.” + +Lady Barnysdale looked at him and saw he had told all he knew or +thought. It was all she could do not to sit up like a creature +transfigured, not to laugh or cry out. She had been hiding in holes and +corners for this, that was not worth the snap of her finger--Churchill! + +She had never acted well on the stage, but now her quick, blank face +was perfect. Let him think he had her secret or he might end by finding +it out. + +“Are you going to tell?” she said with her eyes on his face. + +“On a pal?” He was staring at her. “No.” + +She drew a long breath, as people do when fear passes them by. + +“Then,” she said slowly, “I’ll tell you something. I never was married +to Churchill, but----Oh, yes! he could rake up scandal.” For which she +would not have cared one penny. “It was that that terrified me. I came +here partly because of your letter. I thought if I kept out of the way +you might forget me--and Churchill--and partly----” + +“I’d never forget,” he put in hastily. He did not believe one word she +said, just as she had meant he should not. He drew his chair close to +hers. + +“Dolly, you mean it can’t be proved?” + +“Never!” And because her secret was safe she let her triumph break out; +she looked him in the face with bright, steady eyes, her rouge showing +like spots on her excited face. “Never, never, never!” she cried in +exultation. “But, oh! Jack, I want a friend. I’m frightened to death +and I didn’t dare do anything because I knew from your letter you were +angry with me. I thought you meant to show me up.” + +So she had, twenty minutes ago. Now she could have laughed in his face, +for whatever secret she had Starr-Dalton had not touched the garment’s +hem of it. + +“You did your best to make me hate you,” he said slowly. “But--no, I +never meant to give you away.” + +Nor had he. Churchill was dying at a gallop, might be in his grave now; +and “the Countess of Barnysdale and Mr. Starr-Dalton” would make an +imposing mouthful; to say nothing of the money that would come through +a matrimonial connection of the two names. + +Dolly put her hand on his thick one, that Magdalen would have died +rather than have touched. + +“You’re a good friend, Jack,” she said simply, “and if you’ll help me +you won’t regret it. If you hadn’t frightened me by your letter I’d +have sent for you the minute I got to London. Now listen to me and have +patience, for it’s a long story.” + +Word for word she told him about Ardmore and Ronald--everything. If +she all but left out the Chinaman it was because he seemed the least +important part of the whole thing. She had not gone in terror of him +night and day, like Magdalen. + +“So you see I was frightened and I hid. I dared not do anything else +while I thought you might tell all you knew about me,” she finished. +“As for this morning, we gave them the slip. All they know is that I’m +in London.” + +Starr-Dalton sat stupefied. She had told her story patchily--it did not +hang together; but even so he could see she meant every incredible word +of it. + +“But if it’s true,” he said bluntly, “why don’t you make a row?” + +“I can’t,” with a little significant gesture. “Suppose I charged +Stratharden with trying to murder Ronald and me, do you think my whole +history wouldn’t come out? They might convict him, and much good it +would do me when I was stripped of my money and my name. Anyhow, +who’d believe me? The story is too monstrous! Even you think I’m +exaggerating.” + +“If it were any other man than Stratharden!” said Starr-Dalton +significantly. “But, on my soul, Dolly, you’re right. To tell would +get you put in a lunatic asylum. I never heard a breath about the man +except that your getting the title has ruined him. He’s extravagant, of +course, but nothing else. He’s a great traveler, a tremendous swell, +who goes everywhere and--oh! you might as well accuse the Prince of +Wales of murder.” + +“That’s just what I meant,” she said quietly. “Why I’m here and why I +never mean him to set eyes on me or Ronald again. He’s so clever and so +deep that no one ever suspects his infamy.” + +Mr. Starr-Dalton only knew Lord Stratharden as a perfectly dressed and +well-mannered man, who collected curiosities and needed money. The +last and that alone made him put any faith in Dolly’s story. He was +a shrewd man in his way and he took in every line of her face as he +looked at her. There was no doubt she was terrified. + +“The money is the least part of it,” he said. “You draw the checks and +I’ll get you all the money you want.” + +It was what she meant him to do, and she flushed with relief. + +“But you ought not to be living here as Madame Aline. It’s wild!” + +“Who said I was Madame Aline? Not I. It’s Magdalen. I’m only staying +with her. There’s no harm in that.” + +“Except it is not specially natural that she should work when you’ve +money. However----” He bent over her suddenly. “Dolly, supposing I help +you do all you say, where do I come in?” + +“Money?” with the old, reckless smile. + +He shook his head. He was not smiling and his fat face was dangerous. + +With the hate of hell in her heart, because but for what she thought +he knew she would not have been here, Lady Barnysdale looked at him +with sweet, amiable eyes. Now he was useful; by and by, when she had +done with him and he was sent raging and impotent away, there would be +no need to tell him how she hated him. He would know, as a snake knows +whose back is broken. + +“I don’t know what you want, then,” she said. + +“You do,” he roughly asserted. + +“If I do it’s enough for you to know that I do without talking of it. +Now, can’t you see it would make too much talk and stir? If I’m not +quite quiet I may turn into Dolly Arden again, without a penny. You’ve +got to help me, keep me safe from Stratharden and Churchill. And you +once lent me money; now I’ll lend you all you want”--counting cleverly +enough on the lowness of his funds; for in spite of the gardenia the +man had a shifty, impecunious look. + +“Stratharden may drop in on you any day,” he said; not that he believed +it, for what might have been done at Ardmore could not be done in +London. + +Dolly’s eyes flashed. + +“Not with you to help me!” she cried. “Every time I want money you’ll +forward my check from Paris. I’ll make it payable to you; you’ll +endorse it. Stratharden will find out from the bank and never come +near me. If he gets at you you’ll know what to say, you’re my man of +business. Go out, Jack, and get your whisky and some soda. I can drink +my tea now, for I’m safe--safe!” + +“You don’t mean me to stay in Paris?” + +“No, no! But now it’s time for you to solace yourself with your whisky.” + +“When you tell me in plain English what the end’s going to be,” he said +with the uncomfortable gleam still in his eyes. + +“Let things quiet down, let people forget me.” She was certainly doing +what he asked. “Churchill can’t live forever; Maltby doesn’t know Lady +Barnysdale is me,” she ungrammatically declared; “no one does but you +and Churchill. And when he’s gone----” She smiled at him and for the +first time the passion he had had for Dolly Arden awoke under Lady +Barnysdale’s eyes. + +Mr. Starr-Dalton departed to buy whisky and soda--for which she omitted +to give him the money--and as the front door closed on him Dolly +Barnysdale stood up and danced in silent glee. + +“He doesn’t know--nobody knows!” she thought rapturously. “I’ll get rid +of him by sending him to Paris and get Stratharden off the scent. He +shall go to-morrow, to-morrow.” She waltzed around the room and broke +into wild laughter. “Churchill,” she gasped, “and I married to him! If +we wait till he dies and can’t talk we’ll wait a good while. He’s been +a death’s-head ever since I first saw him; that kind never die. Marry +Starr-Dalton!” The glee died from her face. “Oh, how I hate him!” she +thought passionately. “Except for the dinners I got out of him when I +used to be hungry. All I want is to be left in peace with Ronald.” + +She stood thinking, as a scout might stand looking over doubtful +country. As a scout might lie hidden, seeking more secure cover behind +her fear of Stratharden. + +Starr-Dalton was no matter; Maltby had never seen her; he was a hearsay +man who lived a life she never touched; Churchill was dying. Those were +all, absolutely all, who could talk. She assured herself they were all +and knew all the time that it was casual people, not her enemies, who +might spring a mine under her. + +She would never dare go to a theater nor take up her abode in +Barnysdale’s house; never dare live the life her soul loved. + +“I knew that all along,” she said to herself coolly. “It’s a small +price to give for money and Ronald.” + +As if the child’s name brought back the terror of Stratharden, she +ran to the window and looked into the dreary street. There was not a +soul to be seen but Starr-Dalton, approaching with his pockets unduly +distended. + +When he knocked at the door she let him in with a quiet heart; after +half an hour she let him out again to catch the night train for Paris. + +For the first time since that far-away dinner at Krug’s she went to bed +in peace. + +But Lord Stratharden sat up far into the night with the information he +had gleaned from Keith’s blotting-book neatly written out before him. +He had not been idle while Dolly talked to her wolf who had turned out +to be a sheep. He had learned enough to ruin his sister-in-law and her +boy to-morrow. But to-morrow he would get no good of it. + +Lord Stratharden rang his bell for Ah Lee. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +WHEN LOVE DAWNS. + + “I leant my back against an oak; + I thought it was a trusty tree.” + + +“By George!” said Dick Lovell to himself, “I can’t go to see her. I +haven’t the nerve.” + +He stood in the sunny street at a time when a conscientious +photographer’s assistant should have been hard at work, and was annoyed +at his own discomfiture. Because a girl was a milliner was no reason a +man could present himself at her house without being asked; yet half an +hour ago he had been fool enough to take French leave from photography +for just that purpose. + +“Glad I stopped myself before I hung around her door like a cad!” he +thought. He looked up from the curbstone he was considering and saw +Dark Magdalen herself, almost at his elbow. She was walking west with +slow steps and eyes as somber as her black gown. + +At the sound of his quick greeting she stopped and saw him standing +with his hat off, a white carnation in his blue serge coat, his brown, +lean face bent down to her with a laugh of pleasure in eyes and mouth. + +“How do you do?” she said a little breathlessly as she shook hands with +him and wondered why Dolly’s male friends could not take off and put on +their hats with this man’s manner. + +He was looking at her through lowered lashes with that trick he had; +there was a kind of sweet keenness in his gray eyes. + +“Very well, now,” he returned; “a minute ago I wasn’t so sure. To tell +the truth, I was wishing I dared go and call on you--and I didn’t +dare.” The words were boyish, the sense of them graver. + +“Call?” said Magdalen stupidly. “On me?” She began to laugh. “No one +ever comes to see me,” she observed frankly. “I couldn’t have let you +in.” + +She thanked Heaven he had not dared, for Dolly would have worried her +life out with silly cautions, let alone jeering laughters. And--she +glanced once more at his face. If, as Dolly said, she knew nothing +about him, she knew at least that a man with a mouth and eyes like +Lovell’s was not apt to be other than he seemed. + +“That’s a lucky escape for me,” he was saying gravely. “I’m glad you +came out. Do you know you’re not looking well?” + +It was no earthly business of his and it was not polite; which may have +been what brought a faint flame to her cheeks. + +“I’ve been indoors too much,” she returned with some haste and perfect +truth. “I came out now for a walk.” + +“So did I,” calmly; but the next minute they were smiling in each +other’s face like two children. + +“I may accompany you?” he said with a little deferential manner, +foreign enough to a girl who was accustomed to men like Starr-Dalton. +She nodded half shyly. Dolly would have gasped incredulously at the +look on her stepsister’s face. + +“I don’t know where to go,” she said, looking around her. She had +turned Bedford Square, away from Hare’s Buildings, simply because she +would not let herself go toward Fleet Street, on the chance of meeting +Dick Lovell; just as he had strolled in the same direction while his +courage about going to see her was oozing out of him. + +“No!” said Lovell reflectively, little knowing they were both gloating +on the instant reward of their individual virtue. + +The afternoon was sunny, almost hot; enervating, as such winter days +are. The park would be fit to sit in, but--he had no desire to be seen +westward, either alone or otherwise. Especially otherwise, he decided +hastily; it would not be fair. + +“Regent’s Park,” he announced at last, for not a soul who knew him and +could gossip would be there. + +“Too far.” There was little spring to her step as she walked and he saw +it. + +“Hansom,” he answered as laconically. “We can sit down all the way +there and back. You learn the joy of sitting down when you’re a +photographer.” + +He put her into the hansom as he had once in his life helped a princess +into her carriage. As he did it she noticed the spotless cleanliness of +his cuff, the fine white skin inside his wrist; something made her head +swim a little as he got in beside her. + +“Do you know,” said Lovell slowly, “I always have a queer feeling +when I’m with you? That I’ve known you for a long time--for always, +really--that everything you do or say is just what I know you will do +or say.” + +“You’ve known some one like me,” she answered, and she was not looking +at him. + +“I never knew anyone--like you!” he said coolly. He had something to +say to her, but not here in a hansom, where she could not get away from +him. He sat beside her quite silent; so content that it would have been +rapture if a doubt had not been there, too. + +And Magdalen, with the sun and the wind in her face, forgot Dolly and +Mrs. Keith, and Stratharden; forgot even to forget that she was driving +openly through the London streets, for all the world to see her red +hair and black eyes. She turned to him with her lovely laugh as they +left the hansom and strolled along a sun-dried path to a sunny bench +backed by evergreens. + +“Do you know,” she said, “that whenever I meet you you always want your +own way? First you hustle me out of a restaurant by the shoulders; next +you march me to tea with you and home in a hansom. To-day----” + +“To-day I want my own way again,” with a curious quietness. The +laughter was gone from his eyes that were eager, full of sweetness. + +“I want--Magdalen, will you marry me?” + +The slow, direct words should have startled her, but there was no +surprise in her face. A hot color leaped there and died away. + +“You see,” the low note of his voice made her quiver, “I’ve loved you +ever since that night at Krug’s; I don’t know that you care, I can’t +expect you to, but----” + +“You don’t know anything about me,” she whispered. “You don’t even know +that I mayn’t be married already.” + +“Oh, I do!” said Dick Lovell. “That’s nonsense, you know,” with soft +slowness. “Look at me, Magdalen.” + +She could not lift her eyes to his strong, brown face; she looked +instead at his blue serge sleeve. There was a tiny rip in it and she +would have liked to mend it. + +“Are you angry? Do you hate me?” the man asked as simply as he had +asked, “Will you marry me?” + +Her eyes got as high as his collar and rested on the bit of his throat +between it and his ear. She had a mad desire to answer him with her +lips there, to----She turned to him with a sudden pride, found--Heaven +knew where. + +“I’m glad,” she said. “No, don’t answer me. I want to tell you +something. I’m not Madame Aline; my sister and I just live in her house +and we left her door-plate. And----” + +“Well?” said Lovell rather stupidly. + +“That’s all now,” for the rest was Dolly’s business. “Except that my +name’s Magdalen Clyde and I haven’t a penny on earth.” + +“Did you think,” he softly asked, “that I was in love with the +millinery business? As for names”--he had reddened a little--“do you +think they matter much? Could you marry a Lovell--a plain one--as +easily as if he had another name and a handle to it?” + +She gave a little quick shiver. She had had enough of people with +titles. + +“Better,” she said. “I’m not anybody.” + +“You’re Dark Magdalen! Why do you laugh? Didn’t you know that’s what I +call you?” + +She was not laughing; she was prouder of the way he said it than if he +could have made her Queen of England. Yet she looked him in the face +with a remembrance of Dolly and what Dolly would say. + +“And you care a little?” His voice held a hundred tendernesses in it. +“Enough to marry a man with just enough to keep you?” + +“I care,” her voice was not steady. “But I----Oh, you must wait till I +talk to my sister! There are things----I can’t leave her.” + +She was stammering and she knew it, but Lovell did not seem to notice. + +“There are things about me, too,” he said quickly. + +“I don’t mean dark secrets, any more than yours are, but you ought to +know them. I wasn’t born a photographer, Magdalen. But I’m getting on +at it.” + +“I didn’t suppose you were,” glancing at his dark, spare face, his +threadbare serge that had never come off a “ready-made” counter. “Mr. +Lovell, let it all go for to-day; don’t let us think who we are or what +our relatives will say.” + +The last thing did not cause him any solicitude; and, after all, there +was time enough for explaining. He looked at her slim, gloved hands and +wondered if those rings of his mother’s would fit her. + +“Say Dick,” he coolly remarked, “and I’ll do anything you like. I don’t +call you Miss Clyde, do I?” + +“You ought to.” She looked at him with a sweet insolence that made him +want to kiss the hem of her gown. + +It struck him suddenly that while he was threadbare she was freshly and +perfectly dressed, from her hat to her shoes. His brow darkened as he +looked at her. + +“I’ve been a brute,” he said, “a selfish brute! Look here, my darling; +I’m poor. Do you mind? I mean really poor. I couldn’t give you many +shoes like you’re wearing.” + +“I have three pairs like them,” said Magdalen. “Perhaps they won’t be +worn out by the time I marry you. Oh, Dick”--her eyes laughed as she +looked at him--“how silly you are! My sister gave me these; she has +money now; but we used often to be so poor that we were hungry. That +night at Krug’s I’d only had dry bread all day.” + +“I’ll give you better than that,” with a certain grim doggedness. +“Magdalen, you’ll let me come and see you now, won’t you?” + +Dolly’s rage at the hint of such a thing flashed over her. And +Starr-Dalton--for nothing on earth would she run the chance of letting +Lovell see a man like Starr-Dalton in her house. + +“I don’t want you to,” she said simply. “You see, Dolly will be so +angry about it she’ll say we’d no right to speak to each other. And +she’s in some trouble just now; she’s worried. I think you’d better +wait.” + +That meant trusting to luck to see her. He was not going to have her +make secret appointments with any man, even him. + +“You know best,” he said not too willingly. “It--it’s rather rough, you +know.” + +“Do you suppose I don’t want you to come?” she asked almost fiercely. +“I can’t invite you, that’s all. It’s not my house--it’s Dolly’s, I----” + +She stopped and stared in front of her, the dark fire quenched in her +eyes. + +There, going past--and why was it that she knew without seeing her--was +Mrs. Keith, a grim old figure in a dusty gown. And if she had seen her +all she would have to do would be to follow Magdalen Clyde home. + +Unconsciously the girl slipped close to Lovell’s side and looked at +him as she had looked at him for the first time in her life, at Krug’s +restaurant. + +In front of all London--though it consisted just now of an old woman he +had not noticed and two sparrows--he put his arm round her. + +“Don’t look at me like that,” he said. “I won’t worry you any more. +I’ll swear, if you like, never to speak to you again till you send for +me. Magdalen, can’t you see I love you? There is nothing on God’s earth +for me but you.” + +The arm she leaned against was iron, the shoulder against hers iron, +too; in the strength and safety of them the color came to her face. + +“Dick,” she said. “Oh, Dick!” + +The man stooped and kissed her, since even the sparrows were gone; and +the soul of Magdalen Clyde went into his keeping and his to her. + +Without a word, since neither could speak, they moved away--in the +paradise God lets some men and women stay in. + +Ten minutes later a breathless old woman ran frantically after a +hansom that drove away and, when there was no other to be had, cursed +roundly in broad Scotch. + +“I’ve bided my time too long, too long!” thought Mrs. Keith, and the +fear in her stopped her senseless rage. “’Twas her, and--I’d thought +you with her was a better man, a better man!” + +She cursed again at the weariness of her feet as she went hurriedly on. +It was a fool’s errand from the beginning; it was a beaten fool’s now, +if that man were against her, with his hard eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +THE NAKED FOOTSTEP. + + +“You fool!” Dolly had said. “You selfish, selfish fool!” + +It was not much of a congratulation on her sister’s engagement and she +had gone out without another word. The little sitting-room in Hare’s +Buildings seemed very dull and cheerless to Magdalen, left alone there; +but, even so, that was no reason that she should come out of her sullen +thoughts with a jump and find herself leaning forward--listening till +her heart seemed to stop in her. + +She had been alone there often enough, since Dolly was always out; she +must be getting nervous. She said a scornful word to herself and tried +to think of Lovell. But it was no use. + +The sound--that could be no sound but the moving of her own blood--had +her by the throat. It was not a rustle, more like a certain subtle +jarring; a pad, pad, as of bare feet stepping very softly. + +“Some one on the stairs,” she thought determinedly, but her eyes were +very black in her pale face. She marched to the hall door and opened it. + +There was the empty landing, the vacant staircase that went down to +the entrance, where the fanlight in the tailor’s side door glowed +cheerfully. + +“It was imagination,” she thought, for not a sound came now from +anywhere. + +She locked the door and went back to her seat, something making her +move softly; an absurd thing to do in an empty house. More absurd +still, she sat down by the fire, facing the door of the little room, +her back hard against the wall, as if the place were haunted. + +She looked round her with a kind of contempt for herself. The room was +not big enough to swing a cat in or to hide one. Opposite her was a +sofa and the open door; at her right hand a window and a writing-table; +at her left a high bookcase in the middle of a blank wall. The whole +place was not more than four yards square. It was a fine thing to be +nervous here, when in all the eery gloom of Ardmore Castle she had been +steady enough. + +Her face grew hard and dark. If Dolly would only listen to her! But not +a word she said went through that armor of Dolly’s that was made of +obstinacy and--even to herself she would not say deceit. + +All the same, there was absolutely no cause for the uneasiness that was +gripping the girl’s soul. + +A week had gone by since that vision of Keith and Stratharden at the +window; a week in which there had been no sign of either; no stranger +at the door; not so much as a glance cast after either Dolly or +Magdalen in the street. Starr-Dalton had never appeared again after +that one day; and whatever had troubled Dolly was over. Except that she +never let Ronald out of her sight or the front door off the latch, she +seemed to have forgotten that she had ever feared Stratharden or anyone +else. But somehow that very thought set the girl’s face in what Dolly +called “Magdalen’s scowl.” + +“She’s been at her old tricks,” she reflected angrily. “He must have +lent her that money.” Which was true enough; even Mr. Starr-Dalton +could rake up five pounds to lend to a lady who allowed him fifteen per +cent. on every check he cashed for her. + +“She’s out a great deal; she never seems to think it mayn’t be safe to +take Ronald,” she mused. “But they wouldn’t dare kidnap him. I fancy +Lord Stratharden has done his best and shot his bolt. Any more would +make a noise and we know too much for it to be safe to meddle with us. +I wish Dolly would come home. It’s getting dark.” + +It was; dark and foggy. The room looked thick with the fog that crept +in through the badly fitting windows. The fire had died down to a +dull-red glow, ugly, cheerless; she was cold. Miss Clyde stretched out +a long, graceful arm to the grate--and sat with a pounding heart. + +“Pad, pad!” there it was again. More the feeling of a sound than a +sound itself, yet her young flesh crawled on her bones. + +The thing, whatever it was, was in the house, not on the stairs. She +sat rigid on the rug, one hand still stretched out to the forgotten +fire. The soft, slow sound was over her head, upstairs; almost +inaudible in the hush of her listening, through which came the cheerful +passing of cabs in the street. If it was tangible enough to be like +anything human it was like a bare foot on a bare floor. Only nerves +strung up and sharpened could have known there was a sound at all. + +“Fool!” exclaimed the girl through shut, vicious teeth. A great tide of +hot blood seemed to flash through her veins that had run so slow. + +She got up and went out in the hall and up-stairs. All the fear had +gone out of her; she moved like a man does, confidently. If there were +a thief in the house, or any one else, he might have done well to run +from a girl whose eyes looked like Magdalen Clyde’s. + +The dim staircase was empty. The dining-room that was in the back of +the house, over the sitting-room, empty, desolate; for as Dolly would +have no servants they never used it. In the kitchen there was no one, +the slim ranks of dishes on the dresser were as usual; the table, set +for dinner, was untouched. + +In Magdalen’s own bedroom there was nothing more ghostly than her gowns +hanging on the wall, very black and straight. + +Mr. Lovell’s “good luck” stood in the middle of the room and looked a +fool. It had all been imagination. The windows were three stories above +the street and no one but a cat could have entered them. One of them +was open six inches or so, leaving plenty of room for just that cat. + +“I am an idiot, with my footsteps!” thought Miss Clyde wrathfully. +She shut down the window and lighted all the gas, up-stairs and down, +before she sat down again. + +She had been listening for Dolly and that began the mischief. No one +can listen long in an empty house and not hear something. Certainly +there was no sound now, nor the dream of one. + +“Still, I may as well finish, or I’ll be thinking of it in the night,” +she thought. It was half-past six; the tailor’s shop would be shut, the +hands gone home; the back premises down-stairs open to the explorer. + +Candle in hand, latch-key and matches in pocket, she emerged on the +landing and shut her own front door behind her. The tailor’s shop was +dark; the street door ajar at the foot of the staircase. A streak of +light came through it and the cheerful yell of a newsboy. Standing with +her back to the door, she saw the bare, narrow passage, half-way down +it her own stairs; past them, at the end of it, a green baize door. As +she looked at it it swung forward a little, as with some draft, then +swung back. It must have been that soft closing and opening she had +magnified into a quiet foot over her head. + +“Still,” she thought sensibly, “they oughtn’t to go away and leave a +ground-floor window open if it is in a dark area. Goodness knows who +may live in those horrid houses behind us.” + +She gave the green door a push and went in as it gave to her hand, and +saw nothing but the dark hole where the tailor hands ate their dinner +on a table littered with crumbs and greasy papers. The barred and +grated window was shut, yet the air in the room was oddly fresh. + +“A ventilator, of course!” she thought vexedly, having let her nerves +run riot for nothing. + +At the foot of her own stairs she turned and saw the baize door move +again stealthily and swing back; if she had not known about that draft, +would have been certain some one stood behind it. But as it was she +went up-stairs with a contemptuous dismissal of the feeling that there +was somebody behind her. It was time to get ready for Dolly--to cook. + +“Why on earth couldn’t we have an all-night restaurant below us instead +of a tailor’s shop? It mightn’t be so respectable, but it would be a +hundred times more convenient,” she thought; yet it was not the cooking +that was on her mind, but the loneliness of the place at night, that +she had never cared two pins about till now. And the next second she +forgot it, for Dolly’s key clicked in the latch. + +Hand in hand with Ronald she swept in, a different Dolly from the angry +one who had gone out. + +“We’re awfully late; I’m starving,” she cried gaily. “Oh, it’s so +horrid out of doors! What a wretched fire, Magdalen.” + +“I forgot it,” she replied guiltily. “Where’ve you been?” There was a +quick, incredulous hope in her that Dolly had repented about Lovell. + +“Oh, shopping”--putting down heterogeneous parcels. + +“Don’t sit on that, Ronald! It’s a chicken. I felt it would be my death +if I didn’t have chicken.” + +She pulled something from the front of her dress and rustled it in +Magdalen’s face. + +“What about old Stratharden now?” she exclaimed triumphantly. “He can +watch at the bank till he’s black in the face. Look there!” her packet +of clean five-pound notes flourished over her head. + +“How did you manage?” + +“Starr-Dalton cashed it,” Dolly observed, half careless, half defiant. +“I told you he’d be useful.” + +There was a senseless lump in Magdalen’s throat. + +“It’s all so unnecessary,” she said heavily. “There’s no sense in +it. Why can’t we behave like ordinary people?” Perhaps the knowledge +that she herself had not been behaving like an ordinary person during +Dolly’s absence sharpened her tongue. “What excuse would Stratharden +have for hunting us? And if he wanted to, putting that out of the +question, there’s no possible hope that he couldn’t lay his finger on +us this very minute.” Somehow that creeping noise that she had but just +now thoroughly explained to herself came back to her unreasonably. + +Dolly looked at her, a sudden breeze of good sense blowing through her +shut-up little mind. But Dolly never believed in impulses. + +“What’s the matter with you?” she asked reasonably enough. “It’s got +nothing to do with you. I’m sick of it,” and truly she looked it as her +small head went back distastefully. + +“Put yourself in my place, Dolly. You don’t really put enough trust +in me to be open with me. I have to live shut up in this hole--oh, I +don’t mind the cooking and cleaning; it isn’t that. It’s because you +know all about Stratharden and yet you won’t protect yourself against +him. I’m tired of it. I want to have some life of my own.” + +The devil in the Countess of Barnysdale woke up. + +“Which means Mr. Lovell!” she said with a polite gaze at the opposite +wall. + +Perhaps it did. Magdalen did not care. + +“It’s plain sense,” she retorted. “You’ve money; Stratharden has +nothing against you but that silly invention of madness that wouldn’t +work anywhere but in an out-of-the-world place like Ardmore. Why can’t +we go and live openly somewhere and let Starr-Dalton be ‘useful’ to +other people? Then, if Stratharden did anything, you’d have a good case +and the law at your back. While here----” She shrugged her shoulders. + +The law at her back! When, for what she had done to Magdalen alone she +could be put in prison to-morrow, let alone anything else. The rouge on +Dolly’s cheeks stood out like fire. + +“Here he can’t send in servants to meddle with Ronald,” she said +irrelevantly. “That’s why I won’t have one. How do I know who she might +be? As for a good case and the police”--for one instant she shut her +eyes--“I’m not going to have all my past life dragged up by the police +because you’re bored--so now you know.” + +“Then there’s something----” It was a stupid speech from Magdalen +Clyde, who was not surprised at all, but only contemptuous. + +“There’s nothing.” There was nothing in the voice to tell whether Dolly +was ghastly from fright or fury. “How dare you say there is?” With +the old, senseless fierceness she snatched Ronald to her. “I tell you +he’s Barnysdale’s son and I’ll fight for him in my own way. You can +interfere, if you want to kill me.” + +For a girl who had all along been sure there was a lie somewhere, +Magdalen felt oddly sick. + +“Don’t talk about it, will you?” It was an order, not a question. “I +only told you to--to make you understand. I suppose you haven’t told +your Lovell about me yet.” + +“Doll,” said the girl impulsively, “give up being a countess!” If there +was meaning in her words Dolly did not mark it. “This place is paid +for. I’ll work for you.” + +“How?” scornfully. “Take in washing? Don’t be a fool.” + +“No, make hats,” practically. + +“Who’ll buy them? Nonsense! Half of this is for you.” She held out the +roll of notes. “I owe it to you.” + +For once in her life Magdalen turned scarlet. + +“How could you owe me anything?” she cried and turned away; no power +on earth would have made her touch that money Dolly had been afraid to +go and get. “I’ll begin that hat business to-morrow. I’ve been sending +away Madame Aline’s old customers all the week.” + +To work at anything would be better than to sit thinking her nerves +into fiddlestrings as she had to-day. The prospect of it cheered her +as she woke in the middle of the night. The next minute she sat bolt +upright in her bed. That sound had been no fancy this afternoon. She +heard it now through the black dark. + +With a curious impulse--and surely her guardian angel must have been at +her elbow--Magdalen Clyde got up and locked her thick wooden shutters +and her window. + +Still she heard the sound. + +Alone in the night, with her body dull and her spirit quick, she +thrilled superstitiously, so like was that soft, clinging pad to the +feet of death dogging her. What madness was it put into her head that +it was just like that, soft and slow, with long steps, that Lovell +would move on bare feet? + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +AT AUNT MANETTE’S. + + +All thought and desire for the hat-making business had deserted +Magdalen’s mind when she came, late and heavy-eyed, to breakfast. Which +was probably the reason that on the sound of the electric bell she ran +down and found, not the baker’s boy, but a customer. + +“I don’t know,” said the imitation Madame Aline rather doubtfully. She +looked at the pretty old lady before her and did not open the door. +Inside did not look much like a milliner’s establishment. “I,” with a +brilliant inspiration, “never make bonnets--only hats.” + +The strange old lady looked very pale in the gray light of the landing. +To the blind a voice is a very telltale thing; Madame Aline’s had +perhaps sounded as though she had no desire for a new customer. + +“I am easily pleased.” The girl saw suddenly that her visitor’s silk +gown and mantle were old-fashioned. “I am not very rich and I am blind.” + +“Blind!” The little cry was involuntary. + +“Stone blind, madam. Look!” She turned her face instinctively to +the scant light and Magdalen saw that the bright, brown eyes were +sightless. “But perhaps, for those reasons, you will not care----” + +“Oh,” with quick compassion, “but I will. I will make you anything you +like. Only--I--that is--I have nothing ready.” + +“I did not want anything ready. I have--but I do not like to ask you. +You are busy.” + +“No,” with a wasted shake of her head. + +“Then, as you are so kind, I have already a dozen--more--of bonnets. +But it is that I am blind and live alone. Sometimes I select one and +the children laugh at me in the street. If you would look at them and +remodel me one from them.” + +“Of course I will.” She looked to see a hat-box, but the new customer +was empty-handed. “When will you bring them?” For a blind woman +could not see that the milliner’s shop had neither hats, bonnets nor +looking-glasses. + +“I go out seldom,” said the woman slowly. “I thought if madame were not +too occupied she might perhaps come to me. I am called Madame Duplessis +and I live behind you, in Hare’s Rents.” + +A half thought, a misgiving, struck her hearer; but the next minute +she saw its absurdity. There was no reason to think Lord Stratharden +was troubling his head about them; and if he were it was not likely he +would send an emissary from Hare’s Rents who did not even ask to come +in or for anyone but Madame Aline. + +The blind woman had felt the hesitation in her manner. + +“It was M. Lovell who told me of you, madame,” she said, and no one +would ever have known the words were as purely gambling as drawing a +card at poker. “I asked him if there were a milliner near here and he +told me, ‘Madame Aline.’ He will tell you that I pay my debts,” with a +little smiling dignity. “But Hare’s Rents is a poor place, madame, and +perhaps I am a customer who will not show off your wares.” There was +not a hint in her voice of the terrible excitement that was in her old +heart. + +Lovell! That warning fling of Dolly’s about not knowing who he was came +back to the girl, but she did not care. It was only nonsense, anyhow. +He loved her; he--the very thought of his hard, keen strength did her +good after the silly terrors of yesterday. + +“I hardly know Mr. Lovell,” she answered mechanically, “but it was kind +of him to recommend me. I will do your work with pleasure.” + +“I suppose you could not come now?” she unexpectedly asked. “You could +not leave?” + +Why not? She was sick of the house, had meant to go out anyhow and had +her hat and coat on. + +“I think I can leave,” she cried with a laugh at the non-existent +business that could keep her. “I’m going out,” she called to Dolly, +who, being only half dressed, could not come to investigate if she had +even thought of it. + +The blind woman felt her way down-stairs, and a wonder crept over the +girl how she had ever found her way from Hare’s Rents. + +“You do not see how I got here,” said Aunt Manette shrewdly, as they +reached the street. + +“It is quite simple, when one has been blind for twenty years and +alone. I knew there was no street to cross. I kept my feet on the +curbing and that told me when the corner came. Presently I asked a man +to take me to your door.” + +It might be simple, but it was dreadful to the girl who could see the +feathers on a flying sparrow. + +“And your own door?” she said. + +“Twenty-four steps from turning into this dirty lane. It is here, I +think. An open door--very dirty?” + +“Sixteen?” glancing up. + +Madame Duplessis, whom her world knew as Aunt Manette, nodded. The girl +behind her marveled as she followed her up the filthy stairs why an old +woman, who wore a brocade mantle, should live in such a place. They did +not meet a soul as they climbed to the third story; perhaps the blind +woman had known they would not at this time of day. Half of Hare’s +Rents got up early and went to work; the other half stayed in bed till +dark. + +“We arrive,” she cried gaily, unlocking her own door unerringly from +long practise in the dark. + +For a moment Magdalen stood dazzled on the threshold. + +The morning sun poured into the place through fresh white curtains +and rows of blossoming flowers. There was a good fire, a clean brick +hearth, a high-backed chintz chair beside it. The whole room was as +scrupulously clean and fresh as a French inn, and the most homelike +place, as well, that the girl had ever seen. + +Aunt Manette let the door close behind her. + +“You see, I am ready for you,” she said, and Magdalen saw an array of +bonnet-boxes. Every one of them had “Worth” or “Pingat” on the cover; +but as she took out the bonnets one by one she repressed a laugh. +No wonder the children said things in the streets. Every bonnet had +been the acme of extravagant fashion twenty years ago, and now----She +glanced round the spotless room. To have come to this from Worth and +Pingat had taken some time. + +“Did you want a black bonnet?” she said with a smile that was very +kindly, looking at the grass-green, staring-blue and magenta monsters +surrounding her. + +At the voice Aunt Manette started. + +“Yes,” she said hastily. “I wear black. You mean----” Her hands were +clasped hard in front of her; she did not care a straw what the +milliner meant. + +“These are colored,” Magdalen gently responded. + +The old woman moved to her side. + +“I had forgotten.” She felt one. “This?” she asked. + +“Pale-fawn, trimmed with--with leather!” Magdalen could not imagine +anyone with such a thing on her head. + +“Oh! And this one?” + +“Green.” + +“With plumes?” + +“Yes.” + +The old woman’s face changed. + +“It was hers--my daughter’s. She was so young that day,” she said as if +to herself. “Would you--would you put it on, Madame Aline?” + +Magdalen unpinned her hat. She did not even smile to herself as in the +glass she beheld the green atrocity on her head; for the eyes that +could not see her were full of tears. + +“It goes so,” explained the old woman gently. She pushed it back a +little on the dull, thick hair--and Magdalen noticed the delicate +cleanliness of the old white hand. “Madame has beautiful hair.” + +“Madame” winced. + +“It’s red,” she said. It was lucky no one could see her in the +bright-green hat. + +“Minon’s was brown,” the old woman said dully. “You will permit me, +madame? They are my eyes.” + +Magdalen stood still as the cool, smooth finger-tips went over her +face. The blind woman’s face she did not look at, which was well. But +the next minute it was the Aunt Manette whom Lovell knew that spoke to +her, and the girl, curiously enough, felt a sudden liking for the very +hardness of the voice. + +“What do you mean to get out of life?” she asked. “You were not born a +milliner. Diamonds, marriage, position?” + +“Position? No!” Magdalen sharply replied. + +“Yet you hate your life. There are two black bonnets in that round box. +You can amuse yourself with them.” + +“Why do you say that?” + +“Your eyes were hot, your mouth drooped. You have not a contented face. +But you should be handsome.” + +“I’m ugly,” the girl hastily remarked. “All white and black and red, +like a poster. But I forgot----” + +“Oh, I have heard of them,” the old woman dryly replied. She was aching +to pour out a flood of questions, but she was too old and wise. She +only sat as if she watched the girl make a new bonnet out of two old +ones, deftly enough. She had an artistic touch, picked up goodness +knows where. + +“These bonnets are made of beautiful things, Madame Duplessis,” she +said. + +“They call me Aunt Manette in this house,” said the old lady. “I do +not know why. I cannot come to you again, madame; but will you come to +me? I am always here--and lonely.” Since she had felt the lines of the +strong, delicate face her own had grown very hard. If she were right +Mr. Lovell should come here no more, hear nothing from her about the +Dark Magdalen he was intoxicated over; this girl was for no penniless +photographer, gentleman or not. + +The fresh, homelike room had done Magdalen good; she had a queer liking +for Aunt Manette--a curiosity, too, about her. She put the finished +bonnet in her hand. + +“Is it right?” she asked. + +“The little boys will tell me that when I wear it,” Aunt Manette +composedly replied. “I pay you with pleasure, though--for it and your +society.” + +“Oh, no!” said the amateur milliner hastily. “It wasn’t ten minutes’ +work. I couldn’t take any money.” + +“And I cannot run in debt.” She went away and came back with something +in her hand. “You shall take this,” she said carelessly, a longing +that was passion shaking her to see this girl’s face as she held out a +little pin. “It is old-fashioned, of no value, but a pleasure to me to +give away.” + +It was an old lace-pin, set with discolored turquoises, making an “N” +on a dull-gold filigree heart. It was worth almost nothing at all, +but Magdalen Clyde gave a cry of surprise. The thing was absolutely +familiar to her. + +“You will not take it? It is perhaps too broken?” Aunt Manette said +coldly. + +“No, no! I would love it. But I’ve seen one--one just like it,” she +wonderingly exclaimed. + +“They were the fashion when my daughter was young,” almost callously. +“This one is broken, as you see. They were worn in pairs, linked with a +little chain.” + +“I know,” rather dazed. It was very queer, but probably the blind woman +was right and the things had once been common. She stood over Aunt +Manette and smiled, a splendid sight of flesh and blood wasted on blind +eyes. + +“I’ll tell you why it surprised me when I come again,” she said. “I +must go now.” She did not thank the old woman, for she knew by instinct +that she was not meant to. It was payment--not a present. “I’ll come +again some afternoon. I’d like to,” she honestly declared. + +For a moment their hands touched and the blind woman’s were burning. It +had been cool till she felt the girl’s face. + +“Do not come after dark,” she cautioned. “Remember, it is not a fit +staircase for you after dark.” + +Magdalen laughed. It was not the perils of Hare’s Rents that could +worry her. + +“I won’t,” she returned. “Good-by.” + +She hurried through the dirty lane outside and, when she reached her +own street, stepped into a shop close to her own house--a dark little +shop for second-hand jewelry. + +Dull hair, black-and-white face, she flashed into the shop like +something glorious. + +“That,” she said to the man behind the counter, holding out her +turquoise pin, “worn linked to another with a chain--will you tell me +if they were to be bought in every jeweler’s shop twenty years ago?” + +He looked at it with a queer smile. He was rather a famous person in +his way, an authority on his trade, and strictly honest, to the great +gain of his dingy shop. + +“They were not to be bought at any shop,” he said, putting down his +magnifying-glass. “They were little badges worn by a certain set +of ladies, among whom was the Empress Eugenie. That ‘N’ stands for +Napoleon. If you cared to part with this,” he professionally suggested, +“I could give you a very high price.” + +“No,” said Magdalen, dumfounded; in her own box at home was the mate to +this very pin, with a chain hanging to it, and the thing had been her +mother’s. + +How did Madame Duplessis come by the other half? + +She flew home to make certain she was right, but in the little +sitting-room she stopped short. + +“Dolly!” she shrieked and pointed to a door where no door had been. +“What have----” She could not utter another word. + +“Four customers came,” said Dolly gaily; “so I told them to come back +this afternoon and I made my bedroom into a showroom for you. Isn’t it +too beautiful? I just moved the bookcase on this side and my wardrobe +on mine. Now”--complacently--“that big glass is some use,” pointing to +it standing exactly opposite the new door. + +Magdalen forgot her mysterious pin, forgot everything. She stood +speechless in the little room she had dreamed of at Ardmore Castle. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +“BUFF OGILVIE!” + + +“What’s the matter? Don’t you like it?” said Dolly crossly. “I nearly +broke my back moving the things.” + +Somehow Magdalen pulled herself together. Fool that she had been to +have let Dolly take this place without seeing it; more fool still never +to have found out that the bookcase hid a door. + +“I can’t make hats, Doll,” she said slowly, untruthfully. “I tried this +morning and I can’t. I’m sorry you bothered.” + +“We can put them back. I only thought--we haven’t been getting on too +well lately, Magda”--the little name came softly; there were real tears +in Dolly’s eyes--“and it’s been my fault. I’ve been hateful. I--I +wanted to do something that would please you.” + +They were not sisters who kissed each other; Magdalen’s hand only fell +softly on Dolly’s shoulder. + +“I’ve been priggish and hateful myself,” she said soberly. “Don’t fuss +about what you’ve been. I want to tell you something--about this room, +I mean. I’ve seen it before, only till you moved the furniture I didn’t +recognize it. I dreamed about it, looking just like this, and the +Chinaman was in it, trying to kill you.” + +Even Dolly gave a start. + +“You had him on your mind,” she said practically. + +“How could I? I dreamed about this place at Ardmore before I ever saw +it or Ah Lee either. It’s--oh, it’s uncanny and horrible! Besides, I +honestly think it’s a warning.” + +“It’s horrid enough, but”--there was no superstition in Dolly--“we +can’t really ever believe in dreams. You’re sure you didn’t dream it +after you saw Ah Lee?” privately thinking that people who saw ghosts +and supernatural things often forgot details that did not suit them. + +“Certain,” nodding her lovely, strange head. “I saw Ah Lee and this +room as plainly as I see you now, and he was trying to kill you and I +couldn’t save you. I felt his hands on my throat as I fought with him. +Oh, Doll, do let us leave it! I’ll never have a happy minute here.” + +“We have to give three months’ notice and we’ve paid our rent in +advance.” But there was indecision in Dolly’s voice. + +When a man has once tried to murder you it is not pleasant to have +people dream he has tried to do it again, even though you have no faith +in such things. + +“Give notice, then, and let’s go. We’ll only lose that much rent. Don’t +laugh, but ever since that Chinese butler came to Ardmore, bang on top +of my dream, I’ve been frightened. I’ve felt as though I had a sort of +second sight.” + +Dolly gave her a queer look. + +“You might be Scotch,” she said slowly, “by the way you talk!” + +It was not the word, but the look that made Magdalen stare at her. + +“How could I be Scotch?” she cried. “Mother wasn’t, and you remember my +father if I don’t. Mother always said there was nothing Scotch about +him but his name.” She half closed her eyes, as if she saw again the +face of the dead woman who had been Dolly’s mother and hers and was so +like Dolly, so unlike herself. For a moment she wished she had seen her +own father, who had left her mother a widow for the second time when +she was a year old. She did not notice how sharply Dolly had turned +away, nor that when she answered her it was with her face to the window. + +“Neither there was,” said Dolly with an unsteady giggle. She was +horribly afraid as she stared out of the blessed panes that let her +keep her back turned without seeming to. “Oh, don’t let’s talk about +mother; she’s dead. Of course, I didn’t mean you could really be +Scotch; it was just rubbish, because you talked about second sight. If +you really feel nervous here we won’t stay.” She could turn now and she +did. “I’ll do anything you like,” she finished feverishly; “anything! +What do you want to do?” + +“Go to the country. I can get a little house at Marlow by the week for +very little. Let me get something to eat and go there now. I can get +the next train.” + +There were reasons why this proposition suited Dolly and that absurd +dream was not the strongest of them. London was far from desirable when +you dared not go anywhere. For once she helped to get lunch ready. +She even saw Magdalen down to the street door; but at the foot of the +stairs she paused and drew back into the hallway by the swinging baize +door. + +“Don’t be long,” she said as if for once she did not want to be left +alone. “Send me a wire from Marlow if you can get a place and I’ll make +arrangements about going away from here at once.” + +Magdalen nodded, got into a bus at the corner of the street, looked +up at a clock as they rumbled along and saw she must miss the +half-past-two train, or take a hansom. + +As she got down from the bus to hail one she did not notice another +cab pass her with the glass down and the side curtains drawn; nor as +she ran to her just-caught train at Paddington did it occur to her to +glance at the first-class carriages. + +To get out of Hare’s Buildings was her first thought; to see Lovell and +tell him why, the second. She was certain, somehow, that he could help +her. + +But four hours later she stood once more in Paddington Station and +realized that she had nothing to tell him but that she, Dark Magdalen, +was afraid. For all she had got by her journey was a stuffy coming and +going in a third-class carriage and the knowledge that in all Marlow +there was not a house to be got. They were not out of Hare’s Buildings +yet; and all the way up in the train her unreasoning terror of the +place had been growing on her. + +“I wish I’d gone to the Marlow Inn and wired for Dolly,” she thought +faintly. “Anything would be better than another night at home. I----” + +She put her hand in her pocket for her purse and the purse was gone. + +Her plan of going in search of Lovell was useless. From Paddington to +Hare’s Buildings was a walk enough in the dusk without that trudge to +Fleet Street that her pride recoiled from and only that senseless, +gripping terror at her heart made possible. With a cab she could have +done it; she dared not take the time to walk, with Dolly alone in +that hateful house. She almost ran as she left the station. Suppose +her dream had come true while she was out, without her part in it of +fighting for Dolly! + +Street after street, square after square, she hurried through; each +hundred yards a mile; a relentless swallowing of the time--and +something told her that she had not a minute to spare in this cold +twilight. When she came to quiet streets she ran; at the corner of her +own street she leaped forward with a little cry of joy. + +There was no need to go to Fleet Street--never had been. There, +standing under the sickly, flaring gaslight, not ten yards before her, +was Lovell--Lovell, who had helped her twice and would help her again. + +It was not a dream or a Chinaman who could frighten her with Lovell at +her back; her lips parted to call him. + +She paused, flinched, nearly fell, and melted like a darker shadow into +the darkness of an open doorway. + +A man had come across the street with a slow, languid step--a gentleman +of finer mold than was often seen in that border of the slums. And his +face, under his immaculate silk hat, was the face of Lord Stratharden. +There before her in the flesh were those pale eyes, those crooked, +restless eyebrows, that smile that was not smiling; and as Stratharden +laid his hand on Lovell’s shoulder the man she had meant to trust +neither moved nor started. + +For one swimming moment all the blood in Magdalen Clyde’s body was in +her heart. Lovell and Stratharden! + +Dolly--oh! Dolly had been right! She was sick and cold with the shock +of it as she leaned against the wall of her sheltering passage; she +could not move to save her soul, though only ten yards away Lovell was +talking to Stratharden. + +A voice she knew, a voice that ten minutes ago she would have followed +to Hades and back again, steadied her like an electric shock. They +were moving, coming closer, stopping to talk not a yard from her black +doorway. Magdalen was motionless against the dirt-stained wall. + +Yet all that Lovell was saying was: + +“Keith? No, I’ve not seen her.” Only there was a devilish coldness in +his voice that she had never heard. + +“Well,” Stratharden spoke silkily, “it isn’t of any importance, my dear +boy. At least, I think not. Keith says it is and I’ve no doubt she +thinks so; but the good creature had always a bee in her bonnet.” + +There was no answer. Some one knocked his heel impatiently on the +pavement and she knew it was Lovell. + +“Did you come down here and keep me waiting half an hour to talk of +Keith?” he coolly inquired. + +“Not at all. I came down here because you wouldn’t see me at your +photographer’s,” he answered airily. “Good God, Buff! you don’t tell me +you live anywhere in this vile slum?” + +“Buff!” In all her life she had heard of but one man thus nicknamed. +Like a flash she heard Keith’s grim old voice in her ears: “Buff +Ogilvie, Stratharden’s son? Oh, ay! he’s a good lad enough.” She hardly +heard Lovell answering--and lying, though neither of his listeners knew +it. + +“I don’t live here. It seemed a retired locality, that’s all. You +requested, if I remember, that it might be retired.” + +Stratharden laughed. + +“You’re very young,” he said; “younger than I was at your age! I came +to tell you something. The whole thing will be settled inside of a +month, but in the meantime I may as well tell you that at this present +moment you are Stratharden. It is quite time, Buff, to--to throw over +the trade of photographing.” + +“What have you done?” + +To the girl in the dark there was no knowing that the slow words would +have been fierce but for the dread behind them. Father or no father, if +there were truth in that dread----But the man’s mouth closed firmly. “I +know how you’ve tried and failed,” he said after a long pause. + +“I was mistaken,” Stratharden returned smoothly; if he were a trifle +startled he did not show it. “My lady is as sane as you or I, +and--damnably clever to a certain point. Her limitation is that she +never was my lady at all. Did you ever hear of a Mr. Starr-Dalton?” + +Lovell shook his head. + +“Starr-Dalton!” the mouth of the girl in the doorway was set harder +than the man’s outside it. She listened like a caged fury, for this +tallied too well with her own long thoughts. + +“Oh, well, you’ll hear now to the infinite good of your pocket. Mr. +Starr-Dalton is the back-bone of a sham antique furniture business--too +much sham and too little antique. Also, he has been cashing my lady’s +checks for her, which led to his discovery just when he was required on +various charges of fraud. He babbled a good deal and finally--well, he +can put his finger on Lady Barnysdale’s live husband. Live!” + +“Lady Barnysdale’s live husband!” As if she were a child learning a +language, Magdalen found herself painfully translating. What he meant +was that Dolly--Dolly had a husband alive! She never heard Lovell’s +answer--would not have cared if she had. Oh, poor Dolly! who had been +starving, had been brave enough to play a game a well-fed woman’s blood +might have failed her in! And Starr-Dalton had betrayed her! + +Outside Lovell said something that carried no meaning to the girl, who +was only thinking of Dolly. Afterward it came back to her terribly +enough. + +“I’m playing my own game now,” he said coolly. “I dare say it may tally +with yours, if I know you. But it’s not yours any more than I’m Buff +Ogilvie, till I choose.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +A CURTAIN AND A SHADOW. + + +The whole thing had perhaps taken ten minutes; ten years without it +would have taken less strength from Magdalen Clyde. The world had +fallen down about her ears; Lovell, her lover, the core of her heart, +was no better than Starr-Dalton, whom she had hated. Dolly---- + +“I must get home quickly to Dolly,” she thought, when voices and steps +had gone, and she could dare the few steps that lay between. + +It was a quiet street at night. She met not one soul--and remembered +it afterward in another place. There was not a light in the house, nor +a sound, as she fitted her latch-key in Madame Aline’s door. As it +clicked behind her she called out chokingly: + +“Dolly! Dolly! bring down a light. Where are you?” She was sobbing +without tears. It was she who must tell Dolly she was found out, must +help her to get away to-night, anywhere; Dolly, who was between the +devil and the deep sea, and must face prosecution for bigamy, or worse. +“Dolly!” she called again, and the sound of her voice came back to her. + +In the dark senseless terror smote her. She felt her way to the stair +foot; ran up half-a-dozen steps, fell; ran again, with her skirt torn +and her breath out of her; called in the dark landing outside the +kitchen door. + +“She’s out!” she said to herself. It seemed impossible that anyone with +a secret like Dolly’s should dare to go out. If it were true, there +must be people who knew it; and Dolly--she might meet any one of them +in the street. + +Her fingers closed on the kitchen match-box, and the match she lighted +went out, just as the electric light had that night at Krug’s, where +one man at least had known Dolly; and Dolly had been afraid. + +She lighted another match, and the gas flashed up. Magdalen stood +staring. + +There was an unearthly neatness in the kitchen, a smell of yellow soap +and charwoman; a look of--she flew from room to room, lighting the gas +in each till it flared. Every single thing in the house was packed +up--gone. Even her own clothes had vanished. Dolly was out, indeed; +forever and a day. + +For a moment Magdalen shook where she stood among Madame Aline’s +fixtures, with the awful fear that perhaps Dolly had sent her to Marlow +just to be able to do this in peace. + +She sat down and put both hands to her head. + +“That’s nonsense!” she said to herself feverishly. “Something must have +frightened her. I was a fool to leave her here alone after telling her +about that dream.” + +Then something flashed over her. + +What had Stratharden been doing in front, almost, of Dolly’s door? What +had Buff Ogilvie been doing as Dick Lovell in Hare’s Rents? For all she +knew there had been enough to frighten Dolly. With her fingers over +her eyes she tried to think collectedly and could not. Thought after +thought broke and raveled in her brain. In despair she spoke aloud in +the desolate kitchen. + +“Dolly’s gone! Stratharden’s found her out! Lovell’s Buff Ogilvie, +Stratharden’s son.” + +Her voice broke in a high, dreadful whisper. “And he kissed me! Oh, my +God! He kissed me.” + +She forgot she was hungry, tired to death. Under the unshaded gas-jet +she sat like a dead woman who grows cold. There were lines on her face +that no girl’s should have--the awful marks it leaves to find out the +man she has loved. + +After a long time she began to mutter to herself. + +“He kissed me, and he spied on me. For what was that old French woman +but a spy? I hate him. I could----” + +With senseless fury she struck at the arm of her chair just as she +could have struck at Lovell’s face or at his heart with a knife, for +that matter. + +Black murder was in her blood where she sat alone, for that blood was +wilder than she knew. The horror of her passion passed and left her +cold again. + +“Lovell’s my business,” she said to the dirty gray wallpaper, “and +I’ll have time to settle it. It’s Dolly who matters now. I’ve got to +find her, and the best way is to sit here. She’ll find out how to let +me know. If she even went to Marlow after me she’ll wire here when she +finds I didn’t stay there.” + +But it was only a sop to Cerberus; she had no real thought that Dolly +had gone to Marlow. + +“I could send a ‘collect’ wire if I knew where,” she thought with +an ugly, mirthless laugh. “But I’d be a fool to go out even to the +telegraph office. For all I know Dolly may only be round the corner; +she might come back for me any minute. I daren’t be out.” + +A clock Dolly had forgotten struck in the silence. Seven; it was only +seven, and she had thought it the middle of the night. The homely, +comfortable sound brought her awful loneliness home to Magdalen Clyde. +In all London there was not one soul she could turn to; in spite of +common sense, she sat listening breathlessly for Dolly; Dolly, who was +miles away. Once she caught herself longing madly for Lovell to come +that she might tell him what she knew, with the dreadful cleverness a +cold anger that can neither forget nor forgive lends a woman’s tongue. +But there was small danger of his coming. Had she not made him swear to +stay away when she thought he loved her? He would not come now when he +had gone off with Stratharden to help hunt out Dolly’s shame. + +Somehow she had no contempt for Dolly now; no one but a brave woman +would have dared to act Dolly’s lie. + +In the flaring kitchen her eyes fell on the black oblong of the +uncurtained window; the dark of it held her gaze as a shining ball +hypnotizes. A sound, the ghost of a sound, would have made her get up +and lock it, fasten the shutters close; but there was no sound. + +A curious smell, half sweet, half nauseous, like decaying lilac +flowers, reached her by little puffs and eddies. There must be old +flowers in the rubbish-filled coal-box; she could not take the trouble +to look. There was a blank weariness on her, the stupidity that comes +after dreadful anger. Down-stairs, in that room she had dreamed of, she +would have had every sense awake; up here she gave way to the numbness +that was creeping over her; if Dolly rang the bell now she would hardly +care to answer the summons. The smell of those stale flowers was very +strong. + +Her head felt heavy; she leaned back in the stiff kitchen chair and +rested it against the wall. The gaslight turned her strange hair into +a glorious burnished halo, but under it the pale face was like a mask, +with half-closed, unwinking eyelids. The queer odor thickened, lost +its nauseousness, was sweet. To her tired brain it seemed to float in +tangible drifts like thin smoke; it soothed her. She must be very tired +to fancy such things about some dead flowers in the coal-box. + +Of course, since she had overheard Stratharden, she had no fears for +Dolly’s safety or Ronald’s. That danger was gone when lawful means +would dispose of them; for herself she had never had any fears; no +one had anything against her. Everything seemed a long way off, very +unimportant; there was comfort in the bare little kitchen that smelt so +sweet; it was making her sleepy. The gas ceased to flare in her eyes, a +gray curtain seemed to fall between her and the black square of window. + +A--gray--curtain. It was like shutting her eyes; only nicer, much +nicer; but, of course, they were shut since she was so nearly asleep. + +If anyone had looked through that bare window--and it might not have +been so hard, for beneath the window was a stone coping a foot wide and +higher than a man’s knee--he might have seen an ugly sight. For the +room was dim, indeed, with a mist that was thick, as it killed the air; +and in the middle of it a girl sat asleep with her eyes open. It was +too late for a sound to rouse her now if that was a sound behind her. + +In her empty bedroom the light went out. A black, wavering thing +slipped along the floor and down the stairs noiselessly. In the hall +was the hat and coat Magdalen had thrown down when she came in; when +the shadow had passed them they were gone. The lights were gone, too, +all but a feeble glimmer that did not come from gas. + +The little clock struck nine and the shadow moved faster. + +It was up-stairs again now, black in the gray kitchen. It held a candle +close to those open, unseeing eyes that never winked. The window opened +softly and presently stood wide. + +But hours of air would not wake this pale girl any more than lifting +her, dragging her head away from the rough wooden chair where a +splinter had caught in the thick mass of her hair. + +The kitchen light was out now and the sound of feet was audible, if +there had been anyone to hear it. Not even a black shadow can go +down-stairs quite noiselessly if it is real enough to carry a dead +weight in its arms. + +The fresh night wind blew in and out of the kitchen, in and out of +Magdalen’s bedroom, and scattered some fine ashes through the dark. The +clock struck ten, tremulously, as if it were afraid in an empty house, +and over it came the shrill whirr of an electric bell. + +A woman ran up the entrance stairs with a child in her arms and stamped +her foot as she lighted the gas at her own door and saw a telegraph boy +there. + +“What good are telegrams?” she cried. “Here, give it to me! You’ve been +hours.” + +She went in as Magdalen had done, but in her face there was no surprise +when she saw the house was empty. She had known it would be this two +hours. She took a telegram from her pocket and stared at it. + + “MADAME ALINE, Hare’s Buildings, London: I am not coming back. You + had better come here. Bring my things.” + +The date was Marlow. And to Marlow had Dolly gone in haste and come +back frantic. There was no Magdalen who had sent that wire. “A +foreign-looking woman,” the man said at the telegraph office, “pale, +with queer eyes.” And that must have been Magdalen. + +With a self-control that came from blank anguish Dolly made a bed for +Ronald and put him in it. Magdalen had thrown her over; she had said +she wanted to live her own life, and now she was doing it. + +“Lovell,” said Dolly to herself. “It’s Lovell.” + +She had not known it could hurt her so to find Magdalen no better than +herself. For it must be that. She remembered the day Magdalen had come +home transfigured with that in her eyes no woman can either hide or +counterfeit. She was too sick to be angry. + +The bell rang violently; rang again as if it would never stop. + +“She’s back! she’s no key!” Dolly flew to the door dizzy with joy. And +on the threshold was Mrs. Keith. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +“WHY SHOULD I TRUST YOU?” + + +Mrs. Keith; gaunt, dusty, so shabby--and with such a look on her +face--that but for her voice Dolly would hardly have known her. + +“Ye’re here. I’ve found ye!” she cried the instant the door opened. +“Bring her here that I may speak with her. No!” and she pushed away +like a leaf the door Dolly would have shut in her face. “I’ll have none +of that; the time and the need’s over. Call her here, I say, if ye’ve +sense in yer head.” + +She had come in and closed the door behind her before she said anything +but that “No!” She never even glanced at the bare disorder of the place +as she sat down on one of the three chairs left. + +Dolly stared at her, speechless with fright and anger. This was not the +Mrs. Keith she had fought with, this old woman whose face was working, +who wiped her hard eyes. + +“Thanks be to Gude I’m in time!” the housekeeper cried suddenly. “It +was just foreordained I should see ye getting in here.” + +Dolly at last found her voice. + +“What do you want of me? How dare you come here?--follow me?” she +demanded. Her thoughts flew to Ronald on the sofa; if this strong old +woman had come to take him she would claw her eyes out. + +“I want nothing of ye,” said Mrs. Keith; with her old distasteful +grimness she took in Dolly from head to toe. “Ye may die in the gutter +for all I care. I want the girl ye call yer sister. Have ye no wits, +woman, that ye stand staring? Cry on her to come down.” + +“That ye call your sister.” Dolly clutched at the smooth wall she stood +by. + +“What do you mean?” she cried. + +“I mean I know she’s not yer sister and never was. Call her down, ye +daft woman. There’s no time to waste.” + +“Who is she if she isn’t my sister?” If the words were defiant the +voice shook. The unexpected attack had caught Dolly Barnysdale +unprepared. + +“That’s what I’ve come to see. And to save her life this night, for her +look of one that’s dead, and the chance----Let her down, ye shaking +atom; or will ye never understand!” + +Dolly shook indeed. For once she saw things as they were and that this +was no trick to steal Ronald. Mrs. Keith--and God knew why--had come +here for Magdalen. + +“Get her?” she almost shrieked it. “I can’t get her. She’s gone! What +do you mean about her? What have you to do with her and her life?” + +“Gone? I’ll not believe it.” The thankfulness disappeared from the +gnarled old face. “Gone?” + +“Go and look,” said Dolly. She went, from meaningless caution, to +Ronald, and stood by him; but she knew all the while that, for some +reason she could not comprehend, she and Ronald were no more to +Stratharden’s housekeeper than dead leaves on a tree. She had not +thought any old woman could run so frantically from room to room, could +be back at her side with such quickness; nor that human flesh could +wear so livid a fear on its face. + +“What have ye done with her?” demanded Mrs. Keith and laid an iron +clutch on her shoulder. “Did ye not know from the day he saw her from +my window that it was she, not you, that was in peril of her life?” + +Dolly was shrewd enough. She knew like a flash that the woman was +honest. Mad as she sounded, there might be--a bare might be, from a dim +past--reason in her wild words. From where she sat beside Ronald she +told Mrs. Keith all she knew about this day’s work and never thought of +the irony of it. If this were Stratharden’s work, and the woman on his +side, she would know it in any case; if not--all who were not against +Dolly might be with her. + +“And so,” she wound up, “after she said she wouldn’t stay here because +of her dream, I went to Marlow after her, where I got her telegram from +there. And she wasn’t there. But she had been, for it was she who sent +the telegram. They said so in the office. ‘A woman with queer eyes.’” + +Mrs. Keith’s eyes flashed green; but when she spoke it was as slow as +dripping water. + +“She sent you no telegram,” declared Mrs. Keith and tightened the hand +she had never taken from Dolly’s shoulder. “Why would she, since she +was here not an hour ago? Come yer ways with me.” + +Dolly caught up Ronald and followed her, and in the kitchen Mrs. Keith +turned on her. + +“Smell!” she said. “Smell! or have ye no nose? And look here! Does a +girl drag the hairs out of her own head?” + +Dolly looked at the hard wooden chair, and long, fine strands of +hair hung from its splintered back like a flame, sniffed hard at the +air--and stood like a stone. When she left on that wild-goose chase to +Marlow there had been nothing on that clean-scrubbed chair. Magdalen +had come back and gone again. The queer scent in the room must have +been something she had bought to make herself fair for the man to whom +she had gone. For, in spite of Mrs. Keith, Lovell, and only Lovell, was +to Dolly Barnysdale the meaning of this day’s work. + +“I suppose she caught her hair somehow,” she said bitterly. “As for the +smell, it’s nothing but scent you buy in a shop.” + +“It’s a scent ye’ll get in no shop,” the woman cut her short. +“It’s----But why am I talking to ye? Answer me this before I go. Are ye +on Stratharden’s side--ye that he told me was crazy?” + +“Stratharden’s side?” she stupidly reiterated; then with sudden fury: +“His side, when I was in fear of my life from him, and you know it.” + +“I did not--at the time,” she slowly asserted. “Yer life’s safe from +him now; he’s after other game.” Her face contracted with a sharp pang. +“It’s her he wants,” she cried, “her! Speak out as if she were in her +coffin and I may be able to save her yet.” + +“Magdalen! From Stratharden?” + +“Just from him. Does she know she’s no half-sister of yours?” + +“How do you know it?” Dolly asked. + +“I found it out. Ye’d no sister; your mother, that was Mrs. Deane, took +in a woman and a child. The woman’s name was Clyde and she’d a little +money. Your mother----” + +“What has that to do with Stratharden?” Dolly fiercely demanded. + +“Maybe nothing. I know it all, that’s all. Now tell me the woman’s real +name, for the fear of God.” + +“I can’t,” replied Dolly. “Mother never knew it. Only Clyde. And +Magdalen never heard of her.” + +Mrs. Keith flung out her hands. + +“There must be some one who knows,” she said chokingly. “And in the +meantime she’ll die for her black eyes and her red hair. You’ll never +see her again--and I’ll go down to my grave with my work undone.” + +“Stop!” said Dolly furiously. “You’re talking riddles. Who would hurt +Magdalen if her name was not Clyde ten times over?” + +“Stratharden’s heathen, that she dreamed of. That scent ye smell is his +devil’s incense. Oh, my grief! and I stand talking here and know no way +to turn to look for her!” + +“But he’d have no reason. It’s I that am in Stratharden’s way.” + +“Ye’ll be out of it to-morrow. Do ye not guess that it’s she +Stratharden fears? Have ye no love for her that ye stand making talk? +Was there nowhere she might have gone? But I’m no better! She could go +nowhere with that scent of hell in the house.” + +“Lovell,” said Dolly sharply. Mrs. Keith’s wild talk and her knowledge +of Dolly herself had frightened her till she almost prayed she was +speaking the truth. “I think she’s gone to Mr. Lovell; and I don’t know +where he lives.” + +“Who’s Lovell?” + +“A man. He----” + +“Would I think he was a spirit?” she questioned harshly. + +“Why would she go to him?” + +Dolly’s misery broke out in bitterness. + +“Because he’s a man!” she cried. “Because he had a dark skin and a +hard mouth, and eyes that looked you through and through, and a way of +moving like a tiger-cat, soft and quick.” + +“Lovell, ye call him.” Mrs. Keith stood motionless. “A man that would +throw back his head and look at you? That spoke soft and clean?” + +Dolly nodded sullenly. + +“Then may the Lord have mercy on her,” exclaimed Mrs. Keith. “Woman, +that’s no Lovell, but Buff Ogilvie, Stratharden’s son, for I saw them +together. They’ve trapped her, and ’twas me did it. Me!” Her voice rang +harsh, anguished; she turned to run from the house. + +Dolly, slim, soft Dolly, sprang at her like a cat. When Magdalen had +hated that tigerish love of Dolly’s for Ronald, she had not guessed it +would wake like this for her. + +“You’ll not go till I know what you’re driving at.” She shook like a +reed the woman she had feared. “Why would they trap her? Why do you +talk nonsense about Ah Lee having been in a locked-up house like this? +What has she to do with Stratharden?” + +Mrs. Keith looked at her and was her old stony self. + +“I’ll not tell you,” said she, “till I find her. Why would I trust you +any more than him, a light woman and a liar?” She shook Dolly’s hands +off like water, and the heavy sound of her old feet came back as she +ran, with trembling knees, down the stairs. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +ONLY A BIT OF GOLD FILIGREE. + + +Lord Stratharden sat in his own bedroom in the little maisonette that +opportune whitewashing of his had allowed him to return to as if he had +never fled from it, and pursued a peculiar employment with interest. + +On the floor beside him, and even in his preoccupation he was careful +not to let cigarette ashes fall in them, were two open boxes, the +entire wardrobe of a woman who, if she had little, had it dainty. +Nothing was marked and everything was almost new. + +Stratharden turned up the last layer in the last box with the patience +of a man who is thorough, even though he expects nothing. + +At last he found something that flushed his sallow cheek. + +“My God!” he said softly, because in his youth he had believed in one. +“This thing--and me!” + +For he knew what he had in his hand as a man knows a trinket with which +he has tried--and failed--to buy a woman. Only a bit of gold filigree +with a turquoise N on it--a cheap offer for a woman’s soul and body if +it had only possessed the value it looked and not a thousand thousand +times more. + +“So she kept it. She was a clever devil!” he thought, but the look of +the pin made a devil in him as he held it. His world would have been +loud in incredulous laughter if they had known what was in his mind. +Never in all his variegated life had Stratharden’s soul or mind, or +flesh even, turned with a real emotion to any woman but this one, who +had only cared for another man. He thought of the women who had given +him all she denied him; was sick again as he had been in their arms, +because there was no pleasure in any woman’s kisses but hers; cursed +aloud because for all his pains he had been “faithful to her in his +fashion” in many a gray dawn and midnight madness. Oh, he owed her a +debt--a debt! Never in all his life had any woman quickened his pulses +in him; never, try as he might, had he been able to care. It was a good +debt--and he would pay it. Pay it so that Ninon’s rotting flesh should +feel it in her grave. + +“Her daughter!” exclaimed Lord Stratharden, and did not know his mouth +was gray. “And I did it for the chance. I never, as God’s my witness, +believed in it.” + +But he believed now. He sat, an old man, racked with accusing thoughts. +And Ninon had died young, out of her torture--and what his reflections +were is not good to write. + +A noise, that in another house would have been called brawling, brought +him out of his thoughts in a flash. Quick as he was he had but time to +get those open boxes into a safe place before the winning side in that +loud fight was on him. + +Mrs. Keith, her hand tingling from the crack that had blinded James, +stood beside him. And the man who meant to put back the clock one way +or another lifted his eyebrows at her in cool inquiry. + +“Is David dead--or Ardmore burned?” he asked. + +“Ye’ve done it,” she said, and it was not an answer; nor did she +trouble to close the door. “Ye spied on me till ye found her out, and +now ye’ve spirited her away. Ye and yer heathen, and Buff Ogilvie, that +I thought his mother’s blood had leavened till yer own was out of him.” + +Lord Stratharden shut the door and handed to her a glass of neat +whisky; and as he spoke the wonder on his face was real. + +“Drink that and sit down. You’re exhausted. And then tell me what +you’re talking about.” + +“Ye well know!” She was breathing heavily and she needed the whisky, if +it was her enemy’s. When she put down the glass her hand was steady. +“Oh, ye well know, Stratharden! Ye can cease yer play-acting and yer +eyebrow rounding. That girl that ye wanted--his daughter--brings me +here.” + +He stopped her as a man stops a ball. + +“Are you at that old story?” he asked slowly. “Poor Keith, it isn’t +true. There’s no hope of it. That girl lives only in your faithful +head. Do you think that I, hopelessly ousted myself, would not be +glad to believe in it and give Barnysdale’s wife and brat the go-by, +as you’d say? I would, indeed. But that red-haired, black-eyed Clyde +girl is nothing but what she seems--Lady Barnysdale’s half-sister. Do +you want me to see her? For I will with pleasure.” And he looked so +guileless and truthful that she feared him as she had never feared him +before. + +“Bring her out then, if ye’d see her,” said she. “For a man who sent +Buff Ogilvie to her and then took her by ye’re heathen, ye’re not +overclever.” She had warmed to her work, perhaps aided by the whisky, +and she forgot caution. She raved at him and told all she knew, and +he sat like a stone till she was done. Then he touched her shoulders +forgivingly. + +“You’re quite foolish,” he said gravely. “As for the girl, she is only +an impostor, and all you’ve told me is guesswork. What would I do with +her? And as for Ah Lee, he left my service a month ago. I know no more +of him than the dead. If she’s disappeared it’s----What did you mean +about Buff?” he asked with a sudden flash that seemed natural, though +it had required a supreme effort to defer the question. He could not +for his life see how Buff could be mixed up in it, and yet some words +came back to him queerly. + +“I’ll tell him!” She fairly spat the words at him. “I believe no single +word ye’ve said. I----” + +The room went round, turned dark; if some one fell Mrs. Keith did not +hear the crash of it. + +“Very like a fit,” said Stratharden musingly, five minutes after. +“Queer stuff, whisky.” + +He rang the bell and gave a kindly order. The old woman was such a +faithful servant and apparently so ill; and he really could not have +Buff told things by anyone but himself. + +It was nothing to him that through that long night a girl was calling +for Buff by a name his father had never heard, but it was important +that Buff was the only person to be feared in the whole business. + +“And that good Keith has forewarned me of him,” said Lord Stratharden, +and went peacefully to his bed. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +THE GREEN BAIZE DOOR. + + +There is a drug in the hellish pharmacopœia of China, to prevent the +further manufacture of which tender-hearted people should go on their +knees and pray the allied powers may some day wipe the Chinese off the +face of the earth. + +The taking of it means death, very slow death. The burning of it--for +it is primarily a gum and, made into pastilles with sawdust, has +a smell that is half pleasant--is not a good thing for the person +who sits in the smoke of it. After half an hour of that vapor it is +impossible to move either hand or foot, to wink though a candle singes +the eyelashes. But there is no insensibility in that paralysis, which +is where the wickedness of the stuff comes in. Hearing, seeing, feeling +the tortures of the damned into the bargain, the person stupefied can +neither move nor cry out; even tears are stopped in them. The only +trouble with the stuff, from a Chinese point of view, is that to use it +twice in twenty-four hours spells death to the victim. And it is not +always safe to have a dead body on your hands. + +Thus every step of the way down-stairs was clear to Magdalen Clyde as +her head hung down lifeless over Ah Lee’s arm. For she knew it was +Ah Lee, though he was dressed in a woman’s black gown; she felt the +hateful nails of his long fingers as he clutched her. What was the +matter with her that she could not scream? Her heart felt as if it +would burst in the dreadful effort; a cold pain shot, lightning-swift, +through her limbs; and her thoughts--if she could think, how was it she +could do no more? + +It was all so simple. Ah Lee was taking her away. They were going +down-stairs, turning not to the street, but to the green baize door. + +What for? There was no way out there. The tailor would find her there +in the morning; the man who carried her was a fool. It seemed hardly to +matter that she could not, for some dreadful constriction somewhere, +either move or scream. The cold air of the little dark room struck +fresh on her face. + +Ah Lee--she saw his face as he lighted a match, and could have shrieked +with horror at something that surmounted his fishy eyes and smooth +forehead--laid her down on the table like a parcel. + +“He’s going to leave me here!” she thought. “What for?” + +She felt as if she wrenched her bones out of their sockets as she tried +to see what he was doing behind her; yet all the while she knew she +had not so much as moved her little finger. That cold torture swept +through her again, and she could not even grind her teeth on it. For +a moment that alone, and it was quite enough, took all her attention. +When it passed she knew that whatever Ah Lee was he was not the fool +she thought. + +“The ventilator!” She saw the beautiful case of it all like a flash, +just as she saw before her the source of that draft she had been too +stupid to find. In one corner of the room was a square iron patch, cut +out into patterns; a bit of filigree, not a grating. As Ah Lee lighted +a match over it the rush of air from it put out the flickering thing. + +“The table was over it when I was here,” she thought with deadly +recollection. “That was why I didn’t find it,” and the sweat of fear +was damp on her hands. The Chinaman was going to put her in the cellar, +and---- + +“That horrible smell up-stairs!” She could put it together now with +dreadful clearness. “It made me like this. I can’t speak or move; I’ll +be dead in the cellar--no one ever goes there.” + +From where he had laid her on her side she saw, with the eyes she +could not shut, Ah Lee rise softly from his knees; business-like and +impassive, as if he had been handling the potatoes at Ardmore Castle. + +He picked her up--living, breathing Magdalen Clyde, who could neither +move nor cry--and carried her to the corner of the floor where there +was no fancy iron cover now but only a square opening. In the black +darkness she felt the edges of it as he---- + +God! God in heaven! Her feet were down that hole to her knees; his +hands were round her waist; were under her arms! She was sliding like +a log down to the unknown horror below. The filth of an unused cellar, +the----She heard the scurrying of the horde of London rats as her head +got below the level of the floor, while her feet still touched on +nothing. Why did he not let her drop and be done? + +For his grip was in her armpits still, and as she hung she felt his +feet in their woman’s skirt pass her face. He was leaning down with her +half in and half out of the opening. + +Her feet touched something, stone cold, solid. + +Ah Lee, still clutching her with one hand--she had not thought a piece +of smug yellow flesh could be so strong--was lowering himself with the +other. + +As she thought it the man made the quick drop of a gymnast, and with a +trick of the arm eased her softly to the floor where he stood beside +her. + +Exactly as a bird watches a snake she watched him; she even wondered, +through the cold fear that was on her, how he had come to get her +instead of Dolly. It was Dolly he had meant to leave to the rats in +this place--able neither to scream nor move. + +There must have been good stuff in Magdalen Clyde; she thanked God that +Ah Lee had not got Dolly, even as she saw him put up his arms and lift +himself half out of the open hole. + +She would have shut her eyes if she could, not to see him go in the +light of the match he held in his teeth. But she could only watch him +till the match light died. He reached out for something, and then the +dark hid him. + +“He’s going,” she thought slowly. “And the rats will come.” She had +always had a deadly, foolish terror of rats. She prayed God she might +not die that death, but some other. + +Something dropped lightly beside her; over her head was a sound of iron +settling into its socket. In the deadly silence of the place a hand +felt for her, very soft and slow. + +He had not gone. He had put the grating of the manhole into its place. + +“He’s going to kill me!” thought the girl; and was glad, because of +those scurrying rats. + +Well, but for Dolly left alone, what was death? Yesterday there had +been Lovell, to-day there was only some burned-out ashes and a lie. It +was not for Buff Ogilvie and his Judas kisses that she would fain stay +in the world, though perhaps the thought of them added another pang to +the going out of it. The awful terror of death that catches the heart +and turns it over came on her. She was brave as women go, but a man +might have winced at the slow touch of those fingers that had murder in +them. They crept like loathsome worms from her wrist to her throat. + +For a moment the Chinaman felt the stagnant pulse there. He grunted +to himself, and as Magdalen Clyde waited for the blow that would end +her--and perhaps it may be not written against her as cowardice that +she prayed he might not bungle at the job--he stood erect and turned +away. She heard him stepping across the cellar, and she knew now whose +step that was which had waked her on a night now centuries past. + +A little creak of wood sounded loud, but before she could wonder at it +the man was at her side again. He threw her over his shoulder like a +sack of potatoes, and as he did it she saw where the cold draft came +from that aired the tailor’s room. Just a common wooden hatchway, wide +open, the starlit oblong of it bright as day in the black cellar. + +Ah Lee grunted again as he shoved his corpselike burden up and through; +climbed out himself with beautiful lightness and with business-like +attention to details, lowered the lid of the cellar hatch to the proper +angle and fitted in the iron bars that no one had looked at for months. + +“We’re in the court between our house and Madame Duplessis’,” Magdalen +thought swiftly, for that was where the cellar hatch must open. Flat on +her back, on cold, greasy stones, she could not be sure, since all she +could see was a star in a straight line over her. She could not move +her eyeballs any more than if she and they had been cut out of white +marble. But she could think and touch hell by it. Lovell, the blind +French woman, and Stratharden’s Chinaman made a dreadful sum in her +head. If Ah Lee took her to Lovell, who was Ogilvie, the horror of it +would kill her. + +For a long five minutes it seemed as if he could not make up his mind +what to do. He stared about him with lack-luster eyes, and was at last +sure the court was empty. The only way out of it was through the +passages of Hare’s Rents, and at this hour they would be deserted. + +Ah Lee chose one of them, haphazard; pulled down a veil from his +lady-like hat, and did not look so unlike the broken-down women with a +pretense of decency who crawl along the pavements of the slums. + +He picked up his burden very differently this time and was careful to +stagger under it, as a woman might do who makes shift to carry another +who is drunk or ill. Anywhere else some one would have stared curiously +at the queer sight; Hare’s Rents was callous; also, it was out or in +bed. But even Ah Lee hid against his arm the dreadful face and staring +eyes of the girl he carried as he neared the open doorway that led +through the Rents to the lane. Some child might shriek at the look of +those eyes. + +The horrible sweetness of the drug he carried hung about his woman’s +mantle and half stifled Magdalen Clyde. She felt him come to a sudden +pause and did not know that one word--that she could not speak--would +have saved her. + +For they were in the passage where an ugly gas-jet burned dim; and +there, between Ah Lee and the street, sprung from Heaven knew where, +stood a woman. She was oddly dressed, almost like a nun; and as she +stood she stared. + +The Chinaman opened his lips to speak, and with a quick change in his +face shut them again. Those bright-brown eyes that glared so widely +were blind! + +Noiseless as a drift of wind he passed and was gone into the street +beyond. Aunt Manette breathed softly through her nose, moistened her +lips with a delicate, tasting movement. + +“What an abominable odor!” said she to herself curiously. “But of +course----” + +Magdalen’s head, of its own weight, fell back from the Chinaman’s arm; +her desperate, immovable eyes saw the French woman Lovell had sent to +her turn away smiling. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + +LORD STRATHARDEN BEGINS. + + +Lord Stratharden rose with unusual alacrity the next morning. He had +thought out all he meant to do and he had best do it. In the gray dawn +he had had a sudden uncomfortable idea that he would have done better +to fall in with Mrs. Keith’s theory that the red-haired girl was what +the turquoise-studded heart--and other things--made likely. The sham +Lady Barnysdale could have been made accountable, then, for her pseudo +half-sister’s disappearance; she would have had good reason to be rid +of her. + +“I could not have exposed her, though,” he reflected and was comforted. + +His line was right after all. Yesterday had been a hard day; the +hardest thing in it to have those two boxes cleverly abstracted from +the pile Dolly had left in charge of a porter. Lord Stratharden’s nerve +had served him well while he held the man in conversation, and knew +that behind his back those two boxes were going into a cab. + +Dolly Barnysdale, in her desperate hurry to get home, never noticed +that her luggage receipt was for three boxes and not five. But Lord +Stratharden knew. + +He was an utterly desperate man this morning as he tied his immaculate +necktie. No one knew better than he what the woman whose money he had +borrowed would do if he did not give her the return he had promised for +it. But a desperate man is bad to fight and Stratharden knew it. He +looked in silent consultation at his own face in the glass. + +“The girl is--not likely to turn up!” thought he serenely. “My supposed +sister-in-law will suspect no--no under currents--when she learns that +a lady claimed those boxes. She will think of some man I feel assured. +I will go first, then, to my lady; and put any thoughts beyond her own +welfare out of her head. As for Buff----” He paused with a certain +uneasiness. What Buff had had to do with that dark-eyed girl he could +not get at unless it was the--usual thing. + +“For Buff, the less he knows of the affair the better,” he concluded. +“Thanks to neat whisky on top of exhaustion, our good Keith has had +something very like a fit. I must send the doctor to see the old woman +and explain to him about her harmless hallucinations. But I don’t know! +She’s canny; she won’t be apt to talk. I’ll merely suggest that he +suggests rest and nursing. So that our old and faithful servant won’t +find it so easy to get out of my house and scour London to confide in +Buff. There’s no one else to tell him. Gad, for all I know, he may be +in love with the girl. Or else he’s more like me than I thought;” but +this smile was less like smiling than ever. + +He left the house so quietly on his important day’s work that James was +too late to open the door for him. + +That excellent servant was nonplused for a moment when he found his +master gone, but his face cleared as he decided that what he had meant +to tell him was probably of no importance. + +“Anyhow, I couldn’t help it,” thought he, and turned back to his +morning paper. + +And Lord Stratharden, with a mind at ease, mounted Dolly Barnysdale’s +stairs. He was more annoyed than polite when his fourth ring at the +bell brought no answer. The fifth was more successful, since it nearly +brought the house down. + +Dolly, white as death, opened the door. + +Stratharden eyed her up and down in silence. + +“What do you want?” she demanded, and he realized he had never heard +the real Dolly speak before. “What have you done with Magdalen?” + +If Keith’s raging had not forewarned him he could never have let the +second question pass as if unheard. + +“I want to say unpleasant things,” said he softly. “My dear, foolish +little woman, I--well, believe me, I feel for you!” + +“How?” asked Dolly. She never moved an inch. “You did it. Keith said +so. Tell me what you’ve done with Magdalen or I’ll tell,” and her +tongue was venomous, “the whole town about Ardmore and what you tried +to do to me--and Ronald.” + +“I don’t,” said he slowly, “know what you mean. Who is Magdalen? And +what has Keith to do with this matter? My good girl you’re dreaming! +Poor Keith is in bed at my house, suffering from the fits to which she +is subject. She came there last night quite irresponsible. Do you mean +she had been here?” + +“You know she was here.” Dolly spoke up bravely, but in spite of +herself she was the least bit shaken. He looked so absolutely, politely +puzzled. “And you know Magdalen is my stepsister and that you took her +away.” + +Lord Stratharden had in that one second of her recoil from him came +into the little hall without either haste or pushing. He glanced about +him before he answered perfunctorily. + +“I never to my knowledge saw your stepsister in my life, except once +from the window of Keith’s lodgings. If Keith, with an epileptic +fit coming on her, told you any such nonsense as that I should wish +to carry off your sister--though, of course, I don’t doubt she’s +charming”--with a bow--“you must see for yourself that it is untenable. +I should have no reason.” + +“Keith said you had.” + +“Ah! What was it?” + +“She wouldn’t--I won’t tell you.” + +“She wouldn’t say? Precisely. Her poor brain could not invent a reason. +What, in common sense, should I want with your sister? I came, my +good girl, on far other business.” The insolence in his voice was +unmistakable. + +“How dare you call me that?” Dolly cried. “No, hold your tongue! +I don’t care what you call me. All I care for is that Magdalen’s +gone--and I know she never left me of her own accord. She went to +Marlow, and when I followed she wasn’t there.” + +“So you think she’s with me. I confess I hardly see the connection.” + +“You, or your son, who lied to her and called himself Lovell,” she +hotly replied. “It’s all one. Keith said you’d both a hand in it.” + +Stratharden’s eyebrows came down. He would have a score to settle with +Keith. + +“My son,” he said, and it had been a knock-down blow to him to find +Buff in the thing so heavily, “has five names. It’s immaterial to me +which one he uses. I confess I should have liked to have changed my own +name when I found how much mud had been thrown at it. But I don’t think +you’ll find your sister with my son,” and he said it confidently. + +“But she’s with some one,” Dolly flashed out. “Her boxes are gone from +the station where I left them.” + +Stratharden smiled. + +“Did her sister never go off with anyone in haste and without leave?” +he asked calmly. “That sort of thing usually runs in families.” + +Dolly looked at him. + +“It’s better than murder,” she said with her cat’s teeth showing, “and +that runs in families, too. I don’t believe a word you say to me. Come +here.” + +She cast a hasty glance at the locked door of the dining-room as she +passed it and prayed Ronald would not find out he was shut in. + +Stratharden followed her with a shrug. He was keen enough to see all +there was. + +“Look there,” said Dolly, in the kitchen, where that strand of hair +was darkly red on the rough chair. “And there”--in Magdalen’s bedroom, +where a tiny pile of gray ashes was on the floor. “That was something +your Chinaman brought--Keith said so. I don’t know why you sent him +nor what Magdalen was to you, but she was taken out of this house by +you. And I’ll tell that, and all I know, to the police. Do you think I +didn’t know you tried to kill us at Ardmore?” + +Stratharden drew a long breath, held it, and looked her in the eyes. It +is a useful trick if you lower your head at the same time. + +“I think,” said he, “that you are playing a very foolish game. It +is nothing to me that you choose to invent lies about your stay at +Ardmore--the whole countryside will know you for a liar in a day or +two. But it is something to me that you should put your sister’s +bolting with some man, on my, or my son’s, shoulders. I know nothing +about the girl; she may be anywhere in London for all I know”--which +was absolutely true--“and as for my Chinaman, as you call him, he left +my service a month ago. For that,” he flicked contemptuously at the +heap of ashes, “it is the remnant of a pastille, neither more nor less. +You buy them at the chemist’s.” + +“You needn’t try so hard to scatter it,” said Dolly, watching his stick +moving in the gray ashes. “I’ve more. And I’m going to tell. No one, I +don’t care who they are, shall play tricks with Magdalen.” She shook +with rage, but her eyes were fearless. + +“Oh, of course not!” Stratharden assented with evil slowness. +“Personally I should not, in your case, talk of tricks, since----I +confess, if your sister knows all that I do, I can’t wonder she left +you in some haste! Did you never, Lady Barnysdale,” with a stress on +the name, “hear of a man called Churchill?” + +“No,” said Dolly. But her face was gray. + +“Then I think we will let him recall himself to your memory,” he +quietly remarked, “in court. It was a clever plan, my good girl, but +not workable. If I were you I should say very little indeed about your +sister having left you; and as for your wild accusations--how much +credence do you suppose a jury will put in a woman who never was Lady +Barnysdale at all? Your son----” + +Dolly was swaying like a fainting woman, but she leaped toward him at +that word. + +“Is Barnysdale’s son!” she cried. “His own son.” + +“You and Churchill can prove it,” said Stratharden. And Dolly +Barnysdale winced from the blow. Churchill could prove it, indeed. And +Magdalen--if Magdalen knew, no wonder she left a woman who was found +out. + +When Dolly lifted her beaten head Stratharden was smiling at her; just +as if he knew that the one thing that would tell in her favor before a +jury was something that--knowing him--she would have died rather than +use. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + +THE BLIND GUIDE. + + +“A fit,” Lord Stratharden had said. + +There was very little look of such a seizure on Mrs. Keith’s face as +she let herself softly out of his house at five o’clock in the morning. +She stood and shook her fist at the closed windows. + +“A common drunken woman,” said she grimly. “That’s what ye made of me +last night and ye’ll pay dear for it. It’s not me that will need a dram +this night!” + +She was off down the deserted street with amazing speed for an old +woman who had been drunk overnight and had eaten nothing for eighteen +hours. + +She had no money and no idea where to go to find Buff Ogilvie; no hope +either of getting much out of him if she did find him, since he was his +father’s son. + +“I’ll go first to that queer woman who’s lost her sister,” she thought +with a hope she knew to be a lie that the missing girl might have got +home again. But it was nearly nine o’clock before her weary old feet +took her to Dolly’s door; she stood looking up and down the street +with hungry eyes for Magdalen Clyde, and saw no one but a man crossing +the end of the square. Her eldritch yell brought the tailor to his +window, but he saw no one either. Keith--and Heaven knows how she got +there--was round the corner and clawing the arm of a tall man in blue +serge clothes. + +“Ogilvie,” she panted. “How come ye here? I’ve--but it’s no matter! For +the sake of the mother that bore ye, and ye know what her life was as I +do, what have ye done with my dead master’s child?” + +“Keith!” The man stared in bewilderment. Haggard-eyed, trembling with +exhaustion, he hardly knew the stern old woman. It was no wonder that +he thought her distraught. “You in London!” + +“I’ve been here weeks; but let that go!” There were tears in her eyes +that he had never seen soften. “It’s a black business, Ogilvie----” + +“I don’t go by that name,” he cut her off with a half laugh. “I’m done +with the breed, Keith. My mother’s name was Lovell, and so is mine.” + +“I’m not concerned with what they call ye. Ye take a queer way to be +done with yer blood when ye mix in this business. What have ye done +with that girl I saw ye with--her they call Magdalen Clyde? She’s gone, +and Ogilvie, or Lovell, or Stratharden, I’ll get even with ye if I +scream hell down.” + +“Gone?” exclaimed Lovell. “What do you mean?” He made a step to go +back to Magdalen’s home, which he had never entered, and the old woman +caught his coat. + +“Are ye in it? By the mother that bore ye?” Her eyes seemed to bore +into his. + +“In it? In her going? I! By God”--and she had never known him to swear +before a woman--“I don’t know what you mean!” + +“I’ll tell ye, then,” she answered chokingly. “No, not here--and not at +her house. Stratharden, if I know him, is there now. Have ye nowhere ye +can take me? for I fear me I’ll drop before my work’s done.” + +“Yes,” he briefly replied. He put his arm through hers and guided her. +“But what are you saying about my father? What has he to do with her?” + +But she could not answer, and at his door in Hare’s Rents he picked +her up like a child and carried her to his room. If the blind woman’s +door was open as he passed, he did not notice it, nor realize that the +sound of his feet told that he carried a burden. + +“Now,” he said, as he sat her down and shut the door, “begin! Where is +Magdalen Clyde gone and what do you know about her? How did you know to +come to me? or that I’m----” + +“Then ye know it! Ye false-swearing----” + +“That I’m going to marry her?” with an angry laugh. “Go on.” + +“That----” The woman looked at him and the hard strength, the loyalty +of him came home to her soul. “Ogilvie, Ogilvie,” she sobbed. “She’s +ye’re cousin; she’s Ian’s, my Ian’s daughter. She’s Countess of +Barnysdale.” + +The Ogilvie who had forsworn his name stood dumb. + +Out in the hall some one prayed in the breathing silence for hearing, +with blind, fierce eyes. + +“Ian’s daughter,” the man said stupidly. “He never had one.” + +“Ye were told so,” said Mrs. Keith. “I should know, since I was at her +bearing. And Stratharden, who stole from me what I’d found out about +her, knows, too. Think ye, when I find her gone and the hair of her +head torn from her, that I would not guess at Stratharden? It’s she +that Ardmore belongs to, and once she’s gone, ye’ll see that, by hook +or crook, Stratharden will oust that feckless body, her sister--show +she was, maybe, never Lady Barnysdale at all.” + +Lady Barnysdale--that sister of Dark Magdalen’s, to whom he had +scarcely given a thought! And Stratharden--he knew what Keith only +guessed at about that ousting of Dolly. Father of his or not, if +Stratharden had dared to meddle with Dark Magdalen he should pay for it. + +“Tell me all you know,” he said, and his face was not good to see. +“About her going away, I mean. I don’t care who she is--till I get her +back again.” + +He walked up and down as she poured out her broken-backed, disconnected +story; a thing of shreds and patches picked up here and there. + +“You that know her,” she cried, “did ye not see that she was Ian over +again? Did ye not mind the likeness in the chapel? I stood her beneath +it, and I marked her line by line.” + +“I never was in the chapel. Was it likely I would hear much of my uncle +Ian?” His look was absent as if this part of the story was nothing to +him. “It’s yesterday I want to know about. What made you think of Ah +Lee?” + +“Do ye no mind the heathen scent of him? In his clothes when ye passed +him? It was there in the room where her bonny hair had caught in the +chair he’d taken her from. Did ye ever smell the like of it but with +him?” + +She jumped up and caught him by the arm. + +“Where are ye going?” She was afraid of the look on his face. + +“To my father. Let me go, Keith. If what you’ve told me is true the +sooner I’m with him the better.” + +“To have him lie to ye as he lied to me--soft and quick. No, no! Go to +her sister, Lady Barnysdale, and----Oh, man! do ye not see that all +I’ve told ye’s but guesswork? We’ve got to get the girl in our hands +and find out it’s true before ye face Stratharden down. And”--quickly, +for he was not listening to her--“here is one who knows--a woman named +Duplessis, that was----Heavens! who is that?” + +He turned at the cry. Aunt Manette stood in the doorway, and there was +nothing human in the look of her face. + +“I--that woman!” she cried. “I--oh, yes, I listened, M. Lovell. It is +my business more than yours. This woman here is right. I, who know it +all, can tell you; though, till I heard to-day, I could not put it all +together.” + +“You!” Keith cried. “Madame Duplessis, that died----” + +“That was blinded,” Aunt Manette corrected her, very softly. + +Lovell looked from one to the other. They were speaking of things that +were Greek to him. + +“What have you to do with it?” he said to the French woman. + +“I am her grandmother,” said Aunt Manette simply. “She is my Ninon’s +child. And your servant here is right; where she is gone she was +carried. I was last night in the passage, and there went past me, +slowly and slowly, a man who carried a burden. And the scent from his +clothes was one of the East, like sweet corruption. I, that am blind, +stood there while he passed me by. Fool that I was never to know it was +the Chinaman!” + +The Chinaman! Why did she speak as if she knew the man? To Aunt +Manette, in Hare’s Rents, “a Chinaman” should have come more naturally. +Lovell looked from one old woman to the other, angry at their mysteries +that he did not know. + +The French woman ran to him with her unerring instinct. + +“You are reasonable,” she cried; “we waste time. But tell me where it +is that you are going.” + +“Police.” There was enough of his father in him to make him careless +whether he walked over his own flesh and blood, so that he had his +dark love back again. That any woman should be at a Chinaman’s mercy +sickened him; but that it was Magdalen sent him mad. + +“Police,” said the blind woman with her hard daintiness, “will +take time! We have no time. You and I, Mr. Lovell, will do better. +If----You are Stratharden’s son! Swear to me that you love her; swear +quickly--that I may trust you still!” + +Lovell, who cared for no man’s will, obeyed her like a child. The man +was sick to the core, and perhaps did it mechanically. + +“As she loves me,” he ended very low. But Aunt Manette believed him. +She pointed a white finger at Keith. + +“Go to her sister,” said she; “stay with her. The sister who is a +stranger and may not be true. Keep her under your hand--till we come.” + +Keith nodded. Nunlike coif, strange name and all, she knew Madame +Duplessis now, the woman that had overturned a throne. + +And it was that woman, not humble Aunt Manette, that turned again to +Lovell. + +“I hate your father,” she said. “I hated his Chinaman. For years it +has been my affair to know where they were that I might turn my hand +against them; for between them they broke my Ninon’s heart. I that +am blind will take you that are strong to that Chinese den where the +police dare not go.” + +“I’ll go alone. You can’t,” he roughly answered. + +“And at midnight not have found it! Sainte Vierge! must I tell you that +I, whom you think half bedridden, am a blessed saint to those slums you +never see? Where you could not go I can take you. Night after night +have I smoothed their dying in those dens for nothing? Shall I not go +where I please in broad day?” + +It would be fighting for two women instead of one, but he did not say +so. He was mad to be off, and if she could guide him it would save time. + +At her door she bade him wait; and came out again with a decent shawl +over her head; an old blue shawl that would bring half-a-dozen ruffians +to her back at the sight of it. She had not lied when she said she was +a blessed angel in those slums. + +“Take that,” she said, and put in his hand something that had an ugly +glitter; “but do not use it unless you must. Trust your hands the good +God made strong--for this day.” + +He marveled, as Magdalen had done, at the way she threaded the streets +with hardly a question; one hand on his arm, the other against the +filthy houses they passed. And thus he forgot everything but Magdalen, +for he who lived in Hare’s Rents and would have said he knew each inch +of their neighborhood was lost after five hundred yards. Through filthy +yards and unspeakable alleys the blind woman led him; by twists and +turns, in sunlight and darkness--for twice they went in one door of +a house and came out another--she hurried him on. He saw she counted +her steps interminably, felt every greasy wall and doorway they went +through, and when at last she stopped he stared. + +They stood in a court, respectable after the reeking alleys they had +threaded, an empty court with whole windows instead of broken ones; and +a silence like death hung over their heads. + +“Do not speak,” she muttered as she drew him swiftly into a doorway. +“The place, each window, would be alive!” + +She pushed the door, and it swung back on noiseless hinges. With her +fingers on her lips she tapped on the blank wall at her side: five +times--nine times--five times again. + +No one answered, there was not a soul to be seen, but a door before +them swung forward heavily. It had reason, for it was clamped with +bronze outside and in. + +There was still no sound, but there was something else. A burning, +acrid smell that clutched the throat, a distressing heaviness. Lovell +looked at her and she nodded. He saw that she scarcely breathed for +caution, and she motioned in front of her. + +Down a long narrow passage--and that Chinese smell that is like nothing +else in heaven or earth came up it--was spotless matting; ranged down +it were clean straw slippers in orderly rows; opposite them boots that +might have touched his heart at another time. Thick and thin, worn to +holes, the boots of men who starve and freeze half naked, that the +“black smoke” may lift their souls to peace. There were decent shoes, +too, of Chinamen who earned an honest livelihood, but most were the +shoes of men who “move on” eternally. + +At the look in the blind eyes he understood, and left his own shoes in +the orderly rank; he shook his head at the slippers; he would shuffle +in them. + +Aunt Manette felt the negative. She stooped and hid a pair of slippers +in her dress, lest the keepers of the house should count them. He saw +that she did not mean to take off her own foot covering; it was one +person who came in, not two. + +Never in his life had Lovell felt anything so strong as that silent +bidding to silence in the blind woman’s touch. For himself he would +have stormed through the house, wrecked doors, fought--but he knew the +woman in the blue shawl was a better guide than he. + +One door they passed, and then another; a third they crept by inch by +inch; for inside it men spoke in a strange tongue. + +The passage sloped down, grew dark. The woman who was always in the +dark moved surely; sometimes he felt her stoop and place his feet where +they should go. Down and down they went, by stairs that were ladders, +round corners; till in the black labyrinth he knew, as a brave man +knows, that without Aunt Manette he would have come here in vain. + +In the dark she stopped and listened. Very far off some one laughed--a +wicked sound in that place. She drew him on a step or two, and held his +hand while she felt above her on the wall. + +“There,” she breathed in his ear. “Press up; in!” and as he did it some +one laughed again. + +“Quick!” directed the woman, and caught him that he might not fall +forward, for the wall in front of him had slipped away like a card +slides into a pack. + +There was a dull light in front of them, a room horrible with hangings +unspeakable; a man sitting half erect on a heap of mats. + +“You!” said Lovell; and knew the laugh that answered him, though it was +close instead of seeming miles away. + +“So you’ve come,” said the bleached thing in the gaudy dressing-gown, +without surprise. + +“Mr. Churchill,” said Aunt Manette, who had half-closed the door +behind her--and stood by it, a living wedge in the opening. “There is +one--inside?” + +He looked at her. + +“Ask Ah Lee,” he said listlessly. “As for me, I’m dying. But I couldn’t +die with those moans in my ears. It was part of the bargain that I +should die in peace.” + +Lovell cursed him; and some rag of manhood came back to Bertie +Churchill, who had mortgaged his last copper to Ah Lee for a place to +die in. + +“Be civil, Ogilvie,” he said; “it won’t hurt you. You were my pal once, +you know. It’s queer how things come back to you.” + +“Look within,” said Aunt Manette from the door. “The middle panel, +behind that embroidered devil.” It was a god, but her fingers found it +the other thing. + +From instinct Lovell pushed as he had been taught outside, but there +was no light behind that curtain. In the dark he struck a match, and +his heart shook in him. If this was where Magdalen Clyde should be---- + +“Is there nowhere else?” said he, and his voice was thick. + +Manette Duplessis became white. + +“Speak,” she said, low and fierce to Churchill. + +“Did he bring a girl there last night? Or----” + +She could not go on. She knew other places, but not as she knew this. + +“I can’t smoke opium, you know,” said Churchill softly, “because of +my lungs. But I let Ah Lee think I do. He thought I was dead with it +last night, I suppose, for he came and stood over me. I hate the sight +of him; so I kept my eyes shut, and he went in there.” It was like a +corpse sitting up and talking. “After a long time some one moaned. +I--you fool, Ogilvie----” and there was in his face some remembrance of +a day long dead that kept the others still. “I was a gentleman once! +I couldn’t stand that moaning. I went in there; a white girl with red +hair moaned at me for Dolly, and I knew a Dolly long ago. I knew, also, +that Ah Lee had no business with a white girl that cried. I gave her +brandy, for I can drink if I can’t smoke, and----” + +“You took her out?” Aunt Manette was heedless who heard her. “You took +her out?” + +As if it were Lovell’s voice alone that could galvanize him into +coherency he stared at her. + +“I took her out,” he repeated vacantly; “but they caught her at the +door.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + +IN THE HOUSE OF AH LEE. + + +“Twenty-four hours it will last,” said Ah Lee to himself. “And he will +drink himself blind when he wakes. It will do.” + +He glanced angrily at Churchill, who was too long in dying, and drew a +coverlet over his face. Asleep or not asleep, he need have no chance of +seeing what Ah Lee went out and brought in; what he flung down in the +wine room as if it were lifeless. + +He had no orders from Stratharden, and he feared him as he had never +feared God nor devil. He was in his own clothes now, and he stumped +off for orders. When he came back he yawned with a huge indifference. +If she could not help dying, she would die. To make her live, as +Stratharden ordered, was impossible. There was nothing that would make +that drug pass off before its allotted span. + +“Twenty-four hours I told him,” said he, “and he will not come before. +I will smoke and sleep.” + +But he had forgotten something. The girl Stratharden wanted out of the +way was made of good stuff. Clean blood ran in her; there was no weak +spot, no flaw in her for the drug to catch in. And, above all, she was +brave. In the dark room where he had left her she was lying like a +log. She made no more of those efforts to speak or move that she knew +resulted in unavailing anguish. Torture ran and crawled through every +limb, as it was, but something made her know that it was people who +struggled under Ah Lee’s drug who died. It might be better to die, but +she would not help it on. Instead, she prayed the whole night through, +with Dolly--only Dolly--in her thoughts. + +She must live for Dolly, help Dolly; pay Lovell--who was Stratharden’s +son--for each pain that rent her slim body. And at five in the morning +a cry she did not know was her own voice come back to her, and sent the +cold drops out on her forehead. + +“Dolly!” she heard again, and knew she could speak. She said the word +over and over, like a nun in a litany, not in despair, but to keep +herself brave. “Dolly! Dolly!” and then sat upright with a pain that +turned her cold. She must die here after all. + +For there was a light in her eyes--a dreadful stooping figure in a +gaudy draping, coming toward her; the dazzle of it made her spring up +to face Ah Lee. + +But it was not he. + +“Don’t moan,” some one drawled, “I hate moaning.” + +“You’re English,” she muttered, and found it difficult to make her +tongue obey her. + +“Did you come here to smoke?” said the man listlessly. “You’re too +young.” + +“Take me out! Take me away!” She caught at him with her hands that she +could not guide. “They brought me here. Dolly!--Oh! get me back to +Dolly!” + +He touched her hand, her gown. + +“You’re a lady,” said Bertie Churchill. “A lady--here!” He turned away, +and because she thought he was going to leave her she staggered after +him, clutching at him with wild words. + +“Hush!” said the man with one of those queer revivings of a dead self. +“I’ll take care of you. Drink this.” To her mouth he held the brandy +that he courted death with, and made her swallow it drop by drop, till +there was heat, not ice, in her stagnant veins. + +“Now tell me why you came,” he said watching her. It was a long time +since a lady had drunk from Bertie Churchill’s glass. + +She told him in slow whispers; but she was getting supple now; her +fingers could hold the glass that at first they had let fall. But it +seemed to her that he gathered no meaning from what she said. + +“Don’t you see,” she cried desperately, “that he means to kill me? +Can’t you help me to get back to Dolly? She will be--they’ll ruin +Dolly! I heard them say so.” + +“Ruin Dolly,” he repeated. He started as if he had been stung. “Dolly +Deane,” he said as if to himself. “I saw her before I came here. I +wonder why I--but that’s a long time ago.” + +“What do you know about Dolly Deane?” she exclaimed. She looked at him, +and for the first time recognized his face. + +“You’re the man!” she said recoiling, “that called her--that made the +noise at Krug’s restaurant! What was Dolly to you?” + +“Nothing,” was the old instinct to lie coolly for a woman. “I was +drunk. I don’t remember anything about it.” + +A quick thought took her--and if Ah Lee’s drug had any good in it, it +was that it sharpened the wits. + +“Are you Churchill?” she cried. + +The bow he gave her was grotesque in his red dressing-gown; but she was +only looking at his face. + +“I was,” he said. “I’m dying now you know.” + +“Did you marry Dolly?” she demanded. “They say you married Dolly. +They’re going to prosecute her for bigamy.” + +The man flinched. She had struck him to the bone. + +“Who are you?” he said very low and, when she told him, covered his +face. + +“She’s young still,” he said; “I saw her at Krug’s and it made me mad, +for I’m old and dying. But bigamy--she knows I never married her! I +spent her money and left her like a cur. I used to wake up in the night +and think of her--little Dolly, who was a fool and pretty, and loved +me, till I left her to die in the gutter. And then I saw her at Krug’s, +well dressed and young. Tell her----” + +“Come away. Take me out and come to Dolly!” she broke in. “Say you +never married her!” + +“I never married her,” but the flash of life in him was gone. “I can’t +come,” he said courteously. “I belong here, you know. It seemed warm +and no one worries me. But you must go. No white girl should be here.” + +He moved to the side of the room and touched it gently. Nothing gave +and an ugly light came in his eyes. + +“Locked in,” said he; “which was not in my bargain. But Ah Lee forgets.” + +He fumbled in the folds of his wrapping and brought out a thin, strong +wire. With a dexterity that spoke volumes for the life he had led he +did something to the door. + +“My patent, that Ah Lee forgets he bought from me,” said he. “Allow +me,” and he took her hand. + +At the top of the long labyrinth of stairs and passages he stopped; he +pointed to the rows of boots at a door. + +“Past those and two others,” he said. “I will stand between them and +you. When you get to the door in front of you knock on the right wall. +Five taps--nine--then five again. They’ll let you out.” + +“Come,” she whispered, white lipped. “Come away from this dreadful +place. Save yourself as well as me. For God’s sake, come!” + +He laid his gentleman’s hand on her mouth. + +“I belong here,” he said softly. “Will you say good-by to me and go?” + +There was something dignified in his ravaged face; something, too, that +agonized her with pity. He, half dead himself, had saved her; would +stay here and bear the brunt of it. + +“Mr. Churchill!” she begged, but he hushed her; he held out a hand to +her and drew it back. + +“It isn’t fit--I’m not fit,” he muttered. + +Magdalen Clyde--and to the day of her death she will be glad she +did it--stooped and kissed that shadowy hand--bade God bless him to +eternity and knocked at the bronze-bound door. + +It swung back as he had said it would do. She went through and was in +another passage with another shut door before her. She looked back for +guidance to Churchill, but the door between them was fast. She knocked +again with shaking fingers, lost count and hesitated. + +The door before her opened, then began to close with dreadful +swiftness. She leaped to it, shrieked, was caught and tore her gown +away. + +Behind her rose a quick sound of opening doors, of flying feet. All +round the court faces, and such faces as nightmare knows, filled the +windows; a man rose as if by magic in her path and she flew by him. + +The morning daylight dazzled her and saved her, too, for once out of +that court--and she never knew that she struck savagely at men and +women who sprang out of doorways--the streets were empty. + +She caught her skirts to her knee and ran. + +Blundered into alleys and out again; ran on and on, she cared not +where, but away from Ah Lee; and dropped at last as a driven dog does +that cowardly people say is mad. + +Like a dog she lay and panted, the blood beating in her as though her +veins must break. It was not seven o’clock yet, and the stones she +lay on had the chill of the night. Where she was, she neither knew nor +cared, so that she was out of Ah Lee’s house. No one passed in the +empty street and at last her sickening pulse-beats ceased to shake her. + +From somewhere there came a footstep, coming nearer, stepping flatly +without heels. She raised her head, looked one way and the other and +could not get to her feet. A Chinaman turned into the street, looked at +her impassively and took to his heels. + +“He’s one of them! He’s gone to tell Ah Lee.” She would be caught in +who knew how little time. “I----” She wrenched herself till she stood +up and stared round her. She did not know where she was; she dared not +run one way or another; could not have run had she dared. + +Hatless, her hair loose and matted, her black gown torn, she stood +still. To knock at these decent doors would result in her being turned +away for a drunken outcast; there would be no pity in these snug +houses; Ah Lee might be on her before she roused the inmates from their +beds. Were there no police in London? Was all the world asleep but she +and Chinamen? + +She looked down at her bedraggled clothes, and knew a policeman would +arrest her and consider her story a drunken lie. There would be hours +lost before she got back to Dolly. + +“Milk--milk!” The cry came like a voice from heaven. + +Magdalen turned and saw a milkman coming toward her with his cans in +his hands. He was a big man with a kind face; he whistled as he poured +out and left his milk. With a quick hand she straightened her hair and +caught up her dress to hide the rents. The milkman looked at her. + +“Milk?” he said bruskly. + +She shook her head. He would think her mad if she asked to drink it +from the can. + +“I’ve lost my way,” she said. “I want to get to Featherston Street and +Hare’s Buildings.” + +“You’re miles off,” with a bewildered look at her. “Been out all night?” + +She nodded. + +“I suppose you’re used to it,” half kindly; she must have been a pretty +woman when she was sober. “I’m about finished here. If I show you out +to the Northend Road can you find your way?” + +“Northend Road!” she gasped. “How did I get so far?” + +“You know best, I s’pose. Ain’t you got no hat?” + +“I lost it.” + +“Well, step on,” he said with a laugh. “I guess my character’ll stand +it. There ain’t no one up, anyhow.” + +She shook as she followed him; and if she had told him why he would not +have believed her. But he was better than his word. + +“This isn’t the Northend Road,” she said as they came out on a +thoroughfare and she saw the safe and blessed omnibuses going to and +fro. + +“Wasn’t no use in going there if you’re in a hurry to get to +Featherston Street,” he gruffly answered. + +“This is nigher. You get into a red bus and you’ll go straight to +Charing Cross. Oh, it’s only a step out of my way--you needn’t thank +me.” + +There was nothing but a penny in her pocket and she must keep that. She +asked him his name and he laughed. + +“No matter. I don’t want you round my way,” said he. “You take my +advice and stay home of nights. Here’s your bus.” + +There are few people to whom the inside of a stuffy bus seems heaven; +but it did to Magdalen Clyde. Her penny would take her only to Hyde +Park corner, but after that she would be safe. No one would dare to lay +hands on her from there to Hare’s Buildings. + +How she walked it she never knew. People turned their heads, but no +one stopped her; her feet kept on mechanically, that was all. “Hare’s +Buildings!--Dolly!” she said to herself over and over. It was not +till she stood in front of them at ten o’clock in the day that she +remembered. Dolly was not there. + +She turned her head like a hunted beast and knew that lonely house was +her only refuge, felt her latch-key in her pocket and ran up-stairs. + +The green baize door swayed under a yellow hand. Ah Lee with his fish +eyes alive at last had followed her. He had his own debt to pay now, +not his master’s; and he had nothing to lose by doing it. Churchill had +been right, after all. Magdalen Clyde would be “caught at the door.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + +IN THE HOUSE OF HER DREAM. + + +Lord Stratharden took one long, comfortable glance at Dolly Barnysdale +before he turned to go. He had half a mind to tell her that +Starr-Dalton had betrayed her into his hand; but there would be time +enough for that in court. + +He sighed with pure content as he left the room and Dolly never lifted +her head to look at him. Ardmore was a bare place, but he need never +live in it, and it would be good to be Barnysdale with money instead +of Stratharden driven to death. He was even careless of the price he +had promised to pay for that loan that was tiding him over. To Ian’s +daughter he gave no thought. Ah Lee would keep her safe till he was +ready to dispose of her. + +He went serenely down-stairs and paused for one startled second. + +Keith--Keith, that he left in his own house--stood before him. + +As he opened the door to go out her hand was on the bell; as he caught +his breath with astonishment she was inside. She swept the door from +his hand, banged it and put her back against it. + +“Ye may well glower,” said she. “It’s me and it seems I’m just in time. +No; where ye are ye’ll bide,” for he put out his hand to wave her +aside. “I owe ye no obedience.” + +It was really in pure astonishment that he stared at her and then his +wits came to him. + +What the housekeeper was thinking of would come to nothing. There was +no earthly chance that that girl’s disappearance could be brought home +to his door, even if they caught Ah Lee. This was as good a place to be +in as any, since it was natural enough that he should come and confront +the woman who had swindled him out of his inheritance. + +“I didn’t know this was an international affair,” he said with his +familiar sneer. “Pray don’t excite yourself. I’m perfectly willing to +stay. But disabuse yourself of the thought that I can be bullied by a +servant. I stay because I choose.” + +He had reflected hastily that while Keith was here she could not be +hunting the town for Buff. He had no desire for Buff’s comments on a +story that was absurd on the face of it. It was abominable luck that +had mixed Buff up with the girl. It amused him to see that Keith never +took her back from the door. + +The sound of a strange voice had roused Dolly from her dazed terror +up-stairs. She ran down, only stopping for Ronald. + +“Magdalen!” she cried. “Have you found Magdalen?” + +Keith looked at Stratharden. + +“No,” she said slowly, and it was all he could do to keep down a +grimace of contempt. “But sit ye down. I’ve a story to bring to the +memory of my Lord Stratharden, and ye that were never the countess had +best hear it, too.” + +“So you own that much,” said Stratharden. It was perfectly immaterial +to him what she told, since the only proof of it--and that a trifling +one--was in his house at home. He looked round the bare little entry +with its one chair. “Is it necessary to sit all of us on that? I fear +it will be a long story.” + +“Go, can’t you?” said Dolly fiercely. “What are you staying here for?” + +“For news of your sister,” and she winced as she was meant to. He +walked coolly into the dismantled sitting-room, with its door open into +the ill-omened showroom Magdalen had never used. He had no desire to +stop Keith; it was as well to make sure how much she suspected, for of +course she could know nothing. + +Keith followed him like a cat a mouse, fearful that he would get away. +Dolly, with one look of hatred, turned away from them both. Did they +think that with Magdalen gone and herself found out she would listen +to any old stories politely, as in a drawing-room? She clutched Ronald +to her and walked into the desolate showroom, where no furniture but +the pier-glass remained. What she had done she had done for herself; it +was only to use a dead woman’s confidence, and yet be not so unworthy +of it, either. But she could never right the wrong now; the only thing +left to her was---- + +“I’m glad I lied,” said Dolly to herself; “glad! If I hadn’t I couldn’t +save Ronald now. If Magdalen would only come back I’d be happy--yes, +happy!” She stamped her foot with sudden rage at herself. Why was she +standing here doing nothing? + +“I won’t believe she meant to leave me!” she thought. “She wouldn’t +do it. What do I care for Stratharden--for anything? I’ll go to the +police.” + +“Will ye no come here and listen?” Keith’s voice broke in on her. “It’s +worth yer while.” + +Dolly turned on her like a fury. + +“What do I care for your stories?” she cried. “You said you came here +for Magdalen--that you loved her. Why don’t you do something instead +of standing like a log in my house. I’ve enough of you and your +mysteries. I’m going to the police.” + +“Ay, mistress, but have patience,” said Keith softly; and iron-nerved +as he was Stratharden started. + +None of the three heard a dragging step on the stair, the soft sound of +a turning key. + +On the threshold Magdalen stood speechless, her pale face sodden, her +eyes like dark coals. There, with her back to her, was Dolly! * * * +Dolly! Had it all been a hideous dream that last night she had found +this house deserted? Why was Dolly so still? What made the house so +silent? If there had been anyone behind Magdalen Clyde, creeping to her +foot by foot, they might have thought she stood alone. + +“Dolly,” said Magdalen simply, like a child, “Dolly, I’ve come home.” + +In the little room Keith stood before Stratharden, her back toward the +door that gave on the entry where Magdalen stood, her ungainly body +between it and him. But under her arm, through the showroom door, he +saw Dolly’s face as she wheeled. + +“Sit ye down!” shouted Keith. She sprang on the man who had been her +master. “Ye’ll not move from this place!” + +Dolly’s scream rang wild. + +“Magdalen, move! move!” She flung Ronald on a chair and ran to that +ghost-eyed girl at the door. But she was too late. + +Magdalen had turned, had met Ah Lee’s spring that he meant for her +back, and was on the floor. Tooth and nail, in the house of her dream, +that dream came true. Over and over, up and down, she was fighting +with the Chinaman, his yellow fingers writhing every instant a little +nearer to her throat. + +Dolly’s shriek broke off in her ears as if it had stopped in the +middle. There was a darkness in her eyes--then utter silence. The +struggle was over and she lay still. + +Stratharden, in the inside room, sat like a stone. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + +ONE THAT WAS LOST. + + +Lovell, and it was the last day he would ever call himself so, stood +speechless in Ah Lee’s opium shop. Beside him was a sergeant and +half-a-dozen policemen; in front of him some rags of humanity with +their smoke still in them. There had been such a raiding as never was +known in their memory, but for all that there was despair on Lovell’s +face. + +Whoever they had, it was not Magdalen nor Ah Lee. Churchill had told +the truth; she had been taken elsewhere. What had become of the French +woman he neither knew nor cared, except that neither he nor the police +knew where to go. + +Some one touched him on the arm. + +“He’s conscious,” said the doctor some one had brought. “He wants to +say something. Is your name Ogilvie?” + +It was, to his shame. To his shame, too, he had forgotten the man who +lay down-stairs, dying for Magdalen Clyde. He ran down quickly enough, +with a policeman’s lantern to make the way plain. + +Bertie Churchill, in his scarlet dressing-gown, lay on the mats that +were redder still. The salt, acrid smell of blood rose over the reek of +brandy, but the little that stayed in the dying man had been England’s +best. + +“I’ll only keep you two minutes,” he whispered. “I was wrong about her; +she got away. That’s why I’m here.” + +“Ah Lee?” + +Churchill assented with his eyes. + +“I thought when you were here they’d got her at the door. She knocked +instead of going straight through; it’s never locked. But they didn’t, +and they couldn’t wake Ah Lee from his opium to tell him she was gone. +After you’d gone he came here--he--in the middle of it,” with a glance +at his side and the blood on the floor. “His son came in. I was pretty +far gone and they spoke their lingo, but they used names of streets. +She must have got as far as the Northend Road; they jabbered of it. +The boy was saying something else. ‘Buildings--Hare’s Buildings.’ Know +about it? I could open my eyes then and I saw Ah Lee’s face. He cut +at me to finish me before he went--there, I suppose! You’d know,” he +concluded very wearily. + +“She lives there,” said Lovell sharply. He caught Churchill’s hand with +the dew of death on it. “What is it?” he said. “Is there anything you +want before I go?” + +“She said ‘God bless you’--to me!” It was as if he were very far off. +“Don’t go.” + +The doctor caught Lovell’s eye and nodded. + +“Dolly,” said Churchill very loud, “I’ve paid. You said I’d pay and I’m +paying. I’ve been damned alive ever since that day I said I never meant +to marry you.” + +Lovell started. He had never thought of this Churchill and Magdalen’s +sister, who was Lady Barnysdale. He remembered the restaurant and +Churchill’s face as he called. + +“Did you marry her?” he asked, and saw the doctor’s face. + +Churchill sat up in his bed of mats. + +There was a childish disappointment in his eyes. + +“Krug’s putting--out--the lights!” said he, and fell back again. + +The lights were out indeed for Bertie Churchill; his days for good and +evil were over, and for the evil, as he said, he had paid. + +Lovell stumbled as he went up-stairs. For this thing and many others +his father was responsible, and, for all he knew, for a blacker thing +yet. He turned his back on that dreadful house and ran, as he had never +run in his life, for Hare’s Buildings. + +He had no hope she would be there. It was perhaps to find nothing had +been true in the things Churchill had said that he was going. But he +went--a splendid sight to see, deep-ribbed and lean-flanked, he ran +like a buck in spring. But his dark, hard face was not so good to see. + +He was there, past the tailor shop, half-way up the stairs, when some +one screamed. + +Shriek after shriek rang through the open door; but, mad as he was, he +knew the shrieks were not Magdalen’s. He was in the room before he saw +her; saw Dolly on her knees over Ah Lee, clawing for his eyes. + +His hand pushed her away like a straw. Silent as death, and as +terrible, it struck Ah Lee once, and twice. The man’s convulsed face +straightened as if the fury had been wiped on it, his rigid hands fell +lax as his body swayed backward. But Stratharden’s son never looked at +his father’s servant. + +Without a word he lifted Magdalen like a child; laid her down, +anywhere, but away from that filthy, yellow carrion on the floor, and +put his hand on the swollen throat that had been so fair. + +“Water, quick!” he exclaimed. There was a trampling on the stair, but +he paid no heed to it; it was Dolly who banged the door as she ran past. + +But it was not Dolly who ran to him with a dripping towel. + +“My God, Keith!” he ejaculated. “Why didn’t you help her?” He felt the +quiet pulse, and his stern eyes might have made any woman cower. But +not Keith. + +“May be I fought, too,” she said bitterly. “She’s but fainted; he had +not a clean grip of her.” + +Faint or no faint, he would have her out of it. There was no tenderness +in his face as he worked over her, only stark, raging determination. +And it was on that look of Dick Lovell’s that Magdalen opened her eyes. + +As her senses came to her she recoiled from him and would have sprung +away but for the deadly coldness that kept her still. + +“You!” she muttered, and there was horror of him on her face. “Take +away your hand! I know your name!” + +Buff Ogilvie looked behind him and saw his father standing in the +doorway. + +“You!” he exclaimed. He looked from the girl who had turned from him +to hide her face on Dolly’s breast to the man who had made her do it. +Ronald, forgotten and bewildered, crept to his mother’s side. No one +else stirred. + +Stratharden nodded slowly. He was very white about the nose and his +eyes were narrow. + +“I did not come in time,” he was breathing very slowly. “I----Is that +Ah Lee?” + +Keith got up off her knees. + +“Well you know it is,” she said. “Ye need not hush, Mr. Ogilvie. I’ve +served him well these many years, but I serve him no longer. I’ll say +my say now that my mistress there may hear it.” + +Her mistress. Did she mean Dolly? Magdalen raised her head and saw Ah +Lee lying as he had fallen. + +“Is he--did I kill him?” she cried. + +“Let him be,” said Keith. “He’ll no die. ’Twas Ogilvie here that +stunned him,” but at that name Magdalen only turned away her head. +“She’ll not look at ye,” said Keith. “My lamb, ye must hear me! Ye mind +the picture I showed ye? That ye were the spit and image of?” + +Magdalen lay dull eyed. What had a picture to do with her and Lovell, +who was Stratharden’s son? + +Keith’s bony chest heaved. + +“’Twas Ian’s picture,” she said. “Yer uncle, Ian Ogilvie. Oh, ye’ll +not know, as I know, how he that was the son of the house fared at +the hands of Stratharden and his mother! He was the first-born; his +mother died; but ye’re grandfather married again. Stratharden here +was but three years younger than Ian; Barnysdale, that was married to +her”--with a look at Dolly--“but one year. And had it not been for me +little would Ian have had in his father’s house. + +“He always laughed it off when I said the things that were on my +tongue, but hell was his boyhood, thanks to the stepmother set over +him--and hell his manhood, by Stratharden. They gave him--his father +and stepmother--neither schooling nor money. A room in the house, a +bite with old Keith in the kitchen, was all he had. And one day he left +those. He was a grand man to see when he was come to his growth; darker +than her, but her living image. I mind I prayed for him by night and +day when he left me and went to sea. + +“Your Barnysdale, that was Stratharden then,” she motioned to Dolly, +“went off, too, to college and to worse; we heard no more of him. +Stratharden here bided at home by his mother’s apron-string, and, as +she bade him, he married. And when Ogilvie here was two years old a +letter comes from Ian. And he was married, too. + +“We went to him, David and I, and a bonny thing his wife was. Ninon, he +called her. I mind how her mother looked at her child the day it was +born. ‘Black and white and red,’ she said laughing, and black and white +and red she is still. But I had not cast my eyes on Ian before I saw +that he was dying. Poor they were and very poor; for the mother, that +was Madame Duplessis, had lost her money in the French war--they say +she lent it to overset Napoleon--I cannot tell. And while I was trying +to keep the life in Ian, that was worked to the bone keeping his wife, +in walks my lord here. Ay, well ye know it!” she turned and towered +over him. + +“Ye sowed distrust between them, or ye tried. Ye gave her a jewel that +was a secret sign of the friends of Louis Napoleon; she wore it, and +her mother’s people, that were Orleanists, would do no more for her. +Ye cut one thing after another away from the feet of Ian’s wife, that +she might turn to ye. But she did not turn. He died in her arms, with +her head on his breast, and oh! I mind that ye gnashed yer teeth to see +it. Even then ye had yer heathen with ye; though I never knew where ye +found him, for it was not till after that ye traveled the wide world +round. And it was fear, black fear of ye and him, that sent my Ian’s +wife away in the night in secret with his child in her arms. Well I +might have guessed what ye had in yer heart, for I knew ye; but she was +too clever for ye at the last end. She ran away from the mother that +bore her for fear ye would damn her, soul and body, and cast disrepute +on Ian’s child. + +“What was it blinded the mother of her that night we found she’d gone? +Blinded her in the street as she would have sought the police? Who was +it came to me with soft words and a written secret from a hospital, to +say Madame Duplessis had died there? Ay, ye know! And, dead or alive, +neither mother nor daughter nor grandchild ever came back again. We +were poor, David and I; but we wore our feet to the bone seeking them. +It was not till ye’re father was dead and ye’re brother set in his +shoes that we went back to Ardmore, and then only that we were starving +and hopeless of finding Ian’s child. + +“For sixteen years I heard no word of her, till Barnysdale died, too, +and ye told me that his wife was mad and ye would bring her home to +Ardmore. I was to keep a guard on her, and I kept it; for the honor +of the house of Barnysdale, not for ye. Ye little knew that she was +bringing with her the daughter of Ian that I loved”--pointing at the +girl in Dolly’s arms. “Nor did I. But when ye sent ye’re heathen to the +house--and I saw the living flesh and blood of Ian under my eyes--and +ye did yer best to drive her and Barnysdale’s wife into the Clyde--I +knew. Oh, I knew! And ye sent me to London to track them; I tracked +them well. I found from the manager man that Dorothy Deane that danced +and married Barnysdale had no sister. I found elsewhere that another +Dorothy Deane had acted in that same theater--and she had a stepsister, +they said, at a convent. And in the convent they told me what none knew +but them. To Mrs. Deane’s house had come a woman and a child; the woman +died there, Mrs. Deane kept the child, Clyde, and said it was hers. It +was said she was married again, but none ever saw the man named Clyde. +But Clyde was the name Ian’s wife had banked her money in, and a Mrs. +Clyde drew it. And when she was dead Dorothy Deane spent the rest of +it. And that I did not hear in the convent. Is it true?” Dolly drew a +long breath. + +“It’s true,” she said. She waited for Magdalen to turn away from her as +she had from Ogilvie; but Magdalen clutched her fast. + +“She did her best,” she cried sharply. “She was a good mother to +me--she was kind and I loved her.” + +“All this,” said Stratharden quietly, “has nothing to do with the fact +that Lady Barnysdale here is a liar and a swindler, who never was +Barnysdale’s wife. I may tell you--Mrs. Churchill--that your husband is +alive. Your friend, Mr. Starr-Dalton, knows it.” + +“Churchill!” cried Dolly, livid. “You threatened me because of +Churchill. He never married me; he----” She stood breathless, and if +ever any woman wrestled with temptation it was she. Magdalen was Lady +Barnysdale, there was still money and comfort for Dolly, and respect if +she held her tongue, unless Churchill---- + +That “unless” settled it. She spoke out with a wrench that shook her. + +“I never was married in my life,” she said. “No, don’t stop me,” as +Lovell would have spoken. “I never was married, either to Barnysdale +or to anyone else. There were two Dolly Deanes; one was a success--I +was the failure. I was only a chorus girl. My name was never in the +bills. I was dismissed; Churchill threw me over. I went to Hastings to +die there--and the other Dolly Deane found me. I was at my last penny, +and when she married Barnysdale--she, not I--she took me with her as +her maid. I was with her when he left her--with her when she died. I +promised her to see Ronald righted--her son, not mine. Those papers +I had were hers, just as he was. I was afraid of Churchill; I was +afraid to go to a theater, for fear some one would know me. But I’m not +afraid now. Send for the man and ask him, for he knows. I can tell now, +because Ronald will not fall into your hands.” + +Stratharden shrugged his shoulders. + +“Other people shall know, too,” he said. “That, and this mad story of +Keith’s that I will prove a lie.” + +He stepped to the door. + +But he was too late. A group of men were in the doorway; in front of +them Aunt Manette, with a cold and weary face. + +“Who is here?” she said. But no one answered. + +The sergeant of police said something in Stratharden’s ear that he +answered aloud: + +“It has nothing to do with me,” he said. “As for the girl, she is here.” + +The French woman spoke at the sound. + +“Nothing to do with you! And they find in your house her boxes that +you took from the station--her pin that I gave her the mate of not a +week ago. And they find also that paper in your handwriting in Ah Lee’s +house. Everything down in white and black, lest he should forget.” + +“Aunt Manette,” said Lovell sharply. “Let it be. She’s here; she knows.” + +“And Ninon is in her grave,” she answered slowly. “Can I forgive that? +And I sightless, till I must pass her child in the street. I will tell +all! all!” + +Stratharden looked at her. He knew her well; knew Keith, knew Dolly; +and not one of them would hold their hand. + +“I don’t think,” he said softly, “that you can bring anything so +far-fetched home to me. But you can try.” + +He moved to Ah Lee, who had stirred. + +As Keith said, he was a heathen, but he was the only soul on earth who +loved Stratharden. + +The man knelt by him, dull eyed. He slipped his hand inside the +Chinaman’s coat and felt his heart. + +“He would have been wiser to die,” he said, stepping back. He brushed +his hand across his mouth and swallowed. + +Buff Ogilvie, who would be Lovell no more, looked round him. Magdalen +did not believe that his father’s work was not his, and she was not his +Dark Magdalen any longer, but Countess of Barnysdale. He could ask no +favors of a girl who shrank from him, who must presently be a witness +against his father in the dock. He turned, and he was dizzy, to go and +hide his head he knew not where. And a dull crash stopped him. + +Charles Ogilvie, Viscount Stratharden, had fallen forward on his face. +Ah Lee had served him well, even to carrying that in his pocket that +brought death very quickly. But his own son shrank from the look on +Stratharden’s dead face. + + * * * * * + +Late that night Buff Ogilvie sat in his bare room in Hare’s Rents. +There was nowhere else to go, and there would be an inquest, a routing +out of old things that he, his father’s son, must hear in silence. He +thought of Churchill, whose eyes he had not stayed to close--of things +that had been heaven yesterday and to-day were a fire that is not +quenched. “The sins of the father” was an old story, read in the Bible; +on living shoulders it was a different thing. An old rhyme of his house +came to his mind, as such things do, and he writhed in his chair. Yet +it was simple enough; it was carved in the wall over the door of that +chapel he had never been let enter; he had wondered over it all his +boyhood, but he cursed himself that it came home to him now. + + “I built a chapel in Barnysdale, + That seemly was to see; + It was for Mary Magdalen, + And thereto would I be.” + +That was it. He had made his soul a chapel to Magdalen, and Stratharden +had razed it to the ground. His head dropped on his folded arms. For +very shame he could never so much as see her again--after his father’s +sins lay between them. + +Some one pushed the door ajar and stood there; saw the desolate poverty +of the room, the broken man in the chair. + +“Dick,” said Magdalen Clyde--and Aunt Manette slipped away in the +darkness of the hall--“Dick, they’ve told me!” + +The man’s hard face quivered, but he never lifted it. He shivered to +the bone as she put her hand on his shoulder. + +“I heard you that day in the street,” she said simply. “I thought you +knew. I thought Ah Lee----Dick, speak to me!” + +“I’m his son--Stratharden’s son,” he said slowly. “And you’re----” + +She had slipped to her knees beside him, her hands were round his neck, +her lips at his ear. + +“Your Dark Magdalen,” she whispered. “Will you send me away?” + + * * * * * + +Long after a couple, a man and a woman, looked at them as they went +through a room together. + +“Wasn’t there some story?” the woman asked. The man she spoke to +answered carelessly: + +“Something about a Chinaman. She offended him and he tried to kill her. +He died in prison, I think.” + +For Ah Lee, heathen and murderer, had been faithful to the dead. +The boxes, the pin, the whole story, he took on his shoulders; and +Stratharden’s son would have been glad to have believed him. + + +THE END. + + + + + EAGLE SERIES A weekly publication devoted to good literature. NO. 448 + Dec. 26, 1905. + +S. & S. Novels + +“_THE RIGHT BOOKS AT THE RIGHT PRICE_” + + +¶ Have you ever stopped to consider what a wealth of good reading is +contained in our S. & S. lines? We were pioneers of the paper book +industry. Being first in the field and having unlimited capital, we +were enabled to secure the works of the very best authors and offer +them to the reading public in the most attractive form. + +¶ We have the exclusive right to publish all of the late copyrighted +works of Charles Garvice, Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth, Bertha M. Clay +and Horatio Alger, Jr. We control exclusively the works of Mrs. Georgie +Sheldon, Nicholas Carter, Burt L. Standish, Effie Adelaide Rowlands, +Gertrude Warden and dozens of other authors of established reputations. + +¶ When you purchase an S. & S. Novel, you may rest assured that you +are getting the full value for your money and a little more. There are +none better. Send to us for our complete catalogue, containing over two +thousand different titles, which will be mailed to any address upon +receipt of a two-cent stamp. + + + STREET & SMITH, _General Publishers_ + 79 to 89 SEVENTH AVENUE, NEW YORK CITY + + + + +Transcriber’s Notes: + + +This novel was previously serialized in _Street & Smith’s New York +Weekly_ from August 18 to December 1, 1900. This book version has +only 34 chapters, though the original serialization had 37. This is +because some chapters from the earlier version have been combined or +omitted. The thought break in chapter VIII was originally the start of +a separate chapter. The original chapters X-XI (the entire installment +from September 8, 1900) are omitted from this version. + +Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. + +Inconsistent hyphenation has been retained from the original. + +Table of contents has been added and placed into the public domain by +the transcriber. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78149 *** |