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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/18470-8.txt b/18470-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9bcab72 --- /dev/null +++ b/18470-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10346 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Second Latchkey, by Charles Norris +Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson, Illustrated by Rudolph Tandler + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Second Latchkey + + +Author: Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson + + + +Release Date: May 29, 2006 [eBook #18470] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SECOND LATCHKEY*** + + +E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg +Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustration. + See 18470-h.htm or 18470-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/4/7/18470/18470-h/18470-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/4/7/18470/18470-h.zip) + + + + + +THE SECOND LATCHKEY + +by + +C. N. & A. M. WILLIAMSON + +Frontispiece by Rudolph Tandler + + + + + + + +Garden City New York +Doubleday, Page & Company +1920 + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER + + I. A White Rose + + II. Smiths and Smiths + + III. Why She Came + + IV. The Great Moment + + V. The Second Latchkey + + VI. The Beginning--or the End? + + VII. The Countess de Santiago + + VIII. The Blue Diamond Ring + + IX. The Thing Knight Wanted + + X. Beginning of the Series + + XI. Annesley Remembers + + XII. The Crystal + + XIII. The Series Goes On + + XIV. The Test + + XV. Nelson Smith at Home + + XVI. Why Ruthven Smith Went + + XVII. Ruthven Smith's Eyeglasses + + XVIII. The Star Sapphire + + XIX. The Secret + + XX. The Plan + + XXI. The Devil's Rosary + + XXII. Destiny and the Waldos + + XXIII. The Thin Wall + + XXIV. The Anniversary + + XXV. The Allegory + + XXVI. The Three Words + + + + +THE SECOND LATCHKEY + + + + +CHAPTER I + +A WHITE ROSE + + +Even when Annesley Grayle turned out of the Strand toward the Savoy she +was uncertain whether she would have courage to walk into the hotel. With +each step the thing, the dreadful thing, that she had come to do, loomed +blacker. It was monstrous, impossible, like opening the door of the +lions' cage at the Zoo and stepping inside. + +There was time still to change her mind. She had only to turn +now ... jump into an omnibus ... jump out again at the familiar corner, +and everything would be as it had been. Life for the next five, ten, +maybe twenty years, would be what the last five had been. + +At the thought of the Savoy and the adventure waiting there, the girl's +skin had tingled and grown hot, as if a wind laden with grains of heated +sand had blown over her. But at the thought of turning back, of going +"home"--oh, misused word!--a leaden coldness shut her spirit into a tomb. + +She had walked fast, after descending at Bedford Street from a fierce +motor-bus with a party of comfortable people, bound for the Adelphi +Theatre. Never before had she been in a motor-omnibus, and she was not +sure whether the great hurtling thing would deign to stop, except at +trysting-places of its own; so it had seemed wise to bundle out rather +than risk a snub from the conductor, who looked like pictures of the Duke +of Wellington. + +But in the lighted Strand she had been stared at as well as jostled: +a girl alone at eight o'clock on a winter evening, bare-headed, +conspicuously tall if conspicuous in no other way; dressed for dinner or +the theatre in a pale gray, sequined gown under a mauve chiffon cloak +meant for warm nights of summer. + +Of course, as Mrs. Ellsworth (giver of dress and wrap) often pointed out, +"beggars mustn't be choosers"; and Annesley Grayle was worse off than a +beggar, because beggars needn't keep up appearances. She should have +thanked Heaven for good clothes, and so she did in chastened moods; but +it was a costume to make a girl hurry through the Strand, and just for an +instant she had been glad to turn from the white glare into comparative +dimness. + +That was because offensive eyes had made her forget the almost immediate +future in the quite immediate present. But the hotel, with light-hearted +taxis tearing up to it, brought remembrance with a shock. She envied +everyone else who was bound for the Savoy, even old women, and fat +gentlemen with large noses. They were going there because they wanted to +go, for their pleasure. Nobody in the world could be in such an appalling +situation as she was. + +It was then that Annesley's feet began to drag, and she slowed her steps +to gain more time to think. Could she--_could_ she do the thing? + +For days her soul had been rushing toward this moment with +thousand-horsepower speed, like a lonely comet tearing through space. +But then it had been distant, the terrible goal. She had not had to +gasp among her heart-throbs: "Now! It is now!" + +Creep as she might, three minutes' brought her from the turning out of +the Strand close to the welcoming entrance where revolving doors of glass +received radiant visions dazzling as moonlight on snow. + +"No, I can't!" the girl told herself, desperately. She wheeled more +quickly than the whirling door, hoping that no one would think her mad. +"All the same, I _was_ mad," she admitted, "to fancy I could do it. I +ought to have known I couldn't, when the time came. I'm the last person +to--well, I'm sane again now, anyway!" + +A few long steps carried the girl in the sparkling dress and transparent +cloak into the Strand again. But something queer was happening there. +People were shouting and running. A man with a raucous, alcoholic voice, +yelled words Annesley could not catch. A woman gave a squeaking scream +that sounded both ridiculous and dreadful. Breaking glass crashed. A +growl of human anger mingled with the roar of motor-omnibuses, and Miss +Grayle fell back from it as from a slammed door in a high wall. + +As she stood hesitating what to do and wondering if there were a fire or +a murder, two women, laughing hysterically, rushed past into the hotel +court. + +"Hurry up," panted one of them. "They'll think we belong to the gang. +Let's go into the hotel and stay until it's over." + +"Oh, what is it?" Annesley entreated, running after the couple. + +"Burglars at a jeweller's window close by--there are women--they're being +arrested," one of the pair flung over her shoulder, as both hurried on. + +"'Women ... being arrested ...'" That meant that if she plunged into the +fray she might be mistaken for a woman burglar, and arrested with the +guilty. Even if she lurked where she was, a prowling policeman might +suppose she sought concealment, and bag her as a militant. + +Imagine what Mrs. Ellsworth would say--and _do_--if she were taken off to +jail! + +Annesley's heart seemed to drop out of its place, to go "crossways," as +her old Irish nurse used to say a million years ago. + +Without stopping to think again, or even to breathe, she flew back to the +hotel entrance, as a migrating bird follows its leader, and slipped +through the revolving door behind the fugitives. + +"It's fate," she thought. "This must be a _sign_ coming just when I'd +made up my mind." + +Suddenly she was no longer afraid, though her heart was pounding under +the thin cloak. Fragrance of hot-house flowers and expensive perfume from +women's dresses intoxicated the girl as a glass of champagne forced upon +one who has never tasted wine flies to the head. She felt herself on the +tide of adventure, moving because she must; the soul which would have +fled, to return to Mrs. Ellsworth, was a coward not worthy to live in her +body. + +She had room in her crowded mind to think how queer it was--and how queer +it would seem all the rest of her life in looking back--that she should +have the course of her existence changed because burglars had broken some +panes of glass in the Strand. + +"Just because of them--creatures I'll never meet--I'm going to see this +through to the end," she said, flinging up her chin and looking entirely +unlike the Annesley Grayle Mrs. Ellsworth knew. "To the _end_!" + +She thrilled at the word, which had as much of the unknown in it as +though it were the world's end she referred to, and she were jumping off. + +"Will you please tell me where to leave my wrap?" she heard herself +inquiring of a footman as magnificent as, and far better dressed than, +the Apollo Belvedere. Her voice sounded natural. She was glad. This added +to her courage. It was wonderful to feel brave. Life was so deadly, +worse--so _stuffy_--at Mrs. Ellsworth's, that if she had ever been +normally brave like other girls, she had had the young splendour of her +courage crushed out. + +The statue in gray plush and dark blue cloth came to life, and showed her +the cloak-room. + +Other women were there, taking last, affectionate peeps at themselves +in the long mirrors. Annesley took a last peep at herself also, not an +affectionate but an anxious one. Compared with these visions, was she +(in Mrs. Ellsworth's cast-off clothes, made over in odd moments by the +wearer) so dowdy and second-hand that--that--a stranger would be ashamed +to----? + +The question feared to finish itself. + +"I _do_ look like a lady, anyhow," the girl thought with defiance. +"That's what he--that seems to be the test." + +Now she was in a hurry to get the ordeal over. Instead of hanging back +she walked briskly out of the cloak-room before those who had entered +ahead of her finished patting their hair or putting powder on their +noses. + +It was worse in the large vestibule, where men sat or stood, waiting for +their feminine belongings; and she was the only woman alone. But her boat +was launched on the wild sea. There was no returning. + +The rendezvous arranged was in what _he_ had called in his letter "the +foyer." + +Annesley went slowly down the steps, trying not to look aimless. She +decided to steer for one of the high-back brocaded chairs which had +little satellite tables. Better settle on one in the middle of the hall. + +This would give _him_ a chance to see and recognize her from the +description she had written of the dress she would wear (she had not +mentioned that she'd be spared all trouble in choosing, as it was her +only _real_ evening frock), and to notice that she wore, according to +arrangement, a white rose tucked into the neck of her bodice. + +She felt conscious of her hands, and especially of her feet and ankles, +for she had not been able to make Mrs. Ellsworth's dress quite long +enough. Luckily it was the fashion of the moment to wear the skirt short, +and she had painted her old white suede slippers silver. + +She believed that she had pretty feet. But oh! what if the darn running +up the heel of the pearl-gray silk stocking should show, or have burst +again into a hole as she jumped out of the omnibus? She could have +laughed hysterically, as the escaping women had laughed, when she +realized that the fear of such a catastrophe was overcoming graver +horrors. + +Perhaps it was well to have a counter-irritant. + +Though Annesley Grayle was the only manless woman in the foyer, the +people who sat there--with one exception--did not stare. Though she +had five feet eight inches of height, and was graceful despite +self-consciousness, her appearance was distinguished rather than +striking. Yes, "distinguished" was the word for it, decided the one +exception who gazed with particular interest at that tall, slight figure +in gray-sequined chiffon too old-looking for the young face. + +He was sitting in a corner against the wall, and had in his hands a copy +of the _Sphere_, which was so large when held high and wide open that the +reader could hide behind it. He had been in his corner for fifteen or +twenty minutes when Annesley Grayle arrived, glancing over the top of his +paper with a sort of jaunty carelessness every few minutes at the crowd +moving toward the restaurant, picking out some individual, then dropping +his eyes to the _Sphere_. + +For the girl in gray he had a long, appraising look, studying her every +point; but he did the thing so well that, even had she turned her head +his way, she need not have been embarrassed. All she would have seen was +a man's forehead and a rim of smooth black hair showing over the top of +an illustrated paper. + +What he saw was a clear profile with a delicate nose slightly tilting +upward in a proud rather than impertinent way; an arch of eyebrow +daintily sketched; a large eye which might be gray or violet; a drooping +mouth with a short upper lip; a really charming chin, and a long white +throat; skin softly pale, like white velvet; thick, ash-blond hair parted +in the middle and worn Madonna fashion--there seemed to be a lot of it in +the coil at the nape of her neck. + +The creature looked too simple, too--not dowdy, but too unsophisticated, +to have anything false about her. Figure too thin, hardly to be called a +"figure" at all, but agreeably girlish; and its owner might be anywhere +from twenty to five or six years older. Not beautiful: just an average, +lady-like English girl--or perhaps more of Irish type; but certainly with +possibilities. If she were a princess or a millionairess, she might be +glorified by newspapers as a beauty. + +Annesley forced her nervous limbs to slow movement, because she hoped, +or dreaded--anyhow, expected--that one of the dozen or so unattached men +would spring up and say, constrainedly, "Miss Grayle, I believe?--er--how +do you do?" If only he might not be fat or very bald-headed! + +He had not described himself at all. Everything was to depend on her gray +dress and the white rose. That seemed, now one came face to face with the +fear, rather ominous. + +But no one sprang up. No one wanted to know if she were Miss Grayle; and +this, although she was ten minutes late. + +Her instructions as to what to do at the Savoy were clear. If she were +not met in the foyer, she was to go into the restaurant and ask for a +table reserved for Mr. N. Smith. There she was to sit and wait to be +joined by him. She had never contemplated having to carry out the latter +clause, however; and when she had loitered for a few seconds, the thought +rushed over her that here was a loop-hole through which to slip, if she +wanted a loop-hole. + +One side of her did want it: the side she knew best and longest as +herself, Annesley Grayle, a timid girl brought up conventionally, and +taught that to rely on others older and wiser than she was the right way +for a well-born, sheltered woman to go through life. The other side, the +new, desperate side that Mrs. Ellsworth's "stuffiness" had developed, was +not looking for any means of escape; and this side had seized the upper +hand since the alarm of the burglars in the Strand. + +Annesley marched into the restaurant with the air of a soldier facing his +first battle, and asked a waiter where was Mr. Smith's table. + +The youth dashed off and produced a duke-like personage, his chief. A +list was consulted with care; and Annesley was respectfully informed that +no table had been engaged by a Mr. N. Smith for dinner that evening. + +"Are you sure?" persisted Annesley, bewildered and disappointed. + +"Yes, miss--madame, I am sure we have not the name on our list," said the +head-waiter. + +The blankness of the girl's disappointment looked out appealingly from +wistful, wide-apart eyes. The man was sorry. + +"There may be some misunderstanding," he consoled her. "Perhaps Mr. Smith +has telephoned, and we have not received the message. I hope it is not +the fault of the hotel. We do not often make mistakes; yet it is +possible. We have had a few early dinners before the theatre and there is +one small table disengaged. Would madame care to take it--it is here, +close to the door--and watch for the gentleman when he comes?" + +"When he comes!" The head-waiter comfortably took it for granted that Mr. +Smith had been delayed, that he would come, and that it would be a pity +to miss him. The polite person might be right, though with a sinking +heart Annesley began to suspect herself played with, abandoned, as she +deserved, for her dreadful boldness. + +Perhaps Mr. Smith had been in communication with someone else more +suitable than she, and had thrown over the appointment without troubling +to let her know. Or perhaps he had been waiting in the foyer, had +inspected her as she passed, and hadn't liked her looks. + +This latter supposition seemed probable; but the head-waiter was so +confident of what she ought to do that the girl could think of no excuse. +After all, it would do little harm to wait and "see what happened." As +Mr. Smith was apparently not living at the Savoy (he had merely asked her +to meet him there), he might have had an accident in train or taxi. +Annesley had made her plans to be away from home for two hours, so she +could give him the benefit of the doubt. + +A moment of hesitation, and she was seating herself in a chair offered by +the head-waiter. It was one of a couple drawn up at a small table for +two. Sitting thus, Annesley could see everybody who came in, and--what +was more important--could be seen. By what struck her as an odd +coincidence, the table was decorated with a vase of white roses whose +hearts blushed faintly in the light of a pink-shaded electric lamp. + +A quarter of an hour, twenty minutes, dragged along, and no Mr. Smith. +Annesley could follow the passing moments on her wrist-watch in its +silver bracelet, the only present Mrs. Ellsworth had ever given her, +with the exception of cast-off clothes, and a pocket handkerchief each +Christmas. + +Every nerve in the girl's body seemed to prickle with embarrassment. She +played with a dinner roll, changed the places of the flowers and the +lamp, trying to appear at ease, and not daring to look up lest she should +meet eyes curious or pitying. + +"What if they make me pay for dinner after I've kept the table so long?" +she thought in her ignorance of hotel customs. "And I've got only a +shilling!" + +Half an hour now, all but two minutes! There was nothing more to hope or +fear. But there was the ordeal of getting away. + +"I'll sit out the two minutes," she told herself. "Then I'll go. Ought I +to tip the waiter?" Horrible doubt! And she must have been dreaming to +touch that roll! Better sneak away while the waiter was busy at a +distance. + +Frightened, miserable, she was counting her chances when a man, whose +coming into the room her dilemma had caused her to miss, marched +unhesitatingly to her table. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +SMITHS AND SMITHS + + +Annesley glanced up, her face aflame, like a fanned coal. The man was +tall, dark, lean, square-jawed, handsome in just that thrilling way which +magazine illustrators and women love; the ideal story-hero to look at, +even to the clothes which any female serial writer would certainly have +described as "immaculate evening dress." + +It was too good--oh, far too wonderfully good!--to be true that this +man should be Mr. Smith. Yet if he were not Mr. Smith why should +he----Annesley got no farther in the thought, though it flashed through +her mind quick as light. Before she had time to seek an answer for her +question the man--who was young, or youngish, not more than thirty-three +or four--had bent over her as if greeting a friend, and had begun to +speak in a low voice blurred by haste or some excitement. + +"You will do me an immense service," he said, "if you'll pretend to know +me and let me sit down here. You sha'n't regret it, and it may save my +life." + +"Sit down," answered something in Annesley that was newly awake. She +found her hand being warmly shaken. Then the man took the chair reserved +for Mr. Smith, just as she realized fully that he wasn't Mr. Smith. Her +heart was beating fast, her eyes--fixed on the man's face, waiting for +some explanation--were dilated. + +"Thank you," he said, leaning toward her, in his hand a menu which the +waiter had placed before the girl while she was still alone. She noticed +that the hand was brown and nervous-looking, the hand of a man who might +be a musician or an artist. He was pretending to read the menu, and to +consult her about it. "You're a true woman, the right sort--brave. I +swear I'm not here for any impertinence. Now, will you go on helping me? +Can you keep your wits and not give me away, whatever happens?" + +"I think so," answered the new Annesley. "What do you want me to do?" She +took the pitch of her tone from his, speaking quietly, and wondering if +she would not wake up in her ugly brown bedroom at Mrs. Ellsworth's, as +she had done a dozen times when dreaming in advance of her rendezvous at +the Savoy. + +"It will be a shock when I tell you," he answered. "But for Heaven's +sake, don't misunderstand. I shouldn't ask this if it weren't absolutely +necessary. In case a man comes to this table and questions you, you must +let him suppose that you are my wife." + +"Oh!" gasped Annesley. Her eyes met the eyes that seemed to have been +waiting for her look, and they answered with an appeal which she could +not refuse. + +She did not stop to think that if the dark eyes had not been so handsome +they might have been easier to resist. She--the suppressed and timid +girl, never allowed to make up her mind--let herself go with the wave +of strong emotion carrying her along, and reached a resolve. + +"It means trusting you a great deal," she answered. "But you say you're +in danger, so I'll do what you ask. I think you can't be wicked enough to +pay me back by trying to hurt me." + +"You think right," the man said, and it struck her that his accent was +not quite English. She wondered if he were Canadian or American. Not that +she knew much about either. "A woman like you _would_ think right!" he +went on. "Only one woman out of ten thousand would have the nerve and +presence of mind and the humanity to do what you're doing. When I came +into this room and saw your face I counted on you." + +Annesley blushed again in a rush of happiness. She had always longed to +do something which would really matter to another soul. She had even +prayed for it. Now the moment seemed to have come. God would not let her +be the victim of an ignoble trick! + +"I'm glad," she said, her face lit by a light from within. And at that +moment, bending toward each other, they were a beautiful couple. A seeker +of romance would have taken them for lovers. + +"Tell me what you want me to do," Annesley said once more. + +"The worst of it is, I can't tell you exactly. Two men may come into this +restaurant looking for me. One or both will speak to me. They'll call me +a certain name, and I shall say they've made a mistake. You must say so, +too. You must tell them I'm your husband, and stick to that no matter +what the man, or men, may tell you about me. The principal thing now is +to choose a name. But--by Jove--I forgot it in my hurry! Are you +expecting any one to join you? If you are, it's awkward." + +"I was expecting someone, but I've given him up." + +"Was this table taken in his name or yours? Or, perhaps--but no, I'm sure +you're _not_!" + +"Sure I'm not what?" + +"Married. You're a girl. Your eyes haven't got any experience of life in +them." + +Annesley looked down; and when she looked down her face was very sweet. +She had long, curved brown lashes a shade or two darker than her hair. + +"I'm not married," she said, rather stiffly. "I thought a table had been +engaged in the name of Mr. Smith, but there was a misunderstanding. The +head waiter put me at this table in case Mr. Smith should come. I've +given him up now, and was going away when----" + +"When you took pity on a nameless man. But it seems indicated that he +should be Mr. Smith, unless you have any objection!" + +"No, I have none. You'd better take the name, as I mentioned it to the +waiter." + +"And the first name?" + +"I don't know. The initial I gave was N." + +"Very well, I choose Nelson. Where do we live?" + +Annesley stared, frightened. + +"Forgive me," the man said. "I ought to have explained what I meant +before asking you that, or put the question another way. Will you go on +as you've begun, and trust me farther, by letting me drive with you to +your home, if necessary, in case of being followed? At worst, I'll need +to beg no more than to stand inside your front door for a few minutes if +we're watched, and--but I see that this time I have passed the limit. I'm +expecting too much! How do you know but I may be a thief or a murderer?" + +"I hadn't thought of such a thing," Annesley stammered. "I was only +thinking--it isn't _my_ house. It doesn't even belong to my people. I +live with an old lady, Mrs. Ellsworth. I hope she'll be in bed when I get +back, and the servants, too. I have a key because--because I told a fib +about the place where I was going, and consequently Mrs. Ellsworth +approved. If she hadn't approved, I shouldn't have been allowed out. I +could let you stand inside the door. But if any one followed us to the +house, and saw the number, he could look in the directory, and find out +that it belonged to Mrs. Ellsworth, not Mr. Smith." + +"He couldn't have a directory in his pocket! By the time he got hold of +one and could make any use of his knowledge, I'd be far away." + +"Yes, I suppose you would," Annesley thought aloud, and a little voice +seemed to add sharply in her ear: "Far away out of my life." + +This brought to her memory what she had in her excitement forgotten: +the adventure she had come out to meet had faded into thin air! The +unexpected one which had so startlingly taken its place would end +to-night, and she would be left to the dreary existence from which she +had tried to break free. + +She was like a pebble that had succeeded in riding out to sea on a wave, +only to be washed back into its old place on the shore. The thought that, +after all, she had no change to look forward to, gave the girl a +passionate desire to make the most of this one living hour among many +that were born dead. + +"Mrs. Ellsworth's house," she said, "is 22-A, Torrington Square." + +"Thank you." Only these two words he spoke, but the eager dark eyes +seemed to add praise and blessings for her confidence. + +"My name is Annesley Grayle," she volunteered, as if to prove to the man +and to herself how far she trusted him; also perhaps as a bid for his +name in payment of that trust. So at least he must have understood, for +he said: "If I don't tell you mine, it's for your own protection. I'm not +ashamed of it; but it's better that you shouldn't know--that if you heard +it suddenly, it should be strange to you, just like any other name. Don't +you see I'm right?" + +"I dare say you are." + +"Then we'll leave it at that. But we can't go on pretending to study +this menu for ever! You came to dine with Mr. Smith. You'll dine with +his understudy instead. You'll let me order dinner? It's part of the +programme." + +"Very well," Annesley agreed. + +The man nodded to the head-waiter, who had been interested in the little +drama indirectly stage-managed by him. Instead of sending a subordinate, +he came himself to take the order. With wonderful promptness, considering +that Mr. Smith's thoughts had not been near the menu under his eyes, +several dishes were chosen and a wine selected. + +"Madame is glad now that I persuaded her not to go?" the waiter could not +resist, and Annesley replied that she was glad. As the man turned away, +"Mr. Smith" raised his eyebrows with rather a wistful smile. + +"I'm afraid you're sorry, really," he said. "If I'd come a minute later +than I did, you'd have been safe and happy at home by this time." + +"Not happy," amended the girl. "Because it isn't home. If it were, I +shouldn't have told fibs to Mrs. Ellsworth to-night." + +"That sounds interesting," remarked her companion. + +"It's _not_ interesting!" she assured him. "Nothing in my life is. I +don't want to bore you by talking about my affairs, but if you think we +may be--interrupted, perhaps, I'd better explain one or two things while +there's time. I wanted to come here this evening to keep an engagement +I'd made, but it's difficult for me to get out alone. Mrs. Ellsworth +doesn't like to be left, and she never lets me go anywhere without her +except to the house of some friends of mine, the only real friends I +have. It's odd, but _their_ name is Smith, and that saved my telling +a direct lie. Not that a half-lie isn't worse, it's so cowardly! + +"Mrs. Ellsworth likes me to go to Archdeacon and Mrs. Smith's +because--I'm afraid because she thinks they're 'swells.' Mrs. Smith has a +duke for an uncle! Mrs. Ellsworth said 'yes' at once, when I asked, and +gave me her key and permission to stop out till half-past ten, though +everyone in the house is supposed to be in bed by ten. She's almost sure +to be in bed herself, but if she gets interested in one of the books I +brought from the library to-day, it's possible she may be sitting up to +read, and to ask about my evening. + +"Our bedrooms are on the ground floor at the back of an addition to the +house. What if she should hear the latchkey (it's old fashioned and hard +to work), and what if she should come to the swing door at the end of the +corridor where she'd see you with me? What would you say or do?" + +"H'm! It would be awkward. But--isn't there a _young_ Smith in your +Archdeacon's family?" + +"There is one, but I haven't seen him since I was a little girl. He's a +sailor. He's away now on an Arctic expedition." + +"Then it wasn't _that_ Mr. Smith you came to meet at the Savoy?" + +"No. They're not related." As Annesley returned in thought to the Mr. +Smith who had thrown her over, she took from her bodice the white rose +which was to have identified her for him, and found it a place in the +vase with the other white roses. She had a special reason for doing this. +The real Mr. Smith, if by any chance he appeared now, would be a +complication. Without the rose he could not claim her acquaintance. + +"Why do you do that?" her companion broke the thread of his questioning +to ask. + +The girl was tempted to tell some easy fib that the rose was faded, or +too fragrant; but somehow she could not. They both seemed so close to the +deep-down things of life at this moment that to speak the truth was the +one possible thing. + +"I arranged to wear a white rose for Mr. Smith to recognize me. We--have +never seen each other," she confessed. + +"Yet you say there's nothing interesting in your life!" + +"It's true! _This_ thing was--was dreadful. It could happen only to a +girl whose life was not interesting." + +"Now I understand why you put away the rose--for my sake, in case +Mr. Smith should turn up, after all. Will you give it to me? I won't +flaunt it in my buttonhole. I'll hide it sacredly, in memory of this +evening--and of you. Not that I shall need to be reminded of anything +which concerns this night--you especially, and your generosity, your +courage. But it may be that the men I spoke of won't find me here. If +they don't, the worst of your ordeal is over. It will only be to finish +dinner, and let me put you into a taxi. To-morrow you can think that you +dreamed the wretch who appealed to you, and be glad that you will never +see him again." + +Annesley selected her white rose from its fellows, dried its stem +daintily with her napkin, and gave the flower to "Mr. Smith." Already it +looked refreshed, as she herself felt refreshed, after five years of +"stuffiness," by these few throbbing moments. + +Their hands touched, and through Annesley's darted a little tingle of +electricity that flashed up her arm to her heart, where it caught like a +hooked wire. She was surprised, almost frightened by the sensation, and +ashamed because she didn't find it disagreeable. + +"It must be that people who're really _alive_, as he is, give out +magnetism," she thought. And the thrill lingered as the man thanked her +with eyes and voice. + +When he had looked at the rose curiously, as if expecting to learn from +it the secret of its wearer, he put the flower away in a letter-case in +an inner breast pocket of his coat. + +For once Annesley was face to face with romance, and even though she +would presently go back to the old round (since the adventure she came +out to meet had failed), she was stirred to a wild gladness in this +other adventure. The _hors d'oeuvres_ appeared; then soup, and wine, +which Mr. Smith begged her to taste. + +"Drink luck for me," he insisted. "You and you alone can bring it." + +Annesley drank. And the champagne filliped colour to her cheeks. + +"Now we'll go on and think out the problem of what may happen at your +door--if Fate takes me there," the man said. "Your old friend's sailor +son is no use to me. He can't be whisked back from the North Pole to +London for my benefit. Perhaps I may be an acquaintance of Archdeacon +Smith's, mayn't I, if worst comes to worst? I've been dining there, and +brought you back in a taxi. Will that do? If there are fibs to tell, I'll +tell them myself and spare you if possible." + +"After all I've told to-night, one or two more can't matter," said +Annesley. "They won't hurt Mrs. Ellsworth. It's the other danger that's +more worrying--the danger from those men. I've thought of something that +may help if they follow us to Torrington Square. They may ask a policeman +whose house we've gone into, and find out it's Mrs. Ellsworth's, before +you can get away. So it will be better not to tell them it's _yours_. You +can be visiting. There is a Mr. Smith who comes sometimes from America, +where he lives, though he's not American. Even the policemen who have +that beat may have heard of him from Mrs. Ellsworth's servants. There's +a room kept always ready for him, and called 'Mr. Smith's room.'" + +"That does help," said the man. "It's clever and kind of you to rack your +brains for me. A Mr. Smith from America! It's easy for me to play that +part, I'm from America. Perhaps you've guessed that?" + +"But you're very different from Mrs. Ellsworth's Mr. Smith," Annesley +warned him, hastily. "He's middle-aged, eccentric, and not good-looking. +He comes to England for his 'nerves' when he has worked too hard and +tired himself out. I think he's rich; and once he was robbed in some big +hotel, so he likes to stay at a plain sort of house where there's no +danger. He has a horror of burglars, and won't even stop at the +Archdeacon's since they had a burglary a few years ago. He pays Mrs. +Ellsworth for his room, I believe. A funny arrangement!--it came about +through me. But that's not of importance to you." + +"It may be. We can't tell. Better let me know as much as possible about +these Smiths. There's Mrs. Ellsworth's Smith, and the Smith you came to +meet----" + +"We needn't talk of _him_, anyway!" + +There was a hint of anger in the girl's protest; but her resentment was +for the man who had humiliated her by breaking his appointment--_such_ an +appointment! + +She hurried on, trying to hide all signs of agitation. "You see, Mrs. +Ellsworth once hoped to have Archdeacon Smith and his wife for friends. +They didn't care for her, but they loved my father--oh, long ago in the +country, where we lived. When he died and I hadn't any money or training +for work, they were nice to Mrs. Ellsworth for my sake--or, rather, for +my father's sake--and persuaded her to take me as her companion. She was +glad to do it to please them; but soon she realized that they didn't mean +to reward her by being intimate. + +"Poor woman, I was almost sorry for her disappointment! You see, she's +a snob at heart, and though 'Smith' sounds a common name, both the +Archdeacon and his wife have titled relations. So have I--and that was +another reason for taking me. She adores a title. Doesn't that sound +pitiful? But she has few interests and no real friends, so she's never +given up hope of 'collecting' the Smiths. + +"That's why she lets me visit them. And when I happened to mention, for +something to say, that the Archdeacon had an eccentric cousin in America +who was afraid of hotels and even of visiting at their house because of a +fad about burglars, she offered to give him the better of her two spare +rooms whenever he came to England. I never thought he'd accept, but he +did, only he would insist on paying. + +"That's the story, if you can call it a story, for Mr. Ruthven Smith +isn't a bit exciting nor interesting. When he appears--generally quite +suddenly--he finds his room ready. He has his breakfast sent up, and +lunches out at his club or somewhere. He mostly dines out, too, but he +has a standing invitation to dine with Mrs. Ellsworth, and we always have +good dinners when he is staying, to be ready in case of the worst." + +The man smiled, rather a charming smile, Annesley could not help +noticing. + +"In case of the worst!" he repeated. "He must be deadly if his +society bores you more than that of an old lady on whom, I suppose, +you dance attendance morning, noon, and night. Now, my situation is +so--er--peculiar that I ought to be thankful to exchange identities +with any man. But I wouldn't with Mr. Ruthven Smith for all his money +and jewels." + +Annesley opened her eyes. "Did I say anything about jewels?" she asked. + +"No, you didn't," the man assured her, "except in mentioning the name of +Ruthven Smith. Anybody who has lived in America as long as I have, +associates jewels with the name of Ruthven Smith. His 'Ruthven' lifts him +far above the ruck of a _mere_ Smith--like myself, for instance"; and he +smiled again. + +Annesley began curiously to feel as if she knew him well. This made her +more anxious to give him help--for it would not be helping a stranger: it +would be helping a friend. + +"I've heard, of course, that he's something--I'm not sure what--in a firm +of jewellers," she said. "But I'd no idea of his being so important." + +"He's third partner with Van Vreck & Co.," her companion explained. "I've +heard he joined at first because of his great knowledge of jewels and +because he's been able to revive the lost art of making certain +transparent enamels. The Van Vrecks sent for him from England years ago. +He buys jewels for the firm now, I believe. No doubt that's why he's in +such a funk about burglars." + +"Fancy your knowing more about Mr. Smith than I know! Perhaps more than +Mrs. Ellsworth knows!" exclaimed Annesley, forgetting the strain of +expectation--the dread that a pair of mysterious, nightmare men might +break up the dreamlike dinner-party for two. + +"I don't know more about him than half America and Europe knows," laughed +the man. "It's lucky I _do_ know something, though, as I may have to be +mistaken for Ruthven Smith, and add an 'N' to his initials. I suppose +he's not in England now by any chance?" + +"No. It must be six or seven months since he was here last," said +Annesley. "I don't think Mrs. Ellsworth has heard from him. She hardly +ever does until a day or two before he's due to arrive; neither do his +cousins." + +"A peculiar fellow, it would seem," remarked her companion. And then, out +of a plunge into thought, "You say you've never seen the Mr. Smith you +came to meet at the Savoy? How can you be sure it isn't old 'R. S.' as +they call him at Van Vreck's, wanting to play you a trick--give you a +surprise?" + +Annesley shook her head. "If you knew Mr. Ruthven Smith, you'd know that +would be impossible. Why, I don't believe he remembers when I'm out of +sight that I exist." + +"Still more peculiar! Miss Grayle, I haven't any right to ask you +questions. But I shouldn't be a man if I weren't forgetting my own +affairs--in--in curiosity, if you want to call it that (I don't!), about +yours. No! I won't let it pass for ordinary curiosity. Can't you +understand you're doing for me more than any woman ever has done, or any +man would do? That does make a bond between us. You can't deny it. Tell +me about this Mr. Smith whom you don't know and never saw, yet came to +the Savoy Hotel to meet." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +WHY SHE CAME + + +Surprised by the abruptness of his question, Annesley's eyes dropped +from the eyes of her host, which tried to hold them. She felt that she +ought to be angry with him for taking advantage of her generosity--for +it amounted to that! Yet anger would not come, only shame and the desire +to hide a thing which would change his gratitude to contempt. + +"Don't let's waste time talking about me," she said. "We haven't +arranged----" + +"We've arranged everything as well as we can. For the rest, I must trust +to luck--and you. Do tell me why you came here, why you _thought_ you +came here, I mean; for I'm convinced you were sent for my sake by any +higher powers there may be. I felt that, the minute I saw you. I feel it +ten times more strongly now. I know that whatever your reason was, it's +nothing to be ashamed of." + +"I _am_ ashamed," Annesley was led on to confess. "You'd despise me if I +told you, for you can't realize what my life's been for five years. And +that's my one excuse." + +"Only a fool would want a woman like you to excuse herself for +anything. I swear I wouldn't despise you. I couldn't. If you should tell +me--knowing you as little, or as well, as I do, that you'd been plotting +a murder, I'd be certain you were justified, and my first thought would +be to save you, as you're saving me now." + +Annesley felt again the man's intense magnetism. Suddenly she wanted to +tell him everything. It would be a relief. She would watch his face and +see how it changed. It would be like having the verdict of the world on +what she had done--or meant to do. + +"I saw an advertisement in the _Morning Post_," she said with a kind of +breathless violence, "from a man who--who wanted to meet a girl with--a +'view to marriage.'" + +The words brought a blush so painful that the mounting blood forced tears +to her eyes. But she looked her _vis-à-vis_ unwaveringly in the face. + +That did not change at all, unless the interest in his eyes grew warmer. +The sympathy she saw there gave Annesley a new and passionate desire to +defend herself. If he had shown disgust, she would not have cared to try, +she thought. + +"I told you it was horrid, and not interesting or romantic," she +dashed on. "But I was desperate. Mrs. Ellsworth is awful! I don't +suppose you ever met such a woman. She's not cruel about starving my +body. It's only my soul she starves. What business have _I_ with a soul, +except in church, where it's proper to think about such things? But she +nags--_nags_! She makes my hair feel as if it were turning gray at the +roots, and my face drying up--like an apple. + +"I wasn't nineteen when I came to her. I'm twenty-three now, and I feel +_old_--desiccated, thanks to those piling-up hundreds of days with her. +They've killed my spirit. I used to be different. I can feel it. I can +see it in the mirror. It isn't only the passing days, but having nothing +better to look forward to. I'm too cowardly--or too religious or +something, to kill myself, even if I knew how to, decently. But the +deadliness of it all, the airlessness of her house and her heart! + +"A man couldn't imagine it. She's made me forget not only my own youth, +but that there's youth in the world. Why, at first I was so wild I should +have loved to say dreadful things, or strike her. But now I haven't the +spirit left to feel like that. My blood's turning white. The other day +when I was reading aloud to Mrs. Ellsworth (I read a lot: the stupidest +parts of the papers and the silliest books, that turn my brain to fluff) +I caught sight of an advertisement in the Personal Column. + +"I stopped just in time and didn't read it out. Only a glimpse I had, for +I was in the midst of something else when my eyes wandered. But when Mrs. +Ellsworth was taking her nap after luncheon I got the _Post_ again and +read the advertisement through carefully. The reason I was interested was +because even the glance I took showed that the girl who was 'wanted' +seemed in some ways rather like me. The advertisement said she must be +from twenty-one to twenty-six; needn't be a beauty, but of pleasant +appearance; money no object; the essentials were that she must have a +fair education and be of good birth and manners, so as to command a +certain position in society. + +"I believe those were the very words. And it didn't seem too conceited +to think that I answered the description. I'm not bad-looking, and my +mother's father was an earl--an Irish one. I couldn't get the +advertisement out of my head. It fascinated me." + +"No wonder!" exclaimed Mr. Smith. He had been listening intently, and +though she had paused, panting a little, more than once, he had not +broken in with a word. + +"Do you _honestly_ think it no wonder?" Annesley flashed at him. + +"It was like a prisoner seeing a key sticking in a door that has always +been locked," he said. + +"How strange you should think of that!" she cried. "It was the thought +which came into my mind, and seemed to excuse me if anything could." +Annesley felt grateful to the man. She was sure she could never have +explained herself in this way or pleaded her own cause with the real Mr. +Smith. A man cold-blooded enough to advertise for a wife "well-born and +able to command a certain position in society" would have frozen her into +an ice-block of reserve. + +She might possibly have accepted his "proposition" (one couldn't speak of +it in the ordinary way as a "proposal"), provided that, on seeing her, he +had judged her suitable for the place; but she could never have talked +her heart out to him as she was led on to do by this other man, equally +a stranger, yet sympathetic because of his own trouble and the mystery +which made of him a figure of romance. + +"It isn't strange I should think of the prison door and the key," her +companion said. "That was the situation. 'N. Smith' was rather clever in +his way. There must be many girls of good family and good looks who are +in prison, pining to escape. He must have had a lot of answers, that +fellow; but none of the girls could have come within a mile of you. I'm +selfish! I bless my lucky stars he didn't turn up here." + +"I dare say it's the best thing that could happen," Annesley agreed with +a sigh. "Probably he's horrible. But there was one thing: I thought, +though he must be a snob and vulgar, advertising as he did for a wife of +good birth, that very thing looked as if he were no _worse_ than a snob. +Not a villain, I mean. Otherwise, I shouldn't have dared answer. But I +did answer the same day, while I had the courage. I posted a letter with +some of Mrs. Ellsworth's, which she sent me out to drop into the box. His +address was 'N. S., the _Morning Post_'; and I told him to send a reply, +if he wrote, to the stationery shop and library where Mrs. Ellsworth +makes me go every day to change her books." + +"And the answer? What was it like? What impression did it give you?" +questioned the man who sat in Mr. Smith's place. + +"Oh, it was written in a good hand. But it was a stiff, commonplace sort +of letter, except that it asked me to wear a white rose. White roses +happen to be the ones I like best." + +"So do I," said Mr. Smith. "Did he tell you to come to a table here and +wait for him?" + +"Not exactly. He was to meet me in the foyer. But if he did not, I was +to understand he'd been delayed; and in that case I must come to the +restaurant and inquire for a table engaged by Mr. N. Smith. Lots of times +I decided not to do anything. But you see I came, and this is my reward." + +"A poor one," her companion finished. + +"I don't mean that! I mean he hasn't come at all. Maybe he never meant +to. Maybe he got some letter he liked better than mine, and arranged to +meet the girl somewhere else. A man of that sort wouldn't write to tell +the straight truth in time, and save the unwanted one from humiliation." + +"Are you very sorry he didn't?" + +"No," Annesley said, frankly. "I'm not sorry. It's good to be able to +help someone. I'm glad I came." + +"So am I," Mr. Smith answered with a sudden change in his voice from calm +to excitement. "And now the moment isn't far off, I think, for the help +to be given. The men I spoke of are here. They're in the restaurant. You +can't see them without turning your head, which would not be wise. +They're speaking to a waiter. They haven't seen me yet, but they're sure +to look soon. They're pointing to a table near us. It's free. The +waiter's leading them to it. In an instant you'll have a better view +of them than I shall. Now ... but don't look up yet." + +From under her lashes Annesley saw--in the way women do see without +seeming to use their eyes--two men conducted to a table directly in front +of her. As she sat on her host's right, at the end of the table, not +opposite to him, this gave her the advantage--or disadvantage--of +facing the newcomers fully, while Mr. Smith, who had faced them as they +entered, would have his profile turned toward their table. + +The pair seated themselves in the same way that Annesley and her +companion were placed, one at the right hand of the other. This caused +the first man to face the girl fully and gave her the second in profile. +One table only intervened between Mr. Smith's and that selected by the +late arrivals, and the latter had hardly sat down when the party of four +at the intermediate table rose to go. + +Under cover of their departure, bowing of waiters and readjustment of +ladies' sable or ermine stoles, Annesley ventured a lightning glance at +the men. She saw that both were black-haired and black-bearded, with dark +skins and long noses. There was a slight suggestion of resemblance +between them. They might be brothers. They were in evening dress, but +did not look, Annesley thought, like gentlemen. + +Mr. Smith was eating _blennes au caviar_ apparently with enjoyment. He +called a waiter and told him to put more whipped cream on the caviare as +yet untouched in the middle of Annesley's pancake. + +"That's better, I think," he said, genially. And as the waiter went away, +"What are they doing now?" + +Annesley lifted her champagne glass as an excuse to raise her eyes. "I'm +afraid they've seen us and are talking about you. Can't we--hadn't we +better go?" + +"Certainly not," replied Mr. Smith. "At least, _I_ can't. But if you +repent----" + +"I don't," Annesley broke in. "I was thinking of you, of course." + +"Bless you!" said her host. His tone was suddenly gay. She glanced at him +and saw that his face was gay also, his eyes bright and challenging, his +look almost boyish. She had taken him for thirty-three or four; now she +would have guessed him younger. + +Annesley could not help admiring his pluck, for he had said that the +arrival of these men meant danger. She ought to be sorry as well as +frightened because they had come, but at that moment she was neither. Her +companion's example was contagious. Her spirits rose. And the thought +flashed through her head, "This adventure won't end here!" If she had had +time she would have been ashamed of her gladness; but there was no time. +Smith was talking again in a suppressed yet cheerful tone. + +"You won't forget that we're Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith?" + +"No--no. I sha'n't forget." + +"You may have to call me Nelson, and I--to call you Annesley. It's a +pretty name, odd for a woman to have. How did you get it?" + +"Oh, you don't want to hear that now!" + +"Why not?--unless you'd rather not tell me. We can't do anything more +till the blow falls, except enjoy ourselves and go on with our dinner. +How did you come to be Annesley?" + +"It was part of my mother's maiden name. She was an Annesley-Seton." + +"There's a Lord Annesley-Seton, isn't there?" + +"Yes." + +"Related to you?" + +"A cousin. But Grayle isn't a name in their set. He and his wife have +forgotten my existence. I'm not likely to remind them of it." + +"His wife was an American girl, wasn't she?" + +"How odd that you should know!" + +"Not very. I remember there being a lot in the papers about the wedding +six or seven years ago. The girl was very rich--a Miss Haverstall. Her +father's lost his money since then." + +"How _can_ you keep such uninteresting things in your mind--just now?" + +"They're not uninteresting. They concern you!" + +"Lord Annesley-Seton's affairs don't concern me, and never will." + +"I wonder?" said Smith, looking thoughtful; and the girl wondered, too: +not about her future or her relatives, but what the next few minutes +would do with this strange young man, and how at such a time he could +bear to talk commonplaces. + +"If you're trying to keep me from being nervous," she whispered, "it's +not a bit of use! I can't think of anything or any one except those men. +They've stopped whispering. But they're looking at you. Now--they're +getting up. They're coming toward us!" + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE GREAT MOMENT + + +The men were staring so keenly at "Mr. N. Smith" that it seemed to +Annesley he must feel the stab of eyes, sharp as pin-pricks, in his back. +He had the self-control, however, not to look round, not even to change +expression. No man in the restaurant appeared more calmly at ease than +he. + +The couple had accompanied their stare with eager whisperings. Then, +as if on some hasty decision, they pushed back their chairs and got up. +Taking a few steps they separated, approaching Smith on right and left. +One, therefore, stood between him and Annesley as if to prevent an +exchange of words or glances. There was something Eastern and oddly +alien about them in spite of their conventional clothes. + +"Mr. Michael Varcoe!" said the bigger and older, he who stood on the left +of Smith. The other kept in the background, not to crowd with conspicuous +rudeness between Annesley and her host. The man who spoke had a thick +voice and a curious accent which the girl, with her small experience, was +unable to place. + +"No," answered "Smith," in a puzzled tone. "You mistake me for someone +else." + +"I think not," insisted the bearded man, in a hostile drawl. "I _think_ +not!" + +"I'm _sure_ not," echoed the other. "You are Michael Varcoe. There's no +getting away from that." + +The emphasis seemed to add, "And no getting away from _us_." + +Excitement stirred Annesley to courage. "Why, how horrid!" she exclaimed, +bending past the human obstacle; "people taking you for some _foreigner_! +I'm sure you can't be like a man with such a name as--Michael Varcoe! +Tell them who we are." + +"My name is Nelson Smith," said her official husband. "My wife is +not----" + +"Your wife!" repeated the man standing opposite Annesley. He stared with +insolent incredulity. "'Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith.' A good name to +take." + +"It happens to have been given me." Slight sharpness broke the tolerance +of Smith's tone. + +"I don't believe you!" exclaimed the other. + +Smith's black brows drew together. "It doesn't matter whether you believe +or not," he said. "What does matter is that you should annoy us. I tell +you I'm not Michael Varcoe, and never heard the name. If you're not +satisfied, and if you don't go back to your dinner and let us finish ours +in peace, I'll appeal to the management." + +"Well!" grumbled the taller of the pair. "If you're not the man I want, +you're his image--minus moustache and beard. You _must_ be Varcoe!" + +"Of course he's Varcoe," insisted the other. + +"Of course he's not!" said Annesley, with just the right amount of +irritation. "Our name is Smith. Nelson, do tell this--person to ask the +head-waiter who engaged the table, and not stay here making a fuss." + +"Anybody can engage a table in the name of Smith!" sneered the first +speaker. "That is nothing. We go by something more convincing than a +name. There are countries where men have been arrested on less +resemblance--or put out of the way." + +"Oh, Nelson, he's frightening me," faltered Annesley. "He must have lost +his senses." + +"You think that, do you?" The fierce eyes fixed her with a stare. "You +tell me--_you_, madame, that you are this man's wife?" + +"I do tell you so," the girl replied, firmly, "though I don't see that +it's your affair! Now go away." + +"Very well, we take your word," returned the man, in a tone which said +that he did nothing of the sort. "And we go--back to our table, to let +you finish your meal, Mr. and Mrs. Smith." + +His black glance sprang like a tarantula from her face to her +companion's, then to his friend's. The latter accepted the ultimatum and +followed in sulky silence; but when the pair were seated at their own +table, though they ordered food and wine, their attention was still for +the alleged Mr. and Mrs. Smith. + +Annesley tried to ignore the fact that they stared without ceasing, but +she could not help being aware of their eyes. She felt faint, and +everything in the room whirled giddily. + +"Drink some champagne," said Smith's quiet voice. + +The girl obeyed, and the ice-cold wine cooled the fire in blood and +nerves. + +"You have been splendid," Smith encouraged her. "I know you won't fail me +now." + +"I promise you I will not!" returned Annesley. "The worst is over. I feel +ready for anything." + +"How can I thank you?" he murmured. "If I had all the rest of my life to +do it in, instead of a few minutes, it wouldn't be too much. You were +perfect in your manner, not anxious, only annoyed; just the right air for +a self-respecting Mrs. Smith." + +They both laughed, and Annesley was surprised that she could laugh +naturally and gaily. Presently she laughed again, when Mr. Smith remarked +that she had missed her vocation in not being an actress--she, the +country mouse, who had hardly been inside a theatre. + +The two lingered over their dinner, watched with impatience by the men +at the other table, who had ordered only one dish and paid for it +immediately, that they might be ready for anything at an instant's +notice. They had also a small bottle of wine, which they sipped +abstemiously as an excuse to remain after their food had been eaten. + +When at last Mr. and Mrs. Smith had finished their _bombe surprise_, and +trifled with some fruit, Annesley said: "Evidently they don't care how +long they have to wait! I suppose there's nothing for us to do but to +go?" + +"Oh, yes, there's still something," said Smith. "We'll have coffee in the +foyer, and see what the enemy's next move is. It would be a mistake to +let the brutes believe they're frightening us." + +Annesley agreed in silence; but in her heart she was glad to lengthen out +the adventure. Soon she would have to creep back to her dull modern +substitute for a moated grange, and after that--not "the deluge"; nothing +so exciting: extinction. + +As they walked out of the restaurant together the girl glanced up at the +dark profile, mysterious as a stranger's, yet familiar as a friend's. The +man had told her nothing about himself except that he was in danger, and +had given no hint as to what that danger was; but the girl's heart was +warm with belief in him. If there were a question of crime, the crime was +not his. His superiority over those creatures must be moral as well as +physical and social. + +By an odd coincidence, Mr. Smith steered for the sofa in the corner +whence a man had stared from behind an open newspaper at a tall, lonely +girl in gray, earlier in the evening. Annesley knew nothing of this +coincidence, because she had not noticed the man; but even if she had, +she would have forgotten him. She had been thinking of herself when she +first trailed her gray dress over the red carpet of the foyer; now, +returning, she thought of the man who was with her and the two who were +certain to follow. + +Scarcely were she and Smith seated before the others appeared. The men +sat down in chairs drawn up at a little table; and not only must those in +the corner pass by them in escaping, but every word spoken above a +whisper must be overheard. + +This fact did not embarrass Smith. He ordered coffee and cigarettes, and +talked to Annesley in an ordinary tone about a motor trip which it would +be pleasant to take. The watchers also demanded coffee. But the waiter +they summoned was slow in fulfilling their order. When it was obeyed, +before the pair had time to lift cup to lip, Mr. Smith took impish +pleasure in getting to his feet. + +"Come, dear," he said, "we'd better be off." + +He laid on the table money for the coffee and cigarettes, with a +satisfactory tip. Then without looking at their neighbours he and +Annesley passed, walking shoulder to shoulder with a leisurely step +toward the entrance. + +"I suppose there's no chance of shaking them off?" the girl whispered. + +"None whatever," said Smith. "But we've had the fun of cheating them out +of their coffee, because they won't chance our stopping to pick up our +wraps. They'll be on our heels till the end of the journey, so there's +nothing for it except to stick to the original plan of my going home with +you. I hope you don't mind? I hope you're not afraid of me now?" + +"I'm not at all afraid," said Annesley. + +"Thank you for that. If our taxi outruns theirs, I sha'n't need to +trespass on your kindness beyond the doorstep. But if they overtake us, +and are on the spot before you can vanish into the house and I can +disappear in some other direction, are you still game to keep your +promise--the promise to let me go indoors with you?" + +"Yes, I am 'game' to the end--whatever the end may be," the girl +answered; and she wondered at herself, because her heart was as brave as +her words. + +Five minutes later Annesley, wrapped in her thin cloak, was stepping into +a taxi. As Smith followed and told the chauffeur where to drive, the two +watchers shot through the revolving door in time to overhear, and also to +order a taxi. + +Annesley wondered for one dismayed instant why her companion should have +given the real address. He might have mentioned some other street, and +thus have gained time; but a second thought told her that, with the +pursuing taxi so close upon their heels, an attempt to deceive would have +been useless. The policy of defiance was the only one. + +For a few moments neither the girl nor the man spoke, although Annesley +felt that there were a thousand things to say. Every second was taking +them nearer to Torrington Square; and their parting must come soon. After +that, all would be blankness for her, as before this wonderful night. + +Such thoughts made the girl a prisoner of silence; and "Mr. Smith" was +also tongue-tied. Was he concentrating his mind upon some plan of escape +from these mysterious enemies? She told herself this must be so; yet his +first words proved that he had been thinking of the risk she ran. + +"If the dragon comes out of her den and catches us at the door, will that +mean a catastrophe for you, or can I be explained away?" he inquired. + +"I don't know," said Annesley. "And somehow I don't care!" + +"I care," the man replied. "I can't have harm come to you through me. But +tell me, before we go farther--does it matter to you, Miss Grayle, that +in a little while you and I may see the last of each other? I feel I have +a sort of right to ask that question, because it matters such a lot to +me. I've got to know you better in this one evening than I could in a +year in a commonplace way. I don't want you to go out of my life, because +you're the best thing that ever came into it. And if I dared hope that I +might mean to you some day half what you've begun to mean for me already, +why, I wouldn't _let_ you go!" + +Annesley clasped her hands under her cloak. They were cold yet tingling. +Her blood was leaping; but she could not speak. She was afraid of saying +too much. + +"Can't you give me a grain of hope?" he went on. His voice was wistful. +"We have so little time." + +"What--do you want me to say?" Annesley stammered. + +"I want you to say--that you don't wish to see the last of me to-night." + +"I shouldn't be human if I _could_ wish that!" the words seemed to speak +themselves; and she, who had been taught to repress and hide emotion as +if it were a vice, was glad that the truth was out. After all they had +gone through together she couldn't send this man away believing her +indifferent. "I--it doesn't seem as if we were strangers," she faltered +on. + +"Strangers! I should think not," he echoed. "We mayn't know much about +each other's tastes, but we do know about each other's souls, which is +more than can be said of most men and women acquainted for half a +lifetime. As for our pasts, you haven't had one, and I--well, if I swear +to you that I've never murdered anybody, or been in prison, or committed +an unforgivable crime, will you take my word?" + +"If you told me you _were_ a murderer, or had committed some unforgivable +crime, I--I don't feel as if I could believe it," Annesley assured him. +"It--would hurt me to think evil of you. I'm sure it isn't you who are +evil, but these men." + +"You're an angel to feel like that and speak like that!" exclaimed Smith. +"I don't deserve your goodness, but I appreciate it. I'd like to take +your hand and kiss it when I thank you, but I won't, because you're alone +with me, under my protection. To save me from trouble you've risked +danger and put yourself in my power. I may be bad in some ways--most men +are, or would be in women's eyes if women saw them as they are; but I'm +not a brute. The worst I've ever done is to try to pay back a great +injury, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Do you blame me for +that?" + +"I have no right--I don't know what the injury was," said the girl; and, +hesitating a little, "still--I don't think _I_ could find happiness in +revenge." + +"I could, or anyhow, satisfaction: I confess that. About 'happiness,' I +don't know much. But you could teach me." + +"I?" + +"Yes. Do you believe there can be such a thing as love at first sight?" + +"I can't tell. Books say so. Perhaps----" + +"There's no 'perhaps.' I've found that out to-night. I believe love that +comes at sight must be the only real love--a sort of electric call from +soul to soul. The thing that's happened is just this: I've met the one +woman--my help-mate. If I come out of this trouble, and can ask a girl +like you to give herself to me, will you do it?" + +"Oh, you say this because you think you ought to be grateful!" cried +Annesley. "But I don't want gratitude. This is the first time I've ever +_lived_. I owe that to you. And it's more than you can owe to me." + +The man laughed, a happy laugh, as though danger were miles away instead +of on his heels. "You know almost as much about men as a child knows, +Miss Grayle," he said, "if you think I'm one of the sort--if there _is_ +such a sort--who would tie himself to a woman for gratitude. I've just +one motive in wanting you to marry me. I love you and need you. I +couldn't feel more if I'd known you months instead of hours." + +The wonder of it swept over Annesley in a flood. Even in her dreams--and +she had had wild dreams sometimes--she had never pictured a man such as +this loving her and wanting her. To the girl's mind he was so attractive +that it seemed impossible his choice of her could be from the heart. She +would wake up to a stale, flat to-morrow and find that none of these +things had really happened. + +Still, she might as well live up to the dream while it lasted, and have +the more to remember. + +"It's a fairy story, surely!" she said, trying to laugh. "There are so +many beautiful girls in the world for a man like you, that I----" + +"A man like me! What _am_ I like?" + +"Oh, it's hard to put into words. But--well, you're brave; I'm sure of +that." + +"I hope I'm not a coward. All normal men are brave. That's nothing. What +else am I--to you?" + +"Interesting. More interesting than--than any one I ever saw." + +"If you feel that, you don't want to send me out of your life, do +you?--after you've stood by and sheltered me from danger?" + +"No-o. I don't want to send you out of my life. But----" + +"There's only one way in which you can keep me and I can keep +you--circumstanced as we are. We must be husband and wife." + +"Oh!" The girl covered her face with both hands. The world was on fire +around her. + +"I frighten you. Yet you might have consented to marry that other Smith. +You went to meet him, to decide whether he was possible." + +"I know. But I see now, if he'd kept his appointment, it would have ended +in nothing, even if--if he had been pleased with me. I couldn't have +brought myself to say 'yes'." + +"How can you be certain?" + +"Because"--Annesley spoke almost in a whisper--"because he wasn't _you_." + +Smith snatched her clasped hands and kissed them. The warm touch of the +man's lips gave the girl a new, mysterious sensation. No man had ever +kissed even her hands. Suddenly she felt sure that what she felt must be +love--love at first sight, which, according to him, was an electric call +from soul to soul. His kiss told her that they belonged to each other for +good or evil. + +"Darling!" he said. "You are mine. I sha'n't let you go. For love of you +I'll free myself from this temporary trouble I'm in, and come back to +claim you soon. When I ask you to be my wife you'll say to me what you +_wouldn't_ have said to the other Smith?" + +"If I can escape to hear you. But--you don't know Mrs. Ellsworth." + +"St. George rescued the princess from the dragon: so will I, though I've +warned you I'm no saint. When we meet again I'll tell you what I am, and +perhaps my real name, which is better than Smith, though it mayn't be as +safe. Now, there are other things to say----" + +But there was no time to say them, for the taxi stopped. The time seemed +so short since the Savoy that Annesley couldn't believe they were in +Torrington Square. Perhaps the chauffeur had made a mistake? She looked +out, hoping that it might be so; but before her were the darkened windows +of the dull, familiar house, 22-A. The great moment was upon them. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE SECOND LATCHKEY + + +Without another word Smith opened the door and sprang out. As Annesley +put her hand into his to descend she gave him the latchkey. It had been +inside the neck of her dress, and the metal was warm from the warmth of +her heart. + +"Take this," she whispered. "If _they_ are watching, it will be best for +you to have the key." + +Mr. Smith bestowed a generous tip on the driver, and was rewarded with a +loud, cheerful "Thank you, sir!" which must have reached the ears of a +chauffeur in the act of stopping before a house near by. Annesley, +glancing sidewise at the other taxi, thought that it drew up with +suspicious suddenness, as if it had awaited a "cue." + +There was little doubt in her mind as to who the occupants were, and her +heart beat fast, though she controlled herself to walk with calmness +across the strip of pavement. On the doorstep she turned to wait for her +companion, and, without seeming to look past him, saw that no one got out +from the neighbouring taxi. + +"They don't care whether we guess who they are or not," was her thought. +"They mean to find out whether we have a latchkey and can let ourselves +into a house in this square. When they see us go in, will they believe +the story and drive away, or--will they stay on?" + +What would happen if the watchers persisted Annesley dared not think; but +she knew that she would sacrifice herself in any way rather than send the +man she loved (yes, she _did_ love him!) out to face peril. + +Having paid the chauffeur, Mr. N. Smith joined the figure on the +doorstep, and fitted into the lock Annesley's latchkey. Then he opened +the door for the girl, and followed her in with a cool air of +proprietorship which ought to have impressed the watchers. A minute +later, if another proof had been needed that Mr. and Mrs. Smith were +actually at home, it was given by a sudden glow of red curtains in the +two front windows of the ground floor. + +This touch of realism meant extra risk for Annesley in case Mrs. +Ellsworth were awake; but she took it with scarcely a qualm of fear. The +house was quiet, and there were ten chances to one against its mistress +being on the alert at this hour, so long past her bedtime. + +When the girl had switched on the lights of the two-branched chandelier +over the dining table she beckoned to her companion, who noiselessly +followed her from the dark corridor into the room. There, with one +sweeping glance at the dull red walls, the oil-painted landscapes in +sprawling gilt frames, the heavy plush curtains, the furniture with its +"saddle-bag" upholstery, the common Turkish carpet, and the mantel mirror +with tasteless, tasselled draperies, "Nelson Smith" seemed to comprehend +the deadly "stuffiness" of Annesley Grayle's existence. + +The look of Mrs. Ellsworth's middle-class dining room, and the atmosphere +whence oxygen had been excluded, were enough to tell him, if he had not +realized already, why the lady's companion had gone out to meet a strange +man "with a view to marriage." + +To Annesley, however, for the first time, this room was neither hideous +nor depressing. It seemed years since she had seen it. She was a +different girl from the spiritless slave who had crept out after +luncheon, in the wake of her mistress: that short, shapeless form with +a large head set on a short neck, and a trailing, old-fashioned dress +of black. + +Now, with a man holding her hands and calling her an angel--a "dear, +brave angel!"--it looked to the girl a beautiful room. There was glamour +upon it, and upon the rest of the world. Surely life could never seem +commonplace again! + +"Ssh!" Annesley whispered. "We mustn't wake Mrs. Ellsworth, or she'll run +to the front door in her dressing gown and call 'Police!' She's old, but +her ears are sharp as a cat's. She can almost hear one _thinking_. But +I'm glad she can't quite. How frightful if she could!" + +"Nothing about her need be frightful to you any more," said the man. "You +have saved me. Soon it will be my turn to rescue you." + +"I haven't saved you yet," the girl reminded him. "_They_ are sure to be +waiting to see whether you come out. But I've thought of one more thing +to make them believe that you live here. I can steal softly upstairs to +the front room on the second floor, above the drawing room--the one we +call 'Mr. Smith's'--to turn on the lights, and then those hateful +creatures will think----". She hesitated, and the colour sprang to her +cheeks. + +"That Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith have gone to their room," the man +finished her sentence. His eyes beamed love and gratitude, a glorious +reward. "You're wonderful! You forget nothing that can help. Do you know, +your trust, your faith in me, in spite of appearances, are the best +things that have come into my life? You call those fellows 'hateful +creatures,' because they're my enemies. Yet, for all you know, _they_ +may be injured innocents and I the 'hateful' one. This may be my way +of getting into a rich old woman's house to steal her jewels and +money--making you a cat's paw." + +"Don't!" Annesley cut him short. "I can't bear to hear you say such +things. I trust you because--surely a woman can tell by instinct which +men to trust. I don't need proof." + +"By Jove!" he exclaimed, his eyes fixed upon her face. "You are the kind +of girl whose faith could turn Lucifer back from devil into archangel. +I--you're a million times too good for me. I didn't even _want_ to meet a +white saint like you. But now I have met you, nothing on earth is going +to make me give you up, if you'll stand by me. I'm unworthy, and I don't +expect to be much better. But there's one thing: I can give you a gayer +life than here. Perhaps I can even make you happy, if you don't ask for +a saint to match yourself. You shall have my love and worship, and I'll +be true as steel----" + +"Oh, listen!" Annesley broke in. "Don't you hear a sound?" + +"Yes," he said. "A door creaked somewhere." + +"Mrs. Ellsworth's bedroom door. What shall we do? There's just the short +passage at the back, and then she'll be at the baize door that opens +into the front corridor. Quick! You, not I, must go upstairs--to that +second-floor front room I spoke of. Hurry! Before she gets to the swing +door----" + +Without a word he obeyed, remembering his hat, which he had laid on the +table. One step took him out of the lighted dining room into the dimness +beyond. Another step and he was on the stairs. There, for the moment at +least, he was safe from detection; for the staircase faced the front +door, and Mrs. Ellsworth must approach from the back. She would come to +the door of the dining room, and, expecting only the girl, would not +think of spying at the foot of the stairs. + +Besides, there was no light in the corridor except that which streamed +through the reddish globes of the chandelier above the dining table. If +only the man did not stumble on his way up, the situation might be saved. + +He was alert, deft, quick-witted, and light of foot as a panther. Who but +he would have remembered at such a moment to snatch up a compromising hat +and take it with him? + +Annesley stood still, rigid in every muscle, fighting to control her +heart-throbs, that she might be ready to answer a flood of questions. She +dared not even let her thoughts rush ahead. It was all she could do to +face the present. The rest must take care of itself. + +_He_ had said that she would "make a good actress." Now was the moment +to prove that he had judged her truly! She began to unfasten one of her +long gray gloves. A button was loose. She must give it a few stitches +to-morrow. Strange that there should be room for such a thought in her +mind. But she caught at it gladly. + +It calmed her as she heard a shuffling tread of slippered feet along the +corridor; and she forced herself not to look up until she was conscious +that a shapeless figure in a dressing gown filled the doorway, like a +badly painted portrait too large for its frame. + +"A nice time of night for you to be back!" barked the bronchitic voice +hoarsened by years of shut windows. "Give you an inch and you take an +ell! I told you half-past ten. Here it is eleven!" + +Annesley looked up as if surprised. "Oh, Mrs. Ellsworth, you frightened +me!" she exclaimed. "I was delayed. But it won't be eleven for ten +minutes. This dining-room clock keeps such good time, you know. And I've +been in the house for a few moments. I thought I came so softly! I'm +sorry I waked you up." + +"Waked me up!" repeated Mrs. Ellsworth. "I have not been to sleep. I +never can close my eyes when I know anybody is out and has got to come +back, especially a careless creature as likely as not to leave the front +door unlatched. That's why I said half-past ten at _latest_! If I don't +fall asleep before eleven I get nervous and lose my night's rest. You've +heard me say that twenty times, yet you have _no_ consideration!" + +"This is the first time I've been out late," Annesley defended herself. +As she spoke she looked at Mrs. Ellsworth as she might have looked at a +stranger. + +This fat old woman, with hard eyes, low, unintelligent forehead, and +sneering yet self-indulgent mouth, had been for five years the mistress +of her fate. The slave had feared to speak lest she should say the wrong +thing, had hesitated before taking the most insignificant step, knowing +that Mrs. Ellsworth's sharp tongue would accuse her of foolishness or +worse. But now Annesley wondered at her bondage. If only the man upstairs +could escape, never again would she be afraid of this old tyrant. + +"You don't need to tell me how long you have been in," said Mrs. +Ellsworth, blissfully ignorant that the iron chain was broken, and +enjoying her power to wound. "I've been sitting up watching the clock. My +fire's nearly out, and no more coals in the scuttle, the servants all +three snoring while I am kept up. If I'm in bed with a cold to-morrow I +shall have you to thank, Miss Grayle." + +"I'll get you some more coal if you want it," said Annesley. "Hadn't you +better go to bed now I am back?" + +"Not till I've made you understand that this must never occur again," +insisted the old woman. (Annesley was shocked at herself for daring to +think that the unwieldy bulk in the gray flannel dressing gown looked +like a hippopotamus.) "You don't seem to realize that you've done +anything out of the way. You're as calm as if it was eight o'clock. Not +a word of regret! Not a question as to _my_ evening, you're so taken up +with yourself and your smart clothes--clothes I gave you." + +"I haven't had much chance to ask questions, have I?" Annesley ventured +to remind her mistress. "Won't you tell me about your evening when you +are in bed and I have made up your fire? You say it is bad for you to +stand." + +"I say so because it is the truth, and doctor's orders," rapped out Mrs. +Ellsworth. "I thought I had been upset enough for one evening, but this +last straw had to be added to my burden." + +"Why, what can have upset you?" Annesley inquired, more for the sake +of appearing interested than because she was so. But the look on her +mistress's face told her that something really had happened. + +"I don't care to be kept out of my bed, to be catechized by you," +returned Mrs. Ellsworth, pleased that she had aroused curiosity and +determined not to gratify it. "Turn on the light in the corridor and +give me your arm. My rheumatism is very bad, owing to the chill I have +caught, and if I stumble I may be laid up for a week." + +The girl proffered a slender arm, hoping that the pounding of her heart +might not be detected by Mrs. Ellsworth's hand. She wished that she could +have slipped it under her right arm instead of the left, but owing to +Mrs. Ellsworth's position in the doorway it was impossible to do so, +except by pushing her aside. + +She rejoiced, however, in the order to put on the light in the corridor, +for this meant that after settling her mistress in bed and transferring +the dining-room coal scuttle to the bedroom she must return to switch the +electricity off. Then, with Mrs. Ellsworth out of the way, she could help +the man upstairs to escape, if the watchers had abandoned the game. + +The tyrant, shuffling along in heelless woollen slippers, made the most +of her infirmity, and hung on the arm of her tall companion. In silence +they passed through the baize door at the end of the corridor, so into +the addition at the back of the house, which contained Mrs. Ellsworth's +room and bath, with another small room suitable for a maid, and occupied +by Annesley. This addition had been built a year or two before Annesley's +arrival, and saved Mrs. Ellsworth the necessity of mounting and +descending the stairs, as she used the dining room to sit in and seldom +went into the drawing room on the floor above. Annesley was not surprised +to see that the fire in her mistress's room was still a bank of glowing +coals, for one of Mrs. Ellsworth's pleasures was to represent herself in +the light of a martyr. The girl made no remark, however: she was far too +experienced for such mistakes in tact. + +Still in silence, she peeled the stout figure of its dressing gown and +helped it into a short, knitted bed-jacket. + +"When you get the dining-room scuttle, put out the light there and in the +corridor," Mrs. Ellsworth said. "If you leave this door open you can see +your way with the coals. No use your creaking back and forth just as I've +settled down to rest. Besides, there's somebody else to think of. I hope +he hasn't been disturbed already!" + +"Somebody else?" echoed the girl with a gasp. There was no longer any +fear that her curiosity had not caught fire. Mrs. Ellsworth was +satisfied. + +"Yes, somebody else," she condescended to repeat. "A certain person has +come since you went out. I suppose, _in the circumstances_, you do not +need to be told _who_." + +"I--I don't know what you mean by 'in the circumstances'," Annesley +stammered. + +"That's not intelligent of you, considering where you have spent the +evening," sneered Mrs. Ellsworth. + +Annesley's ears tingled as if they had been boxed. Could it be that Mrs. +Ellsworth knew of the trick played on her--knew that her companion had +not been to the Smiths'? + +"I'm afraid I don't understand," she deprecated. + +Mrs. Ellsworth sat in bed staring up at her. "Either you are a fool," she +said, "or else I have caught you or _him_ in a lie. I don't know which +yet. But I soon shall. Perhaps you were not the only person in this house +who went out to-night with a latchkey. Now do you guess?" + +"No, I don't," the girl had to answer, though a dreadful idea was +whirring an alarm in her brain. + +"I dare say he is back before this, being more considerate of my feelings +than you, and less noisy," went on the old woman, anxious to prove that +Annesley Grayle and nobody else was responsible for keeping her from +rest. "Anyhow, what a man does is not my business. What you do, is. Now, +did or did _not_ a certain person walk in and surprise you at the +Archdeacon's? Don't stand there blinking like an owl. Speak out. Yes +or no?" + +"No," Annesley breathed. + +"Then you haven't been to the Smiths'. I can more easily believe you are +lying than _he_. Hark! There he comes. Isn't that a latchkey in the front +door?" + +"It--sounds like it. But--perhaps it's a mouse in the wall. Mice--make +such strange noises." + +"They're not making this one. He never could manage that key properly. +Nobody with ears could mistake the sound, with both my door and the baize +door open between, as they are now. + +"No! You aren't to run and let him in. I don't want him to think we spy +on him. He's free to come and go as he pleases, but I wish he wasn't so +fond of surprises. It's not fair to me, at my time of life. As I was +sitting down to dinner he walked in. Of course I had to ask him to dine, +though there wasn't enough food for two. However, he refused, saying he +would drop in at the Archdeacon's----" + +"Mr. Smith has come!" Annesley cried out, wildly, interrupting her +mistress for the first time in all their years together. "Oh, he will go +upstairs! I must stop him--I mean, speak to him! I----" + +"You will do nothing of the kind!" Mrs. Ellsworth leaned out of bed and +seized the girl's dress. Careless of any consequence save one, Annesley +struggled to free herself. But the old hand with its lumpy knuckles was +strong in spite of fat and rheumatism. It clung leechlike to chiffon of +cloak and gown, and though Annesley tore at the yellow fingers, she could +not loosen them. + +Desperate, she cried out in a choked voice, "Mr. Smith! Mr. Smith!" then +checked herself lest the wrong Mr. Smith should answer. + +But her voice was like the voice of one who tries to scream in a +nightmare. It was muffled; and though the two intervening doors were +ajar--the door of Mrs. Ellsworth's bedroom and the baize door dividing +the corridors old and new--her call did not reach even the real Mr. +Smith. To be sure, he was slightly deaf, and had to use an electric +apparatus if he went to the theatre or opera; still, Annesley hoped that +her choked cry might arrest him, that he might stop and listen for it to +come again, thus giving time for the man upstairs to change his quarters +after the grating of the latchkey in its lock. + +"Wicked, wicked girl!" Mrs. Ellsworth was shrilling. "How dare you hurt +my hand? Have you lost your _senses_? Out of my house you go to-morrow!" + +But Annesley did not hear. Her mind, her whole self, had escaped from her +body and rushed out into the hall to intercept Mr. Ruthven Smith. It +seemed that he _must_ feel the influence and stop. If he did not, some +terrible thing would happen--unless, indeed, the other man had heard and +heeded the warning sound at the front door. What if those two met on the +stairs, or in the room on the second floor? Her lover would believe that +she had betrayed him! + +"Mrs. Ellsworth," she said in a fierce, low voice utterly unlike her own, +"you must let me go, or you will regret it. I don't want to hurt you, +but--there's only one thing that matters. If----" + +The words seemed to be beaten back against her lips with a blow. From +somewhere above a sharp, dry explosion struck the girl's brain and +shattered her thoughts like breaking glass. + +Mrs. Ellsworth let go the chiffon cloak and dress so suddenly that +Annesley almost lost her balance. The noise had dazed the girl. The world +seemed full and echoing with it. She did not know what it was until she +heard Mrs. Ellsworth gasp, "A pistol shot! In my house! _Thieves! +Murder!_" + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE BEGINNING--OR THE END? + + +For one confused instant the girl stood statue-still, then, realizing +that she was free, without a thought for Mrs. Ellsworth she ran out of +the room. In the front corridor and in the dining room the electric light +was still on; and as she reached the stairs Annesley saw Ruthven Smith +standing near the top with a small pistol in his hand. + +She feared that he would fire a second shot, and there was no time to +reach him. Somehow, he must be stopped with a word--but what word? +Everything depended on that. Sheer desperation inspired her. + +"Stop! He's my lover!" she cried. "Don't shoot!" + +Ruthven Smith--a tall, lanky figure in a long over-coat--kept his weapon +aimed at someone out of the girl's sight, but he jerked his head aside +for a glance down at her. It was a brief glance, for the man who dreaded +burglars would not be caught napping. He turned again instantly to face +a possible antagonist, eyes as well as weapon ready. + +But the light from below had lit up his features for a second; and +Annesley realized that disgust and astonishment were the emotions her +"confession" had inspired. + +The fact that he was inclined to believe her statement showed how low +was his opinion of women. Annesley knew that he did not think highly +of her sex, but he had liked her and she had liked him despite his +eccentricities. His look said: "So you are the same as the rest! But in +case you're lying, I sha'n't be thrown off guard." + +The girl felt physically sick as she understood the irrevocability of +what she had just said, and the way in which her words were construed. If +she could have waited, "Nelson Smith" might have saved himself without +compromising her, for he was above all things resourceful. In announcing +that he was her "lover," she had committed him as well as herself. He +would have to make the best of a situation she had recklessly created. + +This she realized, but had no time to wonder how he would do it before he +spoke. + +"Mr. Ruthven Smith, what Miss Grayle says is the truth. We're engaged to +be married. All I want is a chance to explain why you find me where I am. +I'm not armed, so you can safely give me that chance." + +"You know my name?" exclaimed Ruthven Smith, suspiciously. He still +covered the other with his pistol, as Annesley could see now, because +"Nelson Smith" had coolly advanced within a yard of the Browning's small +black muzzle, and, finding the electric switch, had flooded the upper +corridor with light. + +"I've heard your name from Miss Grayle," said the younger man. "I know it +must be you, because no other person has a right to make himself at home +in this house as you are doing. I certainly haven't. But bringing her +home a few minutes ago, after dining out, we saw a light in what she said +was your room. She was afraid some thief had got in, and I proposed to +her that I should take a quiet look round while she went to see if Mrs. +Ellsworth was safe. No doubt she was all right, because I heard them +talking together while I examined your premises. The next thing I knew, +as I was coming down with the news that everything was quiet, you blazed +away. It was quite a surprise." + +"I fired in the air, not at you," Ruthven Smith excused himself, more or +less convinced. Annesley clutched the banisters in the sudden weakness of +a great revulsion from panic to relief. She might have known that _he_ +would somehow rescue her, even from her own blundering. + +The shamed red which had stained Annesley's cheeks at Ruthven Smith's +contempt died away. Her "lover"--he was openly that now--had miraculously +made his presence in the other Smith's room, after eleven o'clock at +night in this early bed-going household, the most natural thing in the +world. At least, Ruthven Smith's almost apologetic tone in answering +proved that he had been persuaded to think it so. + +With Mrs. Ellsworth, however, it would be different. There would lie the +stumbling-block; but with all danger from the Browning ended, the girl +was in no mood to borrow trouble for the future, even a future already +rushing into the arms of the present. + +"I should always fire the first shot in the air," Ruthven Smith went on, +"unless directly threatened." + +"Lucky for me," replied the other. "I don't want to die yet. And it would +have been hard lines, as I was trying to do you a good turn: rid you of a +thief if there were one. But I suppose you or some servant must have left +the light on in your room." + +"I'm pretty sure I didn't," said Ruthven Smith, still speaking with the +nervousness of a suspicious man, yet at the same time slowly, half +reluctantly, pocketing his pistol. "We must find out how this happened. +Perhaps there _has_ been a thief----" + +"No sign of anything being disturbed in your room," the younger man +assured him. "However, you'd best have a look round. If you like"--and he +laughed a frank-sounding laugh--"I'm quite willing to be searched before +I leave the house, so you can make sure I'm not going off with any +booty." + +"Certainly not! Nothing of the kind! I accept your explanation," +protested Ruthven Smith. He laughed also, though stiffly and with an +effort. "I have no valuables in my luggage--I have brought none with me. +It's not worth my while to open the boxes in my room, as there's nothing +there to tempt a thief. Still, one gets a start coming to a quiet house, +at this time of night, finding a light in one's windows that ought to be +dark, and then seeing a man walk out of one's room. My nerves aren't +over-strong. I confess I have a horror of night alarms. I travel a good +deal, and have got in the habit of carrying a pistol. However, all's well +that ends well. I apologize to you, and to Miss Grayle. When I know you +better, I hope you'll allow me to make up by congratulating you both on +your engagement." + +As he spoke, in his prim, old-fashioned way, he began to descend the +stairs, taking off his hat, as if to join the girl whom in thought he had +wronged for an instant. "Nelson Smith" followed, smiling at Annesley over +the elder man's high, narrow head sparsely covered with lank hair of +fading brown. + +It was at this moment Mrs. Ellsworth chose to appear, habited once more +in a hurriedly donned dressing gown, a white silk scarf substituted in +haste for a discarded nightcap. Panting with anger, and fierce with +curiosity, she had forgotten her rheumatism and abandoned her martyred +hobble for a waddling run. + +Thus she pounced out at the foot of the stairway, and was upon the girl +before the three absorbed actors in the scene had heard the shuffling +feet in woollen slippers. + +"What does this mean?" she quavered, so close to Annesley's ear that the +girl wheeled with a start of renewed alarm. "Who's this strange man in my +house? What's this talk about 'engagements'?" + +"A strange man!" echoed Ruthven Smith, prickling with suspicion again. +"Haven't you met him, Miss Grayle's fiancé?" + +"Miss Grayle's fiddlesticks!" shrilled the old woman. "The girl's a +baggage, a worthless baggage! In my room just now she _struck_ me--beat +my poor rheumatic knuckles! For five years I've sheltered her, given her +the best of everything, even to the clothes she has on her back. This is +the way she repays me--with insults and cruelty, and smuggles strange men +secretly into my house at night, and pretends to be engaged to them!" + +The dark young man in evening dress passed the lean figure in travelling +clothes without a word and, putting Annesley gently aside, stepped +between her and Mrs. Ellsworth. + +"There is no question of 'pretending'," he said, sternly. "Miss Grayle +has promised to marry me. If our engagement has been kept a secret, it's +only because the right moment hadn't come for announcing it. I entered +your house for a few moments to-night, for the first time, on an errand +which seemed important, as Mr. Ruthven Smith will explain. I don't feel +called upon to apologize for my presence in the face of your attitude to +Miss Grayle. It was our intention that you should have plenty of notice +before she left you, time to find someone for her place; but after what +has happened, it's your own fault, madame, if we marry with a special +licence, and I take her out of this house to-morrow. I only wish it might +be now----" + +"It _shall_ be now!" Mrs. Ellsworth screamed him down. "The girl doesn't +darken my doors another hour. I don't know who you are, and I don't want +to know. But with or without you, Annesley Grayle leaves my house +to-night." + +"Mrs. Ellsworth, surely you haven't stopped to think what you're saying!" +protested Ruthven Smith. "You can't turn a girl into the street in the +middle of the night with a young man you don't know, even if she is +engaged to him." + +"I won't have her here, after the way she's treated me--after the way +she's acted altogether," Mrs. Ellsworth insisted. "Let her go to your +cousins' if you think they'd approve of her conduct. As for me, I doubt +it. And I'm sure she lied when she said they'd asked her to dine with +them to-night. I don't believe she went near them." + +Ruthven Smith, who had made a surprise visit at the Archdeacon's and +dined there, had heard no mention of Annesley Grayle being expected. For +an instant he was silenced, but the girl did not lack a defender. + +"She will not need to beg for Archdeacon Smith's hospitality," said the +young man. "And even if Mrs. Ellsworth implored her to stay, I couldn't +allow it now. I will see that Miss Grayle is properly sheltered and cared +for to-night by a lady whose kindness will make her forget what she has +suffered. As soon as possible we shall be married by special licence. Go +to your room, dearest, and put together a few things for to-night and +to-morrow morning--just what will fit into a hand-bag. If there's +anything else you value, it can be sent for later. Then I'll take you +away." + +The words were brave and comforting, and a wave of emotion swept +Annesley's soul toward the mysterious, unknown soul of her knight. It +was so strong, so compelling a wave that she had no fear in trusting, +herself to him. He was her refuge, her protector. + +For a moment of gratitude she even forgot he was mysterious, forgot that +a few hours ago she had been ignorant of his existence. When remembrance +flooded her brain, her only fear was for him. What if the watchers should +still be there when they went out of the house together? + +She had turned to go to her room as he suggested when suddenly this +question seemed to be shouted in her ear. Hesitating, she looked back, +her eyes imploring, to meet a smile so confident that it defied fate. + +Annesley saw that he understood what was in her mind, and this smile was +the answer. For some reason he thought himself sure that the watchers +were out of the way. The girl could not guess why, unless he had spied on +the taxi from Ruthven Smith's window and saw it go. But she would soon +learn. + +Her room was a mere bandbox at the back of the "addition," behind Mrs. +Ellsworth's bedroom and bath; and dashing into it now, the new, vividly +alive Annesley seemed to meet and pity the timid, hopeless girl whose one +safe haven these mean quarters had been. She tried to gather the old self +into her new self, that she might take it with her and comfort it, +rescuing it from the tyrant. + +The two trunks she had brought five years ago were stored in the basement +box-room; but under the camp bed was her dressing-bag, the only "lock-up" +receptacle she possessed. In it she kept a few letters and an abortive +diary which in some moods had given her the comfort of a confidant. + +The key of this bag was never absent from her purse, and opening it with +quivering hands, the girl threw in a few toilet things for the night, a +coat, skirt, and blouse for morning, and a small flat toque which would +not crush. Afterward--in that wonderful, dim "afterward" which shone +vaguely bright, like a sunlit landscape discerned through mist--she could +send for more of her possessions. But she would have nothing which had +been given her by Mrs. Ellsworth, and she would return the dress and +cloak she was wearing to-night. + +Three minutes were enough for the packing of the bag; then, luggage in +hand, she turned at the door for a last look, such as a released convict +might give to his cell. + +"Good-bye!" she said, with a thought of compassion for her successor. +And passing Mrs. Ellsworth's room she would have thrown a farewell glance +at its familiar chairs and tables, each one of which she hated with a +separate hatred; but with a shock of surprise, she found the door shut. + +That must mean that the dragon had retreated from the combat and retired +to her lair! + +Not to be chased from the house by the sharp arrows of insult seemed +almost too good to be true. But when Annesley arrived, bag in hand, in +the front corridor, it was to see Ruthven Smith standing there alone, and +the door open to the street. + +"Mrs. Ellsworth has gone to her room," he explained, "and--er--your +friend--your fiancé--is looking for a taxi, not to keep you waiting. He +didn't leave till Mrs. Ellsworth went. I don't think he would have +trusted me to protect you without him, though I--er--I did my best with +her. Good heavens, what a fury! I never saw that side of her before! I +must say, I don't blame you for making your own plans, Miss Grayle. I--I +don't blame you for anything, and I hope you'll feel the same toward me. +I'd be sorry to think that--er--after our pleasant acquaintance this was +to be our last meeting. Won't you show that you forgive me for the +mistake I made--I think it was natural--and tell me what your married +name will be?" + +Annesley looked anxiously at the half-open front door. If only the absent +one would return and save her from this new dilemma! If she did not +speak, Mr. Ruthven Smith would think her harsh and unforgiving, yet she +could not answer unless she gave the name adopted temporarily for +convenience. She hesitated, her eyes on the door; but the darkness and +silence outside sent a doubt into her heart, cold and sickly as a bat +flapping in from the night. + +_What if he never came back?_ What if the watchers had been hiding out +there, lying in wait and, two against one--both bigger men physically +than he, and perhaps armed--they had overpowered him? What if she were +never to see him again, and this hour which had seemed the beginning of +hope were to be its end? + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE COUNTESS DE SANTIAGO + + +"You don't wish to tell me the name?" Ruthven Smith was saying. + +The repetition irritated the girl, whose nerves were strained to snapping +point. She could not parry the man's questions. She could not bear his +grieved or offended reproaches. If he persisted, through these moments of +suspense, she would scream or burst out crying. Trembling, with tears in +her voice, she heard herself answer. And yet it did not seem to be +herself, but something within, stronger than she, that suddenly took +control of her. + +"Why should I not wish to tell you?" the Something was saying. "The name +is the same as your own--Smith. Nelson Smith." And before the words had +left her lips a taxi drew up at the door. + +There was one instant of agony during which the previous suspense seemed +nothing--an instant when the girl forgot what she had said, her soul +pressing to the windows of her eyes. Was it he who had come, or---- + +It was he. Before she had time to finish the thought, he walked in, +confident and smiling as when she had left him a few minutes--or a few +years--ago; and in the wave of relief which overwhelmed her, Annesley +forgot Ruthven Smith's question and her answer. She remembered again, +only with the shock of hearing him address the newcomer by the name she +had given. + +"I hear from Miss Grayle that we are namesakes," Mr. Ruthven Smith said, +as "Nelson Smith" sprang in and took the girl's bag from her ice-cold +hand. + +"I--he asked me ... I told him," Annesley stammered, her eyes appealing, +seeking to explain, and begging pardon. "But if----" + +"Quite right. Why _not_ tell?" he answered instantly, his first glance +of surprise turning to cheerful reassurance. "Now Mrs. Ellsworth is +eliminated, I'm no longer a secret. And I expect you'll like to meet Mr. +Ruthven Smith again when you have a house to entertain him in." + +So speaking, he offered his hand with a smile to his "namesake"; and +Annesley realized from the outsider's point of view the peculiar +attraction of the man. Ruthven Smith felt it, as she had felt it, though +differently and in a lesser degree. Not only did he shake hands, but +actually came out to the taxi with them, asking Annesley if he should +tell his cousins of her engagement, or if she preferred to give the news +herself? + +It flashed into the girl's mind that it would be perfect if she could be +married to her knight by Archdeacon Smith; but she had been imprudent too +often already. She dared not make such a suggestion without consulting +the other person most concerned, so she answered that she would write +Mrs. Smith or see her. + +"To say that you, too, are going to be Mrs. Smith!" chuckled the +Archdeacon's cousin in his dry way, which made him seem even older than +he was. "Well, you can trust me with Mrs. Ellsworth. If she goes on as +she began to-night, I'm afraid I shall have to follow your example: 'fold +my tent like an Arab, and silently steal away.' Ha, ha! By the by, I dare +say she's owing you salary. I'll remind her of it if you like--tell her +you asked me. It may help with the trousseau." + +"Thank you, but my wife won't need to remind Mrs. Ellsworth of her debt," +the answer came before Annesley could speak. "And she _will_ be my wife +in a day or two at latest. Good-night! Glad to have met you, even if it +was an unpromising introduction." + +Then they were off, they two alone together; and Annesley guessed that +the chauffeur must have had his instructions where to drive, as she heard +none given. Perhaps it was best that their destination should not be +published aloud, for there are walls which have ears. It occurred to the +girl that precautions might still have to be taken. But in another moment +she was undeceived. + +"I thought old Ruthven Smith would be shocked if he knew the 'safe +refuge' I have for you is no more convent-like than the Savoy Hotel," her +companion laughed. "By Jove, neither you nor I dreamed when we got out of +the last taxi that we should soon be in another, going back to the place +we started from!" + +"The Savoy!" exclaimed Annesley. "Oh, but we mustn't go there, of all +places! Those men----" + +"I assure you it's safer now than anywhere in London!" the man cut her +short. "I can't explain why--that is, I _could_ explain if I cared to rig +up a story. But there's something about you makes me feel as if I'd like +to tell you the truth whenever I can: and the truth is, that for reasons +you may understand some day--though I hope to Heaven you'll never have +to!--my association with those men is one of the things I long to turn +the key upon. I know that that sounds like Bluebeard to Fatima, but it +isn't as bad as _that_. To me, it doesn't seem bad at all. And I swear +that whatever mystery--if you call it 'mystery'--there is about me, it +sha'n't hurt you. Will you believe this--and trust me for the rest?" + +"I've told you I would!" the girl reminded him. + +"I know. But things were different then--not so serious. They hadn't gone +so far. I didn't suppose that Fate would give you to me so soon. I didn't +dare hope it. I----" + +"Are you _sure_ you want me?" Annesley faltered. + +"Surer than I've ever been of anything in my life before. It's only of +you I'm thinking. I wanted to arrange my--business matters so as to be +fair to you. But you'll make the best of things." + +"You are being noble to me," said the girl, "and I've been very foolish. +I've complicated everything. First, by what I told Mr. Ruthven Smith +about--about _us_. And then--saying your name was Nelson Smith." + +"You weren't foolish!" he contradicted. "You were only--playing into +Fate's hands. You couldn't help yourself. Destiny! And all's for the +best. You were an angel to sacrifice yourself to save me, and your doing +it the way you did has made me a happy man at one stroke. As for the +name--what's in a name? We might as well be in reality what we played at +being to-night--'Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith.' There are even reasons why +I'm pleased that you've made me a present of the name. I thank you for +it--and for all the rest." + +"Oh, but if it isn't _really_ your name, we sha'n't be legally married, +shall we?" Annesley protested. + +"By Jove!" he exclaimed. "I hadn't thought of that. It's a difficulty. +But we'll obviate it--somehow. Don't worry! Only I'm afraid we can't ask +your friend the Archdeacon to marry us, as I meant to suggest, because I +was sure you'd like it." + +"I should. But it doesn't matter," said the girl. "Besides, I feel that +to-morrow I shall find I've dreamed--all this." + +"Then I've dreamed you, at the same time, and I'm not going to let you +slip out of my dream, now I've got you in it. I intend to go on dreaming +you for the rest of my life. And I shall take care _you_ don't wake up!" + +Afterward there came a time when Annesley called back those words and +wondered if they had held a deeper meaning than she guessed. But, having +uttered them, he seemed to put the thought out of his mind, and turn to +the next. + +"About the Savoy," he went on. "I want to take you there, because I +know a woman staying in the hotel--a woman old enough to be your +mother--who'll look after you, to please me, till we're married. +Afterward you'll be nice to her, and that will be doing her a good +turn, because she's apt to be lonesome in London. She's the widow of +a Spanish Count, and has lived in the Argentine, but I met her in New +York. She knows all about me--or enough--and if she'd been in the +restaurant at dinner this evening she could have done for me what you +did. I had reason to think she would be there when I bolted in to get +out of a fix. But she was missing. Are you sorry?" + +"If she'd been there, you would have gone to her table and sat down, and +we--should never have met!" Annesley thought aloud. "How strange! Just +that _little_ thing--your friend being out to dinner--and our whole lives +are to be changed. Oh, _you_ must be sorry?" + +"I tell you, meeting you and winning you in this way is worth the best +ten years of my life. But you haven't answered my question." + +"I'll answer it now!" cried the girl. "Meeting you is worth _all_ the +years of my life! I'm not much of a princess, but you _are_ St. George." + +"St. George!" he echoed, a ring of bitterness under his laugh. "That's +the first time I've been called a saint, and I'm afraid it will be the +last. I can't live up to that, but--if I can give you a happy life, and +a few of the beautiful things you deserve, why, it's _something_! +Besides, I'm going to worship my princess. I'd give anything to show you +how I--but no. I was good before, when I was tempted to kiss you. You're +at my mercy now, in a way, all the more because I'm taking you from your +old existence to one you don't know. + +"I sha'n't ask to kiss you--except maybe your little hand if you don't +mind--until the moment you're my wife. Meantime, I'll try to grow a bit +more like what your lover ought to be; and later I shall kiss you enough +to make up for lost time." + +If, five hours ago, any one had told Annesley Grayle that she would wish +to have a strange man take her in his arms and kiss her she would have +felt insulted. Yet so it was. She was sorry that he was so scrupulous. +She longed to have him hold her against his heart. + +The thought thrilled her like an electric shock a thousand times more +powerful than the tingling which had flashed up her arm at the first +touch of his hand, though even that had seemed terrifying then. But she +sat still in her corner of the taxi, and gave him no answer, lest she +should betray herself. + +Her silence, after the warmth of his words, seemed cold. Perhaps he felt +it so, for he went on after an instant's pause, as if he had waited for +something in vain, and his tone was changed. Annesley thought it, by +contrast, almost businesslike. + +"You mustn't be afraid," he said, "that I mean to stay at the Savoy +myself. Even if I'd been stopping there, I should move if I were going to +put you in the hotel. But I have my own lair in London. I've been over +here a number of times. Indeed, I'm partly English, born in Canada, +though I've spent most of my life in the United States. Nobody at the +Savoy but the Countess de Santiago knows who I am, and she'll understand +that it may be convenient for me to change my name. Nelson Smith is a +respectable one, and she'll respect it! + +"Now, my plan is to ask for her (she'll be in by this time), have a few +words of explanation on the quiet, not to embarrass you; and the Countess +will do the rest. She'll engage a room for you next to her own suite, or +as near as possible; then you'll be provided with a chaperon." + +"I'm not anxious about myself, but about you," Annesley said. "You +haven't told me yet what happened after you went upstairs at Mrs. +Ellsworth's, and how you knew those men were gone. I suppose you did +know? Or--did you chance it?" + +"I was as sure as I needed to be," Nelson Smith answered. "A moment after +I switched on the electricity in the room up there I heard a taxi drive +away. I turned off the light so I could look out. By flattening my nose +against the glass I could see that the place where those chaps had waited +was empty; but in case the taxi was only turning, and meant to pass the +house again, I lit the room once more, for realism. + +"That's what kept me rather long--that, and waiting for the dragon to go. +Otherwise I should have been down before Ruthven Smith trapped me. + +"For a second it looked as if the game of life was up. And then I found +out how much you meant to me. It was _you_ I thought of. It seemed +beastly hard luck to leave you fast in that old woman's clutches!" + +Annesley put out her hand with a warm impulse. He took it, raising it to +his lips, and both were startled when the taxi stopped. They had arrived +at the Savoy: and though Annesley seemed to have lived through a lifetime +of emotion, just one hour and thirty minutes had passed since she and her +companion drove away from these bright revolving doors. + +The foyer was as brilliant and crowded as when they left at half-past +ten. People were parting after supper; or they were lingering in the +restaurant beyond. Nobody paid the slightest attention to the newcomers, +and Annesley settled down unobtrusively in a corner, while her companion +went to scribble a line to the Countess de Santiago. + +When he had finished, and sent up the letter, he did not return, and +again the girl had a few moments of suspense, thinking of the danger +which might not, after all, be over. Just as she had begun to be anxious, +however, she saw him coming with a wonderful woman. + +Annesley could have laughed, remembering how he had said the Countess +would "mother" her. Any one less motherly than this Juno-like beauty in +flame-coloured chiffon over gold tissue it would be hard to imagine. + +The Spanish South American Countess was of a camelia paleness, and had +almond-shaped dark eyes with brooding lashes under slender brows that +met. In contrast, her hair was of a flame colour vivid as her draperies, +and her lips were red. + +At first glance Annesley thought that the dazzling creature could not be +more than thirty; but when the vision had come near enough to offer her +hand, without waiting for an introduction, a hardness about the handsome +face, a few lines about the eyes and mouth, and a fullness of the chin +showed that she was older--forty, perhaps. + +Still, Annesley hoped that her lover had not asked the lady to "mother" +his fiancée. She had not the air of one who would be complimented by such +a request. + +As Annesley put her hand into that of the Countess, she noticed that this +hand was as wonderful as the rest of the woman's personality. It was very +long, very narrow, with curiously supple-looking fingers exquisitely +manicured and wearing many rings. Even the thumb was abnormally long, +which fact prevented the hand from being as beautiful as it was, somehow, +unforgettable. + +"This is a pleasure and a surprise," began the Countess, smiling, her +eyes appearing to take in the full-length portrait of Annesley Grayle +with their wide, unmoving gaze. When she smiled she was still extremely +handsome, but not so perfect as with lips closed, for her white teeth +were too short, somewhat irregular, and set too wide apart. She spoke +English perfectly, with a slight foreign accent and a roll of the letter +"r." + +"My friend--Nelson Smith" (she turned, laughing, to him), "has told me +ex-_citing_ news. We have known each other a long time. I think this is +the best thing that can happen. And you will be a lucky girl. He, too, +will be lucky. I see that!" with another smile. + +Annesley was disappointed because the beautiful woman's voice was not +sweet. + +"Now you must engage her room," Nelson Smith said, abruptly. "It's late. +You can make friends afterward." + +"Very well," the Countess agreed. "And you--will you come to the desk? +Yet, no--it is better not. Miss Grayle and I will go together--two women +alone and independent. Lucky it's not the season, or we might find +nothing free at short notice. But Don--I mean Nelson--always did have +luck. I hope he always will!" + +She flashed him a meaning look, though what the meaning was Annesley +could not guess. She knew only that she did not like the Countess as she +had wished to like her lover's friend. There was something secret in the +dark eyes, something repellent about the long, slender thumb with its +glittering nail. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE BLUE DIAMOND RING + + +Annesley had not expected to sleep. There were a million things to +think of, and it was one o'clock before she was ready to slip into bed +in the green-and-white room with its bathroom annex. But the crowding +experiences of five hours had exhausted the girl. Sleep fell upon her as +her head nestled into a downy pillow, and she lay motionless as a marble +figure on a tomb until a sound of knocking forced itself into her dreams. + +She waked with a start. The curtains were drawn across the window, but +she could see that it was daylight. A streak of sunshine thrust a golden +wedge between the draperies, and seemed a good omen: for the sun had +hidden from London through many wintry weeks. + +The knocking was real, not part of a dream. It was at her door, and +jumping out of bed she could hardly believe a clock on the mantelpiece +which said half-past ten. + +"Who is it?" she asked, timidly, fearing that the Countess de Santiago's +voice might answer; but a man replied: "A note from a gentleman +downstairs, please, and he's waiting an answer." + +Annesley opened the door a crack, and took in a letter. The new master of +her destiny had written: + + Hurrah, my darling, our affairs march! I have been arranging about the + licence, _et cetera_, and I believe that you and I can join forces for + the rest of our lives to-morrow--blessed day! + + How soon can you come down and talk over plans? I've a hundred to + propose. Will you breakfast with me, or have you finished? + + Yours since last night, till eternal night, + + N. S. + +The girl scribbled an answer, confessing that she had overslept, but +promising to be down in half an hour for breakfast. She did not stop to +think of anything but the need for a quick reply; yet when the note was +sent, and she was "doing" her hair after a splash in the porcelain bath +(what luxury for the girl who had been practically a servant!), she +re-read her love-letter, spread on the dressing-table. + +She liked her lover's handwriting. It seemed to express character--just +such character as she imagined her knight's to be. There were dash and +determination, and an originality which would never let itself be bound +by convention. + +Perhaps if she had been critical--if the handwriting had been that of a +stranger--she might have thought it too bold. Long ago, when she was a +very young girl, she had superficially studied the "science" of +chirography from articles in a magazine, and had fancied herself a judge. +She remembered disliking Mrs. Ellsworth's writing the first time she saw +it, foreseeing the selfishness which afterward enslaved her. Since then +she had had little time to practise, until the day when she heard from +"Mr. N. Smith" after her answer to his advertisement in the _Morning +Post_. + +One reason for feeling sure she could never care for the man was because +his handwriting prejudiced her in advance, it was so stiff, so devoid of +character. How different, she reflected now, from the writing of the man +who had taken his place! + +She made such haste in dressing that her fingers seemed to be "all +thumbs"; and when at length she was ready she gazed gloomily into the +mirror. Last night she had not been so bad in evening dress; but now in +the cheap, ready-made brown velveteen coat and skirt and plain toque to +match, which had been her "best" for two winters, she feared lest _he_ +should find her commonplace. + +"The first thing I do, when he's had time to look me over, must be to +tell him he's free if he wants his freedom," she decided. And she kept +her word, when in the half-deserted foyer she had shaken hands with a +young man who wore a white rose in his buttonhole. "Please tell me +frankly if you don't like me as well by daylight," she gasped. + +"I like you better," he said. "You're still my white rose. See, I've +adopted it as your symbol. I shall never wear any other flower on my +coat. This is yours. No, it's _you_! And I've kept the one I took last +night. I mean to keep it always. No danger of _my_ changing my mind! But +you? I've lain awake worrying for fear you might." + +He held her hand, questioning her eyes with his. + +She shook her head, smiling. But he would not let the hand go. At that +hour there was no one to stare. "The Countess didn't warn you off me?" + +Annesley opened her eyes. "Of course not! Why, you told me you were old +friends!" + +"So we are--as friends go in this world: 'pals,' anyhow. She's done me +several good turns, and I've paid her. She'd always do what she could to +help, for her own sake as well as mine. But her idea of a man may be +different from yours." + +"She wasn't with me long," explained Annesley. "She said I needed sleep. +After she'd looked at my room to see if it were comfortable, she bade me +'good-night,' and we haven't met this morning. The few remarks she did +make about you were complimentary." + +"What did she say? I'm curious." + +"Well, if you must know, she said that you were a man few women could +resist; and--she didn't blame _me_." + +"H'm! You call that complimentary? Let's suppose she meant it so. Now +we'll have breakfast, and forget her--unless you'd like her called to go +with us on a shopping expedition I've set my heart on." + +"What kind of a shopping expedition?" Annesley wanted to know. + +"To buy you all the pretty things you've ever wished for." + +The girl laughed. "To do that would cost a fortune!" + +"Then we'll spend a fortune. Shall you and I do it ourselves, or would +you like to have the Countess de Santiago's taste?" + +"Oh, let us go without her," Annesley exclaimed, "unless you----" + +"Rather _not_. I want you to myself. You darling! We'll have a great +day--spending that fortune. The next thing we do--it can wait till +after we're married--is to look for a house in a good neighbourhood, +to rent furnished. But we'll get your swell cousins, Lord and Lady +Annesley-Seton, to help us choose. Perhaps there'll be something near +them." + +"Why, they hardly know I exist! I doubt if Lady Annesley-Seton _does_ +know," replied the girl. "They'll do nothing to help us, I'm sure." + +"Then _don't_ be sure, because if you made a bet you'd lose. Take +my word, they'll be pleased to remember a cousin who is marrying a +millionaire." + +"Good gracious!" gasped Annesley. "_Are_ you a millionaire?" + +Her lover laughed. "Well, I don't want to boast to you, though I may +to your cousins, but if I'm not one of your conventional, stodgy +millionaires, I have a sort of Fortunatus purse which is never empty. +I can always pull out whatever I want. We'll let your people understand +without any bragging. + +"I think Lady Annesley-Seton, _née_ Miss Haverstall, whose father's purse +has flattened out like a pancake, will jump for joy when she hears what +you want her to do. But come along, let's have breakfast!" + +Overwhelmed, Annesley walked beside him in silence to the almost deserted +restaurant where the latest breakfasters had finished and the earliest +lunchers had not begun. + +So the mysterious Mr. Smith was rich. The news frightened rather +than pleased her. It seemed to throw a burden upon her shoulders which +she might not be able to carry with grace. The girl had little +self-confidence; but the man appeared to be troubled with no doubts of +her or of the future. Over their coffee and toast and hot-house fruit, he +began to propose exciting plans, and had got as far as an automobile when +the voice of the Countess surprised them. + +She had come close to their table without being heard. + +"Good morning!" she exclaimed. "I was going out, but from far off I saw +you two, with your profiles cut like silhouettes against all this glass +and sunshine. I couldn't resist asking how Miss Grayle slept, and if +there's anything I can do for her in the shops?" + +As she spoke her eyes dwelt on Annesley's plain toque and old-fashioned +shabby coat, as if to emphasize the word "shops." The girl flushed, and +Smith frowned at the Countess. + +"No, thank you," he replied for Annesley. "There's nothing we need +trouble you about till the wedding to-morrow afternoon. You can put on +your gladdest rags then, and be one of our witnesses. I believe that's +the legal term, isn't it?" + +"I do not know," said the Countess with a suppressed quiver in her voice, +and a flash in the eyes fixed studiously on the river. "I know nothing of +marriages in England. Who will be your other witness, if it's not +indiscreet to ask?" + +"I haven't decided yet," returned Smith, laconically. + +"Ah, of course, you have _plenty_ of friends to choose from; and so the +wedding will be to-morrow?" + +"Yes. One fixes up these things in next to no time with a special +license. Luckily I'm a British subject. I never thought much about it +before, but it simplifies matters; and I'll have been living in this +parish a fortnight to-morrow. That's providential, for it seems that +legally it must be a fortnight. I've been up since it was light, learning +the ropes and beginning to work them. Even the hour's fixed--two-thirty." + +(This was news for Annesley also, as there had been no time to begin +talking over the "hundred plans" Smith had mentioned in his letter.) + +"You are prompt--and businesslike!" returned the Countess, and again the +girl blushed. She did not like to think of her knight of romance being +"businesslike" in his haste to make her his wife. But perhaps the +Countess didn't mean to suggest anything uncomplimentary. "At what church +will the 'ceremony take place' as the newspapers say?" she went on. "It +is to be a fashionable one?" + +"No," replied, Smith, shortly. "Weddings in fashionable churches are +silly unless there's to be a crowd; and my wife and I are going to +collect our circle after we're married. I'll let you know in time where +we are going. As you'll be with the bride you can't lose yourself on the +way, so you needn't worry." + +"I don't!" laughed the Countess. "I'm at your service, and I shall try to +be worthy of the occasion. But now I shall take myself off, or your +coffee will be cold. You have a busy day and it's late--even later than +our breakfasts on the _Monarchic_ three weeks ago. Already it seems three +months. _Au revoir_, Don. _Au revoir_, Miss Grayle." + +She finished with a nod for Annesley, and turned away. Smith let her go +in silence; and the girl watched the tall figure--as perfect in shape and +as perfectly dressed as a French model--walk out of the restaurant into +the foyer. + +She seemed to have taken with her the golden glamour which had made up +for lack of sunshine in the room before her arrival; or if she had not +taken it, at least it was dimmed. Annesley gazed after the figure until +it disappeared, because she felt vaguely that it would be best not to +look at her companion just then. She knew that he was angry, and that he +wanted to compose himself. + +The Countess was as handsome by morning light, in her black velvet and +chinchilla, as at night in flame colour and gold. But--the girl hoped she +was not ill-natured--she looked _meretricious_. If she were "made up," +the process defied Annesley Grayle's eyes; yet surely never was skin so +flawlessly white; and such golden-red hair with dark eyes and eyebrows +must be unique. + +"Great Scott, I thought she meant to spend the morning with us!" Smith +broke out, viciously. "I realize, now I've seen you together, that she's +not--the ideal chaperon. But any port in a storm!" + +"I thought you liked her," Annesley said. + +"So I do--within limits. At least I appreciate qualities that she has. +But there are times--when a little of her goes a long way." + +"I'm afraid she realized that you weren't making her welcome," Annesley +smiled. "You weren't very nice to her, were you?" + +"I was as nice as she deserved," the man excused himself. + +"But she was good to me last night!" + +"She owes it to me to be good. It's a debt I expect her to pay, that's +all, and I'm not sure she's paying it generously. You needn't be too +grateful, dear." + +"Perhaps, as she's known you some time, she feels you're sacrificing +yourself," Annesley defended the Countess. "I don't blame her!" + +"She's sharp enough to see that I'm in great luck," said Smith. "But I +suppose there's always a dash of the cat in a woman of her race. I hope +there's no need to tell you that she has no right to be jealous. If she +had, I wouldn't have put you within reach of her claws. There are +assorted sizes and kinds of jealousy, though. Some women want all the +lime-light and grudge sparing any for a younger and prettier girl." + +Annesley laughed. "_Prettier!_ Why, she's a beauty, and I----" + +"Wait till I introduce you to Mrs. Nelson Smith, who's going to be one +of the best-dressed, best-looking young women in London, and you'll be +_sorry_ for the poor old Countess," returned Smith, warmly. "You can +afford then to heap coals of fire on her head, which can't make it redder +than it is. Meanwhile, it occurs to me, from the way the wind blows, +you'd better go carefully with the lady! Don't let her pump you about +yourself, or what happened at Mrs. Ellsworth's. It's not her business. +Don't confide any more than you need, and if she pretends to confide in +_you_ understand that it will be for a purpose. The Countess is no +_ingénue_! + +"But enough about her," he went on, abruptly. "She sha'n't spoil our +first breakfast together, even by reminding me of gloomy meals I used +sometimes to eat with her when we happened to find ourselves in each +other's society on board the _Monarchic_. I was feeling down on my luck +then, and she wasn't the one to cheer me up. But things are different +now. Have you noticed, by the way, that she has a nickname for me?" + +"Yes," Annesley admitted. "She calls you 'Don.'" + +"It's a name she made up because she used to say, when we first met, I +was like a Spaniard; and I can jabber Spanish among other lingos. It's +more her native tongue, you know, than English. I only refer to it +because I want you to have a special name of your own for me, and I don't +want it to be that one. It can't be Nelson, because--well, I can never be +at home as Nelson with the girl I love best--the one who knows how I came +to call myself that. Will you make up a name for me, and begin to get +used to it to-day? I'd like it if you could." + +"May I call you 'Knight'?" Annesley asked, shyly. "I've named you my +knight already in my mind and--and heart." + +He looked at her with rather a beautiful look: clear and wistful, even +remorseful. + +"It's too noble a name," he said. "Still--if you like it, I shall. Maybe +it will make me good. Jove! it would take something strong to do that! +But who knows? From now on I'm your 'Knight.' You needn't wrestle with +'Nelson' except when we're with strangers. + +"And--look here!" he broke off. "I've another favour to ask. Better get +them all over at once--the big ones that are hard to grant. You reminded +me last night that we wouldn't be legally married if I didn't use my own +name. That may be true. I can't very well make inquiries. But just in +case, I'm giving my real name and shall sign it in a register. That's why +our marriage must be quietly performed in a quiet place. It shall be in +church, because I know you wouldn't feel married if it wasn't, but it +must be in a church where nobody we're likely to meet ever goes; and the +parson must be one we won't stand a chance of knocking up against later. + +"Managed the way I shall manage it, there'll be no difficulty. Mr. and +Mrs. Blank will walk out of the vestry after they've signed their names, +and--_lose themselves_. No reason why they should ever be associated with +Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith. Do you much mind all these complications?" + +"Not if they're necessary to save you from danger," the girl answered. + +"By Jove, you're a trump! But I haven't come to the _big_ favour yet. Now +for it! When I write my real name in the register, I don't want you to +look. Is that the one thing too much?" + +Annesley tried not to flinch under his eyes. Yet--he had put her to a +severe test. Last night, when he said that it would be better for her not +to know his name, she had quietly agreed. + +But there was the widest difference between then and now. At that time +they had been strangers flung together by a wave of fate which, it +seemed, might tear them apart at any instant. In a few hours all was +changed. They belonged to each other. This man's name would be her name, +yet he wished her to be ignorant of it! + +If the girl had not thought of him truly as her knight, if she had not +been determined to trust him, the "big favour" would indeed have been too +big. + +Despite her trust, and the romantic, new-born love in her heart, she was +unable to answer for a moment. Her breath was snatched away; but as she +struggled to regain it and to speak, a bleak picture of the future +without him rose before her eyes. She couldn't give him up, and go on +living, after the glimpse he had shown her of what life might be! + +"No, it's not too much," she said, slowly. "It's only part of the trust +I've promised to--my knight." + +He gave a sigh of relief. "Thank you--and my lucky star for the prize you +are!" he exclaimed. Some men would have offered their thanks to God, or +to "Heaven." Annesley noticed that he praised his "star." + +This was one of many disquieting things, large and small; for she had +been brought up to be a religious girl, and was mentally on her knees +before God in gratitude for the happiness which illuminated her gray +life. She could not bear to think that God was nothing to the man who had +become everything to her. She wanted to shut her eyes to all that was +strange in him; but it was as difficult as for Psyche to resist lighting +the lantern for a peep at her mysterious husband in his sleep. + +For instance, there was the Countess de Santiago's reference to their +association on board the _Monarchic_, which Knight had refrained from +mentioning. He had spoken of it after the Countess had gone, to be sure; +but briefly, and because it would have seemed odd if he had not done so. +It had struck Annesley that his annoyance with the lady was connected +with that sharp little "dig" of hers, and she could not sweep her mind +clean of curiosity. + +The moment the _Monarchic's_ name was brought up she remembered reading +a newspaper paragraph about the last voyage of that great ship from New +York to Liverpool. Fortunately or unfortunately, her recollection of the +paragraph was nebulous, for when she read news aloud to her mistress she +permitted her mind to wander, unless the subject happened to be +interesting. She tried to keep up a vaguely intelligent knowledge of +world politics, but small events and blatant sensations, such as murders, +burglaries, and "society" divorces, she quickly erased from her brain. + +Something dramatic had occurred on the _Monarchic_. Her subconscious self +recalled that. But it was less than a month ago that she had read the +paragraph, therefore the sensation, whatever it was, must have happened +when Knight and the Countess de Santiago were on board, coming to +England, and she could easily learn what it was by inquiring. + +Not for the world, however, would she question her lover, to whom the +subject of the trip was evidently distasteful. Still less would she ask +the Countess behind his back. + +There was another way in which she could find out a sly voice seemed to +whisper in Annesley's ear. She could get old numbers of the _Morning +Post_, the only newspaper that entered Mrs. Ellsworth's house, and search +for the paragraph. But she was ashamed of herself for letting such a +thought enter her head. Of course she would not be guilty of a trick so +mean. She would not try to unearth one fact concerning her Knight--his +name, his past, or any circumstances surrounding him, even though by +stretching out her hand she could reach the key to his secret. + +He talked of things which at another time would have palpitated with +interest: their wedding, their honeymoon, their homecoming, and Annesley +responded without betraying absent-mindedness. It was the best she could +do, until the effect of the "biggest favour" and the doubts it raised +were blurred by new sensations. She would not have been a normal woman if +the shopping excursion planned by Knight had not swept her off her feet. + +The man with Fortunatus' purse seemed bent on trying to empty +it--temporarily--for her benefit: if she had been sent out alone to buy +everything she had ever wanted, with no regard to expense, Annesley +Grayle would not have spent a fifth of the sum he flung away on evening +gowns, street gowns, boudoir gowns, hats, high-heeled paste-buckled +slippers, a gold-fitted dressing-bag, an ermine wrap, a fur-lined +motor-coat, and more suede gloves and silk stockings than could be used +(it seemed to the girl) in the next ten years. + +He begged for the privilege of "helping choose," not because he didn't +trust her taste, but because he feared she might be economical; and +during the whole day in Bond Street, Regent Street, Oxford Street, and +Knightsbridge she was given only an hour to herself. That hour she was +expected to pass, and did pass, in providing herself with all sorts of +intimate daintiness of nainsook, lace, and ribbon, too sacred even for +a lover's eyes. + +And Knight spent the time of his absence from her upon an errand which he +did not explain. + +"I'll tell you what I did--and show you--to-morrow when I come to wish +you good morning," he said. "Unless you're going to be conventional and +refuse to see me till we 'meet at the altar,' as the sentimental writers +say. I think I've heard that's the smart thing. But I hope it won't be +your way. If I didn't see you from now till to-morrow afternoon I should +be afraid I'd lost you for ever." + +Annesley felt the same about him, and told him so. They dined together, +but not at the Savoy. The Countess's name was not mentioned, yet Annesley +guessed it was because of her that Knight proposed an Italian restaurant. + +When he left her at last at the door of her own hotel everything was +settled for the wedding-day and after. Knight was to produce two friends, +both men, to one of whom must fall the fatherly duty of giving the bride +away. He suggested their calling upon her in the morning, while he was +with her at the Savoy, in order that they might not meet as strangers at +the church, and the girl thought this a wise idea. + +As for the honeymoon, Knight confessed to knowing little of England, +outside London, and asked Annesley if she had a choice. Would she like to +have a week or so in some warm county like Devonshire or Cornwall, or +would she enjoy a trip to Paris or the Riviera? It was all one to him, he +assured her; only he had set his heart on getting back to London soon, +finding a house, and beginning life as they meant to live it. + +Annesley chose Devonshire. She said she would like to show it to Knight. + +"I think you'll love it," she told him. "We might stay at several places +I used to adore when I was a child. And if we get to Sidmouth, maybe +you'll have a glimpse of those cousins you were talking about, the +Annesley-Setons. I believe they have a place near by called Valley House; +but I don't know whether they live there or let it." + +"We'll go to Sidmouth," he said. + +The girl smiled. His desire that she should scrape acquaintance with Lord +and Lady Annesley-Seton seemed boyish and amusing to her, but she did not +see how it could be brought about. + +Next morning at eleven o'clock, when Annesley had been up for two +hours, packing her new things in her new trunks and the gorgeous new +dressing-bag, she was informed that Mr. Nelson Smith had arrived. +The girl had forgotten that Knight had hinted at something to tell and +something to show her on the morning of their marriage day, and expected +to find his two friends with him; but he had come alone. + +"We've got a half-hour together," he said. "Then Dr. Torrance and the +Marchese di Morello may turn up at any minute. Torrance is an elderly +man, a decent sort of chap, and deadly respectable. He'll do the heavy +father well enough. Paolo di Morello is an Italian. I don't care for him; +but the troublesome business about my name is a handicap. + +"I can trust these men. And at least they won't put you to shame. You can +judge them when they come, so enough talk about them for the present! +This is my excuse for being here," and he put into Annesley's hand a +flat, oval-shaped parcel. "My wedding gift to my bride," he added, in a +softer tone. "Open it, sweet." + +The white paper wrapping was fastened with small red seals. If the girl +had had knowledge of such things she would have known that it was a +jeweller's parcel. But the white, gold-stamped silk case within surprised +her. She pressed a tiny knob, and the cover flew up to show a string of +pearls which made her gasp. + +"For the Princess, from her Knight," he said. "And here"--he took +from the inner pocket of his coat a band of gold set with a big white +diamond--"is your engagement ring. Every girl must have one, you know, +even if her engagement _is_ the shortest on record. I've the wedding +ring, too. But it isn't the time for that. A good-sized diamond's the +obvious sort of thing: advertises itself for what it is, and that's +what we want. You'll wear it, as much as to say, 'I was engaged like +everybody else.' But if there wasn't a reason against it, _this_ is what +I should like to put on your finger." + +As he spoke, he hid the spark of light in his other hand, and from the +pocket whence it had come produced another ring. + +If she had not seen this, Annesley would have exclaimed against the word +"obvious" for the splendid brilliant as big as a small pea which Knight +put aside so carelessly. But the contrast between the modern ring with +its "solitaire" diamond and the wonderful rival he gave it silenced her. +She was no judge of jewellery, and had never possessed any worth having; +but she knew that this second ring was a rare as well as a beautiful +antique. It looked worthy, she thought, of a real princess. + +Even the gold was different from other gold, the little that was visible, +for the square-cut stone, of pale, scintillating blue, was surrounded by +a frame of tiny brilliants encrusting the rim as far as could be seen on +the back of the hand when the ring was worn. + +"A sapphire!" Annesley exclaimed. "My favourite stone. Yet I never saw a +sapphire like it before. It's wonderful--brighter than a diamond." + +"It is a diamond," said Knight. "A blue diamond, and considered +remarkable. It's what your friend Ruthven Smith would call a 'museum +piece,' if you showed it to him. But you mustn't. He'd move heaven and +earth to get it! Nobody must see it but you and me. It wouldn't be safe. +It's too valuable. And if you were known to have it, you'd be in danger +from all the jewel thieves in Europe and America. You wouldn't like +that." + +"No, it would be horrible!" Annesley shuddered. "But what a pity it must +be hidden. Is it yours?" + +"It's yours at present," said Knight, "if you'll keep it to yourself, and +look at it only when you and I are alone together. I can't give it to +you, precisely, to have and to hold (as I shall give you myself in a +few hours), because this ring is more a trust than a possession. +Something may happen which will force me to ask you for it. But again, it +may _not_. And, anyhow, I want you to have the ring until that time +comes. I've bought a thin gold chain, and you can hang it round your +neck, unless--I almost think you're inclined to refuse?" + +Another mystery! But the blue diamond in its scintillating frame was so +alluring that Annesley could not refuse. She knew that she would have +more pleasure in peeping surreptitiously at the secret blue diamond than +in seeing the "obvious" white one on her finger. + +"I can't give it up!" she said, laughing. "But I hope it isn't one of +those dreadful historic stones which have had murders committed for it, +like famous jewels one reads of. I should hate anything that came from +_you_ to bring bad luck." + +"So should I hate it. If there's any bad luck coming, I want it myself," +Knight said, gravely. + +"I wish I hadn't spoken of bad luck to-day!" the girl remorsefully +exclaimed. "But I am not afraid. Give me the ring." + +He gave it, and pulled from his pocket the slight gold chain on which he +meant it to hang. He was leisurely threading the ring upon this when two +men looked in at the door of the reading room. + +One of the pair was of more than middle age. He was tall, thin, and +slightly stooping. His respectable clothes seemed too loose for him. His +hair and straggling beard were gray, contrasting with the sallow darkness +of his skin. He wore gold-rimmed spectacles, and peered through them as +if they were not strong enough for his failing sight. + +The other man was younger. He, too, was dark and sallow, but his +close-cut hair was black. He was clean shaven and well dressed. He wore a +high, almost painfully high, collar, which caused him to keep his chin in +air. He might be a Spaniard or an Italian. + +Annesley had certainly not seen him before. She told herself this twice +over. Yet--she was frightened. There was something familiar about him. +It must be her foolish imagination which took alarm at everything! + +But, with fingers grown cold, she covered up the blue diamond. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE THING KNIGHT WANTED + + +When Dr. Torrance, who was to give her away, and the Marchese di Morello, +who was to be Knight's "best man," had been introduced to Annesley, she +laughed at the stupid "scare" which had chilled her heart for a moment. + +If Knight had remained with her after his friends finished their call, +she might have confessed to him how she had fancied in the tall, dark +young man a likeness to one of the dreaded _watchers_. Until Knight spoke +their names she had feared that the pair looking in at the door were +there to spy; that one, at all events, was disguised--cleverly, yet not +cleverly enough quite to hide his identity. But Knight said good-bye, and +went away with his friends, giving the girl no chance for further talk +with him. + +They did not meet again until--with the Countess de Santiago--Annesley +arrived at the obscure church chosen for the marriage ceremony. There Dr. +Torrance awaited them outside the door, and took charge of the bride, +while the Countess found her way in alone; and Annesley saw through the +mist of confused emotion her Knight of love and mystery waiting at the +altar. + +During the ceremony that followed he made his responses firmly, his eyes +calling so clearly to hers that she answered with an almost hypnotized +gaze. His look seemed to seal the promise of his words. In spite of all +that was strange and secret and unsatisfying about him, she had no +regrets. Love was worth everything, and she could but believe that he +loved her. This strong conviction went with the girl to the vestry, and +made it easier to turn away when his name--his real name, which she, +though his wife, was not to know--was recorded by him in the book. + +They parted from Torrance, Morello, and the Countess at the church door, +an arrangement which delighted Annesley. In the haste of making plans, +she and Knight had forgotten to discuss what they were to do after the +wedding and before their departure; but Knight had found time to decide +the matter. + +"These people were the best material I could get hold of at a moment's +notice," he remarked, coolly, when he and Annesley were in the motor-car +he had hired for the journey to Devonshire. "We've used them because we +needed them. Now we don't need them any longer. It seems to me that a +newly married couple ought to keep only dear friends around them or no +one. Later we can repay these three for the favour they've done us, if +you call it a favour. Meanwhile, we'll forget them." + +Knight had neglected no detail which could make for Annesley's comfort, +or save her from any embarrassment arising from the hurried wedding. Her +luggage had been packed by a maid in the hotel, and--all but the +dressing-bag and a small box made for an automobile--sent ahead by rail +to Devonshire. She and Knight were to travel in the comfortable limousine +which would protect them against weather. It did not matter, Knight said, +how long they were on the way. + +At Exeter they would visit some good agency in search of a lady's maid. +Annesley said that she did not need a woman to wait on her, since she had +been accustomed not only to taking care of herself but Mrs. Ellsworth. + +Knight, however, insisted that his wife must be looked after by a +competent woman. It was "the right thing"; but his idea was that, in the +circumstances, it would be pleasanter to have a country girl than a +sharp, London-bred woman or a Parisienne. + +In Exeter an ideal person was obtainable: a Devonshire girl who had been +trained to a maid's duties (as the agent boasted) by a "lady of title." +She had accompanied "the Marchioness" to France, and had had lessons in +Cannes from a hair dresser, masseuse, and manicurist. Now her mistress +was dead, and Parker was in search of another place. + +She was a gentle, sweet-looking girl, and though she asked for wages +higher than Mrs. Ellsworth had paid her companion, Knight pronounced them +reasonable. She was directed to go by train to the Knowle Hotel at +Sidmouth (where a suite had been engaged by telegram for Mr. and Mrs. +Nelson Smith and maid) and to have all the luggage unpacked before their +arrival. + +Flung thus into intimate association with a man, almost a stranger, +Annesley had been afraid in the midst of her happiness. She felt as a +young Christian maiden, a prisoner of Nero's day, might have felt if told +she was to be flung to a lion miraculously subdued by the influence of +Christianity. Such a maiden could not have been quite sure whether the +story were true or a fable; whether the lion would destroy her with a +blow or crouch at her feet. + +But Annesley's lion neither struck nor crouched. He stood by her side as +a protector. "Knight" seemed more and more appropriate as a name for +him. Though there were roughnesses and crudenesses in his manner and +choice of words, all he did and said made Annesley sure that she had been +right in her first impression. Not a cultured gentleman like Archdeacon +Smith, or Annesley's dead father, and the few men who had come near her +in early childhood before her home fell to pieces, he was a gentleman at +heart, she told herself, and in all essentials. + +It struck her as beautiful and even pathetic, rather than contemptible, +that he should humbly wish to learn of her the small refinements he had +missed in the past--that mysterious past which mattered less and less to +Annesley as the present became dear and vital. + +"I've knocked about a lot, all over the world," he explained in a casual +way during a talk they had had on the night of their marriage, at the +first stopping-place to which their motor brought them. "My mother died +when I was a small boy, died in a terrible way I don't want to talk +about, and losing her broke up my father and me for a while. He never got +over it as long as he lived, and I never will as long as I live. + +"The way my father died was almost as tragic as my mother's death," he +went on after a tense moment of remembering. "I was only a boy even then; +and ever since the 'knocking-about' process has been going on. I haven't +seen much of the best side of life, but I've wanted it. That was why, for +one reason, you made such an appeal to me at first sight. You were as +plucky and generous as any Bohemian, though I could see you were a +delicate, inexperienced girl, brought up under glass like the orchid you +look--and are. I'm used to making up my mind in a hurry--I've had to--so +it didn't take me many minutes to realize that if I could get you to link +up with me, I should have the thing I'd been looking for. + +"Well, by the biggest stroke of luck I've got you, sooner than I could +have dared to hope; and now I don't want to make you afraid of me. I know +my faults and failings, but I don't know how to put them right and be the +sort of man a girl like you can be proud of. It's up to you to show me +the way. Whenever you see me going wrong, you're to tell me. That's what +I want--turn me into a gentleman." + +When Annesley tenderly reassured him with loving flatteries, he only +laughed and caught her in his arms. + +"Like a prince, am I?" he echoed. "Well, I've got princely blood in my +veins through my mother; but there are pauper princes, and in the pauper +business the gilding gets rubbed off. I trust you to gild my battered +corners. No good trying to tell me I'm gold all through, because I know +better; but when you've made me shine on the outside, I'll keep the +surface bright." + +Annesley did not like the persistent way in which he spoke of himself +as a black sheep who, at best, could be whitened, and trained not to +disgrace the fold; yet it piqued her interest. Books said that women had +a weakness for men who were not good and she supposed that she was like +the rest. He was so dear and chivalrous that certain defiant hints as to +his lack of virtue vaguely added to the spice of mystery which decorated +the background of the picture--the vivid picture of the "stranger +knight." + +When they had been for three days in the best suite at the Knowle Hotel, +and had made several short excursions with the motor, he asked the girl +if she "felt like getting acquainted with her cousins." + +She did not protest as she had at first. Already she knew her Knight +well enough to be assured that when he resolved to do a thing it was +practically done. She had had chances to realize his force of character +in little ways as well as big ones; and she understood that he was bent +on scraping acquaintance with Lord and Lady Annesley-Seton. Had he not +decided upon Sidmouth the instant she mentioned their ownership of a +place in the neighbourhood? She had been certain that he would not +neglect the opportunity created. + +"How are we to set about it?" was all she said. + +"Oh, Valley House is a show place, I suppose you know," replied Knight. +"I've looked it up in the local guide-book. It's open to the public three +days a week. Any one with a shilling to spare can see the ancestral +portraits and treasures, and the equally ancestral rooms of your +distinguished family. Does that interest you?" + +"Ye-es. But I'm a distant relation--as well as a poor one," Annesley +reminded him with her old humility. + +"You're not poor now. And blood is thicker than water--when it's in a +golden cup. It's Lord and Lady Annesley-Seton's turn to play the poor +relations. It seems they're stony. Even the shillings the public pay to +see the place are an object to them." + +"Oh, I'm sorry!" exclaimed Annesley. + +"That's generous, seeing they never bothered themselves about you when +they had plenty of shillings and you had none." + +"I don't suppose they knew there _was_ a me." + +"Lord Annesley-Seton must have known, if his wife didn't know. But we'll +let that pass. I was thinking we might go to the house on one of the +public days, with the man who wrote the local guide-book. I've made his +acquaintance through writing him a note, complimenting him on his work +and his knowledge of history. He answered like a shot, with thanks for +the appreciation, and said if he could help me he'd be delighted. He's +the editor of a newspaper in Torquay. + +"If we invite him to lunch here at the Knowle, he'll fall over himself to +accept. Then we'll be able to kill two birds with one stone. He'll tell +us things about the heirlooms at Valley House we shouldn't be able to +find out without his help--or a lot of dreary drudgery--and also he'll +put a paragraph about us in his newspaper, which he'll send to your +cousins. Now, isn't that a combination of brilliant ideas?" + +"Yes," laughed Annesley. "But why should you take so much trouble--and +how can you tell that the editor's paragraph would make the +Annesley-Setons want to know us?" + +"As for the paragraph, you may put your faith in me. And as for the +trouble, nothing's too much to launch my wife on the top wave of society, +where she has every right to be. I want Mrs. Nelson Smith to have her +chance to shine. Money would do the trick sooner or later, but I want +it to be done sooner. Besides, I have a feeling I should like us to get +where we want to be, without the noisy splash money-bags make when +new-rich candidates for society are launched. Your people will see +excellent reasons why their late 'poor relation' is worth cultivating. + +"But trust them to save their faces by keeping their real motive secret!" +with a touch of sarcasm. "I seem to hear them going about among their +friends, whom they'll invite to meet us, saying how charming and unspoilt +you are though you've got more money than you know what to do with----" + +"I!" With the protesting pronoun Annesley disclaimed all ownership of her +husband's fortune, whatever it might be. + +"It's the same thing. You and I are one. Whatever is mine is yours. I +don't swear to make you a regular, unfailing allowance worthy of the new +position you're going to have, because you see I do business with several +countries, and my income's erratic; I'm never sure to the day when it +will come or how much it will be. But there's nothing you want which you +can't buy; remember that. And when we begin life in London, you shall +have a standing account at as many shops as you like." + +Annesley made no objection to Knight's plan for luring the journalist +into his "trap," which was a harmless one. According to his prophecy, Mr. +Milton Savage of the Torquay _Weekly Messenger_ accepted the invitation +from his correspondent, and came to luncheon on the day when the public +were free to view Valley House. + +He was a small man with a big head and eyes which glinted large behind +convex spectacles. Annesley was charming to him, not only in the wish to +please Knight but because she was kind-hearted and had intense sympathy +for suppressed people. Mr. Savage was grateful and admiring, and drank in +every word Knight dropped, as if carelessly, about the relationship to +Lord Annesley-Seton. + +Knight allowed himself to be pumped concerning it, and also his wife's +parentage, letting fall, with apparent inadvertence, bits of information +regarding himself, his travels, his adventures, and the fortune he had +picked up. + +"I'm the exception," he said, "to the proverb that 'a rolling stone +gathers no moss.' I've gathered all I want or know what to do with; and +now I'm married I mean to take a rest. I haven't decided yet where or +how, but it will be somewhere in England. We're looking for a house in +London, and later we might rent one in the country, too." + +Annesley admired his cleverness in touching the goal; but somehow these +smart hits disturbed rather than amused her. Knight's complexity was a +puzzle to her. She could not understand, despite his explanations, why +these fireworks of dexterity were worth while. Knight was a brave figure +of romance. She did not want her hero turned into an intriguer, no matter +how innocent his motive. + +After luncheon they drove five or six miles in the motor to Valley House, +a place of Jacobean times. There was an Italian garden, and an English +garden containing every flower, plant, and herb mentioned by Shakespeare. +Each garden had a distant view of the sea, darkly framed by Lebanon +cedars and immense beeches, while the house itself--not large as "show" +houses go--was perfect of its kind, with carved stone mantels, elaborate +oak panelling and staircases, leaded windows, and treasures of portraits, +armour, ancient books, and bric-à-brac which would have remade the family +fortune if all had not been heirlooms. + +There was not a picture on the walls nor an old piece of jewellery in the +many locked glass cabinets of which Mr. Milton Savage could not tell the +history as he guided the Nelson Smiths through hall and corridors and +rooms with marvellous moulded ceilings. The liveried servant told off to +show the crowd over the house had but a superficial knowledge of its +riches compared with the lore of the journalist; and the editor of the +Torquay _Weekly Messenger_ became inconveniently popular with the public. + +He was not blind to the compliment, however; and, motoring into Torquay +at the end of the afternoon with his host and hostess, expressed himself +delighted with his visit. + +That night was his night for going to press, but he found time to write +the paragraph which Nelson Smith expected. Next morning a copy of the +_Messenger_, with a page marked, arrived at the Knowle Hotel, and +another, also marked, went to Valley House. + +The bride and bridegroom were at breakfast when the paper came. There +were also three letters, all for Knight, the first which either had +received since their marriage. + +Knight cut open the envelopes slowly, one after the other, and made no +comment. Annesley could not help wondering if the Countess had written, +for an involuntary glance had made her sure that one of Knight's letters +was from a woman: a purple envelope with a purple monogram and a blob of +purple wax sealed with a crown. He read all three, put them back into +their envelopes, rose, dropped them into the fire, watched them burn to +ashes, and quietly returned to his seat. Then, as if really interested, +he tore the wrapping off the Torquay _Messenger_. + +"Now we shall see ourselves in print!" he said, and a moment later was +reading to Annesley an account of "the two most interesting guests the +Knowle Hotel has entertained this season." Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith were +described with enthusiasm. They were young and handsome. He was immensely +rich, she was "highly connected" as well as beautiful, having been a +Miss Annesley Grayle, related on her mother's side to the Earl of +Annesley-Seton. + +The modesty of the young couple was so great, however, that, though the +bridegroom was a millionaire well known in his adopted country, America, +and the bride quite closely linked with his lordship's family, they had +refused to make their presence in the neighbourhood known to the Earl and +Lady. Instead they had visited Valley House with a crowd of tourists on a +public day, expressing the opinion to a representative of the _Messenger_ +that it would be "intrusive" to present themselves to Lord and Lady +Annesley-Seton. They were spending their honeymoon in Devonshire, and +might find, during their motor tours, a suitable country place to buy or +rent. + +In any case, they would look for a house in which to settle on their +return to London. + +"Good for Milton Savage," laughed Knight. "Now we'll lie low, and see +what will happen." + +Annesley thought that nothing would happen; but she was wrong. The next +morning a note came by hand for Mrs. Nelson Smith, brought by a footman +on a bicycle. + +The note was from Lady Annesley-Seton. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +BEGINNING OF THE SERIES + + +No man who had not known the seamy side of life could have guessed the +effect of Milton Savage's paragraph upon the minds of Lord and Lady +Annesley-Seton. + +"I told you if you bet against me you would bet wrong," Knight said, when +the astonished girl handed the letter across the breakfast table. Even he +had hardly reckoned on such extreme cordiality. He had expected a bid for +acquaintanceship with the "millionaire" and his bride, but he had fancied +there would be a certain stiffness in the effort. + +Lady Annesley-Seton had begun, "My dear Cousin," and her frank American +way was disarming. She wrote four pages of apology for herself and her +husband, explaining why they had neglected "looking up Mrs. Nelson Smith +when she was Miss Annesley Grayle." The letter went on: + + I hadn't been married long when my husband read out of some newspaper + the notice of a clergyman's death, and mentioned that he was a cousin + by marriage whom he hadn't met since boyhood, although the clergyman's + living was in our county--somewhere off at the other end. + + My husband thought there was a daughter, and I remember his remarking + that we ought to write and find out if she'd been left badly off. Of + course, it was _my_ duty to have kept his idea alive, and to have + carried it out. But I was young and having such a good time that I'm + afraid it was a case of "out of sight, out of mind." + + We forgot to inquire, and heard no more. It was _horrid_ of us, and I'm + sure it was _our_ loss. Probably we should have remembered if things + had gone well with us: but perhaps you know that my father (whose money + used to seem unlimited to me) lost it all, and we were mixed up in the + smash. We've been poorer than any church mice since, and trying to make + ends meet has occupied our attention from that day to this. + + I have to confess that, if our attention hadn't been drawn to your + name, we might never have thought of it again. But now I've eased my + conscience, and as fate seems to have brought us within close touch, do + let us see what she means to do with us. We should so like to meet you + and Mr. Nelson Smith, who is, apparently, more or less a countryman of + mine. + + I'm not allowed out yet, in this cold weather, after an attack of + "flu"; but my husband will call this afternoon on the chance of finding + you in, carrying a warm invitation to you both to "waive ceremony" and + dine with us at Valley House _en famille_. + + Looking forward to meeting you, + + Yours most cordially, + + Constance Annesley-Seton. + +"Sweet of her, isn't it?" Annesley exclaimed when she and Knight had read +the letter through. + +Knight glanced at his wife quizzically, opened his lips to speak, and +closed them. Perhaps he thought it would be unwise as well as wrong to +disturb the girl's faith in Lady Annesley-Seton's disinterestedness. + +"Yes, it's _real_ sweet!" he said, exaggerating his American accent, but +keeping a grave face. + +They were duly "at home" that afternoon, though they had intended to go +out, and the caller found them in a private sitting room filled with +flowers, suggesting much money and a love of spending it. Annesley had +put on Knight's favourite frock, one of the "model dresses" he had chosen +for her in their whirlwind rush through Bond Street, a white cloth +trimmed with narrow bands of dark fur; and she had never looked prettier. + +Lord Annesley-Seton, a tall thin man of the eagle-nosed soldier type, +wearing pince-nez, but youthful-looking for the forty-four years Burke +gave him, could not help thinking her a satisfactory cousin to pick up: +and Nelson Smith was far from being in appearance the rough, self-made +man he had dreaded. + +He was delighted with them both--so young, so handsome, so happy, +so fortunate, and luckily so well bred. He did not make the short +conventional call he had intended, but stayed to tea, and at last went +home to give his wife an enthusiastic account of the visit. + +"The girl's a lady, and might be a beauty if she had more confidence in +herself--you know what I mean: taking herself for granted as a charmer, +the way you smart women do," he said. "She isn't that kind. But with you +to show her the ropes, she'll be liked by the right people. There's a +softness and sweetness and genuineness that you don't often see in girls +now. As for the man, you'll think him a ripper, Connie--so will other +women. Has the air of being a gentleman born, and then having roughed it +all over the world. A strong man, I should say. A man's man as well as a +woman's. Might 'take' if he's started right." + +"_We'll_ see to that," said Constance Annesley-Seton, who was not too ill +to go out but had not wanted to seem too eager. + +She was less than thirty, but looked more because she had worried and +drawn faint lines between her delicate auburn brows and at the corners +of her greenish-gray eyes. There were also a few fading threads in the +red locks which were her one real beauty; but she had a marvellous +hair-varnish which prevented them from showing. + +"We'll see to that! If they'll _let_ us. Are they going to let us?" + +"Yes, I think so," Annesley-Seton reassured her. "They're a pair of +children, willing to be guided. They can have anything they want in the +world, but they don't seem to know what to want." + +"Splendid!" laughed Constance. "Can't we will them to want our house in +town, and invite us to visit them?" + +"I shouldn't wonder," replied her husband. "You might make a start in +that direction when they come to dinner to-morrow evening." + +Lord Annesley-Seton had outgrown such enthusiasms as he might once have +had, therefore his account of the cousins encouraged Constance to hope +much, and she was not disappointed. On the contrary, she thought that he +had not said enough, especially about the man. + +If she had not had so many anxieties that her youthful love of "larks" +had been crushed out, she would have "adored" a flirtation with Nelson +Smith. It would have been "great fun" to steal him from the pretty +beanpole of a girl who would not know how to use her claws in a fight +for her man; but as it was, Connie thought only of conciliating "Cousin +Anne," and winning her confidence. Other women would try to take Nelson +Smith from his wife, but Connie would have her hands full in playing a +less amusing game. + +She thought, seeing that the handsome, dark young man she admired had a +mind of his own, it would be a difficult game to play; and Nelson Smith +saw that she thought so. His sense of humour caused him to smile at his +own cleverness in producing the impression; and he would have given a +good deal for someone to laugh with over her maneuvers to entice him +along the road he wished to travel. + +But he dared not point out to Annesley the fun of the situation. To do so +would be to put her against him and it. + +She, too, had a sense of humour, suppressed by five years of Mrs. +Ellsworth, but coming delightfully to life, like a half-frozen bird, in +the sunshine of safety and happiness. Knight appealed to and encouraged +it often, for he could not have lived with a humourless woman, no matter +how sweet. + +Yet he did not dare wake it where her cousins were concerned. Her sense +of honour was more valuable to him than her sense of humour. He was +afraid to put the former on the defensive, and he was glad to let her +believe the Annesley-Setons were genuinely "warming" to them in a way +which proved that blood was thicker than water. + +The girl had wondered from the first why he was determined to make +friends with these cousins whom she had never known, and he was grateful +because she believed in him too loyally to attribute his desire to +"snobbishness." He wished her to suppose he had set his heart on +providing her with influential guidance on the threshold of a new life; +and it was important that she should not begin criticizing his motives. + +By the time dinner was over Constance Annesley-Seton had decided that the +Nelson Smiths had been sent to her by the Powers that Be, and that it +would be tempting Providence not to annex them. Not that she put it in +that way to herself, for she did not trouble her mind about Providence. +All she knew was that she and Dick would be fools to let the chance slip. + +It was as much as she could do not to suggest the idea in her mind: that +the Nelson Smiths should take the house in Portman Square; that she and +her husband should introduce them to society, and that the Devonshire +place should either be let to them or that they should visit there when +they wished to be in the country, as paying guests. + +But she controlled her impatience, limiting herself to proposing plans +for future meetings. She suggested giving a dinner in honour of the bride +and bridegroom, and inviting people whom it would be "nice for them to +know" in town. + +Knight said that he and "Anita" (his new name for Annesley, a souvenir +of Spanish South America) would accept with pleasure. And the girl agreed +gladly, because she thought her cousin and his wife were very kind. + +After dinner Annesley-Seton and Knight followed Constance and "Anita" +almost directly, the former asking his guests if they would like to see +some of the family treasures which they could only have glanced at in +passing with the crowd the other day. + +"Before sugar went to smash, we blazed into all sorts of extravagances +here," he said, bitterly, with a glance at the deposed Sugar King's +daughter. "Among others, putting electric light into this old barn. We'll +have an illumination, and show you some trifles Connie and I wish to +Heaven a kind-hearted burglar would relieve us of. + +"Of course the beastly things are heirlooms, as I suppose you know. We +can't sell or pawn them, or I should have done one or the other long ago. +They're insured by the trustees, who are the bane of our lives, for the +estate. But a sporting sort of company has blossomed out lately, which +insures against 'loss of use'--I think that's the expression. I pay the +premium myself--even when I can't pay anything else!--and if the valuable +contents of this place are stolen or burned, we shall benefit personally. + +"I don't mind you or all the world knowing we're stony broke," he went +on, frankly. "And everyone _does_ know, anyhow, that we'd be in the deuce +of a hole without the tourists' shillings which pour in twice a week the +year round. You see, each object in the collection helps bring in those +shillings; and 'loss of use' of a single one would be a real deprivation. +So it's fair and above board. But thus far, I've paid my premium and got +no return, these last three years. Our tourists are so disgustingly +honest, or our burglars so clumsy and unenterprising, that, as you say +in the States, 'there's nothing doing.'" + +As he talked Dick Annesley-Seton sauntered about the immense room into +which they had come from the state banqueting hall, switching on more and +more of the electric candle-lights set high on the green brocade walls. +This was known as the "green drawing room" by the family, and the "Room +of the Miniatures" by the public, who read about it in catalogues. + +"Come and look at our white elephants," he went on, when the room, dimly +and economically lit at first, was ablaze with light; and Mr. and Mrs. +Nelson Smith joined him eagerly. Constance followed, too, bored but +resigned; and her husband paused before a tall, narrow glass cabinet +standing in a recess. + +"See these miniatures!" he exclaimed, fretfully. "There are plenty more, +but the best are in this cabinet; and there's a millionaire chap, in New +York--perhaps you can guess his name, Smith?--who has offered a hundred +thousand pounds for the thirty little bits of ivory in it." + +"I think that must have been the great Paul Van Vreck," Knight hazarded. + +"I thought you'd guess! There aren't many who'd make such an offer. Think +what it would mean to me if it could be accepted, and I could have the +handling of the money. There are three small pictures in the little +octagon gallery next door, too, Van Vreck took a fancy to on a visit he +paid us from Saturday to Monday last summer. We never thought much of +them, and they're in a dark place, labelled in the catalogue 'Artist +unknown: School of Fragonard'; but _he_ swore they were authentic +Fragonards, and would have backed his opinion to the tune of fifteen +thousand pounds for the trio, or six thousand for the one he liked best. +Isn't it aggravating? In the Chinese room he went mad over some bits of +jade, especially a Buddha nobody else had ever admired." + +"He's one of the few millionaire collectors who is really a judge of all +sorts of things," Knight replied. "But, great Scott! I'm no expert, yet +it strikes me these miniatures are something out of the ordinary!" + +"Well, yes, they are," Annesley-Seton admitted, modestly. "That queer one +at the top is a Nicholas Hilliard. I believe he was the first of the +miniaturists. And the two just underneath are Samuel Coopers. They say he +stood at the head of the Englishmen. There are three Richard Cosways and +rather a nice Angelica Kauffmann." + +"It was the Fragonard miniature Mr. Van Vreck liked best," put in +Constance. "It seems he painted only a few. And next, the Goya----" + +"Good heavens! where is the Fragonard?" cried Dick, his eyes bulging +behind his pince-nez. "Surely it was here----" + +"Oh, surely, yes!" panted his wife. "It was never anywhere else." + +For an instant they were stricken into silence, both staring at a blank +space on the black velvet background where twenty-nine miniatures hung. +There was no doubt about it when they had reviewed the rows of little +painted faces. The Fragonard was gone. + +"Stolen!" gasped Lady Annesley-Seton. + +"Unless one of you, or some servant you trust with the key, is a +somnambulist," said Knight. "I don't see how it would pay a thief to +steal such a thing. It must be too well known. He couldn't dispose of +it--that is if he weren't a collector himself; and even then he could +never show it. But--by Jove!" + +"What is it? What have you seen?" Annesley-Seton asked, sharply. + +Knight pointed, without touching the cabinet. He had never come near +enough to do that. "It looks to me as if a square bit of glass had been +cut out on the side where the lost miniature must have hung," he said. +"I can't be sure, from where I stand, because the cabinet is too close +to the wall of the recess." + +Dick Annesley-Seton thrust his arm into the space between green brocade +and glass, then slipped his hand through a neatly cut aperture just big +enough to admit its passage. With his hand in the square hole he could +reach the spot where the miniature had hung, and could have taken it off +the hook had it been there. But hook, as well as miniature, was missing. + +"That settles it!" he exclaimed. "It _is_ a theft, and a clever one! +Strange we should find it out when I was demonstrating to you how much I +wished it would happen. Hurrah! That miniature alone is insured against +burglary for seven or eight hundred pounds. Nothing to what it's worth, +but a lot to pay a premium on, with the rest of the things besides. I +wish now I hadn't been so cheese-paring. You'll be witnesses, you two, of +our discovery. I'm glad Connie and I weren't alone when we found it out. +Something nasty might have been said." + +"We'll back you up with pleasure," Knight replied. "What was the +miniature like? I wonder if we saw it when we were here the other day, +Anita? I remember these, but can't recall any other." + +"Neither can I," returned Annesley. "But I am stupid about such things. +We saw so many--and passed so quickly." + +"I wonder if Paul Van Vreck was here in disguise among the tourists?" +said Dick, beginning to laugh. "It would have been the one he'd have +chosen if he couldn't grab the lot." + +"Oh, surely no one in the crowd could have cut a piece of glass out of a +cabinet and stolen a miniature without being seen!" Annesley cried. + +"Dick is half in joke," Constance explained. "It would have been a +miracle, yet the servants are above suspicion. Those horrid trustees +never let me choose a new one without their interference. And, of +_course_ Dick didn't mean what he said about Mr. Van Vreck." + +"Of course not. I understood that," Annesley excused herself, blushing +lest she had appeared obtuse. + +"All the same, to carry on the joke, let's go into the octagon room +and see if the alleged Fragonard pictures have gone, too," said +Annesley-Seton. He led the way, turning on more light in the adjoining +room as he went; and, outdistancing the others, they heard him stammer, +"Good Lord!" before they were near enough to see what he saw. + +"They aren't gone?" shrieked his wife, hurrying after him. + +"One of them is." + +In an instant the three had grouped behind him, where he stood staring at +an empty frame, between two others of the same pattern and size, charming +old frames twelve or fourteen inches square, within whose boundaries of +carved and gilded wood, nymphs held hands and danced. + +"Are we _dreaming_ this?" gasped Constance. + +"Thank Heaven we're not!" the husband answered. "The two paintings are on +wood, you see. So was the missing one. Someone has simply unfastened it +from the frame, and trusted to this being a dark, out-of-the-way corner, +not to have the theft noticed for hours or maybe days. By all that's +wonderful, here's _another_ insurance haul for me! What about the jade +Buddha in the Chinese room?" + +They rushed back into the green drawing room, and so to the beautiful +Chinese room beyond, with its priceless lacquer tables and cabinets. In +one of these latter a collection of exquisite jade was gathered together. + +And the Buddha which Paul Van Vreck had coveted was gone! + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +ANNESLEY REMEMBERS + + +There was great excitement for the next few days at Valley House and +throughout the neighbourhood, for the Annesley-Setons made no secret of +the robbery, and the affair got into the papers, not only the local ones, +but the London dailies. + +Two of the latter sent representatives, to whom Lord Annesley-Seton +granted interviews. Something he said attracted the reporters' attention +to Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith, who had been dining at Valley House on the +evening when the theft was discovered, and Knight was begged for an +interview. + +He was asked if he had formed an opinion as to the disappearance of the +three heirlooms, and whether he knew personally Mr. Paul Van Vreck, the +American collector and retired head of the famous firm of jewellers, who +had wished to buy the vanished treasures. + +Having spent most of his life in America, Knight had the theory that +unless you wished to be misrepresented, the only safe thing was to let +yourself be interviewed. He was accordingly so good-natured and +interesting that the reporters were delighted with him. If he had been +wishing for a wide advertisement of his personality, his possessions, and +his plans, he could not have chosen a surer way of getting it. + +The two newspapers which had undertaken to boom the "Valley House +Heirloom Theft" had almost limitless circulations. One of them possessed +a Continental edition, and the other was immensely popular because of its +topical illustrations. + +Snapshots, not so unflattering as usual, were obtained of the young +Anglo-American millionaire and his bride, as they started away from the +Knowle Hotel in their motor, or as they walked in the garden. Though +Knight had disclaimed any personal acquaintance with the great Paul Van +Vreck, he was able to state that Mr. Van Vreck had been convalescing +at Palm Beach, in Florida, at the time of the robbery. He had had an +attack of pneumonia in the autumn, and instead of travelling in his yacht +to Egypt, as he generally did travel early in the winter, he had been +ordered by his doctors to be satisfied with a "place in the sun" nearer +home. + +Everyone in America knew this, Knight explained, and everyone in England +might know it also, unless it had been forgotten. If Mr. Van Vreck were +well enough to take an interest in the papers, he was sure to be amused +by the coincidence that the things stolen from Valley House were among +those he had wanted to buy. + +Knight thought, however, that even if the clever thief or thieves had +heard of Van Vreck's whim, no attempt would be made to dispose of the +spoil to him. The elderly millionaire, though one of the most eccentric +men living, was known as the soul of honour. + +The relationship between young Mrs. Nelson Smith and Lord Annesley-Seton +was touched upon in the papers; and though it was irrelevant to the +subject in hand, mention was made of the Nelson Smiths' plan to live in +London. + +This gave Constance her chance. At an impromptu luncheon at the Knowle +Hotel, before the intended dinner party at Valley House, she referred +to the interest Society would begin to take in this "romantic couple." + +"Everybody will have fallen in love with you already," she said, "from +those snapshots in the _Looking Glass_. They make you both look such +darlings--though they don't flatter either of you. All the people we know +will be clamouring to meet you, so you must hurry and find a nice house, +in the right part of town, before some other sensation comes up and +you're forgotten. How would it be if you took _our_ house for a couple +of months, while you're looking round? Naturally, if you _liked_ it, you +could keep it on. We'd be delighted, for we have to let it when we can, +and it would be a pleasure to think of you in it." + +"If we're in it, you must both come and stay, and not only 'think' of us, +but be with us: mustn't they, Anita?" Knight proposed. Of course Annesley +said yes, and meant yes. Not that she really wanted her duet with Knight +to be broken up into a chorus, but she longed to succeed as a woman of +the world, since that was what he wanted her to be; and she realized that +Lady Annesley-Seton's help would be invaluable. + +So, through the theft at Valley House and the developments therefrom, +the hidden desires of Nelson Smith and the daughter of the deposed +Sugar King accomplished themselves, Connie still believing that she had +engineered the affair with diplomatic skill, and Knight laughing silently +at the way she had played into his hands. + +Detectives were set to work by the two insurance companies, who hoped to +trace the thief and discover the stolen Fragonards and the jade Buddha; +but their efforts failed; and at the dinner party given in honour of the +new cousins, Lord and Lady Annesley-Seton rejoiced openly in their good +luck. + +"All the same," Constance said, "I _should_ like to know how the things +were spirited out of the house, and where they are. It is the first +mystery that has ever come into our lives. I wish I were a clairvoyante. +It would be fun!" + +"Did you ever hear of the Countess de Santiago, when you lived in +America?" asked Knight in his calm voice. He did not glance toward +Annesley, who sat at the other end of the table, but he must have guessed +that she would turn with a start of surprise on hearing the Countess's +name in this connection. + +"The Countess de Santiago?" Connie echoed. "No. What about her? She +sounds interesting." + +"She _is_ interesting. And beautiful." Everybody had stopped talking by +this time, to listen; and in the pause Knight appealed to his wife. +"That's not an exaggeration, is it, Anita?" + +Annesley, wondering and somewhat startled, answered that the Countess de +Santiago was one of the most beautiful women she had seen. + +This riveted the attention which Knight had caught. He had his audience, +and went on in a leisurely way. + +"Come to think of it, she can't have been heard of in your part of the +world until you'd left for England," he told Constance. "She's the most +extraordinary clairvoyante I ever heard of. That's what made me speak of +her. Unfortunately she's not a professional, and won't do anything unless +she happens to feel like it. But I wonder if I could persuade her to look +in her crystal for you, Lady Annesley-Seton? + +"She's an old acquaintance of mine," he went on, casually. "I met her +in Buenos Aires before her rich elderly husband died, about seven or +eight years ago. She was very young then. I came across her again in +California, when she was seeing the world as a free woman, after the old +fellow's death. Then I introduced her by letter to one or two people in +New York, and I believe she has been admired there, and at Newport. + +"But I've only _heard_ all that," Knight hastened to explain. "I've been +too busy till lately to know at first hand what goes on in the 'smart' or +the artistic set. _My_ world doesn't take much interest in crystal-gazers +and palmists, amateur or professional, even when they happen to be +handsome women, like the Countess. But I ran against her again on board +the _Monarchic_ about a month ago, crossing to this side, and we picked +up threads of old acquaintance. She was staying at the Savoy when I left +London." + +He paused a moment, and added: + +"As a favour to me, she might set her accomplishments to work on this +business. Only she'd have to meet you both and see this house, for I've +heard her say she couldn't do anything without knowing the people +concerned, and 'getting the atmosphere.'" + +"Oh, we _must_ have her!" cried Constance, and all the other women except +Annesley chimed in, begging their hostess to invite them if the Countess +came. + +No one thought it odd that Mrs. Nelson Smith should be silent, for her +remark about the Countess de Santiago's beauty showed that she had met +the lady; but to any one who had turned a critical stare upon her then, +her expression must have seemed strange. She had an unseeing look, the +look of one who has become deaf and blind to everything outside some +scene conjured up by the brain. + +What Annesley saw was a copy of the _Morning Post_. Knight's mention of +the Countess de Santiago's power of clairvoyance at the same time with +the liner _Monarchic_ printed before her eyes a paragraph which her +subconscious self had never forgotten. + +For the moment only her body sat between a young hunting baronet and a +distinguished elderly general at her cousins' dinner table. Her soul had +gone back to London, to the ugly dining room at 22-A, Torrington Square, +and was reading aloud from a newspaper to a stout old woman in a tea +gown. + +She was even able to recall what she had been thinking, as her lips +mechanically conveyed the news to Mrs. Ellsworth. She had been wondering +how much longer she could go on enduring the monotony, and what Mrs. +Ellsworth would do if her slave should stop reading, shriek, and throw +the _Morning Post_ in her face. + +As she pictured to herself the old woman's amazement, followed by rage, +she had pronounced the words: + + SENSATIONAL OCCURRENCE ON BOARD THE S.S. _MONARCHIC_ + +Even that exciting preface had not recalled her interest from her own +affairs. She could remember now the hollow, mechanical sound of her voice +in her own ears as she had half-heartedly gone on, tempted to turn the +picture of her wild revolt into reality. + +The paragraph, seemingly forgotten but merely buried under other +memories, had told of the disappearance on board the _Monarchic_ of +certain pearls and diamonds which were being secretly brought from New +York to London by an agent of a great jewellery firm. He had been blamed +by the chief officer for not handing the valuables over to the purser. + +The unfortunate man (who had not advertised the fact that he was an agent +for Van Vreck & Co. until he had had to complain of the theft) excused +this seeming carelessness by the statement that he had hoped his identity +might pass unsuspected. His theory was that safety lay in insignificance. + +He had engaged a small, cheap cabin for himself alone, taking an assumed +name; had pretended to be a schoolmaster on holiday, and had worn the +pearls and other things always on his person in a money belt. Even at +night he had kept the belt on his body, a revolver under his pillow, and +the door of his cabin locked, with an extra patent adjustable lock of his +own, invented by a member of the firm he served. It had not seemed +probable that he would be recognized, or possible that he could be +robbed. + +Yet one morning he had waked late, with a dull headache and sensation of +sickness, to find that his door, though closed, was unfastened, and that +all his most valuable possessions were missing from the belt. + +Some were left, as though the thief had fastidiously made his selection, +scorning to trouble himself with anything but the best. The mystery of +the affair was increased by the fact that, though the man (Annesley +vaguely recalled some odd name, like Jekyll or Jedkill) felt certain he +had fastened the door, there was no sign that it had been forced open. +His patent detachable lock, however, had disappeared, like the jewels. + +And despite the sensation of sickness, and pain in the head, there were +no symptoms of drugging by chloroform, or any odour of chloroform or +other anæsthetic in the room. + +It struck Annesley as strange, almost terrifying, that these details of +the _Monarchic_ "sensation" should come back to her now; but she could +not doubt that she had actually read them, and the rest of the story +continued to reprint itself on her brain, as the unrolling of a film +might bring back to one of the actors poses of his own which he had let +slip into oblivion. + +She remembered how some of the more important passengers had suggested +that everybody on board should be searched, even to the ship's officers, +sailors, and employés of all sorts; that the search had been made and +nothing found, but that a lady supposed to possess clairvoyant powers had +offered Mr. Jekyll or Jedkill to _consult her crystal_ for his benefit. + +She had done so, and had seen wireless messages passing between someone +on the _Monarchic_ and someone on another ship, with whom the former +person appeared to be in collusion. She had seen a small, fair man, +dressed as a woman, hypnotizing the jewellers' agent into the belief that +he was locking his door when instead he was leaving it unlocked. + +Then she had seen this man who, she asserted firmly, was dressed like +a woman, walk into his victim's cabin, hypnotize him into still deeper +unconsciousness, and take from his belt three long strings of pearls and +several magnificent diamonds, set and unset. These things she saw made +up into a bundle, wrapped in waterproof cloth, attached to a faintly +illuminated life-preserver, and thrown overboard. + +Almost immediately after, she said, the life preserver was picked up by a +man in a small motor-launch let down from a steam yacht. The launch +quickly returned to the yacht, was taken up, and the yacht made off in +the darkness. + +No life belt was missing from the _Monarchic_ and even if suspicion could +be entertained against any "small, fair man" (which was not the case, +apparently), there was no justification for a search. Therefore, although +a good many people believed in the seeress's vision, it proved nothing, +and the sensational affair remained as deep a mystery as ever when the +_Monarchic_ docked. + +"The Countess de Santiago was the woman who looked in the crystal!" +Annesley said to herself. She wondered why, if Knight had been vexed with +the Countess for speaking of their friendship and of the _Monarchic_, as +he had once seemed to be, he should refer to it before these strangers. + +She looked down the table, past the other faces to his face, and the +thought that came to her mind was, how simple and almost meaningless the +rest were compared to his. Among the fourteen guests--seven women and +seven men--though some had charm or distinction, his face alone was +complex, mysterious, and baffling. + +Yet she loved it. Now, more than ever, she loved and admired it! + +The dinner ended with a discussion between Knight and Constance as to how +the Countess de Santiago could be induced to pay a visit to Valley House, +despite the fact that she had never met Lord and Lady Annesley-Seton. +Like most women who had lived in Spanish countries, the Countess was +rather a "stickler for etiquette," her friend Nelson Smith announced. +Besides, her experience as an "amateur clairvoyante" made her quick to +resent anything which had the air of patronage. One must go delicately to +work to think out a scheme, if Lady Annesley-Seton were really in "dead +earnest" about wanting her to come. + +At this point Knight reflected for a minute, while everyone hung upon his +silence; and at last he had an inspiration: + +"I'll tell you what we can do!" he exclaimed. "My wife and I--you're +willing, aren't you, Anita?--can ask her to stay over this week-end with +us. I think she'll come if she isn't engaged; and we can invite you to +meet her at dinner." + +"Oh, you must invite us _all_!" pleaded a pretty woman sitting next to +Knight. + +"All of you who care to come, certainly," he agreed. "Won't we, Anita?" + +"Oh, of course. It will be splendid if everybody will dine with us!" +Annesley backed him up with one of the girlish blushes that made her seem +so young and ingenuously attractive. "We can--send a telegram to the +Countess." + +She did her best to speak enthusiastically, and succeeded. No one save +Knight and Constance guessed it was an effort. + +Knight saw, and was grateful. Constance saw also, and smiled to herself +at what she fancied was the girl's jealousy of an old friend of the new +husband--an old friend who was "one of the most beautiful women" the girl +had seen. Annesley's hesitation inclined Constance to be more interested +than ever in the Countess de Santiago. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE CRYSTAL + + +Motoring back from Valley House to the Knowle Hotel, Annesley was asking +herself whether she might dare refer to the _Monarchic_, and mention the +story she had read In the _Morning Post_. She burned to do so, yet +stopped each time a question pressed to her lips, remembering Knight's +eyes as he had looked at the Countess in the Savoy restaurant the day +before the wedding. + +Perhaps the wish would have conquered if some imp had not whispered, +"What about that purple envelope, addressed in a woman's handwriting? +Maybe it was from _her_, hinting to see him again, and that is what has +put this plan into his head. Perhaps he brought up the subject of the +Countess on purpose to make them invite her here!" + +This thought caused the Countess de Santiago to seem a powerful person, +with an influence over Knight, though he had appeared not to care for +her. Could it be that he wanted an excuse to have her near him? The +suggestion closed Annesley's mouth by making her afraid that she was +turning into a suspicious creature, like jealous brides she had read +about. She determined to be silent as a self-punishment, and firmly +steered the _Monarchic_ into a backwater of her thoughts, while Knight +talked of the Valley House party and their credulous superstition. + +"Every man Jack and every woman Jill of the lot believe in that crystal +and clairvoyant nonsense!" he laughed. "I mentioned it for fun, but I +went on simply to 'pull their legs.' I hope you don't mind having the +Countess down, do you, child? Of course, I made it out to be a favour +that so wonderful a being should consent to come at call. But between us, +Anita, the poor woman will fall over herself with joy. She's a restless, +lonely creature, who has drifted about the world without stopping +anywhere long enough to make friends, and I have a notion that her +heart's desire is to 'get into society' in England. This will give her a +chance, because these good ladies and gentlemen who are dying to see what +she's like, and persuade her to tell their pasts and futures, are at the +top of the tree. It's a cheap way for us to make her happy--and we can +afford it." + +"Don't you believe she really is clairvoyant, and sees things in her +crystal?" Annesley ventured. + +It was then that Knight made her heart beat by answering with a question. +"Didn't you read in the newspapers about the queer thing that happened +on board the _Monarchic_?" + +"Ye-es, I _did_ read it," the girl said, in so stifled a voice that the +reply became a confession. + +"Why didn't you tell me so?" + +"Because--the day I heard you were on the _Monarchic_, I couldn't +remember what I'd read. It was vague in my mind----" + +"No other reason?" + +"Only that--that--I fancied----" + +"You fancied I didn't like to talk about the _Monarchic_?" + +"Well, when the Countess spoke of it, you looked--cross." + +"I was cross. But only with the _way_ she spoke--as if she and I had come +over together because we were pals. That's all. Though I've every cause +to hate the memory of that trip! When did you remember what you had read +in the newspapers?" + +"Only this evening." + +"I thought so! At dinner. I saw a look come over your face." + +"I didn't know you noticed me." + +"I'm always noticing you. And I was proud of you to-night. Well! You +remembered----" + +"About a man on board being robbed, and a lady--an 'amateur +clairvoyante,' seeing things in a crystal. I thought it must have been +the Countess de Santiago." + +"It was, though her name was kept out of the papers by her request. She's +sensitive about the clairvoyance stuff: afraid people may consider her a +professional, and look down on her from patronizing social heights. Of +course, I suppose it's nonsense about seeing things in a glass ball, but +I believe she _does_ contrive to take it seriously, for she seems in +earnest. She did tell people on board ship things about themselves--true +things, they said; and they ought to know! + +"As for the jewel affair," he added, "nobody could be sure if there was +anything in her 'visions', but people thought them extraordinary--even +the captain, a hard-headed old chap. You see, a yacht had been sighted +the evening before the robbery while the passengers were at dinner. It +might have kept near, with lights out, for the _Monarchic_ is one of the +huge, slow-going giants, and the yacht might have been a regular little +greyhound. It seems she didn't answer signals. The captain hadn't thought +much of that, because there was a slight fog and she could have missed +them. But it came back to him afterward, and seemed to bear out the +Countess's rigmarole. + +"Besides, there was the finding of the patent lock, where she told the +man Jedfield he ought to look for it." + +"I don't remember that in the paper." + +"It was in several, if not all. She 'saw' the missing lock--a thing that +goes over a bolt and prevents it sliding back--in one of the lifeboats +upon the boat-deck, caught in the canvas covering. Well, it was there! +And there could be no suspicion of her putting the thing where it was +found, so as to make herself seem a true prophetess. She couldn't have +got to the place. + +"_That's_ why people were so impressed with the rest of the visions. +We're all inclined to be superstitious. Even I was interested. Though I +don't pin my faith in such things, I asked her to look into the crystal, +and see if she could tell what had become of my gold repeater, which +disappeared the same night." + +"Oh!" exclaimed Annesley. "So _you_ had something stolen?" + +"It looked like it. Anyhow, the watch went. And the Countess lost a ring +during the trip--a valuable one, I believe. She couldn't 'see' anything +for herself, but she got a glimpse of my repeater in the pocket of a red +waistcoat. Nobody on board confessed to a red waistcoat. And in the +searching of passengers' luggage--which I should have proposed myself if +I hadn't been among the robbed--nothing of the sort materialized. + +"However, that proved nothing. Jedfield's pearls and other trinkets must +have been somewhere on board, in someone's possession, if the yacht +vision wasn't true. Yet the strictest search gave no sign of them. It was +a miracle how they were disposed of, unless they _were_ thrown overboard +and picked up by someone in the plot, as the Countess said." + +"Is that why you hate to think of the trip--because you lost your watch?" +Annesley asked. + +"Yes. Just that. It wasn't so much the loss of the watch--though it was a +present and I valued it--as because it made me feel such a fool. I left +the repeater under my pillow when I got up in the middle of the night to +go on deck, thinking I heard a cry. I couldn't have heard one, for nobody +was there. And next morning, when I wanted to look at the time, my watch +was equally invisible. Then there was the business of the passengers +being searched, and the everlasting talk about the whole business. One +got sick and tired of it. I got tired of the Countess and her crystal, +too: but the effect is passing away now. I expect I can stand her if you +can." + +Annesley said that she would be interested. She refrained from adding +that she did not intend to make use of the seeress's gift for her own +benefit. + + * * * * * + +The Countess de Santiago wired her acceptance of the invitation, and +appeared at the Knowle Hotel on Saturday with a maid and a good deal of +luggage. Annesley had secretly feared that the effect of the beautiful +lady on the guests of the hotel would be overpowering, and had pictured +her, brilliantly coloured and exquisitely dressed, breaking like a +sunburst upon the dining room at luncheon time. + +But she had underrated the Countess's cleverness and sense of propriety. +The lady arrived in a neat, tailor-made travelling dress of russet-brown +tweed which, with a plain toque of brown velvet and fur, cooled the ruddy +flame of her hair. It seemed to Annesley also that her lips were less red +than before; and though she was as remarkable as ever for her beauty, she +was not to be remarked for meretriciousness. + +She was pleasanter in manner, too, as well as in appearance; and +Annesley's heart--which had difficulty in hardening itself for long--was +touched by the Countess's thanks for the invitation. + +"You are so happy and wrapped up in each other, I didn't expect you to +give a thought to me," the beautiful woman said. "You don't know what it +means to be asked down here, after so many lonely days in town, and to +find that you and Don are going to give me some new friends." + +This note, which Knight also had struck in explaining the Countess's +"heart's desire," was the right note to enlist Annesley's sympathy. One +might have thought that both had guessed this. + +Annesley and Knight gave their dinner party in a private room adjoining +their own sitting room, and connecting also with another smaller room +which they had had fitted up for a special purpose. This purpose was to +enshrine the seeress and her crystal. + +As Knight had said, she seemed to take her clairvoyant power seriously, +and insisted that she could do herself justice only in a room arranged in +a certain way. In the afternoon she directed that the furniture should be +removed with the exception of one small table and two chairs. Even the +pictures had to be taken down, and under the Countess's supervision +purple velvet draperies had to be put up, covering the walls and window. +These draperies she had brought with her, and they had curtain rings +sewn on at the upper edge, which could be attached to picture hooks or +nails. + +From the same trunk came also a white silk table-cover embroidered in +gold with figures representing the signs of the zodiac. There were in +addition three purple velvet cushions: two for the chairs and one--the +Countess explained--for the table, to "make an arm rest." By her further +desire a large number of hot-house lilies in pots were sent for, and +ranged on the floor round the walls. + +As for the Turkish carpet of banal reds, blues, and greens, it had to be +concealed under rugs of black fur which, luckily, the hotel possessed in +plenty. It was all very mysterious and exciting, and Annesley could +imagine the effective background these contrivances would give the +shining figure of the Countess. + +When, later on, she saw her guest dressed for dinner, the girl realized +even more vividly the genius of the artist who had planned the picture. +For the Countess de Santiago wore a clinging gown made in Greek fashion, +of a supple white material shot with interwoven silver threads. She wore +her copper-red hair in a classic knot with a wreath of emerald laurel +leaves. + +She would gleam like a moonlit statue in her lily-perfumed, purple +shrine, Annesley thought, and was not surprised that the lady should +achieve an instant success with the county folk who had begged for an +invitation to meet her. + +The Countess de Santiago did not seem to mind answering questions +about her powers, which everyone asked across the dinner-table. She +said that since her seventh birthday she had been able, under certain +circumstances, to see hidden things in people's lives, and future events. + +Her first experience, as a child, was being shut up in a darkened room, +and looking into a mirror, where figures and scenes appeared, like waking +dreams. She had been frightened, and screamed to be let out. Her mother +had taken pity and released her, saying that after all it was what "might +be expected from the seventh child of a seventh child, born on All +Saints' Eve." + +The Nelson Smiths' guests listened breathlessly to every word, and were +enchanted when she promised to give each man and woman a short "sitting" +with her crystal after dinner. + +Nothing was said about the purple room, so that the surprise could not +help being impressive. + +It was a delightful dinner, well thought out between the host and +head-waiter, but no one wished to linger over it. Never had "bridge +fiends" been so eager to "get to work" as these people were to +take their turn with the Countess and her crystal. At Lady +Annesley-Seton's suggestion they drew lots for these turns, and +Constance herself drew the first chance. She and the gleaming figure +of the Countess went out together, and ten or twelve minutes later +she returned alone. + +Everyone stared eagerly to see if she looked excited, and it took no +stretch of imagination to find her face flushed and her eyes dilated. + +"Well? Has she told you anything wonderful?" A clamour of voices joined +in the question. + +"Yes, she has," replied Constance. "She's simply _uncanny_! She could +pick up a fortune in London in one season, if she were a professional. +She has told me in what sort of place the heirlooms are now, but that we +shall never see them again." + +So saying, Lady Annesley-Seton plumped down on a sofa beside her hostess, +as the next person hurried off to plunge into the mysteries. "I feel +quite weak in the knees," Constance whispered to Annesley. "Has she told +you anything?" + +"No," said the girl "I don't--want to know things." + +She might have added: "Things told by _her_." But she did not say this. + +Constance shivered. "The woman frightened me with what she _knew_. I +mean, not about our robbery--that's a trifle--but about the past. That +crystal of hers seems to be--a sort of _Town Topics_. But I must say she +didn't foretell any horrors for the future--not for me personally. If +she goes on as she's begun she can do what she likes with us all. Dear +little Anne, you must ask her often to your house when you're 'finding +your feet'--and I'm helping you--in London. I prophesy that she'll prove +an attraction. Why, it would pay to have a room fitted up for her in +purple and black, with relays of fresh lilies." + +Annesley smiled. But she made up her mind that, if a room _were_ done in +purple and black with relays of lilies anywhere for the Countess de +Santiago, it would not be in her house. Unless, of course, Knight begged +it of her as a favour. + +And even then--but somehow she didn't believe, despite certain +appearances, that Knight was anxious to have his old friend near him. He +had the air of one who was paying a debt; and she remembered how he had +said, on the day of their wedding: "We will find a time to pay back the +favours they've done us." + +This visit and dinner and introduction to society was perhaps his way of +paying the Countess. Only--was it payment in full, or an instalment? +Annesley wondered. + +Vaguely she wondered also what had become of Dr. Torrance and the +Marchese di Morello. Would the next payment be for them, and what form +would it take? + +She was far from guessing. + +There was no anti-climax that night in the success of the Countess with +her "clients." They were deeply impressed, and even startled. Not one +woman said to herself that she had been tricked into giving the seeress a +"lead." There was nothing in the past hidden from that crystal and the +dark eyes which gazed into it! As for the future, her predictions were +remarkable; and she must have given people flattering accounts of their +characters, as everyone thought the analysis correct. + +What a pity, the women whispered, that such an astonishing person was not +a professional, who could be paid in cash! As it was, she would expect to +be rewarded with invitations: and though she was presentable, "You +_know_, my dear, she's frightfully pretty, the red-haired sort, that's +the most dangerous--not a bit safe to have about one's _men_. Still--no +price is too high. We shall all be fighting for her--or over her." + +And before the evening had come to an end the Countess de Santiago had +had several invitations for town and country houses. To be sure, they +were rather informal. But the beautiful lady knew when to be lenient, and +so she accepted them all. + +"She told me that our stolen things are hidden away for ever, and that +we'll be robbed again," Connie said to her husband on the way back to +Valley House. + +"She told me the same," said Dick. "And I hope to goodness we may be. +We've done jolly well out of that last affair!" + +"Yes," his wife agreed. "The only thing I don't like about it is the +_mystery_. It makes me feel as if something might be hanging over one's +head." + +"Over the trustees' heads!" laughed Lord Annesley-Seton. "I wish the +other night could be what the Countess called the 'first of a series.'" + +"The first of a series!" Constance repeated. "What a queer expression! +What was she talking about?" + +"She was--looking in her crystal," answered Dick, slowly, as if something +he had seen rose again before his eyes. + +Constance was pricked with curiosity. "You might tell me what the woman +said!" she exclaimed. + +"You haven't told me what message she had for you." + +"I've just said that she prophesied we should be robbed again." + +"That's only one thing. What about the rest?" + +"Oh! A lot of stuff which wouldn't interest _you_!" + +"You can keep your secret. And I'll keep mine," remarked Dick +Annesley-Seton, aggravatingly. "Anyhow, for the present. We'll see how it +works out." + +"See how _what_ works out?" his wife echoed. + +"The series." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE SERIES GOES ON + + +After all, Annesley had not written to her friends, Archdeacon Smith and +his wife, on leaving Mrs. Ellsworth's, to tell the surprising news of her +engagement. She had asked Mr. Ruthven Smith not to speak of it to his +cousins, because she would prefer to write. But then--the putting of the +news on paper in a way not to offend them, after their kindness in the +past, had been difficult. + +Besides, there had been little time to think out the difficulties, and +find a way of surmounting them. There had been only one whole day before +the wedding, and that day she had spent with Knight, buying her +trousseau. It had been a wonderful day, never to be forgotten, but its +end had found her tired; and when Knight had said "good-bye" and left +her, she had not been equal to composing a letter. + +Nevertheless, she had tried, for it had seemed dreadful to marry and go +away from London without letting her only friends know what had happened, +what she was doing, and why she had not invited them to her wedding. + +Ah, _why_? In explaining that she confronted the great obstacle. She +had not known how to exonerate herself without hurting their feelings, +or--telling a lie. + +The girl hated lying. She could not remember that in her life she had +ever spoken or written a lie in so many words, though, like most people +who are not saints, she had prevaricated a little occasionally to save +herself or others from some unpleasantness. + +In this case no innocent prevarication would serve. Even if she had been +willing to lie, she could think of no excuse which would seem plausible. +Tired as she had been that last night as Annesley Grayle, and throbbing +as she was with excitement at the thought of the new life before her, she +did begin a letter. + +It was a feeble effort. She tore it up and essayed another. The second +was worse than the first, and the third was scarcely an improvement. + +Discouraged, and so nerve-racked that she was on the point of tears, the +girl put off the attempt. But days passed, and when no inspiration came, +and she was still haunted by the thought of a duty undone, she +compromised by telegraphing from Devonshire. Her message ran: + + Dear Friends-- + + I beg you to forgive me for seeming neglect, but it was not really + that. I am married to a man I love. It had to be sudden. I could not + let you know in time, though I wanted to. I shall not be quite happy + till I've seen you and introduced my husband. Say to your cousin he may + explain as far as he can. When we meet will tell you more. Coming back + to London in fortnight to take house in Portman Square and settle down. + Love and gratitude always. My new name is same as yours. + + Annesley Smith. + +To this she added her address in Devonshire, feeling sure that, unless +the Archdeacon and his wife were hopelessly offended by her neglect and +horrified at Ruthven Smith's story, they would write. + +She cared for them very much, and it would always be a grief, she +thought, that she and Knight had not been married by her old friend. +Every night she prayed for a letter, waking with the hope that the +postman might bring one: and five days after the sending of her telegram +her heart leaped at sight of a fat envelope addressed in Mrs. Smith's +familiar handwriting. + +They forgave her! That was the principal thing. And they rejoiced in her +happiness. All explanations--if "dear Annesley wished to make any"--could +wait until they met. The kind woman wrote: + + Cousin James Ruthven Smith was loyal to his promise, and gave us no + hint of your news. We did not, of course, know of the promise till + after your telegram came, and we showed it to him. Then he confessed + that he was in your secret; that he had been witness of a scene in + which poor Mrs. Ellsworth made herself more than usually unpleasant; + and that you had asked him to let you tell us the glad tidings of your + engagement and hasty wedding. + + I say "poor Mrs. Ellsworth" because it seems she has been ill since you + left, and has had other misfortunes. The illness is not serious, and I + imagine, now I have heard fuller details of her treatment of you, that + it is merely a liver and nerve attack, the result of temper. If she had + not been confined to bed, and very sorry for herself, I am sure nothing + could have prevented her from writing to us a garbled account of the + quarrel and your departure. + + As it turned out, I hear she rang up the household after you went that + night, had hysterics, and sent a servant flying for the doctor. He--a + most inferior person, according to Cousin James--having a sister who is + a trained nurse, put _her_ in charge of the patient at once, where she + has remained since. In consequence of the nurse's tyrannical ways, the + servants gave a day's notice and left in a body. + + Three temporary ones were got in as soon as possible from some agency; + and last night (four days, I believe, after they were installed) a + burglary was committed in the house. + + Only fancy, _poor Ruthven_! He was afraid to stay even with us in our + quiet house, when he came to London, because once, years ago, we were + robbed! You know how reticent he is about his affairs, and how he never + says anything concerning business. One might think that to _us_ he + would show some of the beautiful jewels he is supposed to buy for the + Van Vrecks. + + But no, he never mentions them. We should not have known why he came to + England this time, after a shorter interval than usual, or that he had + valuables in his possession, if it had not been for this burglary. As + he was obliged to talk to the police, and describe to them what had + been stolen from him (I forgot to mention that he as well as Mrs. + Ellsworth was robbed, but you would have guessed that, from my + beginning, even if you haven't read the morning papers before taking up + my letter), there was no reason why, for once, he should not speak + freely to us. + + He has been lunching here and has just gone, as I write, but will + transfer himself later to our house, as it has now become unbearable + for him at Mrs. Ellsworth's. I fancy _that_ arrangement has been + brought to an end! Your presence in the _ménage_ was the sole + alleviation. + + James, it appears, came to London on an unexpected mission, differing + from his ordinary trips. You may remember seeing in the papers some + weeks ago that an agent of the Van Vreck firm was robbed on shipboard + of a lot of pearls and things he was bringing to show an important + client in England--some Indian potentate. James tells us that _he_ + procured the finest of the collection for the Van Vrecks, and as he is + a great expert, and can recognize jewels he has once seen, even when + disguised or cut up, or in different settings, he was asked to go to + London to help the police find and identify some of the lost valuables. + + Also, he was instructed to buy more pearls, to be sold to the Indian + customer, instead of those stolen from the agent on shipboard. James + had not found any of the lost things; but he _had_ bought some pearls + the day before the burglary at Mrs. Ellsworth's. + + Wasn't it _too_ unlucky? I have tried to give the poor fellow a little + consolation by reminding him how fortunate it is he hadn't bought + _more_, and that the loss will be the Van Vrecks' or that of some + insurance company, not _his_ personally. But he cannot be comforted. He + says that his not having ten thousand pounds' worth of pearls doesn't + console him for being robbed of _eight_ thousand pounds' worth. + + James has little hope that the thieves will be found, for he feels that + the Van Vrecks are in for a run of bad luck, after the good fortune of + many years. They have lost the head of the firm--"the great Paul," as + James calls him--who has definitely retired, and occupies himself so + exclusively with his collection that he takes no interest in the + business. + + Then there was the robbery on the ship, which, in James's opinion, must + have been the work of a masterly combination. And now another theft! + The poor fellow has _quite_ lost his nerve, which, as you know, has for + years not been that of a young man. His deafness, no doubt, partly + accounts for the timidity with which he has been afflicted since the + first (and only other) time he was robbed. And now he blames it for + what happened last night. + + He's trained himself to be a light sleeper, and if he could hear as + well as other people, he thinks the thief would have waked him coming + into his room. Once in, the wretch must have drugged him, because the + pearls were in a parcel under his pillow. But how the man--or men--got + into the house is a mystery, unless one of the new servants was an + accomplice. + + _Nothing_ was broken open. In the morning every door and window was + as usual. Of course the servants are under suspicion; but they seem + stupid, ordinary people, according to James. + + As for Mrs. Ellsworth, he says she is making a fuss over the wretched + bits of jewellery she lost, things of no importance. She, too, slept + through the affair, and knew what had happened only when she waked to + see a safe she has in the wall of her bedroom wide open. + + It seems that in place of her jewel box and some money she kept there + was an _insulting_ note, announcing that for the first time something + belonging to her would be used for a good purpose. To James this is the + one bright spot in the darkness. + +When Annesley had read this long letter with its many italics, she passed +it to Knight who, in exchange, handed her a London newspaper with a page +folded so as to give prominence to a certain column. It was an account of +the burglary at Mrs. Ellsworth's house, which he had been reading. + + * * * * * + +Generous with money as "Nelson Smith" was, he was not a man who would +allow himself to be "done," and in some ways the Annesley-Setons were +disappointed in the bargain they arrived at with him. He appeared +delighted with the chance of getting their London house, and of having +them come to stay, in order to introduce his wife and himself to the +brightest, most "particular" stars in the galaxy of their friends. + +Yet, when it came to making definite terms he seemed to take it for +granted that, as the Annesley-Setons would be living in the house as +guests, they would not only be willing, but anxious, to accept a low +price. + +This had not been their intention. On the contrary, they had meant +their visit and social offices to be a great, extra favour, which +ought to raise rather than lower the rent. In some mysterious way, +however, without appearing to bargain or haggle, Nelson Smith, the young +millionaire from America, made his bride's relatives understand that he +was prepared to pay so much, and no more. That they could take him on his +own terms--or let him go. + +Terrified, therefore, lest he and his money should slip out of their +hands, they snapped at his carelessly made offer without venturing an +objection. And they realized at the same time in a way equally +mysterious, and to their own surprise, that not they but Mr. and Mrs. +Nelson Smith would be master and mistress of the house in Portman Square. +If there were ever a clash between wills, Nelson Smith's would prevail +over theirs. + +How this impression was conveyed to their intelligence they could hardly +have explained even to each other. The man was so pleasant, so careless +of finances or conventionalities, that not one word or look could be +treasured up against him. + +"The fellow's a genius!" Annesley-Seton said to Constance, when they were +talking over the latest phase of the game. And they respected him. + +Lady Annesley-Seton wished to bring to town the servants, including a +wonderful butler, who had been transferred for economy's sake to Valley +House. This proposal, however, Nelson Smith dismissed with a few +good-natured words. He had his eye upon a butler whose brother was +a chauffeur. + +"Besides, it wouldn't be fair to Anita," he explained. "Your servants +would scorn to take orders from her, and I want her to learn the dignity +of a married woman with responsibilities of her own. That's the first +step toward being the perfect hostess. She's the sweetest girl in the +world, but she's timid and distrustful of herself. I want her to know her +own worth, and then it won't be long before everyone around her knows +it." + +There was no answer to this except acquiescence, which Dick and Constance +were obliged to give. They did give it: the more readily because they +were inclined to suspect a hidden hint, a pill between layers of jam. + +If the girl had been transferred from the earth to Mars, the new +conditions of life could scarcely have been more different from the old +than was life in Portman Square married to Nelson Smith, from the +treadmill as Mrs. Ellsworth's slave-companion. What the Portman Square +experiences of the bride would have been if Knight had allowed the +Annesley-Setons to begin by ruling it would be dangerous to say. But he +had taken his stand; and without guessing that she owed her freedom of +action to her husband's strength of will, she revelled in it with a joy +so intense that it came close to pain. Sometimes, if he were within +reach, she ran to find Knight, and hugged him almost fiercely, with a +passion that surprised herself. + +"I'm so happy; that's all," she would explain, if he asked "What has +happened?" "My soul was buried. You've brought it back to life." + +When she said such things Knight smiled, and seemed glad. He would hold +her to him for a minute, or kiss her hand, like an humble squire with a +princess. But now and then he looked at her with a wistfulness that was +like a question she could not hear because she was deaf. She never got +any satisfaction, though, if she asked what the look meant. + +"Oh, I don't know. I was only thinking of you," he would answer, or some +other words of lover-language. + +The Annesley-Setons' first move on the social chessboard was to make use +of a pawn or two in the shape of "society reporters." They knew a few men +and women of good birth and no money who lived by writing anonymously for +the newspapers. These people were delighted to get material for a +paragraph, or photographs for their editors. Connie took her new cousin +to the woman photographer who was the success of the moment; and, as she +said to Knight, "the rest managed itself." + +Meanwhile, an application was made to the Lord Chamberlain for Mrs. +Nelson Smith's presentation by her cousin Lady Annesley-Seton at the +first Court of the season. It was granted, and the bride in white and +silver made her bow to their majesties. As for Knight, he laughingly +refused Dick's good offices. + +"No levees for me!" he said. "I've lived too long in America, and roughed +it in too many queer places, to take myself seriously in knee-breeches. +Besides, they have to know about your ancestors back to the Dark Ages, +don't they, or else they 'cancel' you? My father was a good man, and a +gentleman, but who _his_ father was I couldn't tell to save my head. My +mother was by way of being a swell; but she was a foreigner, so I can't +make use of any of her 'quarterings,' even if I could count them." + +Annesley was presented in February, and had by that time been settled in +Portman Square long enough to have met many of her cousins' friends. +After the Court, which launched her in society, she and Knight (with a +list supplied by Connie) gave a dinner-dance. The Countess de Santiago +was not asked; but soon afterward there was a luncheon entirely for +women, in American fashion, at which the Countess was present. + +When luncheon was over, she gave a short lecture on "the Science of +Palmistry" and "the Cultivation of Clairvoyant Powers." Then there was +tea; and the Countess allowed herself to be consulted by the guests--the +dozen most important women of Connie's acquaintance. + +Annesley, though she was not able to like the Countess, was pleased with +the praise lavished upon her both for her looks and her accomplishments +that afternoon. She had guessed, from the beautiful woman's constrained +manner when they met at a shop the day after the dinner-dance, that she +was hurt because she had not been invited: though why she should expect +to be asked to every entertainment which the Nelson Smiths gave, Annesley +could not see. + +Vaguely distressed, however, by the flash in the handsome eyes, and the +curt "How do you do?" the girl appealed to Knight. + +"Ought we to have had the Countess de Santiago last evening?" she asked, +perching on his knee in the room at the back of the house which he had +annexed as a "den." + +"Certainly not," he reassured her, promptly. "All the people were howling +swells. The Annesley-Setons had skimmed the topmost layer of the cream +for our benefit, and the Countess would have been 'out' of it in such a +set, unless she'd been telling fortunes. You can ask her when you've a +crowd of women. She'll amuse them, and gather glory for herself. But I'm +not going to have her encouraged to think we belong to her. We've set the +woman on her feet by what we've done. Now let her learn to stand alone." + +The ladies' luncheon was a direct consequence of this speech; but +complete as was the Countess's success, Annesley felt that she was not +satisfied: that it would take more than a luncheon party of which she was +the heroine to content the Countess, now that Nelson Smith and his bride +had a house and a circle in London. + +Occasionally, when she was giving an "At Home," or a dinner, Annesley +consulted Knight. "Shall we ask the Countess?" was her query, and the +first time she did this he answered with another question: "Do you want +her for your own pleasure? Do you like her better than you did?" + +Annesley had to say "no" to this catechizing, whereupon Knight briefly +disposed of the subject. "That settles it. We won't have her." + +And so, during the next few weeks, the Countess de Santiago (who had +moved from the Savoy Hotel into a charming, furnished flat in Cadogan +Gardens) came to Portman Square only for one luncheon and two or three +receptions. + +By this time, however, she had made friends of her own, and if she had +cared to accept a professional status she might have raked in a small +fortune from her séances. She would not take money, however, preferring +social recognition; but gifts were pressed upon her by those who, though +grateful and admiring, did not care for the obligation to admit the +Countess into their intimacy. + +She took the rings and bracelets and pendants, and flowers and fruit, and +bon-bons and books, because they were given in such a way that it would +have been ungracious to refuse. But the givers were the very women whose +bosom friend she would have liked to seem, in the sight of the world: a +duchess, a countess, or a woman distinguished above her sisters for some +reason. + +She worked to gain favour, and when she had any personal triumph without +direct aid from Portman Square, she put on an air of superiority over +Annesley when they met. If she suffered a gentle snub, she hid the smart, +but secretly brooded, blaming Mrs. Nelson Smith because she was asked to +their house only for big parties, or when she was wanted to amuse their +friends. + +She blamed Nelson, too; but, womanlike, blamed Annesley more. Sometimes +she determined to put out a claw and draw blood from both, but changed +her mind, remembering that to do them harm she must harm herself. + +Once it occurred to her to form a separate, secret alliance with +Constance Annesley-Seton. There were reasons why that might have suited +her, and she began one day to feel her ground when Connie had telephoned, +and had come to her flat for advice from the crystal. She had "seen +things" which she thought Lady Annesley-Seton would like her to see, and +when the séance was ended in a friendly talk, the Countess de Santiago +begged Constance to call her Madalena. "You are my _first_ real friend in +England!" she said. + +"Except my cousin Anne," Connie amended, with a sharp glance from the +green-gray eyes to see whether "Madalena" were "working up to anything." + +"Oh, I can't count _her_!" said the Countess. "She doesn't like me. She +wouldn't have me come near her if it weren't for her husband. I am quick +to feel things. You, I believe, really _do_ like me a little, so I can +speak freely to you. And you _know_ you can to me." + +But Constance, in the slang of her girlhood days, "wasn't taking any." +She was afraid that Madalena was trying to draw her into finding fault +with her host and hostess, in order to repeat what she said, with +embroideries, to Nelson Smith or Annesley. She was not a woman to be +caught by the subtleties of another; and in dread of compromising herself +did the Countess de Santiago an injustice. If she had ventured any +disparaging remarks of "Cousin Anne," they would not have been repeated. + + * * * * * + +The season began early and brilliantly that year, for the weather was +springlike, even in February; and people were ready to enjoy everything. +The one blot on the general brightness was a series of robberies. +Something happened on an average of every ten or twelve days, and always +in an unexpected quarter, where the police were not looking. + +Among the first to suffer were Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith. The Portman +Square house was broken into, the thief entering a window of the "den" +on the ground floor, and making a clean sweep of all the jewellery +Knight and Annesley owned except her engagement ring, the string of +pearls which had been her lover's wedding gift, and the wonderful blue +diamond on its thin gold chain. These things she wore by night as well as +day; but a gold-chain bag, a magnificent double rope of pearls, a diamond +dog-collar, several rings, brooches, and bangles which Knight had given +her since their marriage, all went. + +His pearl studs, his watch (a present out of Annesley's allowance, +hoarded for the purpose), and a collection of jewelled scarf-pins shared +the fate of his wife's treasures. + +Unfortunately, a great deal of the Annesley-Seton family silver went at +the same time, regretted by Knight far beyond his own losses. Dick was +inclined to be solemn over such a haul, but Constance laughed. + +"Who cares?" she said. "We've no children, and for my part I'm as pleased +as Punch that your horrid old third cousins will come into less when +we're swept off the board. Meanwhile, we get the insurance money for +'loss of use' again. It's simply splendid. And that dear Nelson Smith +insists on buying the best Sheffield plate to replace what's gone. It's +handsomer than the real!" + +Neither she nor Dick lost any jewellery, though they possessed a little +with which they had not had the courage to part. And this seemed +mysterious to Constance. She wondered over it: and remembering how the +Countess de Santiago had prophesied another robbery for them, telephoned +to ask if she'd be "a darling, and look again in her crystal." + +Madalena telephoned back: "I'll expect you this afternoon at four +o'clock." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE TEST + + +Madalena had meant to go out that afternoon, but she changed her mind and +stopped at home. "I know what you've come for," she said, as she kept +Connie's hand in hers. It was an effective way she had, as if contact +with a person helped her to read the condition of that person's mind. + +"Do you really?" exclaimed Constance. "Why, I--but you mean you've +guessed what has hap----" + +"It's not guessing, it's _seeing_," answered the Countess. "I'm in one of +my psychic moods to-day. A prophecy of mine has come true?" + +"No-o--yes. Well, in a way you're right. In a way you're wrong. What is +it you see?" + +"I see that you've lost something--probably last night. This morning I +waked with the impression. I wasn't surprised when you telephoned. Now, +let me go on holding your hand, and _think_. I'll shut my eyes. I don't +need my room and the crystal. Yes! The impression grows clearer. You +_have_ lost something. But it is not a thing to care about. You're glad +it's gone." + +"You _are_ extraordinary!" Constance wondered aloud. "Can you see what I +lost--and whether it was Dick's or mine, or both?" + +"His," said Madalena, after shutting her eyes again. "_His._ And he does +not care much, either. That seems strange. But I tell you what I _feel_." + +"You are telling me the truth," Constance admitted. "Now, go on: tell +what was the thing itself--and the way we lost it." + +"I haven't seen that yet. I haven't tried. Perhaps I shall be able to, +in the crystal; perhaps not. I don't always succeed. But--it comes to me +suddenly that this thing isn't directly or entirely what brought you +here?" + +"Right again, O Witch!" laughed Connie. "I came to ask you to find +out--you're so marvellous!-why I didn't lose _other_ things, which I +really _do_ value." + +The two women had been standing in the drawing room, Lady +Annesley-Seton's hand still in the Countess's. But now, without speaking +again, Madalena led her visitor into the room adjoining, which was fitted +up much as the room at the Devonshire hotel had been for her first +séance. The seeress gave herself, here at home, the same background of +purple velvet; the floor was carpeted with black, and spread with black +fur rugs; she was never without fragrant white lilies ranged in curious +pots along the purple walls; but in her own house the appointments were +more elaborate and impressive than the temporary fittings she carried +about for use when visiting. + +On her table was a cushion of cloth-of-gold, embroidered with amethysts +and emeralds, the "lucky" jewels of her horoscope; and her gleaming ball +of crystal lay like a bright bubble in a shallow cup of solid jet which, +she told everyone, had been given her in India by the greatest astrologer +in the world. + +What was the name of this man, and when she had visited him in India, she +did not reveal. + +They sat down at the table, she and Constance Annesley-Seton, opposite +each other. Madalena unveiled the crystal, which was hidden under a +covering of black velvet when not in use. At first she gazed into the +glittering ball in vain, and her companion watched her face anxiously. It +looked marble white and expressionless as that of a statue in the light +of seven wax candles grouped together in a silver candelabrum. + +Suddenly, as it seemed to Constance's hypnotized stare, the statue-face +"came alive." It was not the first time that Constance had seen this +thrilling change. It invariably happened when the crystal began to show +a picture; and so powerful was its effect on the nerves of the watcher in +this silent, perfumed room, as to give an illusion that she, too, could +see dimly what the seeress saw forming in those transparent depths. + +"A man is there," Madalena said in a low, measured voice, as if she were +talking in her sleep. "He is shutting a door. It is the front door of a +house like yours. Yes, it _is_ yours. There is the number over the door, +and I recognize the street. It is Portman Square. He puts a latchkey in +his pocket. How could he have got the key? I do not know. Perhaps I could +find out, but there is no time. I must follow him. + +"He is hurrying away. He carries a heavy travelling bag. A closed +carriage is coming along--not a public one. It has been waiting for him +I think. He gets in, and the coachman--who is in black--drives off very +fast. They go through street after street! I can't be sure where. It +seems to be north they are going. There's a park--Regent's Park, maybe. +I don't know London well. + +"The carriage is stopping--before a closed house in a quiet street. There +is a little garden in front, and a high wall. The man opens the gate and +walks in. The carriage drives off. The coachman must know where to go, +for no word is said. Someone inside the house is waiting. He lets the man +with the bag into a dark hallway. Now he shuts the door and goes into a +room. + +"There is a light. The first man puts the bag on a table; it is a dining +table. The other man--much older--watches. The first one takes things out +of the bag. Oh, a great deal of beautiful silver! I have seen it at your +house. And there are other things--a string of pearls and a lot of +jewellery. He pours it out of a brown handkerchief on to the table. + +"But still the second man is not pleased. I think he is asking why there +isn't more. The first man explains. He makes gestures. So does the other. +They are quarrelling. The man who brought the bag is afraid of the older +one. He apologizes. He seems to be talking about something that he will +do. He goes to a mantelpiece in the room and points to a calendar. He +touches a date with his forefinger." + +"What date?" Lady Annesley-Seton cried out. It was forbidden to speak to +the seeress in the midst of a vision, but Constance forgot in the strain +of her excitement. + +The Countess gave a gasp, fell back in her chair, and put her hands over +her eyes. "Oh!" she stammered, as though she awoke from sleep. "How my +head aches! It is all gone!" + +"I'm so sorry!" Constance apologized. "It began to seem so real, I +thought I was in that room with you. You are unaccountable! You couldn't +know what happened. Yet you have been seeing the thief who stole our +silver last night, and the Nelson Smiths' jewellery, but no jewellery of +ours. That is the strange part of the affair, for I have a few things I +adore--and they would have been easy to find. You didn't even know we +_had_ been robbed, did you?" + +"No, of course not," said the Countess. "I am sorry! Was it in the +papers?" + +"It will be this evening and to-morrow morning! But the police must hear +about this vision of yours, the vision of the man with the latchkey. It +may help them." + +"You must not tell the police!" Madalena said, "I have warned you all, +that if you talked too much about me and my crystal, the police might +hear and take notice. There are such stupid laws in England. I may be +doing something against them. If you or Lord Annesley-Seton speak of me +to the police I will go away, and you will never hear more of my +visions--as you call them--in future. Unless you promise that you will +let the police find the thieves in their own way, without dragging me in, +I shall be so unnerved that my eyes will be darkened." + +"Oh, I promise, if you feel so strongly about it," said Constance. "I +didn't realize that it might do you harm to be mentioned to the police." + +She wished very much to have Madalena go on looking in the crystal. She +had been excited, carried out of herself for a few minutes, but she had +not heard what she had come to hear--why she had been spared the loss of +her personal treasures. + +The desired promise hurriedly made, the Countess gave her attention once +more to the crystal. For a time she could see nothing. The mysterious +current had been severed by the diversion, and had slowly to be rewoven +by the seeress's will. + +"I can see only dimly," Madalena said. "It was clear before! I cannot +tell you why the things you care for were left.... Something _new_ is +coming. It seems that this time I am looking ahead, into the future. The +picture is blurred--like a badly developed photograph. The thing I see +has still to materialize." + +"Where?" whispered Constance, thrilled by the thought that some event on +its way to her down the unknown path of futurity was casting a shadow +into the crystal. "Where?" + +"I see a beautiful room. There are a number of people there--men and +women. You are with them, and Lord Annesley-Seton--and Nelson Smith and +your cousin Anne. I know most of the faces--not all. Everyone is excited. +Something has happened. They are talking it over.... Now I see the room +more clearly. It is as if a light were turned on in the crystal. Oh, it +is what you call the Chinese drawing room, at Valley House. I know why +the room lights up, and why I see everything so much more clearly. It is +because I myself am coming into the picture. + +"The people want me to tell them the meaning of the thing that has +happened. It seems that I know about it. I do not hesitate to answer. It +must be that I have been consulting the crystal, for I seem sure of what +I say to them! I point toward the door--or is it at something on the +wall--or is it a person? Ah, the picture is gone from the crystal!" + +"How irritating!" cried Lady Annesley-Seton, who felt that supernatural +forces ought to be subject to her convenience. "Can't you make it come +back if you concentrate?" + +Madalena shook her head. "No, it will not come back. I am sure of that, +because when the crystal clouds as if milk were pouring into it, I know +that I shall never see the same picture again. Whether it is a cross +current in myself or the crystal, I cannot tell; but it amounts to the +same thing. I am sorry! It is useless to try any more. Shall we go to the +other room and have tea?" + +Constance did not persist, as she wished to do. She had to take the +Countess's word that further effort would be useless, but she felt +thwarted, as if the curtain had fallen by mistake in the middle of an +act, and the characters on the stage had availed themselves of the chance +to go home. + +It was vexatious enough that Madalena had not been able to explain the +mystery of last night. But this was ten times more annoying. + +"Am I not to know the end of the act?" she asked as her hostess +poured tea. The latter shrugged her shoulders, as if to shake off +responsibility. "Ah, I cannot tell! Perhaps if----" + +She stopped, and handed her guest a cup. + +"Perhaps if--_what_?" + +"Oh, nothing!" Madalena tasted her own tea and put in more cream. + +"Do tell me what you were going to say, _dear_ Countess, unless you want +me to die of curiosity." + +"I should be sorry to have you do that!" smiled Madalena. "But if I said +what I was going to say, you might misunderstand. You might think--I was +asking for an invitation." + +Instantly Constance's mind unveiled the other's meaning. There was to be +an Easter party at Valley House--a very smart party. The Countess de +Santiago wished to be a member of it. Lady Annesley-Seton, shrewd as she +was, had a vein of superstition running through her nature, and, though +one side of that nature said that the scene with the crystal had been +arranged for this end, the other side held its belief in the vision. + +"You mean," she said, "that if you should be at Valley House when the +_thing_ happens, and we are puzzled and upset about it, you might be able +to help?" + +"The fancy passed through my head. It was the picture in the crystal +suggested it," Madalena explained. "Do have an éclair!" Face and voice +expressed indifference; but Constance knew that the other had set her +heart on being at Valley House for Easter; and there was really no +visible reason why she shouldn't be there. + +People liked her well enough: she was never a bore. + +"Well, you must be 'in at the death,' with the rest of us," Lady +Annesley-Seton assured her. "Of course, though it's my house, this +Easter party is practically the Nelson Smiths' affair. You know what +poverty-stricken wretches _we_ are! They are paying all expenses, and +taking the servants, so I suppose I am bound to go through the form of +consulting Anne before I ask even _you_. Still----" + +Madalena's eyes flamed. "Consult your cousin's husband!" she said. "It is +only _he_ who counts. As a favour to me, speak to him." + +Constance smiled at the other over her teacup, with a narrowed gaze. "Why +shouldn't I speak to them together?" + +"Because I want to know what to think. If _he_ says no, it will be a +test." + +"Very well, so be it!" said Constance, making light of what she knew was +somehow serious. "I'll tackle Nelson alone without Anne." + +"That is all I want. And if I am asked to be of your party, I think--I +can't tell why, but I feel it strongly--that everybody may have some +reason for being glad." + +It seemed unlikely there would be a chance for a talk that evening, as +Nelson Smith was dining at one of the clubs he had joined. The other +three members of the household were to have a hasty dinner and go to +the first performance of a new play--a play in which Knight was not +interested. Afterward they expected to sup at the Savoy with the +friend who had asked them to her box at the theatre; but the box was +empty save for themselves. + +While they wondered, a messenger brought a note of regret. Sudden illness +had kept their would-be hostess in her room. + +Without her, the supper was considered not worth while. The play had run +late, and the trio voted for home and bed. + +"If Nelson has come, I'll try and have a word with him to-night, after +all," thought Constance, "provided I can keep my promise by getting Anne +out of the way. Then I can phone to Madalena early in the morning, yes or +no, and put her out of her suspense. No such luck, though, as that he +will have got back from his club!" + +He had got back, however. The entrance hall was in twilight when Dick +Annesley-Seton let them into the house with his latchkey, for all the +electric lights save one were turned off. That one was shaded with red +silk, and in the ruddy glow it was easy to see the line of light under +the door of the "den." + +Annesley noticed it, but made no comment. Knight never asked her to join +him in the den, but alluded to it as an untidy place, a mere work room +which he kept littered with papers; and only the new butler, Charrington, +was allowed to straighten its disorder. + +This, of course, was not butler's business, but Knight said the footmen +were stupid, and Charrington had been persuaded or bribed into performing +the duty. Annesley's life of suppression had made her shy of putting +herself forward; and though Knight had never told her that she would be +a disturbing element in the den, his silence had bolted the door for her. + +Constance, however, was not so fastidious. + +"Oh, look!" she said, before Dick had time to switch on another light. +"Nelson's got tired of his club, and come home!" + +As she spoke, almost as if she had willed it, the door opened. But it was +not Knight who came out. It was the younger Charrington, the chauffeur, +called "Char," to distinguish him from his solemn elder brother, the +butler. + +The red-haired, red-faced, black-eyed young man stopped suddenly at sight +of the newcomers. He had evidently expected to find the hall untenanted. +Taking up his stand before the door, he barred the way with his tall, +liveried figure, and it struck Constance that he looked aggressive, as +if, had he dared, he would have shut the door again, almost in her face. + +"I beg your pardon, madame!" he said in so loud a voice that it was like +a warning to his master that an intruder might be expected. It occurred +to her also, for the first time, that his accent sounded rather American, +and he had forgotten to address her as "my lady." + +This was odd, for his brother was the most typical British butler +imaginable, as Nelson had remarked soon after the two servants had been +engaged. + +She stared, surprised; but Char still kept the door until his master +showed himself in the lighted aperture. Then the chauffeur, saluting +courteously, stepped aside. + +"Funny that he should be here!" thought Constance. She might have been +malicious enough to imagine that Nelson Smith had drunk too heavily at +his club, and had been helped into the house by Char, who wished to +protect him until the last; but he was unmistakably his usual self: cool, +and more than ordinarily alert. + +"Oh, how do you do?" he exclaimed. "I heard Char say 'Madame,' and +thought it was Anita at the door." + +"No, she has gone upstairs," explained Lady Annesley-Seton. "So has Dick. +I alone had courage to linger! I feel like Fatima with the blood-stained +key, in Bluebeard's house, you are such a bear about this den--you really +_are_, you know!" + +"I didn't expect you three so soon," said Knight, calmly. "If I'd known +you had a curiosity to see Bluebeard's Chamber, I'd have had it smartened +up. As it is, I shouldn't dare let you peep. You, the mistress of the +house before we took it over, would be critical of the state I delight +to keep it in. Untidiness is my _one_ fault!" + +"I'll put off the visit till a more propitious hour," Constance reassured +him, "if you'll spare me a moment in the hall. It's only a word--about +Madalena. She has asked me to call her that." + +"The Countess de Santiago?" Knight questioned, smiling. He closed the +door of the den, and came out into the hall, turning on still another of +the lights. + +"Yes. I've been to see her to-day. Will you believe it, she saw the +_whole_ affair of last night in her crystal--and the thief, and +everything!" + +"Oh, indeed, did she? How intelligent." + +"But she says we mustn't mention her name to the police." + +"She'd be lumped with common or garden palmists and fortune-tellers, I +suppose." + +"Yes, that's what she fears. But she wants to be in our Devonshire house +party at Easter--to save us from something." + +Knight looked interested. "Save us from what?" + +"She couldn't see it distinctly in the crystal." + +He laughed. "She could see distinctly that she wanted to be there. +Well--we hadn't thought of having her. She seemed out of the picture with +the lot who are coming--the Duchess of Peebles, for instance. But we'll +think it over. Why don't you ask Anita? It occurs to me that she is the +one to be consulted." + +Now was the moment for Madalena's test. + +"The Countess wished me to speak to you alone, and let you decide. +Probably because you're such an old friend. I think she feels that Anita +doesn't care for her." + +Knight's face hardened. "She gave you _that_ impression, did she? Yet, +thinking Anita _doesn't_ like her--and she's nearly right--she wants to +come all the same. She wants to presume on my--er--friendship to force +herself on my wife.... Jove! I guess that's a little too strong. It's +time we showed the fair Madalena her place, don't you think so, Lady A?" + +"What, precisely, is her place?" Connie laughed. + +"Well, she seems determined to push herself into the foreground. My +idea is that what artists call middle distance is better suited to her +colouring. Seriously, I resent her putting you up to appeal to me--over +Anita's head. I'm not taking any! + +"Please tell her, or write--or phone--or whatever you've arranged to +do--that we're both sorry--say '_both_,' please--that we don't feel +justified in persuading you to add her to the list of guests this time, +as Valley House will be full up." + +"She will be hurt," objected Constance. + +"I'm inclined to think she deserves to be hurt." + +"Oh, well, if you've made up your mind! But--she's a charming woman, of +course.... Still, I shouldn't wonder if there's something of the tigress +in her, and she could give a nasty dig." + +"Let her try!" said Knight. + +In the morning Constance telephoned to the flat in Cadogan Gardens. She +had not long to wait for an answer to her call. + +The Countess was evidently expecting to hear from her early in the day. + +"He wasn't in the right mood, I'm afraid, when I spoke to him," Connie +temporized. "He seemed to resent your wish to--to--as he expressed +it--'get at him over Anne's head.'" + +"That is what I wanted to be sure of," Madalena answered. "Now--I +_know_!" + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +NELSON SMITH AT HOME + + +The Countess de Santiago took her defeat like a soldier. But her line +both of attack and defence was of the sapping-and-mining order. + +Once she had cared as deeply as it was in her to care for the man known +to London as "Nelson Smith." He was of the type which calls forth intense +feeling in others. Men liked him immensely or disliked him extremely. +Women admired him fervently or detested him cordially. It was not +possible to regard him with indifference. His personality was too +magnetic to leave his neighbours cold; and as a rule it was only those +whom he wished to keep at a distance who disliked him. + +As for Madalena de Santiago, for a time she had enjoyed thinking herself +in love. There were reasons, she knew, why she could not hope to be the +man's wife, and if he had chosen a plain woman to help him on in the +world she would have made no objection to his marriage. + +But at first sight she had realized that Annesley Grayle, shy and +unconscious of power to charm as she was, might be dangerous. + +Madalena had anxiously watched the two together, and at breakfast the day +before the wedding she had distrusted the light in the man's eyes as he +looked at the girl. It had seemed incredible that he should be in love +with a creature so pale, so formless still in character (as Annesley +appeared to Madalena); that a man like "Don" should be caught by a pair +of gray eyes and a softness which was only the beauty of youth. + +Still, the Countess had been made to suffer; and if she could have found +a way to prevent the marriage without alienating her friend, she would +have seized it. But she could think of no way, except to drop a sharp +reminder of what Don owed to her. The hint had been unheeded. The +marriage had taken place, and Madalena had been obliged to play the part +of the bride's friend and chaperon. + +Afterward, to be sure, she had been paid. Her reward had come in the +shape of invitations and meetings with desirable people. Nelson Smith's +marriage had given her a place in the world, and at first her success +consoled her. Soon, however, the pain of jealousy overcame the anodyne. +She could not rest; she was forever asking herself whether Don were glad +of her success for her own sake, or because it distracted her attention +from him. + +Was he falling in love with his wife, or was his way of looking at the +girl, of speaking to the girl, only an intelligent piece of acting in the +drama? + +Once or twice Madalena tried being cavalier in her manner to Annesley +(she dared not be actually rude); and Nelson Smith appeared not to +notice; but afterward the offender was punished--by missing some +invitation. This might have been taken as the proof for which she +searched, could she have been sure where lay the responsibility for the +slight, whether on the shoulders of Annesley or of Annesley's husband. + +Madalena strove to make herself believe that the fault was the girl's. +But she could not decide. Sometimes she flattered her vanity that +Annesley was trying to keep her away from Don. Again, she would wrap +herself in black depression as in a pall, believing that the man was +seeking an excuse to put her outside the intimacy of his life. + +Then she burned for revenge upon them both; yet her hands were tied. + +Her fate seemed to be bound up with the fate of Nelson Smith, and evil +which might threaten his career would overwhelm hers also. She spent dark +moments in striving to plan some brilliant yet safe _coup_ which would +ruin him and Annesley, in case she should find out that he had tired of +her. + +At last, by much concentration, her mind developed an idea which appeared +feasible. She saw a thing she might do without compromising herself. But +first she must be certain where the blame lay. + +Constance Annesley-Seton's explanation over the telephone left her little +doubt of the truth. She had the self-control to answer quietly; then, +when she had hung up the receiver, she let herself go to pieces. She +raged up and down the room, swearing in Spanish, tears tracing red stains +on her magnolia complexion. She dashed a vase full of flowers on the +floor, and felt a fierce thrill as it crashed to pieces. + +"That is _you_, Michael Donaldson!" she cried. "Like this I will break +you! That girl shall curse the hour of your meeting. She shall wish +herself back in the house of the old woman where she was a servant! And +you can do nothing--nothing to hurt me!" + +Later that morning, when she had composed herself, Madalena wrote a +letter to Lady Annesley-Seton: + + My Kind Friend,-- + + I am sorry that I may not be with you for Easter, and sorry for the + reason. I can read between the lines! But that does not interest you. + Myself, I can do no more for your protection in the unknown danger + which threatens; but again I am in one of those psychic moods, when I + have glimpses of things beyond the veil. + + It comes to me that if the Archdeacon friend of your cousin could be + asked to join your house party with his wife, and _especially_ with his + relative who is so rare a judge of jewels (is not his name Ruthven + Smith?) trouble might be prevented. + + This is vague advice. But I cannot be more definite, because I am + saying these things under _guidance_. I am not responsible, nor can + I explain why the message is sent. I _feel_ that it is important. + + But you must not mention that it comes from me. Nelson and his wife + would resent that; and the scheme would fall to the ground. Write and + tell me what you do. I shall not be easy in my mind until your house + party is over. May all go well! + + Yours gratefully and affectionately, + + Madalena. + + P.S.--Better speak of having the Smiths, to Mrs. Nelson, not her + husband. He might refuse. + +Archdeacon Smith and his wife and their cousin, Ruthven Smith, were the +last persons on earth in whom Constance would have expected the Countess +de Santiago to interest herself. All the more, therefore, was Lady +Annesley-Seton ready to believe in a supernatural influence. Madalena's +request to be kept out of the affair would have meant nothing to her had +she not agreed that the Nelson Smiths would object to the Countess's +dictation. + +Constance proposed the Smith family as guests in a casual way to Annesley +when they were out shopping together, saying that it would be nice for +Anne to have her friends at Valley House. + +"The Archdeacon wouldn't be able to come," said Annesley. "Easter is +a busy time for him, and Mrs. Smith wouldn't leave him to go into the +country." + +"What a dear, old-fashioned wife!" laughed Connie. "Well, what about +their cousin, that Mr. Ruthven Smith who used to stay at your 'gorgon's' +till our friends the burglar-band called on him? There are things in +Valley House which would interest an expert in jewels. And you've never +asked him to anything, have you?" + +"Oh, yes," said Annesley, "he's been invited every time I've asked the +Archdeacon and Mrs. Smith, but he always refused, saying he was too deaf +and too dull for dinner parties. I'm sure he would hate a house party far +worse!" + +"Why not give the poor man a chance to decide?" Constance persisted. "He +must be a nervous wreck since the burglary. A change ought to do him +good. Besides, he would love Valley House. If you like to make a wager, +I'll bet you something that he'd jump at the invitation." + +Annesley refused the wager, but she agreed that it would be nice to have +all three of the Smiths. + +Constance was supposed to be hostess in her own house, though Knight was +responsible for the financial side of the Easter plan, and it was for her +to ask the guests, even those chosen by the Nelson Smiths. Remembering +Madalena's hint that Nelson might refuse to add Ruthven Smith's name to +the list, Connie gave Annesley no time to consult her husband. While her +companion was being fitted for a frock at Harrod's, Lady Annesley-Seton +availed herself of the chance to write two letters, one to Mrs. Smith, +inviting her and the Archdeacon; another to Ruthven, saying that she +wrote at "dear Anne's express wish" as well as her own. + +She added cordially on her own account: + + I have heard so much of you from Anne that it would be a pleasure + to show you the Valley House treasures, which, I think, you would + appreciate. Do come! + +She stamped her letters and slipped them into the box at the Harrod post +office before going to see if Anne were ready. Nothing more was said +about the invitation for the Smiths until that evening at dinner, when it +occurred to Annesley to mention it. Knight had come home late, just in +time to dress, and she had not thought to speak of the house party. + +"Oh, Knight," she said, "Cousin Constance proposed asking the Archdeacon +and his wife and Mr. Ruthven Smith. I'm sure the Archdeacon can't come, +but Mr. Ruthven might perhaps----" + +"Oh, I don't think I'd have him with a lot of people he doesn't know and +who don't want to know him," Knight vetoed the idea. "He's clever in his +way, but it's not a social way. Among the lot we're going to have he'd be +like an owl among peacocks." + +"But he'd love their jewels," Annesley persevered. "They'll bring some of +the most beautiful ones in England. You said so yourself." + +"I'm thinking more of their pleasure than his," said Knight. "He's deaf +as well as dull. The peacocks are invited already, and the owl isn't, +so----" + +"I'm afraid he is! When Anne agreed that she'd like to have the Smiths I +wrote at once; and by this time they've got my letters," Constance broke +in with a pretence at penitence. "Oh, dear, I have put my foot into it +with the best intentions! What _shall_ we do?" + +"Nothing," said Knight. "If they've been asked, they must come if they +want to. I doubt if they will." + +That doubt was dispelled with the morning post. Mrs. Smith was full of +regrets for herself and the Archdeacon, but Ruthven accepted in his +precise manner with "much pleasure and gratitude for so kind an +attention." The matter was settled, and Connie telephoned to Madalena. + +"No Archdeacon; no Mrs. Archdeacon! But I've bagged the jewel-man. Will +he be strong enough alone to spread over us that mantle of mysterious +protection your crystal showed you?" + +"I hope so," the Countess answered. + +Yet the woman at the other end of the wire thought the voice sounded +dull, and was disappointed, even vaguely anxious. Her anxiety would have +increased if she could have seen the face of the seeress. Now that the +match was close to the fuse, Madalena had a wild impulse to draw back. It +was not too late. Nothing irrevocable had been done. Ruthven Smith's +acceptance of the invitation to Valley House would mean only a few days +of boredom for his fellow guests, unless--she herself made the next move +in the game. + +Before she decided to make it, she resolved to see the man of whom she +thought as Michael Donaldson. + +So far nothing had happened to raise any visible barrier between them. +She was not supposed to know that he did not want her to join the Easter +house party, and he and she and Annesley were on friendly terms. It would +be easy for her to see Don, to see him alone, if she could only choose +the right time, unless----There was an "unless," but she thought the face +of the butler would settle it. + +There were certain times on certain days when Nelson Smith was "at home" +for certain people. These days were not those when Annesley and Constance +were "at home." + +In fact, they had been chosen purposely in order not to clash. + +The American millionaire had, from his first appearance in London, +interested himself in more than one charitable society. Representatives +of these associations called upon him during appointed hours, and were +shown straight to his "den." Indeed, they were the only persons welcomed +there, but the Countess de Santiago had some reason to expect that an +exception might be made in her favour. + +Luckily, the day when she heard the news from Lady Annesley-Seton was one +of the two days in the week when Nelson Smith was certain not to be out +of the house in the afternoon. Luckily also she knew that his wife was +equally certain to be absent. "Anita" was going to play bridge at a house +where Madalena was invited. + +She got her maid to telephone an excuse--"the Countess had a bad +headache." Had she said heartache it would have been nearer the truth. +But one does not tell the truth in these matters. + +Not for years--not since the strenuous times when Don had saved her from +serious trouble and put her on the road to success had Madalena de +Santiago been so unhappy. Whichever way she looked she saw darkness +ahead, yet she hoped something from her talk with Don--just what, she did +not specify to herself in words, but "_something_." + +"I wish to see Mr. Nelson Smith on important business," she said, looking +the butler straight in the eyes. It was he who opened the door of the +Portman Square house on the "charity days." He gave her back look for +look, losing the air of respectable servitude and suddenly becoming a +human being. + +"Mr. Smith is not alone," he answered, contriving to give some special +meaning to the ordinary words which made them almost cryptic. "But I +think he will be free before long, if you care to wait, madame, and I +will mention that you are here." + +"You must say it is important," she impressed upon him as she was ushered +into a little reception room. + +A few minutes later Charrington took her to the door of the "den," where +Knight received her with casual cheerfulness. + +"This is an unexpected pleasure!" he said. + +"Don't let us bother with conventionalities, Don!" she exclaimed, +her emotion showing itself in petulance. "I had to come and have an +understanding with you." + +"An understanding?" Knight was very calm, so calm that she--who knew him +in many phases--was stung with the conviction that he needed to ask no +questions. He was temporizing; and her anger--passionate, unavailing +anger, beating itself like waves on the rock of his strong nature--broke +out in tears. + +"You know what I mean!" She choked on the words. "You're tired of me! +There's nothing more I can do for you, and so--and so--oh, Don, say I'm +wrong! Say it's a mistake. Say it's not you but _she_ who doesn't want +me. She's jealous. Only say that. It's all I want. Just to know it is not +you who are so cruel--after the past!" + +Knight remained unmoved. He looked straight at her, frowning. "What +past?" he inquired, blankly. + +"You ask me that--_you_?" + +"We have never been anything to one another," Knight said. "Not even +friends. You know that as well as I do. We've been valuable to each other +after a fashion, I to you, you to me, and we can be the same in future if +you don't choose to play the fool." + +She was cowed, and hated herself for being cowed--hated Knight, too. + +"What do you call playing the fool?" she asked. + +"Behaving as you're behaving now; and as you've been behaving these last +few weeks. I'm not blind, you know. You have been trying your power over +me. I suppose that's what you'd call the trick. Well, my dear Madalena, +it won't work. I hoped you might realize that without making a scene; but +you wouldn't. You've brought this on yourself, and there's nothing for it +now but a straight talk. + +"My wife is not jealous. It's not in her to be jealous. If she doesn't +like you, Madalena, it's instinctive mistrust. I don't think she's even +seen the claws sticking out of the velvet. But _I_ have. I've seen +exactly what you are up to. You talk about our 'past'. You want to force +my hand. You expect me, because I've been a decent pal, and paid what I +thought was due, to pay higher, a fancy price. I won't. My wife had no +hand in keeping you out of the Easter house party. It was I who said you +weren't to be asked. You had to be taught that you couldn't dictate +terms. You wouldn't take 'no' for an answer, so the lesson had to be more +severe than I meant. Now we understand each other." + +"I doubt it!" cried Madalena. + +"You mean I don't understand _you_? I think I do, my friend. And I'm not +afraid. If I'm not a white angel, certainly _you're_ not. We're tarred +with the same brush. Forget this afternoon, if you like, and I'll forget +it. We can go back to where we were before. But only on the promise that +you'll be sensible. No cat-scratchings. No mysteries." + +It was all that the Countess de Santiago could do to bite back the threat +which alone could have given her relief. Yet she did bite it back. Her +triumph would be incomplete in ruining the man if he could not know that +he owed his punishment to her. But she must be satisfied with the second +best thing. She dared not put him on his guard, and she dared not let him +guess that she meant to strike. + +He would wonder perhaps, when the blow fell, and say to himself, "Can +Madalena have done this?" She must so act that his answer would be, "No. +It's an accident of fate." Knight was not the sort of man who for a mere +wandering suspicion, without an atom of proof, would pull a woman down. +And there would be no proof. + +"You are not kind," was the only response she ventured. "And you are not +just. I did not want to 'scratch.' I would not injure you for the world, +even if I could. Yet it does hurt to think our friendship in the past has +meant nothing to you, when it has meant so much to me. It hurts. But I +must bear it. I shall not trouble you about my feelings again." + +If she had hoped that her meekness might make him relent she was +disappointed. He merely said, "Very good. We'll go back to where we +were." + +That same evening Madalena wrote to Ruthven Smith. She took pains to +disguise her handwriting, and not satisfied with that precaution, went +out in a taxi and posted the letter in Hampstead. + +It was a short letter, and it had no signature; but it made an impression +on Ruthven Smith. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +WHY RUTHVEN SMITH WENT + + +Never in his life had Ruthven Smith been blessed or cursed by an +anonymous letter. He did not know what to make of it, or how to treat it. +Instead of exciting him, as it might had he been a man of mercurial +temperament, it irritated him intensely. + +That was the way when things out of the ordinary happened to Ruthven +Smith: he resented them. He was not--and recognized the fact that he was +not--the type of man to whom things ought to happen. It was only one +strange streak of the artistic in his nature which made him a marvellous +judge of jewels, and attracted adventures to come near him. + +He was constitutionally timid. He was conventional, and prim in his +thoughts of life and all he desired it to give. He was a creature of a +past generation; and whenever in time he had chanced to exist he would +always have lagged a generation behind. But there was that one colourful +streak which somehow, as if by a mistake in creation, had shot a narrow +rainbow vein through his drab soul, like a glittering opal in gray-brown +rock. + +He loved jewels. He had known all about them by instinct even before he +knew by painstaking research. He could judge jewels and recognize them +under any disguise of cutting. He could do this better than almost any +one in the world, and he could do nothing else well; therefore it was +preordained that he should find his present position with some such firm +as the Van Vrecks; and, being in it, adventures were bound to come. + +Many attempts to rob him had doubtless been made. One had lately +succeeded. His nerves were in a wretched state. He was "jumpy" by day as +well as night; and sometimes, when at his worst, he even felt for five +minutes at a time that he had better hand in his resignation to the firm +who had employed him for nearly twenty years, and retire into private +life, like a harried mouse into its hole. + +But that was only when he was at his very worst. Deep down within him he +was aware that, while the breath of life and his inscrutable genius were +together in him, he could not, would not, resign. + +It was part of Ruthven Smith, an intimate part of him, not to be able +to decide for a long time what to do when he was confronted with one of +those emergencies unsuited to his temperament. He was afraid of doing +the wrong thing, yet was too reserved to consult any one. He generally +counted on blundering through somehow; and so it was in the matter of +the anonymous letter. + +He had heard, and dimly believed, that it was morally wrong, and, still +worse, quite bad form, to take notice of anonymous letters. But this one +must be different, it seemed to him, from any other which anybody had +ever received. Duty to his employers and duty to the one thing he really +loved was above any other duty; and for fear of losing forever an +immense, an unhoped-for advantage, which might possibly be gained, he +dared not ignore the letter. + +At all events, he had told himself, no matter what he might decide later, +it was just as well that he had accepted the invitation to Valley House. +Perhaps someone--he could not think who--was playing a stupid practical +joke, with the object of getting him there. But he would risk that and +go, and let his conduct shape itself according to developments. + +For instance, if his eyes were able to detect the small detail +mysteriously mentioned in the letter, he would feel bound to act as it +suggested; yes, bound to act--but how unpleasant it would be! + +And the worst of the whole unpalatable affair was that if he _did_ act in +that suggested way, and if he accomplished what he might, with dreadful +deftness, be supposed to accomplish, it would be the moment when perhaps +he might be fooled. + +_If_ the letter were written by a practical joker, he would be made to +look ridiculous in the eyes of all who were in the secret. And that +thought brought him back to the question which over and over he asked +in his mind. Who could have written the anonymous letter? + +It must be someone acquainted with him, or with his profession; someone +who knew the Nelson Smiths and the Annesley-Setons well enough to be +aware that there was to be an Easter party at Valley House. The writer +hinted in vague terms that he was a private detective aware of certain +things, yet so placed that he could have no handling of the affair, +except from a distance, and through another person. He pretended a +disinterested desire to serve Ruthven Smith, and signed himself, "A +Well Wisher"; but the nervous recipient of the advice felt that his +correspondent was quite likely to be of the class opposed to detectives. + +What if there were some scheme for a robbery on a vast scale at Valley +House, and this letter were part of the scheme? What if the band of +thieves supposed to be "working" lately in London should try to make him +a cat's paw in bringing off their big haul? + +This was a terrifying idea, and more feasible than the one suggested by +the anonymous writer, that Mrs. Nelson Smith should--oh, certainly it +seemed the wildest nonsense! + +Still, there was his duty to the Van Vrecks. They must be considered +ahead of everything! So Ruthven Smith, nervous as a rabbit who has lost +its warren, travelled down to Devonshire on Saturday afternoon, invited +to stay at Valley House till Tuesday. + +It was as Knight had said: the dull, deaf man was as completely out of +the picture in that house party as an owl among peacocks; for he was an +inarticulate person and could not talk interestingly even on his own +subject, jewels. His idea of conversation with women was a discussion of +the weather, contrasting that of England with that of America, or perhaps +touching upon politics. He was afraid of questions about jewels lest he +should allow himself to be pumped, and the information he might +inadvertently give away be somehow "used." + +But he was by birth and education a gentleman; and his relationship to +Archdeacon Smith, whom everybody liked, was a passport to people's +kindness. + +Duchesses and countesses were of no particular interest to Ruthven Smith, +but their adornments were fascinating. At Valley House one duchess and +several countesses were assembled for the Easter party, and they were +women whose jewels were famous. Most of these were family heirlooms, but +their present owners had had the things reset, and no queen of fairyland +or musical comedy could have owned more becoming or exquisitely designed +tiaras, crowns, necklaces, earrings, dog-collars, brooches, bracelets, +and rings than these great ladies. + +For this reason the ladies themselves were interesting to Ruthven Smith, +and he might have been equally so to them if he would have told them +picturesquely all he knew about the history of their wonderful diamonds, +pearls, emeralds, and rubies. It was too bad that he wouldn't, for there +was not a famous jewel in England or Europe of which Ruthven Smith had +not every ancient scandal in connection with it at his tongue's end. + +But on his tongue's end it stayed, even when, for the sake of his own +pleasure if nothing else, his hosts and hostesses tried to draw him out. + +Nevertheless, he was not sorry that he had come. There was an element of +joy in seeing, met together, and sparkling together, those exquisite, +historic beauties of which he had read. + +It had been a bother to Lady Annesley-Seton and her cousin Anne to decide +how Ruthven Smith should be put at table. In a way, he was an outsider, +the only one among the guests without a title or military rank which +mechanically indicated his place in relation to others. Besides, no woman +would want to have him to scream at. + +Fortunately, however, there were two women asked on account of their +husbands, and so--according to Connie's code--of no importance in +themselves. Providence meant them to be pushed here and there like pawns +on a chessboard; and they were pushed to either side of Ruthven Smith at +the dinner-table on Saturday night. + +Both had been placated by being told beforehand what a wonderful man he +was, with frightfully exciting things to say, if he could tactfully be +made to say them. But only one of the two had courage or spirit to rise +to the occasion--the woman he was given to take in, a Lady Cartwright, +married to Major Sir Elmer Cartwright, who was always asked to every +house whenever the Duchess of Peebles was invited. + +Lady Cartwright was Irish, wrote plays, had a sense of humour, and was +not jealous of the Duchess. Because she wrote plays, she was continually +in search of material, digging it up, even when it looked unpromising. + +"I have heard such charming things about you," she began. + +"I _beg_ your pardon!" said Ruthven Smith, unable to believe his ears. +And because he was somewhat deaf himself, he could not gauge the +inflections of his own voice. Sometimes he spoke almost in a whisper, +sometimes very loudly. This time he spoke loudly, and several people, +surprised at the sound rising above other sounds like spray from a +flowing river, paused for an instant to listen. + +"What a wonderful expert in jewels you are," Lady Cartwright replied in +a higher tone, realizing that she had a deaf man to deal with. "And that +you have been one of the sufferers from that gang of thieves Scotland +Yard can't lay its hands on." + +Ruthven Smith was on the point of shrinking into himself, as was his wont +if any personal topic of conversation came up, when it flashed into his +mind that here was an opportunity. If he did not take it, so easy a one +might not occur again. He braced himself for a supreme effort. + +"Oh, yes, yes, I was robbed," he admitted. "A serious loss! Some fine +pearls I had been buying--not for myself, but for the Van Vrecks. I +seldom collect valuables for myself. I only wish these things had been +mine. I should not have that sense of being an unfaithful servant--though +I did my best----" + +"Of course you did," Lady Cartwright soothed him. "But these thieves--if +it's the same gang, as we all think--are too clever for the cleverest of +us. As for the police, they seem to be nowhere. I haven't suffered yet, +but each morning when I wake up, I'm astonished to find everything as +usual. Not that it wouldn't _seem_ as usual, even if the gang had paid us +a visit and made a clean sweep of our poor possessions. They appear to be +able to leak through keyholes, as nothing in the houses they go to is +ever disturbed." + +"Anyhow, they have latchkeys," retorted Ruthven Smith, with what for him +might be considered gaiety of manner. "The thief or thieves who relieved +me of my pearls--or rather, my employer's pearls--apparently walked in as +a member of the household might have done." + +Among those who had involuntarily suspended talk to hear what Ruthven +Smith was saying about jewels and jewel thieves was Annesley. Though the +party would never have been but for Knight and herself, Dick and +Constance were playing host and hostess with all the outward +responsibility of those parts. Lord Annesley-Seton had a duchess on his +right, a countess on his left; Lady Annesley-Seton was fenced in by the +duke and the count pertaining to these ladies; Mrs. Nelson Smith sat +between two less important men, who liked the dinner provided by the +American millionaire's miraculous new chef, and they could safely be +neglected for a moment. + +Annesley felt that Ruthven Smith was, in a way, her special guest, and +she was anxious that he should not be the failure Knight had prophesied. +She wanted him not to regret that he had flung himself on the tender +mercies of this smart house party, and almost equally she wanted his two +neighbours not to be bored by him. Knight would hate that. He attached so +much importance to amusing the people whom he invited! + +She listened and thought that Mr. Ruthven Smith and Lady Cartwright +seemed to have begun well. Then, as she turned to Lady Cartwright's +handsome husband (the Duchess of Peebles was talking to Dick +Annesley-Seton just then), she caught the word "latchkey." + +It seized her attention. She knew they were speaking of the burglary at +Mrs. Ellsworth's house. She heard Ruthven Smith go on to explain in his +high-pitched voice that the two woman servants had been suspected, but +that their characters had "emerged stainless" from the examination. + +"Besides," he continued, "neither of them had a latchkey to give to any +outside person. The two women slept together in one room. At the time of +the robbery there was no butler----" + +Annesley heard no more. Suddenly the door of her spirit seemed to close. +She was shut up within herself, listening to some voice there. + +"_What became of your latchkey?_" it asked. + +The blood streamed to her face and made her ears tingle, as it used to do +when she had been scolded by Mrs. Ellsworth. If any one had looked at her +then, it must have been to wonder what Sir Elmer Cartwright or Lord John +Dormer had said to make Mrs. Nelson Smith blush so furiously. + +She was remembering what she had done with her latchkey. She had given it +to Knight to open the front door, and so escape from the two watchers who +had followed them in a taxi to Torrington Square. She had never thought +of it from that moment to this. Could it be possible that some thief had +stolen the latchkey from Knight, and used it when Mrs. Ellsworth's house +was robbed? + +Her thoughts concentrated violently upon the key. Had her neighbours +spoken she would not have heard; but they did not speak. She was free to +let her thoughts run where they chose. They ran back to the first night +of her meeting with Nelson Smith, and her arrival with him at the house +in Torrington Square. She recalled, as if it were a moment ago, putting +the key into his hand, which had been warm and steady, despite the danger +he was in, while hers had been trembling and cold. She said to herself +that she must ask Knight, as soon as they were alone together, what he +had done with the key, whether he had left it in the house or flung it +away. + +But of course he must have left it in the house, or close by, otherwise +no thief would have known where it belonged. That made her feel guilty +toward Ruthven Smith. She ought not to have been so utterly absorbed in +her own affairs that night. She ought to have asked to have the key back, +and then to have laid it where it could be found by Mrs. Ellsworth in the +morning. + +Perhaps, indirectly, _she_ was responsible for the burglary at that +house. And, now she thought of it, what a queer burglary it had been! The +thieves must certainly have known something about Mrs. Ellsworth, or +else, in helping themselves to her valuables, it would not have occurred +to them to scrawl a sarcastic message. + +That message had delighted Knight when he heard of it. He had laughed and +said, "I like those chaps! They can have _my_ money when they want it!" + +Since then they _had_ had his money, and other possessions. If the theory +of the police were right, that a gang of foreign thieves was "working" +London, Annesley was glad that she and Knight had been robbed. It made +her feel less to blame for her carelessness in the matter of that +latchkey. + +At least, she had suffered, too, and so had Knight. + +Could it be, she asked herself, that the _watchers_ were somehow mixed +up in the business? Were _they_ members of the supposed gang? That did +not seem likely, for how could a man like Knight have got involved with +thieves? Yet it seemed, from what he had said that night at the +Savoy--and never referred to again--as if he were somehow in their power. + +How curiously like one of them Morello had been! She remembered thinking +so, with a shock of fear. Then she had lost the feeling of resemblance, +and told herself that she must have imagined it. + +The two faces came back to her now, and again she saw them alike. She was +glad that Knight had never invited Morello to call, and glad that when +grudgingly she had asked one day after the two men who had witnessed +their marriage, Knight had said, "Gone out of England. We just caught +them in time." + +As for the watchers, she had heard no more of them. Knight ignored the +episode, or the part of it connected with those men. The memory of them +was shut up in the locked box of his past, and he never left the key +lying about, as apparently he had left the key of Mrs. Ellsworth's house. + +Suddenly, while Annesley listened to Ruthven Smith, she became conscious +that, as he talked to Lady Cartwright, his eyes had turned to her. + +"This proves," the fancy ran through her head, "that if you look at or +even think of people, you attract their attention." + +She glanced away, and at her neighbours. They were both absorbed for the +moment; she need not worry lest they should find her neglectful. She took +some asparagus which was offered to her, and began to eat it; but she +still had the impression that Ruthven Smith was looking at her. She +wondered why. + +"He can't be expecting me to scream at him across the table," she +thought. + +"Yes," he was saying to Lady Cartwright, "it was a misfortune to lose +those pearls. Two I had selected to make a pair of earrings can scarcely +be duplicated. But none of the things stolen from me compared in value to +those our agent lost on board the _Monarchic_. I suppose you read of that +affair?" + +"Oh, yes," said Lady Cartwright, her voice raised in deference to her +neighbour's deafness. "It was most interesting. Especially about the +clairvoyant woman on board who saw a vision of the thief in her crystal, +throwing things into the sea attached to a life-belt with a light on it, +or something of the sort, to be picked up by a yacht. One would have +supposed, with that information to go upon, the police might have +recovered the jewels, but they didn't, and probably they never will now." + +"I'm not sure the police pinned their faith to the clairvoyante's +visions," replied Ruthven Smith, with his dry chuckle. + +"Really? But I've understood--though the name wasn't mentioned then, I +believe--that the woman was that wonderful Countess de Santiago we're so +excited about. She is certainly extraordinary. Nobody seems to doubt +_her_ powers! I rather thought she might be here." + +Ruthven Smith showed no interest in the Countess de Santiago. Once on the +subject of jewels, it was difficult to shunt him off on another at short +notice. Or possibly he had something to say which he particularly wished +not to leave unsaid at that stage of the conversation. + +"The newspapers did not publish a description of the jewels stolen on the +_Monarchic_," he went on, brushing the Countess de Santiago aside. "It +was thought best at the time not to give the reporters a list. To me, +that seemed a mistake. Who knows, for instance, through how many hands +the Malindore diamond may have passed? If some honest person, recognizing +it from a description in the papers, for instance----" + +"The Malindore diamond!" exclaimed Lady Cartwright, forgetting politeness +in her interest, and cutting short a sentence which began dully. "Isn't +that the wonderful blue diamond that the British Museum refused to buy +three years ago, because it hadn't enough money to spend, or something?" + +"Quite so," replied Ruthven Smith, adding with pride: "But the Van Vrecks +had enough money. They always have when a unique thing is for sale; and +they are rich enough to wait for years, with their money locked up, till +somebody comes along who wants the thing. That happened in the case of +the Malindore diamond. The Van Vrecks hoped to sell it to Mr. Pierpont +Morgan. But he died, and it was left on their hands till this last +autumn." + +"Ah, then that lovely blue diamond was sold with the other things the Van +Vreck agent lost on the _Monarchic_?" + +"_Was_ to be sold if the prospective buyer liked it. He had married a +white wife, you know, and----" + +"Oh, yes, of course. It was Lady Eve Cassenden. That marriage made a big +sensation among us. _Horrid_, I call it! But she hadn't a penny, and they +say he's the richest Maharajah in India." + +"The Malindore diamond was once in his family, I understand, about five +hundred years ago, when we first begin to get at its history," Ruthven +Smith went on, ignoring the Maharajah as he had ignored the Countess de +Santiago. "It was then the central jewel of a crown. But later, Louis +XIV, on obtaining possession of it, had it set in a ring, and surrounded +with small white brilliants. It still remains in that form, or did so +remain until it was stolen from our agent on the _Monarchic_. What form +it is in and where it is now, only those who know can say." + +So strong was the call from Ruthven Smith's eyes to Annesley's eyes that +she was forced to look up. She had been sure that she would meet his gaze +fixed upon her, and so it was. He was staring across the table at her, +with a curious expression on his long, hatchet face. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +RUTHVEN SMITH'S EYEGLASSES + + +Annesley could not read the look. Yet she felt that it might be read, if +her soul and body had not been wrenched apart, and hastily flung together +again, upside down, it seemed, with her brain where her heart had been, +and vice versa. + +Why had Ruthven Smith looked at her, as he spoke in his loud voice of the +stolen Malindore diamond--a blue diamond set with small brilliants, in a +ring? Had he found out that she--did he believe--but she could not finish +the thought. It seemed as though the ring Knight had given her--_and told +her to hide_--was burning her flesh! + +Could _her_ blue diamond be the famous diamond, about which the jewel +expert was telling Lady Cartwright? A horrible sensation overcame the +girl. She felt her blood growing cold, and oozing so sluggishly through +her veins that she could count the drops--drip, drip, drip! She hoped +that she had not turned ghastly pale. Above all things she hoped that she +was not going to faint! If she did that, Ruthven Smith would think--what +would he not think? + +She found herself praying for strength and the power of self-control that +she might reason with her own intelligence. Of course, if this were the +diamond, Knight didn't dream that it had been stolen. + +Just then a hand reached out at her left side and poured champagne into +her glass. It was the hand of Charrington, the butler. Annesley saw that +it was trembling. She had never seen Charrington's hand tremble before. +Butlers' hands were not supposed to tremble. Charrington spilled a little +champagne on the tablecloth, only a very little, no more than a drop or +two, yet Annesley started and glanced up. The butler was moving away when +she caught a glimpse of his face. + +It was red, as usual, for his complexion and that of his younger brother +were alike in colouring; but there was a look of _strain_ on his +features, as if he were keeping his muscles taut. + +Sir Elmer Cartwright began to talk to her. His voice buzzed unmeaningly +in her ears, as though she were coming out from under the influence of +chloroform. + +"What will become of me?" she said to herself, and then was afraid she +had said it aloud. How awful that would be! Her eyes turned imploringly +to Sir Elmer. He was smiling, unaware of anything unusual. + +"Oh, yes!" she exclaimed at random. Fortunately it seemed to be the right +answer; and the relief this assurance gave was like a helping hand to a +beginner skating on thin ice. Sir Elmer went on to repeat some story +which he said he had been telling the Duchess. + +Annesley suddenly thought of a woman rider she had seen at a circus when +she was a child. The woman stood on the bare back of one horse and drove +six others, three abreast, all going very fast and noiselessly round a +ring. + +"I must drive my thoughts as she did the horses," came flashing into the +girl's head. "I must think this out, and I must listen to Sir Elmer and +go on giving him right answers, and I must look just as usual. _I must!_ + +"For Knight's sake!" She seemed to hear the words whispered. Why for +Knight's sake? Oh, but of course she must try to think how it would +involve him if the blue diamond was the famous one stolen from the Van +Vrecks' agent on the _Monarchic_! + +He would not be to blame, for if he had known, he would not have bought +the diamond. + +And yet, _might_ he not have known? He had told her few details of his +life before they met, but he had said that it had been hard sometimes, +that he had travelled among rough people, and picked up some of their +rough ways. He had confessed frankly that his ideas of right and wrong +had got mixed and blunted. From the first he had never let her call him +good. + +Would it seem dreadful to him to buy a jewel which he might guess, from +its low cost, had to be got rid of at almost any price? + +Annesley was forced to admit, much as she loved Knight, that his daring, +original nature (so she called it to herself) might enter into strange +adventures and intrigues for sheer joy in taking risks. She imagined that +some wild escapade regretted too late might have led him into association +with the watchers. Maybe they had all three been members of a secret +society, she often told herself, and Knight had left against the others' +will, in spite of threats. + +That would be like him; and brave and splendid as was his image in her +heart, she could not say that he would never be guilty of an act which +might be classed as unscrupulous. + +This admission, instead of distressing, calmed her. Allowing that he had +certain faults seemed to chase away a dreadful thought which had pressed +near, out of sight, yet close as if it stood behind her chair, leaning +over her shoulder. + +For a moment she felt happy again. She would tell Knight what she had +heard about the Malindore diamond, and how like its description was to +hers. Then, no matter how much he might hate to let it go, he must show +the blue diamond ring to Mr. Ruthven Smith and have its identity decided. + +The girl drew a long breath, and determined to put the subject out of her +mind until after dinner, so that Sir Elmer Cartwright need not think her +a complete idiot. + +But the deep sigh that stirred her bosom stirred also the fine gold chain +on which hung the blue diamond. The chain lay loosely on her shoulders, +lost, or almost lost among soft folds of lace. She wore it like that with +a low dress, not only to prevent it from attracting attention and making +people wonder what ornament she hid, but also because the thin band of +gold, if seen, would break the symmetry of line. It was Knight who had +given her this little piece of advice, the first time after their +marriage that she had dined with him in evening dress, and since then +she had never forgotten to follow it. + +To-night, however, feeling suddenly conscious of the chain, she was on +the point of looking down to make sure that it was shrouded in her laces. +Something stopped her. With a quick warning thump of the heart she +glanced across at Ruthven Smith. + +A few minutes ago he had not been wearing his eyeglasses. Now they were +on, pinching the high-bridged, thin nose. And he was peering through them +at her--peering at her neck, her dress, as if he searched for something. + +Ruthven Smith knew about the blue diamond. He knew that she wore it on +a chain, hidden in her dress. The certainty of this shot through brain +and body like forked lightning and seemed to sear her flesh. She was +afraid. She could not tell yet of what she was afraid, but when she could +disentangle her twisted thoughts one from another the reason would be +clear. + +Then it was as if her mind separated itself from the rest of her and +began to run back along the path she had travelled with Knight since the +hour of their first meeting. It ran looking on the ground, seeking and +picking up things dropped and almost forgotten. + +Knight had not been pleased when the Countess de Santiago talked to him +of their being together on the _Monarchic_. The Countess had seemed +wishful to annoy him in some way. She had taken that way. They had known +each other well and for a long time. They knew a good deal about each +other's affairs. Sometimes one would say that the Countess still liked +to annoy Knight, and he resented that. He had been unwilling to have her +asked to Valley House for Easter, though he knew she longed to come. + +And Ruthven Smith! Knight had not wanted him. Could it possibly be on +account of the blue diamond? Had Knight heard what _she_ had heard there +at the dinner-table, and was he anxious about what might happen next? + +Hastily she flung a glance toward her husband. He was not looking at her, +but it seemed--perhaps she imagined it--that his face had something of +the same tense, strained expression she had caught on Charrington's. + +How odd, if it were true, that both should have that look. One would +almost fancy they shared a secret trouble. But Annesley shook the idea +away, as she would have shaken a hornet trying to sting. How dare she let +such a disloyal fancy even cross the threshold of her mind? A secret +between her husband and his servant--a secret concerning the blue +diamond, which stabbed them both with the same prick of anxiety at the +mention of the jewel! + +No sooner was the venomous thing dislodged than it crept back and settled +close over her heart. For Knight's eyes turned to her, and in them was +the look of a drowning man. + +Just for the fraction of a second she saw it. Then the curtain was drawn +over his real self that had come to the window and signalled for help. He +smiled a friendly smile, and took up the conversation with his right-hand +neighbour. But he had hidden his soul too late. The message could not be +taken back, and Annesley was sure that he, too, had heard the story +Ruthven Smith had told so loudly to Lady Cartwright. + +The fact that he had lost his unruffled, nonchalant coolness even for a +single instant warned Annesley that Knight must be desperately troubled. + +"He bought the diamond for me, knowing what it was," she told herself, +"and knowing that it must have been stolen. Of course that's why he made +me wear it where nobody could see. But who else knew besides the man who +sold it to Knight? _Somebody_ must have known, and told Mr. Ruthven +Smith. Perhaps the thief himself, hoping to be spared, and to get money +from both sides. That is why Mr. Ruthven Smith accepted the invitation +here, which I was so sure he would refuse. He has come because he thinks +the Malindore diamond is in this house. That must be it! But how can he +have found out that I am wearing it?" + +As she thought these things, asking herself questions, sometimes +answering them, sometimes unable to answer, she managed to keep up some +desultory talk first with one of her neighbours, then with the other. It +seemed to take all her strength to do this, and made her feel weak and +broken, not excited and vital, as she had felt on the wonderful night at +the Savoy when "Nelson Smith" had praised her pluck and presence of mind +in saving him from a danger which had never been explained. + +How she wished with all her anxious, troubled heart that she knew how to +save him to-night! + +It had been very wrong to buy a stolen diamond, but he had done it from +no mercenary motives, for he had given it to her. She supposed that he +had loved the beautiful thing, and felt when it was offered to him that +he could not bear to let it go.... Perhaps the Countess de Santiago had +stolen it on the _Monarchic_! That might be a cruel thought, but Annesley +could not help having it, for it would explain many things. + +Besides, it would help to exonerate Knight. He was very chivalrous where +women were concerned, and he would have felt bound to protect his old +friend. At all events, he could not have given her up to justice, and +very likely she had been in debt and needed money. She had wonderful +clothes, and must be extravagant. + +Yes, the more Annesley dwelt on the idea the more convinced she became +that Madalena de Santiago had stolen the blue diamond, and perhaps all +the other things on the _Monarchic_, while pretending to have a vision in +her crystal of the thief, and of the way the jewel had been smuggled off +the ship. Then the Countess had been angry with Knight, and had tried to +have him suspected, even of being mixed up in the theft--though that last +idea seemed too far-fetched. + +"How hateful, how mean of her!" Annesley thought, ashamed because it was +so easy to believe bad things of the Countess, and to pile up one upon +another. "Probably she put it into Constance's head to suggest having Mr. +Ruthven Smith asked. And then she put it into his head to--to----" + +The girl stopped short, appalled. _What_ had been put into the jewel +expert's head? What precisely had he come to Valley House to do? + +"He has come to _find_ the blue diamond!" the answer flashed into her +brain. + +Madalena de Santiago's eyes were as piercing as they were beautiful. She +might have noticed the fine gold chain which her "pal's" wife wore always +round her neck. She might have guessed that the ring with the blue +diamond was hidden at the end of the chain; yet she could not _know for +certain_, because Knight would never have told her that. + +Therefore it followed that neither could Ruthven Smith know for certain. +He meant to find out, and if he did find out, Knight would be punished +far more severely than he deserved for buying a thing illegally come by. + +"I will save him again," Annesley resolved. + +But how? What might she expect to happen? And whatever it was, how could +she prevent it happening? + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE STAR SAPPHIRE + + +Picture after picture grew and faded in her mind. She saw policemen +coming to the house; she saw Ruthven Smith demanding that she and +Knight be searched, and arrested if the diamond were found. + +It might be difficult to prove that they had had nothing to do with the +theft, especially as Knight had been on board the _Monarchic_. He must +have travelled under his own name then, the name that he had not let her +see when he wrote it in the register after the wedding. If Ruthven Smith +knew about the _Monarchic_ and the change of name, he might make things +very unpleasant for Knight. And what must he himself be thinking at this +moment as he peered through his eyeglasses? + +Annesley had always told herself that Ruthven Smith looked like a +schoolmaster. He looked more than ever like one to-night--a very severe +schoolmaster, planning to punish a rebellious pupil. + +"But he can't have accepted our invitation, and have come to this house +to make a scene and a scandal before everybody," she tried to reassure +her troubled heart. "Still, he wouldn't look like that if he didn't +believe that I'm wearing the diamond, and if he did not mean to do +something about it." + +It was a terrifying prospect for Annesley, and suddenly, with a shock of +certainty, she told herself that Ruthven Smith would not give her time, +if he could help it, to get rid of the ring and conceal it somewhere +else. "He'll think of an excuse after dinner to make me show what I have +on my chain, or perhaps he has thought of the excuse already!" + +It seemed to the girl that the room had become bitterly cold. She +shivered slightly. "I must take off the ring and put something else on +the chain when we go away and leave the men," she decided. + +But no! Even then it might be too late. Ruthven Smith neither smoked +nor drank. Very likely he would follow the ladies to the drawing room +without giving her the chance of cheating him. If she were to save Knight +from trouble she must do the thing she had to do at once. + +That thing was to unfasten the clasp of the chain, slip off the ring with +the blue diamond, substitute another ring, fasten the chain again and +replace it inside her dress, all without letting Ruthven Smith across the +table, or her neighbours, suspect what was being done. + +Her plate was whisked away at that moment, and leaning back in her chair +she seized the opportunity of looking at her hands. Brain and heart were +throbbing so fast that she could not remember, without counting, what +rings she had put on. + +Knight had tried to console her for the loss she'd suffered through the +burglary a fortnight before by making her a present of half a dozen new +rings. Poor Knight! How anxious he always was to give her pleasure, no +matter at what expense! He had such good taste in choosing jewellery, +too, that one might almost fancy him as great an expert as Ruthven Smith. + +But he had laughed when she said this to him, protesting that he was a +"rank amateur." + +The new rings were all beautiful, each unique in its way. The big white +diamond of her engagement ring was the least original of her possessions. +To-night, in addition to that and her wedding ring, she wore on her left +hand a grayish star sapphire, of oval shape, curiously set with four +small diamonds, white ones at top and bottom, pale pink and yellow at the +sides. This ring was rather large for her, and as she wore it above the +engagement ring, the stones easily slipped round toward the palm. + +The dark blue scarab on her right hand Ruthven might have observed; but +she was hopeful that the star sapphire had escaped his notice. + +She took it off and laid it in her lap, ready. + +Her dress of white charmeuse, embroidered with violets, was fastened in +front under a folded and crossed fichu of "shadow" lace and a bunch of +real violets held on by an old-fashioned brooch. Bending forward, she +played at eating Punch à la Romaine, while with her left hand she +contrived to undo three or four hooks from their delicately worked +eyelets. Then, slipping two fingers into the aperture, she tore open her +lace underbodice. + +This accomplished, she felt the ring of the blue diamond; but she dared +not break the chain, as she could easily have done. If Ruthven Smith were +planning some trick by which to obtain a glimpse of ring and chain, the +latter must be intact. + +Pinching the chain between thumb and finger patiently, persistently, and +very cautiously, she pulled it along until she touched the tiny clasp. +As she did this she glanced down at the lace of her fichu now and then to +make sure that she did not draw the thin line of gold so tightly across +her neck that it became visible in moving. + +At last she had the clasp in her hand. Pressed upon sharply, it opened, +and the ring with the blue diamond fell into her palm. She pushed it +inside her frock as far down as her fingers would reach and slid the star +sapphire ring on to the chain before fastening the clasp again. + +She was shivering still as if with cold, and her hands trembled so that +she could hardly put the hooks of her dress into their eyelets. But +somehow she did at last, and was sure that no one had seen. + +More than one course had come and gone before her stealthy task was +finished, and three or four minutes after the last hook had decided to +bite, Constance looked at the Duchess of Peebles. Everyone rose, and, as +Annesley had feared, Ruthven Smith followed the ladies out of the great +dining hall. + +Constance led them to the Chinese drawing room for coffee, and as the +women grouped themselves to chat, or gaze at Buddhas and treasures of +ancient dynasties, she suddenly recalled Madalena's latest vision in the +crystal. + +It seemed that it would interest rather than frighten her friends to hear +of it. Besides, if it did frighten them a little, she didn't much mind. +She bore the Duchess of Peebles and several others a grudge because they +had come to Valley House not on her account, or Dick's, but because it +was an open secret who were the real host and hostess on this occasion. +Last year, if she had invited these people, they would have been +"dreadfully sorry they were already promised for Easter." + +It was Nelson Smith's money and popularity which had lured them. They +knew they would have wonderful things to eat, and probably the women +were counting on presents of Easter eggs in the morning with exciting +surprises inside! + +"Are you all very brave?" she asked aloud and gaily. "Because I've +just remembered that the Countess de Santiago saw a picture of us in +her crystal, grouped together as we are now, in this very room, +and--something happening." + +"Something nice, or horrid?" asked the Duchess, a tall, pretty woman, +who looked as if Rossetti had created her, with finishing touches by +Burne-Jones. + +"Ah, she couldn't see. The vision faded," Constance replied. "But perhaps +_we_ shall see--if this is to be the night." + +As she spoke the men came into the room. Ruthven Smith's example was +contagious. They had been deserted by the ladies hardly ten minutes ago. +Annesley felt sure that Knight had contrived to hurry the others. He, +too, then, had guessed why Ruthven Smith had gone out of the dining hall +with the women. Perhaps he also had a plan! + +He came straight to his wife, who was standing with Lady Cartwright. Not +far off was Ruthven Smith, still with his eyeglasses on. He was hovering +with a nervous air in front of a cabinet full of beautiful things, at +which he scarcely glanced. + +Seeing Knight approach Annesley, he lifted his head, took a hesitating +step in her direction, and stopped. He looked timid and miserable, yet +obstinate. + +"Anita, I've been telling the Duke about that star sapphire I picked up +for you the other day," Knight began. "He says he never saw one with +anything resembling a star in it. Will you fetch it for him to look at? I +noticed as you got up from the table that you hadn't put it on to-night." + +For an instant the girl could not answer. If only he had hit upon +something else. If only it had occurred to her to hide her left hand +after taking off the ring! But she could not have foreseen this. + +For the first time she inclined to believe in the Countess de Santiago's +supernatural power. Could it be that this scene had pictured itself in +the crystal? Could it be that now in a moment something dreadful would +happen? + +She realized that Knight was trusting to the quickness of her wits; that +not only had he overheard Ruthven Smith's talk about the Malindore +diamond, but he credited her with having caught the drift of the words, +and counted on her loyalty to help him. As he spoke he looked at her with +the wistful, seeking look she had seen in his eyes when they were first +married. + +"He's afraid I'm angry with him for buying the diamond in spite of +knowing what it was," she thought, "but he trusts me to stand by him +now." + +Her mind grew clear. After a pause no longer than the drawing of a breath +she was ready to rise to the situation Knight had created. In fact, she +saw safety for him and herself, as well as a realistic surprise for +Ruthven Smith. But the latter, rendered brave to act through fear of +loss, was too quick for her. + +"I beg your pardon! Before you go, may I have the pleasure of a nearer +look at that beautiful enamel brooch of yours?" + +It was Annesley's impulse to step back as without waiting for permission +the narrow head, sleekly brushed and slightly bald at the top, bent over +her laces. But she remembered herself in time and stood still. She dared +not glance at Knight, to send him a message of encouragement, but she +knew that for once even his resourcefulness had failed, and that he must +be steeling himself to the brutal discovery of his secret. + +Yet even then she did not guess what Ruthven Smith's plan was until the +thing had happened. He peered at the brooch, which represented a bunch of +grapes in small cabochon amethysts and leaves of green enamel. Adjusting +his eyeglasses, they slipped from his nose and fell on the lace of her +fichu. + +"Oh, how awkward of me! A thousand pardons!" he cried. Making a nervous +grab for the glasses, which hung from a chain, he snatched up her chain +as well, and with a quick jerk of seeming inadvertence wrenched from its +warm hiding-place a ring with a flash of brilliants and a glint of blue. + +Annesley's heart had given one great throb and then missed a beat, for +there had been an awful instant as the "plan" developed when she feared +that the ring with the blue diamond might, after all her pains, have +become entangled with the chain. If it had, the violence of the jerk +might have brought it to light. + +But she had accomplished her task well. She could afford to smile, though +her lips trembled, as she saw the bird-of-prey look fade from Ruthven +Smith's face and turn into bewildered humiliation. + +Right was on his side; yet he had the air of a culprit, and some wild +strain in Annesley's nature which had been asleep till that instant sang +a song of triumph in the victory of her "plan" over his. How delighted +Knight would be, and how amazed and grateful--grateful as he had been +when she "stood by him" with the watchers! + +As Ruthven Smith stammered apologies her eyes flashed to Knight's; but +there was none of the defiant laughter she had expected, and felt bound +to reproach him for later. + +He was pale, and though his immense power of self-control kept him in +check, Annesley shrank almost with horror from the fury of rage against +Ruthven Smith which she read in her husband's gaze and the beating of the +veins in his temples. + +Terrified lest his anger should break out in words, she hurried on to say +what she would have said before the sudden move by the jewel expert. + +"Here is the sapphire ring you asked about, Knight," she said. "I was +just going to take off this chain and give it to you to show to the Duke +when----" + +"When Mr. Ruthven Smith took an unwarrantable liberty," Knight finished +the sentence icily. + +"I--I meant nothing. Really, I can't tell you how I regret----" the +wretched man stuttered. But Knight was without mercy. + +"Pray don't try any further," he cut in. "My wife is not a figurine in a +shop window to have her ornaments stared at and pawed over. You are an +old friend of hers, Mr. Ruthven Smith, and you are my guest--or rather my +friend Annesley-Seton's guest--therefore I will say no more. But in some +countries where I have lived such an incident would have ended +differently." + +"Oh, _please_, Knight!" exclaimed Annesley, thankful that at least he had +spoken his harsh words in so low a voice that no one outside their own +group of three could hear. But she was shocked out of her brief +exultation by his white rage and the depths revealed by the lightning +flash of anger. Also she was sorry for Ruthven Smith, even while she +resented the plot which it was evident he had come to carry out. + +With unsteady hands she lifted the delicate chain over her hair and gave +it to her husband. + +"The ring is rather large for my finger. Here it is for you to show to +the Duke," she reminded him. + +"Thank you, Anita," he said. And she knew that he thanked her for more +than what she gave him. + +"I am a thousand times sorry," Ruthven Smith persisted. "More sorry than +I can ever explain, or you will ever know." + +"Indeed it was nothing," the girl comforted him in her soft young voice. +But she read in his words a hidden meaning, as she had read one into +Knight's. She _did_ know that which he believed she would never know: the +meaning of his act, and the effort it had cost to screw his courage to +the sticking place. + +Also, as the star sapphire with its sparkle of diamonds had flashed into +sight, she had seemed to read his mind. She guessed he must be telling +himself that his informant--the Countess, or some other--had mistaken one +blue stone for another. + +"Let's go and join Constance and the Duchess," she went on, quietly. +"They're looking at some lovely things you will like to see. And you must +forget that Knight was cross. He has lived in wild places, and he has a +hot temper." + +"I deserved what I got, I'm afraid," murmured Ruthven Smith. + +"After all, nothing exciting seems likely to happen to-night in this +room, in spite of the Countess's prophecy," said Constance. "Perhaps it +may be to-morrow or Monday." + +"I hope nothing more exciting will happen then than to-night!" Annesley +exclaimed, with a kindly glance at her companion. She pitied him, but she +pitied herself more, for by and by she and Knight would have to talk this +thing out together. + +For the first time she dreaded the moment of being alone with her +husband. There was a stain of clay on the feet of her idol, and though +she had helped him to hide it from other eyes, nothing could be right +between them again until she had told him what she thought--until he had +promised to make restitution somehow of the thing he should never have +possessed. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE SECRET + + +Knight and Annesley had a suite of rooms on the ground floor in what was +known as "the new wing" at Valley House. On the floor above were the +rooms occupied by Lord and Lady Annesley-Seton. + +This wing was a dreadful anachronism, shocking to architects, for it had +been tacked on to the house in the eighteenth century by some member of +the family who had made the "grand tour" and fallen in love with Italy. +Seeing no reason why a classic addition with a high-pillared loggia +should be unsuitable to a house in England built in Elizabethan and +Jacobean days, he had made it. + +Fortunately it was so situated as not to be seen from the front of the +building, or anywhere else except from the one side which it deformed; +and there a more artistic grandson had hidden the abortion as much as +possible by planting a grove of beautiful stone-pines. + +As for the wing itself, the interior was the most "liveable" part of the +house, and with the modern improvements put in to please the American +bride before her fortune vanished, it had become charming within. +Annesley's bedroom and her husband's adjoining had long windows opening +out on the loggia and looking between tall, straight trunks of umbrella +pines toward the distant sea. + +It was late before she could slip away to her own quarters, for she had +been wanted for bridge, an amusement which she secretly thought the last +refuge for the mentally destitute. She had told her maid not to sit up; +and she was thankful to close the door of the small corridor or vestibule +which led into the suite, knowing that until Knight came she would be +alone. + +She wanted him to come, and meant to wait (it did not matter how long) +until they could have that talk she wished for yet dreaded intensely. +Meanwhile, however, it was good to have a few minutes in which to compose +her mind, to decide whether she should begin, or expect Knight to do so; +and how she could frankly let him see her state of mind without seeming +too harsh, too relentless, to the man who had given her happiness with +both hands--the only real happiness she had ever known. + +She sat for a while in the boudoir, thinking that Knight might come soon, +before she began to undress. There was a dying glow of coal and logs in +the fireplace, but staring into the rosy mass brought no inspiration. She +could not concentrate her thoughts on the scene which must presently be +enacted; they would go straggling wearily to other scenes already acted, +even as far back as that hour at the Savoy when a young man who looked to +her like the hero of a novel begged to sit at her table. + +He still seemed as much as ever like the hero of a novel in which he had +splendidly made her the heroine; but it was not a pleasant chapter she +had to read now. It reminded her too intensely of the mystery surrounding +the hero, and forced her to realize that stories of real life have not +always happy endings. + +"But ours must!" she said to herself, springing up, unable to rest. +"Nothing can break our love; and while we have that we have everything!" + +She could no longer sit still, and going into her bedroom she peeped +through the door into Knight's room beyond. It was dark, as she expected +to find it; for she had been almost sure that she would have heard him if +he had entered the vestibule. + +Returning to her own rooms, she pulled back the sea-blue curtains +which covered the large window looking on to the loggia. The sky was +silver-white with moonlight between the black stems of the tall pines, +and a flood of radiance poured into the room. It was so beautiful and +bright, bringing with it so heavenly a sense of peace, that the girl +could not bear to draw the curtains again. She began slowly to undress +by moonlight and the faint red glow in the fireplace. + +Her first act was to recover the blue diamond ring and to drop it with +shrinking fingers into the jewel-case on her dressing table. + +Taking off her dinner frock, she put on a white silk gown which turned +her into a pale spirit flitting hither and thither in the silver dusk. +Still Knight had not come. She pulled out the four great tortoise-shell +pins which held up her hair, and let it tumble over her shoulders. As she +began to twist it into one heavy plait, she walked to the window and +stood looking out. + +It seemed to her that the black trunks and outstretched branches of the +trees were like prison bars across the moonlight. She wished she had not +had that thought, but as it persisted, a figure moved behind the bars, +the figure of a man. + +At first she was startled, for it was very late, long after one o'clock; +but as the man came nearer, she recognized him, although the light was at +his back. It was Knight; and as though her thought called to him, he +stopped suddenly, pausing on the lawn not far from the loggia. She could +not see his face, but it seemed that he was staring straight up at her +window. + +"He has been walking in the moonlight, thinking things over just as I +have in here!" the girl told herself. Surely he could see her! But no, +he turned, and was striding away with his head down, when she knocked +sharply and impulsively on the pane. + +Hearing the sound, yet not knowing whence it came, he stopped again, and +so gave Annesley time to open the window. + +"Knight!" she called, softly. + +Then he came straight to her across the strip of lawn and up the two +steps that led to the loggia. She met him on the threshold and saw his +face deadly pale in the moonlight. Perhaps it was only an effect of +light, but she thought that he looked tired, even ill. Still he did not +speak. + +"Knight, you almost frightened me!" she said. "I was afraid for an +instant you might be--might be----" + +"A thief!" he finished for her. + +"Or a ghost," she amended. "Weren't you coming in?" + +"No," he said. "I hadn't thought of it. Do you want--shall I come in?" + +"Yes, please do. I--I've been waiting for you." + +"I'm sorry! I hoped you'd have gone to bed. But I might have known you +wouldn't." + +As she retreated from the window, he followed her, as if reluctantly, +into the room. + +"Shall I draw the curtains?" he asked. There was weariness in his voice, +as in his face. Annesley's heart went out to her beloved sinner with even +more tenderness than before. + +"No, let's talk in the moonlight," she answered. "Oh, Knight, I _am_ glad +you've come! I began to think you never would!" + +"Did you? That's not strange, for I was saying to myself that same +thing." + +"What same thing? I don't understand." + +"That I--well, that I never ought to come to you again." + +She sank down on a low sofa near the window, and looked up to him as he +stood tall and straight, seeming to tower over her like one of the pine +trees out there under the moon. + +"Oh, Knight!" she faltered. "It's not--so bad as that!" + +"Isn't it?" he caught her up sharply, eagerly. "Do you mean what you say? +Isn't it, to you--as bad as that?" + +"No--no," she soothed him. "You see, I love you. That's all the +difference, isn't it? You've been everything to me. You've made my +life--that used to be so gray--so bright, so sweet. Only the blackest +thing--oh, an unimaginably blackest thing!--could come between us, +or----" + +Before she could finish, he was on his knees at her feet, holding her in +his arms, crushing her against his breast, soft and yielding in her light +dressing-gown, with her flowing hair. + +"My God, Annesley, it's too good to be true!" he said, his breath hot +on her face as he kissed her cheek, her hair, her eyes. "You can +_forgive_ me? I thought you'd go away. I thought you'd refuse to let +me come near you. I was walking out there wondering how to make it easy +for you--whether I could get rid of myself without scandal." + +She had been sure that he must have repented long ago, and that it would +hurt him dreadfully to have her find out the thing he had done, but she +had not dreamed that his self-abasement would be so complete. She put +her arms around him as he held her, and pressed his head against her +neck--the dear, smooth black head which she loved better than ever in +this rush of pardoning pity. + +"Dearest!" she whispered. "Never, never think or speak of such a dreadful +way out! Of course it was horribly wrong, and of course it was a great +shock to me, but you might have known from my doing what I could to help +that I didn't hate you. I said to myself there must be some excuse--some +_big_ excuse. And now, if only you wouldn't mind telling me about it from +the beginning, I believe it would be the best way for us both. Then I +might understand." + +"You are God's own angel, Anita!" he said in a choked voice. "You don't +know how I've learned to love you, better than anything in this world or +the next--if there is a next. I knew you were a saint, but I didn't know +that saints forgave men like me.... Shall I really tell you from the +beginning? You'll listen--and bear it? It's a long story." + +Annesley did not see why the story of his buying the historic stolen +diamond and giving it to her should be so very long, even with its +explanations; but she did not say this. + +"I don't care how long it is," she told him. "But you will be tired--down +on your knees----" + +"I couldn't tell my story to you in any way except on my knees," he +answered. And the new humility of the man she had loved half fearfully +for his daring, his defiant way of facing life, almost hurt, as his +sudden passion had startled the girl. + +"I hardly know how to begin," he said. "Perhaps it had better be with my +father and mother, because it was the tragedy of their lives that shaped +mine." He was silent for a moment, as if thinking. Then he drew a long +breath, as a man does when he is ready to take a plunge into deep water. + +"My mother was a Russian. Her people were noble, but that didn't keep +them from going to Siberia. She was brought to America by a man and woman +who'd been servants in her family. She was very young, only fifteen. Her +name was Michaela. I'm named after her--Michael. The three had only money +enough to be allowed to land as immigrants, and to get out west--though +her people had been rich." He paused a moment for a sigh. + +"She and the servants--they passed as her father and mother--found work +in Chicago. My father was a lawyer there. He was an Englishman, you +know--I've told you that before--but he thought his profession was +overstocked at home, so he tried his luck on the other side. The old +Russian chap was hurt in the factory where he worked, and that's the +way my father--whose name was Robert Donaldson--got to know my mother. +There was a question of compensation, and my father conducted the case. +He won it. + +"And he won a wife, too. She was nineteen when I was born. Father was +getting on, but they were poor and had a hard time to make ends meet. +They worshipped each other and worshipped me. You can think whether I +adored them! + +"Mother was the most beautiful creature you ever saw. Everyone looked +at her. I used to notice that when I was a wee chap, walking with my +hand in hers. When I was ten and going to school my father had a bad +illness--rheumatic fever. We got hard up while he was sick; and then came +a letter for mother from Russia. Some distant relations in Moscow had had +her traced by detectives. It seemed there was quite a lot of money which +ought to come to her, and if she would go to Russia and prove who she was +she could get it. + +"If father'd been well and making enough for us all he'd never have let +her go, but he was weak and anxious about the future, so she took things +into her own hands and went, without waiting for yes or no, or anything +except to find a woman who'd look after father and me while she was gone. +Well, she never came back. Can you guess what became of her?" he asked, +huskily. + +"She died?" Annesley asked, forgetting in her interest, which grew with +the story, to wonder what the history of Knight's childhood and his +parents' troubles had to do with the Malindore diamond. + +"She died before my father could find her; but not for a long time. +God--what a time of agony for her! Things happened I can't tell you +about. We heard nothing, after a letter from the ship and a cable from +Moscow with two words--'Well. Love.' + +"For a while father waited and tried not to be too anxious; but after a +time he telegraphed, and then again and again. No answer. He went nearly +mad. Before he was well enough to travel he borrowed money and started +for Russia to look for her. I stayed in Chicago--and kept on going to +school. The friends who took care of me made me do that ... or thought +so. + +"But when I could, I played truant. I was in a restless state. I remember +how I felt as if it were yesterday. Nothing seemed real, except my father +and mother. I thought about them all the time. I couldn't sleep, and I +couldn't study. I couldn't bear to sit at a desk. I picked up some queer +pals in those months--or they picked me up. I suppose that was the +beginning of the end. + +"I think while he was away, finding out terrible, unspeakable things, my +father forgot about me--or else he didn't realize I was big enough to +mind. He never wrote. When he came back, after eleven months, he was an +old man, with gray hair. I'll never forget the night he came, and how he +told me about mother. It was a moonlight night, like this--with no light +in the room. It was the last night of my childhood." + +As the man talked, he had lifted his head from the soft pillow of the +girl's white neck, and was looking into her eyes, his face close to hers. +Annesley was not thinking about the diamond. + +"For a long time," Knight went on, slowly, "father could not trace my +mother. He expected to find the relations who had sent her word about the +legacy, but they were gone--nobody could tell where. Nobody wanted to +speak of them. They seemed afraid. Father went to the British and +American Embassies; no use! But at last he got to know, in subterranean +ways, that mother hadn't realized how dangerous it is to speak your mind +in Russia. She'd left there before she was sixteen! + +"She had said things about her father and mother, and what she thought +of the ruling powers, and that same night--she'd been in Moscow two +days--she and her relatives disappeared. It leaked out through a +member of the secret police that she could have been saved by her +beauty--someone high up offered to get her free. But she preferred +another fate. + +"She was sent to Siberia where her father and mother had gone, and had +died years before. My father met a man who had seen her on the way as he +was coming back. She was only just alive. The man was sure she couldn't +have lived more than a few weeks. + +"Yet father wouldn't give up. He went after her.... But what's the use of +going on? He found the place where she had died.... Which ends that part +of the story, as a story. + +"Only it didn't end it for us. It filled our hearts with bitterness. We +wanted revenge. Yet my father was too good a man to take it when his +chance came. His conscience held him back. But he talked--talked like an +anarchist, a man out to fight and smash all the hypocritical institutions +of society. If it hadn't been for me he'd have killed himself in Siberia +where his wife had died a martyr; and it would have been well for him if +he had! + +"Because of the wild way he talked when suspicion of fraud was thrown on +him by a partner the fool public believed in his guilt. He died in prison +when I was fifteen, and I swore to punish the beast of a world that had +killed all I loved. I swore I'd make that my life's work, and I have. +But--God!--I've punished myself, too, at last. I'm punished through you, +because I've fallen in love with you, Anita, and for your sake I'd give +the years that may be in front of me--all time but one day to be glad in, +if I could blot out the past!" + +"Maybe," the girl faltered, "maybe you're too hard on yourself. I can't +believe that you, who have been so good to me, could have been very bad +to others." + +"If I could hope you wouldn't be too hard on me, that's all I care for +now!" he cried, passionately. "You remember my saying that night in the +taxi that the worst I'd ever done was to try and pay back a great wrong, +and take revenge on society? If I could hope you meant what you said +about understanding I'd tell you the story of that revenge." + +"I _did_ mean it, Knight. My love will help me to understand." + +"You make me believe in a God, for surely only God could have sent such +an angel as you into my life.... In a way, I haven't deceived you about +myself, for I warned you I was a bad man. But when I think of the night +we met and the trick I played on you, it makes me sick! I thought you'd +loathe me if you ever found out. But I didn't intend to let you find out. +It was to be a dead secret forever, like the rest. Yet if I tell you what +my life has been you'll have to know that part, too. If I kept it back +you might think it worse than it was." + +"A trick?" echoed Annesley. + +"Yes. A trick to interest you--to make you like and want to help me. +Besides, it was to be a test of your courage and presence of mind. If you +hadn't those qualities you'd have been a failure from my point of view. +You see, I hadn't had time to fall in love with you then. And I wanted +you for a 'help-mate' in the literal sense of the word. It seems a pretty +sordid sense, looking back from where we've got to now. But that was my +scheme. A mean, cowardly scheme! And it's thanks to you and your blessed +dearness I see it in its true light.... Do you begin to understand, +Anita--knowing something of what my life has been, or must I explain?" + +"I--I'm afraid you must explain," she answered in a small voice, like a +child's. She felt suddenly weak and sick, as if she might collapse in the +man's arms. It was as if some terrible weapon wrapped round and half +hidden in folds of velvet were lifted above her head to strike her down. + +She shrank from the blow, yet asked for it. Already she guessed dimly +that Knight's confession was to be very different from and far more +terrible than anything she had expected. + +"I was the man whose advertisement you answered--the man who wrote you +the stiff letter in the handwriting you didn't like, signed N. Smith." + +"Oh!" The word broke from her in a moan. + +"Darling! Have I lost you if I go on?" + +"You must go on!" she cried out, sharply. "For both our sakes you must go +on!" + +"I know how it looks to you. And it was vile. But I couldn't be sure when +I advertised what an angel would answer to my call, and what a brute I +should be to deceive her. I thought the sort of girl who'd reply to an +'ad' for a wife would be fair game; that I should be giving her an +equivalent for what she'd give me. + +"For my business that I had to carry out in England I needed a wife of +another sort from any woman I knew, or could get to know, in an ordinary +way; she had to be of good birth and education, nice-looking and +pleasant-mannered--if possible with highly placed friends or relatives. +Money didn't matter. I had enough--or would have. I got a lot of answers, +but the only one that seemed good was yours. I felt nearly certain you +were the woman I wanted, so I rigged up a plan. You know how it worked +out." + +"Maybe I'm stupid," Annesley said, dry-lipped. "I don't understand yet." + +"Why, I thought the thing over, and it seemed to me that married life--if +it came to that--would be easier for both if the man could make some sort +of appeal to the love of romance in a girl. Well, she wouldn't think the +man who had to get the right sort of wife by advertising much of a figure +of romance. So the idea came to me of--of starting two personalities. I +wrote you a stiff, precise sort of letter in a disguised business hand, +making an appointment at the Savoy. When that was done, the writer went +out of your life. + +"He just ceased to exist, except that he sat behind a big screen of +newspaper and watched for a girl in gray-and-purple, wearing a white +rose, to pass through the foyer. That was his way of finding out if she'd +suit. Jove, how beastly it does sound, put into words, and confessed to +_you_! But you said I must go on." + +"Yes--go on," Annesley breathed. + +"You were about one hundred times better than my highest hopes. And +seeing what you were, I was glad I'd thought out that plan. Even then, it +was borne in on me that it wouldn't be long before I found myself falling +in love, if I had the luck to secure you. And from that minute the +business turned into an exciting play for me, just as I meant to make it +for you. I let you wait for a while, but if you'd showed any signs of +vanishing I'd have stepped up. I'd got a trick ready for that emergency. + +"But I hoped you'd follow instructions and go to the restaurant. Once +there, I was sure the head-waiter'd persuade you to sit down at a table; +and the rest went exactly as I planned. The two men we called the +'watchers' used to be vaudeville actors--did a turn together, and their +specialty was lightning changes. Their make-ups, even at short notice, +could fool Sherlock Holmes. Even though you despise me for it, Anita, you +must admit it was a smart way to make you take an interest, and prove +your character. + +"Lord, but you stood the test! I wouldn't have given you up at any price +then, even if I hadn't begun falling in love. I saw how good you were; +and in that taxi going to Torrington Square I felt mean as dirt for +tricking you. But of course I had to go on as I'd begun. + +"At first I thought it was luck, tumbling into the same house with +Ruthven Smith; but now I see it was the devil's luck. If it hadn't been +for Ruthven Smith I might have gone on living the part I played. You need +never have known the truth. And I swear to you, Annesley, I'd made up my +mind, after finishing off my work with the men who are with me, that I'd +run straight for the rest of my days. The business was making me sick, +for being close to your goodness threw a light into dark places. + +"By heaven, Anita, it does seem hard, just as I was near to being the man +you thought me, that that dried-up curmudgeon Ruthven Smith should call +my hand and make me show you the man I was! But I can't help seeing +there's a kind of--what they call poetical justice in it, the blow coming +from him. I've always been like that: seeing both sides of a thing even +when I wanted to see only one. But if _you_ can see both sides, you will +make the good grow, as the bright side of the moon grows, and turns the +dark side to gold. + +"Can you do that, do you think, Anita? Can you see any excuse for me in +going against the world to pay it out for going against me and mine? If +you've been piecing bits of evidence together since Ruthven Smith spoke, +you'll have remembered that only heirlooms and things insured by, or +belonging to, public companies, have been taken; no poor people have been +robbed; and except in the case of Mrs. Ellsworth, where I wanted to see +her paid out for her treatment of you----" + +"'Robbed'!" Catching the word, Annesley heard none of those that +followed. "_Robbed!_ Oh, it's not possible you mean----" + +Her voice broke. With both hands against his breast she pushed him off, +and struggled to rise, to tear herself loose from him. But he would not +let her go. + +"What's the matter? How have I hurt you worse than you were hurt already +by finding out?" he appealed to her, his arms like a band of steel round +her shuddering body. "When you heard the truth about the diamond, it was +the same as if you'd heard everything, wasn't it? You guessed Ruthven +Smith suspected--someone must have told him--Madalena perhaps. You +guessed he had some trick to play, and in the quietest, cleverest way you +checkmated him, without hint or help from any one. You saved me from +ruin, and not only me, but others. And on top of all that, when I hoped +for nothing more from you, you promised me forgiveness. That's what I +understood. Was I mistaken?" + +"_I_ was mistaken," she answered, almost coldly; then broke down with one +agonized sob. "I thought--oh, what good is it now to tell you what I +thought?" + +"You must tell me!" + +"I thought you had bought the blue diamond, knowing it had been stolen, +but wanting it so much you didn't care how you got it. I didn't dream +that you were a----" + +"That I was--what?" + +"A thief--and a cheat!" + +"My God! And now you know I'm both, you hate me, Anita? You must, or you +wouldn't throw those words at me like stones." + +"Let me go," she panted, pushing him from her again with trembling, +ice-cold hands. + +He obeyed instantly. The band of steel that had held her fell apart. She +stumbled up from the low sofa, and trying to pass him as he knelt, she +would have fallen if he had not sprung to his feet and caught her. + +But recovering herself she turned away quickly and almost ran to a chair +in front of the dressing table not far off. There she flung herself down +and buried her face on her bare arms. + +Knight followed, to stand staring in stunned silence at the bowed +head and shaking shoulders. He could hear the ticking of a small, +nervous-sounding clock on the mantelpiece. It was like the beating +of a heart that must soon break. At last, when the ticking had gone +on unbearably long, he spoke. + +"Anita, you called me a cheat," he said. "I suppose you mean that I +cheated you by playing the hero that night at the Savoy, and stealing +your sympathy and help under false pretenses; that I've been steadily +cheating you and your friends every day since. That's true, in a way--or +it was at first. But lately it's not been the same sort of cheating. It +began to be the real thing with me. I mean I felt it in me to be the +real thing. As for the other name you gave me--thief--I'm not exactly +that--not a thief who steals with his own hands, though I dare say I'm +as bad. + +"If I haven't stolen, I've shown others the most artistic way to steal. +I've shown men and women how to make stealing a fine art, and I've been +in with them in the game. Indeed, it was my game. Madalena de Santiago, +and the two men you knew first as the 'watchers,' then as Torrance and +Morello, now as Charrington and Char, have been no more than the pawns I +used, or rather they've been my cat's paws. There's only one other man at +the head of the show besides me, and that is one whose name I can't give +away even to you. + +"But he's a great man, a kind of financial Napoleon--a great artist, too. +He doesn't call himself a thief. He's honoured by society in Europe and +America; yet what I've done in comparison to what he's done is like a +brook to the size of the ocean. He has a picture gallery and a private +museum which are famous; but there's another gallery of pictures and +another museum which nobody except himself has ever seen. His real life, +his real joy, are in them. Most of the masterpieces and treasures of this +world which have disappeared are safe in that hidden place, which I've +helped to fill. + +"That man has no regrets. He revels in what he calls his 'secret +orchard.' He thinks I ought to be proud of what I've done for him; and so +I was once. I came here and brought the other people over to England to +work for him. + +"Not that that fact will whitewash me in your eyes; not that I wasn't +working for myself, too, and not that I'm trying to make more excuses by +explaining this. But I'd like you to understand, at least for the sake of +your own pride, that you haven't been cheated into loving and living with +a common thief. Does that make it hurt less?" + +"No," she said in a strange tone which made her voice sound like that of +an old woman. "That doesn't make it hurt less. It makes no difference. +I think nothing can ever make any difference. My life is--over." + +"Don't, for God's sake, say that! Don't force me to feel a murderer!" he +cried out, sharply. + +"There's nothing else to say. I wish I could die to-night." + +"If one of us is to die," he said, "let it be me. If you hadn't happened +to see me and call me in when I was under the trees bidding good-bye to +your window, by this time I might have found a way out of the difficulty +without any scandal or trouble to you whatever. No one would have known +that it wasn't an accident----" + +"I should have known." + +"But if you had, it would have been a relief----" + +"No. Because I--I hadn't heard the truth. I didn't understand at all. I +thought you had done _one_ unscrupulous thing. I didn't dream your whole +life was--what it is. I loved you as much as ever. It would have broken +my heart if you----" + +"But now that you don't love me, it wouldn't break your heart." + +"I don't seem to have any heart," Annesley sighed. "It feels as if it +had crumbled to dust. But it would break my life if you ended yours. If +anything could be worse than what is, it would be that." + +"Very well, you can rid yourself of me in another way," the man answered. +"You can denounce me--give me up to 'justice.' If you hand over the +Malindore diamond to Ruthven Smith and tell him how you got it----" + +"You must know I wouldn't do that!" + +"Why not?" + +"Because I--couldn't." + +"It needn't spoil your life. No one could blame you. I would tell the +story of how I deceived you. You could free yourself--get a divorce----" + +"Don't!" the girl cut him short. "I'm not thinking of myself. I'm +thinking of you. I can't love you again, and I wouldn't if I could, now +that I--know. You're a different man. The one I loved doesn't exist and +never did; yet you've told me your secret, and I'm bound to keep it. I +don't need to stop and reflect about that. But as for what's to become +of me, and how we're to manage not to let people guess that everything's +changed, I don't know! I must think. I must think all to-night, until +to-morrow. Perhaps by that time I can decide. Now--I beg of you to go +and leave me--this moment. I can't bear any more and live." + +He stood looking at her, but she turned her head away with a petulant +gesture of repulsion; and lest her eyes might feel the call of his she +covered them with her hands. Her hopelessness, her loathing of him +enclosed her like a wall of ice. + +"So! The dream's over!" he said. "'This woman to this man'! What a +farce--what a tragedy!" + +When she looked up again he had gone and the door between their rooms was +shut. + +The moon no longer lit the high window. With Knight's going darkness +fell. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE PLAN + + +Annesley sat as Knight had left her for a long time--minutes, perhaps, or +hours. But at last she was very tired and very cold, so tired that she +threw herself weakly on the bed, in her dressing-gown, because she +couldn't sit up. All through the rest of the dark hours she lay +shivering, and did not even trouble to roll herself in the warm down +coverlet spread lightly over the bed. + +It seemed right, somehow, that she should be cold and miserable +physically. She did not care or wish to be comfortable. + +Over and over again she asked herself: "What shall I do? What is to +become of me--of both of us?" She tried to pray, but her heart was too +hard toward the man who had trampled on her life and love for his own +cruel purposes. It seemed to her that God would not hear a prayer sent +up in such a mood; yet she did not want to soften her heart toward the +sinner. + +Because it had been so full of forgiveness before he poisoned the chalice +with the bitter stream of confession, it was the more impossible to +forgive now. It even seemed to Annesley that it would be monstrous to +forgive, in the ordinary, human sense of the word, a man who was a living +lie. + +If there were room for thanksgiving in her wretchedness, it lay in the +fact that her love had died a swift and sudden death. Had she gone on +loving in spite of all, such love, she thought, must have brought death +into her soul. + +She did not know how to name her husband now. Even in thinking of him she +would not call him "Knight." + +What a mockery the name had been! How he must have laughed to know that +she was fool enough to believe him a knight of chivalry, who had come +like St. George to rescue her from the dragon! + +She knew at last that the name he had not wished her to see in the parish +register was Michael Donaldson. That meant, she supposed, that her name +was Donaldson, too; a name he had dragged through the mire. + +He pretended to love her. But such a man could not speak the truth. +He had tried to excuse himself in every way. To talk of love and its +purifying influence was only one of these ways. He would not even have +confessed if he had not fallen into the mistake of thinking she +understood that he was a thief, or head of a gang of thieves. + +He seemed almost to boast of what he was.... Oh, how horrible life had +become, and how she wished that it were over! She wondered if it would +be wicked to pray that her heart might stop beating to-night. + +Yet morning came and her heart beat on. She did not even feel very ill, +only weak, with a wiry throbbing of each separate nerve in her head. She +had meant to use the quiet hours to decide what must be done next, but +always, when she had tried to pin her mind to the question, it had +escaped like a fluttering moth, and turned to self-pity, or to calling +up pictures of the past which brought tears to her eyes. + +Now the time was upon her when realities must be faced. Before seven +o'clock it was light, but neither she nor Knight were accustomed to early +tea, and there was more than an hour to spare before they would be called +by Parker. + +The girl sat up shivering, though the room, heated by steam, had not +grown bitterly cold when the grate fire died. She looked, heavy-eyed, +toward her husband's closed door. They must talk things over, and make +some plan. + +She hated the very word "plan" since his story of the trick he had played +at the Savoy. She hated the necessity to talk with him; but it _was_ a +necessity. They ought to arrange something for the future--the blank and +hateful future--before Parker came, and daily life began. There would be +many things to settle, questions to ask and answer; a sort of hideous +campaign would have to be mapped out in details not one of which defined +itself clearly in her tired brain. + +"It's no use," she said to herself. "I can't think, after all, until I +see him again. Perhaps he will make some suggestions, and I can accept or +refuse. But I _can't_ go to his door and call him." + +As she hesitated, Knight--who was a knight no longer in her eyes--opened +the door, very softly, not to disturb her if she slept. In the morning +light which paled the uncurtained window their eyes met. + +Annesley slipped off the bed and stood up, cloaking her bare white neck +with her hair. Suddenly she felt that he was a strange man who had no +right to be in her room. He was not the husband she had loved with a +beautiful and sacred love. + +"I won't come if you'd rather I didn't," he said. "I only looked in to +see if you were awake. I thought if you were, and if you could stand it, +it would be best to--talk about what's to be done." He spoke quietly, +standing at the door. He was dressed for the day, as if nothing had +happened; and Annesley felt dimly resentful because he looked bathed and +well-groomed, his black hair smooth and carefully brushed; altogether his +usual self, except that he was pale and grave. + +"You had better come in, I suppose," the girl replied, grudgingly. "I was +thinking, too, that we must talk. Let us--get it over." + +"You haven't been to bed, I see," he said, his eyes lingering on her +sadly. It flashed through Annesley's mind that it was as if he were +looking for the last time at the sweetness and happiness of life. But +her heart did not soften. It was his fault that there was no longer any +happiness or sweetness left in their lives. + +"No, I haven't been to bed," she returned. "But it doesn't matter. I am +not ill. Please let us not waste time in discussing me. There are other +things." + +"Yes, there are other things," he agreed. "But we'll not begin to talk of +them until you have got into bed and covered yourself up. You're as white +as marble." + +"I don't want----" she began; but he cut her short. + +"What will Parker think if she finds your bed hasn't been slept in?" + +"Oh, very well!" Annesley assented, impatiently. "I must get used to +tricks!" + +"Perhaps not," said Knight. "I've been thinking of ways and means. Have +you? Because if there's anything you feel you would like to do, you've +only to tell me." + +"I haven't been able to think," she confessed. + +"Well, then, I'll tell you what I've thought." + +Annesley had now crept into bed; and before she could protest Knight had +carefully covered her with the down quilt. Having done this, he drew a +chair near, yet not too near, and sat down. It was as if he recognized +her right to keep him at a distance. + +"You said last night," he began, "that you didn't mean to denounce me. If +you've changed your mind, I shan't blame you; I deserve it. All I ask is +that you grant me time to warn certain persons who would go down if I +went down, and give them time to make a bolt. Madalena de Santiago is +one. I'm pretty sure that out of spite she put Ruthven Smith on to +looking for the diamond, but I don't want to punish her. Evidently +she--or whoever it was--didn't have much information to give, or the man +wouldn't have backed down and apologized. I should like to find out +exactly what he had to go upon. But if you've changed your mind, it's not +worth while to bother about that----" + +"I have not changed my mind," Annesley said. + +"You are very good, a very noble woman. If I were the only one to suffer +by being denounced, I don't think I'd care much, as things have turned +out. But there are others. And above all, there's you. You could patch up +your life, but you'd have to suffer more or less if I were dragged over +the coals. And so, taking everything together, I'm thankful to accept +your generosity. + +"We'll call that settled. I don't think Ruthven Smith has any suspicion. +We'll see about that later. Meanwhile, he doesn't count. And Madalena at +her worst I can manage. There's nothing to be feared. But the question +is, how are we two to go on?" + +"You must--whatever else we decide--you must give up----" the girl +stammered from her pillows, and could not bring herself to finish. + +"That goes without saying, doesn't it? In any case, there was only to be +one more _coup_. I'd warned everybody concerned of my decision as to +that." + +"_One more?_ How terrible! Not--_here_?" + +"Yes, if you must have that, too; it was to be here. It was to be a big +thing. But there's time to stop it." + +Annesley buried her head with a stifled moan. + +"It wouldn't have hurt any of the people. Only family heirlooms +again--everything insured. And as for the insurance companies, if +you worry over them, it's part of the game. They're wallowing in +money ... But I'll call the thing off. And that's the end for me. I'm +not rich--not the millionaire I pose for; still, I've earned something. +My 'Napoleon' has paid me well, and I've had a share now and then of +some good things. There's enough to make you comfortable----" + +"Do you think I'd take a penny of such money?" the girl cried, sick with +indignation. + +"I've worked for it," Knight said, with a kind of unhappy defiance, "and +it was come by as honestly as a lot of fortunes made on the stock market. +You must have money----" + +"I can earn some, as I did before." + +"No, _never_ as you did before! Besides, I thought you'd decided on +having no open break between us, no scandal. Or wasn't that what you +meant?" + +"It was. But--I don't see yet how it can be managed. Do you?" + +"The way I had in my mind was, since I've lost your love--oh, I'm not +complaining!--the way I had in my mind was to leave you over here with +plenty of money, and be suddenly called to America on business. Then, if +it would hurt your feelings to have me put myself out of the way, it +needn't hurt them for something to _seem_ to happen. Nelson Smith could +be wiped off the map; and if you weren't free to marry somebody else, at +least you'd be free of me. + +"But if you won't take my money that plan will not work. You can hate me +as much as you like, but I'm not going to leave you alone in the world +without a penny. Neither you nor any one can force me to that.... I've +thought of another thing, though, since we began to talk. Only I don't +like to propose it, Anita. It isn't a good plan--from your point of +view." + +"I'd better hear it." + +"Well, I might get a cable hurrying me across to the other side, and--you +might go along." + +"Oh!" + +"I warned you you wouldn't think it a good plan. But since I've begun, +let me finish. In Canada and the United States I'm known--in my least +important character--as Michael Donaldson, and I've tried to keep the +name clean because of my father and mother. When there's been anything +shady doing I've taken a fancy name and made such changes as I could in +myself. The reason I didn't want you to see the name in the register was +because of what happened on the _Monarchic_. I'd given you that ring, you +know. I couldn't resist doing that. I wanted you to have it, not because +of its value, but because it's beautiful. I thought it was like you, +somehow. I had to make up its loss in another way to the man who expected +to have it--that 'Napoleon' I mentioned." + +"I know, the old man--Paul Van Vreck," Annesley guessed with weary +impatience. + +"I'll not say yes or no to that. But it will be bad for me, and perhaps +for you, too, if you ever mention Paul Van Vreck in such a connection. +Not that you'd be believed." + +"I sha'n't mention him again." + +"Just as well not.... But it was my name and my plan I began to speak +about. I was going to say, you needn't be afraid that if you took my +name (which is yours now), you'd have to be ashamed of it. We could +go to America, and in England Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith would soon be +forgotten. I'd hand over the money you hate to charities--not the kind +of charities I've been supporting here! They've all been part of what +you call my fraud, and have only given me a chance to bring some rather +queer-looking fish around me, who might have raised curiosity if I +couldn't have accounted for them. But real charities. + +"And if you'd stick by me--I don't mean love me; I know you can't do +that; but live in the same house and not chuck me altogether, I'd turn +over a new leaf. I'd begin again from the beginning. + +"In Texas I've got some land--a ranch. It isn't worth much, I'm afraid, +but I came by it honestly, for me. I won it at poker from a man named +Jack Haslett. He was a devil for cards, but it didn't matter. He was +rich; and he had a better ranch that he lived on. He's dead now--was near +dead then, of consumption. He liked me. Said he was glad I'd won the +ranch. It was only a bother to him. + +"I was with Jack when he died, and did what I could to ease him at the +end. He was grateful, and what money his bad luck at cards had left him +he willed to me. It was only eight thousand dollars. + +"If it had come to me any other way, I dare say I'd have chucked it away +in a month. It wouldn't have seemed worth saving. But I was sort of +sentimental about poor old Haslett and his feeling for me. I didn't care +to lump his money in with what I got in my line of life. I made a +separate fund of it. + +"Some had to go toward improvements on the place before I could let the +ranch to any one, but there's about six thousand dollars left, I guess. +The fellow I let to wrote me a few weeks ago that he was tired of +ranching and wanted to clear out. He hoped I could find someone to buy +his cattle and the furniture he's put in the house. The letter was +forwarded by a man I keep in touch with my business and whereabouts, so +he can look after my interests. I've had no time to answer yet. + +"I was going to write that I didn't know any one who cared to settle in +Texas; but now what if I wrote that I'd take the place and everything on +it off the fellow's hands myself?" + +"I don't know what Texas is like," Annesley replied, coldly. "But +anything would be better than the life you're leading now." + +"I wasn't intending to go alone," Knight reminded her. "I said, if you'd +stick by me, not throw me over altogether, I'd try and begin again. In +that case, Texas would do as well as anywhere; and the place and the +money are clean." + +"How could I go with you, and live under the same roof, with everything +so changed?" the girl exclaimed. "It would kill me!" + +"As bad as that?... Well, then, I must rack my brains for something else. +But I'm sorry this won't do. Would you care to live with Archdeacon +Smith and his wife?" + +"No. No! And they wouldn't want me." + +"That seems queer to me: that any one should have the chance of keeping +you with them, and not want you ... How would it be for you to go on the +same ship with me, and find a little home somewhere on an allowance I +could make you out of that fund? You see, you are my wife in the eyes of +the law, so I'm bound to support you. And you're bound to let me do it, +if I can do it honestly." + +Annesley flung up her arms in a gesture of abandonment. "Let it go at +that," she sighed, "until I can think of something better." + +"Very well. We won't argue that part yet. The thing to make sure of at +the moment is this: Do I get a cable, say on the day everyone's leaving +Valley House, calling me back to America on urgent business, and do I +take you with me?" + +Annesley's thoughts raced through her head and would not stop. Knight did +not speak. He was waiting with outward patience for her decision. + +It seemed that she would never know what to say. She was about to tell +him in despair that she must have the rest of the day to make up her +mind, but before she could speak Parker knocked at the door. + +"I'll go with you," the girl said, hastily. "On the ship. But after +that----" + +Parker knocked again. + +"Come in!" called Annesley. + +"Thank you," Knight said, getting up from his chair near her bed. + +"_Don't_ thank me. I----" + +But Parker had opened the door. All that was conventional and agreeably +commonplace in the lives of happy, well-to-do people seemed to enter the +room with her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE DEVIL'S ROSARY + + +Ruthven Smith summoned courage to ask for a few words alone with Knight +that Easter morning, in order to explain as well as apologize for the +"seeming liberty he had taken." By dint of stammering, and punctuating +his sentences with short, dry coughs, he made "a clean breast," as he +called it, of the "whole business." + +He had come to Valley House, he confessed, because of an anonymous +letter, written apparently by a person of education, to inform him that +the Malindore diamond had come into the possession of the Nelson Smiths. +Whether they were aware of its identity, the writer was not sure; but in +any case their ownership of the jewel was kept secret. + +Having got so far in his story, Ruthven Smith decided that the easiest +way of finishing it would be to produce the letter. He did so (a +typewritten sheet of plain creamy paper, in an envelope post-marked +"West Hampstead"), and simplified things for himself by pointing to the +last sentence. + + Mrs. Nelson Smith always wears a thin gold chain round her neck, which + she lets drop to her shoulders for evening dress. What precious thing + which has to be hidden hangs on that chain? Mr. Ruthven Smith is + advised to find out. + +"I see now," the unfortunate man excused himself, "that someone has been +taking advantage of my anxiety about the losses of my firm to play a +cruel practical joke on me. I can't help thinking, at the same time, +that the person must have had a grudge against you and your wife also." + +"Or else a desire to make mischief between you and us," was Knight's calm +suggestion. + +Ruthven Smith caught it up, eagerly. "Ah, that possibility hadn't +occurred to me." + +"I suppose we all have enemies." Knight pursued the subject without +excitement. "The writer probably wished to put the idea in your head that +I had deliberately bought an historic diamond which I knew to be stolen." + +"But that would have been ridiculous!" exclaimed the jewel expert, and +felt sincere in making his protest. + +Nevertheless, he had glanced at Annesley's face while talking of the +Malindore diamond to Lady Cartwright. It had been on the edge of his mind +that, if she looked self-conscious, it would be a point against her and +her husband. Also he had determined to make his daring attempt at +discovery before she had time to get rid of the diamond if she were +hiding it. Now, however, in the light of her shining innocence, he had +almost forgotten that he had suspected an underhand design on her part. + +He asked Nelson Smith if he could think of any one, man or woman, among +his acquaintances capable of writing the anonymous letter. Nelson Smith +replied that his brain was a blank, and that he hardly thought it worth +while to follow the matter up, unless Ruthven Smith wished to do so. In +that case they might put the affair in the hands of the police. + +But the elder man was of the younger's opinion. He had made a fool of +himself, and was ashamed that he had attached importance to an unsigned +communication. All he desired was to let the unpleasant business drop. + +This being settled, Knight, in whose hand was the typewritten letter, +tossed the thing into the fireplace of the library, where the two had +been talking. When he and Ruthven Smith had shaken hands and agreed to +forget the whole incident the latter was glad to escape from the +interview. He went to his room and lay down, to soothe his nerves and +think of an excuse to return to London early on Monday morning. + +As soon as his meagre back was turned Knight stooped and retrieved the +letter in its envelope, unscorched, from the fireplace. There was nothing +about it--not even a tell-tale perfume--to give any clue to the writer. + +Nevertheless, Knight considered it of value. He intended to use it as a +bluff to frighten the Countess de Santiago, for only through her own fear +could he prove her treachery. + +Most of the guests at Valley House went to church, to give thanks for +the fairy-like Easter eggs they had received. Annesley had a headache, +however, and no one was surprised that her husband should choose to stop +at home to look after her. + +His adoring devotion for the girl was no secret. People laughed at it, +but admired it, too, and some women envied Annesley. They imagined him +spending the morning with his wife, but as a matter of fact he did not +go near her. He feared to speak lest she might change her decision and +refuse to travel to America with him. + +His one hope--a desperate hope--lay in her going. He decided not to see +her alone again until Monday evening, after the arrival of the cable from +America. + +In order to insure the coming of this message, and to make it realistic, +he motored into Torquay and sent a long telegram, partly in cipher. +Returning, he had a conversation with Charrington, the butler, and Char, +the chauffeur, a conversation which left the brothers grave and subdued. +Later Char went off in the car again, though it poured with rain, and was +gone until late at night. + +Between twelve and one o'clock Knight, strolling toward the garage, heard +the automobile return, and stopped in the blaze of the acetylene for the +motor to slow down. + +"Is it all right?" he inquired. + +"It's all right," Char answered, somewhat sullenly, yet with a certain +reluctant respect. "Nothing will happen here Monday night." + +"Good!" his master answered, and smiled at the thought of Madalena's +malicious prophecy which would not be fulfilled. It was not a pleasant +smile, yet, as he had said to Annesley, he planned no revenge against +the tigress--the woman whose claws had ripped his heart open. + +Tigress or no, she was a woman, and he knew that, as far as she was +capable of caring, she had cared for him. + +Perhaps it had been partly his fault. She was handsome, and had been +years younger when he had met her first. She was married then to an old +man, jealous and suspicious, knowing that his money had won the beautiful +wild creature for him. It was at Buenos Aires, and the husband had found +Madalena out in an intrigue; partly political, partly mercenary, and +partly passionate. He had turned her from his house without a penny, and +Knight--not personally concerned in the intrigue, but interested--had +been flush enough at the time to lend her a thousand dollars, enough to +go away with. It had been called a loan, but he had not expected to get +the money back, and never did get it. + +In California she had set herself up as a palmist and had become +successful, a success she duplicated in New York; and she had gladly made +herself useful in many ways to "Don" and those with whom he "worked." + +One way was to find out the number and worth of her rich clients' jewels, +and where they were kept. Through her crystal gazing she was able to +conjure women's secrets without their realizing that they, not she, gave +them to the light. And aboard the _Monarchic_ was not by any means the +first time that Madalena had been invaluable in diverting suspicion +by throwing it upon the wrong track. + +Knight had consulted her, praised her, and flattered her from time to +time. Now he told himself that he was paying for his thoughtlessness. +He had taken Madalena for granted, regarding her as a machine rather +than a woman; and though he owed to her the loss of his happiness, that +happiness had been undeserved and, as he expressed it to himself, walking +the wet paths at midnight, he had "stood to lose it anyhow." + +He would frighten Madalena so that she would never dare to try her tricks +again, and he would let her understand that because of what she had done +their partnership had come to an end once and forever. Otherwise she +should feel herself safe from him. + +Bad he might be, and was, as he knew; but he didn't think it was in his +make-up, somehow, to strike a woman. + +He did not go back to the house, after his short talk with Char, until +after he had heard the stable clock strike four. It was easier to think +and see things clearly out of doors than in his room adjoining +Annesley's--that closed room, forbidden to him now, where she was perhaps +crying, and surely hating him. As for the long nightmare day he had lived +through, it had been too full for much deliberate thinking; and he wanted +to plan for the future: how to begin again, and how to keep the woman who +had come to mean more for him than anything else had ever meant--more, he +knew, than anything else could mean. + +He was not sure whether the love in his heart was a punishment or a +blessing, but there it was. It had come to stay. + +"This woman to this man!" + +He found himself repeating the words he remembered best in the marriage +service, not bitterly as he had repeated them to Annesley, but +yearningly, clingingly, groping after some promise of hope in them. + +"She gave herself to me. I'm the same man she loved, after all, though +she says I'm not," he told himself. "God! What's the good of being a man +at all, if I can't get her back?" + +As he wandered through one winter-saddened garden after another--the +Italian garden, the Dutch garden, the rose garden--he searched his soul, +asking it how much more he should have to tell the girl about his past. +In a kind of desperate resignation he persuaded himself that there was +nothing he would not be willing to tell her now, if it were for her good, +and if she wished to hear. + +But something within him said that she would wish to hear no more. She +would deign to put no questions to him, even if she felt curiosity. She +would doubtless refuse to listen if he volunteered a further confession. +He was instinctively sure of his ground there; and in his bitterness of +spirit there was a faint gleam of comfort; certain details of his +degradation (she would think it that) might be kept decently hidden. + +For instance, he would not have to tell her how, as a boy in Chicago, he +had learned to make strange use of those clever, nervous hands of his, +which she had lovingly praised as "sensitive and artistic." He could +almost see the girl shudder and grow pale at hearing how proud he had +been at sixteen of being admitted to friendship with a "swell mobsman" +fascinating as any "Raffles" of fiction; how it had amused the fellow to +teach him a deft and delicate touch, beginning his lessons with the game +of jack-straws, in which he was given prizes if he could separate the +whole stack, one straw from another, without disturbing the balance of +the pile. + +It would gain him no credit in Annesley's eyes if he should assure her +that, though he knew how to pick pockets--none better--he had somehow +never cared to put his skill in practice, but had always preferred, +leaving that part of the industry to others. No excuse could help him +with her, and he was glad she need not know all the ways in which he had +served the eccentric friend and employer with whose interests he had been +associated more or less since his twenty-fifth year. + +How disgusting would seem to Anita the inside history of the _Monarchic_ +episode, upon which he had rather prided himself until love for her had +begun making subtle changes in his view of life. He and old Paul Van +Vreck had laughed together at the patent lock on which the agent +depended--a lock invented by the retired member of the firm himself, +and followed by a second invention, even more clever: a little instrument +designed to open a door in spite of it. + +There had been the drug, too, which leaving no odour behind, had the same +effect as chloroform, and "took" even more quickly. Paul Van Vreck had +read of certain experiments made by a professor of chemistry in Tours, +had gone to France to see the man, had bought the formula, which had not +yet proved itself entirely successful; had added an ingredient on his own +account, and triumphed. + +These parts of the complicated and well-fitting scheme had seemed +deliciously amusing to Knight in those days; that Van Vreck should use +his secret skill against his own brothers and nephews in the business +he had made; that the great expert should add to his fortune by stealing +from his own firm, or rather, from the great insurance company who would +repay their losses; that in such ways, with such money, he could add +treasures to his famous collection, practically at no expense to himself, +and have besides the exquisite pleasure of laughing in his sleeve at the +world. + +It had all added zest to the work. And Knight had been pleased with some +small inventions of his own, praised by Van Vreck: a smart hiding-place +in the heel of a boot, almost impossible to detect, and another equally +convenient and invisible in the jet standard of Madalena de Santiago's +famous crystal. He had enjoyed the excitement when he and Madalena and +their two assistants, among the other passengers on board ship, had +consented to be searched for the missing jewels. And he had laughed +sneeringly at the credulity of those who believed in Madalena's +trumped-up vision "of the small fair man," the lighted life-preserver +dropped into the sea at night, and the yacht which sent out a boat to +pick it up. + +For that other vision her crystal had supplied after the robbery in +Portman Square he was not responsible; but it was he who had suggested +the "pictures" for her to see on shipboard. + +He hated the recollection now. Even Annesley could not think it more +contemptible than he did. + +Still worse was the remembrance of Mrs. Ellsworth's latchkey, the keeping +of which had been accidental at first. Afterward he had gaily regarded +its possession as a gift from Providence. The way to Ruthven Smith's +house was made clear by it; and better still, through it the dragon could +be punished for years of cruelty to the captive princess. "Char" had been +the man to whom fell the honour of bestowing the punishment, and leaving +a missive from the princess's rescuer. + +Knight writhed in spirit as he wondered whether the princess guessed the +fate of the key. + +He wondered also if she asked herself what part he had had in the +disappearance of the Valley House heirlooms. She would loathe him more +intensely, if possible, could she know how her presence with him on that +public "show day" had helped to cloak with respectability his secret +mission. How mean he had been in distracting her attention from the two +Fragonards and from the cabinets containing the miniatures and the carved +Chinese gods of jade while he "marked" the prizes for the eyes of his two +assistants. How unsuspicious and happy the girl had been, trusting him +utterly, while behind her back he manipulated the diamond--the useful +diamond--he always carried for such purposes! + +Even then he had the grace to be ashamed of himself for disloyalty, +though not for dishonesty, as deftly the diamond cut the glass faces of +the cabinets directly opposite the miniatures and the Buddha meant to +enrich Paul Van Vreck's secret collection. He had been glad to hurry his +wife away, and let the eager pair of "tourists" crowding on his heels +finish the work he had begun. + +It seemed to Knight, as his thoughts travelled heavily along the past, +that no other woman but Annesley Grayle, this fragile white rose that +had freely given its sweetness, could have turned him from the vow of +vengeance for his parents' fate which as a boy he had sworn against the +world. Day by day, week by week, month by month, the fragrance of the +white rose had so changed him that looking back at himself, he saw a +stranger. + +Had it not been for certain engagements made with Paul Van Vreck and +others--engagements which had to be kept because there is honour among +thieves--that "den" of his in Portman Square would long ago have been +shut to his "at home" day visitors. No more "business" would have been +done on those or any premises; this party of Easter guests would not have +been invited to Valley House; and the Malindore diamond, sleeping away +its secret on Annesley's breast, would still be guarding his secret, too. + +While the others were at church she had sent him the diamond by +Parker--the blue diamond, and the rose sapphire; her engagement ring +also; the pearls he had given her the day before their marriage, and all +his other gifts (except the wedding ring), which had not been stolen on +the night when the Annesley-Setons' silver went. + +It had been a blow to open the box brought to his room by the maid +without a word of explanation--no lighter because it was deserved. It was +only less severe than had the wedding ring been with the rest. + +And perhaps, Knight reflected, it would have been there had Annesley +known of another trick played upon her: those cleverly "reconstructed" +pearls, gleaming ropes of them, and paste diamonds added to her +collection only for the purpose of disappearing in the "burglary." A +hateful trick, but he had believed it necessary at the time, while +despising it. + +Well, he was punished for everything at last--everything vile he had done +and thought in his whole life; even those things the White Rose did not +know! + +He was young still, but he felt old--old in sin and old in hopelessness; +for youth cannot exist in a heart deprived of hope. It seemed to Knight +that his heart had been deprived of hope for years, yet suddenly he +recalled the fact that a few moments before--up to the time when he had +begun counting his sins one by one, like the devil's rosary--he had been +thinking with something akin to hope of the future. + +"What if, after all----" he began to ask himself. + +But stumbling unseeingly from avenue to path, and path to lawn, he had +wandered near the house. + +By what seemed to him a strange coincidence he had come to a standstill +almost on the spot where he had stood last night when Annesley, at her +window, called him in. + +She had loved him then! She had called him in to be forgiven. But her +forgiveness, divine as it was, white and wide-winged as the flight of a +dove--had not been wide enough to cover his guilt. + +What a ghastly difference between last night and this! It was right that +the face of the moon, so bright then, should be veiled with ragged black +clouds. And yet, what if---- + +The man's eyes strained through the darkness of that dark hour before the +dawn. + +"If her window is uncurtained, I'll take it as a good omen," he said. + +Noiselessly his feet trod the short, wet grass, going nearer to the +shadowed loggia to make sure.... + +The curtains were drawn closely, and the window was shut. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +DESTINY AND THE WALDOS + + +After the cablegram came, calling them to America, it took the Nelson +Smiths an incredibly short time to wind up their affairs and to break +the ties--many and intricate as the clinging tendrils of a vine--which +attached them to England. + +Of course, as their friends pointed out, it wasn't as if they had +had a home of their own. Luckily for them--unluckily for the +Annesley-Setons--they had taken the Portman Square house only month +by month. And in Devonshire they had been but paying--dearly +paying!--guests, as the world surmised. + +Everyone protested that they would be dreadfully missed, and begged to +know their plans, and whether Mr. Nelson Smith's business on the other +side (something to do with mines, wasn't it?) would not be finished, so +that they might come back in time for Henley and Cowes? + +But the American millionaire's answers were vague. He couldn't tell. He +could only hope. And his manner, unflatteringly, was indifferent. It was +Mrs. Nelson Smith who seemed depressed; "a changed girl," Constance said, +"from the moment that cable message arrived at Valley House." + +Connie thought, and mentioned her thought to others: very likely the +truth was that Nelson Smith had lost money. In contradiction to this +theory he was known to have given generously to charities just before +starting; not those queer, new-fangled societies he had tried to bolster +up while he was in London, but hospitals and orphan asylums, and +organizations of that sort which opened their mouths wide. + +Still, nobody could say for a certainty how much he gave, and it was +argued that Lady Annesley-Seton was sure to know more than most people +about Nelson Smith's private affairs. The story of possible money losses +ran about and grew rapidly, healing regrets for his absence. Soon the +pair dropped out of their late friends' conversation as a subject of +living interest. + +It was much the same with the Countess de Santiago. Whether her plans +were affected by those of the Nelson Smiths, nobody knew; and she said +that they were not. But about the time that their departure for America +was decided upon, Madalena had a sharp illness. It was, she wrote +Constance (who made inquiries, fearing something contagious), an unusual +form of neuralgia, from which she had suffered before. The only doctor +who had ever been able to relieve her pain lived in San Francisco, and +in San Francisco she must seek him. + +She had at first an idea of sailing on the same ship with the Nelson +Smiths; but for a reason which she did not explain, she changed her mind +the day after making it up, and engaged a cabin on a boat which started a +week earlier. + +She was missed, also, for a while. But then it was remembered that the +crystal visions had been mysteriously more favourable for those who +included the Countess in their nicest parties than for those who asked +her to their second best. Little malicious digs which she had given were +recalled, and those who had thought her wonderful when in their midst +began to doubt her powers. + +"Rather theatrical, don't you think?" said the Duchess of Peebles. "It's +more satisfactory to go to a woman you can pay with money and not +invitations." + +So Madalena was not mourned for long; and the Annesley-Setons were +fortunate enough to replace their lost American millionaire with one from +Australia. He was old, and his wife was fat; but you can't have +everything. + + * * * * * + +The Nelson Smiths took passage not on one of the great floating palaces +patronized by millionaires, but on an obscure, cheap little ship, which +bore out the gossip about the man's losses. As a matter of fact, however, +they chose that way of going by Annesley's desire. It would have been +Knight's way to vanish in a blaze of glory, as the setting sun plunges +behind the horizon after a gorgeous day. + +"I want to go on a ship," she said, "which none of the people we know +have ever heard of. I couldn't bear to come across anyone I ever met +before." + +But, as it turned out, she was forced to bear what she had thought +unbearable. At the top of the gangway as she went on board, a slightly +shrill voice called out, "Why, how _do_ you do! Who would ever have +thought of meeting you two expensive creatures on board _this_ tub?" + +With a sinking heart Annesley recognized a Mrs. Waldo, an American woman +(there was a husband in attendance) whom she and Knight had met during +their honeymoon at the Knowle Hotel. The pair had been so friendly and +kind that the Nelson Smiths had asked them to Portman Square more than +once during the three gay months which followed. + +But it was cruel, thought Annesley, that fate should bring them together +again now, just when she and the man she had married were at the parting +of the ways. + +Little had the girl dreamed when she first conceived a mild fancy for the +pretty, smiling woman and her silent, humorous husband, that the pair +were destined to decide her future--decide it in a way precisely opposite +to that in which she had decided it herself. But so it was to be. + +Mr. and Mrs. Waldo were returning to New York in its waning season +because the decorating of a house they had bought was just completed. +They begged Annesley and Knight to be their first visitors, and the +invitation was given so unexpectedly that Annesley, taken unawares, found +herself at a loss. + +"But I--I mean my husband--is going straight to Texas," she stammered. + +"All the more reason, if he has to run off so far on business, and leaves +you in New York, that you should stay with us, instead of in a hotel," +argued Mrs. Waldo. + +Annesley blushed, and for the first time since Easter eve looked for help +to Knight. But he was silent, and she blundered on, not daring to pause +lest the firm-willed little lady should seal her to a promise in spite of +herself. + +"You're very kind, and it would be delightful," she hurried along, "but I +didn't mean that I was to stop in New York. I----" + +"Oh, you are going together!" Mrs. Waldo caught her up. "I didn't +understand. Well, I'm sorry for our sakes. But couldn't you spare us two +or three days before you start?" + +"I--am afraid we must wait for another time," said Annesley. "My husband +has business. He can't waste a day----" + +"Surely you won't turn your back on New York the day you arrive, the +first time you've ever seen it!" cried the New York woman. "Why, it's +sacrilege! You must stay with us one night. If you could see the +_darling_ new room we'll put you in: old rose and pearl gray, and Cupids +holding up the bed curtains!" + +In desperation the girl stuck to her point, no longer daring to look at +Knight. + +"Indeed we mustn't stay, even for one night. If there's a train the same +afternoon----" + +"There's a lovely train," Mrs. Waldo admitted, unable to resist praising +the American railway system. "We call it the 'Limited.' You can have a +beautiful stateroom, and run right through to Chicago without changing. +If they must go, we'll see them off, won't we, Steve?" with a glance for +the silent husband, "and bring them books and chocolates and flowers?" + +What was left for Annesley to say? Short of informing the kindly couple +that they were not wanted and had better mind their own business, and +refusing to decide upon a train, she could do nothing except thank Mrs. +Waldo. + +"Perhaps," she thought, "they will forget, and things will settle +themselves between now and then. Or else I shall patch up some excuse." + +When the invitation was given, the _Minnewanda_ was still four days +distant from New York; but the four days, though seeming long, were not +long enough to produce the prayed-for inspiration. Mrs. Waldo referred to +the journey whenever she saw Annesley, so there was no hope of her scheme +being forgotten; and the nearer loomed the new world, the more clearly +the girl was forced to see the thing to which a few hasty words had +committed her. + +She and Knight had staterooms adjoining, with a door between. That was to +save appearances, and it was no one's business that the door was never +opened. In reality, they might as well have had the length of the ship +between their cabins. + +Annesley kept to her own quarters as constantly as her jangled nerves +would allow; but the sea was provokingly smooth, and she proved to be a +good sailor. She felt as if she might become hysterical, and perhaps do +something foolish, if she tried the experiment of shutting herself up +from morning to night. She paced the deck, therefore, and was dimly +grateful to Knight because he seemed always to be in the smoking room +when she took her walks. + +At meals, however, unless she ate in her stateroom, they could not avoid +each other; and again she felt cause for gratitude because Knight had +accepted the Waldos' suggestion that they should take a table for four. +In spite of the Waldos' unwelcome attentions, their society was +preferable--infinitely preferable--to a duet with Knight. + +They talked on such occasions; and the sharpest-eared scandal mongers +could have guessed at nothing strange from their manner. But, save at +these luncheons and these dinners, they scarcely spoke to each other. + +Knight took his cue from Annesley. After the night when he had knelt at +her feet and begged her forgiveness he had never forced himself upon his +wife. He seemed to have a dread of being thought an intruder, and even +withdrew his eyes guiltily if the girl caught him looking at her with the +old wistful gaze to whose mystery she had now a tragic clue. + +Annesley hoped that, before they landed, Knight might make some +opportunity to discuss ways and means of getting out of the dilemma +created by the Waldos. But he never attempted to begin a conversation +with her, and she put off the evil moment from day to day, telling +herself that there was time yet, and he had probably solved the +problem--he, who was a specialist in solving problems. + +Loving the man no longer, her heart seeming to die anew whenever she even +thought of him, there remained still a ghost of her old trust; an almost +resentful confidence that he who was so clever, so hideously clever, +would be capable of overcoming any difficulty. + +"I told him that I'd go with him on the ship, and that then we must +part," she assured herself, lying awake at night, wondering feverishly +what was to happen in New York. "He said we'd see about all that later, +but he must know by the way I act that I haven't changed my mind. He will +have to get me out of the trouble about the train." + +The girl, in mapping the future, had thought of herself as being a +governess for American children. She did not know many things which +governesses ought to know, but if the children were small enough, she +did not see why she mightn't do very well. + +She could sing and play as nine girls out of ten could. She had been told +that she had quite a Parisian accent in French; and as for arithmetic and +geography and other alarming things which children ought to know and +grown-up people forget, one could teach them with the proper books. + +Besides, she had heard that Americans liked to have English governesses +for their children; it was considered "smart." + +She would go to an agent, and it ought to be easy to find a place in the +country or suburbs. It must not be New York, for fear of some chance +meeting with the Waldos. But if worst came to worst, and because of those +everlasting Waldos she had to get into the train with Knight, she would +get out again at the first good-sized place where it stopped. There must +be agencies for governesses and companions in every large town. One would +serve as well as another. + +As for money, she knew that she must have some to go on with until she +could begin to earn. So far she had been forced to let Knight pay her +way, as he said, out of the "good" fund. Her coming with him had been for +his sake, and to spare him from gossip. For herself, she was in no mood +to care what people said. + +But now, in sailing to America as his wife, she had done all that she had +ever promised to do. He would have to arrange things as best he could. + +Somehow the right time did not come to ask him what he intended to do; +for at the table, or if occasionally they were on deck together, they +were never alone. + +The ship docked late in the morning, and Knight was busy with the +custom-house men. It was noon when their luggage had been examined and +could be sent away; and the Waldos, under letter "W," were released at +the same moment that the Nelson Smiths, under "S," were able to escape. + +"Let's have lunch at the dear old Waldorf, our pet place and almost +namesake," proposed Mrs. Waldo. "You _owe_ us that, after all the times +you entertained us in London; and you really see New York in the +restaurant. You've nothing to do till your train goes this afternoon, +and your husband can get your reservations right there in the hotel." + +Annesley's eyes went doubtfully to Knight's, and met a steady look which +seemed to say that he had made up his mind to some course. + +"Very well, we shall be delighted," she said, resignedly. "Shall we meet +at the--Waldorf--is it?--at luncheon time?" + +"Oh, _my_, no!" exclaimed the older woman, radiant in the joy of +home coming. "It'll be lunch time in an hour. You _must_ taxi up to +Sixty-first Street with us, and just _glance_ at the house, or we shall +be _so_ hurt. Then we'll spin you down to the hotel again in no time. I +wish we could feed you at home, but nothing will be in shape there till +to-night." + +There was still no chance for Annesley to ask Knight the long-delayed +question. They saw and duly admired the Waldos' house, and took another +taxi to the hotel, the Nelson Smiths' luggage having been "expressed" +to the Grand Central, to await them. Steve Waldo tried to engage his +favourite table, and Mrs. Waldo suggested that it would be a good moment +to get the reservations. + +Again Annesley's startled glance turned to Knight. Again his eyes +answered with decision. This time there was no longer any doubt in the +girl's mind. The Waldos, persistent to the last, would compel her to +leave New York with her husband. + +But whatever happened she would part with him forever before darkness +fell. "At the first big town," she told herself once more. + +They were at the desired table, which Steve had secured, when Knight +rejoined them, announcing that he had his tickets. + +"I hope you were able to get a nice stateroom?" fussed Mrs. Waldo. "Such +a _long_ journey, and Mrs. Smith's first day in our country!" + +"Yes. Everything satisfactory," said Knight, in the calm way which +Annesley had once admired. + +Mrs. Waldo would have asked more questions if at that moment her eyes had +not lighted upon a couple at an adjacent table. + +"_Well_, of all _things_!" she cried, jumping up to meet a pretty girl +and a spruce young man, who had also jumped up. "George and Kitty Mason! +What a coincidence!" + +There were kissings and handshakings. Then Mr. and Mrs. Mason were +introduced to Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith. They, it seemed, had been +married in the early winter, just as Knight and Annesley had been. And +to add to the strangeness of the coincidence, which drew birdlike +exclamations from Jean Waldo, George and Kitty were starting for Kansas +City that afternoon. They were going by the same train in which the +Nelson Smiths would travel. + +"Why, you'll be together for _two days_!" shrieked Jean. "For goodness' +sake, look at your reservations, and see if you're in the same car!" + +George Mason pulled out his tickets. "We're in a boudoir car all the +way," he said. "We start in one called 'Elena.' After Chicago we're in +'Alvarado.'" Knight followed suit, not ungraciously, though without +enthusiasm. Annesley's heart was tapping like a hammer in her breast. She +felt giddy. There was a mist before her eyes; yet she saw clearly enough +to see that there were two railway tickets, alike in every way, even to +what seemed their extraordinary length. A flashing glance gave her the +name of the last station, at the end. It was in Texas. + +And their two staterooms were also in "Elena" and "Alvarado." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE THIN WALL + + +"How _dared_ he buy a ticket for me all the way to Texas!" Annesley asked +herself. "But I might have known how it would be," she thought. "Why +expect a man like him to keep a promise?" + +Yet she _had_ expected it. She constantly found herself expecting to find +truth and greatness in the man who was a thief--who had been a thief for +half his life. It was strange. But everything about him was strange; and +stranger than the rest was his silent power over all who came near him, +even over herself, who knew now what he was. It would have seemed that +after his confession there would be no further room for disappointment +concerning his character; yet she was disappointed that his "plan," on +which she had been counting, had been nothing more original than to break +his word and "see what she would do." + +After luncheon, when the Waldos and Masons became absorbed for a few +minutes in talk, she turned a look on her husband. "I saw the tickets," +she said. + +"Did you?" he returned, pretending--as she thought--not to understand. + +"You bought one for me to Texas." + +"Of course. Did you think I wouldn't? That would have been poor economy +in the game we've been playing." + +It was her turn to show that she was puzzled. "What do you mean?" + +"You never cared to talk things over. I saw you didn't want to, so I +didn't press. And when this complication about the Waldos came up, I +thought--perhaps I was mistaken--that you--trusted me to do the best +I could." + +"Yes. That's why I expected you not to get me a ticket to Texas." + +"How far _did_ you expect me to get it?" + +"I--don't know." + +"That's just it. Neither did I know. I got the whole ticket, so you might +choose your stopping-place." + +"Oh!" Annesley was ashamed, though she was sure she had no need to be. +"That was why!" + +"That was why. Things being as they are, it was well I had your ticket to +show with mine, wasn't it?" + +"I--suppose so. But--what am I to do?" + +"We'll talk of that in the train. There won't be time before, because of +these people, and because I must leave you for two hours before the train +goes." + +"Leave me!" Annesley echoed the words blankly, then hoped that he had not +noticed the dismay in her tone. + +"You will be all right with the Waldos and their friends. I'll explain to +them. There's no time to lose. I must go off at once." + +Annesley was pricked with curiosity to know why and where he must go. She +would not ask. But while he was away and she was being whirled through +the park and along Riverside Drive at lightning speed, "to see New York +in a hurry," her thoughts were with her husband, imagining fantastic +things. + +"My mind is like a ghost," she thought, bitterly, "haunting what once it +loved. It seems doomed to follow wherever he goes, whatever he does. But +it will be different when we're parted. I shall escape in soul and body. +I shall have my own life to live." + +"That wonderful Italian house," Mrs. Waldo was saying, as the taxi slowed +down for one of her lectures, "is Paul Van Vreck's New York home. They +say it's a museum from garret to cellar (not that there _is_ a garret!), +and I believe it's a copy of some palazzo in Venice. It's shut up now; +perhaps he's in Florida, or Egypt, where he--but look, somebody's coming +out--why, Mrs. Nelson Smith, it's your _husband_! Shall we stop----" + +"No, let's drive on," Annesley begged, anxiously. "My husband knows Mr. +Van Vreck. They have business together. He won't want us." + +The taxi was allowed to go on to the next place of interest. Annesley had +flung herself back in the seat, but she was not sure that Knight hadn't +seen her. She knew what powers of observation his quiet almost lazy +manner could hide. + +This chance meeting took place on the way to the Grand Central Station, +where they met the Masons, and were joined almost at the last moment by +Knight, just as Annesley had begun to wonder if, after all, he were not +coming. + +He was as calm as though there were no haste, and said he had been +delayed in collecting the luggage from the ship. He had a good deal to +say about that luggage; and what with thanks to the Waldos for books and +flowers and chocolates, and their kindness to Annesley, Mrs. Waldo (with +the best intentions) found no chance to mention Paul Van Vreck. + +Annesley had not meant to refer to him, though seeing Knight come out of +his shut-up house had given her a shivering sense of mystery; but when +the train had started, Knight came to the door of her stateroom. + +"There are one or two things I should like to speak to you about, if you +don't mind," he said, in the kind yet distant manner which had replaced +the old lover-like way when they were alone together. + +"Come in," she replied, and added, lowering her voice: "Mr. and Mrs. +Mason are next door." + +"They are too much in love to be thinking about us, or listening," he +answered; and Annesley imagined a ring of bitterness in his tone. "I've +come to talk over plans, but before we begin I want to explain something. +Once you made a guess in connection with Paul Van Vreck. Probably you +think that what you saw confirms it. Of course, the Waldos were telling +you whose house it was; and as luck would have it, I came out at that +instant. + +"Whether there was anything in your guess or not doesn't matter. You're +too sensible to mention it to any one except me. But I can't have you +torturing yourself with the idea that such dealings as you imagine with +Van Vreck are still going on, if they ever did go on. Because I have +faith in your discretion, and because I owe it to you, I'm going to +explain why I went to Van Vreck's house this afternoon--why I was obliged +to go. I knew he would have got back from Florida. I hear from him +sometimes, and I had to tell him that any business I'd ever done for him +was done for the last time, because--I was going to settle down to ranch +life in Texas. + +"Also I handed to him the Malindore diamond. His firm lost it. His firm +has by this time been paid the insurance. It's up to him how to dispose +of the property. + +"That's all I have to say about Van Vreck. I thought in fairness you +ought to know that I didn't keep the diamond. And I thought I might tell +you that my call at Van Vreck's didn't mean entering any new deal." + +"Thank you," Annesley said, stiffly. "I am glad." + +She _was_ glad, yet she wished the man to understand how impersonal was +her gladness; how impossible it was that any atonement could bring them +together again in spirit; how dead was the past which he had slain. And +he did understand as clearly from her few words as if she had preached +him an hour's sermon. + +"Now, for what you are to do," he went on, crisply. "Although you and I +never discussed the situation on board ship, I realized what the Waldos +were letting you in for. I supposed you'd feel that your staying in New +York was out of the question. I bought our tickets to Texas. At the same +time I got a map and a guide-book which gives information about places on +the way and beyond. + +"The Masons being on the train to Kansas City was a new complication. +But it wasn't my fault. And it only means that the game of keeping up +appearances must be played a little farther. + +"Would you like to go to California? If you want to take back your maiden +name and be Miss Grayle--or if you care to have a new name to begin a new +life with, a quite respectable fellow called Michael Donaldson could +introduce you to a few influential people in Los Angeles. No danger of +meeting Madalena de Santiago there, though it's only a day's journey +from San Francisco, where she's very likely arrived by this time. She +has reasons for not liking Los Angeles. In her early days she had +some--er-financial troubles there, and she wouldn't enjoy being reminded +of them." + +"Is Los Angeles farther than El Paso?" Annesley inquired, keeping her +voice steady, though there was a sickly chill in her heart. + +"A good way farther," Knight went on, in the same businesslike tone which +separated him thousands of miles from the Knight she used to know. "Here, +I'll show you how the land lies." + +Opening a map of a western railroad, he drew a little closer to her on +the seat, and pointed out place after place along the black line; told +her when they would arrive at Kansas City, and how they would go on +without change to Albuquerque. + +There, he said, he must take another train for El Paso, and from El Paso +he must go a distance of twenty miles to the ranch, which lay close to +the border of Mexico, on the Rio Grande. + +"But you," he said, quietly, "you can keep straight along in the train +we'll get into at Chicago till you come to Los Angeles. There'll be time +in Chicago to buy your ticket to California, and I can write letters of +introduction. They'll be to good people. You needn't be afraid." + +Yet Annesley _was_ afraid, deathly afraid. Not that Knight's friends +would not be "good people," but of going on alone to an unknown place in +an unknown country. It would not have been so terrible, she thought, to +have stayed in New York--if only the Waldos hadn't interfered. But to +have this man--who, after all, was her one link with the old world--get +out of the train which was hurling them through space and leave her to go +on alone! + +That was a fearful thing. She could not face the thought--at least not +yet. Perhaps she would feel more courageous to-morrow. On the ship she +had slept little. Her nerves felt like violin strings stretched too +tight--stretched to the point of breaking. + +"Does that plan suit you--as well as any other?" Knight was asking. + +"I--can't decide yet," the girl answered; and to keep tears back seemed +the most important thing just then. "It doesn't matter, does it, as I +_must_ go on past Kansas City?" + +"No, it doesn't matter," Knight agreed. "You've plenty of time. I suppose +you'd like me to leave you now, to rest till dinner time? Here's the +guide-book. You might care to look it over." + +But when he had gone Annesley let the book lie unopened on the seat. She +was very tired. She could not think far ahead. Her mind would occupy +itself with the features of the journey, not with her own affairs. + +Everything was strange and new. Even the train was wonderful. She had +thought, in the immense station, that the cars looked like a procession +of splendidly built bungalows each painted a different colour and having +brightly polished metal balconies at the end. And inside, the car was +still like a bungalow, or perhaps a houseboat, with neat little panelled +rooms opening all the way down a long aisle. + +The coffee-coloured porter and maid were delightful. They smiled at her +kindly, and when they smiled it seemed sadder than ever not to be happy. + +The Masons' talk at dinner was disconcerting. They took it for granted +that she and Knight were an adoring newly married couple, like +themselves. Annesley was thankful to escape, and to go to bed in her +little panelled room. + +"To-morrow, when I'm rested, things will be easier," she told herself. + +But to-morrow came and she was not rested; for again she had not slept. + +In Chicago there were hours to wait before train time. The Masons +proposed taking a motor-car to see the sights, and lunching together at +a famous Chinese restaurant. + +At a sign from her, Knight consented. It was better to be with the Masons +than with him alone. After luncheon, however, Knight drew her aside. + +"What about Los Angeles?" he inquired. "Have you decided?" + +Annesley felt incapable of deciding anything, and her unhappy face +betrayed her state of mind. + +"If you'd rather think it over longer," he said, "I can buy your ticket +at Albuquerque." + +"Very well," Annesley replied. She did not remember where Albuquerque +was, though Knight had pointed it out on the map; and she did not care +to remember. All she wanted was not to decide then. + +Knight turned away without speaking. But there was a look almost of hope +in his eyes. Things could not be what they had been; yet they were better +than they might be. + +At Kansas City the Masons bade the Nelson Smiths good-bye. And from that +moment the Nelson Smiths ceased to exist. There were no initials on their +luggage. + +The man kept to his own stateroom. Annesley, alone next door, had plenty +of books to read, parting gifts from the Waldos; but the most engrossing +novel ever written could not have held her attention. The landscape +changed kaleidoscopically. She wondered when they would arrive at +Albuquerque, wondered, yet did not want to know. + +"Would you rather go to the dining car alone, or have me take you?" +Knight came to ask. + +"It's better to go together, or people may think it strange," she said. +Even as she spoke she wondered at herself. The Masons having gone, the +other travellers--strangers whom they would not meet again--were not of +much importance. Yet she let her words pass. And at dinner that evening +she forced herself to ask, "Do we get to Albuquerque to-night?" + +"Not till to-morrow forenoon," Knight informed her casually. He feared +for a moment that she might say she could not wait so long before making +up her mind; but she only looked startled, opened her lips as if to +speak, and closed them again. + +Next day there were no more apple orchards and flat or rolling meadow +lands. The train had brought them into another world, a world unlike +anything that Annesley had seen before. At the stations were flat-faced, +half-breed Indians and Mexicans; some poorly clad, others gaily dressed, +with big straw hats painted with flowers, and green leggings laced with +faded gold. In the distance were hills and mountains, and the train ran +through stretches of red desert sprinkled with rough grass, or cleft with +river-beds, where golden sands played over by winds were ruffled into +little waves. + +Toward noon Knight showed himself at the open door of the stateroom. + +"We'll be in Albuquerque before long now," he announced. "That's where I +change, you know, for Texas. The train stops for a while, and I can get +your ticket for Los Angeles. Those letters of introduction I told you +about are ready. I've left a blank for your name. I suppose you've made +up your mind what you want to do?" + +Some people with handbags pushed past, and Knight had to step into the +room to avoid them. The moment, long delayed, was upon her! + +Annesley remembered how she had put off deciding whether or not to sail +for America with Knight. Now a still more formidable decision was before +her and had to be faced. She glanced up at the tall, standing figure. +Knight was not looking at her. His eyes were on the desert landscape +flying past the windows. + +"What I _want_ to do!" she echoed. "There's nothing in this world that +I want to do." + +"Then"--and Knight did not take his eyes from the window--"why not +drift?" + +"Drift?" + +"Yes. To Texas. Oh, I know! I asked you that before, and you said you +wouldn't. But hasn't destiny decided? Would it have sent you these +thousands of miles with me unless it meant you to fight it out on those +lines? You've travelled far enough, side by side with me, to learn that a +man and a woman with only a thin wall between them can be as far apart as +if they were separated by a continent. + +"Now, this minute, you've got to decide. It isn't _I_ who tell you so. +It's fate. Will you go on alone from the place we're coming to, or--will +you try the thin wall?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +THE ANNIVERSARY + + +The girl felt as if some great flood were sweeping her off her feet. She +clutched mechanically at anything to save herself. Knight was there. He +stood between her and desolation; but if he had spoken then--if he had +said he wanted her, and begged her to stay, she would have chosen +desolation. + +Instead, he was silent, his eyes not on her, but on the desert. + +"You--swear you will let me live my own life?" she faltered. + +"I swear I will let you live your own life." + +He repeated her words, as he had repeated the words of the clergyman who +had, according to the law of God, given "this woman to this man." + +The train was stopping. + +Annesley knew that she could not go on alone. + +"I will try--Texas," she said in final decision. + + * * * * * + +Las Cruces Ranch was named, not after the New Mexico town thirty or forty +miles away, but in honour of the Holy Crosses which had rested there one +night, centuries ago, while on a sacred pilgrimage. + +It was a lonely ranch, as far from El Paso in Texas as it was from +the namesake town in New Mexico. Even the nearest village, a huddled +collection of low adobe houses and wooden shacks on the Rio Grande +("Furious River," as the Indians called it), was ten miles distant. Only +the river was near, as the word "near" is used in that land of vast +spaces. At night, if a great wind blew, Annesley fancied she could hear +the voice of the rushing water. + +When she first saw the place where she had bound herself to live, +her heart sank. It seemed that she would not be able to support the +loneliness; for it would be desperately lonely to live there, lacking the +companionship of someone dearly loved. But afterward--afterward she could +no more analyze her feeling for the country than for the man who had +brought her to it. + +Lonely as she was, she was never homesick. Indeed, she had no home to +long for, no one whose love called her back to the old world. And she was +glad that there were no neighbours to come, to call her "Mrs. Donaldson" +and ask questions about England. + +She had nobody except the Mexican servant woman and the cowboys who +stayed with the new rancher when the old one went away. + +Knight had suggested that she should wait in El Paso until he had seen +whether the house was habitable for her, and had made it so, if it were +not already. But Annesley had chosen to begin her new life without delay, +for she was in a mood where hardships seemed of no importance. It was +only when she had to face them in their sordid nakedness that she shrank. + +Yet, after all, what did it matter? If she had stepped into the most +luxurious surroundings she would have been no less unhappy. + +The low house was of adobe, plastered white, but stained and battered +where the walls were not hidden by rank-growing creepers, convolvulus, +and Madeira vines. If the girl had read its description in some book--the +veranda, formed by the steep-sloping roof of the one-story building; the +patio, walled mysteriously in with a high, flower-draped barrier; the +long windows with green shutters--she would have imagined it to be +picturesque. + +But it was not picturesque. It was only shabby and uninviting; at least +that was her impression when she arrived, toward evening, after a long, +jolting drive in a hired motor-car. + +The paintless wooden balustrade and flooring of the veranda were broken. +So also were the faded green shutters. The patio was but a little square +of dust and stringy grass. A few dilapidated chairs stood about, homemade +looking chairs with concave seats of worn cowskin. + +Inside the house there was little furniture, and what there was struck +Annesley as hideous. Nothing was whole. Everything was falling to pieces. +Illustrations cut out of newspapers were pasted on the dirty, whitewashed +walls. + +The slatternly servant, who could speak only "Mex," had got no supper +ready. Knight would let Annesley do nothing, but he deftly helped the +woman to fry some eggs and make coffee. He tried to find dishes which +were not cracked or broken, and could not. + +If he and Annesley had loved each other, or had even been friends, they +would have laughed and enjoyed the adventure. But Annesley had no heart +for laughter. She could only smile a frozen, polite little smile, and say +that it "did not matter. Everything would do very well." She would soon +get used to the place, and learn how to get on. + +When she had to speak to Knight she called him "you." There was no other +name which she could bear to use. He had had too many names in the past! + +As time went on, however, the girl surprised herself by not being able to +hate her home. She found mysteriously lovely colours in the yellow-gray +desert; shadows blue as lupines and purple as Russian violets; high +lights of shimmering, pale gold. + +Spanish bayonets, straight and sharp as enchanted swords which had +magically flowered, lilied the desert stretches, and there were strange +red blossoms like drops of blood clinging to the points of long daggers. +Bird of Paradise plants were there, too, well named for their plumy +splendour of crimson, white, and yellow; and as the spring advanced the +China trees brought memories of English lilacs. + +The air was sweet with the scent of locust blossoms, and along the clear +horizon fantastically formed mountains seemed to float like changing +cloud-shapes. + +The cattle, which Knight had bought from the departing rancher, had their +corrals and scanty pastures far from the house, but the cowboys' quarters +were near, and Annesley never tired of seeing the laughing young men +mount and ride their slim, nervous horses. + +This fact they got to know, and performed incredible antics to excite her +admiration. They thought her beautiful, and wondered if she had lost +someone whom she loved, that she should look so cold and sad. + +These men, though she seldom spoke to any, were a comfort to Annesley. +Without their shouts and rough jokes and laughter the place would have +been gloomy as a grave. + +There was a colony of prairie dogs which she could visit by taking a long +walk, and they, too, were comforting. It was Knight who told her of the +creatures and where to seek them; but he did not show her the way. + +If things had been well between them, the man's anxiety to please her +would have been adorable to Annesley. As soon as he saw the deficiencies +of the house, he went himself to El Paso to choose furniture and pretty +simple chintzes, old-fashioned china and delicate glass, bedroom and +table damask. He ordered books also, and subscribed for magazines and +papers. + +Returning, he said nothing of what he had done, for he hoped that the +surprise might prick the girl to interest, rousing her from the lethargy +which had settled over her like a fog. But her gratitude was perfunctory. +She was always polite, but the pretty things seemed to give her no real +pleasure. + +Knight had to realize that she was one of those people who, when inwardly +unhappy, are almost incapable of feeling small joys. Such as she had were +found in getting away from him as far as possible. + +She practically lived out of doors in the summertime, taking pains to go +where he would not pass on his rounds of the ranch; and even after the +sitting room had been made "liveable" with the new carpet laid by Knight +and the chintz curtains he put up with his own hands, she fled to her +room for sanctuary. + +Knight's search for capable servants was vain until he picked up a +Chinaman from over the Mexican border, illegal but valuable as a +household asset. Under the new régime there was good food, and Annesley +had no work save the hopeless task of finding happiness. + +It was easy to see from the white, set look of her face as the monotonous +months dragged on that she was no nearer to accomplishing that task than +on the day of her arrival. Nothing that Knight could do made any +difference. When an upright cottage piano appeared one day, the girl +seemed distressed rather than pleased. + +"You shouldn't spend money on me," she said in the gentle, weary way that +was becoming habitual. + +"It's the 'good fund' money," Knight explained, hastily and almost +humbly. "It's growing, you know. I've struck some fine investments. And +I'm going to do well with this ranch. We don't need to economize. I +thought you'd enjoy a piano." + +"Thank you. You're very kind," she answered, as if he had been a +stranger. "But I'm out of practice. I hardly feel energy to take it up +again." + +His hopes of what Texas might do for her faded slowly; and even when +their fire had died under cooling ashes, his silent, unobtrusive care +never relaxed. + +Only the deepest love--such love as can remake a man's whole +nature--could have been strong enough to bear the strain. + +But Annesley, blinded by the anguish which never ceased to ache, did +not see that it was possible for such a nature to change. She who had +believed passionately in her hero of romance was stripped of all belief +in him now, as a young tree in blossom is stripped of its delicate bloom +by an icy wind. Not believing in him, neither did she believe in his +love. + +She thought that he was sorry for her, that he was grateful for what she +had done to help him; that perhaps for the time being he intended to +"turn over a new leaf," not really for her sake, but because he had +been in danger of being found out. + +Scornfully she told herself that this pretence at ranching was one of the +many adventures dotted along his career; one act in the melodrama of +which he delighted to be the leading actor. His own love of luxury and +charming surroundings was enough to account for the improvements he +hastened to make at the ranchhouse. + +Anxiously she put away the thought that all he did was for her. She did +not wish to accept it. She did not want the obligation of gratitude. It +even seemed puerile that he should attempt to make up for spoiling her +life by supplying a few easy chairs and pictures and a Chinese cook. + +"He likes the things himself and can't live without them," she insisted. +And it was to show him that he could not atone in such childish ways that +she lived out of doors or hid in her own room. + +At first she locked the door of that room when she entered, thinking of +it defiantly as her fortress which must be defended. But when weeks grew +into months and the enemy never attacked the fortress her vigilance +relaxed. She forgot to lock the door. + +Summer passed. Autumn and then winter came. Knight was a good deal away, +for he had bought an interest in a newly opened copper mine in the Organ +Mountains, and was interested in the development which might mean +fortune. At night, however, he came back in the second-hand motor-car +which he had got at a bargain price in El Paso, and drove himself. + +Annesley never failed to hear him return, though she gave no sign. And +sometimes she would peep through the slats of her green shutters on one +side of the patio at the windows of his bedroom and "office," which were +opposite. It was seldom that his light did not burn late, and Annesley +went to bed thinking hard thoughts, asking herself what schemes of new +adventure he might be plotting for the day when he should tire of the +ranch. + +Often she wondered that her life was not more hateful than it was; for +somehow it was not hateful. Texas, with its vast spaces and blowing gusts +of ozone, had begun to mean more for her than her cold reserve let Knight +guess, more than she herself could understand. + + * * * * * + +On Christmas morning, when she opened her bedroom door, she almost +stumbled over a covered Mexican basket of woven coloured straws. +Something inside it moved and sighed. + +She stooped, lifted the cover, and saw, curled up on a bit of red +blanketing, a miniature Chihuahua dog. It had a body as slight and +shivering as a tendril of grapevine; a tiny pointed face, with a high +forehead and immense, almost human eyes. + +At sight of her a thread of tail wagged, and Annesley felt a warm impulse +of affection toward the little creature. Of course it was a present from +Knight, though there was no word to tell her so; and if the dog had not +looked at her with an offer of all its love and self she would perhaps +have refused to accept it rather than encourage the giving of gifts. + +But after that look she could not let the animal go. Its possession made +life warmer; and it was good to see it lying in front of her open fire of +mesquite roots. + +She had no Christmas gift for Knight. + +He had made, soon after their coming to the ranch, a cactus fence round +the house enclosure; and seeing the dry ugliness of the long, straight +sticks placed close together, Annesley disliked and wondered at it. At +last she questioned Knight, and complained that the bristly barrier was +an eyesore. She wished it might be taken down. + +"Wait till spring," he answered. "It isn't a barrier; it's an allegory. +Maybe when you see what happens you'll understand. Maybe you won't. It +depends on your own feelings." + +Annesley said no more, but she did not forget. She thought, if her +understanding of the allegory meant any change of feeling which the man +might be looking for in her, she would never understand. She hated to +look at the line of stark, naked sticks, but they, and the "allegory" +they represented, constantly recurred to her mind. + +One day in spring she noticed that the sticks looked less dry. Knob-like +buds had broken out upon them, the first sign that they were living +things. It happened to be Easter eve, and she was restless, full of +strange thoughts as the yellow-flowering grease-wood bushes were full of +rushing sap. + +A year ago that night her love for her husband had died its sudden, +tragic death. In the very act of forgiveness, forgiveness had been +killed. + +Knight had gone off early that morning in his motor-car, the poor car +which was a pathetic contrast to the glories of last year in England. He +had gone before she was up, and had mentioned to the Chinese cook that he +might not be back until late. + +"That means after midnight," she told herself; and since she was free +as air, she decided to take a long walk in the afternoon, as far as the +river. It seemed that if she stayed in the house the thought of life as +it might have been and life as it was would kill her on this day of all +other days. + +"I wish I could die!" she said. "But not here. Somewhere a long way off +from everyone--and from _him_." + +As she passed the cactus fence the buds were big. + +Across the river, where the water flowed high and wide just then, lay +Mexico. Annesley had never been there, though she could easily have gone, +had she wished, from the ranch to El Paso, and from El Paso to the queer +old historic town of Juarez. But she could not have gone without Knight, +and there was no pleasure in travelling with him. + +Besides, there was trouble across the border, and fierce fighting now and +then. There had been some thievish raids made by Mexicans upon ranches +along the river not many miles away, and that reminded her how Knight had +remarked some weeks ago that she had better not go alone as far as the +river bank. + +"It isn't likely that anything would happen by day," he said, "but you +might be shot at from the other side." Annesley was not afraid, and there +was a faint stirring of pleasure in the thought that she was doing +something against his wish on this anniversary. Deliberately, she sat +alone by the river, waiting for the pageant of sunset to pass; and when +she reached home the moon was up, a great white moon that turned the +waving waste of pale, sparse grasses to a silver sea. + +She had taken sandwiches and fruit with her, telling the cook that she +would want no dinner when she came back. Away in the cow-punchers' +quarters there was music, and she flung herself into a hammock on the +veranda, to rest and listen. + +There was a soft yet cool wind from the south, bringing the fragrance of +creosote blossoms, and it seemed to the girl that never had she seen such +white floods of moonlight, not even that night a year ago at Valley +House. + +Even the sky was milk-white. There were no black shadows anywhere, only +dove-gray ones, except under the veranda roof. Her hammock was screened +from the light by one dark shadow, like a straight-hung curtain. Save for +the music of a fiddle and men's voices, the silver-white world lay silent +in enchanted sleep. + +Then suddenly something moved. A tall, dark figure was coming to the +veranda. It paused at the cactus fence. + +Could it be Knight, home already and on foot? No, it was a woman. + +She walked straight and fast and unhesitating to the veranda, where she +sat down on the steps. + +Annesley raised herself on her elbow, and peered out of the concealing +shadow. Who could the woman be? It was on the tip of her tongue to call, +"Who are you?" when a sudden lifting of the bent face under a drooping +hat brought it beneath the searchlight of the moon. + +The woman was the Countess de Santiago, and the moon's radiance so lit +her dark eyes that she seemed to look straight at Annesley in her +hammock. The girl's heart gave a leap of some emotion like fear, yet not +fear. She did not stop to analyze it, but she knew that she wished to +escape from the woman; and an instant's reflection told her that she +could not be seen if she kept still. + +She began to think quickly, and her thoughts, confused at first, +straightened themselves out like threads disentangled from a knot. + +The woman had marched up to the veranda with such unfaltering certainty +that it seemed she must have been there before. Perhaps she had arrived +while the mistress of the house was out, and had been walking about the +place, to pass away the time. + +"But she hasn't come to see me," the girl in the hammock thought. "She +has come to see Knight. It's for him she is waiting." + +Anger stirred in Annesley's heart, anger against Knight as well as +against Madalena. + +"Has _he_ written and told her to come?" she asked herself. "Does she +think she can stay in this house? No, she shall not! I won't have her +here!" + +She was half-minded to rise abruptly and surprise the Countess, as the +Countess had surprised her; to ask why she had come, and to show that she +was not welcome. But if Madalena were here at Knight's invitation she +would stay. There would be a scene perhaps. The thought was revolting. +Annesley lay still; and in the distance she heard the throbbing of a +motor. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +THE ALLEGORY + + +Annesley knew that Knight was in the habit of coming home that way, in +order not to disturb her with the noise of the car if she had gone to +bed. If he were bringing parcels from the little mining town, he drove to +the house, left the packets, and ran the auto to a shanty he had rigged +up for a garage. + +A few seconds later the small open car came into sight, and Madalena +sprang up, waving a dark veil she had snatched off her hat. She feared, +no doubt, that the man might take another direction and perhaps get into +the house by some door she did not know before she could intercept him. +From a little distance the tall figure standing on the veranda steps must +have been silhouetted black against the white wall of the house, clearly +to be seen from the advancing motor. + +Quick as a bird in flight the car sped along the road, wheeled on to the +stiff grass, and drew up close to the veranda steps. + +"Good heavens, Madalena!" Annesley heard her husband exclaim. "I thought +it was my wife, and that something had gone wrong." + +The surprise sharpening his tone did away with the doubt in the mind of +the hidden listener. She had said to herself that the woman was here by +appointment, and that this hour had been chosen because the meeting was +to be secret. + +"I wanted you to think so, and to come straight to this place," returned +the once familiar voice. "Don, I've travelled from San Francisco to see +you. Do say you are glad!" + +"I can't," the man answered. "I'm not glad. You tried to ruin me. You +tried in a coward's way. You struck me in the back. I hoped never to see +you again. How did you find me?" + +"I've known for a long time that you were in Texas," said Madalena. "Lady +Annesley-Seton and I kept up a correspondence for months after you--sent +me away so cruelly, in such a hurry, believing hateful things, though you +had no proof. She wrote that 'Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith' would probably +never come back to England to settle, as she'd heard from a Mrs. Waldo +that they'd gone to live in Texas. She asked if I knew whether 'Nelson +Smith' had lost his money. I forgot to answer that question when I +answered the letter. But when she said 'Texas' I felt sure you must be +somewhere in this part. I remembered your telling me about the ranch that +consumptive gambler left to you on the Mexican frontier." + +"What a fool I was to tell you!" Knight exclaimed, roughly. + +The words and his way of flinging them at her were like a box on the ear; +and Annesley, lying in her hammock, heard with a thrill of pleasure. She +was ashamed of the thrill, and ashamed (because suddenly awakened to the +realization) that she was eavesdropping. + +But it seemed impossible that she should break in upon this talk and +reveal her presence. She felt that she could not do it; though, searching +her conscience, she was not sure whether she clung to silence because it +was the lesser of two evils or because she longed with a terrible longing +to know whether these two would patch up their old partnership. + +"If you knew why I have come all these miles, maybe you would not be so +hard," Madalena pleaded. + +"That I can't tell until I do hear," said Knight, dryly. + +"I am going to explain," she tried to soothe him. "A great thing has +happened. I can be rich and live easily all the rest of my years if I +choose. But--I wanted to see you before deciding. + +"I arrived in El Paso yesterday, and went to the Paso del Norte Hotel, to +inquire about you. I was almost certain you would have taken back your +own name, because I knew you used to be known by it when you stayed in +Texas. I soon found out that I'd guessed right. I heard you'd stopped at +that hotel last year on the way to your ranch. I hired a motor-car and +came here to-day; but I didn't let the man bring me to the house. I +didn't want to dash up and advertise myself. + +"I questioned some of your cowmen. They said you'd gone off, and would be +getting back at night in your automobile, not earlier than ten and maybe +a good deal later. So I waited. The car I hired is a covered one, and I +sat in it, a long way from the house out of sight behind a little rising +of the land. Perhaps you call it a hill." + +"We do," said Knight. + +"I brought some food and wine. The chauffeur's there with the car now. He +has cigarettes, and doesn't mind if we stay all night." + +"I mind," Knight cut her short. "You can't stay all night. The road's +good enough with such a moon for you to get back to El Paso. You'd better +start so as to reach there before she sets." + +"Wait till you hear why I've come before you advise me to hurry!" the +Countess protested. "There's no danger of our being disturbed, is there? +Where is your wife?" + +"In bed and asleep, I trust." + +"I'm glad. Then will you sit on the top of these steps in this heavenly +moonlight and let me tell you things that are important to me? Perhaps +you may think they are important to you as well. Who knows?" + +"I know. Nothing you can have to say will be important to me. I won't sit +down, thank you. I've been sitting in my car for hours. I prefer to +stand." + +"Very well. But--how hard you are! Even now, you won't believe I was +innocent of that thing you accused me of doing?" + +"I think now what I thought then. You were not innocent, but guilty. You +were just a plain, ordinary sneak, Madalena, because you were jealous +and spiteful." + +"It is not true! Spiteful against _you_! It was never in my heart to lie. +Jealous, perhaps. But that is not to say I wrote the letter you believe +I wrote. You didn't give me time to try and prove I did not write the +letter. You accused me brutally. You ordered me out of England, with +threats. I obeyed because I was heartbroken, not because I was afraid." + +"Why trouble to excuse yourself?" he asked. "It's not worth the time it +takes. If you've come to tell me anything in particular, tell it, and +let's make an end." + +"I have an offer of marriage from a millionaire," the Countess announced +in a clear, triumphant tone. + +"Which no doubt you accepted, not to say snapped at." + +"Not yet. I put him off, because I wanted to see you before I answered." + +"You flatter me!" Knight laughed, not pleasantly. "If you've come from +San Francisco to get my advice on that subject, I can give it while you +count three. Make sure of the unfortunate wretch before he changes his +mind." + +"Ah, if I could think that your harshness comes from just a +little--_ever_ so little, jealousy!" Madalena sighed. "He won't change +his mind. There is no danger. He is old, and I seem a young girl to him. +He adores me. He is on his knees!" + +"Bad for rheumatism!" + +"He thinks I am the most wonderful creature who ever lived. I met him +through my work. He came from a friend of his who told him about my +crystal, and about me, too." + +"You are still working the crystal?" + +"But, of course! It has always given me the path to success. If I marry +this man I shall be able to rest." + +"On your laurels--such as they are!" + +"On his money. He can't live many years." + +"You are an affectionate fiancée!" + +"I am not a fiancée yet. Not till I give my answer. And that depends on +you.... Oh, Don, surely you must be sick of this--this existence, for it +is not life! I know you are angry with me, but you can't hate me really. +It is not possible for a man with blood in his body to hate a woman who +loves him as I love you. + +"I have tried to get over it. At first I thought I was succeeding. But +no, when the reaction came, I found that I cared more than ever. We were +born for each other. It must be so, for without you I am only half alive. +I haven't come for your advice, Don, but to make you an offer. Oh, not an +offer of myself. I should not dare, as you feel now. And it is not an +offer from me only; it is from a great person who has something to give +which is worth your accepting, even if my love is not!" + +"You've got in touch with _him_, have you?" Knight broke into the rushing +torrent of her words as a man might take a plunge into a cataract. + +"Why not?" she answered. "I didn't seek him out. It was he who sought +me." + +"You don't know how to speak the truth, Madalena! You said you found me +through Lady Annesley-Seton hearing from Mrs. Waldo, whereas you wrote to +Paul Van Vreck." + +"You do me injustice--always! I _did_ hear from Constance. Then I--merely +ventured to write and ask Mr. Van Vreck if he kept up communication with +you, and----" + +"You said in your letter to him that you knew where I was, and gave him +to understand that we were in touch with each other, or he would have let +out nothing." + +"He has written and told you this!" She spoke breathlessly, as if in +fear. + +"Ah, you give yourself away! No, I haven't heard from Van Vreck since I +saw him in New York, and thought I convinced him that my working days +for him were over. I simply guessed--knowing you--what you would do." + +"I may have mentioned Texas," Madalena admitted. "I supposed he knew +where you were. I couldn't have told him, because I didn't know. But he +wrote and suggested I should use my influence with you to reconsider your +decision. Those were his words." + +"How much has he paid you for coming here?" + +"Nothing. As if I would take money for coming to _you_!" + +"You have taken it for some queer things, and will again if you don't +settle down to private life with your millionaire.... It's no use, +Madalena. Go back to San Francisco. Send in your bill to Van Vreck. Tell +him there's nothing doing. And make up your mind to marriage." + +"But, Don, you haven't heard what he offers." + +"It can't be more than he offered me himself when I saw him in New +York----" + +"It is more. He says that particularly. He raises the offer from last +time. It is _three times_ higher! Think what that means. Oh, Don, it +means life, real life, not stagnation! I would give up safety and a +million to be with you--as your partner again, your humble partner. + +"Here, on this bleak ranch, it is like death--a death of dullness. I know +what you must be suffering because you are obstinate, because you have +taken a resolve, and are determined not to break it. You are afraid it +will be weakness to break it. There can be no other reason. + +"I have asked questions about your life here. I have learned things. I +know _she_ is cold as ice. If you stay you will degenerate. You will +become a clod. + +"Leave this hideous gray place. Leave that woman who treats you like a +dog. Let the ranch be hers. Send her money. You will have it to spare. +She can divorce you, and you will be freed forever from the one great +mistake you ever made. As for me----" + +"As for you--be silent!" The command struck like a whiplash. "You are not +worthy to speak of 'that woman,' as you call her. If I did what you +deserve, I'd send you off without another word--turn my back on you and +let you go. But--" he drew in his breath sharply, then went on as if he +had taken some tonic decision--"I want you to understand why, if Paul Van +Vreck offered me _all_ his money, and you offered me the love of all the +women on earth with your own, I shouldn't be tempted to accept. + +"It's because of 'that woman'--who is my wife. It may be true that she +treats me like a dog, for she wouldn't be cruel to the meanest cur. But +I'd rather be her dog than any other woman's master. + +"So you see now. It's come to that with me. I won her love and +married her for my own advantage. I lost her love because she found me +out--through you. Mild justice that, perhaps! But all the same, getting +her for mine _has_ been for my advantage. In a different way from what I +planned, but ten thousand times greater. Though she's taken her love from +me, she's given me back my soul. Nothing can rob me of that so long as I +run straight. + +"And I tell you, Madalena, this ranch, where I'm working out some kind of +expiation and maybe redemption, _is_ God's earth for me. _Now_ do you +understand?" + +For an instant the woman was silent. Then she broke into loud sobbing, +which she did not try to check. + +"You are a fool, Don!" she wept. "A fool!" + +"Maybe. But I'm not the devil's fool as I used to be. Don't cry. You +might be heard. Come. It's time to go. We've said all we have to say to +each other except good-bye--if that's not mockery." + +Madalena dried her tears, still sobbing under her breath. + +"At least take me to the automobile," she said. "Don't send me off alone +in the night. I am afraid." + +"There's nothing to be afraid of," Knight answered, the flame of his +fierceness burnt down. "But I'll go with you, and put you on the way back +to El Paso. Come along!" + +As he spoke, he started, and Madalena was forced to go with him, forced +to keep up with his long strides if she would not be left behind. + +When they had gone Annesley lay motionless, as though she were under +a spell. The man's words to the other woman wove the spell which bound +her, listening as they repeated themselves in her mind. Again and again +she heard them, as they had fallen from his lips. + +His expiation--perhaps his redemption--here on his bit of "God's +earth" ... "It may be true that she treats me like a dog.... But I'd +rather be her dog than any other woman's master...." And this was Easter +eve, a year to the night since his martyrdom began! + +Something seemed to seize Annesley by the hand and break the bonds that +had held her, something strong although invisible. She sat up with a +faint cry, as of one awakened from a dream, and slipped out of the +hammock. There was a dim idea in her mind that she must go along the road +where they had gone, so as to meet Knight on his way back. She did not +know what she should say to him, or whether she could say anything at +all; but the something which had taken her hand and snatched her out +of the hammock dragged her on and on. + +At first she obeyed the force blindly. + +"I must see him! I must see him!" The words spoke themselves in her head. +But when she had hurried out of the enclosure walled in by the cactus +hedge, the brilliant moonlight seemed to pierce her brain, and make a +cold, calm appeal to her reason. + +"You can't tell him what you have heard," it said. "He would be +humiliated. Or"--the thought was sharp as a gimlet--"what if he _saw_ +you, and knew you were listening? What if he talked just for effect? He +is so clever! He is subtle enough for that. And wouldn't it be more +_like_ the man, than to say what he said _sincerely_?" + +She stopped, and was thankful not to see her husband returning. There was +time to go back if she hurried. And she must hurry! If he had seen her in +her hammock, and made that theatrical attempt to play upon her feelings, +he would laugh at his own success if she followed him. And if he had not +seen her, and were in earnest, it would be best--indeed the only right +way--not to let him guess that the scene on the veranda steps had had a +witness. + +Annesley turned to fly back faster than she had come. But passing the +cactus hedge her dress caught. It was as if the hedge sentiently took +hold of her. + +She bent down to free the thin white material; and suddenly colour blazed +up to her eyes in the rain of silver moonlight. The buds had opened since +she noticed them last. + +No longer was the hedge a grim barricade of stiff, dark sticks. Each +stalk had turned into a tall, straight flame of lambent rose. From a dead +thing of dreary ugliness it had become a thing of living beauty. + +Knight's allegory! + +He had said, perhaps she might understand when the time came; and perhaps +not. + +She _did_ understand. But she had not faith to believe that the miracle +could repeat itself in life--her life and Knight's. She shut her eyes to +the thought, and when she had freed her dress ran very fast to the house. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +THE THREE WORDS + + +Knight was generally far away long before Annesley was up in the morning, +and often he did not come in till evening. She thought that on Easter +Day, however, he would perhaps not go far. She half expected that he +would linger about the house or sit reading on the veranda; and she could +not resist the temptation to put on one of the dresses he had liked in +England. + +It was a little _passé_ and old-fashioned, but he would not know this. +What he might remember was that she had worn it at Valley House. + +And the wish to say something, as if accidentally, about the flaming +miracle of the cactus hedge was as persistent in her heart as the desire +of a crocus to push through the earth to the sunshine on a spring +morning. She did not know whether the wish would survive the meeting with +her husband. She thought that would depend as much upon him as upon her +mood. + +But luncheon time came and Knight did not appear. + +Annesley lunched alone, in her gray frock. Even on days when Knight was +with her, and they sat through their meals formally, it was the same as +if she were alone, for they spoke little, and each was in the habit of +bringing a book to the table. + +But she had not meant it to be so on this Easter Day. Even if she did not +speak of the blossoming of the cactus, she had planned to show Knight +that she was willing to begin a conversation. To talk at meals would be +a way out of "treating him like a dog." + +The pretty frock and the good intention were wasted. Late in the +afternoon she heard from one of the line riders whom she happened to see +that something had gone wrong with a windmill which gave water to the +pumps for the cattle, and that her husband was attending to it. + +"He's a natural born engineer," said the man, whose business as "line +rider" was to keep up the wire fencing from one end of the ranch to the +other. "I don't know how much he _knows_, but I know what he can _do_. +Queer thing, ma'am! There don't seem to be much that Mike Donaldson +_can't_ do!" + +Annesley smiled to hear Knight called "Mike" by one of his employees. She +knew that he was popular, but never before had she felt personal pleasure +in the men's tributes of affection. + +To-day she felt a thrill. Her heart was warm with the spring and the +miracle of the cactus hedge, and memories of impetuous--_seemingly_ +impetuous--words of last night. + +If she could have seen Knight she would have spoken of his allegory; and +that small opening might have let sunlight into their darkness. But he +did not come even to dinner; and tired of waiting, and weary from a +sleepless night, she went to bed. + +Next morning a man arrived who wished to buy a bunch of Donaldson's +cattle, which were beginning to be famous. He stayed several days; and +when he left Knight had business at the copper mine--business that +concerned the sinking of a new shaft, which took him back and forth +nearly every day for a week. By and by the cactus flowers began to fade, +and Annesley had never found an opportunity of mentioning them, or what +they might signify. + +When she met Knight his manner was as usual: kind, unobtrusive, slightly +stiff, as though he were embarrassed--though he never showed signs of +embarrassment with any one else. She could hardly believe that she had +not dreamed those words overheard in the moonlight. + +Week after week slipped away. The one excitement at Las Cruces Ranch was +the fighting across the border; the great "scare" at El Paso, and the +stories of small yet sometimes tragic raids made by bands of cattle +stealers upon American ranches which touched the Rio Grande. The water +was low. This made private marauding expeditions easier, and the men of +Las Cruces Ranch were prepared for anything. + + * * * * * + +One night in May there was a sandstorm, which as usual played strange +tricks with Annesley's nerves. She could never grow used to these storms, +and the moaning of the hot wind seemed to her a voice that wailed for +coming trouble. Knight had been away on one of his motoring expeditions +to the Organ Mountains, and though he had told the Chinese boy that he +would be back for dinner, he did not come. Doors and windows were closed +against the blowing sand, but they could not shut out the voice of the +wind. + +After dinner Annesley tried to read a new book from the library at El +Paso, but between her eyes and the printed page would float the picture +of a small, open automobile and its driver lost in clouds of yellow sand. + +Why should she care? The man was used to roughing it. He liked +adventures. He was afraid of nothing, and nothing ever hurt him. But she +did care. She seemed to feel the sting of the sharp grains of sand on +cheeks and eyes. + +She was sitting in her own room, as she was accustomed to do in the +evening if she were not out on the veranda--the pretty room which Knight +had extravagantly made possible for her, with chintzes and furnishings +from the best shops in El Paso. On this evening, however, she set both +doors wide open, one which led into the living room, another leading into +a corridor or hall. She could not fail to hear her husband when he came, +even if he left his noisy car at the garage and walked to the house. + +A travelling clock on the mantelpiece--Constance Annesley-Seton's +gift--struck nine. The girl looked up at the first stroke, wondering if +serious accidents were likely to happen in sandstorms; and before the +last note had ended she heard steps in the patio. + +"He has come!" she thought, with a throb of relief which shamed her. But +the step was not like Knight's. It was hurried and nervous; and as she +told herself this there sounded a loud knock at the door. + +There was an electric bell, which Knight had fitted up with his own +hands, but it was not visible at night. No one except herself could hear +this knocking, for the servants' quarters were at the far end of the +bungalow. A little frightened, recalling stories of cattle thieves and +things they had done, Annesley went into the hall. + +"Who is there?" she cried, her face near the closed door, which locked +itself in shutting. If a man's voice--the voice of a stranger--should +reply in "Mex," or with a foreign accent, the girl did not intend to let +him in. A man's voice did reply, but neither in "Mex" nor with a foreign +accent. It said: "My name is Paul Van Vreck. Open quickly, please. I may +be followed." + +Annesley's heart jumped; but without hesitation she pulled back the +latch, and as she opened the door a rush of sand-laden wind wrenched it +from her hand. She staggered away as the door swung free, and there was +just time to see a tall, thin figure slip in like a shadow before the +light of the hanging-lamp blew out. The girl and the newcomer were in the +dark save for a yellow ray that filtered into the hall from her room, but +she saw him stoop to place a bag or bundle on the floor, and then, +pulling the door to against the wind, slammed it shut with a click. + +Having done this, the tall shadow bent to pick up what it had laid down. + +"Thank you, Mrs. Donaldson, for letting me in," said the most charming +voice Annesley had ever heard--more charming even than Knight's. +"Evidently you've heard your husband mention me, or you might have kept +me out there parleying, if you're alone, for these are stirring times." + +"Yes, I--I've heard you mentioned by--many people," the girl answered, +stammering like a nervous child. "Won't you come in--into the living +room? Not the room with the open door. That's mine. It's another, farther +along the hall. I'm sorry my husband's out." + +As she talked she wondered at herself. She knew Van Vreck for a super +thief. He did not steal with his own hands, but he commanded other hands +to steal, and that was even worse. Or she had thought it worse in her +husband's case, and for more than a year she had punished him for his +sins. Yet here she was almost welcoming this man. + +She did not understand why she felt--even without seeing him except as a +shadow--that she would find herself wishing to do whatever he might ask. +It must be, she thought, the influence of his voice. She had heard Paul +Van Vreck spoken of as an old man, but the voice was the voice of +magnetic youth. + +He opened the door of the living room, and, carrying his bundle, +followed her as she entered. There was only one lamp in this room, a tall +reading-lamp with a green silk shade, which stood on a table, its heavy +base surrounded by books and magazines. A good light for reading was +thrown from under the green shade on to the table, but the rest of the +room was of a cool, green dimness; and, looking up with irresistible +curiosity at the face of her night visitor, it floated pale on a vague +background, like a portrait by Whistler. + +It was unnaturally white, the girl thought, and--yes, it _was_ old! But +it was a wonderful face, and the eyes illumined it; immense eyes, though +deepset and looking out of shadowed hollows under level brows black as +ink. Annesley had never seen eyes so like strange jewels, lit from +behind. + +That simile came to her, and she smiled, for it was appropriate that this +jewel expert should have jewels for eyes. They were dark topazes, and +from them gazed the spirit of the man with a compelling charm. + +Under a rolled-back wave of iron-gray hair he had a broad forehead, high +cheekbones, a pointed prominent chin, a mouth both sweet and humorous, +like that of some enchanting woman; but its sweetness was contradicted by +a hawk nose. Had it not been for that nose he would have been handsome. + +"I guessed by the startled tone of your voice, when you asked, 'Who is +there?' that your husband was out," explained the shadow, now transformed +by the light into an extremely tall, extremely thin man in gray +travelling clothes. "I had a moment of repentance at troubling a lady +alone; but, you see, the case was urgent." + +He had carelessly tossed his Panama hat on to the table, but kept the +black bag, which he now held out with a smile. + +"Not a big bag, is it? And so common, it wouldn't be likely to tempt +a thief. But it holds what is worth--if it has a price--about half a +million dollars." + +"Oh!" exclaimed Annesley. She looked horrified; and through the green +gloom the old man read her face. + +"I see!" he said, with a laugh in his young voice. "You have heard the +great secret! That makes another who knows. But I'm not afraid you'll +throw me to the dogs. You wouldn't do that even if you weren't +Donaldson's wife. Being his wife, you could not." + +"My husband has told me no secret about you, none at all," the girl +protested, defending Knight involuntarily. "I beg you to believe that, +Mr. Van Vreck." + +"I do believe it. If there's one thing I pride myself on, it's being a +judge of character. That's why I've made a success of life. You wouldn't +lie, perhaps not even to save the one you love best. I believe that he +did not tell you the secret. Yet I'm certain you know it. I suppose other +discoveries you must have made gave you supernatural intuition. You +guessed." + +Annesley did not answer. Yet she could not take her eyes from his. + +"You needn't mind confessing. But I won't catechize you. I'll take it +for granted that what Donaldson knows you know--not in detail, in the +rough.... In this bag are six gold images set with precious stones. They +are of the time of the Incas, and they've been up till now the most +precious things in Mexico. From now on they will be among the most +precious things in Paul Van Vreck's secret collection. + +"Some weeks ago I hoped that Donaldson would get them for me. He refused, +so I had to go myself. I couldn't trust any one else, though the only +difficulty was getting to Central Mexico with Constitutionals raging on +one side and Federals on the other. A man promised to deliver the goods +to my messenger. I've been bargaining over these things for years. But, +as I said, Don wouldn't go, so I had to do the job myself. You see, Mrs. +Donaldson, your husband is the only honest man I ever came across." + +"Honest!" The exclamation burst from Annesley's lips. + +"Yes. Honest is the word. I might add two others: 'true' and 'loyal.'" +Paul Van Vreck held her with his strange, straight look, commanding, yet +amused. "That is the opinion," he added after a pause, "of a very old +friend. It's worth its weight in--gold images." + +The girl gave him no answer. But the effort of keeping her face under +control made lips and eyelids quiver. + +"May I sit down, Mrs. Donaldson?" Van Vreck asked in a tone which changed +to commonplaceness--if his voice could ever be commonplace. "I'm a +fugitive, and have had a run for my money, so to speak. I'm seeking +sanctuary. Also I came in the hope of trying my eloquence on Donaldson. +But now I've seen you, I will not do that. In future he's safe from me, +I promise you." + +"Oh!" Annesley faltered. And then: "Thank you!" came out, grudgingly. +How astonishing that _she_ should thank Paul Van Vreck, the monster of +wickedness and secrecy she had pictured, for "sparing" her husband--her +husband whom _he_ called loyal, true, and honest; whom she had called in +her heart a thief! + +"Do sit down," she hurried on, hypnotized. "Forgive my not asking you. +I----" + +"I understand," he soothed her. "I've taken advantage of you--sprung +a surprise, as Don would say, and then turned on the tortures of the +Inquisition. Aren't _you_ going to sit? I can't, you know, if you don't." + +"I thought you might like something to eat," the girl stammered. "I could +call our cook----" + +"No, thank you," replied Van Vreck. "I'm peculiar in more ways than one. +I never eat at night. I live mostly on milk, water, fruit, and nuts. +That's why I feel forty at seventy-two. I give out that I'm frail--an +invalid--that I spend much time in nursing homes. This is my joke on a +public which has no business to be curious about my habits. While it +thinks I'm recuperating in a nursing home I--but no matter! That won't +interest you." + +When she had obediently sat down, her knees trembling a little, Van Vreck +drew up a chair for himself, and, resting his arms on the table, leaned +across it gazing at the girl with a queer, humorous benevolence. + +"How soon do you think your husband will come?" he asked, abruptly. + +"I don't know," Annesley replied. "He told our Chinese boy he'd be early. +I suppose the sandstorm has delayed him." + +"No doubt.... And you're worried?" + +"No-o," she answered, looking sidewise at Van Vreck, her face half turned +from him. "I don't think that I'm worried." + +"May I talk to you frankly till Don does come?" the old man asked. + +"Certainly." + +"I'll take you at your word!... Mrs. Donaldson, when your husband called +on me a year ago last spring, in New York, he said nothing about you. I +knew he'd married an English girl of good connections (isn't that what +you say on your side?), and why he thought it would be wise to marry. But +when he informed me that our association was to be ended, that nothing +would induce him to continue it, I read between the lines. I'm sharp at +that! I knew as well as if he'd told me that he'd fallen in love with the +girl, that she'd unexpectedly become the important factor in his life, +and that--she'd found out a secret she'd never been meant to find out: +_his_ secret, and maybe mine. + +"I realized by his face--the look in the eyes, the tone of the voice, or +rather, the tonelessness of the voice--what her finding out meant for +Don. I read by all signs that she was making him suffer atrociously and +I owed that girl a grudge. She'd taken him from me. For the first time a +power stronger than mine was at work; and yet, things being as they were, +my hope of getting him back lay in her." + +"What do you mean?" The question spoke itself. Annesley's lips felt cold +and stiff. Her hands, nervously clasped in her lap, were cold, too, +though the shut-up room had but lately seemed hot as a furnace. + +"I mean, if the girl behaved as I thought she would behave--as I think +you have behaved--he might grow tired of her and the cast-iron coat of +virtue he'd put on to please her. He might grow tired of life on a ranch +if his wife made him eat ashes and wear sack-cloth. That was my hope. +Well, I sent a messenger to find out how the land lay a few weeks ago." + +"The Countess de Santiago!" Annesley exclaimed. + +"He told you?" + +"No, I saw her. I--by accident--(it really was by accident!) I heard +things. He doesn't know--I believe he doesn't know--I was there." + +"Perhaps that's just as well. Perhaps not. But if I were you I'd tell him +when the right time comes. The Countess wrote me she'd had her journey in +vain, and why. She said--spitefully it struck me--that Don was bewitched +by his wife, a cold, cruel creature with ice in her veins, who treated +him like a dog." + +"She said that to you, too?" + +"Yes, she said that. She seemed to gather the impression. But the dog +stuck to his kennel. Nothing _she_ could do would tempt him to budge. So +I decided to call here myself, on the way back from Mexico. I couldn't +delay the trip. A man was waiting for me. And waiting quietly is +difficult in Mexico just now. I got what I wanted, and crammed the lot +into this bag, which cost me at the outside, if I remember, five dollars. +A good idea of mine for putting thieves off the track. They expect sane +men to carry nightgowns and newspapers in such bags. I thought I'd +managed so well that I'd put the gang who follow me about, generally on +'spec,' off the track. + +"I speak Spanish well. I've been passing for a Mexican lawyer from +Chihuahua. But to-day I caught a look from a pair of eyes in a train. I +fancied I'd seen those eyes before--and the rest of the features. Perhaps +I imagined it. But I don't think so. I trust my instinct. I advise you +to! It's a tip. + +"At El Paso I bought a ticket for Albuquerque. The eyes were behind me. +I got into the train. So did Eyes, and a friend with a long nose. Not +into my car, however, so I was able to skip out again as the train was +starting. Not a bad feat for a man of my age! I hope Eyes and Nose, +and any other features that may have been with them, travelled on +unsuspectingly. But I can't be sure. Instinct says they saw my trick +and trumped it. + +"I oughtn't to have come here, bringing danger to your house, Mrs. +Donaldson. But I want to see Don, and I know he is afraid neither of man +nor devil--afraid of nothing in the world except one woman. + +"As for her--well, what I'd heard hadn't prepossessed me in her favour. +I sacrificed her for the safety of my golden images and my talk with Don. +But the sound of your voice behind the shut door broke the picture I'd +made of that young woman. And when I saw you--well, Mrs. Donaldson, I've +already told you I don't intend to exert my influence over your husband, +though to do so was my principal object in coming. Even if I did, I +believe yours would prove stronger. But if I could count on all my old +power over him, I wouldn't use it now I have seen you. + +"I adore myself, and--my specialties. But there must be an unselfish +streak in me which shows in moments like this. I respect and admire it. +You may treat Don like a dog, but he'd never be happy away from you. And +I am fool enough to want him to be happy. This kicked dog of yours, +madame, happens to be the finest fellow I ever knew or expect to know." + +"You say I treat him like a dog!" cried Annesley, roused to anger. +"But how ought I to treat him? He came into my life in a way I thought +romantic as a fairy tale. It was a trick--a play got up to deceive me! +I knew nothing of his life; but because of the faith he inspired, I +believed in him. No one except himself could have broken that belief. I +would not have listened to a word against him. But when he thought I'd +discovered something, the whole story came out. If I hadn't loved him so +much to begin with, and put him on such a high pedestal, the fall +wouldn't have been so great--wouldn't have broken my heart in pieces." + +"But Don gave up everything pleasant in his life, and came down here to +this God-forsaken ranch--a man like Michael Donaldson, with a few hundred +dollars where he'd had thousands--all for you," said Van Vreck, "and he's +had no thought except for you and the ranch for more than a year. Yet +apparently you haven't changed your opinion. By Jove, madame, you must +somehow, through your personality and God knows what besides, have got a +mighty hold on his heart, in the days when you loved him, or he wouldn't +have stood this dog's life, this punishment too harsh for human nature to +bear. Good Lord, how were you brought up? Evidently not as a Christian." + +"My father was a clergyman," said Annesley. + +"There are many clergymen who have got as far from the light as the moon +from the earth. I know more about Christianity myself than some of those +narrow men with their 'cold Christs and tangled Trinities'! That is, I +know all this on principle. I don't practise what I know, but that's my +affair. Did Don ever excuse himself by mentioning the influence I brought +to bear on him when he was almost a boy?" + +"No," breathed Annesley. "He didn't excuse himself at all except to tell +me about his father and mother, and a vow he'd made to revenge them on +society." + +"It was like him not to whine for your forgiveness." + +"He would never whine," the girl agreed. But she remembered that night of +confession when on his knees he had begged her to forgive, to grant him +another chance, and she had refused. He had never asked again. And he had +struggled alone for redemption. + +"I haven't forgotten some early teachings which impressed me," said Paul +Van Vreck. "Christ made a remark about forgiving till seventy times +seven. Did you forgive Donaldson four hundred and eighty-nine times, and +draw the line at the four hundred and ninetieth?" + +"No, I never had anything to forgive him--till that one thing came out. +But it was a very big thing. Too big!" + +"_Too_ big, eh? There was another saying of Christ's about those without +sin throwing the first stone. Of course I'm sure _you_ were without sin. +But you look as if you might have had a heart--once." + +"Oh, I had, I had!" Tears streamed down Annesley's pale face, and she did +not wipe them away. "It's dead now I think." + +"Think again. Think of what the man is--what he's proved himself to be. +He's twice as good now as one of your best saints of the Church. He's +purified by fire. You've got the face of an angel, Mrs. Donaldson, but in +my opinion you're a wicked woman unworthy of the love you've inspired." + +"You speak to me cruelly," the girl said through her tears. "I've been +very unhappy!" + +"Not as unhappy as you've made Don by _your_ cruelty. Good heavens, these +tender girls can be more cruel when they set about punishing us, than the +hardest man! And to punish a fellow like that by making him live in an +ice-house, when you could have done anything with him by a little +kindness! Don't _I_ know that? + +"I'm the sponsor for such sins as Don's committed. He was meant to be +straight. But I got hold of him through an agent, and caught his +imagination when that wild vow was freshly branded on his heart or brain. +I have the gift of fascination, Mrs. Donaldson. I know that better than I +know most things. _You_ feel it to-night, or you wouldn't sit there +letting me tear your heart to pieces--what's left of your heart. And I +have an idea there's a good deal more than you think, if you have the +sense to patch the bits together. + +"I have fascination, and I've cultivated it. Napoleon himself didn't +study more ardently than I the art of winning men. I won Don. I appealed +to the romance in him. I became his hero and--slowly--I was able to make +him my servant. Not much of my money or anything else has ever stuck to +his hands. He's too generous--too impulsive; though I taught him it was +necessary to control his impulses. + +"What he did, he did for love of me, till you came along and lit another +sort of fire in his blood. I saw in one minute, when he called on me, +what had happened to his soul. It's taken you more than a year to see, +though he's lived for you and would have died for you. Great Heaven, +young woman, you ought to be on your knees before a miracle of God! +Instead, you've mounted a marble pedestal and worshipped your own +purity!" + +Annesley bowed her head under a wave of shame. _This_ man, of all others, +had shown her a vision of herself as she was. It seemed that she could +never lift her eyes. But suddenly, into the crying of the wind, a shot +broke sharply; then another and another, till the sobbing wail was lost +in a crackling fusillade. + +The girl leaped to her feet. + +"Raiders!" she gasped. "Or else----" + +Paul Van Vreck sprang up also, his face paler, his eyes brighter than +before. + +"They've come after me," he said. "Clever trick--if they've bribed +ruffians from over the border to cover their ends. The real errand's +here, inside this house." + +Annesley's heart faltered. + +"You must hide," she breathed. "I must save you--somehow." + +"Why should you save _me_?" Van Vreck asked, sharply. "Why not think +about saving yourself?" + +"Because I know Knight would wish to save you," she answered. "I want to +do what he would do.... God help us, they're coming nearer! Take your +bag, and I'll hide you in the cellar. There's a corner there, behind some +barrels. If they break in, I'll say----" + +"Brave girl! But they won't break in." + +"How do you know?" + +"Your husband won't let them. Trust him, as I do." + +"He's not here. Do you think I told you a lie? Thank Heaven he _isn't_ +here, or they'd kill him, and I could never beg him to forgive----" She +covered her face with her hands. + +The old man looked at her gravely. + +"You don't understand what's happening," he said, with a new gentleness. +"Don's out there now, defending you and his home. That's what the +shooting means. Do you think those brutes would advertise themselves with +their guns if they hadn't been attacked?" + +With a cry the girl rushed to the long window, and began to unfasten it, +but Van Vreck caught her hands. + +"Stop!" he commanded. "Don't play the robbers' own game for them! _How do +you know which is nearer the house, Don and his men, or the others?_" + +She stared at him, panting, "Don and his men?" she echoed. + +"Yes. Even if he were alone to begin with, I'll bet all I've got he +roused every cowpuncher on the ranch with his first shot; and they'd be +out with their guns like a streak of greased lightning. If you open that +window with a light in the room, the wrong lot may get in and barricade +themselves against Don and his bunch--to say nothing of what would happen +to us. But----" + +Annesley waited for no more. She ran to the table and blew out the flame +of the green-shaded lamp. Black darkness shut down like the lid of a box. +But she knew the room as she knew her own features. Straight and +unerring, she found her way back to the window. + +This time Van Vreck stood still while she opened it and began noiselessly +to undo the outside wooden shutters. As she pushed them apart, against +the wind, a spray of sand dashed into her face and Van Vreck's, stinging +their eyelids. But disregarding the pain, the two passed out into the +night. + +Clouds of blowing sand hid the stars, yet there was a faint glimmer of +light which showed moving figures on horseback. Men were shouting, and +with the bark of their guns fire spouted. + +Annesley rushed on to the veranda, but Van Vreck caught her dress. + +"Stay where you are!" he ordered. "Our side is winning. Don't you +see--don't you hear--the fight's going farther away? That means the +raid's failed--the skunks have got the worst of it. They're trying to get +back to the river and across to their own country. There'll be some, I +bet, who'll never see Mexico again!" + +"But Knight----" the girl faltered. "He may be shot----" + +"He may. We've got to take the chances and hope for the best. He wouldn't +leave the chase now if every door and window were open and lit for him. +Wait. Watch. That's the only thing to do." + +She yielded to the detaining hand. All strength had gone out of her. She +staggered a little, and fell back against Van Vreck's shoulder. He held +her up strongly, as though he had been a young man. + +"How can I live through it?" she moaned. + +"You care for him after all, then?" she heard the calm voice asking in +her ear. And she heard her own voice answer: "I love him more than ever." +She knew that it was true, true in spite of everything, and that she had +never ceased to love him. It would be joy to give her life to save +Knight's, with just one moment of breath to tell him that his atonement +had not been vain. + + * * * * * + +Away out of sight the chase went, but the watching eyes had time to see +that not all the figures were on horseback. Some ran on foot; and some +horses were riderless. As Van Vreck had said, there was nothing for him +and for Annesley to do except to wait. They stood silent in the rain of +sand, listening when there was nothing more to see. The shots were +scattered and blurred by distance. Annesley realized how a heart may stop +beating in the anguish of suspense. + +But at last when the fierce wind, purring like a tiger, was the only +sound in the night, there came a sudden padding of feet. A form stumbled +up the veranda steps, and before she could cry out in her surprise, the +girl recognized their Chinese servant. + +She had fancied him in bed. But she might have known he would be out! + +He had been running so fast that his breath came chokingly. + +"What is it?" Annesley implored. + +The boy pointed, trying to speak, "Bling Mist' Donal back," he gulped. +"Me come tell." + +Annesley pushed past him, and springing down the steps ran blindly +through the sand cloud, taking the way by which the Chinese boy must have +come home. Her mind pictured a procession carrying a dead man, or one +grievously wounded; but at the cactus hedge she came upon three men--one +in the centre, who limped, two who supported him on either side. + +"Why, Anita!" exclaimed her husband's voice. + +"Knight!" she sobbed. It was the first time since Easter a year ago that +she had given him the old name. + +"Thank God you're alive!" + +"If you thank Him, so do I," he answered, whether lightly or gravely she +could not tell. His tone was controlled, as if to hide pain. "It's all +right. You mustn't worry any more. Wish I could have sent you news +sooner. I hoped you'd guess we were getting the upper hand when the shots +died away. Coming home I spotted the sneaks fording the river. I turned +the car, and stirred up the boys. Then we had a shindy, and scared the +dogs cold--bagged a few, but I guess nobody croaked--anyhow, none of our +crowd. Half a dozen are after the curs. + +"As for me, I feel as if I'd got a dum-dum in my ankle, but I'll be fit +as a fiddle in a week or two. I'm afraid you had a fright." + +How strange it was to hear him speak so coolly after what she had +endured! But his calmness quieted her. + +"Mr. Van Vreck was with me," she said. + +"Van Vreck! Great Scott, then the raid was a frameup! I see. Boys, let's +get along to the house quick." + +"Wait an instant!" the girl intervened. "Knight, I never had a chance to +tell you--about the cactus blossoms. I understood. I understand even +better now. Mr. Van Vreck has made me understand. That is all I can tell +you. Let them help you to the house. I'll follow. Some other time I'll +explain." + +"No--now!" he said. "Let go a minute, boys. I can stand by myself. Three +words with my wife." + +As the two men moved off hastily, Annesley sprang forward, giving her +shoulder for her husband's support. + +"Lean on me," she said. "Oh, Knight, you don't need an explanation, for +the three words are, love--love and forgiveness. Forgiveness from _you_ +to _me_." + +He held out his arms, and caught her to him fiercely. Neither could +speak. The past was forgotten. Only the present and future counted. Both +the man and woman had atoned. + + +THE END + + + * * * * * + + + +_Books by the Same Authors_ + +Car of Destiny, The + +Chaperon, The + +Everyman's Land + +Golden Silence, The + +Guests of Hercules, The + +Heather Moon, The + +It Happened in Egypt + +Lady Betty Across the Water + +Lightning Conductor, The + +Lightning Conductor Discovers America, The + +Lion's Mouse, The + +Lord Loveland Discovers America + +Motor Maid, The + +My Friend the Chauffeur + +Port of Adventure, The + +Princess Passes, The + +Princess Virginia + +Rosemary in Search of a Father + +Secret History + +Set in Silver + +Soldier of the Legion, A + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SECOND LATCHKEY*** + + +******* This file should be named 18470-8.txt or 18470-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/4/7/18470 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: The Second Latchkey</p> +<p>Author: Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson</p> +<p>Release Date: May 29, 2006 [eBook #18470]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SECOND LATCHKEY***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3>E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan,<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (http://www.pgdp.net/)</h3> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/tp01.jpg"><img src="images/tp01.jpg" alt=""/></a> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h1>THE SECOND LATCHKEY</h1> + +<h2>BY C. N. & A. M. WILLIAMSON</h2> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3>FRONTISPIECE</h3> +<h3>BY RUDOLPH TANDLER</h3> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h4>GARDEN CITY NEW YORK</h4> +<h4>DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY</h4> +<h4>1920</h4> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<div class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/col01.jpg"><img src="images/col01.jpg" alt=""/></a> +</div> + +<h2><i>"'Stop! He's my lover!' she cried. 'Don't shoot!'"</i></h2> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> +<p> +<a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I. <span class="smcap">A White Rose</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II. <span class="smcap">Smiths and Smiths</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III. <span class="smcap">Why She Came</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV. <span class="smcap">The Great Moment</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V. <span class="smcap">The Second Latchkey</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI. <span class="smcap">The Beginning—or the End?</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII. <span class="smcap">The Countess de Santiago</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII. <span class="smcap">The Blue Diamond Ring</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX. <span class="smcap">The Thing Knight Wanted</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X. <span class="smcap">Beginning of the Series</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI. <span class="smcap">Annesley Remembers</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII. <span class="smcap">The Crystal</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII. <span class="smcap">The Series Goes On</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV. <span class="smcap">The Test</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV. <span class="smcap">Nelson Smith at Home</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI. <span class="smcap">Why Ruthven Smith Went</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII. <span class="smcap">Ruthven Smith's Eyeglasses</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII. <span class="smcap">The Star Sapphire</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX. <span class="smcap">The Secret</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX. <span class="smcap">The Plan</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI. <span class="smcap">The Devil's Rosary</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII. <span class="smcap">Destiny and the Waldos</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII. <span class="smcap">The Thin Wall</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV. <span class="smcap">The Anniversary</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">CHAPTER XXV. <span class="smcap">The Allegory</span></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">CHAPTER XXVI. <span class="smcap">The Three Words</span></a><br /><br /> + +<a href="#BOOK_BY_THE_SAME_AUTHOR"><span class="smcap">Books By The Same Author</span></a><br /> +</p> +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_SECOND_LATCHKEY" id="THE_SECOND_LATCHKEY"></a>THE SECOND LATCHKEY</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h3>A WHITE ROSE</h3> + + +<p>Even when Annesley Grayle turned out of the Strand toward the Savoy she +was uncertain whether she would have courage to walk into the hotel. With +each step the thing, the dreadful thing, that she had come to do, loomed +blacker. It was monstrous, impossible, like opening the door of the +lions' cage at the Zoo and stepping inside.</p> + +<p>There was time still to change her mind. She had only to turn +now ... jump into an omnibus ... jump out again at the familiar corner, +and everything would be as it had been. Life for the next five, ten, +maybe twenty years, would be what the last five had been.</p> + +<p>At the thought of the Savoy and the adventure waiting there, the girl's +skin had tingled and grown hot, as if a wind laden with grains of heated +sand had blown over her. But at the thought of turning back, of going +"home"—oh, misused word!—a leaden coldness shut her spirit into a tomb.</p> + +<p>She had walked fast, after descending at Bedford Street from a fierce +motor-bus with a party of comfortable people, bound for the Adelphi +Theatre. Never before had she been in a motor-omnibus, and she was not +sure whether the great hurtling thing would deign to stop, except at +trysting-places of its own; so it had seemed wise to bundle out rather +than risk a snub from the conductor, who looked like pictures of the Duke +of Wellington.</p> + +<p>But in the lighted Strand she had been stared at as well as jostled: +a girl alone at eight o'clock on a winter evening, bare-headed, +conspicuously tall if conspicuous in no other way; dressed for dinner or +the theatre in a pale gray, sequined gown under a mauve chiffon cloak +meant for warm nights of summer.</p> + +<p>Of course, as Mrs. Ellsworth (giver of dress and wrap) often pointed out, +"beggars mustn't be choosers"; and Annesley Grayle was worse off than a +beggar, because beggars needn't keep up appearances. She should have +thanked Heaven for good clothes, and so she did in chastened moods; but +it was a costume to make a girl hurry through the Strand, and just for an +instant she had been glad to turn from the white glare into comparative +dimness.</p> + +<p>That was because offensive eyes had made her forget the almost immediate +future in the quite immediate present. But the hotel, with light-hearted +taxis tearing up to it, brought remembrance with a shock. She envied +everyone else who was bound for the Savoy, even old women, and fat +gentlemen with large noses. They were going there because they wanted to +go, for their pleasure. Nobody in the world could be in such an appalling +situation as she was.</p> + +<p>It was then that Annesley's feet began to drag, and she slowed her steps +to gain more time to think. Could she—<i>could</i> she do the thing?</p> + +<p>For days her soul had been rushing toward this moment with +thousand-horsepower speed, like a lonely comet tearing through space. +But then it had been distant, the terrible goal. She had not had to +gasp among her heart-throbs: "Now! It is now!"</p> + +<p>Creep as she might, three minutes' brought her from the turning out of +the Strand close to the welcoming entrance where revolving doors of glass +received radiant visions dazzling as moonlight on snow.</p> + +<p>"No, I can't!" the girl told herself, desperately. She wheeled more +quickly than the whirling door, hoping that no one would think her mad. +"All the same, I <i>was</i> mad," she admitted, "to fancy I could do it. I +ought to have known I couldn't, when the time came. I'm the last person +to—well, I'm sane again now, anyway!"</p> + +<p>A few long steps carried the girl in the sparkling dress and transparent +cloak into the Strand again. But something queer was happening there. +People were shouting and running. A man with a raucous, alcoholic voice, +yelled words Annesley could not catch. A woman gave a squeaking scream +that sounded both ridiculous and dreadful. Breaking glass crashed. A +growl of human anger mingled with the roar of motor-omnibuses, and Miss +Grayle fell back from it as from a slammed door in a high wall.</p> + +<p>As she stood hesitating what to do and wondering if there were a fire or +a murder, two women, laughing hysterically, rushed past into the hotel +court.</p> + +<p>"Hurry up," panted one of them. "They'll think we belong to the gang. +Let's go into the hotel and stay until it's over."</p> + +<p>"Oh, what is it?" Annesley entreated, running after the couple.</p> + +<p>"Burglars at a jeweller's window close by—there are women—they're being +arrested," one of the pair flung over her shoulder, as both hurried on.</p> + +<p>"'Women ... being arrested ...'" That meant that if she plunged into the +fray she might be mistaken for a woman burglar, and arrested with the +guilty. Even if she lurked where she was, a prowling policeman might +suppose she sought concealment, and bag her as a militant.</p> + +<p>Imagine what Mrs. Ellsworth would say—and <i>do</i>—if she were taken off to +jail!</p> + +<p>Annesley's heart seemed to drop out of its place, to go "crossways," as +her old Irish nurse used to say a million years ago.</p> + +<p>Without stopping to think again, or even to breathe, she flew back to the +hotel entrance, as a migrating bird follows its leader, and slipped +through the revolving door behind the fugitives.</p> + +<p>"It's fate," she thought. "This must be a <i>sign</i> coming just when I'd +made up my mind."</p> + +<p>Suddenly she was no longer afraid, though her heart was pounding under +the thin cloak. Fragrance of hot-house flowers and expensive perfume from +women's dresses intoxicated the girl as a glass of champagne forced upon +one who has never tasted wine flies to the head. She felt herself on the +tide of adventure, moving because she must; the soul which would have +fled, to return to Mrs. Ellsworth, was a coward not worthy to live in her +body.</p> + +<p>She had room in her crowded mind to think how queer it was—and how queer +it would seem all the rest of her life in looking back—that she should +have the course of her existence changed because burglars had broken some +panes of glass in the Strand.</p> + +<p>"Just because of them—creatures I'll never meet—I'm going to see this +through to the end," she said, flinging up her chin and looking entirely +unlike the Annesley Grayle Mrs. Ellsworth knew. "To the <i>end</i>!"</p> + +<p>She thrilled at the word, which had as much of the unknown in it as +though it were the world's end she referred to, and she were jumping off.</p> + +<p>"Will you please tell me where to leave my wrap?" she heard herself +inquiring of a footman as magnificent as, and far better dressed than, +the Apollo Belvedere. Her voice sounded natural. She was glad. This added +to her courage. It was wonderful to feel brave. Life was so deadly, +worse—so <i>stuffy</i>—at Mrs. Ellsworth's, that if she had ever been +normally brave like other girls, she had had the young splendour of her +courage crushed out.</p> + +<p>The statue in gray plush and dark blue cloth came to life, and showed her +the cloak-room.</p> + +<p>Other women were there, taking last, affectionate peeps at themselves +in the long mirrors. Annesley took a last peep at herself also, not an +affectionate but an anxious one. Compared with these visions, was she +(in Mrs. Ellsworth's cast-off clothes, made over in odd moments by the +wearer) so dowdy and second-hand that—that—a stranger would be ashamed +to——?</p> + +<p>The question feared to finish itself.</p> + +<p>"I <i>do</i> look like a lady, anyhow," the girl thought with defiance. +"That's what he—that seems to be the test."</p> + +<p>Now she was in a hurry to get the ordeal over. Instead of hanging back +she walked briskly out of the cloak-room before those who had entered +ahead of her finished patting their hair or putting powder on their +noses.</p> + +<p>It was worse in the large vestibule, where men sat or stood, waiting for +their feminine belongings; and she was the only woman alone. But her boat +was launched on the wild sea. There was no returning.</p> + +<p>The rendezvous arranged was in what <i>he</i> had called in his letter "the +foyer."</p> + +<p>Annesley went slowly down the steps, trying not to look aimless. She +decided to steer for one of the high-back brocaded chairs which had +little satellite tables. Better settle on one in the middle of the hall.</p> + +<p>This would give <i>him</i> a chance to see and recognize her from the +description she had written of the dress she would wear (she had not +mentioned that she'd be spared all trouble in choosing, as it was her +only <i>real</i> evening frock), and to notice that she wore, according to +arrangement, a white rose tucked into the neck of her bodice.</p> + +<p>She felt conscious of her hands, and especially of her feet and ankles, +for she had not been able to make Mrs. Ellsworth's dress quite long +enough. Luckily it was the fashion of the moment to wear the skirt short, +and she had painted her old white suede slippers silver.</p> + +<p>She believed that she had pretty feet. But oh! what if the darn running +up the heel of the pearl-gray silk stocking should show, or have burst +again into a hole as she jumped out of the omnibus? She could have +laughed hysterically, as the escaping women had laughed, when she +realized that the fear of such a catastrophe was overcoming graver +horrors.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it was well to have a counter-irritant.</p> + +<p>Though Annesley Grayle was the only manless woman in the foyer, the +people who sat there—with one exception—did not stare. Though she +had five feet eight inches of height, and was graceful despite +self-consciousness, her appearance was distinguished rather than +striking. Yes, "distinguished" was the word for it, decided the one +exception who gazed with particular interest at that tall, slight figure +in gray-sequined chiffon too old-looking for the young face.</p> + +<p>He was sitting in a corner against the wall, and had in his hands a copy +of the <i>Sphere</i>, which was so large when held high and wide open that the +reader could hide behind it. He had been in his corner for fifteen or +twenty minutes when Annesley Grayle arrived, glancing over the top of his +paper with a sort of jaunty carelessness every few minutes at the crowd +moving toward the restaurant, picking out some individual, then dropping +his eyes to the <i>Sphere</i>.</p> + +<p>For the girl in gray he had a long, appraising look, studying her every +point; but he did the thing so well that, even had she turned her head +his way, she need not have been embarrassed. All she would have seen was +a man's forehead and a rim of smooth black hair showing over the top of +an illustrated paper.</p> + +<p>What he saw was a clear profile with a delicate nose slightly tilting +upward in a proud rather than impertinent way; an arch of eyebrow +daintily sketched; a large eye which might be gray or violet; a drooping +mouth with a short upper lip; a really charming chin, and a long white +throat; skin softly pale, like white velvet; thick, ash-blond hair parted +in the middle and worn Madonna fashion—there seemed to be a lot of it in +the coil at the nape of her neck.</p> + +<p>The creature looked too simple, too—not dowdy, but too unsophisticated, +to have anything false about her. Figure too thin, hardly to be called a +"figure" at all, but agreeably girlish; and its owner might be anywhere +from twenty to five or six years older. Not beautiful: just an average, +lady-like English girl—or perhaps more of Irish type; but certainly with +possibilities. If she were a princess or a millionairess, she might be +glorified by newspapers as a beauty.</p> + +<p>Annesley forced her nervous limbs to slow movement, because she hoped, +or dreaded—anyhow, expected—that one of the dozen or so unattached men +would spring up and say, constrainedly, "Miss Grayle, I believe?—er—how +do you do?" If only he might not be fat or very bald-headed!</p> + +<p>He had not described himself at all. Everything was to depend on her gray +dress and the white rose. That seemed, now one came face to face with the +fear, rather ominous.</p> + +<p>But no one sprang up. No one wanted to know if she were Miss Grayle; and +this, although she was ten minutes late.</p> + +<p>Her instructions as to what to do at the Savoy were clear. If she were +not met in the foyer, she was to go into the restaurant and ask for a +table reserved for Mr. N. Smith. There she was to sit and wait to be +joined by him. She had never contemplated having to carry out the latter +clause, however; and when she had loitered for a few seconds, the thought +rushed over her that here was a loop-hole through which to slip, if she +wanted a loop-hole.</p> + +<p>One side of her did want it: the side she knew best and longest as +herself, Annesley Grayle, a timid girl brought up conventionally, and +taught that to rely on others older and wiser than she was the right way +for a well-born, sheltered woman to go through life. The other side, the +new, desperate side that Mrs. Ellsworth's "stuffiness" had developed, was +not looking for any means of escape; and this side had seized the upper +hand since the alarm of the burglars in the Strand.</p> + +<p>Annesley marched into the restaurant with the air of a soldier facing his +first battle, and asked a waiter where was Mr. Smith's table.</p> + +<p>The youth dashed off and produced a duke-like personage, his chief. A +list was consulted with care; and Annesley was respectfully informed that +no table had been engaged by a Mr. N. Smith for dinner that evening.</p> + +<p>"Are you sure?" persisted Annesley, bewildered and disappointed.</p> + +<p>"Yes, miss—madame, I am sure we have not the name on our list," said the +head-waiter.</p> + +<p>The blankness of the girl's disappointment looked out appealingly from +wistful, wide-apart eyes. The man was sorry.</p> + +<p>"There may be some misunderstanding," he consoled her. "Perhaps Mr. Smith +has telephoned, and we have not received the message. I hope it is not +the fault of the hotel. We do not often make mistakes; yet it is +possible. We have had a few early dinners before the theatre and there is +one small table disengaged. Would madame care to take it—it is here, +close to the door—and watch for the gentleman when he comes?"</p> + +<p>"When he comes!" The head-waiter comfortably took it for granted that Mr. +Smith had been delayed, that he would come, and that it would be a pity +to miss him. The polite person might be right, though with a sinking +heart Annesley began to suspect herself played with, abandoned, as she +deserved, for her dreadful boldness.</p> + +<p>Perhaps Mr. Smith had been in communication with someone else more +suitable than she, and had thrown over the appointment without troubling +to let her know. Or perhaps he had been waiting in the foyer, had +inspected her as she passed, and hadn't liked her looks.</p> + +<p>This latter supposition seemed probable; but the head-waiter was so +confident of what she ought to do that the girl could think of no excuse. +After all, it would do little harm to wait and "see what happened." As +Mr. Smith was apparently not living at the Savoy (he had merely asked her +to meet him there), he might have had an accident in train or taxi. +Annesley had made her plans to be away from home for two hours, so she +could give him the benefit of the doubt.</p> + +<p>A moment of hesitation, and she was seating herself in a chair offered by +the head-waiter. It was one of a couple drawn up at a small table for +two. Sitting thus, Annesley could see everybody who came in, and—what +was more important—could be seen. By what struck her as an odd +coincidence, the table was decorated with a vase of white roses whose +hearts blushed faintly in the light of a pink-shaded electric lamp.</p> + +<p>A quarter of an hour, twenty minutes, dragged along, and no Mr. Smith. +Annesley could follow the passing moments on her wrist-watch in its +silver bracelet, the only present Mrs. Ellsworth had ever given her, +with the exception of cast-off clothes, and a pocket handkerchief each +Christmas.</p> + +<p>Every nerve in the girl's body seemed to prickle with embarrassment. She +played with a dinner roll, changed the places of the flowers and the +lamp, trying to appear at ease, and not daring to look up lest she should +meet eyes curious or pitying.</p> + +<p>"What if they make me pay for dinner after I've kept the table so long?" +she thought in her ignorance of hotel customs. "And I've got only a +shilling!"</p> + +<p>Half an hour now, all but two minutes! There was nothing more to hope or +fear. But there was the ordeal of getting away.</p> + +<p>"I'll sit out the two minutes," she told herself. "Then I'll go. Ought I +to tip the waiter?" Horrible doubt! And she must have been dreaming to +touch that roll! Better sneak away while the waiter was busy at a +distance.</p> + +<p>Frightened, miserable, she was counting her chances when a man, whose +coming into the room her dilemma had caused her to miss, marched +unhesitatingly to her table.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h3>SMITHS AND SMITHS</h3> + + +<p>Annesley glanced up, her face aflame, like a fanned coal. The man was +tall, dark, lean, square-jawed, handsome in just that thrilling way which +magazine illustrators and women love; the ideal story-hero to look at, +even to the clothes which any female serial writer would certainly have +described as "immaculate evening dress."</p> + +<p>It was too good—oh, far too wonderfully good!—to be true that this +man should be Mr. Smith. Yet if he were not Mr. Smith why should +he——Annesley got no farther in the thought, though it flashed through +her mind quick as light. Before she had time to seek an answer for her +question the man—who was young, or youngish, not more than thirty-three +or four—had bent over her as if greeting a friend, and had begun to +speak in a low voice blurred by haste or some excitement.</p> + +<p>"You will do me an immense service," he said, "if you'll pretend to know +me and let me sit down here. You sha'n't regret it, and it may save my +life."</p> + +<p>"Sit down," answered something in Annesley that was newly awake. She +found her hand being warmly shaken. Then the man took the chair reserved +for Mr. Smith, just as she realized fully that he wasn't Mr. Smith. Her +heart was beating fast, her eyes—fixed on the man's face, waiting for +some explanation—were dilated.</p> + +<p>"Thank you," he said, leaning toward her, in his hand a menu which the +waiter had placed before the girl while she was still alone. She noticed +that the hand was brown and nervous-looking, the hand of a man who might +be a musician or an artist. He was pretending to read the menu, and to +consult her about it. "You're a true woman, the right sort—brave. I +swear I'm not here for any impertinence. Now, will you go on helping me? +Can you keep your wits and not give me away, whatever happens?"</p> + +<p>"I think so," answered the new Annesley. "What do you want me to do?" She +took the pitch of her tone from his, speaking quietly, and wondering if +she would not wake up in her ugly brown bedroom at Mrs. Ellsworth's, as +she had done a dozen times when dreaming in advance of her rendezvous at +the Savoy.</p> + +<p>"It will be a shock when I tell you," he answered. "But for Heaven's +sake, don't misunderstand. I shouldn't ask this if it weren't absolutely +necessary. In case a man comes to this table and questions you, you must +let him suppose that you are my wife."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" gasped Annesley. Her eyes met the eyes that seemed to have been +waiting for her look, and they answered with an appeal which she could +not refuse.</p> + +<p>She did not stop to think that if the dark eyes had not been so handsome +they might have been easier to resist. She—the suppressed and timid +girl, never allowed to make up her mind—let herself go with the wave +of strong emotion carrying her along, and reached a resolve.</p> + +<p>"It means trusting you a great deal," she answered. "But you say you're +in danger, so I'll do what you ask. I think you can't be wicked enough to +pay me back by trying to hurt me."</p> + +<p>"You think right," the man said, and it struck her that his accent was +not quite English. She wondered if he were Canadian or American. Not that +she knew much about either. "A woman like you <i>would</i> think right!" he +went on. "Only one woman out of ten thousand would have the nerve and +presence of mind and the humanity to do what you're doing. When I came +into this room and saw your face I counted on you."</p> + +<p>Annesley blushed again in a rush of happiness. She had always longed to +do something which would really matter to another soul. She had even +prayed for it. Now the moment seemed to have come. God would not let her +be the victim of an ignoble trick!</p> + +<p>"I'm glad," she said, her face lit by a light from within. And at that +moment, bending toward each other, they were a beautiful couple. A seeker +of romance would have taken them for lovers.</p> + +<p>"Tell me what you want me to do," Annesley said once more.</p> + +<p>"The worst of it is, I can't tell you exactly. Two men may come into this +restaurant looking for me. One or both will speak to me. They'll call me +a certain name, and I shall say they've made a mistake. You must say so, +too. You must tell them I'm your husband, and stick to that no matter +what the man, or men, may tell you about me. The principal thing now is +to choose a name. But—by Jove—I forgot it in my hurry! Are you +expecting any one to join you? If you are, it's awkward."</p> + +<p>"I was expecting someone, but I've given him up."</p> + +<p>"Was this table taken in his name or yours? Or, perhaps—but no, I'm sure +you're <i>not</i>!"</p> + +<p>"Sure I'm not what?"</p> + +<p>"Married. You're a girl. Your eyes haven't got any experience of life in +them."</p> + +<p>Annesley looked down; and when she looked down her face was very sweet. +She had long, curved brown lashes a shade or two darker than her hair.</p> + +<p>"I'm not married," she said, rather stiffly. "I thought a table had been +engaged in the name of Mr. Smith, but there was a misunderstanding. The +head waiter put me at this table in case Mr. Smith should come. I've +given him up now, and was going away when——"</p> + +<p>"When you took pity on a nameless man. But it seems indicated that he +should be Mr. Smith, unless you have any objection!"</p> + +<p>"No, I have none. You'd better take the name, as I mentioned it to the +waiter."</p> + +<p>"And the first name?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. The initial I gave was N."</p> + +<p>"Very well, I choose Nelson. Where do we live?"</p> + +<p>Annesley stared, frightened.</p> + +<p>"Forgive me," the man said. "I ought to have explained what I meant +before asking you that, or put the question another way. Will you go on +as you've begun, and trust me farther, by letting me drive with you to +your home, if necessary, in case of being followed? At worst, I'll need +to beg no more than to stand inside your front door for a few minutes if +we're watched, and—but I see that this time I have passed the limit. I'm +expecting too much! How do you know but I may be a thief or a murderer?"</p> + +<p>"I hadn't thought of such a thing," Annesley stammered. "I was only +thinking—it isn't <i>my</i> house. It doesn't even belong to my people. I +live with an old lady, Mrs. Ellsworth. I hope she'll be in bed when I get +back, and the servants, too. I have a key because—because I told a fib +about the place where I was going, and consequently Mrs. Ellsworth +approved. If she hadn't approved, I shouldn't have been allowed out. I +could let you stand inside the door. But if any one followed us to the +house, and saw the number, he could look in the directory, and find out +that it belonged to Mrs. Ellsworth, not Mr. Smith."</p> + +<p>"He couldn't have a directory in his pocket! By the time he got hold of +one and could make any use of his knowledge, I'd be far away."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I suppose you would," Annesley thought aloud, and a little voice +seemed to add sharply in her ear: "Far away out of my life."</p> + +<p>This brought to her memory what she had in her excitement forgotten: +the adventure she had come out to meet had faded into thin air! The +unexpected one which had so startlingly taken its place would end +to-night, and she would be left to the dreary existence from which she +had tried to break free.</p> + +<p>She was like a pebble that had succeeded in riding out to sea on a wave, +only to be washed back into its old place on the shore. The thought that, +after all, she had no change to look forward to, gave the girl a +passionate desire to make the most of this one living hour among many +that were born dead.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Ellsworth's house," she said, "is 22-A, Torrington Square."</p> + +<p>"Thank you." Only these two words he spoke, but the eager dark eyes +seemed to add praise and blessings for her confidence.</p> + +<p>"My name is Annesley Grayle," she volunteered, as if to prove to the man +and to herself how far she trusted him; also perhaps as a bid for his +name in payment of that trust. So at least he must have understood, for +he said: "If I don't tell you mine, it's for your own protection. I'm not +ashamed of it; but it's better that you shouldn't know—that if you heard +it suddenly, it should be strange to you, just like any other name. Don't +you see I'm right?"</p> + +<p>"I dare say you are."</p> + +<p>"Then we'll leave it at that. But we can't go on pretending to study +this menu for ever! You came to dine with Mr. Smith. You'll dine with +his understudy instead. You'll let me order dinner? It's part of the +programme."</p> + +<p>"Very well," Annesley agreed.</p> + +<p>The man nodded to the head-waiter, who had been interested in the little +drama indirectly stage-managed by him. Instead of sending a subordinate, +he came himself to take the order. With wonderful promptness, considering +that Mr. Smith's thoughts had not been near the menu under his eyes, +several dishes were chosen and a wine selected.</p> + +<p>"Madame is glad now that I persuaded her not to go?" the waiter could not +resist, and Annesley replied that she was glad. As the man turned away, +"Mr. Smith" raised his eyebrows with rather a wistful smile.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid you're sorry, really," he said. "If I'd come a minute later +than I did, you'd have been safe and happy at home by this time."</p> + +<p>"Not happy," amended the girl. "Because it isn't home. If it were, I +shouldn't have told fibs to Mrs. Ellsworth to-night."</p> + +<p>"That sounds interesting," remarked her companion.</p> + +<p>"It's <i>not</i> interesting!" she assured him. "Nothing in my life is. I +don't want to bore you by talking about my affairs, but if you think we +may be—interrupted, perhaps, I'd better explain one or two things while +there's time. I wanted to come here this evening to keep an engagement +I'd made, but it's difficult for me to get out alone. Mrs. Ellsworth +doesn't like to be left, and she never lets me go anywhere without her +except to the house of some friends of mine, the only real friends I +have. It's odd, but <i>their</i> name is Smith, and that saved my telling +a direct lie. Not that a half-lie isn't worse, it's so cowardly!</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Ellsworth likes me to go to Archdeacon and Mrs. Smith's +because—I'm afraid because she thinks they're 'swells.' Mrs. Smith has a +duke for an uncle! Mrs. Ellsworth said 'yes' at once, when I asked, and +gave me her key and permission to stop out till half-past ten, though +everyone in the house is supposed to be in bed by ten. She's almost sure +to be in bed herself, but if she gets interested in one of the books I +brought from the library to-day, it's possible she may be sitting up to +read, and to ask about my evening.</p> + +<p>"Our bedrooms are on the ground floor at the back of an addition to the +house. What if she should hear the latchkey (it's old fashioned and hard +to work), and what if she should come to the swing door at the end of the +corridor where she'd see you with me? What would you say or do?"</p> + +<p>"H'm! It would be awkward. But—isn't there a <i>young</i> Smith in your +Archdeacon's family?"</p> + +<p>"There is one, but I haven't seen him since I was a little girl. He's a +sailor. He's away now on an Arctic expedition."</p> + +<p>"Then it wasn't <i>that</i> Mr. Smith you came to meet at the Savoy?"</p> + +<p>"No. They're not related." As Annesley returned in thought to the Mr. +Smith who had thrown her over, she took from her bodice the white rose +which was to have identified her for him, and found it a place in the +vase with the other white roses. She had a special reason for doing this. +The real Mr. Smith, if by any chance he appeared now, would be a +complication. Without the rose he could not claim her acquaintance.</p> + +<p>"Why do you do that?" her companion broke the thread of his questioning +to ask.</p> + +<p>The girl was tempted to tell some easy fib that the rose was faded, or +too fragrant; but somehow she could not. They both seemed so close to the +deep-down things of life at this moment that to speak the truth was the +one possible thing.</p> + +<p>"I arranged to wear a white rose for Mr. Smith to recognize me. We—have +never seen each other," she confessed.</p> + +<p>"Yet you say there's nothing interesting in your life!"</p> + +<p>"It's true! <i>This</i> thing was—was dreadful. It could happen only to a +girl whose life was not interesting."</p> + +<p>"Now I understand why you put away the rose—for my sake, in case +Mr. Smith should turn up, after all. Will you give it to me? I won't +flaunt it in my buttonhole. I'll hide it sacredly, in memory of this +evening—and of you. Not that I shall need to be reminded of anything +which concerns this night—you especially, and your generosity, your +courage. But it may be that the men I spoke of won't find me here. If +they don't, the worst of your ordeal is over. It will only be to finish +dinner, and let me put you into a taxi. To-morrow you can think that you +dreamed the wretch who appealed to you, and be glad that you will never +see him again."</p> + +<p>Annesley selected her white rose from its fellows, dried its stem +daintily with her napkin, and gave the flower to "Mr. Smith." Already it +looked refreshed, as she herself felt refreshed, after five years of +"stuffiness," by these few throbbing moments.</p> + +<p>Their hands touched, and through Annesley's darted a little tingle of +electricity that flashed up her arm to her heart, where it caught like a +hooked wire. She was surprised, almost frightened by the sensation, and +ashamed because she didn't find it disagreeable.</p> + +<p>"It must be that people who're really <i>alive</i>, as he is, give out +magnetism," she thought. And the thrill lingered as the man thanked her +with eyes and voice.</p> + +<p>When he had looked at the rose curiously, as if expecting to learn from +it the secret of its wearer, he put the flower away in a letter-case in +an inner breast pocket of his coat.</p> + +<p>For once Annesley was face to face with romance, and even though she +would presently go back to the old round (since the adventure she came +out to meet had failed), she was stirred to a wild gladness in this +other adventure. The <i>hors d'oeuvres</i> appeared; then soup, and wine, +which Mr. Smith begged her to taste.</p> + +<p>"Drink luck for me," he insisted. "You and you alone can bring it."</p> + +<p>Annesley drank. And the champagne filliped colour to her cheeks.</p> + +<p>"Now we'll go on and think out the problem of what may happen at your +door—if Fate takes me there," the man said. "Your old friend's sailor +son is no use to me. He can't be whisked back from the North Pole to +London for my benefit. Perhaps I may be an acquaintance of Archdeacon +Smith's, mayn't I, if worst comes to worst? I've been dining there, and +brought you back in a taxi. Will that do? If there are fibs to tell, I'll +tell them myself and spare you if possible."</p> + +<p>"After all I've told to-night, one or two more can't matter," said +Annesley. "They won't hurt Mrs. Ellsworth. It's the other danger that's +more worrying—the danger from those men. I've thought of something that +may help if they follow us to Torrington Square. They may ask a policeman +whose house we've gone into, and find out it's Mrs. Ellsworth's, before +you can get away. So it will be better not to tell them it's <i>yours</i>. You +can be visiting. There is a Mr. Smith who comes sometimes from America, +where he lives, though he's not American. Even the policemen who have +that beat may have heard of him from Mrs. Ellsworth's servants. There's +a room kept always ready for him, and called 'Mr. Smith's room.'"</p> + +<p>"That does help," said the man. "It's clever and kind of you to rack your +brains for me. A Mr. Smith from America! It's easy for me to play that +part, I'm from America. Perhaps you've guessed that?"</p> + +<p>"But you're very different from Mrs. Ellsworth's Mr. Smith," Annesley +warned him, hastily. "He's middle-aged, eccentric, and not good-looking. +He comes to England for his 'nerves' when he has worked too hard and +tired himself out. I think he's rich; and once he was robbed in some big +hotel, so he likes to stay at a plain sort of house where there's no +danger. He has a horror of burglars, and won't even stop at the +Archdeacon's since they had a burglary a few years ago. He pays Mrs. +Ellsworth for his room, I believe. A funny arrangement!—it came about +through me. But that's not of importance to you."</p> + +<p>"It may be. We can't tell. Better let me know as much as possible about +these Smiths. There's Mrs. Ellsworth's Smith, and the Smith you came to +meet——"</p> + +<p>"We needn't talk of <i>him</i>, anyway!"</p> + +<p>There was a hint of anger in the girl's protest; but her resentment was +for the man who had humiliated her by breaking his appointment—<i>such</i> an +appointment!</p> + +<p>She hurried on, trying to hide all signs of agitation. "You see, Mrs. +Ellsworth once hoped to have Archdeacon Smith and his wife for friends. +They didn't care for her, but they loved my father—oh, long ago in the +country, where we lived. When he died and I hadn't any money or training +for work, they were nice to Mrs. Ellsworth for my sake—or, rather, for +my father's sake—and persuaded her to take me as her companion. She was +glad to do it to please them; but soon she realized that they didn't mean +to reward her by being intimate.</p> + +<p>"Poor woman, I was almost sorry for her disappointment! You see, she's +a snob at heart, and though 'Smith' sounds a common name, both the +Archdeacon and his wife have titled relations. So have I—and that was +another reason for taking me. She adores a title. Doesn't that sound +pitiful? But she has few interests and no real friends, so she's never +given up hope of 'collecting' the Smiths.</p> + +<p>"That's why she lets me visit them. And when I happened to mention, for +something to say, that the Archdeacon had an eccentric cousin in America +who was afraid of hotels and even of visiting at their house because of a +fad about burglars, she offered to give him the better of her two spare +rooms whenever he came to England. I never thought he'd accept, but he +did, only he would insist on paying.</p> + +<p>"That's the story, if you can call it a story, for Mr. Ruthven Smith +isn't a bit exciting nor interesting. When he appears—generally quite +suddenly—he finds his room ready. He has his breakfast sent up, and +lunches out at his club or somewhere. He mostly dines out, too, but he +has a standing invitation to dine with Mrs. Ellsworth, and we always have +good dinners when he is staying, to be ready in case of the worst."</p> + +<p>The man smiled, rather a charming smile, Annesley could not help +noticing.</p> + +<p>"In case of the worst!" he repeated. "He must be deadly if his +society bores you more than that of an old lady on whom, I suppose, +you dance attendance morning, noon, and night. Now, my situation is +so—er—peculiar that I ought to be thankful to exchange identities +with any man. But I wouldn't with Mr. Ruthven Smith for all his money +and jewels."</p> + +<p>Annesley opened her eyes. "Did I say anything about jewels?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"No, you didn't," the man assured her, "except in mentioning the name of +Ruthven Smith. Anybody who has lived in America as long as I have, +associates jewels with the name of Ruthven Smith. His 'Ruthven' lifts him +far above the ruck of a <i>mere</i> Smith—like myself, for instance"; and he +smiled again.</p> + +<p>Annesley began curiously to feel as if she knew him well. This made her +more anxious to give him help—for it would not be helping a stranger: it +would be helping a friend.</p> + +<p>"I've heard, of course, that he's something—I'm not sure what—in a firm +of jewellers," she said. "But I'd no idea of his being so important."</p> + +<p>"He's third partner with Van Vreck & Co.," her companion explained. "I've +heard he joined at first because of his great knowledge of jewels and +because he's been able to revive the lost art of making certain +transparent enamels. The Van Vrecks sent for him from England years ago. +He buys jewels for the firm now, I believe. No doubt that's why he's in +such a funk about burglars."</p> + +<p>"Fancy your knowing more about Mr. Smith than I know! Perhaps more than +Mrs. Ellsworth knows!" exclaimed Annesley, forgetting the strain of +expectation—the dread that a pair of mysterious, nightmare men might +break up the dreamlike dinner-party for two.</p> + +<p>"I don't know more about him than half America and Europe knows," laughed +the man. "It's lucky I <i>do</i> know something, though, as I may have to be +mistaken for Ruthven Smith, and add an 'N' to his initials. I suppose +he's not in England now by any chance?"</p> + +<p>"No. It must be six or seven months since he was here last," said +Annesley. "I don't think Mrs. Ellsworth has heard from him. She hardly +ever does until a day or two before he's due to arrive; neither do his +cousins."</p> + +<p>"A peculiar fellow, it would seem," remarked her companion. And then, out +of a plunge into thought, "You say you've never seen the Mr. Smith you +came to meet at the Savoy? How can you be sure it isn't old 'R. S.' as +they call him at Van Vreck's, wanting to play you a trick—give you a +surprise?"</p> + +<p>Annesley shook her head. "If you knew Mr. Ruthven Smith, you'd know that +would be impossible. Why, I don't believe he remembers when I'm out of +sight that I exist."</p> + +<p>"Still more peculiar! Miss Grayle, I haven't any right to ask you +questions. But I shouldn't be a man if I weren't forgetting my own +affairs—in—in curiosity, if you want to call it that (I don't!), about +yours. No! I won't let it pass for ordinary curiosity. Can't you +understand you're doing for me more than any woman ever has done, or any +man would do? That does make a bond between us. You can't deny it. Tell +me about this Mr. Smith whom you don't know and never saw, yet came to +the Savoy Hotel to meet."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h3>WHY SHE CAME</h3> + + +<p>Surprised by the abruptness of his question, Annesley's eyes dropped +from the eyes of her host, which tried to hold them. She felt that she +ought to be angry with him for taking advantage of her generosity—for +it amounted to that! Yet anger would not come, only shame and the desire +to hide a thing which would change his gratitude to contempt.</p> + +<p>"Don't let's waste time talking about me," she said. "We haven't +arranged——"</p> + +<p>"We've arranged everything as well as we can. For the rest, I must trust +to luck—and you. Do tell me why you came here, why you <i>thought</i> you +came here, I mean; for I'm convinced you were sent for my sake by any +higher powers there may be. I felt that, the minute I saw you. I feel it +ten times more strongly now. I know that whatever your reason was, it's +nothing to be ashamed of."</p> + +<p>"I <i>am</i> ashamed," Annesley was led on to confess. "You'd despise me if I +told you, for you can't realize what my life's been for five years. And +that's my one excuse."</p> + +<p>"Only a fool would want a woman like you to excuse herself for +anything. I swear I wouldn't despise you. I couldn't. If you should tell +me—knowing you as little, or as well, as I do, that you'd been plotting +a murder, I'd be certain you were justified, and my first thought would +be to save you, as you're saving me now."</p> + +<p>Annesley felt again the man's intense magnetism. Suddenly she wanted to +tell him everything. It would be a relief. She would watch his face and +see how it changed. It would be like having the verdict of the world on +what she had done—or meant to do.</p> + +<p>"I saw an advertisement in the <i>Morning Post</i>," she said with a kind of +breathless violence, "from a man who—who wanted to meet a girl with—a +'view to marriage.'"</p> + +<p>The words brought a blush so painful that the mounting blood forced tears +to her eyes. But she looked her <i>vis-à-vis</i> unwaveringly in the face.</p> + +<p>That did not change at all, unless the interest in his eyes grew warmer. +The sympathy she saw there gave Annesley a new and passionate desire to +defend herself. If he had shown disgust, she would not have cared to try, +she thought.</p> + +<p>"I told you it was horrid, and not interesting or romantic," she +dashed on. "But I was desperate. Mrs. Ellsworth is awful! I don't +suppose you ever met such a woman. She's not cruel about starving my +body. It's only my soul she starves. What business have <i>I</i> with a soul, +except in church, where it's proper to think about such things? But she +nags—<i>nags</i>! She makes my hair feel as if it were turning gray at the +roots, and my face drying up—like an apple.</p> + +<p>"I wasn't nineteen when I came to her. I'm twenty-three now, and I feel +<i>old</i>—desiccated, thanks to those piling-up hundreds of days with her. +They've killed my spirit. I used to be different. I can feel it. I can +see it in the mirror. It isn't only the passing days, but having nothing +better to look forward to. I'm too cowardly—or too religious or +something, to kill myself, even if I knew how to, decently. But the +deadliness of it all, the airlessness of her house and her heart!</p> + +<p>"A man couldn't imagine it. She's made me forget not only my own youth, +but that there's youth in the world. Why, at first I was so wild I should +have loved to say dreadful things, or strike her. But now I haven't the +spirit left to feel like that. My blood's turning white. The other day +when I was reading aloud to Mrs. Ellsworth (I read a lot: the stupidest +parts of the papers and the silliest books, that turn my brain to fluff) +I caught sight of an advertisement in the Personal Column.</p> + +<p>"I stopped just in time and didn't read it out. Only a glimpse I had, for +I was in the midst of something else when my eyes wandered. But when Mrs. +Ellsworth was taking her nap after luncheon I got the <i>Post</i> again and +read the advertisement through carefully. The reason I was interested was +because even the glance I took showed that the girl who was 'wanted' +seemed in some ways rather like me. The advertisement said she must be +from twenty-one to twenty-six; needn't be a beauty, but of pleasant +appearance; money no object; the essentials were that she must have a +fair education and be of good birth and manners, so as to command a +certain position in society.</p> + +<p>"I believe those were the very words. And it didn't seem too conceited +to think that I answered the description. I'm not bad-looking, and my +mother's father was an earl—an Irish one. I couldn't get the +advertisement out of my head. It fascinated me."</p> + +<p>"No wonder!" exclaimed Mr. Smith. He had been listening intently, and +though she had paused, panting a little, more than once, he had not +broken in with a word.</p> + +<p>"Do you <i>honestly</i> think it no wonder?" Annesley flashed at him.</p> + +<p>"It was like a prisoner seeing a key sticking in a door that has always +been locked," he said.</p> + +<p>"How strange you should think of that!" she cried. "It was the thought +which came into my mind, and seemed to excuse me if anything could." +Annesley felt grateful to the man. She was sure she could never have +explained herself in this way or pleaded her own cause with the real Mr. +Smith. A man cold-blooded enough to advertise for a wife "well-born and +able to command a certain position in society" would have frozen her into +an ice-block of reserve.</p> + +<p>She might possibly have accepted his "proposition" (one couldn't speak of +it in the ordinary way as a "proposal"), provided that, on seeing her, he +had judged her suitable for the place; but she could never have talked +her heart out to him as she was led on to do by this other man, equally +a stranger, yet sympathetic because of his own trouble and the mystery +which made of him a figure of romance.</p> + +<p>"It isn't strange I should think of the prison door and the key," her +companion said. "That was the situation. 'N. Smith' was rather clever in +his way. There must be many girls of good family and good looks who are +in prison, pining to escape. He must have had a lot of answers, that +fellow; but none of the girls could have come within a mile of you. I'm +selfish! I bless my lucky stars he didn't turn up here."</p> + +<p>"I dare say it's the best thing that could happen," Annesley agreed with +a sigh. "Probably he's horrible. But there was one thing: I thought, +though he must be a snob and vulgar, advertising as he did for a wife of +good birth, that very thing looked as if he were no <i>worse</i> than a snob. +Not a villain, I mean. Otherwise, I shouldn't have dared answer. But I +did answer the same day, while I had the courage. I posted a letter with +some of Mrs. Ellsworth's, which she sent me out to drop into the box. His +address was 'N. S., the <i>Morning Post</i>'; and I told him to send a reply, +if he wrote, to the stationery shop and library where Mrs. Ellsworth +makes me go every day to change her books."</p> + +<p>"And the answer? What was it like? What impression did it give you?" +questioned the man who sat in Mr. Smith's place.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it was written in a good hand. But it was a stiff, commonplace sort +of letter, except that it asked me to wear a white rose. White roses +happen to be the ones I like best."</p> + +<p>"So do I," said Mr. Smith. "Did he tell you to come to a table here and +wait for him?"</p> + +<p>"Not exactly. He was to meet me in the foyer. But if he did not, I was +to understand he'd been delayed; and in that case I must come to the +restaurant and inquire for a table engaged by Mr. N. Smith. Lots of times +I decided not to do anything. But you see I came, and this is my reward."</p> + +<p>"A poor one," her companion finished.</p> + +<p>"I don't mean that! I mean he hasn't come at all. Maybe he never meant +to. Maybe he got some letter he liked better than mine, and arranged to +meet the girl somewhere else. A man of that sort wouldn't write to tell +the straight truth in time, and save the unwanted one from humiliation."</p> + +<p>"Are you very sorry he didn't?"</p> + +<p>"No," Annesley said, frankly. "I'm not sorry. It's good to be able to +help someone. I'm glad I came."</p> + +<p>"So am I," Mr. Smith answered with a sudden change in his voice from calm +to excitement. "And now the moment isn't far off, I think, for the help +to be given. The men I spoke of are here. They're in the restaurant. You +can't see them without turning your head, which would not be wise. +They're speaking to a waiter. They haven't seen me yet, but they're sure +to look soon. They're pointing to a table near us. It's free. The +waiter's leading them to it. In an instant you'll have a better view +of them than I shall. Now ... but don't look up yet."</p> + +<p>From under her lashes Annesley saw—in the way women do see without +seeming to use their eyes—two men conducted to a table directly in front +of her. As she sat on her host's right, at the end of the table, not +opposite to him, this gave her the advantage—or disadvantage—of +facing the newcomers fully, while Mr. Smith, who had faced them as they +entered, would have his profile turned toward their table.</p> + +<p>The pair seated themselves in the same way that Annesley and her +companion were placed, one at the right hand of the other. This caused +the first man to face the girl fully and gave her the second in profile. +One table only intervened between Mr. Smith's and that selected by the +late arrivals, and the latter had hardly sat down when the party of four +at the intermediate table rose to go.</p> + +<p>Under cover of their departure, bowing of waiters and readjustment of +ladies' sable or ermine stoles, Annesley ventured a lightning glance at +the men. She saw that both were black-haired and black-bearded, with dark +skins and long noses. There was a slight suggestion of resemblance +between them. They might be brothers. They were in evening dress, but +did not look, Annesley thought, like gentlemen.</p> + +<p>Mr. Smith was eating <i>blennes au caviar</i> apparently with enjoyment. He +called a waiter and told him to put more whipped cream on the caviare as +yet untouched in the middle of Annesley's pancake.</p> + +<p>"That's better, I think," he said, genially. And as the waiter went away, +"What are they doing now?"</p> + +<p>Annesley lifted her champagne glass as an excuse to raise her eyes. "I'm +afraid they've seen us and are talking about you. Can't we—hadn't we +better go?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly not," replied Mr. Smith. "At least, <i>I</i> can't. But if you +repent——"</p> + +<p>"I don't," Annesley broke in. "I was thinking of you, of course."</p> + +<p>"Bless you!" said her host. His tone was suddenly gay. She glanced at him +and saw that his face was gay also, his eyes bright and challenging, his +look almost boyish. She had taken him for thirty-three or four; now she +would have guessed him younger.</p> + +<p>Annesley could not help admiring his pluck, for he had said that the +arrival of these men meant danger. She ought to be sorry as well as +frightened because they had come, but at that moment she was neither. Her +companion's example was contagious. Her spirits rose. And the thought +flashed through her head, "This adventure won't end here!" If she had had +time she would have been ashamed of her gladness; but there was no time. +Smith was talking again in a suppressed yet cheerful tone.</p> + +<p>"You won't forget that we're Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith?"</p> + +<p>"No—no. I sha'n't forget."</p> + +<p>"You may have to call me Nelson, and I—to call you Annesley. It's a +pretty name, odd for a woman to have. How did you get it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, you don't want to hear that now!"</p> + +<p>"Why not?—unless you'd rather not tell me. We can't do anything more +till the blow falls, except enjoy ourselves and go on with our dinner. +How did you come to be Annesley?"</p> + +<p>"It was part of my mother's maiden name. She was an Annesley-Seton."</p> + +<p>"There's a Lord Annesley-Seton, isn't there?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Related to you?"</p> + +<p>"A cousin. But Grayle isn't a name in their set. He and his wife have +forgotten my existence. I'm not likely to remind them of it."</p> + +<p>"His wife was an American girl, wasn't she?"</p> + +<p>"How odd that you should know!"</p> + +<p>"Not very. I remember there being a lot in the papers about the wedding +six or seven years ago. The girl was very rich—a Miss Haverstall. Her +father's lost his money since then."</p> + +<p>"How <i>can</i> you keep such uninteresting things in your mind—just now?"</p> + +<p>"They're not uninteresting. They concern you!"</p> + +<p>"Lord Annesley-Seton's affairs don't concern me, and never will."</p> + +<p>"I wonder?" said Smith, looking thoughtful; and the girl wondered, too: +not about her future or her relatives, but what the next few minutes +would do with this strange young man, and how at such a time he could +bear to talk commonplaces.</p> + +<p>"If you're trying to keep me from being nervous," she whispered, "it's +not a bit of use! I can't think of anything or any one except those men. +They've stopped whispering. But they're looking at you. Now—they're +getting up. They're coming toward us!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h3>THE GREAT MOMENT</h3> + + +<p>The men were staring so keenly at "Mr. N. Smith" that it seemed to +Annesley he must feel the stab of eyes, sharp as pin-pricks, in his back. +He had the self-control, however, not to look round, not even to change +expression. No man in the restaurant appeared more calmly at ease than +he.</p> + +<p>The couple had accompanied their stare with eager whisperings. Then, +as if on some hasty decision, they pushed back their chairs and got up. +Taking a few steps they separated, approaching Smith on right and left. +One, therefore, stood between him and Annesley as if to prevent an +exchange of words or glances. There was something Eastern and oddly +alien about them in spite of their conventional clothes.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Michael Varcoe!" said the bigger and older, he who stood on the left +of Smith. The other kept in the background, not to crowd with conspicuous +rudeness between Annesley and her host. The man who spoke had a thick +voice and a curious accent which the girl, with her small experience, was +unable to place.</p> + +<p>"No," answered "Smith," in a puzzled tone. "You mistake me for someone +else."</p> + +<p>"I think not," insisted the bearded man, in a hostile drawl. "I <i>think</i> +not!"</p> + +<p>"I'm <i>sure</i> not," echoed the other. "You are Michael Varcoe. There's no +getting away from that."</p> + +<p>The emphasis seemed to add, "And no getting away from <i>us</i>."</p> + +<p>Excitement stirred Annesley to courage. "Why, how horrid!" she exclaimed, +bending past the human obstacle; "people taking you for some <i>foreigner</i>! +I'm sure you can't be like a man with such a name as—Michael Varcoe! +Tell them who we are."</p> + +<p>"My name is Nelson Smith," said her official husband. "My wife is +not——"</p> + +<p>"Your wife!" repeated the man standing opposite Annesley. He stared with +insolent incredulity. "'Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith.' A good name to +take."</p> + +<p>"It happens to have been given me." Slight sharpness broke the tolerance +of Smith's tone.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe you!" exclaimed the other.</p> + +<p>Smith's black brows drew together. "It doesn't matter whether you believe +or not," he said. "What does matter is that you should annoy us. I tell +you I'm not Michael Varcoe, and never heard the name. If you're not +satisfied, and if you don't go back to your dinner and let us finish ours +in peace, I'll appeal to the management."</p> + +<p>"Well!" grumbled the taller of the pair. "If you're not the man I want, +you're his image—minus moustache and beard. You <i>must</i> be Varcoe!"</p> + +<p>"Of course he's Varcoe," insisted the other.</p> + +<p>"Of course he's not!" said Annesley, with just the right amount of +irritation. "Our name is Smith. Nelson, do tell this—person to ask the +head-waiter who engaged the table, and not stay here making a fuss."</p> + +<p>"Anybody can engage a table in the name of Smith!" sneered the first +speaker. "That is nothing. We go by something more convincing than a +name. There are countries where men have been arrested on less +resemblance—or put out of the way."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Nelson, he's frightening me," faltered Annesley. "He must have lost +his senses."</p> + +<p>"You think that, do you?" The fierce eyes fixed her with a stare. "You +tell me—<i>you</i>, madame, that you are this man's wife?"</p> + +<p>"I do tell you so," the girl replied, firmly, "though I don't see that +it's your affair! Now go away."</p> + +<p>"Very well, we take your word," returned the man, in a tone which said +that he did nothing of the sort. "And we go—back to our table, to let +you finish your meal, Mr. and Mrs. Smith."</p> + +<p>His black glance sprang like a tarantula from her face to her +companion's, then to his friend's. The latter accepted the ultimatum and +followed in sulky silence; but when the pair were seated at their own +table, though they ordered food and wine, their attention was still for +the alleged Mr. and Mrs. Smith.</p> + +<p>Annesley tried to ignore the fact that they stared without ceasing, but +she could not help being aware of their eyes. She felt faint, and +everything in the room whirled giddily.</p> + +<p>"Drink some champagne," said Smith's quiet voice.</p> + +<p>The girl obeyed, and the ice-cold wine cooled the fire in blood and +nerves.</p> + +<p>"You have been splendid," Smith encouraged her. "I know you won't fail me +now."</p> + +<p>"I promise you I will not!" returned Annesley. "The worst is over. I feel +ready for anything."</p> + +<p>"How can I thank you?" he murmured. "If I had all the rest of my life to +do it in, instead of a few minutes, it wouldn't be too much. You were +perfect in your manner, not anxious, only annoyed; just the right air for +a self-respecting Mrs. Smith."</p> + +<p>They both laughed, and Annesley was surprised that she could laugh +naturally and gaily. Presently she laughed again, when Mr. Smith remarked +that she had missed her vocation in not being an actress—she, the +country mouse, who had hardly been inside a theatre.</p> + +<p>The two lingered over their dinner, watched with impatience by the men +at the other table, who had ordered only one dish and paid for it +immediately, that they might be ready for anything at an instant's +notice. They had also a small bottle of wine, which they sipped +abstemiously as an excuse to remain after their food had been eaten.</p> + +<p>When at last Mr. and Mrs. Smith had finished their <i>bombe surprise</i>, and +trifled with some fruit, Annesley said: "Evidently they don't care how +long they have to wait! I suppose there's nothing for us to do but to +go?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, there's still something," said Smith. "We'll have coffee in the +foyer, and see what the enemy's next move is. It would be a mistake to +let the brutes believe they're frightening us."</p> + +<p>Annesley agreed in silence; but in her heart she was glad to lengthen out +the adventure. Soon she would have to creep back to her dull modern +substitute for a moated grange, and after that—not "the deluge"; nothing +so exciting: extinction.</p> + +<p>As they walked out of the restaurant together the girl glanced up at the +dark profile, mysterious as a stranger's, yet familiar as a friend's. The +man had told her nothing about himself except that he was in danger, and +had given no hint as to what that danger was; but the girl's heart was +warm with belief in him. If there were a question of crime, the crime was +not his. His superiority over those creatures must be moral as well as +physical and social.</p> + +<p>By an odd coincidence, Mr. Smith steered for the sofa in the corner +whence a man had stared from behind an open newspaper at a tall, lonely +girl in gray, earlier in the evening. Annesley knew nothing of this +coincidence, because she had not noticed the man; but even if she had, +she would have forgotten him. She had been thinking of herself when she +first trailed her gray dress over the red carpet of the foyer; now, +returning, she thought of the man who was with her and the two who were +certain to follow.</p> + +<p>Scarcely were she and Smith seated before the others appeared. The men +sat down in chairs drawn up at a little table; and not only must those in +the corner pass by them in escaping, but every word spoken above a +whisper must be overheard.</p> + +<p>This fact did not embarrass Smith. He ordered coffee and cigarettes, and +talked to Annesley in an ordinary tone about a motor trip which it would +be pleasant to take. The watchers also demanded coffee. But the waiter +they summoned was slow in fulfilling their order. When it was obeyed, +before the pair had time to lift cup to lip, Mr. Smith took impish +pleasure in getting to his feet.</p> + +<p>"Come, dear," he said, "we'd better be off."</p> + +<p>He laid on the table money for the coffee and cigarettes, with a +satisfactory tip. Then without looking at their neighbours he and +Annesley passed, walking shoulder to shoulder with a leisurely step +toward the entrance.</p> + +<p>"I suppose there's no chance of shaking them off?" the girl whispered.</p> + +<p>"None whatever," said Smith. "But we've had the fun of cheating them out +of their coffee, because they won't chance our stopping to pick up our +wraps. They'll be on our heels till the end of the journey, so there's +nothing for it except to stick to the original plan of my going home with +you. I hope you don't mind? I hope you're not afraid of me now?"</p> + +<p>"I'm not at all afraid," said Annesley.</p> + +<p>"Thank you for that. If our taxi outruns theirs, I sha'n't need to +trespass on your kindness beyond the doorstep. But if they overtake us, +and are on the spot before you can vanish into the house and I can +disappear in some other direction, are you still game to keep your +promise—the promise to let me go indoors with you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am 'game' to the end—whatever the end may be," the girl +answered; and she wondered at herself, because her heart was as brave as +her words.</p> + +<p>Five minutes later Annesley, wrapped in her thin cloak, was stepping into +a taxi. As Smith followed and told the chauffeur where to drive, the two +watchers shot through the revolving door in time to overhear, and also to +order a taxi.</p> + +<p>Annesley wondered for one dismayed instant why her companion should have +given the real address. He might have mentioned some other street, and +thus have gained time; but a second thought told her that, with the +pursuing taxi so close upon their heels, an attempt to deceive would have +been useless. The policy of defiance was the only one.</p> + +<p>For a few moments neither the girl nor the man spoke, although Annesley +felt that there were a thousand things to say. Every second was taking +them nearer to Torrington Square; and their parting must come soon. After +that, all would be blankness for her, as before this wonderful night.</p> + +<p>Such thoughts made the girl a prisoner of silence; and "Mr. Smith" was +also tongue-tied. Was he concentrating his mind upon some plan of escape +from these mysterious enemies? She told herself this must be so; yet his +first words proved that he had been thinking of the risk she ran.</p> + +<p>"If the dragon comes out of her den and catches us at the door, will that +mean a catastrophe for you, or can I be explained away?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," said Annesley. "And somehow I don't care!"</p> + +<p>"I care," the man replied. "I can't have harm come to you through me. But +tell me, before we go farther—does it matter to you, Miss Grayle, that +in a little while you and I may see the last of each other? I feel I have +a sort of right to ask that question, because it matters such a lot to +me. I've got to know you better in this one evening than I could in a +year in a commonplace way. I don't want you to go out of my life, because +you're the best thing that ever came into it. And if I dared hope that I +might mean to you some day half what you've begun to mean for me already, +why, I wouldn't <i>let</i> you go!"</p> + +<p>Annesley clasped her hands under her cloak. They were cold yet tingling. +Her blood was leaping; but she could not speak. She was afraid of saying +too much.</p> + +<p>"Can't you give me a grain of hope?" he went on. His voice was wistful. +"We have so little time."</p> + +<p>"What—do you want me to say?" Annesley stammered.</p> + +<p>"I want you to say—that you don't wish to see the last of me to-night."</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't be human if I <i>could</i> wish that!" the words seemed to speak +themselves; and she, who had been taught to repress and hide emotion as +if it were a vice, was glad that the truth was out. After all they had +gone through together she couldn't send this man away believing her +indifferent. "I—it doesn't seem as if we were strangers," she faltered +on.</p> + +<p>"Strangers! I should think not," he echoed. "We mayn't know much about +each other's tastes, but we do know about each other's souls, which is +more than can be said of most men and women acquainted for half a +lifetime. As for our pasts, you haven't had one, and I—well, if I swear +to you that I've never murdered anybody, or been in prison, or committed +an unforgivable crime, will you take my word?"</p> + +<p>"If you told me you <i>were</i> a murderer, or had committed some unforgivable +crime, I—I don't feel as if I could believe it," Annesley assured him. +"It—would hurt me to think evil of you. I'm sure it isn't you who are +evil, but these men."</p> + +<p>"You're an angel to feel like that and speak like that!" exclaimed Smith. +"I don't deserve your goodness, but I appreciate it. I'd like to take +your hand and kiss it when I thank you, but I won't, because you're alone +with me, under my protection. To save me from trouble you've risked +danger and put yourself in my power. I may be bad in some ways—most men +are, or would be in women's eyes if women saw them as they are; but I'm +not a brute. The worst I've ever done is to try to pay back a great +injury, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Do you blame me for +that?"</p> + +<p>"I have no right—I don't know what the injury was," said the girl; and, +hesitating a little, "still—I don't think <i>I</i> could find happiness in +revenge."</p> + +<p>"I could, or anyhow, satisfaction: I confess that. About 'happiness,' I +don't know much. But you could teach me."</p> + +<p>"I?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Do you believe there can be such a thing as love at first sight?"</p> + +<p>"I can't tell. Books say so. Perhaps——"</p> + +<p>"There's no 'perhaps.' I've found that out to-night. I believe love that +comes at sight must be the only real love—a sort of electric call from +soul to soul. The thing that's happened is just this: I've met the one +woman—my help-mate. If I come out of this trouble, and can ask a girl +like you to give herself to me, will you do it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, you say this because you think you ought to be grateful!" cried +Annesley. "But I don't want gratitude. This is the first time I've ever +<i>lived</i>. I owe that to you. And it's more than you can owe to me."</p> + +<p>The man laughed, a happy laugh, as though danger were miles away instead +of on his heels. "You know almost as much about men as a child knows, +Miss Grayle," he said, "if you think I'm one of the sort—if there <i>is</i> +such a sort—who would tie himself to a woman for gratitude. I've just +one motive in wanting you to marry me. I love you and need you. I +couldn't feel more if I'd known you months instead of hours."</p> + +<p>The wonder of it swept over Annesley in a flood. Even in her dreams—and +she had had wild dreams sometimes—she had never pictured a man such as +this loving her and wanting her. To the girl's mind he was so attractive +that it seemed impossible his choice of her could be from the heart. She +would wake up to a stale, flat to-morrow and find that none of these +things had really happened.</p> + +<p>Still, she might as well live up to the dream while it lasted, and have +the more to remember.</p> + +<p>"It's a fairy story, surely!" she said, trying to laugh. "There are so +many beautiful girls in the world for a man like you, that I——"</p> + +<p>"A man like me! What <i>am</i> I like?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's hard to put into words. But—well, you're brave; I'm sure of +that."</p> + +<p>"I hope I'm not a coward. All normal men are brave. That's nothing. What +else am I—to you?"</p> + +<p>"Interesting. More interesting than—than any one I ever saw."</p> + +<p>"If you feel that, you don't want to send me out of your life, do +you?—after you've stood by and sheltered me from danger?"</p> + +<p>"No-o. I don't want to send you out of my life. But——"</p> + +<p>"There's only one way in which you can keep me and I can keep +you—circumstanced as we are. We must be husband and wife."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" The girl covered her face with both hands. The world was on fire +around her.</p> + +<p>"I frighten you. Yet you might have consented to marry that other Smith. +You went to meet him, to decide whether he was possible."</p> + +<p>"I know. But I see now, if he'd kept his appointment, it would have ended +in nothing, even if—if he had been pleased with me. I couldn't have +brought myself to say 'yes'."</p> + +<p>"How can you be certain?"</p> + +<p>"Because"—Annesley spoke almost in a whisper—"because he wasn't <i>you</i>."</p> + +<p>Smith snatched her clasped hands and kissed them. The warm touch of the +man's lips gave the girl a new, mysterious sensation. No man had ever +kissed even her hands. Suddenly she felt sure that what she felt must be +love—love at first sight, which, according to him, was an electric call +from soul to soul. His kiss told her that they belonged to each other for +good or evil.</p> + +<p>"Darling!" he said. "You are mine. I sha'n't let you go. For love of you +I'll free myself from this temporary trouble I'm in, and come back to +claim you soon. When I ask you to be my wife you'll say to me what you +<i>wouldn't</i> have said to the other Smith?"</p> + +<p>"If I can escape to hear you. But—you don't know Mrs. Ellsworth."</p> + +<p>"St. George rescued the princess from the dragon: so will I, though I've +warned you I'm no saint. When we meet again I'll tell you what I am, and +perhaps my real name, which is better than Smith, though it mayn't be as +safe. Now, there are other things to say——"</p> + +<p>But there was no time to say them, for the taxi stopped. The time seemed +so short since the Savoy that Annesley couldn't believe they were in +Torrington Square. Perhaps the chauffeur had made a mistake? She looked +out, hoping that it might be so; but before her were the darkened windows +of the dull, familiar house, 22-A. The great moment was upon them.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h3>THE SECOND LATCHKEY</h3> + + +<p>Without another word Smith opened the door and sprang out. As Annesley +put her hand into his to descend she gave him the latchkey. It had been +inside the neck of her dress, and the metal was warm from the warmth of +her heart.</p> + +<p>"Take this," she whispered. "If <i>they</i> are watching, it will be best for +you to have the key."</p> + +<p>Mr. Smith bestowed a generous tip on the driver, and was rewarded with a +loud, cheerful "Thank you, sir!" which must have reached the ears of a +chauffeur in the act of stopping before a house near by. Annesley, +glancing sidewise at the other taxi, thought that it drew up with +suspicious suddenness, as if it had awaited a "cue."</p> + +<p>There was little doubt in her mind as to who the occupants were, and her +heart beat fast, though she controlled herself to walk with calmness +across the strip of pavement. On the doorstep she turned to wait for her +companion, and, without seeming to look past him, saw that no one got out +from the neighbouring taxi.</p> + +<p>"They don't care whether we guess who they are or not," was her thought. +"They mean to find out whether we have a latchkey and can let ourselves +into a house in this square. When they see us go in, will they believe +the story and drive away, or—will they stay on?"</p> + +<p>What would happen if the watchers persisted Annesley dared not think; but +she knew that she would sacrifice herself in any way rather than send the +man she loved (yes, she <i>did</i> love him!) out to face peril.</p> + +<p>Having paid the chauffeur, Mr. N. Smith joined the figure on the +doorstep, and fitted into the lock Annesley's latchkey. Then he opened +the door for the girl, and followed her in with a cool air of +proprietorship which ought to have impressed the watchers. A minute +later, if another proof had been needed that Mr. and Mrs. Smith were +actually at home, it was given by a sudden glow of red curtains in the +two front windows of the ground floor.</p> + +<p>This touch of realism meant extra risk for Annesley in case Mrs. +Ellsworth were awake; but she took it with scarcely a qualm of fear. The +house was quiet, and there were ten chances to one against its mistress +being on the alert at this hour, so long past her bedtime.</p> + +<p>When the girl had switched on the lights of the two-branched chandelier +over the dining table she beckoned to her companion, who noiselessly +followed her from the dark corridor into the room. There, with one +sweeping glance at the dull red walls, the oil-painted landscapes in +sprawling gilt frames, the heavy plush curtains, the furniture with its +"saddle-bag" upholstery, the common Turkish carpet, and the mantel mirror +with tasteless, tasselled draperies, "Nelson Smith" seemed to comprehend +the deadly "stuffiness" of Annesley Grayle's existence.</p> + +<p>The look of Mrs. Ellsworth's middle-class dining room, and the atmosphere +whence oxygen had been excluded, were enough to tell him, if he had not +realized already, why the lady's companion had gone out to meet a strange +man "with a view to marriage."</p> + +<p>To Annesley, however, for the first time, this room was neither hideous +nor depressing. It seemed years since she had seen it. She was a +different girl from the spiritless slave who had crept out after +luncheon, in the wake of her mistress: that short, shapeless form with +a large head set on a short neck, and a trailing, old-fashioned dress +of black.</p> + +<p>Now, with a man holding her hands and calling her an angel—a "dear, +brave angel!"—it looked to the girl a beautiful room. There was glamour +upon it, and upon the rest of the world. Surely life could never seem +commonplace again!</p> + +<p>"Ssh!" Annesley whispered. "We mustn't wake Mrs. Ellsworth, or she'll run +to the front door in her dressing gown and call 'Police!' She's old, but +her ears are sharp as a cat's. She can almost hear one <i>thinking</i>. But +I'm glad she can't quite. How frightful if she could!"</p> + +<p>"Nothing about her need be frightful to you any more," said the man. "You +have saved me. Soon it will be my turn to rescue you."</p> + +<p>"I haven't saved you yet," the girl reminded him. "<i>They</i> are sure to be +waiting to see whether you come out. But I've thought of one more thing +to make them believe that you live here. I can steal softly upstairs to +the front room on the second floor, above the drawing room—the one we +call 'Mr. Smith's'—to turn on the lights, and then those hateful +creatures will think——". She hesitated, and the colour sprang to her +cheeks.</p> + +<p>"That Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith have gone to their room," the man +finished her sentence. His eyes beamed love and gratitude, a glorious +reward. "You're wonderful! You forget nothing that can help. Do you know, +your trust, your faith in me, in spite of appearances, are the best +things that have come into my life? You call those fellows 'hateful +creatures,' because they're my enemies. Yet, for all you know, <i>they</i> +may be injured innocents and I the 'hateful' one. This may be my way +of getting into a rich old woman's house to steal her jewels and +money—making you a cat's paw."</p> + +<p>"Don't!" Annesley cut him short. "I can't bear to hear you say such +things. I trust you because—surely a woman can tell by instinct which +men to trust. I don't need proof."</p> + +<p>"By Jove!" he exclaimed, his eyes fixed upon her face. "You are the kind +of girl whose faith could turn Lucifer back from devil into archangel. +I—you're a million times too good for me. I didn't even <i>want</i> to meet a +white saint like you. But now I have met you, nothing on earth is going +to make me give you up, if you'll stand by me. I'm unworthy, and I don't +expect to be much better. But there's one thing: I can give you a gayer +life than here. Perhaps I can even make you happy, if you don't ask for +a saint to match yourself. You shall have my love and worship, and I'll +be true as steel——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, listen!" Annesley broke in. "Don't you hear a sound?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said. "A door creaked somewhere."</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Ellsworth's bedroom door. What shall we do? There's just the short +passage at the back, and then she'll be at the baize door that opens +into the front corridor. Quick! You, not I, must go upstairs—to that +second-floor front room I spoke of. Hurry! Before she gets to the swing +door——"</p> + +<p>Without a word he obeyed, remembering his hat, which he had laid on the +table. One step took him out of the lighted dining room into the dimness +beyond. Another step and he was on the stairs. There, for the moment at +least, he was safe from detection; for the staircase faced the front +door, and Mrs. Ellsworth must approach from the back. She would come to +the door of the dining room, and, expecting only the girl, would not +think of spying at the foot of the stairs.</p> + +<p>Besides, there was no light in the corridor except that which streamed +through the reddish globes of the chandelier above the dining table. If +only the man did not stumble on his way up, the situation might be saved.</p> + +<p>He was alert, deft, quick-witted, and light of foot as a panther. Who but +he would have remembered at such a moment to snatch up a compromising hat +and take it with him?</p> + +<p>Annesley stood still, rigid in every muscle, fighting to control her +heart-throbs, that she might be ready to answer a flood of questions. She +dared not even let her thoughts rush ahead. It was all she could do to +face the present. The rest must take care of itself.</p> + +<p><i>He</i> had said that she would "make a good actress." Now was the moment +to prove that he had judged her truly! She began to unfasten one of her +long gray gloves. A button was loose. She must give it a few stitches +to-morrow. Strange that there should be room for such a thought in her +mind. But she caught at it gladly.</p> + +<p>It calmed her as she heard a shuffling tread of slippered feet along the +corridor; and she forced herself not to look up until she was conscious +that a shapeless figure in a dressing gown filled the doorway, like a +badly painted portrait too large for its frame.</p> + +<p>"A nice time of night for you to be back!" barked the bronchitic voice +hoarsened by years of shut windows. "Give you an inch and you take an +ell! I told you half-past ten. Here it is eleven!"</p> + +<p>Annesley looked up as if surprised. "Oh, Mrs. Ellsworth, you frightened +me!" she exclaimed. "I was delayed. But it won't be eleven for ten +minutes. This dining-room clock keeps such good time, you know. And I've +been in the house for a few moments. I thought I came so softly! I'm +sorry I waked you up."</p> + +<p>"Waked me up!" repeated Mrs. Ellsworth. "I have not been to sleep. I +never can close my eyes when I know anybody is out and has got to come +back, especially a careless creature as likely as not to leave the front +door unlatched. That's why I said half-past ten at <i>latest</i>! If I don't +fall asleep before eleven I get nervous and lose my night's rest. You've +heard me say that twenty times, yet you have <i>no</i> consideration!"</p> + +<p>"This is the first time I've been out late," Annesley defended herself. +As she spoke she looked at Mrs. Ellsworth as she might have looked at a +stranger.</p> + +<p>This fat old woman, with hard eyes, low, unintelligent forehead, and +sneering yet self-indulgent mouth, had been for five years the mistress +of her fate. The slave had feared to speak lest she should say the wrong +thing, had hesitated before taking the most insignificant step, knowing +that Mrs. Ellsworth's sharp tongue would accuse her of foolishness or +worse. But now Annesley wondered at her bondage. If only the man upstairs +could escape, never again would she be afraid of this old tyrant.</p> + +<p>"You don't need to tell me how long you have been in," said Mrs. +Ellsworth, blissfully ignorant that the iron chain was broken, and +enjoying her power to wound. "I've been sitting up watching the clock. My +fire's nearly out, and no more coals in the scuttle, the servants all +three snoring while I am kept up. If I'm in bed with a cold to-morrow I +shall have you to thank, Miss Grayle."</p> + +<p>"I'll get you some more coal if you want it," said Annesley. "Hadn't you +better go to bed now I am back?"</p> + +<p>"Not till I've made you understand that this must never occur again," +insisted the old woman. (Annesley was shocked at herself for daring to +think that the unwieldy bulk in the gray flannel dressing gown looked +like a hippopotamus.) "You don't seem to realize that you've done +anything out of the way. You're as calm as if it was eight o'clock. Not +a word of regret! Not a question as to <i>my</i> evening, you're so taken up +with yourself and your smart clothes—clothes I gave you."</p> + +<p>"I haven't had much chance to ask questions, have I?" Annesley ventured +to remind her mistress. "Won't you tell me about your evening when you +are in bed and I have made up your fire? You say it is bad for you to +stand."</p> + +<p>"I say so because it is the truth, and doctor's orders," rapped out Mrs. +Ellsworth. "I thought I had been upset enough for one evening, but this +last straw had to be added to my burden."</p> + +<p>"Why, what can have upset you?" Annesley inquired, more for the sake +of appearing interested than because she was so. But the look on her +mistress's face told her that something really had happened.</p> + +<p>"I don't care to be kept out of my bed, to be catechized by you," +returned Mrs. Ellsworth, pleased that she had aroused curiosity and +determined not to gratify it. "Turn on the light in the corridor and +give me your arm. My rheumatism is very bad, owing to the chill I have +caught, and if I stumble I may be laid up for a week."</p> + +<p>The girl proffered a slender arm, hoping that the pounding of her heart +might not be detected by Mrs. Ellsworth's hand. She wished that she could +have slipped it under her right arm instead of the left, but owing to +Mrs. Ellsworth's position in the doorway it was impossible to do so, +except by pushing her aside.</p> + +<p>She rejoiced, however, in the order to put on the light in the corridor, +for this meant that after settling her mistress in bed and transferring +the dining-room coal scuttle to the bedroom she must return to switch the +electricity off. Then, with Mrs. Ellsworth out of the way, she could help +the man upstairs to escape, if the watchers had abandoned the game.</p> + +<p>The tyrant, shuffling along in heelless woollen slippers, made the most +of her infirmity, and hung on the arm of her tall companion. In silence +they passed through the baize door at the end of the corridor, so into +the addition at the back of the house, which contained Mrs. Ellsworth's +room and bath, with another small room suitable for a maid, and occupied +by Annesley. This addition had been built a year or two before Annesley's +arrival, and saved Mrs. Ellsworth the necessity of mounting and +descending the stairs, as she used the dining room to sit in and seldom +went into the drawing room on the floor above. Annesley was not surprised +to see that the fire in her mistress's room was still a bank of glowing +coals, for one of Mrs. Ellsworth's pleasures was to represent herself in +the light of a martyr. The girl made no remark, however: she was far too +experienced for such mistakes in tact.</p> + +<p>Still in silence, she peeled the stout figure of its dressing gown and +helped it into a short, knitted bed-jacket.</p> + +<p>"When you get the dining-room scuttle, put out the light there and in the +corridor," Mrs. Ellsworth said. "If you leave this door open you can see +your way with the coals. No use your creaking back and forth just as I've +settled down to rest. Besides, there's somebody else to think of. I hope +he hasn't been disturbed already!"</p> + +<p>"Somebody else?" echoed the girl with a gasp. There was no longer any +fear that her curiosity had not caught fire. Mrs. Ellsworth was +satisfied.</p> + +<p>"Yes, somebody else," she condescended to repeat. "A certain person has +come since you went out. I suppose, <i>in the circumstances</i>, you do not +need to be told <i>who</i>."</p> + +<p>"I—I don't know what you mean by 'in the circumstances'," Annesley +stammered.</p> + +<p>"That's not intelligent of you, considering where you have spent the +evening," sneered Mrs. Ellsworth.</p> + +<p>Annesley's ears tingled as if they had been boxed. Could it be that Mrs. +Ellsworth knew of the trick played on her—knew that her companion had +not been to the Smiths'?</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid I don't understand," she deprecated.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ellsworth sat in bed staring up at her. "Either you are a fool," she +said, "or else I have caught you or <i>him</i> in a lie. I don't know which +yet. But I soon shall. Perhaps you were not the only person in this house +who went out to-night with a latchkey. Now do you guess?"</p> + +<p>"No, I don't," the girl had to answer, though a dreadful idea was +whirring an alarm in her brain.</p> + +<p>"I dare say he is back before this, being more considerate of my feelings +than you, and less noisy," went on the old woman, anxious to prove that +Annesley Grayle and nobody else was responsible for keeping her from +rest. "Anyhow, what a man does is not my business. What you do, is. Now, +did or did <i>not</i> a certain person walk in and surprise you at the +Archdeacon's? Don't stand there blinking like an owl. Speak out. Yes +or no?"</p> + +<p>"No," Annesley breathed.</p> + +<p>"Then you haven't been to the Smiths'. I can more easily believe you are +lying than <i>he</i>. Hark! There he comes. Isn't that a latchkey in the front +door?"</p> + +<p>"It—sounds like it. But—perhaps it's a mouse in the wall. Mice—make +such strange noises."</p> + +<p>"They're not making this one. He never could manage that key properly. +Nobody with ears could mistake the sound, with both my door and the baize +door open between, as they are now.</p> + +<p>"No! You aren't to run and let him in. I don't want him to think we spy +on him. He's free to come and go as he pleases, but I wish he wasn't so +fond of surprises. It's not fair to me, at my time of life. As I was +sitting down to dinner he walked in. Of course I had to ask him to dine, +though there wasn't enough food for two. However, he refused, saying he +would drop in at the Archdeacon's——"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Smith has come!" Annesley cried out, wildly, interrupting her +mistress for the first time in all their years together. "Oh, he will go +upstairs! I must stop him—I mean, speak to him! I——"</p> + +<p>"You will do nothing of the kind!" Mrs. Ellsworth leaned out of bed and +seized the girl's dress. Careless of any consequence save one, Annesley +struggled to free herself. But the old hand with its lumpy knuckles was +strong in spite of fat and rheumatism. It clung leechlike to chiffon of +cloak and gown, and though Annesley tore at the yellow fingers, she could +not loosen them.</p> + +<p>Desperate, she cried out in a choked voice, "Mr. Smith! Mr. Smith!" then +checked herself lest the wrong Mr. Smith should answer.</p> + +<p>But her voice was like the voice of one who tries to scream in a +nightmare. It was muffled; and though the two intervening doors were +ajar—the door of Mrs. Ellsworth's bedroom and the baize door dividing +the corridors old and new—her call did not reach even the real Mr. +Smith. To be sure, he was slightly deaf, and had to use an electric +apparatus if he went to the theatre or opera; still, Annesley hoped that +her choked cry might arrest him, that he might stop and listen for it to +come again, thus giving time for the man upstairs to change his quarters +after the grating of the latchkey in its lock.</p> + +<p>"Wicked, wicked girl!" Mrs. Ellsworth was shrilling. "How dare you hurt +my hand? Have you lost your <i>senses</i>? Out of my house you go to-morrow!"</p> + +<p>But Annesley did not hear. Her mind, her whole self, had escaped from her +body and rushed out into the hall to intercept Mr. Ruthven Smith. It +seemed that he <i>must</i> feel the influence and stop. If he did not, some +terrible thing would happen—unless, indeed, the other man had heard and +heeded the warning sound at the front door. What if those two met on the +stairs, or in the room on the second floor? Her lover would believe that +she had betrayed him!</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Ellsworth," she said in a fierce, low voice utterly unlike her own, +"you must let me go, or you will regret it. I don't want to hurt you, +but—there's only one thing that matters. If——"</p> + +<p>The words seemed to be beaten back against her lips with a blow. From +somewhere above a sharp, dry explosion struck the girl's brain and +shattered her thoughts like breaking glass.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ellsworth let go the chiffon cloak and dress so suddenly that +Annesley almost lost her balance. The noise had dazed the girl. The world +seemed full and echoing with it. She did not know what it was until she +heard Mrs. Ellsworth gasp, "A pistol shot! In my house! <i>Thieves! +Murder!</i>"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h3>THE BEGINNING—OR THE END?</h3> + + +<p>For one confused instant the girl stood statue-still, then, realizing +that she was free, without a thought for Mrs. Ellsworth she ran out of +the room. In the front corridor and in the dining room the electric light +was still on; and as she reached the stairs Annesley saw Ruthven Smith +standing near the top with a small pistol in his hand.</p> + +<p>She feared that he would fire a second shot, and there was no time to +reach him. Somehow, he must be stopped with a word—but what word? +Everything depended on that. Sheer desperation inspired her.</p> + +<p>"Stop! He's my lover!" she cried. "Don't shoot!"</p> + +<p>Ruthven Smith—a tall, lanky figure in a long over-coat—kept his weapon +aimed at someone out of the girl's sight, but he jerked his head aside +for a glance down at her. It was a brief glance, for the man who dreaded +burglars would not be caught napping. He turned again instantly to face +a possible antagonist, eyes as well as weapon ready.</p> + +<p>But the light from below had lit up his features for a second; and +Annesley realized that disgust and astonishment were the emotions her +"confession" had inspired.</p> + +<p>The fact that he was inclined to believe her statement showed how low +was his opinion of women. Annesley knew that he did not think highly +of her sex, but he had liked her and she had liked him despite his +eccentricities. His look said: "So you are the same as the rest! But in +case you're lying, I sha'n't be thrown off guard."</p> + +<p>The girl felt physically sick as she understood the irrevocability of +what she had just said, and the way in which her words were construed. If +she could have waited, "Nelson Smith" might have saved himself without +compromising her, for he was above all things resourceful. In announcing +that he was her "lover," she had committed him as well as herself. He +would have to make the best of a situation she had recklessly created.</p> + +<p>This she realized, but had no time to wonder how he would do it before he +spoke.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Ruthven Smith, what Miss Grayle says is the truth. We're engaged to +be married. All I want is a chance to explain why you find me where I am. +I'm not armed, so you can safely give me that chance."</p> + +<p>"You know my name?" exclaimed Ruthven Smith, suspiciously. He still +covered the other with his pistol, as Annesley could see now, because +"Nelson Smith" had coolly advanced within a yard of the Browning's small +black muzzle, and, finding the electric switch, had flooded the upper +corridor with light.</p> + +<p>"I've heard your name from Miss Grayle," said the younger man. "I know it +must be you, because no other person has a right to make himself at home +in this house as you are doing. I certainly haven't. But bringing her +home a few minutes ago, after dining out, we saw a light in what she said +was your room. She was afraid some thief had got in, and I proposed to +her that I should take a quiet look round while she went to see if Mrs. +Ellsworth was safe. No doubt she was all right, because I heard them +talking together while I examined your premises. The next thing I knew, +as I was coming down with the news that everything was quiet, you blazed +away. It was quite a surprise."</p> + +<p>"I fired in the air, not at you," Ruthven Smith excused himself, more or +less convinced. Annesley clutched the banisters in the sudden weakness of +a great revulsion from panic to relief. She might have known that <i>he</i> +would somehow rescue her, even from her own blundering.</p> + +<p>The shamed red which had stained Annesley's cheeks at Ruthven Smith's +contempt died away. Her "lover"—he was openly that now—had miraculously +made his presence in the other Smith's room, after eleven o'clock at +night in this early bed-going household, the most natural thing in the +world. At least, Ruthven Smith's almost apologetic tone in answering +proved that he had been persuaded to think it so.</p> + +<p>With Mrs. Ellsworth, however, it would be different. There would lie the +stumbling-block; but with all danger from the Browning ended, the girl +was in no mood to borrow trouble for the future, even a future already +rushing into the arms of the present.</p> + +<p>"I should always fire the first shot in the air," Ruthven Smith went on, +"unless directly threatened."</p> + +<p>"Lucky for me," replied the other. "I don't want to die yet. And it would +have been hard lines, as I was trying to do you a good turn: rid you of a +thief if there were one. But I suppose you or some servant must have left +the light on in your room."</p> + +<p>"I'm pretty sure I didn't," said Ruthven Smith, still speaking with the +nervousness of a suspicious man, yet at the same time slowly, half +reluctantly, pocketing his pistol. "We must find out how this happened. +Perhaps there <i>has</i> been a thief——"</p> + +<p>"No sign of anything being disturbed in your room," the younger man +assured him. "However, you'd best have a look round. If you like"—and he +laughed a frank-sounding laugh—"I'm quite willing to be searched before +I leave the house, so you can make sure I'm not going off with any +booty."</p> + +<p>"Certainly not! Nothing of the kind! I accept your explanation," +protested Ruthven Smith. He laughed also, though stiffly and with an +effort. "I have no valuables in my luggage—I have brought none with me. +It's not worth my while to open the boxes in my room, as there's nothing +there to tempt a thief. Still, one gets a start coming to a quiet house, +at this time of night, finding a light in one's windows that ought to be +dark, and then seeing a man walk out of one's room. My nerves aren't +over-strong. I confess I have a horror of night alarms. I travel a good +deal, and have got in the habit of carrying a pistol. However, all's well +that ends well. I apologize to you, and to Miss Grayle. When I know you +better, I hope you'll allow me to make up by congratulating you both on +your engagement."</p> + +<p>As he spoke, in his prim, old-fashioned way, he began to descend the +stairs, taking off his hat, as if to join the girl whom in thought he had +wronged for an instant. "Nelson Smith" followed, smiling at Annesley over +the elder man's high, narrow head sparsely covered with lank hair of +fading brown.</p> + +<p>It was at this moment Mrs. Ellsworth chose to appear, habited once more +in a hurriedly donned dressing gown, a white silk scarf substituted in +haste for a discarded nightcap. Panting with anger, and fierce with +curiosity, she had forgotten her rheumatism and abandoned her martyred +hobble for a waddling run.</p> + +<p>Thus she pounced out at the foot of the stairway, and was upon the girl +before the three absorbed actors in the scene had heard the shuffling +feet in woollen slippers.</p> + +<p>"What does this mean?" she quavered, so close to Annesley's ear that the +girl wheeled with a start of renewed alarm. "Who's this strange man in my +house? What's this talk about 'engagements'?"</p> + +<p>"A strange man!" echoed Ruthven Smith, prickling with suspicion again. +"Haven't you met him, Miss Grayle's fiancé?"</p> + +<p>"Miss Grayle's fiddlesticks!" shrilled the old woman. "The girl's a +baggage, a worthless baggage! In my room just now she <i>struck</i> me—beat +my poor rheumatic knuckles! For five years I've sheltered her, given her +the best of everything, even to the clothes she has on her back. This is +the way she repays me—with insults and cruelty, and smuggles strange men +secretly into my house at night, and pretends to be engaged to them!"</p> + +<p>The dark young man in evening dress passed the lean figure in travelling +clothes without a word and, putting Annesley gently aside, stepped +between her and Mrs. Ellsworth.</p> + +<p>"There is no question of 'pretending'," he said, sternly. "Miss Grayle +has promised to marry me. If our engagement has been kept a secret, it's +only because the right moment hadn't come for announcing it. I entered +your house for a few moments to-night, for the first time, on an errand +which seemed important, as Mr. Ruthven Smith will explain. I don't feel +called upon to apologize for my presence in the face of your attitude to +Miss Grayle. It was our intention that you should have plenty of notice +before she left you, time to find someone for her place; but after what +has happened, it's your own fault, madame, if we marry with a special +licence, and I take her out of this house to-morrow. I only wish it might +be now——"</p> + +<p>"It <i>shall</i> be now!" Mrs. Ellsworth screamed him down. "The girl doesn't +darken my doors another hour. I don't know who you are, and I don't want +to know. But with or without you, Annesley Grayle leaves my house +to-night."</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Ellsworth, surely you haven't stopped to think what you're saying!" +protested Ruthven Smith. "You can't turn a girl into the street in the +middle of the night with a young man you don't know, even if she is +engaged to him."</p> + +<p>"I won't have her here, after the way she's treated me—after the way +she's acted altogether," Mrs. Ellsworth insisted. "Let her go to your +cousins' if you think they'd approve of her conduct. As for me, I doubt +it. And I'm sure she lied when she said they'd asked her to dine with +them to-night. I don't believe she went near them."</p> + +<p>Ruthven Smith, who had made a surprise visit at the Archdeacon's and +dined there, had heard no mention of Annesley Grayle being expected. For +an instant he was silenced, but the girl did not lack a defender.</p> + +<p>"She will not need to beg for Archdeacon Smith's hospitality," said the +young man. "And even if Mrs. Ellsworth implored her to stay, I couldn't +allow it now. I will see that Miss Grayle is properly sheltered and cared +for to-night by a lady whose kindness will make her forget what she has +suffered. As soon as possible we shall be married by special licence. Go +to your room, dearest, and put together a few things for to-night and +to-morrow morning—just what will fit into a hand-bag. If there's +anything else you value, it can be sent for later. Then I'll take you +away."</p> + +<p>The words were brave and comforting, and a wave of emotion swept +Annesley's soul toward the mysterious, unknown soul of her knight. It +was so strong, so compelling a wave that she had no fear in trusting, +herself to him. He was her refuge, her protector.</p> + +<p>For a moment of gratitude she even forgot he was mysterious, forgot that +a few hours ago she had been ignorant of his existence. When remembrance +flooded her brain, her only fear was for him. What if the watchers should +still be there when they went out of the house together?</p> + +<p>She had turned to go to her room as he suggested when suddenly this +question seemed to be shouted in her ear. Hesitating, she looked back, +her eyes imploring, to meet a smile so confident that it defied fate.</p> + +<p>Annesley saw that he understood what was in her mind, and this smile was +the answer. For some reason he thought himself sure that the watchers +were out of the way. The girl could not guess why, unless he had spied on +the taxi from Ruthven Smith's window and saw it go. But she would soon +learn.</p> + +<p>Her room was a mere bandbox at the back of the "addition," behind Mrs. +Ellsworth's bedroom and bath; and dashing into it now, the new, vividly +alive Annesley seemed to meet and pity the timid, hopeless girl whose one +safe haven these mean quarters had been. She tried to gather the old self +into her new self, that she might take it with her and comfort it, +rescuing it from the tyrant.</p> + +<p>The two trunks she had brought five years ago were stored in the basement +box-room; but under the camp bed was her dressing-bag, the only "lock-up" +receptacle she possessed. In it she kept a few letters and an abortive +diary which in some moods had given her the comfort of a confidant.</p> + +<p>The key of this bag was never absent from her purse, and opening it with +quivering hands, the girl threw in a few toilet things for the night, a +coat, skirt, and blouse for morning, and a small flat toque which would +not crush. Afterward—in that wonderful, dim "afterward" which shone +vaguely bright, like a sunlit landscape discerned through mist—she could +send for more of her possessions. But she would have nothing which had +been given her by Mrs. Ellsworth, and she would return the dress and +cloak she was wearing to-night.</p> + +<p>Three minutes were enough for the packing of the bag; then, luggage in +hand, she turned at the door for a last look, such as a released convict +might give to his cell.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye!" she said, with a thought of compassion for her successor. +And passing Mrs. Ellsworth's room she would have thrown a farewell glance +at its familiar chairs and tables, each one of which she hated with a +separate hatred; but with a shock of surprise, she found the door shut.</p> + +<p>That must mean that the dragon had retreated from the combat and retired +to her lair!</p> + +<p>Not to be chased from the house by the sharp arrows of insult seemed +almost too good to be true. But when Annesley arrived, bag in hand, in +the front corridor, it was to see Ruthven Smith standing there alone, and +the door open to the street.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Ellsworth has gone to her room," he explained, "and—er—your +friend—your fiancé—is looking for a taxi, not to keep you waiting. He +didn't leave till Mrs. Ellsworth went. I don't think he would have +trusted me to protect you without him, though I—er—I did my best with +her. Good heavens, what a fury! I never saw that side of her before! I +must say, I don't blame you for making your own plans, Miss Grayle. I—I +don't blame you for anything, and I hope you'll feel the same toward me. +I'd be sorry to think that—er—after our pleasant acquaintance this was +to be our last meeting. Won't you show that you forgive me for the +mistake I made—I think it was natural—and tell me what your married +name will be?"</p> + +<p>Annesley looked anxiously at the half-open front door. If only the absent +one would return and save her from this new dilemma! If she did not +speak, Mr. Ruthven Smith would think her harsh and unforgiving, yet she +could not answer unless she gave the name adopted temporarily for +convenience. She hesitated, her eyes on the door; but the darkness and +silence outside sent a doubt into her heart, cold and sickly as a bat +flapping in from the night.</p> + +<p><i>What if he never came back?</i> What if the watchers had been hiding out +there, lying in wait and, two against one—both bigger men physically +than he, and perhaps armed—they had overpowered him? What if she were +never to see him again, and this hour which had seemed the beginning of +hope were to be its end?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h3>THE COUNTESS DE SANTIAGO</h3> + + +<p>"You don't wish to tell me the name?" Ruthven Smith was saying.</p> + +<p>The repetition irritated the girl, whose nerves were strained to snapping +point. She could not parry the man's questions. She could not bear his +grieved or offended reproaches. If he persisted, through these moments of +suspense, she would scream or burst out crying. Trembling, with tears in +her voice, she heard herself answer. And yet it did not seem to be +herself, but something within, stronger than she, that suddenly took +control of her.</p> + +<p>"Why should I not wish to tell you?" the Something was saying. "The name +is the same as your own—Smith. Nelson Smith." And before the words had +left her lips a taxi drew up at the door.</p> + +<p>There was one instant of agony during which the previous suspense seemed +nothing—an instant when the girl forgot what she had said, her soul +pressing to the windows of her eyes. Was it he who had come, or——</p> + +<p>It was he. Before she had time to finish the thought, he walked in, +confident and smiling as when she had left him a few minutes—or a few +years—ago; and in the wave of relief which overwhelmed her, Annesley +forgot Ruthven Smith's question and her answer. She remembered again, +only with the shock of hearing him address the newcomer by the name she +had given.</p> + +<p>"I hear from Miss Grayle that we are namesakes," Mr. Ruthven Smith said, +as "Nelson Smith" sprang in and took the girl's bag from her ice-cold +hand.</p> + +<p>"I—he asked me ... I told him," Annesley stammered, her eyes appealing, +seeking to explain, and begging pardon. "But if——"</p> + +<p>"Quite right. Why <i>not</i> tell?" he answered instantly, his first glance +of surprise turning to cheerful reassurance. "Now Mrs. Ellsworth is +eliminated, I'm no longer a secret. And I expect you'll like to meet Mr. +Ruthven Smith again when you have a house to entertain him in."</p> + +<p>So speaking, he offered his hand with a smile to his "namesake"; and +Annesley realized from the outsider's point of view the peculiar +attraction of the man. Ruthven Smith felt it, as she had felt it, though +differently and in a lesser degree. Not only did he shake hands, but +actually came out to the taxi with them, asking Annesley if he should +tell his cousins of her engagement, or if she preferred to give the news +herself?</p> + +<p>It flashed into the girl's mind that it would be perfect if she could be +married to her knight by Archdeacon Smith; but she had been imprudent too +often already. She dared not make such a suggestion without consulting +the other person most concerned, so she answered that she would write +Mrs. Smith or see her.</p> + +<p>"To say that you, too, are going to be Mrs. Smith!" chuckled the +Archdeacon's cousin in his dry way, which made him seem even older than +he was. "Well, you can trust me with Mrs. Ellsworth. If she goes on as +she began to-night, I'm afraid I shall have to follow your example: 'fold +my tent like an Arab, and silently steal away.' Ha, ha! By the by, I dare +say she's owing you salary. I'll remind her of it if you like—tell her +you asked me. It may help with the trousseau."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, but my wife won't need to remind Mrs. Ellsworth of her debt," +the answer came before Annesley could speak. "And she <i>will</i> be my wife +in a day or two at latest. Good-night! Glad to have met you, even if it +was an unpromising introduction."</p> + +<p>Then they were off, they two alone together; and Annesley guessed that +the chauffeur must have had his instructions where to drive, as she heard +none given. Perhaps it was best that their destination should not be +published aloud, for there are walls which have ears. It occurred to the +girl that precautions might still have to be taken. But in another moment +she was undeceived.</p> + +<p>"I thought old Ruthven Smith would be shocked if he knew the 'safe +refuge' I have for you is no more convent-like than the Savoy Hotel," her +companion laughed. "By Jove, neither you nor I dreamed when we got out of +the last taxi that we should soon be in another, going back to the place +we started from!"</p> + +<p>"The Savoy!" exclaimed Annesley. "Oh, but we mustn't go there, of all +places! Those men——"</p> + +<p>"I assure you it's safer now than anywhere in London!" the man cut her +short. "I can't explain why—that is, I <i>could</i> explain if I cared to rig +up a story. But there's something about you makes me feel as if I'd like +to tell you the truth whenever I can: and the truth is, that for reasons +you may understand some day—though I hope to Heaven you'll never have +to!—my association with those men is one of the things I long to turn +the key upon. I know that that sounds like Bluebeard to Fatima, but it +isn't as bad as <i>that</i>. To me, it doesn't seem bad at all. And I swear +that whatever mystery—if you call it 'mystery'—there is about me, it +sha'n't hurt you. Will you believe this—and trust me for the rest?"</p> + +<p>"I've told you I would!" the girl reminded him.</p> + +<p>"I know. But things were different then—not so serious. They hadn't gone +so far. I didn't suppose that Fate would give you to me so soon. I didn't +dare hope it. I——"</p> + +<p>"Are you <i>sure</i> you want me?" Annesley faltered.</p> + +<p>"Surer than I've ever been of anything in my life before. It's only of +you I'm thinking. I wanted to arrange my—business matters so as to be +fair to you. But you'll make the best of things."</p> + +<p>"You are being noble to me," said the girl, "and I've been very foolish. +I've complicated everything. First, by what I told Mr. Ruthven Smith +about—about <i>us</i>. And then—saying your name was Nelson Smith."</p> + +<p>"You weren't foolish!" he contradicted. "You were only—playing into +Fate's hands. You couldn't help yourself. Destiny! And all's for the +best. You were an angel to sacrifice yourself to save me, and your doing +it the way you did has made me a happy man at one stroke. As for the +name—what's in a name? We might as well be in reality what we played at +being to-night—'Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith.' There are even reasons why +I'm pleased that you've made me a present of the name. I thank you for +it—and for all the rest."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but if it isn't <i>really</i> your name, we sha'n't be legally married, +shall we?" Annesley protested.</p> + +<p>"By Jove!" he exclaimed. "I hadn't thought of that. It's a difficulty. +But we'll obviate it—somehow. Don't worry! Only I'm afraid we can't ask +your friend the Archdeacon to marry us, as I meant to suggest, because I +was sure you'd like it."</p> + +<p>"I should. But it doesn't matter," said the girl. "Besides, I feel that +to-morrow I shall find I've dreamed—all this."</p> + +<p>"Then I've dreamed you, at the same time, and I'm not going to let you +slip out of my dream, now I've got you in it. I intend to go on dreaming +you for the rest of my life. And I shall take care <i>you</i> don't wake up!"</p> + +<p>Afterward there came a time when Annesley called back those words and +wondered if they had held a deeper meaning than she guessed. But, having +uttered them, he seemed to put the thought out of his mind, and turn to +the next.</p> + +<p>"About the Savoy," he went on. "I want to take you there, because I +know a woman staying in the hotel—a woman old enough to be your +mother—who'll look after you, to please me, till we're married. +Afterward you'll be nice to her, and that will be doing her a good +turn, because she's apt to be lonesome in London. She's the widow of +a Spanish Count, and has lived in the Argentine, but I met her in New +York. She knows all about me—or enough—and if she'd been in the +restaurant at dinner this evening she could have done for me what you +did. I had reason to think she would be there when I bolted in to get +out of a fix. But she was missing. Are you sorry?"</p> + +<p>"If she'd been there, you would have gone to her table and sat down, and +we—should never have met!" Annesley thought aloud. "How strange! Just +that <i>little</i> thing—your friend being out to dinner—and our whole lives +are to be changed. Oh, <i>you</i> must be sorry?"</p> + +<p>"I tell you, meeting you and winning you in this way is worth the best +ten years of my life. But you haven't answered my question."</p> + +<p>"I'll answer it now!" cried the girl. "Meeting you is worth <i>all</i> the +years of my life! I'm not much of a princess, but you <i>are</i> St. George."</p> + +<p>"St. George!" he echoed, a ring of bitterness under his laugh. "That's +the first time I've been called a saint, and I'm afraid it will be the +last. I can't live up to that, but—if I can give you a happy life, and +a few of the beautiful things you deserve, why, it's <i>something</i>! +Besides, I'm going to worship my princess. I'd give anything to show you +how I—but no. I was good before, when I was tempted to kiss you. You're +at my mercy now, in a way, all the more because I'm taking you from your +old existence to one you don't know.</p> + +<p>"I sha'n't ask to kiss you—except maybe your little hand if you don't +mind—until the moment you're my wife. Meantime, I'll try to grow a bit +more like what your lover ought to be; and later I shall kiss you enough +to make up for lost time."</p> + +<p>If, five hours ago, any one had told Annesley Grayle that she would wish +to have a strange man take her in his arms and kiss her she would have +felt insulted. Yet so it was. She was sorry that he was so scrupulous. +She longed to have him hold her against his heart.</p> + +<p>The thought thrilled her like an electric shock a thousand times more +powerful than the tingling which had flashed up her arm at the first +touch of his hand, though even that had seemed terrifying then. But she +sat still in her corner of the taxi, and gave him no answer, lest she +should betray herself.</p> + +<p>Her silence, after the warmth of his words, seemed cold. Perhaps he felt +it so, for he went on after an instant's pause, as if he had waited for +something in vain, and his tone was changed. Annesley thought it, by +contrast, almost businesslike.</p> + +<p>"You mustn't be afraid," he said, "that I mean to stay at the Savoy +myself. Even if I'd been stopping there, I should move if I were going to +put you in the hotel. But I have my own lair in London. I've been over +here a number of times. Indeed, I'm partly English, born in Canada, +though I've spent most of my life in the United States. Nobody at the +Savoy but the Countess de Santiago knows who I am, and she'll understand +that it may be convenient for me to change my name. Nelson Smith is a +respectable one, and she'll respect it!</p> + +<p>"Now, my plan is to ask for her (she'll be in by this time), have a few +words of explanation on the quiet, not to embarrass you; and the Countess +will do the rest. She'll engage a room for you next to her own suite, or +as near as possible; then you'll be provided with a chaperon."</p> + +<p>"I'm not anxious about myself, but about you," Annesley said. "You +haven't told me yet what happened after you went upstairs at Mrs. +Ellsworth's, and how you knew those men were gone. I suppose you did +know? Or—did you chance it?"</p> + +<p>"I was as sure as I needed to be," Nelson Smith answered. "A moment after +I switched on the electricity in the room up there I heard a taxi drive +away. I turned off the light so I could look out. By flattening my nose +against the glass I could see that the place where those chaps had waited +was empty; but in case the taxi was only turning, and meant to pass the +house again, I lit the room once more, for realism.</p> + +<p>"That's what kept me rather long—that, and waiting for the dragon to go. +Otherwise I should have been down before Ruthven Smith trapped me.</p> + +<p>"For a second it looked as if the game of life was up. And then I found +out how much you meant to me. It was <i>you</i> I thought of. It seemed +beastly hard luck to leave you fast in that old woman's clutches!"</p> + +<p>Annesley put out her hand with a warm impulse. He took it, raising it to +his lips, and both were startled when the taxi stopped. They had arrived +at the Savoy: and though Annesley seemed to have lived through a lifetime +of emotion, just one hour and thirty minutes had passed since she and her +companion drove away from these bright revolving doors.</p> + +<p>The foyer was as brilliant and crowded as when they left at half-past +ten. People were parting after supper; or they were lingering in the +restaurant beyond. Nobody paid the slightest attention to the newcomers, +and Annesley settled down unobtrusively in a corner, while her companion +went to scribble a line to the Countess de Santiago.</p> + +<p>When he had finished, and sent up the letter, he did not return, and +again the girl had a few moments of suspense, thinking of the danger +which might not, after all, be over. Just as she had begun to be anxious, +however, she saw him coming with a wonderful woman.</p> + +<p>Annesley could have laughed, remembering how he had said the Countess +would "mother" her. Any one less motherly than this Juno-like beauty in +flame-coloured chiffon over gold tissue it would be hard to imagine.</p> + +<p>The Spanish South American Countess was of a camelia paleness, and had +almond-shaped dark eyes with brooding lashes under slender brows that +met. In contrast, her hair was of a flame colour vivid as her draperies, +and her lips were red.</p> + +<p>At first glance Annesley thought that the dazzling creature could not be +more than thirty; but when the vision had come near enough to offer her +hand, without waiting for an introduction, a hardness about the handsome +face, a few lines about the eyes and mouth, and a fullness of the chin +showed that she was older—forty, perhaps.</p> + +<p>Still, Annesley hoped that her lover had not asked the lady to "mother" +his fiancée. She had not the air of one who would be complimented by such +a request.</p> + +<p>As Annesley put her hand into that of the Countess, she noticed that this +hand was as wonderful as the rest of the woman's personality. It was very +long, very narrow, with curiously supple-looking fingers exquisitely +manicured and wearing many rings. Even the thumb was abnormally long, +which fact prevented the hand from being as beautiful as it was, somehow, +unforgettable.</p> + +<p>"This is a pleasure and a surprise," began the Countess, smiling, her +eyes appearing to take in the full-length portrait of Annesley Grayle +with their wide, unmoving gaze. When she smiled she was still extremely +handsome, but not so perfect as with lips closed, for her white teeth +were too short, somewhat irregular, and set too wide apart. She spoke +English perfectly, with a slight foreign accent and a roll of the letter +"r."</p> + +<p>"My friend—Nelson Smith" (she turned, laughing, to him), "has told me +ex-<i>citing</i> news. We have known each other a long time. I think this is +the best thing that can happen. And you will be a lucky girl. He, too, +will be lucky. I see that!" with another smile.</p> + +<p>Annesley was disappointed because the beautiful woman's voice was not +sweet.</p> + +<p>"Now you must engage her room," Nelson Smith said, abruptly. "It's late. +You can make friends afterward."</p> + +<p>"Very well," the Countess agreed. "And you—will you come to the desk? +Yet, no—it is better not. Miss Grayle and I will go together—two women +alone and independent. Lucky it's not the season, or we might find +nothing free at short notice. But Don—I mean Nelson—always did have +luck. I hope he always will!"</p> + +<p>She flashed him a meaning look, though what the meaning was Annesley +could not guess. She knew only that she did not like the Countess as she +had wished to like her lover's friend. There was something secret in the +dark eyes, something repellent about the long, slender thumb with its +glittering nail.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h3>THE BLUE DIAMOND RING</h3> + + +<p>Annesley had not expected to sleep. There were a million things to +think of, and it was one o'clock before she was ready to slip into bed +in the green-and-white room with its bathroom annex. But the crowding +experiences of five hours had exhausted the girl. Sleep fell upon her as +her head nestled into a downy pillow, and she lay motionless as a marble +figure on a tomb until a sound of knocking forced itself into her dreams.</p> + +<p>She waked with a start. The curtains were drawn across the window, but +she could see that it was daylight. A streak of sunshine thrust a golden +wedge between the draperies, and seemed a good omen: for the sun had +hidden from London through many wintry weeks.</p> + +<p>The knocking was real, not part of a dream. It was at her door, and +jumping out of bed she could hardly believe a clock on the mantelpiece +which said half-past ten.</p> + +<p>"Who is it?" she asked, timidly, fearing that the Countess de Santiago's +voice might answer; but a man replied: "A note from a gentleman +downstairs, please, and he's waiting an answer."</p> + +<p>Annesley opened the door a crack, and took in a letter. The new master of +her destiny had written:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Hurrah, my darling, our affairs march! I have been arranging about the +licence, <i>et cetera</i>, and I believe that you and I can join forces for +the rest of our lives to-morrow—blessed day!</p> + +<p>How soon can you come down and talk over plans? I've a hundred to +propose. Will you breakfast with me, or have you finished?</p> + +<p>Yours since last night, till eternal night,</p> + +<p>N. S.</p></div> + +<p>The girl scribbled an answer, confessing that she had overslept, but +promising to be down in half an hour for breakfast. She did not stop to +think of anything but the need for a quick reply; yet when the note was +sent, and she was "doing" her hair after a splash in the porcelain bath +(what luxury for the girl who had been practically a servant!), she +re-read her love-letter, spread on the dressing-table.</p> + +<p>She liked her lover's handwriting. It seemed to express character—just +such character as she imagined her knight's to be. There were dash and +determination, and an originality which would never let itself be bound +by convention.</p> + +<p>Perhaps if she had been critical—if the handwriting had been that of a +stranger—she might have thought it too bold. Long ago, when she was a +very young girl, she had superficially studied the "science" of +chirography from articles in a magazine, and had fancied herself a judge. +She remembered disliking Mrs. Ellsworth's writing the first time she saw +it, foreseeing the selfishness which afterward enslaved her. Since then +she had had little time to practise, until the day when she heard from +"Mr. N. Smith" after her answer to his advertisement in the <i>Morning +Post</i>.</p> + +<p>One reason for feeling sure she could never care for the man was because +his handwriting prejudiced her in advance, it was so stiff, so devoid of +character. How different, she reflected now, from the writing of the man +who had taken his place!</p> + +<p>She made such haste in dressing that her fingers seemed to be "all +thumbs"; and when at length she was ready she gazed gloomily into the +mirror. Last night she had not been so bad in evening dress; but now in +the cheap, ready-made brown velveteen coat and skirt and plain toque to +match, which had been her "best" for two winters, she feared lest <i>he</i> +should find her commonplace.</p> + +<p>"The first thing I do, when he's had time to look me over, must be to +tell him he's free if he wants his freedom," she decided. And she kept +her word, when in the half-deserted foyer she had shaken hands with a +young man who wore a white rose in his buttonhole. "Please tell me +frankly if you don't like me as well by daylight," she gasped.</p> + +<p>"I like you better," he said. "You're still my white rose. See, I've +adopted it as your symbol. I shall never wear any other flower on my +coat. This is yours. No, it's <i>you</i>! And I've kept the one I took last +night. I mean to keep it always. No danger of <i>my</i> changing my mind! But +you? I've lain awake worrying for fear you might."</p> + +<p>He held her hand, questioning her eyes with his.</p> + +<p>She shook her head, smiling. But he would not let the hand go. At that +hour there was no one to stare. "The Countess didn't warn you off me?"</p> + +<p>Annesley opened her eyes. "Of course not! Why, you told me you were old +friends!"</p> + +<p>"So we are—as friends go in this world: 'pals,' anyhow. She's done me +several good turns, and I've paid her. She'd always do what she could to +help, for her own sake as well as mine. But her idea of a man may be +different from yours."</p> + +<p>"She wasn't with me long," explained Annesley. "She said I needed sleep. +After she'd looked at my room to see if it were comfortable, she bade me +'good-night,' and we haven't met this morning. The few remarks she did +make about you were complimentary."</p> + +<p>"What did she say? I'm curious."</p> + +<p>"Well, if you must know, she said that you were a man few women could +resist; and—she didn't blame <i>me</i>."</p> + +<p>"H'm! You call that complimentary? Let's suppose she meant it so. Now +we'll have breakfast, and forget her—unless you'd like her called to go +with us on a shopping expedition I've set my heart on."</p> + +<p>"What kind of a shopping expedition?" Annesley wanted to know.</p> + +<p>"To buy you all the pretty things you've ever wished for."</p> + +<p>The girl laughed. "To do that would cost a fortune!"</p> + +<p>"Then we'll spend a fortune. Shall you and I do it ourselves, or would +you like to have the Countess de Santiago's taste?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, let us go without her," Annesley exclaimed, "unless you——"</p> + +<p>"Rather <i>not</i>. I want you to myself. You darling! We'll have a great +day—spending that fortune. The next thing we do—it can wait till +after we're married—is to look for a house in a good neighbourhood, +to rent furnished. But we'll get your swell cousins, Lord and Lady +Annesley-Seton, to help us choose. Perhaps there'll be something near +them."</p> + +<p>"Why, they hardly know I exist! I doubt if Lady Annesley-Seton <i>does</i> +know," replied the girl. "They'll do nothing to help us, I'm sure."</p> + +<p>"Then <i>don't</i> be sure, because if you made a bet you'd lose. Take +my word, they'll be pleased to remember a cousin who is marrying a +millionaire."</p> + +<p>"Good gracious!" gasped Annesley. "<i>Are</i> you a millionaire?"</p> + +<p>Her lover laughed. "Well, I don't want to boast to you, though I may +to your cousins, but if I'm not one of your conventional, stodgy +millionaires, I have a sort of Fortunatus purse which is never empty. +I can always pull out whatever I want. We'll let your people understand +without any bragging.</p> + +<p>"I think Lady Annesley-Seton, <i>née</i> Miss Haverstall, whose father's purse +has flattened out like a pancake, will jump for joy when she hears what +you want her to do. But come along, let's have breakfast!"</p> + +<p>Overwhelmed, Annesley walked beside him in silence to the almost deserted +restaurant where the latest breakfasters had finished and the earliest +lunchers had not begun.</p> + +<p>So the mysterious Mr. Smith was rich. The news frightened rather +than pleased her. It seemed to throw a burden upon her shoulders which +she might not be able to carry with grace. The girl had little +self-confidence; but the man appeared to be troubled with no doubts of +her or of the future. Over their coffee and toast and hot-house fruit, he +began to propose exciting plans, and had got as far as an automobile when +the voice of the Countess surprised them.</p> + +<p>She had come close to their table without being heard.</p> + +<p>"Good morning!" she exclaimed. "I was going out, but from far off I saw +you two, with your profiles cut like silhouettes against all this glass +and sunshine. I couldn't resist asking how Miss Grayle slept, and if +there's anything I can do for her in the shops?"</p> + +<p>As she spoke her eyes dwelt on Annesley's plain toque and old-fashioned +shabby coat, as if to emphasize the word "shops." The girl flushed, and +Smith frowned at the Countess.</p> + +<p>"No, thank you," he replied for Annesley. "There's nothing we need +trouble you about till the wedding to-morrow afternoon. You can put on +your gladdest rags then, and be one of our witnesses. I believe that's +the legal term, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"I do not know," said the Countess with a suppressed quiver in her voice, +and a flash in the eyes fixed studiously on the river. "I know nothing of +marriages in England. Who will be your other witness, if it's not +indiscreet to ask?"</p> + +<p>"I haven't decided yet," returned Smith, laconically.</p> + +<p>"Ah, of course, you have <i>plenty</i> of friends to choose from; and so the +wedding will be to-morrow?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. One fixes up these things in next to no time with a special +license. Luckily I'm a British subject. I never thought much about it +before, but it simplifies matters; and I'll have been living in this +parish a fortnight to-morrow. That's providential, for it seems that +legally it must be a fortnight. I've been up since it was light, learning +the ropes and beginning to work them. Even the hour's fixed—two-thirty."</p> + +<p>(This was news for Annesley also, as there had been no time to begin +talking over the "hundred plans" Smith had mentioned in his letter.)</p> + +<p>"You are prompt—and businesslike!" returned the Countess, and again the +girl blushed. She did not like to think of her knight of romance being +"businesslike" in his haste to make her his wife. But perhaps the +Countess didn't mean to suggest anything uncomplimentary. "At what church +will the 'ceremony take place' as the newspapers say?" she went on. "It +is to be a fashionable one?"</p> + +<p>"No," replied, Smith, shortly. "Weddings in fashionable churches are +silly unless there's to be a crowd; and my wife and I are going to +collect our circle after we're married. I'll let you know in time where +we are going. As you'll be with the bride you can't lose yourself on the +way, so you needn't worry."</p> + +<p>"I don't!" laughed the Countess. "I'm at your service, and I shall try to +be worthy of the occasion. But now I shall take myself off, or your +coffee will be cold. You have a busy day and it's late—even later than +our breakfasts on the <i>Monarchic</i> three weeks ago. Already it seems three +months. <i>Au revoir</i>, Don. <i>Au revoir</i>, Miss Grayle."</p> + +<p>She finished with a nod for Annesley, and turned away. Smith let her go +in silence; and the girl watched the tall figure—as perfect in shape and +as perfectly dressed as a French model—walk out of the restaurant into +the foyer.</p> + +<p>She seemed to have taken with her the golden glamour which had made up +for lack of sunshine in the room before her arrival; or if she had not +taken it, at least it was dimmed. Annesley gazed after the figure until +it disappeared, because she felt vaguely that it would be best not to +look at her companion just then. She knew that he was angry, and that he +wanted to compose himself.</p> + +<p>The Countess was as handsome by morning light, in her black velvet and +chinchilla, as at night in flame colour and gold. But—the girl hoped she +was not ill-natured—she looked <i>meretricious</i>. If she were "made up," +the process defied Annesley Grayle's eyes; yet surely never was skin so +flawlessly white; and such golden-red hair with dark eyes and eyebrows +must be unique.</p> + +<p>"Great Scott, I thought she meant to spend the morning with us!" Smith +broke out, viciously. "I realize, now I've seen you together, that she's +not—the ideal chaperon. But any port in a storm!"</p> + +<p>"I thought you liked her," Annesley said.</p> + +<p>"So I do—within limits. At least I appreciate qualities that she has. +But there are times—when a little of her goes a long way."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid she realized that you weren't making her welcome," Annesley +smiled. "You weren't very nice to her, were you?"</p> + +<p>"I was as nice as she deserved," the man excused himself.</p> + +<p>"But she was good to me last night!"</p> + +<p>"She owes it to me to be good. It's a debt I expect her to pay, that's +all, and I'm not sure she's paying it generously. You needn't be too +grateful, dear."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps, as she's known you some time, she feels you're sacrificing +yourself," Annesley defended the Countess. "I don't blame her!"</p> + +<p>"She's sharp enough to see that I'm in great luck," said Smith. "But I +suppose there's always a dash of the cat in a woman of her race. I hope +there's no need to tell you that she has no right to be jealous. If she +had, I wouldn't have put you within reach of her claws. There are +assorted sizes and kinds of jealousy, though. Some women want all the +lime-light and grudge sparing any for a younger and prettier girl."</p> + +<p>Annesley laughed. "<i>Prettier!</i> Why, she's a beauty, and I——"</p> + +<p>"Wait till I introduce you to Mrs. Nelson Smith, who's going to be one +of the best-dressed, best-looking young women in London, and you'll be +<i>sorry</i> for the poor old Countess," returned Smith, warmly. "You can +afford then to heap coals of fire on her head, which can't make it redder +than it is. Meanwhile, it occurs to me, from the way the wind blows, +you'd better go carefully with the lady! Don't let her pump you about +yourself, or what happened at Mrs. Ellsworth's. It's not her business. +Don't confide any more than you need, and if she pretends to confide in +<i>you</i> understand that it will be for a purpose. The Countess is no +<i>ingénue</i>!</p> + +<p>"But enough about her," he went on, abruptly. "She sha'n't spoil our +first breakfast together, even by reminding me of gloomy meals I used +sometimes to eat with her when we happened to find ourselves in each +other's society on board the <i>Monarchic</i>. I was feeling down on my luck +then, and she wasn't the one to cheer me up. But things are different +now. Have you noticed, by the way, that she has a nickname for me?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," Annesley admitted. "She calls you 'Don.'"</p> + +<p>"It's a name she made up because she used to say, when we first met, I +was like a Spaniard; and I can jabber Spanish among other lingos. It's +more her native tongue, you know, than English. I only refer to it +because I want you to have a special name of your own for me, and I don't +want it to be that one. It can't be Nelson, because—well, I can never be +at home as Nelson with the girl I love best—the one who knows how I came +to call myself that. Will you make up a name for me, and begin to get +used to it to-day? I'd like it if you could."</p> + +<p>"May I call you 'Knight'?" Annesley asked, shyly. "I've named you my +knight already in my mind and—and heart."</p> + +<p>He looked at her with rather a beautiful look: clear and wistful, even +remorseful.</p> + +<p>"It's too noble a name," he said. "Still—if you like it, I shall. Maybe +it will make me good. Jove! it would take something strong to do that! +But who knows? From now on I'm your 'Knight.' You needn't wrestle with +'Nelson' except when we're with strangers.</p> + +<p>"And—look here!" he broke off. "I've another favour to ask. Better get +them all over at once—the big ones that are hard to grant. You reminded +me last night that we wouldn't be legally married if I didn't use my own +name. That may be true. I can't very well make inquiries. But just in +case, I'm giving my real name and shall sign it in a register. That's why +our marriage must be quietly performed in a quiet place. It shall be in +church, because I know you wouldn't feel married if it wasn't, but it +must be in a church where nobody we're likely to meet ever goes; and the +parson must be one we won't stand a chance of knocking up against later.</p> + +<p>"Managed the way I shall manage it, there'll be no difficulty. Mr. and +Mrs. Blank will walk out of the vestry after they've signed their names, +and—<i>lose themselves</i>. No reason why they should ever be associated with +Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith. Do you much mind all these complications?"</p> + +<p>"Not if they're necessary to save you from danger," the girl answered.</p> + +<p>"By Jove, you're a trump! But I haven't come to the <i>big</i> favour yet. Now +for it! When I write my real name in the register, I don't want you to +look. Is that the one thing too much?"</p> + +<p>Annesley tried not to flinch under his eyes. Yet—he had put her to a +severe test. Last night, when he said that it would be better for her not +to know his name, she had quietly agreed.</p> + +<p>But there was the widest difference between then and now. At that time +they had been strangers flung together by a wave of fate which, it +seemed, might tear them apart at any instant. In a few hours all was +changed. They belonged to each other. This man's name would be her name, +yet he wished her to be ignorant of it!</p> + +<p>If the girl had not thought of him truly as her knight, if she had not +been determined to trust him, the "big favour" would indeed have been too +big.</p> + +<p>Despite her trust, and the romantic, new-born love in her heart, she was +unable to answer for a moment. Her breath was snatched away; but as she +struggled to regain it and to speak, a bleak picture of the future +without him rose before her eyes. She couldn't give him up, and go on +living, after the glimpse he had shown her of what life might be!</p> + +<p>"No, it's not too much," she said, slowly. "It's only part of the trust +I've promised to—my knight."</p> + +<p>He gave a sigh of relief. "Thank you—and my lucky star for the prize you +are!" he exclaimed. Some men would have offered their thanks to God, or +to "Heaven." Annesley noticed that he praised his "star."</p> + +<p>This was one of many disquieting things, large and small; for she had +been brought up to be a religious girl, and was mentally on her knees +before God in gratitude for the happiness which illuminated her gray +life. She could not bear to think that God was nothing to the man who had +become everything to her. She wanted to shut her eyes to all that was +strange in him; but it was as difficult as for Psyche to resist lighting +the lantern for a peep at her mysterious husband in his sleep.</p> + +<p>For instance, there was the Countess de Santiago's reference to their +association on board the <i>Monarchic</i>, which Knight had refrained from +mentioning. He had spoken of it after the Countess had gone, to be sure; +but briefly, and because it would have seemed odd if he had not done so. +It had struck Annesley that his annoyance with the lady was connected +with that sharp little "dig" of hers, and she could not sweep her mind +clean of curiosity.</p> + +<p>The moment the <i>Monarchic's</i> name was brought up she remembered reading +a newspaper paragraph about the last voyage of that great ship from New +York to Liverpool. Fortunately or unfortunately, her recollection of the +paragraph was nebulous, for when she read news aloud to her mistress she +permitted her mind to wander, unless the subject happened to be +interesting. She tried to keep up a vaguely intelligent knowledge of +world politics, but small events and blatant sensations, such as murders, +burglaries, and "society" divorces, she quickly erased from her brain.</p> + +<p>Something dramatic had occurred on the <i>Monarchic</i>. Her subconscious self +recalled that. But it was less than a month ago that she had read the +paragraph, therefore the sensation, whatever it was, must have happened +when Knight and the Countess de Santiago were on board, coming to +England, and she could easily learn what it was by inquiring.</p> + +<p>Not for the world, however, would she question her lover, to whom the +subject of the trip was evidently distasteful. Still less would she ask +the Countess behind his back.</p> + +<p>There was another way in which she could find out a sly voice seemed to +whisper in Annesley's ear. She could get old numbers of the <i>Morning +Post</i>, the only newspaper that entered Mrs. Ellsworth's house, and search +for the paragraph. But she was ashamed of herself for letting such a +thought enter her head. Of course she would not be guilty of a trick so +mean. She would not try to unearth one fact concerning her Knight—his +name, his past, or any circumstances surrounding him, even though by +stretching out her hand she could reach the key to his secret.</p> + +<p>He talked of things which at another time would have palpitated with +interest: their wedding, their honeymoon, their homecoming, and Annesley +responded without betraying absent-mindedness. It was the best she could +do, until the effect of the "biggest favour" and the doubts it raised +were blurred by new sensations. She would not have been a normal woman if +the shopping excursion planned by Knight had not swept her off her feet.</p> + +<p>The man with Fortunatus' purse seemed bent on trying to empty +it—temporarily—for her benefit: if she had been sent out alone to buy +everything she had ever wanted, with no regard to expense, Annesley +Grayle would not have spent a fifth of the sum he flung away on evening +gowns, street gowns, boudoir gowns, hats, high-heeled paste-buckled +slippers, a gold-fitted dressing-bag, an ermine wrap, a fur-lined +motor-coat, and more suede gloves and silk stockings than could be used +(it seemed to the girl) in the next ten years.</p> + +<p>He begged for the privilege of "helping choose," not because he didn't +trust her taste, but because he feared she might be economical; and +during the whole day in Bond Street, Regent Street, Oxford Street, and +Knightsbridge she was given only an hour to herself. That hour she was +expected to pass, and did pass, in providing herself with all sorts of +intimate daintiness of nainsook, lace, and ribbon, too sacred even for +a lover's eyes.</p> + +<p>And Knight spent the time of his absence from her upon an errand which he +did not explain.</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you what I did—and show you—to-morrow when I come to wish +you good morning," he said. "Unless you're going to be conventional and +refuse to see me till we 'meet at the altar,' as the sentimental writers +say. I think I've heard that's the smart thing. But I hope it won't be +your way. If I didn't see you from now till to-morrow afternoon I should +be afraid I'd lost you for ever."</p> + +<p>Annesley felt the same about him, and told him so. They dined together, +but not at the Savoy. The Countess's name was not mentioned, yet Annesley +guessed it was because of her that Knight proposed an Italian restaurant.</p> + +<p>When he left her at last at the door of her own hotel everything was +settled for the wedding-day and after. Knight was to produce two friends, +both men, to one of whom must fall the fatherly duty of giving the bride +away. He suggested their calling upon her in the morning, while he was +with her at the Savoy, in order that they might not meet as strangers at +the church, and the girl thought this a wise idea.</p> + +<p>As for the honeymoon, Knight confessed to knowing little of England, +outside London, and asked Annesley if she had a choice. Would she like to +have a week or so in some warm county like Devonshire or Cornwall, or +would she enjoy a trip to Paris or the Riviera? It was all one to him, he +assured her; only he had set his heart on getting back to London soon, +finding a house, and beginning life as they meant to live it.</p> + +<p>Annesley chose Devonshire. She said she would like to show it to Knight.</p> + +<p>"I think you'll love it," she told him. "We might stay at several places +I used to adore when I was a child. And if we get to Sidmouth, maybe +you'll have a glimpse of those cousins you were talking about, the +Annesley-Setons. I believe they have a place near by called Valley House; +but I don't know whether they live there or let it."</p> + +<p>"We'll go to Sidmouth," he said.</p> + +<p>The girl smiled. His desire that she should scrape acquaintance with Lord +and Lady Annesley-Seton seemed boyish and amusing to her, but she did not +see how it could be brought about.</p> + +<p>Next morning at eleven o'clock, when Annesley had been up for two +hours, packing her new things in her new trunks and the gorgeous new +dressing-bag, she was informed that Mr. Nelson Smith had arrived. +The girl had forgotten that Knight had hinted at something to tell and +something to show her on the morning of their marriage day, and expected +to find his two friends with him; but he had come alone.</p> + +<p>"We've got a half-hour together," he said. "Then Dr. Torrance and the +Marchese di Morello may turn up at any minute. Torrance is an elderly +man, a decent sort of chap, and deadly respectable. He'll do the heavy +father well enough. Paolo di Morello is an Italian. I don't care for him; +but the troublesome business about my name is a handicap.</p> + +<p>"I can trust these men. And at least they won't put you to shame. You can +judge them when they come, so enough talk about them for the present! +This is my excuse for being here," and he put into Annesley's hand a +flat, oval-shaped parcel. "My wedding gift to my bride," he added, in a +softer tone. "Open it, sweet."</p> + +<p>The white paper wrapping was fastened with small red seals. If the girl +had had knowledge of such things she would have known that it was a +jeweller's parcel. But the white, gold-stamped silk case within surprised +her. She pressed a tiny knob, and the cover flew up to show a string of +pearls which made her gasp.</p> + +<p>"For the Princess, from her Knight," he said. "And here"—he took +from the inner pocket of his coat a band of gold set with a big white +diamond—"is your engagement ring. Every girl must have one, you know, +even if her engagement <i>is</i> the shortest on record. I've the wedding +ring, too. But it isn't the time for that. A good-sized diamond's the +obvious sort of thing: advertises itself for what it is, and that's +what we want. You'll wear it, as much as to say, 'I was engaged like +everybody else.' But if there wasn't a reason against it, <i>this</i> is what +I should like to put on your finger."</p> + +<p>As he spoke, he hid the spark of light in his other hand, and from the +pocket whence it had come produced another ring.</p> + +<p>If she had not seen this, Annesley would have exclaimed against the word +"obvious" for the splendid brilliant as big as a small pea which Knight +put aside so carelessly. But the contrast between the modern ring with +its "solitaire" diamond and the wonderful rival he gave it silenced her. +She was no judge of jewellery, and had never possessed any worth having; +but she knew that this second ring was a rare as well as a beautiful +antique. It looked worthy, she thought, of a real princess.</p> + +<p>Even the gold was different from other gold, the little that was visible, +for the square-cut stone, of pale, scintillating blue, was surrounded by +a frame of tiny brilliants encrusting the rim as far as could be seen on +the back of the hand when the ring was worn.</p> + +<p>"A sapphire!" Annesley exclaimed. "My favourite stone. Yet I never saw a +sapphire like it before. It's wonderful—brighter than a diamond."</p> + +<p>"It is a diamond," said Knight. "A blue diamond, and considered +remarkable. It's what your friend Ruthven Smith would call a 'museum +piece,' if you showed it to him. But you mustn't. He'd move heaven and +earth to get it! Nobody must see it but you and me. It wouldn't be safe. +It's too valuable. And if you were known to have it, you'd be in danger +from all the jewel thieves in Europe and America. You wouldn't like +that."</p> + +<p>"No, it would be horrible!" Annesley shuddered. "But what a pity it must +be hidden. Is it yours?"</p> + +<p>"It's yours at present," said Knight, "if you'll keep it to yourself, and +look at it only when you and I are alone together. I can't give it to +you, precisely, to have and to hold (as I shall give you myself in a +few hours), because this ring is more a trust than a possession. +Something may happen which will force me to ask you for it. But again, it +may <i>not</i>. And, anyhow, I want you to have the ring until that time +comes. I've bought a thin gold chain, and you can hang it round your +neck, unless—I almost think you're inclined to refuse?"</p> + +<p>Another mystery! But the blue diamond in its scintillating frame was so +alluring that Annesley could not refuse. She knew that she would have +more pleasure in peeping surreptitiously at the secret blue diamond than +in seeing the "obvious" white one on her finger.</p> + +<p>"I can't give it up!" she said, laughing. "But I hope it isn't one of +those dreadful historic stones which have had murders committed for it, +like famous jewels one reads of. I should hate anything that came from +<i>you</i> to bring bad luck."</p> + +<p>"So should I hate it. If there's any bad luck coming, I want it myself," +Knight said, gravely.</p> + +<p>"I wish I hadn't spoken of bad luck to-day!" the girl remorsefully +exclaimed. "But I am not afraid. Give me the ring."</p> + +<p>He gave it, and pulled from his pocket the slight gold chain on which he +meant it to hang. He was leisurely threading the ring upon this when two +men looked in at the door of the reading room.</p> + +<p>One of the pair was of more than middle age. He was tall, thin, and +slightly stooping. His respectable clothes seemed too loose for him. His +hair and straggling beard were gray, contrasting with the sallow darkness +of his skin. He wore gold-rimmed spectacles, and peered through them as +if they were not strong enough for his failing sight.</p> + +<p>The other man was younger. He, too, was dark and sallow, but his +close-cut hair was black. He was clean shaven and well dressed. He wore a +high, almost painfully high, collar, which caused him to keep his chin in +air. He might be a Spaniard or an Italian.</p> + +<p>Annesley had certainly not seen him before. She told herself this twice +over. Yet—she was frightened. There was something familiar about him. +It must be her foolish imagination which took alarm at everything!</p> + +<p>But, with fingers grown cold, she covered up the blue diamond.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<h3>THE THING KNIGHT WANTED</h3> + + +<p>When Dr. Torrance, who was to give her away, and the Marchese di Morello, +who was to be Knight's "best man," had been introduced to Annesley, she +laughed at the stupid "scare" which had chilled her heart for a moment.</p> + +<p>If Knight had remained with her after his friends finished their call, +she might have confessed to him how she had fancied in the tall, dark +young man a likeness to one of the dreaded <i>watchers</i>. Until Knight spoke +their names she had feared that the pair looking in at the door were +there to spy; that one, at all events, was disguised—cleverly, yet not +cleverly enough quite to hide his identity. But Knight said good-bye, and +went away with his friends, giving the girl no chance for further talk +with him.</p> + +<p>They did not meet again until—with the Countess de Santiago—Annesley +arrived at the obscure church chosen for the marriage ceremony. There Dr. +Torrance awaited them outside the door, and took charge of the bride, +while the Countess found her way in alone; and Annesley saw through the +mist of confused emotion her Knight of love and mystery waiting at the +altar.</p> + +<p>During the ceremony that followed he made his responses firmly, his eyes +calling so clearly to hers that she answered with an almost hypnotized +gaze. His look seemed to seal the promise of his words. In spite of all +that was strange and secret and unsatisfying about him, she had no +regrets. Love was worth everything, and she could but believe that he +loved her. This strong conviction went with the girl to the vestry, and +made it easier to turn away when his name—his real name, which she, +though his wife, was not to know—was recorded by him in the book.</p> + +<p>They parted from Torrance, Morello, and the Countess at the church door, +an arrangement which delighted Annesley. In the haste of making plans, +she and Knight had forgotten to discuss what they were to do after the +wedding and before their departure; but Knight had found time to decide +the matter.</p> + +<p>"These people were the best material I could get hold of at a moment's +notice," he remarked, coolly, when he and Annesley were in the motor-car +he had hired for the journey to Devonshire. "We've used them because we +needed them. Now we don't need them any longer. It seems to me that a +newly married couple ought to keep only dear friends around them or no +one. Later we can repay these three for the favour they've done us, if +you call it a favour. Meanwhile, we'll forget them."</p> + +<p>Knight had neglected no detail which could make for Annesley's comfort, +or save her from any embarrassment arising from the hurried wedding. Her +luggage had been packed by a maid in the hotel, and—all but the +dressing-bag and a small box made for an automobile—sent ahead by rail +to Devonshire. She and Knight were to travel in the comfortable limousine +which would protect them against weather. It did not matter, Knight said, +how long they were on the way.</p> + +<p>At Exeter they would visit some good agency in search of a lady's maid. +Annesley said that she did not need a woman to wait on her, since she had +been accustomed not only to taking care of herself but Mrs. Ellsworth.</p> + +<p>Knight, however, insisted that his wife must be looked after by a +competent woman. It was "the right thing"; but his idea was that, in the +circumstances, it would be pleasanter to have a country girl than a +sharp, London-bred woman or a Parisienne.</p> + +<p>In Exeter an ideal person was obtainable: a Devonshire girl who had been +trained to a maid's duties (as the agent boasted) by a "lady of title." +She had accompanied "the Marchioness" to France, and had had lessons in +Cannes from a hair dresser, masseuse, and manicurist. Now her mistress +was dead, and Parker was in search of another place.</p> + +<p>She was a gentle, sweet-looking girl, and though she asked for wages +higher than Mrs. Ellsworth had paid her companion, Knight pronounced them +reasonable. She was directed to go by train to the Knowle Hotel at +Sidmouth (where a suite had been engaged by telegram for Mr. and Mrs. +Nelson Smith and maid) and to have all the luggage unpacked before their +arrival.</p> + +<p>Flung thus into intimate association with a man, almost a stranger, +Annesley had been afraid in the midst of her happiness. She felt as a +young Christian maiden, a prisoner of Nero's day, might have felt if told +she was to be flung to a lion miraculously subdued by the influence of +Christianity. Such a maiden could not have been quite sure whether the +story were true or a fable; whether the lion would destroy her with a +blow or crouch at her feet.</p> + +<p>But Annesley's lion neither struck nor crouched. He stood by her side as +a protector. "Knight" seemed more and more appropriate as a name for +him. Though there were roughnesses and crudenesses in his manner and +choice of words, all he did and said made Annesley sure that she had been +right in her first impression. Not a cultured gentleman like Archdeacon +Smith, or Annesley's dead father, and the few men who had come near her +in early childhood before her home fell to pieces, he was a gentleman at +heart, she told herself, and in all essentials.</p> + +<p>It struck her as beautiful and even pathetic, rather than contemptible, +that he should humbly wish to learn of her the small refinements he had +missed in the past—that mysterious past which mattered less and less to +Annesley as the present became dear and vital.</p> + +<p>"I've knocked about a lot, all over the world," he explained in a casual +way during a talk they had had on the night of their marriage, at the +first stopping-place to which their motor brought them. "My mother died +when I was a small boy, died in a terrible way I don't want to talk +about, and losing her broke up my father and me for a while. He never got +over it as long as he lived, and I never will as long as I live.</p> + +<p>"The way my father died was almost as tragic as my mother's death," he +went on after a tense moment of remembering. "I was only a boy even then; +and ever since the 'knocking-about' process has been going on. I haven't +seen much of the best side of life, but I've wanted it. That was why, for +one reason, you made such an appeal to me at first sight. You were as +plucky and generous as any Bohemian, though I could see you were a +delicate, inexperienced girl, brought up under glass like the orchid you +look—and are. I'm used to making up my mind in a hurry—I've had to—so +it didn't take me many minutes to realize that if I could get you to link +up with me, I should have the thing I'd been looking for.</p> + +<p>"Well, by the biggest stroke of luck I've got you, sooner than I could +have dared to hope; and now I don't want to make you afraid of me. I know +my faults and failings, but I don't know how to put them right and be the +sort of man a girl like you can be proud of. It's up to you to show me +the way. Whenever you see me going wrong, you're to tell me. That's what +I want—turn me into a gentleman."</p> + +<p>When Annesley tenderly reassured him with loving flatteries, he only +laughed and caught her in his arms.</p> + +<p>"Like a prince, am I?" he echoed. "Well, I've got princely blood in my +veins through my mother; but there are pauper princes, and in the pauper +business the gilding gets rubbed off. I trust you to gild my battered +corners. No good trying to tell me I'm gold all through, because I know +better; but when you've made me shine on the outside, I'll keep the +surface bright."</p> + +<p>Annesley did not like the persistent way in which he spoke of himself +as a black sheep who, at best, could be whitened, and trained not to +disgrace the fold; yet it piqued her interest. Books said that women had +a weakness for men who were not good and she supposed that she was like +the rest. He was so dear and chivalrous that certain defiant hints as to +his lack of virtue vaguely added to the spice of mystery which decorated +the background of the picture—the vivid picture of the "stranger +knight."</p> + +<p>When they had been for three days in the best suite at the Knowle Hotel, +and had made several short excursions with the motor, he asked the girl +if she "felt like getting acquainted with her cousins."</p> + +<p>She did not protest as she had at first. Already she knew her Knight +well enough to be assured that when he resolved to do a thing it was +practically done. She had had chances to realize his force of character +in little ways as well as big ones; and she understood that he was bent +on scraping acquaintance with Lord and Lady Annesley-Seton. Had he not +decided upon Sidmouth the instant she mentioned their ownership of a +place in the neighbourhood? She had been certain that he would not +neglect the opportunity created.</p> + +<p>"How are we to set about it?" was all she said.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Valley House is a show place, I suppose you know," replied Knight. +"I've looked it up in the local guide-book. It's open to the public three +days a week. Any one with a shilling to spare can see the ancestral +portraits and treasures, and the equally ancestral rooms of your +distinguished family. Does that interest you?"</p> + +<p>"Ye-es. But I'm a distant relation—as well as a poor one," Annesley +reminded him with her old humility.</p> + +<p>"You're not poor now. And blood is thicker than water—when it's in a +golden cup. It's Lord and Lady Annesley-Seton's turn to play the poor +relations. It seems they're stony. Even the shillings the public pay to +see the place are an object to them."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm sorry!" exclaimed Annesley.</p> + +<p>"That's generous, seeing they never bothered themselves about you when +they had plenty of shillings and you had none."</p> + +<p>"I don't suppose they knew there <i>was</i> a me."</p> + +<p>"Lord Annesley-Seton must have known, if his wife didn't know. But we'll +let that pass. I was thinking we might go to the house on one of the +public days, with the man who wrote the local guide-book. I've made his +acquaintance through writing him a note, complimenting him on his work +and his knowledge of history. He answered like a shot, with thanks for +the appreciation, and said if he could help me he'd be delighted. He's +the editor of a newspaper in Torquay.</p> + +<p>"If we invite him to lunch here at the Knowle, he'll fall over himself to +accept. Then we'll be able to kill two birds with one stone. He'll tell +us things about the heirlooms at Valley House we shouldn't be able to +find out without his help—or a lot of dreary drudgery—and also he'll +put a paragraph about us in his newspaper, which he'll send to your +cousins. Now, isn't that a combination of brilliant ideas?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," laughed Annesley. "But why should you take so much trouble—and +how can you tell that the editor's paragraph would make the +Annesley-Setons want to know us?"</p> + +<p>"As for the paragraph, you may put your faith in me. And as for the +trouble, nothing's too much to launch my wife on the top wave of society, +where she has every right to be. I want Mrs. Nelson Smith to have her +chance to shine. Money would do the trick sooner or later, but I want +it to be done sooner. Besides, I have a feeling I should like us to get +where we want to be, without the noisy splash money-bags make when +new-rich candidates for society are launched. Your people will see +excellent reasons why their late 'poor relation' is worth cultivating.</p> + +<p>"But trust them to save their faces by keeping their real motive secret!" +with a touch of sarcasm. "I seem to hear them going about among their +friends, whom they'll invite to meet us, saying how charming and unspoilt +you are though you've got more money than you know what to do with——"</p> + +<p>"I!" With the protesting pronoun Annesley disclaimed all ownership of her +husband's fortune, whatever it might be.</p> + +<p>"It's the same thing. You and I are one. Whatever is mine is yours. I +don't swear to make you a regular, unfailing allowance worthy of the new +position you're going to have, because you see I do business with several +countries, and my income's erratic; I'm never sure to the day when it +will come or how much it will be. But there's nothing you want which you +can't buy; remember that. And when we begin life in London, you shall +have a standing account at as many shops as you like."</p> + +<p>Annesley made no objection to Knight's plan for luring the journalist +into his "trap," which was a harmless one. According to his prophecy, Mr. +Milton Savage of the Torquay <i>Weekly Messenger</i> accepted the invitation +from his correspondent, and came to luncheon on the day when the public +were free to view Valley House.</p> + +<p>He was a small man with a big head and eyes which glinted large behind +convex spectacles. Annesley was charming to him, not only in the wish to +please Knight but because she was kind-hearted and had intense sympathy +for suppressed people. Mr. Savage was grateful and admiring, and drank in +every word Knight dropped, as if carelessly, about the relationship to +Lord Annesley-Seton.</p> + +<p>Knight allowed himself to be pumped concerning it, and also his wife's +parentage, letting fall, with apparent inadvertence, bits of information +regarding himself, his travels, his adventures, and the fortune he had +picked up.</p> + +<p>"I'm the exception," he said, "to the proverb that 'a rolling stone +gathers no moss.' I've gathered all I want or know what to do with; and +now I'm married I mean to take a rest. I haven't decided yet where or +how, but it will be somewhere in England. We're looking for a house in +London, and later we might rent one in the country, too."</p> + +<p>Annesley admired his cleverness in touching the goal; but somehow these +smart hits disturbed rather than amused her. Knight's complexity was a +puzzle to her. She could not understand, despite his explanations, why +these fireworks of dexterity were worth while. Knight was a brave figure +of romance. She did not want her hero turned into an intriguer, no matter +how innocent his motive.</p> + +<p>After luncheon they drove five or six miles in the motor to Valley House, +a place of Jacobean times. There was an Italian garden, and an English +garden containing every flower, plant, and herb mentioned by Shakespeare. +Each garden had a distant view of the sea, darkly framed by Lebanon +cedars and immense beeches, while the house itself—not large as "show" +houses go—was perfect of its kind, with carved stone mantels, elaborate +oak panelling and staircases, leaded windows, and treasures of portraits, +armour, ancient books, and bric-à-brac which would have remade the family +fortune if all had not been heirlooms.</p> + +<p>There was not a picture on the walls nor an old piece of jewellery in the +many locked glass cabinets of which Mr. Milton Savage could not tell the +history as he guided the Nelson Smiths through hall and corridors and +rooms with marvellous moulded ceilings. The liveried servant told off to +show the crowd over the house had but a superficial knowledge of its +riches compared with the lore of the journalist; and the editor of the +Torquay <i>Weekly Messenger</i> became inconveniently popular with the public.</p> + +<p>He was not blind to the compliment, however; and, motoring into Torquay +at the end of the afternoon with his host and hostess, expressed himself +delighted with his visit.</p> + +<p>That night was his night for going to press, but he found time to write +the paragraph which Nelson Smith expected. Next morning a copy of the +<i>Messenger</i>, with a page marked, arrived at the Knowle Hotel, and +another, also marked, went to Valley House.</p> + +<p>The bride and bridegroom were at breakfast when the paper came. There +were also three letters, all for Knight, the first which either had +received since their marriage.</p> + +<p>Knight cut open the envelopes slowly, one after the other, and made no +comment. Annesley could not help wondering if the Countess had written, +for an involuntary glance had made her sure that one of Knight's letters +was from a woman: a purple envelope with a purple monogram and a blob of +purple wax sealed with a crown. He read all three, put them back into +their envelopes, rose, dropped them into the fire, watched them burn to +ashes, and quietly returned to his seat. Then, as if really interested, +he tore the wrapping off the Torquay <i>Messenger</i>.</p> + +<p>"Now we shall see ourselves in print!" he said, and a moment later was +reading to Annesley an account of "the two most interesting guests the +Knowle Hotel has entertained this season." Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith were +described with enthusiasm. They were young and handsome. He was immensely +rich, she was "highly connected" as well as beautiful, having been a +Miss Annesley Grayle, related on her mother's side to the Earl of +Annesley-Seton.</p> + +<p>The modesty of the young couple was so great, however, that, though the +bridegroom was a millionaire well known in his adopted country, America, +and the bride quite closely linked with his lordship's family, they had +refused to make their presence in the neighbourhood known to the Earl and +Lady. Instead they had visited Valley House with a crowd of tourists on a +public day, expressing the opinion to a representative of the <i>Messenger</i> +that it would be "intrusive" to present themselves to Lord and Lady +Annesley-Seton. They were spending their honeymoon in Devonshire, and +might find, during their motor tours, a suitable country place to buy or +rent.</p> + +<p>In any case, they would look for a house in which to settle on their +return to London.</p> + +<p>"Good for Milton Savage," laughed Knight. "Now we'll lie low, and see +what will happen."</p> + +<p>Annesley thought that nothing would happen; but she was wrong. The next +morning a note came by hand for Mrs. Nelson Smith, brought by a footman +on a bicycle.</p> + +<p>The note was from Lady Annesley-Seton.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<h3>BEGINNING OF THE SERIES</h3> + + +<p>No man who had not known the seamy side of life could have guessed the +effect of Milton Savage's paragraph upon the minds of Lord and Lady +Annesley-Seton.</p> + +<p>"I told you if you bet against me you would bet wrong," Knight said, when +the astonished girl handed the letter across the breakfast table. Even he +had hardly reckoned on such extreme cordiality. He had expected a bid for +acquaintanceship with the "millionaire" and his bride, but he had fancied +there would be a certain stiffness in the effort.</p> + +<p>Lady Annesley-Seton had begun, "My dear Cousin," and her frank American +way was disarming. She wrote four pages of apology for herself and her +husband, explaining why they had neglected "looking up Mrs. Nelson Smith +when she was Miss Annesley Grayle." The letter went on:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I hadn't been married long when my husband read out of some newspaper +the notice of a clergyman's death, and mentioned that he was a cousin +by marriage whom he hadn't met since boyhood, although the clergyman's +living was in our county—somewhere off at the other end.</p> + +<p>My husband thought there was a daughter, and I remember his remarking +that we ought to write and find out if she'd been left badly off. Of +course, it was <i>my</i> duty to have kept his idea alive, and to have +carried it out. But I was young and having such a good time that I'm +afraid it was a case of "out of sight, out of mind."</p> + +<p>We forgot to inquire, and heard no more. It was <i>horrid</i> of us, and I'm +sure it was <i>our</i> loss. Probably we should have remembered if things +had gone well with us: but perhaps you know that my father (whose money +used to seem unlimited to me) lost it all, and we were mixed up in the +smash. We've been poorer than any church mice since, and trying to make +ends meet has occupied our attention from that day to this.</p> + +<p>I have to confess that, if our attention hadn't been drawn to your +name, we might never have thought of it again. But now I've eased my +conscience, and as fate seems to have brought us within close touch, do +let us see what she means to do with us. We should so like to meet you +and Mr. Nelson Smith, who is, apparently, more or less a countryman of +mine.</p> + +<p>I'm not allowed out yet, in this cold weather, after an attack of +"flu"; but my husband will call this afternoon on the chance of finding +you in, carrying a warm invitation to you both to "waive ceremony" and +dine with us at Valley House <i>en famille</i>.</p> + +<p>Looking forward to meeting you,</p> + +<p>Yours most cordially,</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Constance Annesley-Seton.</span></p></div> + +<p>"Sweet of her, isn't it?" Annesley exclaimed when she and Knight had read +the letter through.</p> + +<p>Knight glanced at his wife quizzically, opened his lips to speak, and +closed them. Perhaps he thought it would be unwise as well as wrong to +disturb the girl's faith in Lady Annesley-Seton's disinterestedness.</p> + +<p>"Yes, it's <i>real</i> sweet!" he said, exaggerating his American accent, but +keeping a grave face.</p> + +<p>They were duly "at home" that afternoon, though they had intended to go +out, and the caller found them in a private sitting room filled with +flowers, suggesting much money and a love of spending it. Annesley had +put on Knight's favourite frock, one of the "model dresses" he had chosen +for her in their whirlwind rush through Bond Street, a white cloth +trimmed with narrow bands of dark fur; and she had never looked prettier.</p> + +<p>Lord Annesley-Seton, a tall thin man of the eagle-nosed soldier type, +wearing pince-nez, but youthful-looking for the forty-four years Burke +gave him, could not help thinking her a satisfactory cousin to pick up: +and Nelson Smith was far from being in appearance the rough, self-made +man he had dreaded.</p> + +<p>He was delighted with them both—so young, so handsome, so happy, +so fortunate, and luckily so well bred. He did not make the short +conventional call he had intended, but stayed to tea, and at last went +home to give his wife an enthusiastic account of the visit.</p> + +<p>"The girl's a lady, and might be a beauty if she had more confidence in +herself—you know what I mean: taking herself for granted as a charmer, +the way you smart women do," he said. "She isn't that kind. But with you +to show her the ropes, she'll be liked by the right people. There's a +softness and sweetness and genuineness that you don't often see in girls +now. As for the man, you'll think him a ripper, Connie—so will other +women. Has the air of being a gentleman born, and then having roughed it +all over the world. A strong man, I should say. A man's man as well as a +woman's. Might 'take' if he's started right."</p> + +<p>"<i>We'll</i> see to that," said Constance Annesley-Seton, who was not too ill +to go out but had not wanted to seem too eager.</p> + +<p>She was less than thirty, but looked more because she had worried and +drawn faint lines between her delicate auburn brows and at the corners +of her greenish-gray eyes. There were also a few fading threads in the +red locks which were her one real beauty; but she had a marvellous +hair-varnish which prevented them from showing.</p> + +<p>"We'll see to that! If they'll <i>let</i> us. Are they going to let us?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I think so," Annesley-Seton reassured her. "They're a pair of +children, willing to be guided. They can have anything they want in the +world, but they don't seem to know what to want."</p> + +<p>"Splendid!" laughed Constance. "Can't we will them to want our house in +town, and invite us to visit them?"</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't wonder," replied her husband. "You might make a start in +that direction when they come to dinner to-morrow evening."</p> + +<p>Lord Annesley-Seton had outgrown such enthusiasms as he might once have +had, therefore his account of the cousins encouraged Constance to hope +much, and she was not disappointed. On the contrary, she thought that he +had not said enough, especially about the man.</p> + +<p>If she had not had so many anxieties that her youthful love of "larks" +had been crushed out, she would have "adored" a flirtation with Nelson +Smith. It would have been "great fun" to steal him from the pretty +beanpole of a girl who would not know how to use her claws in a fight +for her man; but as it was, Connie thought only of conciliating "Cousin +Anne," and winning her confidence. Other women would try to take Nelson +Smith from his wife, but Connie would have her hands full in playing a +less amusing game.</p> + +<p>She thought, seeing that the handsome, dark young man she admired had a +mind of his own, it would be a difficult game to play; and Nelson Smith +saw that she thought so. His sense of humour caused him to smile at his +own cleverness in producing the impression; and he would have given a +good deal for someone to laugh with over her maneuvers to entice him +along the road he wished to travel.</p> + +<p>But he dared not point out to Annesley the fun of the situation. To do so +would be to put her against him and it.</p> + +<p>She, too, had a sense of humour, suppressed by five years of Mrs. +Ellsworth, but coming delightfully to life, like a half-frozen bird, in +the sunshine of safety and happiness. Knight appealed to and encouraged +it often, for he could not have lived with a humourless woman, no matter +how sweet.</p> + +<p>Yet he did not dare wake it where her cousins were concerned. Her sense +of honour was more valuable to him than her sense of humour. He was +afraid to put the former on the defensive, and he was glad to let her +believe the Annesley-Setons were genuinely "warming" to them in a way +which proved that blood was thicker than water.</p> + +<p>The girl had wondered from the first why he was determined to make +friends with these cousins whom she had never known, and he was grateful +because she believed in him too loyally to attribute his desire to +"snobbishness." He wished her to suppose he had set his heart on +providing her with influential guidance on the threshold of a new life; +and it was important that she should not begin criticizing his motives.</p> + +<p>By the time dinner was over Constance Annesley-Seton had decided that the +Nelson Smiths had been sent to her by the Powers that Be, and that it +would be tempting Providence not to annex them. Not that she put it in +that way to herself, for she did not trouble her mind about Providence. +All she knew was that she and Dick would be fools to let the chance slip.</p> + +<p>It was as much as she could do not to suggest the idea in her mind: that +the Nelson Smiths should take the house in Portman Square; that she and +her husband should introduce them to society, and that the Devonshire +place should either be let to them or that they should visit there when +they wished to be in the country, as paying guests.</p> + +<p>But she controlled her impatience, limiting herself to proposing plans +for future meetings. She suggested giving a dinner in honour of the bride +and bridegroom, and inviting people whom it would be "nice for them to +know" in town.</p> + +<p>Knight said that he and "Anita" (his new name for Annesley, a souvenir +of Spanish South America) would accept with pleasure. And the girl agreed +gladly, because she thought her cousin and his wife were very kind.</p> + +<p>After dinner Annesley-Seton and Knight followed Constance and "Anita" +almost directly, the former asking his guests if they would like to see +some of the family treasures which they could only have glanced at in +passing with the crowd the other day.</p> + +<p>"Before sugar went to smash, we blazed into all sorts of extravagances +here," he said, bitterly, with a glance at the deposed Sugar King's +daughter. "Among others, putting electric light into this old barn. We'll +have an illumination, and show you some trifles Connie and I wish to +Heaven a kind-hearted burglar would relieve us of.</p> + +<p>"Of course the beastly things are heirlooms, as I suppose you know. We +can't sell or pawn them, or I should have done one or the other long ago. +They're insured by the trustees, who are the bane of our lives, for the +estate. But a sporting sort of company has blossomed out lately, which +insures against 'loss of use'—I think that's the expression. I pay the +premium myself—even when I can't pay anything else!—and if the valuable +contents of this place are stolen or burned, we shall benefit personally.</p> + +<p>"I don't mind you or all the world knowing we're stony broke," he went +on, frankly. "And everyone <i>does</i> know, anyhow, that we'd be in the deuce +of a hole without the tourists' shillings which pour in twice a week the +year round. You see, each object in the collection helps bring in those +shillings; and 'loss of use' of a single one would be a real deprivation. +So it's fair and above board. But thus far, I've paid my premium and got +no return, these last three years. Our tourists are so disgustingly +honest, or our burglars so clumsy and unenterprising, that, as you say +in the States, 'there's nothing doing.'"</p> + +<p>As he talked Dick Annesley-Seton sauntered about the immense room into +which they had come from the state banqueting hall, switching on more and +more of the electric candle-lights set high on the green brocade walls. +This was known as the "green drawing room" by the family, and the "Room +of the Miniatures" by the public, who read about it in catalogues.</p> + +<p>"Come and look at our white elephants," he went on, when the room, dimly +and economically lit at first, was ablaze with light; and Mr. and Mrs. +Nelson Smith joined him eagerly. Constance followed, too, bored but +resigned; and her husband paused before a tall, narrow glass cabinet +standing in a recess.</p> + +<p>"See these miniatures!" he exclaimed, fretfully. "There are plenty more, +but the best are in this cabinet; and there's a millionaire chap, in New +York—perhaps you can guess his name, Smith?—who has offered a hundred +thousand pounds for the thirty little bits of ivory in it."</p> + +<p>"I think that must have been the great Paul Van Vreck," Knight hazarded.</p> + +<p>"I thought you'd guess! There aren't many who'd make such an offer. Think +what it would mean to me if it could be accepted, and I could have the +handling of the money. There are three small pictures in the little +octagon gallery next door, too, Van Vreck took a fancy to on a visit he +paid us from Saturday to Monday last summer. We never thought much of +them, and they're in a dark place, labelled in the catalogue 'Artist +unknown: School of Fragonard'; but <i>he</i> swore they were authentic +Fragonards, and would have backed his opinion to the tune of fifteen +thousand pounds for the trio, or six thousand for the one he liked best. +Isn't it aggravating? In the Chinese room he went mad over some bits of +jade, especially a Buddha nobody else had ever admired."</p> + +<p>"He's one of the few millionaire collectors who is really a judge of all +sorts of things," Knight replied. "But, great Scott! I'm no expert, yet +it strikes me these miniatures are something out of the ordinary!"</p> + +<p>"Well, yes, they are," Annesley-Seton admitted, modestly. "That queer one +at the top is a Nicholas Hilliard. I believe he was the first of the +miniaturists. And the two just underneath are Samuel Coopers. They say he +stood at the head of the Englishmen. There are three Richard Cosways and +rather a nice Angelica Kauffmann."</p> + +<p>"It was the Fragonard miniature Mr. Van Vreck liked best," put in +Constance. "It seems he painted only a few. And next, the Goya——"</p> + +<p>"Good heavens! where is the Fragonard?" cried Dick, his eyes bulging +behind his pince-nez. "Surely it was here——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, surely, yes!" panted his wife. "It was never anywhere else."</p> + +<p>For an instant they were stricken into silence, both staring at a blank +space on the black velvet background where twenty-nine miniatures hung. +There was no doubt about it when they had reviewed the rows of little +painted faces. The Fragonard was gone.</p> + +<p>"Stolen!" gasped Lady Annesley-Seton.</p> + +<p>"Unless one of you, or some servant you trust with the key, is a +somnambulist," said Knight. "I don't see how it would pay a thief to +steal such a thing. It must be too well known. He couldn't dispose of +it—that is if he weren't a collector himself; and even then he could +never show it. But—by Jove!"</p> + +<p>"What is it? What have you seen?" Annesley-Seton asked, sharply.</p> + +<p>Knight pointed, without touching the cabinet. He had never come near +enough to do that. "It looks to me as if a square bit of glass had been +cut out on the side where the lost miniature must have hung," he said. +"I can't be sure, from where I stand, because the cabinet is too close +to the wall of the recess."</p> + +<p>Dick Annesley-Seton thrust his arm into the space between green brocade +and glass, then slipped his hand through a neatly cut aperture just big +enough to admit its passage. With his hand in the square hole he could +reach the spot where the miniature had hung, and could have taken it off +the hook had it been there. But hook, as well as miniature, was missing.</p> + +<p>"That settles it!" he exclaimed. "It <i>is</i> a theft, and a clever one! +Strange we should find it out when I was demonstrating to you how much I +wished it would happen. Hurrah! That miniature alone is insured against +burglary for seven or eight hundred pounds. Nothing to what it's worth, +but a lot to pay a premium on, with the rest of the things besides. I +wish now I hadn't been so cheese-paring. You'll be witnesses, you two, of +our discovery. I'm glad Connie and I weren't alone when we found it out. +Something nasty might have been said."</p> + +<p>"We'll back you up with pleasure," Knight replied. "What was the +miniature like? I wonder if we saw it when we were here the other day, +Anita? I remember these, but can't recall any other."</p> + +<p>"Neither can I," returned Annesley. "But I am stupid about such things. +We saw so many—and passed so quickly."</p> + +<p>"I wonder if Paul Van Vreck was here in disguise among the tourists?" +said Dick, beginning to laugh. "It would have been the one he'd have +chosen if he couldn't grab the lot."</p> + +<p>"Oh, surely no one in the crowd could have cut a piece of glass out of a +cabinet and stolen a miniature without being seen!" Annesley cried.</p> + +<p>"Dick is half in joke," Constance explained. "It would have been a +miracle, yet the servants are above suspicion. Those horrid trustees +never let me choose a new one without their interference. And, of +<i>course</i> Dick didn't mean what he said about Mr. Van Vreck."</p> + +<p>"Of course not. I understood that," Annesley excused herself, blushing +lest she had appeared obtuse.</p> + +<p>"All the same, to carry on the joke, let's go into the octagon room +and see if the alleged Fragonard pictures have gone, too," said +Annesley-Seton. He led the way, turning on more light in the adjoining +room as he went; and, outdistancing the others, they heard him stammer, +"Good Lord!" before they were near enough to see what he saw.</p> + +<p>"They aren't gone?" shrieked his wife, hurrying after him.</p> + +<p>"One of them is."</p> + +<p>In an instant the three had grouped behind him, where he stood staring at +an empty frame, between two others of the same pattern and size, charming +old frames twelve or fourteen inches square, within whose boundaries of +carved and gilded wood, nymphs held hands and danced.</p> + +<p>"Are we <i>dreaming</i> this?" gasped Constance.</p> + +<p>"Thank Heaven we're not!" the husband answered. "The two paintings are on +wood, you see. So was the missing one. Someone has simply unfastened it +from the frame, and trusted to this being a dark, out-of-the-way corner, +not to have the theft noticed for hours or maybe days. By all that's +wonderful, here's <i>another</i> insurance haul for me! What about the jade +Buddha in the Chinese room?"</p> + +<p>They rushed back into the green drawing room, and so to the beautiful +Chinese room beyond, with its priceless lacquer tables and cabinets. In +one of these latter a collection of exquisite jade was gathered together.</p> + +<p>And the Buddha which Paul Van Vreck had coveted was gone!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<h3>ANNESLEY REMEMBERS</h3> + + +<p>There was great excitement for the next few days at Valley House and +throughout the neighbourhood, for the Annesley-Setons made no secret of +the robbery, and the affair got into the papers, not only the local ones, +but the London dailies.</p> + +<p>Two of the latter sent representatives, to whom Lord Annesley-Seton +granted interviews. Something he said attracted the reporters' attention +to Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith, who had been dining at Valley House on the +evening when the theft was discovered, and Knight was begged for an +interview.</p> + +<p>He was asked if he had formed an opinion as to the disappearance of the +three heirlooms, and whether he knew personally Mr. Paul Van Vreck, the +American collector and retired head of the famous firm of jewellers, who +had wished to buy the vanished treasures.</p> + +<p>Having spent most of his life in America, Knight had the theory that +unless you wished to be misrepresented, the only safe thing was to let +yourself be interviewed. He was accordingly so good-natured and +interesting that the reporters were delighted with him. If he had been +wishing for a wide advertisement of his personality, his possessions, and +his plans, he could not have chosen a surer way of getting it.</p> + +<p>The two newspapers which had undertaken to boom the "Valley House +Heirloom Theft" had almost limitless circulations. One of them possessed +a Continental edition, and the other was immensely popular because of its +topical illustrations.</p> + +<p>Snapshots, not so unflattering as usual, were obtained of the young +Anglo-American millionaire and his bride, as they started away from the +Knowle Hotel in their motor, or as they walked in the garden. Though +Knight had disclaimed any personal acquaintance with the great Paul Van +Vreck, he was able to state that Mr. Van Vreck had been convalescing +at Palm Beach, in Florida, at the time of the robbery. He had had an +attack of pneumonia in the autumn, and instead of travelling in his yacht +to Egypt, as he generally did travel early in the winter, he had been +ordered by his doctors to be satisfied with a "place in the sun" nearer +home.</p> + +<p>Everyone in America knew this, Knight explained, and everyone in England +might know it also, unless it had been forgotten. If Mr. Van Vreck were +well enough to take an interest in the papers, he was sure to be amused +by the coincidence that the things stolen from Valley House were among +those he had wanted to buy.</p> + +<p>Knight thought, however, that even if the clever thief or thieves had +heard of Van Vreck's whim, no attempt would be made to dispose of the +spoil to him. The elderly millionaire, though one of the most eccentric +men living, was known as the soul of honour.</p> + +<p>The relationship between young Mrs. Nelson Smith and Lord Annesley-Seton +was touched upon in the papers; and though it was irrelevant to the +subject in hand, mention was made of the Nelson Smiths' plan to live in +London.</p> + +<p>This gave Constance her chance. At an impromptu luncheon at the Knowle +Hotel, before the intended dinner party at Valley House, she referred +to the interest Society would begin to take in this "romantic couple."</p> + +<p>"Everybody will have fallen in love with you already," she said, "from +those snapshots in the <i>Looking Glass</i>. They make you both look such +darlings—though they don't flatter either of you. All the people we know +will be clamouring to meet you, so you must hurry and find a nice house, +in the right part of town, before some other sensation comes up and +you're forgotten. How would it be if you took <i>our</i> house for a couple +of months, while you're looking round? Naturally, if you <i>liked</i> it, you +could keep it on. We'd be delighted, for we have to let it when we can, +and it would be a pleasure to think of you in it."</p> + +<p>"If we're in it, you must both come and stay, and not only 'think' of us, +but be with us: mustn't they, Anita?" Knight proposed. Of course Annesley +said yes, and meant yes. Not that she really wanted her duet with Knight +to be broken up into a chorus, but she longed to succeed as a woman of +the world, since that was what he wanted her to be; and she realized that +Lady Annesley-Seton's help would be invaluable.</p> + +<p>So, through the theft at Valley House and the developments therefrom, +the hidden desires of Nelson Smith and the daughter of the deposed +Sugar King accomplished themselves, Connie still believing that she had +engineered the affair with diplomatic skill, and Knight laughing silently +at the way she had played into his hands.</p> + +<p>Detectives were set to work by the two insurance companies, who hoped to +trace the thief and discover the stolen Fragonards and the jade Buddha; +but their efforts failed; and at the dinner party given in honour of the +new cousins, Lord and Lady Annesley-Seton rejoiced openly in their good +luck.</p> + +<p>"All the same," Constance said, "I <i>should</i> like to know how the things +were spirited out of the house, and where they are. It is the first +mystery that has ever come into our lives. I wish I were a clairvoyante. +It would be fun!"</p> + +<p>"Did you ever hear of the Countess de Santiago, when you lived in +America?" asked Knight in his calm voice. He did not glance toward +Annesley, who sat at the other end of the table, but he must have guessed +that she would turn with a start of surprise on hearing the Countess's +name in this connection.</p> + +<p>"The Countess de Santiago?" Connie echoed. "No. What about her? She +sounds interesting."</p> + +<p>"She <i>is</i> interesting. And beautiful." Everybody had stopped talking by +this time, to listen; and in the pause Knight appealed to his wife. +"That's not an exaggeration, is it, Anita?"</p> + +<p>Annesley, wondering and somewhat startled, answered that the Countess de +Santiago was one of the most beautiful women she had seen.</p> + +<p>This riveted the attention which Knight had caught. He had his audience, +and went on in a leisurely way.</p> + +<p>"Come to think of it, she can't have been heard of in your part of the +world until you'd left for England," he told Constance. "She's the most +extraordinary clairvoyante I ever heard of. That's what made me speak of +her. Unfortunately she's not a professional, and won't do anything unless +she happens to feel like it. But I wonder if I could persuade her to look +in her crystal for you, Lady Annesley-Seton?</p> + +<p>"She's an old acquaintance of mine," he went on, casually. "I met her +in Buenos Aires before her rich elderly husband died, about seven or +eight years ago. She was very young then. I came across her again in +California, when she was seeing the world as a free woman, after the old +fellow's death. Then I introduced her by letter to one or two people in +New York, and I believe she has been admired there, and at Newport.</p> + +<p>"But I've only <i>heard</i> all that," Knight hastened to explain. "I've been +too busy till lately to know at first hand what goes on in the 'smart' or +the artistic set. <i>My</i> world doesn't take much interest in crystal-gazers +and palmists, amateur or professional, even when they happen to be +handsome women, like the Countess. But I ran against her again on board +the <i>Monarchic</i> about a month ago, crossing to this side, and we picked +up threads of old acquaintance. She was staying at the Savoy when I left +London."</p> + +<p>He paused a moment, and added:</p> + +<p>"As a favour to me, she might set her accomplishments to work on this +business. Only she'd have to meet you both and see this house, for I've +heard her say she couldn't do anything without knowing the people +concerned, and 'getting the atmosphere.'"</p> + +<p>"Oh, we <i>must</i> have her!" cried Constance, and all the other women except +Annesley chimed in, begging their hostess to invite them if the Countess +came.</p> + +<p>No one thought it odd that Mrs. Nelson Smith should be silent, for her +remark about the Countess de Santiago's beauty showed that she had met +the lady; but to any one who had turned a critical stare upon her then, +her expression must have seemed strange. She had an unseeing look, the +look of one who has become deaf and blind to everything outside some +scene conjured up by the brain.</p> + +<p>What Annesley saw was a copy of the <i>Morning Post</i>. Knight's mention of +the Countess de Santiago's power of clairvoyance at the same time with +the liner <i>Monarchic</i> printed before her eyes a paragraph which her +subconscious self had never forgotten.</p> + +<p>For the moment only her body sat between a young hunting baronet and a +distinguished elderly general at her cousins' dinner table. Her soul had +gone back to London, to the ugly dining room at 22-A, Torrington Square, +and was reading aloud from a newspaper to a stout old woman in a tea +gown.</p> + +<p>She was even able to recall what she had been thinking, as her lips +mechanically conveyed the news to Mrs. Ellsworth. She had been wondering +how much longer she could go on enduring the monotony, and what Mrs. +Ellsworth would do if her slave should stop reading, shriek, and throw +the <i>Morning Post</i> in her face.</p> + +<p>As she pictured to herself the old woman's amazement, followed by rage, +she had pronounced the words:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>SENSATIONAL OCCURRENCE ON BOARD THE S.S. <i>MONARCHIC</i></p></div> + +<p>Even that exciting preface had not recalled her interest from her own +affairs. She could remember now the hollow, mechanical sound of her voice +in her own ears as she had half-heartedly gone on, tempted to turn the +picture of her wild revolt into reality.</p> + +<p>The paragraph, seemingly forgotten but merely buried under other +memories, had told of the disappearance on board the <i>Monarchic</i> of +certain pearls and diamonds which were being secretly brought from New +York to London by an agent of a great jewellery firm. He had been blamed +by the chief officer for not handing the valuables over to the purser.</p> + +<p>The unfortunate man (who had not advertised the fact that he was an agent +for Van Vreck & Co. until he had had to complain of the theft) excused +this seeming carelessness by the statement that he had hoped his identity +might pass unsuspected. His theory was that safety lay in insignificance.</p> + +<p>He had engaged a small, cheap cabin for himself alone, taking an assumed +name; had pretended to be a schoolmaster on holiday, and had worn the +pearls and other things always on his person in a money belt. Even at +night he had kept the belt on his body, a revolver under his pillow, and +the door of his cabin locked, with an extra patent adjustable lock of his +own, invented by a member of the firm he served. It had not seemed +probable that he would be recognized, or possible that he could be +robbed.</p> + +<p>Yet one morning he had waked late, with a dull headache and sensation of +sickness, to find that his door, though closed, was unfastened, and that +all his most valuable possessions were missing from the belt.</p> + +<p>Some were left, as though the thief had fastidiously made his selection, +scorning to trouble himself with anything but the best. The mystery of +the affair was increased by the fact that, though the man (Annesley +vaguely recalled some odd name, like Jekyll or Jedkill) felt certain he +had fastened the door, there was no sign that it had been forced open. +His patent detachable lock, however, had disappeared, like the jewels.</p> + +<p>And despite the sensation of sickness, and pain in the head, there were +no symptoms of drugging by chloroform, or any odour of chloroform or +other anæsthetic in the room.</p> + +<p>It struck Annesley as strange, almost terrifying, that these details of +the <i>Monarchic</i> "sensation" should come back to her now; but she could +not doubt that she had actually read them, and the rest of the story +continued to reprint itself on her brain, as the unrolling of a film +might bring back to one of the actors poses of his own which he had let +slip into oblivion.</p> + +<p>She remembered how some of the more important passengers had suggested +that everybody on board should be searched, even to the ship's officers, +sailors, and employés of all sorts; that the search had been made and +nothing found, but that a lady supposed to possess clairvoyant powers had +offered Mr. Jekyll or Jedkill to <i>consult her crystal</i> for his benefit.</p> + +<p>She had done so, and had seen wireless messages passing between someone +on the <i>Monarchic</i> and someone on another ship, with whom the former +person appeared to be in collusion. She had seen a small, fair man, +dressed as a woman, hypnotizing the jewellers' agent into the belief that +he was locking his door when instead he was leaving it unlocked.</p> + +<p>Then she had seen this man who, she asserted firmly, was dressed like +a woman, walk into his victim's cabin, hypnotize him into still deeper +unconsciousness, and take from his belt three long strings of pearls and +several magnificent diamonds, set and unset. These things she saw made +up into a bundle, wrapped in waterproof cloth, attached to a faintly +illuminated life-preserver, and thrown overboard.</p> + +<p>Almost immediately after, she said, the life preserver was picked up by a +man in a small motor-launch let down from a steam yacht. The launch +quickly returned to the yacht, was taken up, and the yacht made off in +the darkness.</p> + +<p>No life belt was missing from the <i>Monarchic</i> and even if suspicion could +be entertained against any "small, fair man" (which was not the case, +apparently), there was no justification for a search. Therefore, although +a good many people believed in the seeress's vision, it proved nothing, +and the sensational affair remained as deep a mystery as ever when the +<i>Monarchic</i> docked.</p> + +<p>"The Countess de Santiago was the woman who looked in the crystal!" +Annesley said to herself. She wondered why, if Knight had been vexed with +the Countess for speaking of their friendship and of the <i>Monarchic</i>, as +he had once seemed to be, he should refer to it before these strangers.</p> + +<p>She looked down the table, past the other faces to his face, and the +thought that came to her mind was, how simple and almost meaningless the +rest were compared to his. Among the fourteen guests—seven women and +seven men—though some had charm or distinction, his face alone was +complex, mysterious, and baffling.</p> + +<p>Yet she loved it. Now, more than ever, she loved and admired it!</p> + +<p>The dinner ended with a discussion between Knight and Constance as to how +the Countess de Santiago could be induced to pay a visit to Valley House, +despite the fact that she had never met Lord and Lady Annesley-Seton. +Like most women who had lived in Spanish countries, the Countess was +rather a "stickler for etiquette," her friend Nelson Smith announced. +Besides, her experience as an "amateur clairvoyante" made her quick to +resent anything which had the air of patronage. One must go delicately to +work to think out a scheme, if Lady Annesley-Seton were really in "dead +earnest" about wanting her to come.</p> + +<p>At this point Knight reflected for a minute, while everyone hung upon his +silence; and at last he had an inspiration:</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you what we can do!" he exclaimed. "My wife and I—you're +willing, aren't you, Anita?—can ask her to stay over this week-end with +us. I think she'll come if she isn't engaged; and we can invite you to +meet her at dinner."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you must invite us <i>all</i>!" pleaded a pretty woman sitting next to +Knight.</p> + +<p>"All of you who care to come, certainly," he agreed. "Won't we, Anita?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, of course. It will be splendid if everybody will dine with us!" +Annesley backed him up with one of the girlish blushes that made her seem +so young and ingenuously attractive. "We can—send a telegram to the +Countess."</p> + +<p>She did her best to speak enthusiastically, and succeeded. No one save +Knight and Constance guessed it was an effort.</p> + +<p>Knight saw, and was grateful. Constance saw also, and smiled to herself +at what she fancied was the girl's jealousy of an old friend of the new +husband—an old friend who was "one of the most beautiful women" the girl +had seen. Annesley's hesitation inclined Constance to be more interested +than ever in the Countess de Santiago.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<h3>THE CRYSTAL</h3> + + +<p>Motoring back from Valley House to the Knowle Hotel, Annesley was asking +herself whether she might dare refer to the <i>Monarchic</i>, and mention the +story she had read In the <i>Morning Post</i>. She burned to do so, yet +stopped each time a question pressed to her lips, remembering Knight's +eyes as he had looked at the Countess in the Savoy restaurant the day +before the wedding.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the wish would have conquered if some imp had not whispered, +"What about that purple envelope, addressed in a woman's handwriting? +Maybe it was from <i>her</i>, hinting to see him again, and that is what has +put this plan into his head. Perhaps he brought up the subject of the +Countess on purpose to make them invite her here!"</p> + +<p>This thought caused the Countess de Santiago to seem a powerful person, +with an influence over Knight, though he had appeared not to care for +her. Could it be that he wanted an excuse to have her near him? The +suggestion closed Annesley's mouth by making her afraid that she was +turning into a suspicious creature, like jealous brides she had read +about. She determined to be silent as a self-punishment, and firmly +steered the <i>Monarchic</i> into a backwater of her thoughts, while Knight +talked of the Valley House party and their credulous superstition.</p> + +<p>"Every man Jack and every woman Jill of the lot believe in that crystal +and clairvoyant nonsense!" he laughed. "I mentioned it for fun, but I +went on simply to 'pull their legs.' I hope you don't mind having the +Countess down, do you, child? Of course, I made it out to be a favour +that so wonderful a being should consent to come at call. But between us, +Anita, the poor woman will fall over herself with joy. She's a restless, +lonely creature, who has drifted about the world without stopping +anywhere long enough to make friends, and I have a notion that her +heart's desire is to 'get into society' in England. This will give her a +chance, because these good ladies and gentlemen who are dying to see what +she's like, and persuade her to tell their pasts and futures, are at the +top of the tree. It's a cheap way for us to make her happy—and we can +afford it."</p> + +<p>"Don't you believe she really is clairvoyant, and sees things in her +crystal?" Annesley ventured.</p> + +<p>It was then that Knight made her heart beat by answering with a question. +"Didn't you read in the newspapers about the queer thing that happened +on board the <i>Monarchic</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Ye-es, I <i>did</i> read it," the girl said, in so stifled a voice that the +reply became a confession.</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you tell me so?"</p> + +<p>"Because—the day I heard you were on the <i>Monarchic</i>, I couldn't +remember what I'd read. It was vague in my mind——"</p> + +<p>"No other reason?"</p> + +<p>"Only that—that—I fancied——"</p> + +<p>"You fancied I didn't like to talk about the <i>Monarchic</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Well, when the Countess spoke of it, you looked—cross."</p> + +<p>"I was cross. But only with the <i>way</i> she spoke—as if she and I had come +over together because we were pals. That's all. Though I've every cause +to hate the memory of that trip! When did you remember what you had read +in the newspapers?"</p> + +<p>"Only this evening."</p> + +<p>"I thought so! At dinner. I saw a look come over your face."</p> + +<p>"I didn't know you noticed me."</p> + +<p>"I'm always noticing you. And I was proud of you to-night. Well! You +remembered——"</p> + +<p>"About a man on board being robbed, and a lady—an 'amateur +clairvoyante,' seeing things in a crystal. I thought it must have been +the Countess de Santiago."</p> + +<p>"It was, though her name was kept out of the papers by her request. She's +sensitive about the clairvoyance stuff: afraid people may consider her a +professional, and look down on her from patronizing social heights. Of +course, I suppose it's nonsense about seeing things in a glass ball, but +I believe she <i>does</i> contrive to take it seriously, for she seems in +earnest. She did tell people on board ship things about themselves—true +things, they said; and they ought to know!</p> + +<p>"As for the jewel affair," he added, "nobody could be sure if there was +anything in her 'visions', but people thought them extraordinary—even +the captain, a hard-headed old chap. You see, a yacht had been sighted +the evening before the robbery while the passengers were at dinner. It +might have kept near, with lights out, for the <i>Monarchic</i> is one of the +huge, slow-going giants, and the yacht might have been a regular little +greyhound. It seems she didn't answer signals. The captain hadn't thought +much of that, because there was a slight fog and she could have missed +them. But it came back to him afterward, and seemed to bear out the +Countess's rigmarole.</p> + +<p>"Besides, there was the finding of the patent lock, where she told the +man Jedfield he ought to look for it."</p> + +<p>"I don't remember that in the paper."</p> + +<p>"It was in several, if not all. She 'saw' the missing lock—a thing that +goes over a bolt and prevents it sliding back—in one of the lifeboats +upon the boat-deck, caught in the canvas covering. Well, it was there! +And there could be no suspicion of her putting the thing where it was +found, so as to make herself seem a true prophetess. She couldn't have +got to the place.</p> + +<p>"<i>That's</i> why people were so impressed with the rest of the visions. +We're all inclined to be superstitious. Even I was interested. Though I +don't pin my faith in such things, I asked her to look into the crystal, +and see if she could tell what had become of my gold repeater, which +disappeared the same night."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" exclaimed Annesley. "So <i>you</i> had something stolen?"</p> + +<p>"It looked like it. Anyhow, the watch went. And the Countess lost a ring +during the trip—a valuable one, I believe. She couldn't 'see' anything +for herself, but she got a glimpse of my repeater in the pocket of a red +waistcoat. Nobody on board confessed to a red waistcoat. And in the +searching of passengers' luggage—which I should have proposed myself if +I hadn't been among the robbed—nothing of the sort materialized.</p> + +<p>"However, that proved nothing. Jedfield's pearls and other trinkets must +have been somewhere on board, in someone's possession, if the yacht +vision wasn't true. Yet the strictest search gave no sign of them. It was +a miracle how they were disposed of, unless they <i>were</i> thrown overboard +and picked up by someone in the plot, as the Countess said."</p> + +<p>"Is that why you hate to think of the trip—because you lost your watch?" +Annesley asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes. Just that. It wasn't so much the loss of the watch—though it was a +present and I valued it—as because it made me feel such a fool. I left +the repeater under my pillow when I got up in the middle of the night to +go on deck, thinking I heard a cry. I couldn't have heard one, for nobody +was there. And next morning, when I wanted to look at the time, my watch +was equally invisible. Then there was the business of the passengers +being searched, and the everlasting talk about the whole business. One +got sick and tired of it. I got tired of the Countess and her crystal, +too: but the effect is passing away now. I expect I can stand her if you +can."</p> + +<p>Annesley said that she would be interested. She refrained from adding +that she did not intend to make use of the seeress's gift for her own +benefit.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The Countess de Santiago wired her acceptance of the invitation, and +appeared at the Knowle Hotel on Saturday with a maid and a good deal of +luggage. Annesley had secretly feared that the effect of the beautiful +lady on the guests of the hotel would be overpowering, and had pictured +her, brilliantly coloured and exquisitely dressed, breaking like a +sunburst upon the dining room at luncheon time.</p> + +<p>But she had underrated the Countess's cleverness and sense of propriety. +The lady arrived in a neat, tailor-made travelling dress of russet-brown +tweed which, with a plain toque of brown velvet and fur, cooled the ruddy +flame of her hair. It seemed to Annesley also that her lips were less red +than before; and though she was as remarkable as ever for her beauty, she +was not to be remarked for meretriciousness.</p> + +<p>She was pleasanter in manner, too, as well as in appearance; and +Annesley's heart—which had difficulty in hardening itself for long—was +touched by the Countess's thanks for the invitation.</p> + +<p>"You are so happy and wrapped up in each other, I didn't expect you to +give a thought to me," the beautiful woman said. "You don't know what it +means to be asked down here, after so many lonely days in town, and to +find that you and Don are going to give me some new friends."</p> + +<p>This note, which Knight also had struck in explaining the Countess's +"heart's desire," was the right note to enlist Annesley's sympathy. One +might have thought that both had guessed this.</p> + +<p>Annesley and Knight gave their dinner party in a private room adjoining +their own sitting room, and connecting also with another smaller room +which they had had fitted up for a special purpose. This purpose was to +enshrine the seeress and her crystal.</p> + +<p>As Knight had said, she seemed to take her clairvoyant power seriously, +and insisted that she could do herself justice only in a room arranged in +a certain way. In the afternoon she directed that the furniture should be +removed with the exception of one small table and two chairs. Even the +pictures had to be taken down, and under the Countess's supervision +purple velvet draperies had to be put up, covering the walls and window. +These draperies she had brought with her, and they had curtain rings +sewn on at the upper edge, which could be attached to picture hooks or +nails.</p> + +<p>From the same trunk came also a white silk table-cover embroidered in +gold with figures representing the signs of the zodiac. There were in +addition three purple velvet cushions: two for the chairs and one—the +Countess explained—for the table, to "make an arm rest." By her further +desire a large number of hot-house lilies in pots were sent for, and +ranged on the floor round the walls.</p> + +<p>As for the Turkish carpet of banal reds, blues, and greens, it had to be +concealed under rugs of black fur which, luckily, the hotel possessed in +plenty. It was all very mysterious and exciting, and Annesley could +imagine the effective background these contrivances would give the +shining figure of the Countess.</p> + +<p>When, later on, she saw her guest dressed for dinner, the girl realized +even more vividly the genius of the artist who had planned the picture. +For the Countess de Santiago wore a clinging gown made in Greek fashion, +of a supple white material shot with interwoven silver threads. She wore +her copper-red hair in a classic knot with a wreath of emerald laurel +leaves.</p> + +<p>She would gleam like a moonlit statue in her lily-perfumed, purple +shrine, Annesley thought, and was not surprised that the lady should +achieve an instant success with the county folk who had begged for an +invitation to meet her.</p> + +<p>The Countess de Santiago did not seem to mind answering questions +about her powers, which everyone asked across the dinner-table. She +said that since her seventh birthday she had been able, under certain +circumstances, to see hidden things in people's lives, and future events.</p> + +<p>Her first experience, as a child, was being shut up in a darkened room, +and looking into a mirror, where figures and scenes appeared, like waking +dreams. She had been frightened, and screamed to be let out. Her mother +had taken pity and released her, saying that after all it was what "might +be expected from the seventh child of a seventh child, born on All +Saints' Eve."</p> + +<p>The Nelson Smiths' guests listened breathlessly to every word, and were +enchanted when she promised to give each man and woman a short "sitting" +with her crystal after dinner.</p> + +<p>Nothing was said about the purple room, so that the surprise could not +help being impressive.</p> + +<p>It was a delightful dinner, well thought out between the host and +head-waiter, but no one wished to linger over it. Never had "bridge +fiends" been so eager to "get to work" as these people were to +take their turn with the Countess and her crystal. At Lady +Annesley-Seton's suggestion they drew lots for these turns, and +Constance herself drew the first chance. She and the gleaming figure +of the Countess went out together, and ten or twelve minutes later +she returned alone.</p> + +<p>Everyone stared eagerly to see if she looked excited, and it took no +stretch of imagination to find her face flushed and her eyes dilated.</p> + +<p>"Well? Has she told you anything wonderful?" A clamour of voices joined +in the question.</p> + +<p>"Yes, she has," replied Constance. "She's simply <i>uncanny</i>! She could +pick up a fortune in London in one season, if she were a professional. +She has told me in what sort of place the heirlooms are now, but that we +shall never see them again."</p> + +<p>So saying, Lady Annesley-Seton plumped down on a sofa beside her hostess, +as the next person hurried off to plunge into the mysteries. "I feel +quite weak in the knees," Constance whispered to Annesley. "Has she told +you anything?"</p> + +<p>"No," said the girl "I don't—want to know things."</p> + +<p>She might have added: "Things told by <i>her</i>." But she did not say this.</p> + +<p>Constance shivered. "The woman frightened me with what she <i>knew</i>. I +mean, not about our robbery—that's a trifle—but about the past. That +crystal of hers seems to be—a sort of <i>Town Topics</i>. But I must say she +didn't foretell any horrors for the future—not for me personally. If +she goes on as she's begun she can do what she likes with us all. Dear +little Anne, you must ask her often to your house when you're 'finding +your feet'—and I'm helping you—in London. I prophesy that she'll prove +an attraction. Why, it would pay to have a room fitted up for her in +purple and black, with relays of fresh lilies."</p> + +<p>Annesley smiled. But she made up her mind that, if a room <i>were</i> done in +purple and black with relays of lilies anywhere for the Countess de +Santiago, it would not be in her house. Unless, of course, Knight begged +it of her as a favour.</p> + +<p>And even then—but somehow she didn't believe, despite certain +appearances, that Knight was anxious to have his old friend near him. He +had the air of one who was paying a debt; and she remembered how he had +said, on the day of their wedding: "We will find a time to pay back the +favours they've done us."</p> + +<p>This visit and dinner and introduction to society was perhaps his way of +paying the Countess. Only—was it payment in full, or an instalment? +Annesley wondered.</p> + +<p>Vaguely she wondered also what had become of Dr. Torrance and the +Marchese di Morello. Would the next payment be for them, and what form +would it take?</p> + +<p>She was far from guessing.</p> + +<p>There was no anti-climax that night in the success of the Countess with +her "clients." They were deeply impressed, and even startled. Not one +woman said to herself that she had been tricked into giving the seeress a +"lead." There was nothing in the past hidden from that crystal and the +dark eyes which gazed into it! As for the future, her predictions were +remarkable; and she must have given people flattering accounts of their +characters, as everyone thought the analysis correct.</p> + +<p>What a pity, the women whispered, that such an astonishing person was not +a professional, who could be paid in cash! As it was, she would expect to +be rewarded with invitations: and though she was presentable, "You +<i>know</i>, my dear, she's frightfully pretty, the red-haired sort, that's +the most dangerous—not a bit safe to have about one's <i>men</i>. Still—no +price is too high. We shall all be fighting for her—or over her."</p> + +<p>And before the evening had come to an end the Countess de Santiago had +had several invitations for town and country houses. To be sure, they +were rather informal. But the beautiful lady knew when to be lenient, and +so she accepted them all.</p> + +<p>"She told me that our stolen things are hidden away for ever, and that +we'll be robbed again," Connie said to her husband on the way back to +Valley House.</p> + +<p>"She told me the same," said Dick. "And I hope to goodness we may be. +We've done jolly well out of that last affair!"</p> + +<p>"Yes," his wife agreed. "The only thing I don't like about it is the +<i>mystery</i>. It makes me feel as if something might be hanging over one's +head."</p> + +<p>"Over the trustees' heads!" laughed Lord Annesley-Seton. "I wish the +other night could be what the Countess called the 'first of a series.'"</p> + +<p>"The first of a series!" Constance repeated. "What a queer expression! +What was she talking about?"</p> + +<p>"She was—looking in her crystal," answered Dick, slowly, as if something +he had seen rose again before his eyes.</p> + +<p>Constance was pricked with curiosity. "You might tell me what the woman +said!" she exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"You haven't told me what message she had for you."</p> + +<p>"I've just said that she prophesied we should be robbed again."</p> + +<p>"That's only one thing. What about the rest?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! A lot of stuff which wouldn't interest <i>you</i>!"</p> + +<p>"You can keep your secret. And I'll keep mine," remarked Dick +Annesley-Seton, aggravatingly. "Anyhow, for the present. We'll see how it +works out."</p> + +<p>"See how <i>what</i> works out?" his wife echoed.</p> + +<p>"The series."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + +<h3>THE SERIES GOES ON</h3> + + +<p>After all, Annesley had not written to her friends, Archdeacon Smith and +his wife, on leaving Mrs. Ellsworth's, to tell the surprising news of her +engagement. She had asked Mr. Ruthven Smith not to speak of it to his +cousins, because she would prefer to write. But then—the putting of the +news on paper in a way not to offend them, after their kindness in the +past, had been difficult.</p> + +<p>Besides, there had been little time to think out the difficulties, and +find a way of surmounting them. There had been only one whole day before +the wedding, and that day she had spent with Knight, buying her +trousseau. It had been a wonderful day, never to be forgotten, but its +end had found her tired; and when Knight had said "good-bye" and left +her, she had not been equal to composing a letter.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, she had tried, for it had seemed dreadful to marry and go +away from London without letting her only friends know what had happened, +what she was doing, and why she had not invited them to her wedding.</p> + +<p>Ah, <i>why</i>? In explaining that she confronted the great obstacle. She +had not known how to exonerate herself without hurting their feelings, +or—telling a lie.</p> + +<p>The girl hated lying. She could not remember that in her life she had +ever spoken or written a lie in so many words, though, like most people +who are not saints, she had prevaricated a little occasionally to save +herself or others from some unpleasantness.</p> + +<p>In this case no innocent prevarication would serve. Even if she had been +willing to lie, she could think of no excuse which would seem plausible. +Tired as she had been that last night as Annesley Grayle, and throbbing +as she was with excitement at the thought of the new life before her, she +did begin a letter.</p> + +<p>It was a feeble effort. She tore it up and essayed another. The second +was worse than the first, and the third was scarcely an improvement.</p> + +<p>Discouraged, and so nerve-racked that she was on the point of tears, the +girl put off the attempt. But days passed, and when no inspiration came, +and she was still haunted by the thought of a duty undone, she +compromised by telegraphing from Devonshire. Her message ran:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Dear Friends</span>—</p> + +<p>I beg you to forgive me for seeming neglect, but it was not really +that. I am married to a man I love. It had to be sudden. I could not +let you know in time, though I wanted to. I shall not be quite happy +till I've seen you and introduced my husband. Say to your cousin he may +explain as far as he can. When we meet will tell you more. Coming back +to London in fortnight to take house in Portman Square and settle down. +Love and gratitude always. My new name is same as yours.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Annesley Smith.</span></p></div> + +<p>To this she added her address in Devonshire, feeling sure that, unless +the Archdeacon and his wife were hopelessly offended by her neglect and +horrified at Ruthven Smith's story, they would write.</p> + +<p>She cared for them very much, and it would always be a grief, she +thought, that she and Knight had not been married by her old friend. +Every night she prayed for a letter, waking with the hope that the +postman might bring one: and five days after the sending of her telegram +her heart leaped at sight of a fat envelope addressed in Mrs. Smith's +familiar handwriting.</p> + +<p>They forgave her! That was the principal thing. And they rejoiced in her +happiness. All explanations—if "dear Annesley wished to make any"—could +wait until they met. The kind woman wrote:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Cousin James Ruthven Smith was loyal to his promise, and gave us no +hint of your news. We did not, of course, know of the promise till +after your telegram came, and we showed it to him. Then he confessed +that he was in your secret; that he had been witness of a scene in +which poor Mrs. Ellsworth made herself more than usually unpleasant; +and that you had asked him to let you tell us the glad tidings of your +engagement and hasty wedding.</p> + +<p>I say "poor Mrs. Ellsworth" because it seems she has been ill since you +left, and has had other misfortunes. The illness is not serious, and I +imagine, now I have heard fuller details of her treatment of you, that +it is merely a liver and nerve attack, the result of temper. If she had +not been confined to bed, and very sorry for herself, I am sure nothing +could have prevented her from writing to us a garbled account of the +quarrel and your departure.</p> + +<p>As it turned out, I hear she rang up the household after you went that +night, had hysterics, and sent a servant flying for the doctor. He—a +most inferior person, according to Cousin James—having a sister who is +a trained nurse, put <i>her</i> in charge of the patient at once, where she +has remained since. In consequence of the nurse's tyrannical ways, the +servants gave a day's notice and left in a body.</p> + +<p>Three temporary ones were got in as soon as possible from some agency; +and last night (four days, I believe, after they were installed) a +burglary was committed in the house.</p> + +<p>Only fancy, <i>poor Ruthven</i>! He was afraid to stay even with us in our +quiet house, when he came to London, because once, years ago, we were +robbed! You know how reticent he is about his affairs, and how he never +says anything concerning business. One might think that to <i>us</i> he +would show some of the beautiful jewels he is supposed to buy for the +Van Vrecks.</p> + +<p>But no, he never mentions them. We should not have known why he came to +England this time, after a shorter interval than usual, or that he had +valuables in his possession, if it had not been for this burglary. As +he was obliged to talk to the police, and describe to them what had +been stolen from him (I forgot to mention that he as well as Mrs. +Ellsworth was robbed, but you would have guessed that, from my +beginning, even if you haven't read the morning papers before taking up +my letter), there was no reason why, for once, he should not speak +freely to us.</p> + +<p>He has been lunching here and has just gone, as I write, but will +transfer himself later to our house, as it has now become unbearable +for him at Mrs. Ellsworth's. I fancy <i>that</i> arrangement has been +brought to an end! Your presence in the <i>ménage</i> was the sole +alleviation.</p> + +<p>James, it appears, came to London on an unexpected mission, differing +from his ordinary trips. You may remember seeing in the papers some +weeks ago that an agent of the Van Vreck firm was robbed on shipboard +of a lot of pearls and things he was bringing to show an important +client in England—some Indian potentate. James tells us that <i>he</i> +procured the finest of the collection for the Van Vrecks, and as he is +a great expert, and can recognize jewels he has once seen, even when +disguised or cut up, or in different settings, he was asked to go to +London to help the police find and identify some of the lost valuables.</p> + +<p>Also, he was instructed to buy more pearls, to be sold to the Indian +customer, instead of those stolen from the agent on shipboard. James +had not found any of the lost things; but he <i>had</i> bought some pearls +the day before the burglary at Mrs. Ellsworth's.</p> + +<p>Wasn't it <i>too</i> unlucky? I have tried to give the poor fellow a little +consolation by reminding him how fortunate it is he hadn't bought +<i>more</i>, and that the loss will be the Van Vrecks' or that of some +insurance company, not <i>his</i> personally. But he cannot be comforted. He +says that his not having ten thousand pounds' worth of pearls doesn't +console him for being robbed of <i>eight</i> thousand pounds' worth.</p> + +<p>James has little hope that the thieves will be found, for he feels that +the Van Vrecks are in for a run of bad luck, after the good fortune of +many years. They have lost the head of the firm—"the great Paul," as +James calls him—who has definitely retired, and occupies himself so +exclusively with his collection that he takes no interest in the +business.</p> + +<p>Then there was the robbery on the ship, which, in James's opinion, must +have been the work of a masterly combination. And now another theft! +The poor fellow has <i>quite</i> lost his nerve, which, as you know, has for +years not been that of a young man. His deafness, no doubt, partly +accounts for the timidity with which he has been afflicted since the +first (and only other) time he was robbed. And now he blames it for +what happened last night.</p> + +<p>He's trained himself to be a light sleeper, and if he could hear as +well as other people, he thinks the thief would have waked him coming +into his room. Once in, the wretch must have drugged him, because the +pearls were in a parcel under his pillow. But how the man—or men—got +into the house is a mystery, unless one of the new servants was an +accomplice.</p> + +<p><i>Nothing</i> was broken open. In the morning every door and window was +as usual. Of course the servants are under suspicion; but they seem +stupid, ordinary people, according to James.</p> + +<p>As for Mrs. Ellsworth, he says she is making a fuss over the wretched +bits of jewellery she lost, things of no importance. She, too, slept +through the affair, and knew what had happened only when she waked to +see a safe she has in the wall of her bedroom wide open.</p> + +<p>It seems that in place of her jewel box and some money she kept there +was an <i>insulting</i> note, announcing that for the first time something +belonging to her would be used for a good purpose. To James this is the +one bright spot in the darkness.</p></div> + +<p>When Annesley had read this long letter with its many italics, she passed +it to Knight who, in exchange, handed her a London newspaper with a page +folded so as to give prominence to a certain column. It was an account of +the burglary at Mrs. Ellsworth's house, which he had been reading.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Generous with money as "Nelson Smith" was, he was not a man who would +allow himself to be "done," and in some ways the Annesley-Setons were +disappointed in the bargain they arrived at with him. He appeared +delighted with the chance of getting their London house, and of having +them come to stay, in order to introduce his wife and himself to the +brightest, most "particular" stars in the galaxy of their friends.</p> + +<p>Yet, when it came to making definite terms he seemed to take it for +granted that, as the Annesley-Setons would be living in the house as +guests, they would not only be willing, but anxious, to accept a low +price.</p> + +<p>This had not been their intention. On the contrary, they had meant +their visit and social offices to be a great, extra favour, which +ought to raise rather than lower the rent. In some mysterious way, +however, without appearing to bargain or haggle, Nelson Smith, the young +millionaire from America, made his bride's relatives understand that he +was prepared to pay so much, and no more. That they could take him on his +own terms—or let him go.</p> + +<p>Terrified, therefore, lest he and his money should slip out of their +hands, they snapped at his carelessly made offer without venturing an +objection. And they realized at the same time in a way equally +mysterious, and to their own surprise, that not they but Mr. and Mrs. +Nelson Smith would be master and mistress of the house in Portman Square. +If there were ever a clash between wills, Nelson Smith's would prevail +over theirs.</p> + +<p>How this impression was conveyed to their intelligence they could hardly +have explained even to each other. The man was so pleasant, so careless +of finances or conventionalities, that not one word or look could be +treasured up against him.</p> + +<p>"The fellow's a genius!" Annesley-Seton said to Constance, when they were +talking over the latest phase of the game. And they respected him.</p> + +<p>Lady Annesley-Seton wished to bring to town the servants, including a +wonderful butler, who had been transferred for economy's sake to Valley +House. This proposal, however, Nelson Smith dismissed with a few +good-natured words. He had his eye upon a butler whose brother was +a chauffeur.</p> + +<p>"Besides, it wouldn't be fair to Anita," he explained. "Your servants +would scorn to take orders from her, and I want her to learn the dignity +of a married woman with responsibilities of her own. That's the first +step toward being the perfect hostess. She's the sweetest girl in the +world, but she's timid and distrustful of herself. I want her to know her +own worth, and then it won't be long before everyone around her knows +it."</p> + +<p>There was no answer to this except acquiescence, which Dick and Constance +were obliged to give. They did give it: the more readily because they +were inclined to suspect a hidden hint, a pill between layers of jam.</p> + +<p>If the girl had been transferred from the earth to Mars, the new +conditions of life could scarcely have been more different from the old +than was life in Portman Square married to Nelson Smith, from the +treadmill as Mrs. Ellsworth's slave-companion. What the Portman Square +experiences of the bride would have been if Knight had allowed the +Annesley-Setons to begin by ruling it would be dangerous to say. But he +had taken his stand; and without guessing that she owed her freedom of +action to her husband's strength of will, she revelled in it with a joy +so intense that it came close to pain. Sometimes, if he were within +reach, she ran to find Knight, and hugged him almost fiercely, with a +passion that surprised herself.</p> + +<p>"I'm so happy; that's all," she would explain, if he asked "What has +happened?" "My soul was buried. You've brought it back to life."</p> + +<p>When she said such things Knight smiled, and seemed glad. He would hold +her to him for a minute, or kiss her hand, like an humble squire with a +princess. But now and then he looked at her with a wistfulness that was +like a question she could not hear because she was deaf. She never got +any satisfaction, though, if she asked what the look meant.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know. I was only thinking of you," he would answer, or some +other words of lover-language.</p> + +<p>The Annesley-Setons' first move on the social chessboard was to make use +of a pawn or two in the shape of "society reporters." They knew a few men +and women of good birth and no money who lived by writing anonymously for +the newspapers. These people were delighted to get material for a +paragraph, or photographs for their editors. Connie took her new cousin +to the woman photographer who was the success of the moment; and, as she +said to Knight, "the rest managed itself."</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, an application was made to the Lord Chamberlain for Mrs. +Nelson Smith's presentation by her cousin Lady Annesley-Seton at the +first Court of the season. It was granted, and the bride in white and +silver made her bow to their majesties. As for Knight, he laughingly +refused Dick's good offices.</p> + +<p>"No levees for me!" he said. "I've lived too long in America, and roughed +it in too many queer places, to take myself seriously in knee-breeches. +Besides, they have to know about your ancestors back to the Dark Ages, +don't they, or else they 'cancel' you? My father was a good man, and a +gentleman, but who <i>his</i> father was I couldn't tell to save my head. My +mother was by way of being a swell; but she was a foreigner, so I can't +make use of any of her 'quarterings,' even if I could count them."</p> + +<p>Annesley was presented in February, and had by that time been settled in +Portman Square long enough to have met many of her cousins' friends. +After the Court, which launched her in society, she and Knight (with a +list supplied by Connie) gave a dinner-dance. The Countess de Santiago +was not asked; but soon afterward there was a luncheon entirely for +women, in American fashion, at which the Countess was present.</p> + +<p>When luncheon was over, she gave a short lecture on "the Science of +Palmistry" and "the Cultivation of Clairvoyant Powers." Then there was +tea; and the Countess allowed herself to be consulted by the guests—the +dozen most important women of Connie's acquaintance.</p> + +<p>Annesley, though she was not able to like the Countess, was pleased with +the praise lavished upon her both for her looks and her accomplishments +that afternoon. She had guessed, from the beautiful woman's constrained +manner when they met at a shop the day after the dinner-dance, that she +was hurt because she had not been invited: though why she should expect +to be asked to every entertainment which the Nelson Smiths gave, Annesley +could not see.</p> + +<p>Vaguely distressed, however, by the flash in the handsome eyes, and the +curt "How do you do?" the girl appealed to Knight.</p> + +<p>"Ought we to have had the Countess de Santiago last evening?" she asked, +perching on his knee in the room at the back of the house which he had +annexed as a "den."</p> + +<p>"Certainly not," he reassured her, promptly. "All the people were howling +swells. The Annesley-Setons had skimmed the topmost layer of the cream +for our benefit, and the Countess would have been 'out' of it in such a +set, unless she'd been telling fortunes. You can ask her when you've a +crowd of women. She'll amuse them, and gather glory for herself. But I'm +not going to have her encouraged to think we belong to her. We've set the +woman on her feet by what we've done. Now let her learn to stand alone."</p> + +<p>The ladies' luncheon was a direct consequence of this speech; but +complete as was the Countess's success, Annesley felt that she was not +satisfied: that it would take more than a luncheon party of which she was +the heroine to content the Countess, now that Nelson Smith and his bride +had a house and a circle in London.</p> + +<p>Occasionally, when she was giving an "At Home," or a dinner, Annesley +consulted Knight. "Shall we ask the Countess?" was her query, and the +first time she did this he answered with another question: "Do you want +her for your own pleasure? Do you like her better than you did?"</p> + +<p>Annesley had to say "no" to this catechizing, whereupon Knight briefly +disposed of the subject. "That settles it. We won't have her."</p> + +<p>And so, during the next few weeks, the Countess de Santiago (who had +moved from the Savoy Hotel into a charming, furnished flat in Cadogan +Gardens) came to Portman Square only for one luncheon and two or three +receptions.</p> + +<p>By this time, however, she had made friends of her own, and if she had +cared to accept a professional status she might have raked in a small +fortune from her séances. She would not take money, however, preferring +social recognition; but gifts were pressed upon her by those who, though +grateful and admiring, did not care for the obligation to admit the +Countess into their intimacy.</p> + +<p>She took the rings and bracelets and pendants, and flowers and fruit, and +bon-bons and books, because they were given in such a way that it would +have been ungracious to refuse. But the givers were the very women whose +bosom friend she would have liked to seem, in the sight of the world: a +duchess, a countess, or a woman distinguished above her sisters for some +reason.</p> + +<p>She worked to gain favour, and when she had any personal triumph without +direct aid from Portman Square, she put on an air of superiority over +Annesley when they met. If she suffered a gentle snub, she hid the smart, +but secretly brooded, blaming Mrs. Nelson Smith because she was asked to +their house only for big parties, or when she was wanted to amuse their +friends.</p> + +<p>She blamed Nelson, too; but, womanlike, blamed Annesley more. Sometimes +she determined to put out a claw and draw blood from both, but changed +her mind, remembering that to do them harm she must harm herself.</p> + +<p>Once it occurred to her to form a separate, secret alliance with +Constance Annesley-Seton. There were reasons why that might have suited +her, and she began one day to feel her ground when Connie had telephoned, +and had come to her flat for advice from the crystal. She had "seen +things" which she thought Lady Annesley-Seton would like her to see, and +when the séance was ended in a friendly talk, the Countess de Santiago +begged Constance to call her Madalena. "You are my <i>first</i> real friend in +England!" she said.</p> + +<p>"Except my cousin Anne," Connie amended, with a sharp glance from the +green-gray eyes to see whether "Madalena" were "working up to anything."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I can't count <i>her</i>!" said the Countess. "She doesn't like me. She +wouldn't have me come near her if it weren't for her husband. I am quick +to feel things. You, I believe, really <i>do</i> like me a little, so I can +speak freely to you. And you <i>know</i> you can to me."</p> + +<p>But Constance, in the slang of her girlhood days, "wasn't taking any." +She was afraid that Madalena was trying to draw her into finding fault +with her host and hostess, in order to repeat what she said, with +embroideries, to Nelson Smith or Annesley. She was not a woman to be +caught by the subtleties of another; and in dread of compromising herself +did the Countess de Santiago an injustice. If she had ventured any +disparaging remarks of "Cousin Anne," they would not have been repeated.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The season began early and brilliantly that year, for the weather was +springlike, even in February; and people were ready to enjoy everything. +The one blot on the general brightness was a series of robberies. +Something happened on an average of every ten or twelve days, and always +in an unexpected quarter, where the police were not looking.</p> + +<p>Among the first to suffer were Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith. The Portman +Square house was broken into, the thief entering a window of the "den" +on the ground floor, and making a clean sweep of all the jewellery +Knight and Annesley owned except her engagement ring, the string of +pearls which had been her lover's wedding gift, and the wonderful blue +diamond on its thin gold chain. These things she wore by night as well as +day; but a gold-chain bag, a magnificent double rope of pearls, a diamond +dog-collar, several rings, brooches, and bangles which Knight had given +her since their marriage, all went.</p> + +<p>His pearl studs, his watch (a present out of Annesley's allowance, +hoarded for the purpose), and a collection of jewelled scarf-pins shared +the fate of his wife's treasures.</p> + +<p>Unfortunately, a great deal of the Annesley-Seton family silver went at +the same time, regretted by Knight far beyond his own losses. Dick was +inclined to be solemn over such a haul, but Constance laughed.</p> + +<p>"Who cares?" she said. "We've no children, and for my part I'm as pleased +as Punch that your horrid old third cousins will come into less when +we're swept off the board. Meanwhile, we get the insurance money for +'loss of use' again. It's simply splendid. And that dear Nelson Smith +insists on buying the best Sheffield plate to replace what's gone. It's +handsomer than the real!"</p> + +<p>Neither she nor Dick lost any jewellery, though they possessed a little +with which they had not had the courage to part. And this seemed +mysterious to Constance. She wondered over it: and remembering how the +Countess de Santiago had prophesied another robbery for them, telephoned +to ask if she'd be "a darling, and look again in her crystal."</p> + +<p>Madalena telephoned back: "I'll expect you this afternoon at four +o'clock."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + +<h3>THE TEST</h3> + + +<p>Madalena had meant to go out that afternoon, but she changed her mind and +stopped at home. "I know what you've come for," she said, as she kept +Connie's hand in hers. It was an effective way she had, as if contact +with a person helped her to read the condition of that person's mind.</p> + +<p>"Do you really?" exclaimed Constance. "Why, I—but you mean you've +guessed what has hap——"</p> + +<p>"It's not guessing, it's <i>seeing</i>," answered the Countess. "I'm in one of +my psychic moods to-day. A prophecy of mine has come true?"</p> + +<p>"No-o—yes. Well, in a way you're right. In a way you're wrong. What is +it you see?"</p> + +<p>"I see that you've lost something—probably last night. This morning I +waked with the impression. I wasn't surprised when you telephoned. Now, +let me go on holding your hand, and <i>think</i>. I'll shut my eyes. I don't +need my room and the crystal. Yes! The impression grows clearer. You +<i>have</i> lost something. But it is not a thing to care about. You're glad +it's gone."</p> + +<p>"You <i>are</i> extraordinary!" Constance wondered aloud. "Can you see what I +lost—and whether it was Dick's or mine, or both?"</p> + +<p>"His," said Madalena, after shutting her eyes again. "<i>His.</i> And he does +not care much, either. That seems strange. But I tell you what I <i>feel</i>."</p> + +<p>"You are telling me the truth," Constance admitted. "Now, go on: tell +what was the thing itself—and the way we lost it."</p> + +<p>"I haven't seen that yet. I haven't tried. Perhaps I shall be able to, +in the crystal; perhaps not. I don't always succeed. But—it comes to me +suddenly that this thing isn't directly or entirely what brought you +here?"</p> + +<p>"Right again, O Witch!" laughed Connie. "I came to ask you to find +out—you're so marvellous!-why I didn't lose <i>other</i> things, which I +really <i>do</i> value."</p> + +<p>The two women had been standing in the drawing room, Lady +Annesley-Seton's hand still in the Countess's. But now, without speaking +again, Madalena led her visitor into the room adjoining, which was fitted +up much as the room at the Devonshire hotel had been for her first +séance. The seeress gave herself, here at home, the same background of +purple velvet; the floor was carpeted with black, and spread with black +fur rugs; she was never without fragrant white lilies ranged in curious +pots along the purple walls; but in her own house the appointments were +more elaborate and impressive than the temporary fittings she carried +about for use when visiting.</p> + +<p>On her table was a cushion of cloth-of-gold, embroidered with amethysts +and emeralds, the "lucky" jewels of her horoscope; and her gleaming ball +of crystal lay like a bright bubble in a shallow cup of solid jet which, +she told everyone, had been given her in India by the greatest astrologer +in the world.</p> + +<p>What was the name of this man, and when she had visited him in India, she +did not reveal.</p> + +<p>They sat down at the table, she and Constance Annesley-Seton, opposite +each other. Madalena unveiled the crystal, which was hidden under a +covering of black velvet when not in use. At first she gazed into the +glittering ball in vain, and her companion watched her face anxiously. It +looked marble white and expressionless as that of a statue in the light +of seven wax candles grouped together in a silver candelabrum.</p> + +<p>Suddenly, as it seemed to Constance's hypnotized stare, the statue-face +"came alive." It was not the first time that Constance had seen this +thrilling change. It invariably happened when the crystal began to show +a picture; and so powerful was its effect on the nerves of the watcher in +this silent, perfumed room, as to give an illusion that she, too, could +see dimly what the seeress saw forming in those transparent depths.</p> + +<p>"A man is there," Madalena said in a low, measured voice, as if she were +talking in her sleep. "He is shutting a door. It is the front door of a +house like yours. Yes, it <i>is</i> yours. There is the number over the door, +and I recognize the street. It is Portman Square. He puts a latchkey in +his pocket. How could he have got the key? I do not know. Perhaps I could +find out, but there is no time. I must follow him.</p> + +<p>"He is hurrying away. He carries a heavy travelling bag. A closed +carriage is coming along—not a public one. It has been waiting for him +I think. He gets in, and the coachman—who is in black—drives off very +fast. They go through street after street! I can't be sure where. It +seems to be north they are going. There's a park—Regent's Park, maybe. +I don't know London well.</p> + +<p>"The carriage is stopping—before a closed house in a quiet street. There +is a little garden in front, and a high wall. The man opens the gate and +walks in. The carriage drives off. The coachman must know where to go, +for no word is said. Someone inside the house is waiting. He lets the man +with the bag into a dark hallway. Now he shuts the door and goes into a +room.</p> + +<p>"There is a light. The first man puts the bag on a table; it is a dining +table. The other man—much older—watches. The first one takes things out +of the bag. Oh, a great deal of beautiful silver! I have seen it at your +house. And there are other things—a string of pearls and a lot of +jewellery. He pours it out of a brown handkerchief on to the table.</p> + +<p>"But still the second man is not pleased. I think he is asking why there +isn't more. The first man explains. He makes gestures. So does the other. +They are quarrelling. The man who brought the bag is afraid of the older +one. He apologizes. He seems to be talking about something that he will +do. He goes to a mantelpiece in the room and points to a calendar. He +touches a date with his forefinger."</p> + +<p>"What date?" Lady Annesley-Seton cried out. It was forbidden to speak to +the seeress in the midst of a vision, but Constance forgot in the strain +of her excitement.</p> + +<p>The Countess gave a gasp, fell back in her chair, and put her hands over +her eyes. "Oh!" she stammered, as though she awoke from sleep. "How my +head aches! It is all gone!"</p> + +<p>"I'm so sorry!" Constance apologized. "It began to seem so real, I +thought I was in that room with you. You are unaccountable! You couldn't +know what happened. Yet you have been seeing the thief who stole our +silver last night, and the Nelson Smiths' jewellery, but no jewellery of +ours. That is the strange part of the affair, for I have a few things I +adore—and they would have been easy to find. You didn't even know we +<i>had</i> been robbed, did you?"</p> + +<p>"No, of course not," said the Countess. "I am sorry! Was it in the +papers?"</p> + +<p>"It will be this evening and to-morrow morning! But the police must hear +about this vision of yours, the vision of the man with the latchkey. It +may help them."</p> + +<p>"You must not tell the police!" Madalena said, "I have warned you all, +that if you talked too much about me and my crystal, the police might +hear and take notice. There are such stupid laws in England. I may be +doing something against them. If you or Lord Annesley-Seton speak of me +to the police I will go away, and you will never hear more of my +visions—as you call them—in future. Unless you promise that you will +let the police find the thieves in their own way, without dragging me in, +I shall be so unnerved that my eyes will be darkened."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I promise, if you feel so strongly about it," said Constance. "I +didn't realize that it might do you harm to be mentioned to the police."</p> + +<p>She wished very much to have Madalena go on looking in the crystal. She +had been excited, carried out of herself for a few minutes, but she had +not heard what she had come to hear—why she had been spared the loss of +her personal treasures.</p> + +<p>The desired promise hurriedly made, the Countess gave her attention once +more to the crystal. For a time she could see nothing. The mysterious +current had been severed by the diversion, and had slowly to be rewoven +by the seeress's will.</p> + +<p>"I can see only dimly," Madalena said. "It was clear before! I cannot +tell you why the things you care for were left.... Something <i>new</i> is +coming. It seems that this time I am looking ahead, into the future. The +picture is blurred—like a badly developed photograph. The thing I see +has still to materialize."</p> + +<p>"Where?" whispered Constance, thrilled by the thought that some event on +its way to her down the unknown path of futurity was casting a shadow +into the crystal. "Where?"</p> + +<p>"I see a beautiful room. There are a number of people there—men and +women. You are with them, and Lord Annesley-Seton—and Nelson Smith and +your cousin Anne. I know most of the faces—not all. Everyone is excited. +Something has happened. They are talking it over.... Now I see the room +more clearly. It is as if a light were turned on in the crystal. Oh, it +is what you call the Chinese drawing room, at Valley House. I know why +the room lights up, and why I see everything so much more clearly. It is +because I myself am coming into the picture.</p> + +<p>"The people want me to tell them the meaning of the thing that has +happened. It seems that I know about it. I do not hesitate to answer. It +must be that I have been consulting the crystal, for I seem sure of what +I say to them! I point toward the door—or is it at something on the +wall—or is it a person? Ah, the picture is gone from the crystal!"</p> + +<p>"How irritating!" cried Lady Annesley-Seton, who felt that supernatural +forces ought to be subject to her convenience. "Can't you make it come +back if you concentrate?"</p> + +<p>Madalena shook her head. "No, it will not come back. I am sure of that, +because when the crystal clouds as if milk were pouring into it, I know +that I shall never see the same picture again. Whether it is a cross +current in myself or the crystal, I cannot tell; but it amounts to the +same thing. I am sorry! It is useless to try any more. Shall we go to the +other room and have tea?"</p> + +<p>Constance did not persist, as she wished to do. She had to take the +Countess's word that further effort would be useless, but she felt +thwarted, as if the curtain had fallen by mistake in the middle of an +act, and the characters on the stage had availed themselves of the chance +to go home.</p> + +<p>It was vexatious enough that Madalena had not been able to explain the +mystery of last night. But this was ten times more annoying.</p> + +<p>"Am I not to know the end of the act?" she asked as her hostess +poured tea. The latter shrugged her shoulders, as if to shake off +responsibility. "Ah, I cannot tell! Perhaps if——"</p> + +<p>She stopped, and handed her guest a cup.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps if—<i>what</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, nothing!" Madalena tasted her own tea and put in more cream.</p> + +<p>"Do tell me what you were going to say, <i>dear</i> Countess, unless you want +me to die of curiosity."</p> + +<p>"I should be sorry to have you do that!" smiled Madalena. "But if I said +what I was going to say, you might misunderstand. You might think—I was +asking for an invitation."</p> + +<p>Instantly Constance's mind unveiled the other's meaning. There was to be +an Easter party at Valley House—a very smart party. The Countess de +Santiago wished to be a member of it. Lady Annesley-Seton, shrewd as she +was, had a vein of superstition running through her nature, and, though +one side of that nature said that the scene with the crystal had been +arranged for this end, the other side held its belief in the vision.</p> + +<p>"You mean," she said, "that if you should be at Valley House when the +<i>thing</i> happens, and we are puzzled and upset about it, you might be able +to help?"</p> + +<p>"The fancy passed through my head. It was the picture in the crystal +suggested it," Madalena explained. "Do have an éclair!" Face and voice +expressed indifference; but Constance knew that the other had set her +heart on being at Valley House for Easter; and there was really no +visible reason why she shouldn't be there.</p> + +<p>People liked her well enough: she was never a bore.</p> + +<p>"Well, you must be 'in at the death,' with the rest of us," Lady +Annesley-Seton assured her. "Of course, though it's my house, this +Easter party is practically the Nelson Smiths' affair. You know what +poverty-stricken wretches <i>we</i> are! They are paying all expenses, and +taking the servants, so I suppose I am bound to go through the form of +consulting Anne before I ask even <i>you</i>. Still——"</p> + +<p>Madalena's eyes flamed. "Consult your cousin's husband!" she said. "It is +only <i>he</i> who counts. As a favour to me, speak to him."</p> + +<p>Constance smiled at the other over her teacup, with a narrowed gaze. "Why +shouldn't I speak to them together?"</p> + +<p>"Because I want to know what to think. If <i>he</i> says no, it will be a +test."</p> + +<p>"Very well, so be it!" said Constance, making light of what she knew was +somehow serious. "I'll tackle Nelson alone without Anne."</p> + +<p>"That is all I want. And if I am asked to be of your party, I think—I +can't tell why, but I feel it strongly—that everybody may have some +reason for being glad."</p> + +<p>It seemed unlikely there would be a chance for a talk that evening, as +Nelson Smith was dining at one of the clubs he had joined. The other +three members of the household were to have a hasty dinner and go to +the first performance of a new play—a play in which Knight was not +interested. Afterward they expected to sup at the Savoy with the +friend who had asked them to her box at the theatre; but the box was +empty save for themselves.</p> + +<p>While they wondered, a messenger brought a note of regret. Sudden illness +had kept their would-be hostess in her room.</p> + +<p>Without her, the supper was considered not worth while. The play had run +late, and the trio voted for home and bed.</p> + +<p>"If Nelson has come, I'll try and have a word with him to-night, after +all," thought Constance, "provided I can keep my promise by getting Anne +out of the way. Then I can phone to Madalena early in the morning, yes or +no, and put her out of her suspense. No such luck, though, as that he +will have got back from his club!"</p> + +<p>He had got back, however. The entrance hall was in twilight when Dick +Annesley-Seton let them into the house with his latchkey, for all the +electric lights save one were turned off. That one was shaded with red +silk, and in the ruddy glow it was easy to see the line of light under +the door of the "den."</p> + +<p>Annesley noticed it, but made no comment. Knight never asked her to join +him in the den, but alluded to it as an untidy place, a mere work room +which he kept littered with papers; and only the new butler, Charrington, +was allowed to straighten its disorder.</p> + +<p>This, of course, was not butler's business, but Knight said the footmen +were stupid, and Charrington had been persuaded or bribed into performing +the duty. Annesley's life of suppression had made her shy of putting +herself forward; and though Knight had never told her that she would be +a disturbing element in the den, his silence had bolted the door for her.</p> + +<p>Constance, however, was not so fastidious.</p> + +<p>"Oh, look!" she said, before Dick had time to switch on another light. +"Nelson's got tired of his club, and come home!"</p> + +<p>As she spoke, almost as if she had willed it, the door opened. But it was +not Knight who came out. It was the younger Charrington, the chauffeur, +called "Char," to distinguish him from his solemn elder brother, the +butler.</p> + +<p>The red-haired, red-faced, black-eyed young man stopped suddenly at sight +of the newcomers. He had evidently expected to find the hall untenanted. +Taking up his stand before the door, he barred the way with his tall, +liveried figure, and it struck Constance that he looked aggressive, as +if, had he dared, he would have shut the door again, almost in her face.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, madame!" he said in so loud a voice that it was like +a warning to his master that an intruder might be expected. It occurred +to her also, for the first time, that his accent sounded rather American, +and he had forgotten to address her as "my lady."</p> + +<p>This was odd, for his brother was the most typical British butler +imaginable, as Nelson had remarked soon after the two servants had been +engaged.</p> + +<p>She stared, surprised; but Char still kept the door until his master +showed himself in the lighted aperture. Then the chauffeur, saluting +courteously, stepped aside.</p> + +<p>"Funny that he should be here!" thought Constance. She might have been +malicious enough to imagine that Nelson Smith had drunk too heavily at +his club, and had been helped into the house by Char, who wished to +protect him until the last; but he was unmistakably his usual self: cool, +and more than ordinarily alert.</p> + +<p>"Oh, how do you do?" he exclaimed. "I heard Char say 'Madame,' and +thought it was Anita at the door."</p> + +<p>"No, she has gone upstairs," explained Lady Annesley-Seton. "So has Dick. +I alone had courage to linger! I feel like Fatima with the blood-stained +key, in Bluebeard's house, you are such a bear about this den—you really +<i>are</i>, you know!"</p> + +<p>"I didn't expect you three so soon," said Knight, calmly. "If I'd known +you had a curiosity to see Bluebeard's Chamber, I'd have had it smartened +up. As it is, I shouldn't dare let you peep. You, the mistress of the +house before we took it over, would be critical of the state I delight +to keep it in. Untidiness is my <i>one</i> fault!"</p> + +<p>"I'll put off the visit till a more propitious hour," Constance reassured +him, "if you'll spare me a moment in the hall. It's only a word—about +Madalena. She has asked me to call her that."</p> + +<p>"The Countess de Santiago?" Knight questioned, smiling. He closed the +door of the den, and came out into the hall, turning on still another of +the lights.</p> + +<p>"Yes. I've been to see her to-day. Will you believe it, she saw the +<i>whole</i> affair of last night in her crystal—and the thief, and +everything!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, indeed, did she? How intelligent."</p> + +<p>"But she says we mustn't mention her name to the police."</p> + +<p>"She'd be lumped with common or garden palmists and fortune-tellers, I +suppose."</p> + +<p>"Yes, that's what she fears. But she wants to be in our Devonshire house +party at Easter—to save us from something."</p> + +<p>Knight looked interested. "Save us from what?"</p> + +<p>"She couldn't see it distinctly in the crystal."</p> + +<p>He laughed. "She could see distinctly that she wanted to be there. +Well—we hadn't thought of having her. She seemed out of the picture with +the lot who are coming—the Duchess of Peebles, for instance. But we'll +think it over. Why don't you ask Anita? It occurs to me that she is the +one to be consulted."</p> + +<p>Now was the moment for Madalena's test.</p> + +<p>"The Countess wished me to speak to you alone, and let you decide. +Probably because you're such an old friend. I think she feels that Anita +doesn't care for her."</p> + +<p>Knight's face hardened. "She gave you <i>that</i> impression, did she? Yet, +thinking Anita <i>doesn't</i> like her—and she's nearly right—she wants to +come all the same. She wants to presume on my—er—friendship to force +herself on my wife.... Jove! I guess that's a little too strong. It's +time we showed the fair Madalena her place, don't you think so, Lady A?"</p> + +<p>"What, precisely, is her place?" Connie laughed.</p> + +<p>"Well, she seems determined to push herself into the foreground. My +idea is that what artists call middle distance is better suited to her +colouring. Seriously, I resent her putting you up to appeal to me—over +Anita's head. I'm not taking any!</p> + +<p>"Please tell her, or write—or phone—or whatever you've arranged to +do—that we're both sorry—say '<i>both</i>,' please—that we don't feel +justified in persuading you to add her to the list of guests this time, +as Valley House will be full up."</p> + +<p>"She will be hurt," objected Constance.</p> + +<p>"I'm inclined to think she deserves to be hurt."</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, if you've made up your mind! But—she's a charming woman, of +course.... Still, I shouldn't wonder if there's something of the tigress +in her, and she could give a nasty dig."</p> + +<p>"Let her try!" said Knight.</p> + +<p>In the morning Constance telephoned to the flat in Cadogan Gardens. She +had not long to wait for an answer to her call.</p> + +<p>The Countess was evidently expecting to hear from her early in the day.</p> + +<p>"He wasn't in the right mood, I'm afraid, when I spoke to him," Connie +temporized. "He seemed to resent your wish to—to—as he expressed +it—'get at him over Anne's head.'"</p> + +<p>"That is what I wanted to be sure of," Madalena answered. "Now—I +<i>know</i>!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2> + +<h3>NELSON SMITH AT HOME</h3> + + +<p>The Countess de Santiago took her defeat like a soldier. But her line +both of attack and defence was of the sapping-and-mining order.</p> + +<p>Once she had cared as deeply as it was in her to care for the man known +to London as "Nelson Smith." He was of the type which calls forth intense +feeling in others. Men liked him immensely or disliked him extremely. +Women admired him fervently or detested him cordially. It was not +possible to regard him with indifference. His personality was too +magnetic to leave his neighbours cold; and as a rule it was only those +whom he wished to keep at a distance who disliked him.</p> + +<p>As for Madalena de Santiago, for a time she had enjoyed thinking herself +in love. There were reasons, she knew, why she could not hope to be the +man's wife, and if he had chosen a plain woman to help him on in the +world she would have made no objection to his marriage.</p> + +<p>But at first sight she had realized that Annesley Grayle, shy and +unconscious of power to charm as she was, might be dangerous.</p> + +<p>Madalena had anxiously watched the two together, and at breakfast the day +before the wedding she had distrusted the light in the man's eyes as he +looked at the girl. It had seemed incredible that he should be in love +with a creature so pale, so formless still in character (as Annesley +appeared to Madalena); that a man like "Don" should be caught by a pair +of gray eyes and a softness which was only the beauty of youth.</p> + +<p>Still, the Countess had been made to suffer; and if she could have found +a way to prevent the marriage without alienating her friend, she would +have seized it. But she could think of no way, except to drop a sharp +reminder of what Don owed to her. The hint had been unheeded. The +marriage had taken place, and Madalena had been obliged to play the part +of the bride's friend and chaperon.</p> + +<p>Afterward, to be sure, she had been paid. Her reward had come in the +shape of invitations and meetings with desirable people. Nelson Smith's +marriage had given her a place in the world, and at first her success +consoled her. Soon, however, the pain of jealousy overcame the anodyne. +She could not rest; she was forever asking herself whether Don were glad +of her success for her own sake, or because it distracted her attention +from him.</p> + +<p>Was he falling in love with his wife, or was his way of looking at the +girl, of speaking to the girl, only an intelligent piece of acting in the +drama?</p> + +<p>Once or twice Madalena tried being cavalier in her manner to Annesley +(she dared not be actually rude); and Nelson Smith appeared not to +notice; but afterward the offender was punished—by missing some +invitation. This might have been taken as the proof for which she +searched, could she have been sure where lay the responsibility for the +slight, whether on the shoulders of Annesley or of Annesley's husband.</p> + +<p>Madalena strove to make herself believe that the fault was the girl's. +But she could not decide. Sometimes she flattered her vanity that +Annesley was trying to keep her away from Don. Again, she would wrap +herself in black depression as in a pall, believing that the man was +seeking an excuse to put her outside the intimacy of his life.</p> + +<p>Then she burned for revenge upon them both; yet her hands were tied.</p> + +<p>Her fate seemed to be bound up with the fate of Nelson Smith, and evil +which might threaten his career would overwhelm hers also. She spent dark +moments in striving to plan some brilliant yet safe <i>coup</i> which would +ruin him and Annesley, in case she should find out that he had tired of +her.</p> + +<p>At last, by much concentration, her mind developed an idea which appeared +feasible. She saw a thing she might do without compromising herself. But +first she must be certain where the blame lay.</p> + +<p>Constance Annesley-Seton's explanation over the telephone left her little +doubt of the truth. She had the self-control to answer quietly; then, +when she had hung up the receiver, she let herself go to pieces. She +raged up and down the room, swearing in Spanish, tears tracing red stains +on her magnolia complexion. She dashed a vase full of flowers on the +floor, and felt a fierce thrill as it crashed to pieces.</p> + +<p>"That is <i>you</i>, Michael Donaldson!" she cried. "Like this I will break +you! That girl shall curse the hour of your meeting. She shall wish +herself back in the house of the old woman where she was a servant! And +you can do nothing—nothing to hurt me!"</p> + +<p>Later that morning, when she had composed herself, Madalena wrote a +letter to Lady Annesley-Seton:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">My Kind Friend</span>,—</p> + +<p>I am sorry that I may not be with you for Easter, and sorry for the +reason. I can read between the lines! But that does not interest you. +Myself, I can do no more for your protection in the unknown danger +which threatens; but again I am in one of those psychic moods, when I +have glimpses of things beyond the veil.</p> + +<p>It comes to me that if the Archdeacon friend of your cousin could be +asked to join your house party with his wife, and <i>especially</i> with his +relative who is so rare a judge of jewels (is not his name Ruthven +Smith?) trouble might be prevented.</p> + +<p>This is vague advice. But I cannot be more definite, because I am +saying these things under <i>guidance</i>. I am not responsible, nor can +I explain why the message is sent. I <i>feel</i> that it is important.</p> + +<p>But you must not mention that it comes from me. Nelson and his wife +would resent that; and the scheme would fall to the ground. Write and +tell me what you do. I shall not be easy in my mind until your house +party is over. May all go well!</p> + +<p>Yours gratefully and affectionately,</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Madalena.</span></p> + +<p>P.S.—Better speak of having the Smiths, to Mrs. Nelson, not her +husband. He might refuse.</p></div> + +<p>Archdeacon Smith and his wife and their cousin, Ruthven Smith, were the +last persons on earth in whom Constance would have expected the Countess +de Santiago to interest herself. All the more, therefore, was Lady +Annesley-Seton ready to believe in a supernatural influence. Madalena's +request to be kept out of the affair would have meant nothing to her had +she not agreed that the Nelson Smiths would object to the Countess's +dictation.</p> + +<p>Constance proposed the Smith family as guests in a casual way to Annesley +when they were out shopping together, saying that it would be nice for +Anne to have her friends at Valley House.</p> + +<p>"The Archdeacon wouldn't be able to come," said Annesley. "Easter is +a busy time for him, and Mrs. Smith wouldn't leave him to go into the +country."</p> + +<p>"What a dear, old-fashioned wife!" laughed Connie. "Well, what about +their cousin, that Mr. Ruthven Smith who used to stay at your 'gorgon's' +till our friends the burglar-band called on him? There are things in +Valley House which would interest an expert in jewels. And you've never +asked him to anything, have you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," said Annesley, "he's been invited every time I've asked the +Archdeacon and Mrs. Smith, but he always refused, saying he was too deaf +and too dull for dinner parties. I'm sure he would hate a house party far +worse!"</p> + +<p>"Why not give the poor man a chance to decide?" Constance persisted. "He +must be a nervous wreck since the burglary. A change ought to do him +good. Besides, he would love Valley House. If you like to make a wager, +I'll bet you something that he'd jump at the invitation."</p> + +<p>Annesley refused the wager, but she agreed that it would be nice to have +all three of the Smiths.</p> + +<p>Constance was supposed to be hostess in her own house, though Knight was +responsible for the financial side of the Easter plan, and it was for her +to ask the guests, even those chosen by the Nelson Smiths. Remembering +Madalena's hint that Nelson might refuse to add Ruthven Smith's name to +the list, Connie gave Annesley no time to consult her husband. While her +companion was being fitted for a frock at Harrod's, Lady Annesley-Seton +availed herself of the chance to write two letters, one to Mrs. Smith, +inviting her and the Archdeacon; another to Ruthven, saying that she +wrote at "dear Anne's express wish" as well as her own.</p> + +<p>She added cordially on her own account:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I have heard so much of you from Anne that it would be a pleasure +to show you the Valley House treasures, which, I think, you would +appreciate. Do come!</p></div> + +<p>She stamped her letters and slipped them into the box at the Harrod post +office before going to see if Anne were ready. Nothing more was said +about the invitation for the Smiths until that evening at dinner, when it +occurred to Annesley to mention it. Knight had come home late, just in +time to dress, and she had not thought to speak of the house party.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Knight," she said, "Cousin Constance proposed asking the Archdeacon +and his wife and Mr. Ruthven Smith. I'm sure the Archdeacon can't come, +but Mr. Ruthven might perhaps——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't think I'd have him with a lot of people he doesn't know and +who don't want to know him," Knight vetoed the idea. "He's clever in his +way, but it's not a social way. Among the lot we're going to have he'd be +like an owl among peacocks."</p> + +<p>"But he'd love their jewels," Annesley persevered. "They'll bring some of +the most beautiful ones in England. You said so yourself."</p> + +<p>"I'm thinking more of their pleasure than his," said Knight. "He's deaf +as well as dull. The peacocks are invited already, and the owl isn't, +so——"</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid he is! When Anne agreed that she'd like to have the Smiths I +wrote at once; and by this time they've got my letters," Constance broke +in with a pretence at penitence. "Oh, dear, I have put my foot into it +with the best intentions! What <i>shall</i> we do?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing," said Knight. "If they've been asked, they must come if they +want to. I doubt if they will."</p> + +<p>That doubt was dispelled with the morning post. Mrs. Smith was full of +regrets for herself and the Archdeacon, but Ruthven accepted in his +precise manner with "much pleasure and gratitude for so kind an +attention." The matter was settled, and Connie telephoned to Madalena.</p> + +<p>"No Archdeacon; no Mrs. Archdeacon! But I've bagged the jewel-man. Will +he be strong enough alone to spread over us that mantle of mysterious +protection your crystal showed you?"</p> + +<p>"I hope so," the Countess answered.</p> + +<p>Yet the woman at the other end of the wire thought the voice sounded +dull, and was disappointed, even vaguely anxious. Her anxiety would have +increased if she could have seen the face of the seeress. Now that the +match was close to the fuse, Madalena had a wild impulse to draw back. It +was not too late. Nothing irrevocable had been done. Ruthven Smith's +acceptance of the invitation to Valley House would mean only a few days +of boredom for his fellow guests, unless—she herself made the next move +in the game.</p> + +<p>Before she decided to make it, she resolved to see the man of whom she +thought as Michael Donaldson.</p> + +<p>So far nothing had happened to raise any visible barrier between them. +She was not supposed to know that he did not want her to join the Easter +house party, and he and she and Annesley were on friendly terms. It would +be easy for her to see Don, to see him alone, if she could only choose +the right time, unless——There was an "unless," but she thought the face +of the butler would settle it.</p> + +<p>There were certain times on certain days when Nelson Smith was "at home" +for certain people. These days were not those when Annesley and Constance +were "at home."</p> + +<p>In fact, they had been chosen purposely in order not to clash.</p> + +<p>The American millionaire had, from his first appearance in London, +interested himself in more than one charitable society. Representatives +of these associations called upon him during appointed hours, and were +shown straight to his "den." Indeed, they were the only persons welcomed +there, but the Countess de Santiago had some reason to expect that an +exception might be made in her favour.</p> + +<p>Luckily, the day when she heard the news from Lady Annesley-Seton was one +of the two days in the week when Nelson Smith was certain not to be out +of the house in the afternoon. Luckily also she knew that his wife was +equally certain to be absent. "Anita" was going to play bridge at a house +where Madalena was invited.</p> + +<p>She got her maid to telephone an excuse—"the Countess had a bad +headache." Had she said heartache it would have been nearer the truth. +But one does not tell the truth in these matters.</p> + +<p>Not for years—not since the strenuous times when Don had saved her from +serious trouble and put her on the road to success had Madalena de +Santiago been so unhappy. Whichever way she looked she saw darkness +ahead, yet she hoped something from her talk with Don—just what, she did +not specify to herself in words, but "<i>something</i>."</p> + +<p>"I wish to see Mr. Nelson Smith on important business," she said, looking +the butler straight in the eyes. It was he who opened the door of the +Portman Square house on the "charity days." He gave her back look for +look, losing the air of respectable servitude and suddenly becoming a +human being.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Smith is not alone," he answered, contriving to give some special +meaning to the ordinary words which made them almost cryptic. "But I +think he will be free before long, if you care to wait, madame, and I +will mention that you are here."</p> + +<p>"You must say it is important," she impressed upon him as she was ushered +into a little reception room.</p> + +<p>A few minutes later Charrington took her to the door of the "den," where +Knight received her with casual cheerfulness.</p> + +<p>"This is an unexpected pleasure!" he said.</p> + +<p>"Don't let us bother with conventionalities, Don!" she exclaimed, +her emotion showing itself in petulance. "I had to come and have an +understanding with you."</p> + +<p>"An understanding?" Knight was very calm, so calm that she—who knew him +in many phases—was stung with the conviction that he needed to ask no +questions. He was temporizing; and her anger—passionate, unavailing +anger, beating itself like waves on the rock of his strong nature—broke +out in tears.</p> + +<p>"You know what I mean!" She choked on the words. "You're tired of me! +There's nothing more I can do for you, and so—and so—oh, Don, say I'm +wrong! Say it's a mistake. Say it's not you but <i>she</i> who doesn't want +me. She's jealous. Only say that. It's all I want. Just to know it is not +you who are so cruel—after the past!"</p> + +<p>Knight remained unmoved. He looked straight at her, frowning. "What +past?" he inquired, blankly.</p> + +<p>"You ask me that—<i>you</i>?"</p> + +<p>"We have never been anything to one another," Knight said. "Not even +friends. You know that as well as I do. We've been valuable to each other +after a fashion, I to you, you to me, and we can be the same in future if +you don't choose to play the fool."</p> + +<p>She was cowed, and hated herself for being cowed—hated Knight, too.</p> + +<p>"What do you call playing the fool?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Behaving as you're behaving now; and as you've been behaving these last +few weeks. I'm not blind, you know. You have been trying your power over +me. I suppose that's what you'd call the trick. Well, my dear Madalena, +it won't work. I hoped you might realize that without making a scene; but +you wouldn't. You've brought this on yourself, and there's nothing for it +now but a straight talk.</p> + +<p>"My wife is not jealous. It's not in her to be jealous. If she doesn't +like you, Madalena, it's instinctive mistrust. I don't think she's even +seen the claws sticking out of the velvet. But <i>I</i> have. I've seen +exactly what you are up to. You talk about our 'past'. You want to force +my hand. You expect me, because I've been a decent pal, and paid what I +thought was due, to pay higher, a fancy price. I won't. My wife had no +hand in keeping you out of the Easter house party. It was I who said you +weren't to be asked. You had to be taught that you couldn't dictate +terms. You wouldn't take 'no' for an answer, so the lesson had to be more +severe than I meant. Now we understand each other."</p> + +<p>"I doubt it!" cried Madalena.</p> + +<p>"You mean I don't understand <i>you</i>? I think I do, my friend. And I'm not +afraid. If I'm not a white angel, certainly <i>you're</i> not. We're tarred +with the same brush. Forget this afternoon, if you like, and I'll forget +it. We can go back to where we were before. But only on the promise that +you'll be sensible. No cat-scratchings. No mysteries."</p> + +<p>It was all that the Countess de Santiago could do to bite back the threat +which alone could have given her relief. Yet she did bite it back. Her +triumph would be incomplete in ruining the man if he could not know that +he owed his punishment to her. But she must be satisfied with the second +best thing. She dared not put him on his guard, and she dared not let him +guess that she meant to strike.</p> + +<p>He would wonder perhaps, when the blow fell, and say to himself, "Can +Madalena have done this?" She must so act that his answer would be, "No. +It's an accident of fate." Knight was not the sort of man who for a mere +wandering suspicion, without an atom of proof, would pull a woman down. +And there would be no proof.</p> + +<p>"You are not kind," was the only response she ventured. "And you are not +just. I did not want to 'scratch.' I would not injure you for the world, +even if I could. Yet it does hurt to think our friendship in the past has +meant nothing to you, when it has meant so much to me. It hurts. But I +must bear it. I shall not trouble you about my feelings again."</p> + +<p>If she had hoped that her meekness might make him relent she was +disappointed. He merely said, "Very good. We'll go back to where we +were."</p> + +<p>That same evening Madalena wrote to Ruthven Smith. She took pains to +disguise her handwriting, and not satisfied with that precaution, went +out in a taxi and posted the letter in Hampstead.</p> + +<p>It was a short letter, and it had no signature; but it made an impression +on Ruthven Smith.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2> + +<h3>WHY RUTHVEN SMITH WENT</h3> + + +<p>Never in his life had Ruthven Smith been blessed or cursed by an +anonymous letter. He did not know what to make of it, or how to treat it. +Instead of exciting him, as it might had he been a man of mercurial +temperament, it irritated him intensely.</p> + +<p>That was the way when things out of the ordinary happened to Ruthven +Smith: he resented them. He was not—and recognized the fact that he was +not—the type of man to whom things ought to happen. It was only one +strange streak of the artistic in his nature which made him a marvellous +judge of jewels, and attracted adventures to come near him.</p> + +<p>He was constitutionally timid. He was conventional, and prim in his +thoughts of life and all he desired it to give. He was a creature of a +past generation; and whenever in time he had chanced to exist he would +always have lagged a generation behind. But there was that one colourful +streak which somehow, as if by a mistake in creation, had shot a narrow +rainbow vein through his drab soul, like a glittering opal in gray-brown +rock.</p> + +<p>He loved jewels. He had known all about them by instinct even before he +knew by painstaking research. He could judge jewels and recognize them +under any disguise of cutting. He could do this better than almost any +one in the world, and he could do nothing else well; therefore it was +preordained that he should find his present position with some such firm +as the Van Vrecks; and, being in it, adventures were bound to come.</p> + +<p>Many attempts to rob him had doubtless been made. One had lately +succeeded. His nerves were in a wretched state. He was "jumpy" by day as +well as night; and sometimes, when at his worst, he even felt for five +minutes at a time that he had better hand in his resignation to the firm +who had employed him for nearly twenty years, and retire into private +life, like a harried mouse into its hole.</p> + +<p>But that was only when he was at his very worst. Deep down within him he +was aware that, while the breath of life and his inscrutable genius were +together in him, he could not, would not, resign.</p> + +<p>It was part of Ruthven Smith, an intimate part of him, not to be able +to decide for a long time what to do when he was confronted with one of +those emergencies unsuited to his temperament. He was afraid of doing +the wrong thing, yet was too reserved to consult any one. He generally +counted on blundering through somehow; and so it was in the matter of +the anonymous letter.</p> + +<p>He had heard, and dimly believed, that it was morally wrong, and, still +worse, quite bad form, to take notice of anonymous letters. But this one +must be different, it seemed to him, from any other which anybody had +ever received. Duty to his employers and duty to the one thing he really +loved was above any other duty; and for fear of losing forever an +immense, an unhoped-for advantage, which might possibly be gained, he +dared not ignore the letter.</p> + +<p>At all events, he had told himself, no matter what he might decide later, +it was just as well that he had accepted the invitation to Valley House. +Perhaps someone—he could not think who—was playing a stupid practical +joke, with the object of getting him there. But he would risk that and +go, and let his conduct shape itself according to developments.</p> + +<p>For instance, if his eyes were able to detect the small detail +mysteriously mentioned in the letter, he would feel bound to act as it +suggested; yes, bound to act—but how unpleasant it would be!</p> + +<p>And the worst of the whole unpalatable affair was that if he <i>did</i> act in +that suggested way, and if he accomplished what he might, with dreadful +deftness, be supposed to accomplish, it would be the moment when perhaps +he might be fooled.</p> + +<p><i>If</i> the letter were written by a practical joker, he would be made to +look ridiculous in the eyes of all who were in the secret. And that +thought brought him back to the question which over and over he asked +in his mind. Who could have written the anonymous letter?</p> + +<p>It must be someone acquainted with him, or with his profession; someone +who knew the Nelson Smiths and the Annesley-Setons well enough to be +aware that there was to be an Easter party at Valley House. The writer +hinted in vague terms that he was a private detective aware of certain +things, yet so placed that he could have no handling of the affair, +except from a distance, and through another person. He pretended a +disinterested desire to serve Ruthven Smith, and signed himself, "A +Well Wisher"; but the nervous recipient of the advice felt that his +correspondent was quite likely to be of the class opposed to detectives.</p> + +<p>What if there were some scheme for a robbery on a vast scale at Valley +House, and this letter were part of the scheme? What if the band of +thieves supposed to be "working" lately in London should try to make him +a cat's paw in bringing off their big haul?</p> + +<p>This was a terrifying idea, and more feasible than the one suggested by +the anonymous writer, that Mrs. Nelson Smith should—oh, certainly it +seemed the wildest nonsense!</p> + +<p>Still, there was his duty to the Van Vrecks. They must be considered +ahead of everything! So Ruthven Smith, nervous as a rabbit who has lost +its warren, travelled down to Devonshire on Saturday afternoon, invited +to stay at Valley House till Tuesday.</p> + +<p>It was as Knight had said: the dull, deaf man was as completely out of +the picture in that house party as an owl among peacocks; for he was an +inarticulate person and could not talk interestingly even on his own +subject, jewels. His idea of conversation with women was a discussion of +the weather, contrasting that of England with that of America, or perhaps +touching upon politics. He was afraid of questions about jewels lest he +should allow himself to be pumped, and the information he might +inadvertently give away be somehow "used."</p> + +<p>But he was by birth and education a gentleman; and his relationship to +Archdeacon Smith, whom everybody liked, was a passport to people's +kindness.</p> + +<p>Duchesses and countesses were of no particular interest to Ruthven Smith, +but their adornments were fascinating. At Valley House one duchess and +several countesses were assembled for the Easter party, and they were +women whose jewels were famous. Most of these were family heirlooms, but +their present owners had had the things reset, and no queen of fairyland +or musical comedy could have owned more becoming or exquisitely designed +tiaras, crowns, necklaces, earrings, dog-collars, brooches, bracelets, +and rings than these great ladies.</p> + +<p>For this reason the ladies themselves were interesting to Ruthven Smith, +and he might have been equally so to them if he would have told them +picturesquely all he knew about the history of their wonderful diamonds, +pearls, emeralds, and rubies. It was too bad that he wouldn't, for there +was not a famous jewel in England or Europe of which Ruthven Smith had +not every ancient scandal in connection with it at his tongue's end.</p> + +<p>But on his tongue's end it stayed, even when, for the sake of his own +pleasure if nothing else, his hosts and hostesses tried to draw him out.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, he was not sorry that he had come. There was an element of +joy in seeing, met together, and sparkling together, those exquisite, +historic beauties of which he had read.</p> + +<p>It had been a bother to Lady Annesley-Seton and her cousin Anne to decide +how Ruthven Smith should be put at table. In a way, he was an outsider, +the only one among the guests without a title or military rank which +mechanically indicated his place in relation to others. Besides, no woman +would want to have him to scream at.</p> + +<p>Fortunately, however, there were two women asked on account of their +husbands, and so—according to Connie's code—of no importance in +themselves. Providence meant them to be pushed here and there like pawns +on a chessboard; and they were pushed to either side of Ruthven Smith at +the dinner-table on Saturday night.</p> + +<p>Both had been placated by being told beforehand what a wonderful man he +was, with frightfully exciting things to say, if he could tactfully be +made to say them. But only one of the two had courage or spirit to rise +to the occasion—the woman he was given to take in, a Lady Cartwright, +married to Major Sir Elmer Cartwright, who was always asked to every +house whenever the Duchess of Peebles was invited.</p> + +<p>Lady Cartwright was Irish, wrote plays, had a sense of humour, and was +not jealous of the Duchess. Because she wrote plays, she was continually +in search of material, digging it up, even when it looked unpromising.</p> + +<p>"I have heard such charming things about you," she began.</p> + +<p>"I <i>beg</i> your pardon!" said Ruthven Smith, unable to believe his ears. +And because he was somewhat deaf himself, he could not gauge the +inflections of his own voice. Sometimes he spoke almost in a whisper, +sometimes very loudly. This time he spoke loudly, and several people, +surprised at the sound rising above other sounds like spray from a +flowing river, paused for an instant to listen.</p> + +<p>"What a wonderful expert in jewels you are," Lady Cartwright replied in +a higher tone, realizing that she had a deaf man to deal with. "And that +you have been one of the sufferers from that gang of thieves Scotland +Yard can't lay its hands on."</p> + +<p>Ruthven Smith was on the point of shrinking into himself, as was his wont +if any personal topic of conversation came up, when it flashed into his +mind that here was an opportunity. If he did not take it, so easy a one +might not occur again. He braced himself for a supreme effort.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, yes, I was robbed," he admitted. "A serious loss! Some fine +pearls I had been buying—not for myself, but for the Van Vrecks. I +seldom collect valuables for myself. I only wish these things had been +mine. I should not have that sense of being an unfaithful servant—though +I did my best——"</p> + +<p>"Of course you did," Lady Cartwright soothed him. "But these thieves—if +it's the same gang, as we all think—are too clever for the cleverest of +us. As for the police, they seem to be nowhere. I haven't suffered yet, +but each morning when I wake up, I'm astonished to find everything as +usual. Not that it wouldn't <i>seem</i> as usual, even if the gang had paid us +a visit and made a clean sweep of our poor possessions. They appear to be +able to leak through keyholes, as nothing in the houses they go to is +ever disturbed."</p> + +<p>"Anyhow, they have latchkeys," retorted Ruthven Smith, with what for him +might be considered gaiety of manner. "The thief or thieves who relieved +me of my pearls—or rather, my employer's pearls—apparently walked in as +a member of the household might have done."</p> + +<p>Among those who had involuntarily suspended talk to hear what Ruthven +Smith was saying about jewels and jewel thieves was Annesley. Though the +party would never have been but for Knight and herself, Dick and +Constance were playing host and hostess with all the outward +responsibility of those parts. Lord Annesley-Seton had a duchess on his +right, a countess on his left; Lady Annesley-Seton was fenced in by the +duke and the count pertaining to these ladies; Mrs. Nelson Smith sat +between two less important men, who liked the dinner provided by the +American millionaire's miraculous new chef, and they could safely be +neglected for a moment.</p> + +<p>Annesley felt that Ruthven Smith was, in a way, her special guest, and +she was anxious that he should not be the failure Knight had prophesied. +She wanted him not to regret that he had flung himself on the tender +mercies of this smart house party, and almost equally she wanted his two +neighbours not to be bored by him. Knight would hate that. He attached so +much importance to amusing the people whom he invited!</p> + +<p>She listened and thought that Mr. Ruthven Smith and Lady Cartwright +seemed to have begun well. Then, as she turned to Lady Cartwright's +handsome husband (the Duchess of Peebles was talking to Dick +Annesley-Seton just then), she caught the word "latchkey."</p> + +<p>It seized her attention. She knew they were speaking of the burglary at +Mrs. Ellsworth's house. She heard Ruthven Smith go on to explain in his +high-pitched voice that the two woman servants had been suspected, but +that their characters had "emerged stainless" from the examination.</p> + +<p>"Besides," he continued, "neither of them had a latchkey to give to any +outside person. The two women slept together in one room. At the time of +the robbery there was no butler——"</p> + +<p>Annesley heard no more. Suddenly the door of her spirit seemed to close. +She was shut up within herself, listening to some voice there.</p> + +<p>"<i>What became of your latchkey?</i>" it asked.</p> + +<p>The blood streamed to her face and made her ears tingle, as it used to do +when she had been scolded by Mrs. Ellsworth. If any one had looked at her +then, it must have been to wonder what Sir Elmer Cartwright or Lord John +Dormer had said to make Mrs. Nelson Smith blush so furiously.</p> + +<p>She was remembering what she had done with her latchkey. She had given it +to Knight to open the front door, and so escape from the two watchers who +had followed them in a taxi to Torrington Square. She had never thought +of it from that moment to this. Could it be possible that some thief had +stolen the latchkey from Knight, and used it when Mrs. Ellsworth's house +was robbed?</p> + +<p>Her thoughts concentrated violently upon the key. Had her neighbours +spoken she would not have heard; but they did not speak. She was free to +let her thoughts run where they chose. They ran back to the first night +of her meeting with Nelson Smith, and her arrival with him at the house +in Torrington Square. She recalled, as if it were a moment ago, putting +the key into his hand, which had been warm and steady, despite the danger +he was in, while hers had been trembling and cold. She said to herself +that she must ask Knight, as soon as they were alone together, what he +had done with the key, whether he had left it in the house or flung it +away.</p> + +<p>But of course he must have left it in the house, or close by, otherwise +no thief would have known where it belonged. That made her feel guilty +toward Ruthven Smith. She ought not to have been so utterly absorbed in +her own affairs that night. She ought to have asked to have the key back, +and then to have laid it where it could be found by Mrs. Ellsworth in the +morning.</p> + +<p>Perhaps, indirectly, <i>she</i> was responsible for the burglary at that +house. And, now she thought of it, what a queer burglary it had been! The +thieves must certainly have known something about Mrs. Ellsworth, or +else, in helping themselves to her valuables, it would not have occurred +to them to scrawl a sarcastic message.</p> + +<p>That message had delighted Knight when he heard of it. He had laughed and +said, "I like those chaps! They can have <i>my</i> money when they want it!"</p> + +<p>Since then they <i>had</i> had his money, and other possessions. If the theory +of the police were right, that a gang of foreign thieves was "working" +London, Annesley was glad that she and Knight had been robbed. It made +her feel less to blame for her carelessness in the matter of that +latchkey.</p> + +<p>At least, she had suffered, too, and so had Knight.</p> + +<p>Could it be, she asked herself, that the <i>watchers</i> were somehow mixed +up in the business? Were <i>they</i> members of the supposed gang? That did +not seem likely, for how could a man like Knight have got involved with +thieves? Yet it seemed, from what he had said that night at the +Savoy—and never referred to again—as if he were somehow in their power.</p> + +<p>How curiously like one of them Morello had been! She remembered thinking +so, with a shock of fear. Then she had lost the feeling of resemblance, +and told herself that she must have imagined it.</p> + +<p>The two faces came back to her now, and again she saw them alike. She was +glad that Knight had never invited Morello to call, and glad that when +grudgingly she had asked one day after the two men who had witnessed +their marriage, Knight had said, "Gone out of England. We just caught +them in time."</p> + +<p>As for the watchers, she had heard no more of them. Knight ignored the +episode, or the part of it connected with those men. The memory of them +was shut up in the locked box of his past, and he never left the key +lying about, as apparently he had left the key of Mrs. Ellsworth's house.</p> + +<p>Suddenly, while Annesley listened to Ruthven Smith, she became conscious +that, as he talked to Lady Cartwright, his eyes had turned to her.</p> + +<p>"This proves," the fancy ran through her head, "that if you look at or +even think of people, you attract their attention."</p> + +<p>She glanced away, and at her neighbours. They were both absorbed for the +moment; she need not worry lest they should find her neglectful. She took +some asparagus which was offered to her, and began to eat it; but she +still had the impression that Ruthven Smith was looking at her. She +wondered why.</p> + +<p>"He can't be expecting me to scream at him across the table," she +thought.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he was saying to Lady Cartwright, "it was a misfortune to lose +those pearls. Two I had selected to make a pair of earrings can scarcely +be duplicated. But none of the things stolen from me compared in value to +those our agent lost on board the <i>Monarchic</i>. I suppose you read of that +affair?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," said Lady Cartwright, her voice raised in deference to her +neighbour's deafness. "It was most interesting. Especially about the +clairvoyant woman on board who saw a vision of the thief in her crystal, +throwing things into the sea attached to a life-belt with a light on it, +or something of the sort, to be picked up by a yacht. One would have +supposed, with that information to go upon, the police might have +recovered the jewels, but they didn't, and probably they never will now."</p> + +<p>"I'm not sure the police pinned their faith to the clairvoyante's +visions," replied Ruthven Smith, with his dry chuckle.</p> + +<p>"Really? But I've understood—though the name wasn't mentioned then, I +believe—that the woman was that wonderful Countess de Santiago we're so +excited about. She is certainly extraordinary. Nobody seems to doubt +<i>her</i> powers! I rather thought she might be here."</p> + +<p>Ruthven Smith showed no interest in the Countess de Santiago. Once on the +subject of jewels, it was difficult to shunt him off on another at short +notice. Or possibly he had something to say which he particularly wished +not to leave unsaid at that stage of the conversation.</p> + +<p>"The newspapers did not publish a description of the jewels stolen on the +<i>Monarchic</i>," he went on, brushing the Countess de Santiago aside. "It +was thought best at the time not to give the reporters a list. To me, +that seemed a mistake. Who knows, for instance, through how many hands +the Malindore diamond may have passed? If some honest person, recognizing +it from a description in the papers, for instance——"</p> + +<p>"The Malindore diamond!" exclaimed Lady Cartwright, forgetting politeness +in her interest, and cutting short a sentence which began dully. "Isn't +that the wonderful blue diamond that the British Museum refused to buy +three years ago, because it hadn't enough money to spend, or something?"</p> + +<p>"Quite so," replied Ruthven Smith, adding with pride: "But the Van Vrecks +had enough money. They always have when a unique thing is for sale; and +they are rich enough to wait for years, with their money locked up, till +somebody comes along who wants the thing. That happened in the case of +the Malindore diamond. The Van Vrecks hoped to sell it to Mr. Pierpont +Morgan. But he died, and it was left on their hands till this last +autumn."</p> + +<p>"Ah, then that lovely blue diamond was sold with the other things the Van +Vreck agent lost on the <i>Monarchic</i>?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Was</i> to be sold if the prospective buyer liked it. He had married a +white wife, you know, and——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, of course. It was Lady Eve Cassenden. That marriage made a big +sensation among us. <i>Horrid</i>, I call it! But she hadn't a penny, and they +say he's the richest Maharajah in India."</p> + +<p>"The Malindore diamond was once in his family, I understand, about five +hundred years ago, when we first begin to get at its history," Ruthven +Smith went on, ignoring the Maharajah as he had ignored the Countess de +Santiago. "It was then the central jewel of a crown. But later, Louis +XIV, on obtaining possession of it, had it set in a ring, and surrounded +with small white brilliants. It still remains in that form, or did so +remain until it was stolen from our agent on the <i>Monarchic</i>. What form +it is in and where it is now, only those who know can say."</p> + +<p>So strong was the call from Ruthven Smith's eyes to Annesley's eyes that +she was forced to look up. She had been sure that she would meet his gaze +fixed upon her, and so it was. He was staring across the table at her, +with a curious expression on his long, hatchet face.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2> + +<h3>RUTHVEN SMITH'S EYEGLASSES</h3> + + +<p>Annesley could not read the look. Yet she felt that it might be read, if +her soul and body had not been wrenched apart, and hastily flung together +again, upside down, it seemed, with her brain where her heart had been, +and vice versa.</p> + +<p>Why had Ruthven Smith looked at her, as he spoke in his loud voice of the +stolen Malindore diamond—a blue diamond set with small brilliants, in a +ring? Had he found out that she—did he believe—but she could not finish +the thought. It seemed as though the ring Knight had given her—<i>and told +her to hide</i>—was burning her flesh!</p> + +<p>Could <i>her</i> blue diamond be the famous diamond, about which the jewel +expert was telling Lady Cartwright? A horrible sensation overcame the +girl. She felt her blood growing cold, and oozing so sluggishly through +her veins that she could count the drops—drip, drip, drip! She hoped +that she had not turned ghastly pale. Above all things she hoped that she +was not going to faint! If she did that, Ruthven Smith would think—what +would he not think?</p> + +<p>She found herself praying for strength and the power of self-control that +she might reason with her own intelligence. Of course, if this were the +diamond, Knight didn't dream that it had been stolen.</p> + +<p>Just then a hand reached out at her left side and poured champagne into +her glass. It was the hand of Charrington, the butler. Annesley saw that +it was trembling. She had never seen Charrington's hand tremble before. +Butlers' hands were not supposed to tremble. Charrington spilled a little +champagne on the tablecloth, only a very little, no more than a drop or +two, yet Annesley started and glanced up. The butler was moving away when +she caught a glimpse of his face.</p> + +<p>It was red, as usual, for his complexion and that of his younger brother +were alike in colouring; but there was a look of <i>strain</i> on his +features, as if he were keeping his muscles taut.</p> + +<p>Sir Elmer Cartwright began to talk to her. His voice buzzed unmeaningly +in her ears, as though she were coming out from under the influence of +chloroform.</p> + +<p>"What will become of me?" she said to herself, and then was afraid she +had said it aloud. How awful that would be! Her eyes turned imploringly +to Sir Elmer. He was smiling, unaware of anything unusual.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes!" she exclaimed at random. Fortunately it seemed to be the right +answer; and the relief this assurance gave was like a helping hand to a +beginner skating on thin ice. Sir Elmer went on to repeat some story +which he said he had been telling the Duchess.</p> + +<p>Annesley suddenly thought of a woman rider she had seen at a circus when +she was a child. The woman stood on the bare back of one horse and drove +six others, three abreast, all going very fast and noiselessly round a +ring.</p> + +<p>"I must drive my thoughts as she did the horses," came flashing into the +girl's head. "I must think this out, and I must listen to Sir Elmer and +go on giving him right answers, and I must look just as usual. <i>I must!</i></p> + +<p>"For Knight's sake!" She seemed to hear the words whispered. Why for +Knight's sake? Oh, but of course she must try to think how it would +involve him if the blue diamond was the famous one stolen from the Van +Vrecks' agent on the <i>Monarchic</i>!</p> + +<p>He would not be to blame, for if he had known, he would not have bought +the diamond.</p> + +<p>And yet, <i>might</i> he not have known? He had told her few details of his +life before they met, but he had said that it had been hard sometimes, +that he had travelled among rough people, and picked up some of their +rough ways. He had confessed frankly that his ideas of right and wrong +had got mixed and blunted. From the first he had never let her call him +good.</p> + +<p>Would it seem dreadful to him to buy a jewel which he might guess, from +its low cost, had to be got rid of at almost any price?</p> + +<p>Annesley was forced to admit, much as she loved Knight, that his daring, +original nature (so she called it to herself) might enter into strange +adventures and intrigues for sheer joy in taking risks. She imagined that +some wild escapade regretted too late might have led him into association +with the watchers. Maybe they had all three been members of a secret +society, she often told herself, and Knight had left against the others' +will, in spite of threats.</p> + +<p>That would be like him; and brave and splendid as was his image in her +heart, she could not say that he would never be guilty of an act which +might be classed as unscrupulous.</p> + +<p>This admission, instead of distressing, calmed her. Allowing that he had +certain faults seemed to chase away a dreadful thought which had pressed +near, out of sight, yet close as if it stood behind her chair, leaning +over her shoulder.</p> + +<p>For a moment she felt happy again. She would tell Knight what she had +heard about the Malindore diamond, and how like its description was to +hers. Then, no matter how much he might hate to let it go, he must show +the blue diamond ring to Mr. Ruthven Smith and have its identity decided.</p> + +<p>The girl drew a long breath, and determined to put the subject out of her +mind until after dinner, so that Sir Elmer Cartwright need not think her +a complete idiot.</p> + +<p>But the deep sigh that stirred her bosom stirred also the fine gold chain +on which hung the blue diamond. The chain lay loosely on her shoulders, +lost, or almost lost among soft folds of lace. She wore it like that with +a low dress, not only to prevent it from attracting attention and making +people wonder what ornament she hid, but also because the thin band of +gold, if seen, would break the symmetry of line. It was Knight who had +given her this little piece of advice, the first time after their +marriage that she had dined with him in evening dress, and since then +she had never forgotten to follow it.</p> + +<p>To-night, however, feeling suddenly conscious of the chain, she was on +the point of looking down to make sure that it was shrouded in her laces. +Something stopped her. With a quick warning thump of the heart she +glanced across at Ruthven Smith.</p> + +<p>A few minutes ago he had not been wearing his eyeglasses. Now they were +on, pinching the high-bridged, thin nose. And he was peering through them +at her—peering at her neck, her dress, as if he searched for something.</p> + +<p>Ruthven Smith knew about the blue diamond. He knew that she wore it on +a chain, hidden in her dress. The certainty of this shot through brain +and body like forked lightning and seemed to sear her flesh. She was +afraid. She could not tell yet of what she was afraid, but when she could +disentangle her twisted thoughts one from another the reason would be +clear.</p> + +<p>Then it was as if her mind separated itself from the rest of her and +began to run back along the path she had travelled with Knight since the +hour of their first meeting. It ran looking on the ground, seeking and +picking up things dropped and almost forgotten.</p> + +<p>Knight had not been pleased when the Countess de Santiago talked to him +of their being together on the <i>Monarchic</i>. The Countess had seemed +wishful to annoy him in some way. She had taken that way. They had known +each other well and for a long time. They knew a good deal about each +other's affairs. Sometimes one would say that the Countess still liked +to annoy Knight, and he resented that. He had been unwilling to have her +asked to Valley House for Easter, though he knew she longed to come.</p> + +<p>And Ruthven Smith! Knight had not wanted him. Could it possibly be on +account of the blue diamond? Had Knight heard what <i>she</i> had heard there +at the dinner-table, and was he anxious about what might happen next?</p> + +<p>Hastily she flung a glance toward her husband. He was not looking at her, +but it seemed—perhaps she imagined it—that his face had something of +the same tense, strained expression she had caught on Charrington's.</p> + +<p>How odd, if it were true, that both should have that look. One would +almost fancy they shared a secret trouble. But Annesley shook the idea +away, as she would have shaken a hornet trying to sting. How dare she let +such a disloyal fancy even cross the threshold of her mind? A secret +between her husband and his servant—a secret concerning the blue +diamond, which stabbed them both with the same prick of anxiety at the +mention of the jewel!</p> + +<p>No sooner was the venomous thing dislodged than it crept back and settled +close over her heart. For Knight's eyes turned to her, and in them was +the look of a drowning man.</p> + +<p>Just for the fraction of a second she saw it. Then the curtain was drawn +over his real self that had come to the window and signalled for help. He +smiled a friendly smile, and took up the conversation with his right-hand +neighbour. But he had hidden his soul too late. The message could not be +taken back, and Annesley was sure that he, too, had heard the story +Ruthven Smith had told so loudly to Lady Cartwright.</p> + +<p>The fact that he had lost his unruffled, nonchalant coolness even for a +single instant warned Annesley that Knight must be desperately troubled.</p> + +<p>"He bought the diamond for me, knowing what it was," she told herself, +"and knowing that it must have been stolen. Of course that's why he made +me wear it where nobody could see. But who else knew besides the man who +sold it to Knight? <i>Somebody</i> must have known, and told Mr. Ruthven +Smith. Perhaps the thief himself, hoping to be spared, and to get money +from both sides. That is why Mr. Ruthven Smith accepted the invitation +here, which I was so sure he would refuse. He has come because he thinks +the Malindore diamond is in this house. That must be it! But how can he +have found out that I am wearing it?"</p> + +<p>As she thought these things, asking herself questions, sometimes +answering them, sometimes unable to answer, she managed to keep up some +desultory talk first with one of her neighbours, then with the other. It +seemed to take all her strength to do this, and made her feel weak and +broken, not excited and vital, as she had felt on the wonderful night at +the Savoy when "Nelson Smith" had praised her pluck and presence of mind +in saving him from a danger which had never been explained.</p> + +<p>How she wished with all her anxious, troubled heart that she knew how to +save him to-night!</p> + +<p>It had been very wrong to buy a stolen diamond, but he had done it from +no mercenary motives, for he had given it to her. She supposed that he +had loved the beautiful thing, and felt when it was offered to him that +he could not bear to let it go.... Perhaps the Countess de Santiago had +stolen it on the <i>Monarchic</i>! That might be a cruel thought, but Annesley +could not help having it, for it would explain many things.</p> + +<p>Besides, it would help to exonerate Knight. He was very chivalrous where +women were concerned, and he would have felt bound to protect his old +friend. At all events, he could not have given her up to justice, and +very likely she had been in debt and needed money. She had wonderful +clothes, and must be extravagant.</p> + +<p>Yes, the more Annesley dwelt on the idea the more convinced she became +that Madalena de Santiago had stolen the blue diamond, and perhaps all +the other things on the <i>Monarchic</i>, while pretending to have a vision in +her crystal of the thief, and of the way the jewel had been smuggled off +the ship. Then the Countess had been angry with Knight, and had tried to +have him suspected, even of being mixed up in the theft—though that last +idea seemed too far-fetched.</p> + +<p>"How hateful, how mean of her!" Annesley thought, ashamed because it was +so easy to believe bad things of the Countess, and to pile up one upon +another. "Probably she put it into Constance's head to suggest having Mr. +Ruthven Smith asked. And then she put it into his head to—to——"</p> + +<p>The girl stopped short, appalled. <i>What</i> had been put into the jewel +expert's head? What precisely had he come to Valley House to do?</p> + +<p>"He has come to <i>find</i> the blue diamond!" the answer flashed into her +brain.</p> + +<p>Madalena de Santiago's eyes were as piercing as they were beautiful. She +might have noticed the fine gold chain which her "pal's" wife wore always +round her neck. She might have guessed that the ring with the blue +diamond was hidden at the end of the chain; yet she could not <i>know for +certain</i>, because Knight would never have told her that.</p> + +<p>Therefore it followed that neither could Ruthven Smith know for certain. +He meant to find out, and if he did find out, Knight would be punished +far more severely than he deserved for buying a thing illegally come by.</p> + +<p>"I will save him again," Annesley resolved.</p> + +<p>But how? What might she expect to happen? And whatever it was, how could +she prevent it happening?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> + +<h3>THE STAR SAPPHIRE</h3> + + +<p>Picture after picture grew and faded in her mind. She saw policemen +coming to the house; she saw Ruthven Smith demanding that she and +Knight be searched, and arrested if the diamond were found.</p> + +<p>It might be difficult to prove that they had had nothing to do with the +theft, especially as Knight had been on board the <i>Monarchic</i>. He must +have travelled under his own name then, the name that he had not let her +see when he wrote it in the register after the wedding. If Ruthven Smith +knew about the <i>Monarchic</i> and the change of name, he might make things +very unpleasant for Knight. And what must he himself be thinking at this +moment as he peered through his eyeglasses?</p> + +<p>Annesley had always told herself that Ruthven Smith looked like a +schoolmaster. He looked more than ever like one to-night—a very severe +schoolmaster, planning to punish a rebellious pupil.</p> + +<p>"But he can't have accepted our invitation, and have come to this house +to make a scene and a scandal before everybody," she tried to reassure +her troubled heart. "Still, he wouldn't look like that if he didn't +believe that I'm wearing the diamond, and if he did not mean to do +something about it."</p> + +<p>It was a terrifying prospect for Annesley, and suddenly, with a shock of +certainty, she told herself that Ruthven Smith would not give her time, +if he could help it, to get rid of the ring and conceal it somewhere +else. "He'll think of an excuse after dinner to make me show what I have +on my chain, or perhaps he has thought of the excuse already!"</p> + +<p>It seemed to the girl that the room had become bitterly cold. She +shivered slightly. "I must take off the ring and put something else on +the chain when we go away and leave the men," she decided.</p> + +<p>But no! Even then it might be too late. Ruthven Smith neither smoked +nor drank. Very likely he would follow the ladies to the drawing room +without giving her the chance of cheating him. If she were to save Knight +from trouble she must do the thing she had to do at once.</p> + +<p>That thing was to unfasten the clasp of the chain, slip off the ring with +the blue diamond, substitute another ring, fasten the chain again and +replace it inside her dress, all without letting Ruthven Smith across the +table, or her neighbours, suspect what was being done.</p> + +<p>Her plate was whisked away at that moment, and leaning back in her chair +she seized the opportunity of looking at her hands. Brain and heart were +throbbing so fast that she could not remember, without counting, what +rings she had put on.</p> + +<p>Knight had tried to console her for the loss she'd suffered through the +burglary a fortnight before by making her a present of half a dozen new +rings. Poor Knight! How anxious he always was to give her pleasure, no +matter at what expense! He had such good taste in choosing jewellery, +too, that one might almost fancy him as great an expert as Ruthven Smith.</p> + +<p>But he had laughed when she said this to him, protesting that he was a +"rank amateur."</p> + +<p>The new rings were all beautiful, each unique in its way. The big white +diamond of her engagement ring was the least original of her possessions. +To-night, in addition to that and her wedding ring, she wore on her left +hand a grayish star sapphire, of oval shape, curiously set with four +small diamonds, white ones at top and bottom, pale pink and yellow at the +sides. This ring was rather large for her, and as she wore it above the +engagement ring, the stones easily slipped round toward the palm.</p> + +<p>The dark blue scarab on her right hand Ruthven might have observed; but +she was hopeful that the star sapphire had escaped his notice.</p> + +<p>She took it off and laid it in her lap, ready.</p> + +<p>Her dress of white charmeuse, embroidered with violets, was fastened in +front under a folded and crossed fichu of "shadow" lace and a bunch of +real violets held on by an old-fashioned brooch. Bending forward, she +played at eating Punch à la Romaine, while with her left hand she +contrived to undo three or four hooks from their delicately worked +eyelets. Then, slipping two fingers into the aperture, she tore open her +lace underbodice.</p> + +<p>This accomplished, she felt the ring of the blue diamond; but she dared +not break the chain, as she could easily have done. If Ruthven Smith were +planning some trick by which to obtain a glimpse of ring and chain, the +latter must be intact.</p> + +<p>Pinching the chain between thumb and finger patiently, persistently, and +very cautiously, she pulled it along until she touched the tiny clasp. +As she did this she glanced down at the lace of her fichu now and then to +make sure that she did not draw the thin line of gold so tightly across +her neck that it became visible in moving.</p> + +<p>At last she had the clasp in her hand. Pressed upon sharply, it opened, +and the ring with the blue diamond fell into her palm. She pushed it +inside her frock as far down as her fingers would reach and slid the star +sapphire ring on to the chain before fastening the clasp again.</p> + +<p>She was shivering still as if with cold, and her hands trembled so that +she could hardly put the hooks of her dress into their eyelets. But +somehow she did at last, and was sure that no one had seen.</p> + +<p>More than one course had come and gone before her stealthy task was +finished, and three or four minutes after the last hook had decided to +bite, Constance looked at the Duchess of Peebles. Everyone rose, and, as +Annesley had feared, Ruthven Smith followed the ladies out of the great +dining hall.</p> + +<p>Constance led them to the Chinese drawing room for coffee, and as the +women grouped themselves to chat, or gaze at Buddhas and treasures of +ancient dynasties, she suddenly recalled Madalena's latest vision in the +crystal.</p> + +<p>It seemed that it would interest rather than frighten her friends to hear +of it. Besides, if it did frighten them a little, she didn't much mind. +She bore the Duchess of Peebles and several others a grudge because they +had come to Valley House not on her account, or Dick's, but because it +was an open secret who were the real host and hostess on this occasion. +Last year, if she had invited these people, they would have been +"dreadfully sorry they were already promised for Easter."</p> + +<p>It was Nelson Smith's money and popularity which had lured them. They +knew they would have wonderful things to eat, and probably the women +were counting on presents of Easter eggs in the morning with exciting +surprises inside!</p> + +<p>"Are you all very brave?" she asked aloud and gaily. "Because I've +just remembered that the Countess de Santiago saw a picture of us in +her crystal, grouped together as we are now, in this very room, +and—something happening."</p> + +<p>"Something nice, or horrid?" asked the Duchess, a tall, pretty woman, +who looked as if Rossetti had created her, with finishing touches by +Burne-Jones.</p> + +<p>"Ah, she couldn't see. The vision faded," Constance replied. "But perhaps +<i>we</i> shall see—if this is to be the night."</p> + +<p>As she spoke the men came into the room. Ruthven Smith's example was +contagious. They had been deserted by the ladies hardly ten minutes ago. +Annesley felt sure that Knight had contrived to hurry the others. He, +too, then, had guessed why Ruthven Smith had gone out of the dining hall +with the women. Perhaps he also had a plan!</p> + +<p>He came straight to his wife, who was standing with Lady Cartwright. Not +far off was Ruthven Smith, still with his eyeglasses on. He was hovering +with a nervous air in front of a cabinet full of beautiful things, at +which he scarcely glanced.</p> + +<p>Seeing Knight approach Annesley, he lifted his head, took a hesitating +step in her direction, and stopped. He looked timid and miserable, yet +obstinate.</p> + +<p>"Anita, I've been telling the Duke about that star sapphire I picked up +for you the other day," Knight began. "He says he never saw one with +anything resembling a star in it. Will you fetch it for him to look at? I +noticed as you got up from the table that you hadn't put it on to-night."</p> + +<p>For an instant the girl could not answer. If only he had hit upon +something else. If only it had occurred to her to hide her left hand +after taking off the ring! But she could not have foreseen this.</p> + +<p>For the first time she inclined to believe in the Countess de Santiago's +supernatural power. Could it be that this scene had pictured itself in +the crystal? Could it be that now in a moment something dreadful would +happen?</p> + +<p>She realized that Knight was trusting to the quickness of her wits; that +not only had he overheard Ruthven Smith's talk about the Malindore +diamond, but he credited her with having caught the drift of the words, +and counted on her loyalty to help him. As he spoke he looked at her with +the wistful, seeking look she had seen in his eyes when they were first +married.</p> + +<p>"He's afraid I'm angry with him for buying the diamond in spite of +knowing what it was," she thought, "but he trusts me to stand by him +now."</p> + +<p>Her mind grew clear. After a pause no longer than the drawing of a breath +she was ready to rise to the situation Knight had created. In fact, she +saw safety for him and herself, as well as a realistic surprise for +Ruthven Smith. But the latter, rendered brave to act through fear of +loss, was too quick for her.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon! Before you go, may I have the pleasure of a nearer +look at that beautiful enamel brooch of yours?"</p> + +<p>It was Annesley's impulse to step back as without waiting for permission +the narrow head, sleekly brushed and slightly bald at the top, bent over +her laces. But she remembered herself in time and stood still. She dared +not glance at Knight, to send him a message of encouragement, but she +knew that for once even his resourcefulness had failed, and that he must +be steeling himself to the brutal discovery of his secret.</p> + +<p>Yet even then she did not guess what Ruthven Smith's plan was until the +thing had happened. He peered at the brooch, which represented a bunch of +grapes in small cabochon amethysts and leaves of green enamel. Adjusting +his eyeglasses, they slipped from his nose and fell on the lace of her +fichu.</p> + +<p>"Oh, how awkward of me! A thousand pardons!" he cried. Making a nervous +grab for the glasses, which hung from a chain, he snatched up her chain +as well, and with a quick jerk of seeming inadvertence wrenched from its +warm hiding-place a ring with a flash of brilliants and a glint of blue.</p> + +<p>Annesley's heart had given one great throb and then missed a beat, for +there had been an awful instant as the "plan" developed when she feared +that the ring with the blue diamond might, after all her pains, have +become entangled with the chain. If it had, the violence of the jerk +might have brought it to light.</p> + +<p>But she had accomplished her task well. She could afford to smile, though +her lips trembled, as she saw the bird-of-prey look fade from Ruthven +Smith's face and turn into bewildered humiliation.</p> + +<p>Right was on his side; yet he had the air of a culprit, and some wild +strain in Annesley's nature which had been asleep till that instant sang +a song of triumph in the victory of her "plan" over his. How delighted +Knight would be, and how amazed and grateful—grateful as he had been +when she "stood by him" with the watchers!</p> + +<p>As Ruthven Smith stammered apologies her eyes flashed to Knight's; but +there was none of the defiant laughter she had expected, and felt bound +to reproach him for later.</p> + +<p>He was pale, and though his immense power of self-control kept him in +check, Annesley shrank almost with horror from the fury of rage against +Ruthven Smith which she read in her husband's gaze and the beating of the +veins in his temples.</p> + +<p>Terrified lest his anger should break out in words, she hurried on to say +what she would have said before the sudden move by the jewel expert.</p> + +<p>"Here is the sapphire ring you asked about, Knight," she said. "I was +just going to take off this chain and give it to you to show to the Duke +when——"</p> + +<p>"When Mr. Ruthven Smith took an unwarrantable liberty," Knight finished +the sentence icily.</p> + +<p>"I—I meant nothing. Really, I can't tell you how I regret——" the +wretched man stuttered. But Knight was without mercy.</p> + +<p>"Pray don't try any further," he cut in. "My wife is not a figurine in a +shop window to have her ornaments stared at and pawed over. You are an +old friend of hers, Mr. Ruthven Smith, and you are my guest—or rather my +friend Annesley-Seton's guest—therefore I will say no more. But in some +countries where I have lived such an incident would have ended +differently."</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>please</i>, Knight!" exclaimed Annesley, thankful that at least he had +spoken his harsh words in so low a voice that no one outside their own +group of three could hear. But she was shocked out of her brief +exultation by his white rage and the depths revealed by the lightning +flash of anger. Also she was sorry for Ruthven Smith, even while she +resented the plot which it was evident he had come to carry out.</p> + +<p>With unsteady hands she lifted the delicate chain over her hair and gave +it to her husband.</p> + +<p>"The ring is rather large for my finger. Here it is for you to show to +the Duke," she reminded him.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Anita," he said. And she knew that he thanked her for more +than what she gave him.</p> + +<p>"I am a thousand times sorry," Ruthven Smith persisted. "More sorry than +I can ever explain, or you will ever know."</p> + +<p>"Indeed it was nothing," the girl comforted him in her soft young voice. +But she read in his words a hidden meaning, as she had read one into +Knight's. She <i>did</i> know that which he believed she would never know: the +meaning of his act, and the effort it had cost to screw his courage to +the sticking place.</p> + +<p>Also, as the star sapphire with its sparkle of diamonds had flashed into +sight, she had seemed to read his mind. She guessed he must be telling +himself that his informant—the Countess, or some other—had mistaken one +blue stone for another.</p> + +<p>"Let's go and join Constance and the Duchess," she went on, quietly. +"They're looking at some lovely things you will like to see. And you must +forget that Knight was cross. He has lived in wild places, and he has a +hot temper."</p> + +<p>"I deserved what I got, I'm afraid," murmured Ruthven Smith.</p> + +<p>"After all, nothing exciting seems likely to happen to-night in this +room, in spite of the Countess's prophecy," said Constance. "Perhaps it +may be to-morrow or Monday."</p> + +<p>"I hope nothing more exciting will happen then than to-night!" Annesley +exclaimed, with a kindly glance at her companion. She pitied him, but she +pitied herself more, for by and by she and Knight would have to talk this +thing out together.</p> + +<p>For the first time she dreaded the moment of being alone with her +husband. There was a stain of clay on the feet of her idol, and though +she had helped him to hide it from other eyes, nothing could be right +between them again until she had told him what she thought—until he had +promised to make restitution somehow of the thing he should never have +possessed.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2> + +<h3>THE SECRET</h3> + + +<p>Knight and Annesley had a suite of rooms on the ground floor in what was +known as "the new wing" at Valley House. On the floor above were the +rooms occupied by Lord and Lady Annesley-Seton.</p> + +<p>This wing was a dreadful anachronism, shocking to architects, for it had +been tacked on to the house in the eighteenth century by some member of +the family who had made the "grand tour" and fallen in love with Italy. +Seeing no reason why a classic addition with a high-pillared loggia +should be unsuitable to a house in England built in Elizabethan and +Jacobean days, he had made it.</p> + +<p>Fortunately it was so situated as not to be seen from the front of the +building, or anywhere else except from the one side which it deformed; +and there a more artistic grandson had hidden the abortion as much as +possible by planting a grove of beautiful stone-pines.</p> + +<p>As for the wing itself, the interior was the most "liveable" part of the +house, and with the modern improvements put in to please the American +bride before her fortune vanished, it had become charming within. +Annesley's bedroom and her husband's adjoining had long windows opening +out on the loggia and looking between tall, straight trunks of umbrella +pines toward the distant sea.</p> + +<p>It was late before she could slip away to her own quarters, for she had +been wanted for bridge, an amusement which she secretly thought the last +refuge for the mentally destitute. She had told her maid not to sit up; +and she was thankful to close the door of the small corridor or vestibule +which led into the suite, knowing that until Knight came she would be +alone.</p> + +<p>She wanted him to come, and meant to wait (it did not matter how long) +until they could have that talk she wished for yet dreaded intensely. +Meanwhile, however, it was good to have a few minutes in which to compose +her mind, to decide whether she should begin, or expect Knight to do so; +and how she could frankly let him see her state of mind without seeming +too harsh, too relentless, to the man who had given her happiness with +both hands—the only real happiness she had ever known.</p> + +<p>She sat for a while in the boudoir, thinking that Knight might come soon, +before she began to undress. There was a dying glow of coal and logs in +the fireplace, but staring into the rosy mass brought no inspiration. She +could not concentrate her thoughts on the scene which must presently be +enacted; they would go straggling wearily to other scenes already acted, +even as far back as that hour at the Savoy when a young man who looked to +her like the hero of a novel begged to sit at her table.</p> + +<p>He still seemed as much as ever like the hero of a novel in which he had +splendidly made her the heroine; but it was not a pleasant chapter she +had to read now. It reminded her too intensely of the mystery surrounding +the hero, and forced her to realize that stories of real life have not +always happy endings.</p> + +<p>"But ours must!" she said to herself, springing up, unable to rest. +"Nothing can break our love; and while we have that we have everything!"</p> + +<p>She could no longer sit still, and going into her bedroom she peeped +through the door into Knight's room beyond. It was dark, as she expected +to find it; for she had been almost sure that she would have heard him if +he had entered the vestibule.</p> + +<p>Returning to her own rooms, she pulled back the sea-blue curtains +which covered the large window looking on to the loggia. The sky was +silver-white with moonlight between the black stems of the tall pines, +and a flood of radiance poured into the room. It was so beautiful and +bright, bringing with it so heavenly a sense of peace, that the girl +could not bear to draw the curtains again. She began slowly to undress +by moonlight and the faint red glow in the fireplace.</p> + +<p>Her first act was to recover the blue diamond ring and to drop it with +shrinking fingers into the jewel-case on her dressing table.</p> + +<p>Taking off her dinner frock, she put on a white silk gown which turned +her into a pale spirit flitting hither and thither in the silver dusk. +Still Knight had not come. She pulled out the four great tortoise-shell +pins which held up her hair, and let it tumble over her shoulders. As she +began to twist it into one heavy plait, she walked to the window and +stood looking out.</p> + +<p>It seemed to her that the black trunks and outstretched branches of the +trees were like prison bars across the moonlight. She wished she had not +had that thought, but as it persisted, a figure moved behind the bars, +the figure of a man.</p> + +<p>At first she was startled, for it was very late, long after one o'clock; +but as the man came nearer, she recognized him, although the light was at +his back. It was Knight; and as though her thought called to him, he +stopped suddenly, pausing on the lawn not far from the loggia. She could +not see his face, but it seemed that he was staring straight up at her +window.</p> + +<p>"He has been walking in the moonlight, thinking things over just as I +have in here!" the girl told herself. Surely he could see her! But no, +he turned, and was striding away with his head down, when she knocked +sharply and impulsively on the pane.</p> + +<p>Hearing the sound, yet not knowing whence it came, he stopped again, and +so gave Annesley time to open the window.</p> + +<p>"Knight!" she called, softly.</p> + +<p>Then he came straight to her across the strip of lawn and up the two +steps that led to the loggia. She met him on the threshold and saw his +face deadly pale in the moonlight. Perhaps it was only an effect of +light, but she thought that he looked tired, even ill. Still he did not +speak.</p> + +<p>"Knight, you almost frightened me!" she said. "I was afraid for an +instant you might be—might be——"</p> + +<p>"A thief!" he finished for her.</p> + +<p>"Or a ghost," she amended. "Weren't you coming in?"</p> + +<p>"No," he said. "I hadn't thought of it. Do you want—shall I come in?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, please do. I—I've been waiting for you."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry! I hoped you'd have gone to bed. But I might have known you +wouldn't."</p> + +<p>As she retreated from the window, he followed her, as if reluctantly, +into the room.</p> + +<p>"Shall I draw the curtains?" he asked. There was weariness in his voice, +as in his face. Annesley's heart went out to her beloved sinner with even +more tenderness than before.</p> + +<p>"No, let's talk in the moonlight," she answered. "Oh, Knight, I <i>am</i> glad +you've come! I began to think you never would!"</p> + +<p>"Did you? That's not strange, for I was saying to myself that same +thing."</p> + +<p>"What same thing? I don't understand."</p> + +<p>"That I—well, that I never ought to come to you again."</p> + +<p>She sank down on a low sofa near the window, and looked up to him as he +stood tall and straight, seeming to tower over her like one of the pine +trees out there under the moon.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Knight!" she faltered. "It's not—so bad as that!"</p> + +<p>"Isn't it?" he caught her up sharply, eagerly. "Do you mean what you say? +Isn't it, to you—as bad as that?"</p> + +<p>"No—no," she soothed him. "You see, I love you. That's all the +difference, isn't it? You've been everything to me. You've made my +life—that used to be so gray—so bright, so sweet. Only the blackest +thing—oh, an unimaginably blackest thing!—could come between us, +or——"</p> + +<p>Before she could finish, he was on his knees at her feet, holding her in +his arms, crushing her against his breast, soft and yielding in her light +dressing-gown, with her flowing hair.</p> + +<p>"My God, Annesley, it's too good to be true!" he said, his breath hot +on her face as he kissed her cheek, her hair, her eyes. "You can +<i>forgive</i> me? I thought you'd go away. I thought you'd refuse to let +me come near you. I was walking out there wondering how to make it easy +for you—whether I could get rid of myself without scandal."</p> + +<p>She had been sure that he must have repented long ago, and that it would +hurt him dreadfully to have her find out the thing he had done, but she +had not dreamed that his self-abasement would be so complete. She put +her arms around him as he held her, and pressed his head against her +neck—the dear, smooth black head which she loved better than ever in +this rush of pardoning pity.</p> + +<p>"Dearest!" she whispered. "Never, never think or speak of such a dreadful +way out! Of course it was horribly wrong, and of course it was a great +shock to me, but you might have known from my doing what I could to help +that I didn't hate you. I said to myself there must be some excuse—some +<i>big</i> excuse. And now, if only you wouldn't mind telling me about it from +the beginning, I believe it would be the best way for us both. Then I +might understand."</p> + +<p>"You are God's own angel, Anita!" he said in a choked voice. "You don't +know how I've learned to love you, better than anything in this world or +the next—if there is a next. I knew you were a saint, but I didn't know +that saints forgave men like me.... Shall I really tell you from the +beginning? You'll listen—and bear it? It's a long story."</p> + +<p>Annesley did not see why the story of his buying the historic stolen +diamond and giving it to her should be so very long, even with its +explanations; but she did not say this.</p> + +<p>"I don't care how long it is," she told him. "But you will be tired—down +on your knees——"</p> + +<p>"I couldn't tell my story to you in any way except on my knees," he +answered. And the new humility of the man she had loved half fearfully +for his daring, his defiant way of facing life, almost hurt, as his +sudden passion had startled the girl.</p> + +<p>"I hardly know how to begin," he said. "Perhaps it had better be with my +father and mother, because it was the tragedy of their lives that shaped +mine." He was silent for a moment, as if thinking. Then he drew a long +breath, as a man does when he is ready to take a plunge into deep water.</p> + +<p>"My mother was a Russian. Her people were noble, but that didn't keep +them from going to Siberia. She was brought to America by a man and woman +who'd been servants in her family. She was very young, only fifteen. Her +name was Michaela. I'm named after her—Michael. The three had only money +enough to be allowed to land as immigrants, and to get out west—though +her people had been rich." He paused a moment for a sigh.</p> + +<p>"She and the servants—they passed as her father and mother—found work +in Chicago. My father was a lawyer there. He was an Englishman, you +know—I've told you that before—but he thought his profession was +overstocked at home, so he tried his luck on the other side. The old +Russian chap was hurt in the factory where he worked, and that's the +way my father—whose name was Robert Donaldson—got to know my mother. +There was a question of compensation, and my father conducted the case. +He won it.</p> + +<p>"And he won a wife, too. She was nineteen when I was born. Father was +getting on, but they were poor and had a hard time to make ends meet. +They worshipped each other and worshipped me. You can think whether I +adored them!</p> + +<p>"Mother was the most beautiful creature you ever saw. Everyone looked +at her. I used to notice that when I was a wee chap, walking with my +hand in hers. When I was ten and going to school my father had a bad +illness—rheumatic fever. We got hard up while he was sick; and then came +a letter for mother from Russia. Some distant relations in Moscow had had +her traced by detectives. It seemed there was quite a lot of money which +ought to come to her, and if she would go to Russia and prove who she was +she could get it.</p> + +<p>"If father'd been well and making enough for us all he'd never have let +her go, but he was weak and anxious about the future, so she took things +into her own hands and went, without waiting for yes or no, or anything +except to find a woman who'd look after father and me while she was gone. +Well, she never came back. Can you guess what became of her?" he asked, +huskily.</p> + +<p>"She died?" Annesley asked, forgetting in her interest, which grew with +the story, to wonder what the history of Knight's childhood and his +parents' troubles had to do with the Malindore diamond.</p> + +<p>"She died before my father could find her; but not for a long time. +God—what a time of agony for her! Things happened I can't tell you +about. We heard nothing, after a letter from the ship and a cable from +Moscow with two words—'Well. Love.'</p> + +<p>"For a while father waited and tried not to be too anxious; but after a +time he telegraphed, and then again and again. No answer. He went nearly +mad. Before he was well enough to travel he borrowed money and started +for Russia to look for her. I stayed in Chicago—and kept on going to +school. The friends who took care of me made me do that ... or thought +so.</p> + +<p>"But when I could, I played truant. I was in a restless state. I remember +how I felt as if it were yesterday. Nothing seemed real, except my father +and mother. I thought about them all the time. I couldn't sleep, and I +couldn't study. I couldn't bear to sit at a desk. I picked up some queer +pals in those months—or they picked me up. I suppose that was the +beginning of the end.</p> + +<p>"I think while he was away, finding out terrible, unspeakable things, my +father forgot about me—or else he didn't realize I was big enough to +mind. He never wrote. When he came back, after eleven months, he was an +old man, with gray hair. I'll never forget the night he came, and how he +told me about mother. It was a moonlight night, like this—with no light +in the room. It was the last night of my childhood."</p> + +<p>As the man talked, he had lifted his head from the soft pillow of the +girl's white neck, and was looking into her eyes, his face close to hers. +Annesley was not thinking about the diamond.</p> + +<p>"For a long time," Knight went on, slowly, "father could not trace my +mother. He expected to find the relations who had sent her word about the +legacy, but they were gone—nobody could tell where. Nobody wanted to +speak of them. They seemed afraid. Father went to the British and +American Embassies; no use! But at last he got to know, in subterranean +ways, that mother hadn't realized how dangerous it is to speak your mind +in Russia. She'd left there before she was sixteen!</p> + +<p>"She had said things about her father and mother, and what she thought +of the ruling powers, and that same night—she'd been in Moscow two +days—she and her relatives disappeared. It leaked out through a +member of the secret police that she could have been saved by her +beauty—someone high up offered to get her free. But she preferred +another fate.</p> + +<p>"She was sent to Siberia where her father and mother had gone, and had +died years before. My father met a man who had seen her on the way as he +was coming back. She was only just alive. The man was sure she couldn't +have lived more than a few weeks.</p> + +<p>"Yet father wouldn't give up. He went after her.... But what's the use of +going on? He found the place where she had died.... Which ends that part +of the story, as a story.</p> + +<p>"Only it didn't end it for us. It filled our hearts with bitterness. We +wanted revenge. Yet my father was too good a man to take it when his +chance came. His conscience held him back. But he talked—talked like an +anarchist, a man out to fight and smash all the hypocritical institutions +of society. If it hadn't been for me he'd have killed himself in Siberia +where his wife had died a martyr; and it would have been well for him if +he had!</p> + +<p>"Because of the wild way he talked when suspicion of fraud was thrown on +him by a partner the fool public believed in his guilt. He died in prison +when I was fifteen, and I swore to punish the beast of a world that had +killed all I loved. I swore I'd make that my life's work, and I have. +But—God!—I've punished myself, too, at last. I'm punished through you, +because I've fallen in love with you, Anita, and for your sake I'd give +the years that may be in front of me—all time but one day to be glad in, +if I could blot out the past!"</p> + +<p>"Maybe," the girl faltered, "maybe you're too hard on yourself. I can't +believe that you, who have been so good to me, could have been very bad +to others."</p> + +<p>"If I could hope you wouldn't be too hard on me, that's all I care for +now!" he cried, passionately. "You remember my saying that night in the +taxi that the worst I'd ever done was to try and pay back a great wrong, +and take revenge on society? If I could hope you meant what you said +about understanding I'd tell you the story of that revenge."</p> + +<p>"I <i>did</i> mean it, Knight. My love will help me to understand."</p> + +<p>"You make me believe in a God, for surely only God could have sent such +an angel as you into my life.... In a way, I haven't deceived you about +myself, for I warned you I was a bad man. But when I think of the night +we met and the trick I played on you, it makes me sick! I thought you'd +loathe me if you ever found out. But I didn't intend to let you find out. +It was to be a dead secret forever, like the rest. Yet if I tell you what +my life has been you'll have to know that part, too. If I kept it back +you might think it worse than it was."</p> + +<p>"A trick?" echoed Annesley.</p> + +<p>"Yes. A trick to interest you—to make you like and want to help me. +Besides, it was to be a test of your courage and presence of mind. If you +hadn't those qualities you'd have been a failure from my point of view. +You see, I hadn't had time to fall in love with you then. And I wanted +you for a 'help-mate' in the literal sense of the word. It seems a pretty +sordid sense, looking back from where we've got to now. But that was my +scheme. A mean, cowardly scheme! And it's thanks to you and your blessed +dearness I see it in its true light.... Do you begin to understand, +Anita—knowing something of what my life has been, or must I explain?"</p> + +<p>"I—I'm afraid you must explain," she answered in a small voice, like a +child's. She felt suddenly weak and sick, as if she might collapse in the +man's arms. It was as if some terrible weapon wrapped round and half +hidden in folds of velvet were lifted above her head to strike her down.</p> + +<p>She shrank from the blow, yet asked for it. Already she guessed dimly +that Knight's confession was to be very different from and far more +terrible than anything she had expected.</p> + +<p>"I was the man whose advertisement you answered—the man who wrote you +the stiff letter in the handwriting you didn't like, signed N. Smith."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" The word broke from her in a moan.</p> + +<p>"Darling! Have I lost you if I go on?"</p> + +<p>"You must go on!" she cried out, sharply. "For both our sakes you must go +on!"</p> + +<p>"I know how it looks to you. And it was vile. But I couldn't be sure when +I advertised what an angel would answer to my call, and what a brute I +should be to deceive her. I thought the sort of girl who'd reply to an +'ad' for a wife would be fair game; that I should be giving her an +equivalent for what she'd give me.</p> + +<p>"For my business that I had to carry out in England I needed a wife of +another sort from any woman I knew, or could get to know, in an ordinary +way; she had to be of good birth and education, nice-looking and +pleasant-mannered—if possible with highly placed friends or relatives. +Money didn't matter. I had enough—or would have. I got a lot of answers, +but the only one that seemed good was yours. I felt nearly certain you +were the woman I wanted, so I rigged up a plan. You know how it worked +out."</p> + +<p>"Maybe I'm stupid," Annesley said, dry-lipped. "I don't understand yet."</p> + +<p>"Why, I thought the thing over, and it seemed to me that married life—if +it came to that—would be easier for both if the man could make some sort +of appeal to the love of romance in a girl. Well, she wouldn't think the +man who had to get the right sort of wife by advertising much of a figure +of romance. So the idea came to me of—of starting two personalities. I +wrote you a stiff, precise sort of letter in a disguised business hand, +making an appointment at the Savoy. When that was done, the writer went +out of your life.</p> + +<p>"He just ceased to exist, except that he sat behind a big screen of +newspaper and watched for a girl in gray-and-purple, wearing a white +rose, to pass through the foyer. That was his way of finding out if she'd +suit. Jove, how beastly it does sound, put into words, and confessed to +<i>you</i>! But you said I must go on."</p> + +<p>"Yes—go on," Annesley breathed.</p> + +<p>"You were about one hundred times better than my highest hopes. And +seeing what you were, I was glad I'd thought out that plan. Even then, it +was borne in on me that it wouldn't be long before I found myself falling +in love, if I had the luck to secure you. And from that minute the +business turned into an exciting play for me, just as I meant to make it +for you. I let you wait for a while, but if you'd showed any signs of +vanishing I'd have stepped up. I'd got a trick ready for that emergency.</p> + +<p>"But I hoped you'd follow instructions and go to the restaurant. Once +there, I was sure the head-waiter'd persuade you to sit down at a table; +and the rest went exactly as I planned. The two men we called the +'watchers' used to be vaudeville actors—did a turn together, and their +specialty was lightning changes. Their make-ups, even at short notice, +could fool Sherlock Holmes. Even though you despise me for it, Anita, you +must admit it was a smart way to make you take an interest, and prove +your character.</p> + +<p>"Lord, but you stood the test! I wouldn't have given you up at any price +then, even if I hadn't begun falling in love. I saw how good you were; +and in that taxi going to Torrington Square I felt mean as dirt for +tricking you. But of course I had to go on as I'd begun.</p> + +<p>"At first I thought it was luck, tumbling into the same house with +Ruthven Smith; but now I see it was the devil's luck. If it hadn't been +for Ruthven Smith I might have gone on living the part I played. You need +never have known the truth. And I swear to you, Annesley, I'd made up my +mind, after finishing off my work with the men who are with me, that I'd +run straight for the rest of my days. The business was making me sick, +for being close to your goodness threw a light into dark places.</p> + +<p>"By heaven, Anita, it does seem hard, just as I was near to being the man +you thought me, that that dried-up curmudgeon Ruthven Smith should call +my hand and make me show you the man I was! But I can't help seeing +there's a kind of—what they call poetical justice in it, the blow coming +from him. I've always been like that: seeing both sides of a thing even +when I wanted to see only one. But if <i>you</i> can see both sides, you will +make the good grow, as the bright side of the moon grows, and turns the +dark side to gold.</p> + +<p>"Can you do that, do you think, Anita? Can you see any excuse for me in +going against the world to pay it out for going against me and mine? If +you've been piecing bits of evidence together since Ruthven Smith spoke, +you'll have remembered that only heirlooms and things insured by, or +belonging to, public companies, have been taken; no poor people have been +robbed; and except in the case of Mrs. Ellsworth, where I wanted to see +her paid out for her treatment of you——"</p> + +<p>"'Robbed'!" Catching the word, Annesley heard none of those that +followed. "<i>Robbed!</i> Oh, it's not possible you mean——"</p> + +<p>Her voice broke. With both hands against his breast she pushed him off, +and struggled to rise, to tear herself loose from him. But he would not +let her go.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter? How have I hurt you worse than you were hurt already +by finding out?" he appealed to her, his arms like a band of steel round +her shuddering body. "When you heard the truth about the diamond, it was +the same as if you'd heard everything, wasn't it? You guessed Ruthven +Smith suspected—someone must have told him—Madalena perhaps. You +guessed he had some trick to play, and in the quietest, cleverest way you +checkmated him, without hint or help from any one. You saved me from +ruin, and not only me, but others. And on top of all that, when I hoped +for nothing more from you, you promised me forgiveness. That's what I +understood. Was I mistaken?"</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> was mistaken," she answered, almost coldly; then broke down with one +agonized sob. "I thought—oh, what good is it now to tell you what I +thought?"</p> + +<p>"You must tell me!"</p> + +<p>"I thought you had bought the blue diamond, knowing it had been stolen, +but wanting it so much you didn't care how you got it. I didn't dream +that you were a——"</p> + +<p>"That I was—what?"</p> + +<p>"A thief—and a cheat!"</p> + +<p>"My God! And now you know I'm both, you hate me, Anita? You must, or you +wouldn't throw those words at me like stones."</p> + +<p>"Let me go," she panted, pushing him from her again with trembling, +ice-cold hands.</p> + +<p>He obeyed instantly. The band of steel that had held her fell apart. She +stumbled up from the low sofa, and trying to pass him as he knelt, she +would have fallen if he had not sprung to his feet and caught her.</p> + +<p>But recovering herself she turned away quickly and almost ran to a chair +in front of the dressing table not far off. There she flung herself down +and buried her face on her bare arms.</p> + +<p>Knight followed, to stand staring in stunned silence at the bowed +head and shaking shoulders. He could hear the ticking of a small, +nervous-sounding clock on the mantelpiece. It was like the beating +of a heart that must soon break. At last, when the ticking had gone +on unbearably long, he spoke.</p> + +<p>"Anita, you called me a cheat," he said. "I suppose you mean that I +cheated you by playing the hero that night at the Savoy, and stealing +your sympathy and help under false pretenses; that I've been steadily +cheating you and your friends every day since. That's true, in a way—or +it was at first. But lately it's not been the same sort of cheating. It +began to be the real thing with me. I mean I felt it in me to be the +real thing. As for the other name you gave me—thief—I'm not exactly +that—not a thief who steals with his own hands, though I dare say I'm +as bad.</p> + +<p>"If I haven't stolen, I've shown others the most artistic way to steal. +I've shown men and women how to make stealing a fine art, and I've been +in with them in the game. Indeed, it was my game. Madalena de Santiago, +and the two men you knew first as the 'watchers,' then as Torrance and +Morello, now as Charrington and Char, have been no more than the pawns I +used, or rather they've been my cat's paws. There's only one other man at +the head of the show besides me, and that is one whose name I can't give +away even to you.</p> + +<p>"But he's a great man, a kind of financial Napoleon—a great artist, too. +He doesn't call himself a thief. He's honoured by society in Europe and +America; yet what I've done in comparison to what he's done is like a +brook to the size of the ocean. He has a picture gallery and a private +museum which are famous; but there's another gallery of pictures and +another museum which nobody except himself has ever seen. His real life, +his real joy, are in them. Most of the masterpieces and treasures of this +world which have disappeared are safe in that hidden place, which I've +helped to fill.</p> + +<p>"That man has no regrets. He revels in what he calls his 'secret +orchard.' He thinks I ought to be proud of what I've done for him; and so +I was once. I came here and brought the other people over to England to +work for him.</p> + +<p>"Not that that fact will whitewash me in your eyes; not that I wasn't +working for myself, too, and not that I'm trying to make more excuses by +explaining this. But I'd like you to understand, at least for the sake of +your own pride, that you haven't been cheated into loving and living with +a common thief. Does that make it hurt less?"</p> + +<p>"No," she said in a strange tone which made her voice sound like that of +an old woman. "That doesn't make it hurt less. It makes no difference. +I think nothing can ever make any difference. My life is—over."</p> + +<p>"Don't, for God's sake, say that! Don't force me to feel a murderer!" he +cried out, sharply.</p> + +<p>"There's nothing else to say. I wish I could die to-night."</p> + +<p>"If one of us is to die," he said, "let it be me. If you hadn't happened +to see me and call me in when I was under the trees bidding good-bye to +your window, by this time I might have found a way out of the difficulty +without any scandal or trouble to you whatever. No one would have known +that it wasn't an accident——"</p> + +<p>"I should have known."</p> + +<p>"But if you had, it would have been a relief——"</p> + +<p>"No. Because I—I hadn't heard the truth. I didn't understand at all. I +thought you had done <i>one</i> unscrupulous thing. I didn't dream your whole +life was—what it is. I loved you as much as ever. It would have broken +my heart if you——"</p> + +<p>"But now that you don't love me, it wouldn't break your heart."</p> + +<p>"I don't seem to have any heart," Annesley sighed. "It feels as if it +had crumbled to dust. But it would break my life if you ended yours. If +anything could be worse than what is, it would be that."</p> + +<p>"Very well, you can rid yourself of me in another way," the man answered. +"You can denounce me—give me up to 'justice.' If you hand over the +Malindore diamond to Ruthven Smith and tell him how you got it——"</p> + +<p>"You must know I wouldn't do that!"</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>"Because I—couldn't."</p> + +<p>"It needn't spoil your life. No one could blame you. I would tell the +story of how I deceived you. You could free yourself—get a divorce——"</p> + +<p>"Don't!" the girl cut him short. "I'm not thinking of myself. I'm +thinking of you. I can't love you again, and I wouldn't if I could, now +that I—know. You're a different man. The one I loved doesn't exist and +never did; yet you've told me your secret, and I'm bound to keep it. I +don't need to stop and reflect about that. But as for what's to become +of me, and how we're to manage not to let people guess that everything's +changed, I don't know! I must think. I must think all to-night, until +to-morrow. Perhaps by that time I can decide. Now—I beg of you to go +and leave me—this moment. I can't bear any more and live."</p> + +<p>He stood looking at her, but she turned her head away with a petulant +gesture of repulsion; and lest her eyes might feel the call of his she +covered them with her hands. Her hopelessness, her loathing of him +enclosed her like a wall of ice.</p> + +<p>"So! The dream's over!" he said. "'This woman to this man'! What a +farce—what a tragedy!"</p> + +<p>When she looked up again he had gone and the door between their rooms was +shut.</p> + +<p>The moon no longer lit the high window. With Knight's going darkness +fell.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2> + +<h3>THE PLAN</h3> + + +<p>Annesley sat as Knight had left her for a long time—minutes, perhaps, or +hours. But at last she was very tired and very cold, so tired that she +threw herself weakly on the bed, in her dressing-gown, because she +couldn't sit up. All through the rest of the dark hours she lay +shivering, and did not even trouble to roll herself in the warm down +coverlet spread lightly over the bed.</p> + +<p>It seemed right, somehow, that she should be cold and miserable +physically. She did not care or wish to be comfortable.</p> + +<p>Over and over again she asked herself: "What shall I do? What is to +become of me—of both of us?" She tried to pray, but her heart was too +hard toward the man who had trampled on her life and love for his own +cruel purposes. It seemed to her that God would not hear a prayer sent +up in such a mood; yet she did not want to soften her heart toward the +sinner.</p> + +<p>Because it had been so full of forgiveness before he poisoned the chalice +with the bitter stream of confession, it was the more impossible to +forgive now. It even seemed to Annesley that it would be monstrous to +forgive, in the ordinary, human sense of the word, a man who was a living +lie.</p> + +<p>If there were room for thanksgiving in her wretchedness, it lay in the +fact that her love had died a swift and sudden death. Had she gone on +loving in spite of all, such love, she thought, must have brought death +into her soul.</p> + +<p>She did not know how to name her husband now. Even in thinking of him she +would not call him "Knight."</p> + +<p>What a mockery the name had been! How he must have laughed to know that +she was fool enough to believe him a knight of chivalry, who had come +like St. George to rescue her from the dragon!</p> + +<p>She knew at last that the name he had not wished her to see in the parish +register was Michael Donaldson. That meant, she supposed, that her name +was Donaldson, too; a name he had dragged through the mire.</p> + +<p>He pretended to love her. But such a man could not speak the truth. +He had tried to excuse himself in every way. To talk of love and its +purifying influence was only one of these ways. He would not even have +confessed if he had not fallen into the mistake of thinking she +understood that he was a thief, or head of a gang of thieves.</p> + +<p>He seemed almost to boast of what he was.... Oh, how horrible life had +become, and how she wished that it were over! She wondered if it would +be wicked to pray that her heart might stop beating to-night.</p> + +<p>Yet morning came and her heart beat on. She did not even feel very ill, +only weak, with a wiry throbbing of each separate nerve in her head. She +had meant to use the quiet hours to decide what must be done next, but +always, when she had tried to pin her mind to the question, it had +escaped like a fluttering moth, and turned to self-pity, or to calling +up pictures of the past which brought tears to her eyes.</p> + +<p>Now the time was upon her when realities must be faced. Before seven +o'clock it was light, but neither she nor Knight were accustomed to early +tea, and there was more than an hour to spare before they would be called +by Parker.</p> + +<p>The girl sat up shivering, though the room, heated by steam, had not +grown bitterly cold when the grate fire died. She looked, heavy-eyed, +toward her husband's closed door. They must talk things over, and make +some plan.</p> + +<p>She hated the very word "plan" since his story of the trick he had played +at the Savoy. She hated the necessity to talk with him; but it <i>was</i> a +necessity. They ought to arrange something for the future—the blank and +hateful future—before Parker came, and daily life began. There would be +many things to settle, questions to ask and answer; a sort of hideous +campaign would have to be mapped out in details not one of which defined +itself clearly in her tired brain.</p> + +<p>"It's no use," she said to herself. "I can't think, after all, until I +see him again. Perhaps he will make some suggestions, and I can accept or +refuse. But I <i>can't</i> go to his door and call him."</p> + +<p>As she hesitated, Knight—who was a knight no longer in her eyes—opened +the door, very softly, not to disturb her if she slept. In the morning +light which paled the uncurtained window their eyes met.</p> + +<p>Annesley slipped off the bed and stood up, cloaking her bare white neck +with her hair. Suddenly she felt that he was a strange man who had no +right to be in her room. He was not the husband she had loved with a +beautiful and sacred love.</p> + +<p>"I won't come if you'd rather I didn't," he said. "I only looked in to +see if you were awake. I thought if you were, and if you could stand it, +it would be best to—talk about what's to be done." He spoke quietly, +standing at the door. He was dressed for the day, as if nothing had +happened; and Annesley felt dimly resentful because he looked bathed and +well-groomed, his black hair smooth and carefully brushed; altogether his +usual self, except that he was pale and grave.</p> + +<p>"You had better come in, I suppose," the girl replied, grudgingly. "I was +thinking, too, that we must talk. Let us—get it over."</p> + +<p>"You haven't been to bed, I see," he said, his eyes lingering on her +sadly. It flashed through Annesley's mind that it was as if he were +looking for the last time at the sweetness and happiness of life. But +her heart did not soften. It was his fault that there was no longer any +happiness or sweetness left in their lives.</p> + +<p>"No, I haven't been to bed," she returned. "But it doesn't matter. I am +not ill. Please let us not waste time in discussing me. There are other +things."</p> + +<p>"Yes, there are other things," he agreed. "But we'll not begin to talk of +them until you have got into bed and covered yourself up. You're as white +as marble."</p> + +<p>"I don't want——" she began; but he cut her short.</p> + +<p>"What will Parker think if she finds your bed hasn't been slept in?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, very well!" Annesley assented, impatiently. "I must get used to +tricks!"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps not," said Knight. "I've been thinking of ways and means. Have +you? Because if there's anything you feel you would like to do, you've +only to tell me."</p> + +<p>"I haven't been able to think," she confessed.</p> + +<p>"Well, then, I'll tell you what I've thought."</p> + +<p>Annesley had now crept into bed; and before she could protest Knight had +carefully covered her with the down quilt. Having done this, he drew a +chair near, yet not too near, and sat down. It was as if he recognized +her right to keep him at a distance.</p> + +<p>"You said last night," he began, "that you didn't mean to denounce me. If +you've changed your mind, I shan't blame you; I deserve it. All I ask is +that you grant me time to warn certain persons who would go down if I +went down, and give them time to make a bolt. Madalena de Santiago is +one. I'm pretty sure that out of spite she put Ruthven Smith on to +looking for the diamond, but I don't want to punish her. Evidently +she—or whoever it was—didn't have much information to give, or the man +wouldn't have backed down and apologized. I should like to find out +exactly what he had to go upon. But if you've changed your mind, it's not +worth while to bother about that——"</p> + +<p>"I have not changed my mind," Annesley said.</p> + +<p>"You are very good, a very noble woman. If I were the only one to suffer +by being denounced, I don't think I'd care much, as things have turned +out. But there are others. And above all, there's you. You could patch up +your life, but you'd have to suffer more or less if I were dragged over +the coals. And so, taking everything together, I'm thankful to accept +your generosity.</p> + +<p>"We'll call that settled. I don't think Ruthven Smith has any suspicion. +We'll see about that later. Meanwhile, he doesn't count. And Madalena at +her worst I can manage. There's nothing to be feared. But the question +is, how are we two to go on?"</p> + +<p>"You must—whatever else we decide—you must give up——" the girl +stammered from her pillows, and could not bring herself to finish.</p> + +<p>"That goes without saying, doesn't it? In any case, there was only to be +one more <i>coup</i>. I'd warned everybody concerned of my decision as to +that."</p> + +<p>"<i>One more?</i> How terrible! Not—<i>here</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, if you must have that, too; it was to be here. It was to be a big +thing. But there's time to stop it."</p> + +<p>Annesley buried her head with a stifled moan.</p> + +<p>"It wouldn't have hurt any of the people. Only family heirlooms +again—everything insured. And as for the insurance companies, if +you worry over them, it's part of the game. They're wallowing in +money ... But I'll call the thing off. And that's the end for me. I'm +not rich—not the millionaire I pose for; still, I've earned something. +My 'Napoleon' has paid me well, and I've had a share now and then of +some good things. There's enough to make you comfortable——"</p> + +<p>"Do you think I'd take a penny of such money?" the girl cried, sick with +indignation.</p> + +<p>"I've worked for it," Knight said, with a kind of unhappy defiance, "and +it was come by as honestly as a lot of fortunes made on the stock market. +You must have money——"</p> + +<p>"I can earn some, as I did before."</p> + +<p>"No, <i>never</i> as you did before! Besides, I thought you'd decided on +having no open break between us, no scandal. Or wasn't that what you +meant?"</p> + +<p>"It was. But—I don't see yet how it can be managed. Do you?"</p> + +<p>"The way I had in my mind was, since I've lost your love—oh, I'm not +complaining!—the way I had in my mind was to leave you over here with +plenty of money, and be suddenly called to America on business. Then, if +it would hurt your feelings to have me put myself out of the way, it +needn't hurt them for something to <i>seem</i> to happen. Nelson Smith could +be wiped off the map; and if you weren't free to marry somebody else, at +least you'd be free of me.</p> + +<p>"But if you won't take my money that plan will not work. You can hate me +as much as you like, but I'm not going to leave you alone in the world +without a penny. Neither you nor any one can force me to that.... I've +thought of another thing, though, since we began to talk. Only I don't +like to propose it, Anita. It isn't a good plan—from your point of +view."</p> + +<p>"I'd better hear it."</p> + +<p>"Well, I might get a cable hurrying me across to the other side, and—you +might go along."</p> + +<p>"Oh!"</p> + +<p>"I warned you you wouldn't think it a good plan. But since I've begun, +let me finish. In Canada and the United States I'm known—in my least +important character—as Michael Donaldson, and I've tried to keep the +name clean because of my father and mother. When there's been anything +shady doing I've taken a fancy name and made such changes as I could in +myself. The reason I didn't want you to see the name in the register was +because of what happened on the <i>Monarchic</i>. I'd given you that ring, you +know. I couldn't resist doing that. I wanted you to have it, not because +of its value, but because it's beautiful. I thought it was like you, +somehow. I had to make up its loss in another way to the man who expected +to have it—that 'Napoleon' I mentioned."</p> + +<p>"I know, the old man—Paul Van Vreck," Annesley guessed with weary +impatience.</p> + +<p>"I'll not say yes or no to that. But it will be bad for me, and perhaps +for you, too, if you ever mention Paul Van Vreck in such a connection. +Not that you'd be believed."</p> + +<p>"I sha'n't mention him again."</p> + +<p>"Just as well not.... But it was my name and my plan I began to speak +about. I was going to say, you needn't be afraid that if you took my +name (which is yours now), you'd have to be ashamed of it. We could +go to America, and in England Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith would soon be +forgotten. I'd hand over the money you hate to charities—not the kind +of charities I've been supporting here! They've all been part of what +you call my fraud, and have only given me a chance to bring some rather +queer-looking fish around me, who might have raised curiosity if I +couldn't have accounted for them. But real charities.</p> + +<p>"And if you'd stick by me—I don't mean love me; I know you can't do +that; but live in the same house and not chuck me altogether, I'd turn +over a new leaf. I'd begin again from the beginning.</p> + +<p>"In Texas I've got some land—a ranch. It isn't worth much, I'm afraid, +but I came by it honestly, for me. I won it at poker from a man named +Jack Haslett. He was a devil for cards, but it didn't matter. He was +rich; and he had a better ranch that he lived on. He's dead now—was near +dead then, of consumption. He liked me. Said he was glad I'd won the +ranch. It was only a bother to him.</p> + +<p>"I was with Jack when he died, and did what I could to ease him at the +end. He was grateful, and what money his bad luck at cards had left him +he willed to me. It was only eight thousand dollars.</p> + +<p>"If it had come to me any other way, I dare say I'd have chucked it away +in a month. It wouldn't have seemed worth saving. But I was sort of +sentimental about poor old Haslett and his feeling for me. I didn't care +to lump his money in with what I got in my line of life. I made a +separate fund of it.</p> + +<p>"Some had to go toward improvements on the place before I could let the +ranch to any one, but there's about six thousand dollars left, I guess. +The fellow I let to wrote me a few weeks ago that he was tired of +ranching and wanted to clear out. He hoped I could find someone to buy +his cattle and the furniture he's put in the house. The letter was +forwarded by a man I keep in touch with my business and whereabouts, so +he can look after my interests. I've had no time to answer yet.</p> + +<p>"I was going to write that I didn't know any one who cared to settle in +Texas; but now what if I wrote that I'd take the place and everything on +it off the fellow's hands myself?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know what Texas is like," Annesley replied, coldly. "But +anything would be better than the life you're leading now."</p> + +<p>"I wasn't intending to go alone," Knight reminded her. "I said, if you'd +stick by me, not throw me over altogether, I'd try and begin again. In +that case, Texas would do as well as anywhere; and the place and the +money are clean."</p> + +<p>"How could I go with you, and live under the same roof, with everything +so changed?" the girl exclaimed. "It would kill me!"</p> + +<p>"As bad as that?... Well, then, I must rack my brains for something else. +But I'm sorry this won't do. Would you care to live with Archdeacon +Smith and his wife?"</p> + +<p>"No. No! And they wouldn't want me."</p> + +<p>"That seems queer to me: that any one should have the chance of keeping +you with them, and not want you ... How would it be for you to go on the +same ship with me, and find a little home somewhere on an allowance I +could make you out of that fund? You see, you are my wife in the eyes of +the law, so I'm bound to support you. And you're bound to let me do it, +if I can do it honestly."</p> + +<p>Annesley flung up her arms in a gesture of abandonment. "Let it go at +that," she sighed, "until I can think of something better."</p> + +<p>"Very well. We won't argue that part yet. The thing to make sure of at +the moment is this: Do I get a cable, say on the day everyone's leaving +Valley House, calling me back to America on urgent business, and do I +take you with me?"</p> + +<p>Annesley's thoughts raced through her head and would not stop. Knight did +not speak. He was waiting with outward patience for her decision.</p> + +<p>It seemed that she would never know what to say. She was about to tell +him in despair that she must have the rest of the day to make up her +mind, but before she could speak Parker knocked at the door.</p> + +<p>"I'll go with you," the girl said, hastily. "On the ship. But after +that——"</p> + +<p>Parker knocked again.</p> + +<p>"Come in!" called Annesley.</p> + +<p>"Thank you," Knight said, getting up from his chair near her bed.</p> + +<p>"<i>Don't</i> thank me. I——"</p> + +<p>But Parker had opened the door. All that was conventional and agreeably +commonplace in the lives of happy, well-to-do people seemed to enter the +room with her.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2> + +<h3>THE DEVIL'S ROSARY</h3> + + +<p>Ruthven Smith summoned courage to ask for a few words alone with Knight +that Easter morning, in order to explain as well as apologize for the +"seeming liberty he had taken." By dint of stammering, and punctuating +his sentences with short, dry coughs, he made "a clean breast," as he +called it, of the "whole business."</p> + +<p>He had come to Valley House, he confessed, because of an anonymous +letter, written apparently by a person of education, to inform him that +the Malindore diamond had come into the possession of the Nelson Smiths. +Whether they were aware of its identity, the writer was not sure; but in +any case their ownership of the jewel was kept secret.</p> + +<p>Having got so far in his story, Ruthven Smith decided that the easiest +way of finishing it would be to produce the letter. He did so (a +typewritten sheet of plain creamy paper, in an envelope post-marked +"West Hampstead"), and simplified things for himself by pointing to the +last sentence.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Mrs. Nelson Smith always wears a thin gold chain round her neck, which +she lets drop to her shoulders for evening dress. What precious thing +which has to be hidden hangs on that chain? Mr. Ruthven Smith is +advised to find out.</p></div> + +<p>"I see now," the unfortunate man excused himself, "that someone has been +taking advantage of my anxiety about the losses of my firm to play a +cruel practical joke on me. I can't help thinking, at the same time, +that the person must have had a grudge against you and your wife also."</p> + +<p>"Or else a desire to make mischief between you and us," was Knight's calm +suggestion.</p> + +<p>Ruthven Smith caught it up, eagerly. "Ah, that possibility hadn't +occurred to me."</p> + +<p>"I suppose we all have enemies." Knight pursued the subject without +excitement. "The writer probably wished to put the idea in your head that +I had deliberately bought an historic diamond which I knew to be stolen."</p> + +<p>"But that would have been ridiculous!" exclaimed the jewel expert, and +felt sincere in making his protest.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, he had glanced at Annesley's face while talking of the +Malindore diamond to Lady Cartwright. It had been on the edge of his mind +that, if she looked self-conscious, it would be a point against her and +her husband. Also he had determined to make his daring attempt at +discovery before she had time to get rid of the diamond if she were +hiding it. Now, however, in the light of her shining innocence, he had +almost forgotten that he had suspected an underhand design on her part.</p> + +<p>He asked Nelson Smith if he could think of any one, man or woman, among +his acquaintances capable of writing the anonymous letter. Nelson Smith +replied that his brain was a blank, and that he hardly thought it worth +while to follow the matter up, unless Ruthven Smith wished to do so. In +that case they might put the affair in the hands of the police.</p> + +<p>But the elder man was of the younger's opinion. He had made a fool of +himself, and was ashamed that he had attached importance to an unsigned +communication. All he desired was to let the unpleasant business drop.</p> + +<p>This being settled, Knight, in whose hand was the typewritten letter, +tossed the thing into the fireplace of the library, where the two had +been talking. When he and Ruthven Smith had shaken hands and agreed to +forget the whole incident the latter was glad to escape from the +interview. He went to his room and lay down, to soothe his nerves and +think of an excuse to return to London early on Monday morning.</p> + +<p>As soon as his meagre back was turned Knight stooped and retrieved the +letter in its envelope, unscorched, from the fireplace. There was nothing +about it—not even a tell-tale perfume—to give any clue to the writer.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, Knight considered it of value. He intended to use it as a +bluff to frighten the Countess de Santiago, for only through her own fear +could he prove her treachery.</p> + +<p>Most of the guests at Valley House went to church, to give thanks for +the fairy-like Easter eggs they had received. Annesley had a headache, +however, and no one was surprised that her husband should choose to stop +at home to look after her.</p> + +<p>His adoring devotion for the girl was no secret. People laughed at it, +but admired it, too, and some women envied Annesley. They imagined him +spending the morning with his wife, but as a matter of fact he did not +go near her. He feared to speak lest she might change her decision and +refuse to travel to America with him.</p> + +<p>His one hope—a desperate hope—lay in her going. He decided not to see +her alone again until Monday evening, after the arrival of the cable from +America.</p> + +<p>In order to insure the coming of this message, and to make it realistic, +he motored into Torquay and sent a long telegram, partly in cipher. +Returning, he had a conversation with Charrington, the butler, and Char, +the chauffeur, a conversation which left the brothers grave and subdued. +Later Char went off in the car again, though it poured with rain, and was +gone until late at night.</p> + +<p>Between twelve and one o'clock Knight, strolling toward the garage, heard +the automobile return, and stopped in the blaze of the acetylene for the +motor to slow down.</p> + +<p>"Is it all right?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>"It's all right," Char answered, somewhat sullenly, yet with a certain +reluctant respect. "Nothing will happen here Monday night."</p> + +<p>"Good!" his master answered, and smiled at the thought of Madalena's +malicious prophecy which would not be fulfilled. It was not a pleasant +smile, yet, as he had said to Annesley, he planned no revenge against +the tigress—the woman whose claws had ripped his heart open.</p> + +<p>Tigress or no, she was a woman, and he knew that, as far as she was +capable of caring, she had cared for him.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it had been partly his fault. She was handsome, and had been +years younger when he had met her first. She was married then to an old +man, jealous and suspicious, knowing that his money had won the beautiful +wild creature for him. It was at Buenos Aires, and the husband had found +Madalena out in an intrigue; partly political, partly mercenary, and +partly passionate. He had turned her from his house without a penny, and +Knight—not personally concerned in the intrigue, but interested—had +been flush enough at the time to lend her a thousand dollars, enough to +go away with. It had been called a loan, but he had not expected to get +the money back, and never did get it.</p> + +<p>In California she had set herself up as a palmist and had become +successful, a success she duplicated in New York; and she had gladly made +herself useful in many ways to "Don" and those with whom he "worked."</p> + +<p>One way was to find out the number and worth of her rich clients' jewels, +and where they were kept. Through her crystal gazing she was able to +conjure women's secrets without their realizing that they, not she, gave +them to the light. And aboard the <i>Monarchic</i> was not by any means the +first time that Madalena had been invaluable in diverting suspicion +by throwing it upon the wrong track.</p> + +<p>Knight had consulted her, praised her, and flattered her from time to +time. Now he told himself that he was paying for his thoughtlessness. +He had taken Madalena for granted, regarding her as a machine rather +than a woman; and though he owed to her the loss of his happiness, that +happiness had been undeserved and, as he expressed it to himself, walking +the wet paths at midnight, he had "stood to lose it anyhow."</p> + +<p>He would frighten Madalena so that she would never dare to try her tricks +again, and he would let her understand that because of what she had done +their partnership had come to an end once and forever. Otherwise she +should feel herself safe from him.</p> + +<p>Bad he might be, and was, as he knew; but he didn't think it was in his +make-up, somehow, to strike a woman.</p> + +<p>He did not go back to the house, after his short talk with Char, until +after he had heard the stable clock strike four. It was easier to think +and see things clearly out of doors than in his room adjoining +Annesley's—that closed room, forbidden to him now, where she was perhaps +crying, and surely hating him. As for the long nightmare day he had lived +through, it had been too full for much deliberate thinking; and he wanted +to plan for the future: how to begin again, and how to keep the woman who +had come to mean more for him than anything else had ever meant—more, he +knew, than anything else could mean.</p> + +<p>He was not sure whether the love in his heart was a punishment or a +blessing, but there it was. It had come to stay.</p> + +<p>"This woman to this man!"</p> + +<p>He found himself repeating the words he remembered best in the marriage +service, not bitterly as he had repeated them to Annesley, but +yearningly, clingingly, groping after some promise of hope in them.</p> + +<p>"She gave herself to me. I'm the same man she loved, after all, though +she says I'm not," he told himself. "God! What's the good of being a man +at all, if I can't get her back?"</p> + +<p>As he wandered through one winter-saddened garden after another—the +Italian garden, the Dutch garden, the rose garden—he searched his soul, +asking it how much more he should have to tell the girl about his past. +In a kind of desperate resignation he persuaded himself that there was +nothing he would not be willing to tell her now, if it were for her good, +and if she wished to hear.</p> + +<p>But something within him said that she would wish to hear no more. She +would deign to put no questions to him, even if she felt curiosity. She +would doubtless refuse to listen if he volunteered a further confession. +He was instinctively sure of his ground there; and in his bitterness of +spirit there was a faint gleam of comfort; certain details of his +degradation (she would think it that) might be kept decently hidden.</p> + +<p>For instance, he would not have to tell her how, as a boy in Chicago, he +had learned to make strange use of those clever, nervous hands of his, +which she had lovingly praised as "sensitive and artistic." He could +almost see the girl shudder and grow pale at hearing how proud he had +been at sixteen of being admitted to friendship with a "swell mobsman" +fascinating as any "Raffles" of fiction; how it had amused the fellow to +teach him a deft and delicate touch, beginning his lessons with the game +of jack-straws, in which he was given prizes if he could separate the +whole stack, one straw from another, without disturbing the balance of +the pile.</p> + +<p>It would gain him no credit in Annesley's eyes if he should assure her +that, though he knew how to pick pockets—none better—he had somehow +never cared to put his skill in practice, but had always preferred, +leaving that part of the industry to others. No excuse could help him +with her, and he was glad she need not know all the ways in which he had +served the eccentric friend and employer with whose interests he had been +associated more or less since his twenty-fifth year.</p> + +<p>How disgusting would seem to Anita the inside history of the <i>Monarchic</i> +episode, upon which he had rather prided himself until love for her had +begun making subtle changes in his view of life. He and old Paul Van +Vreck had laughed together at the patent lock on which the agent +depended—a lock invented by the retired member of the firm himself, +and followed by a second invention, even more clever: a little instrument +designed to open a door in spite of it.</p> + +<p>There had been the drug, too, which leaving no odour behind, had the same +effect as chloroform, and "took" even more quickly. Paul Van Vreck had +read of certain experiments made by a professor of chemistry in Tours, +had gone to France to see the man, had bought the formula, which had not +yet proved itself entirely successful; had added an ingredient on his own +account, and triumphed.</p> + +<p>These parts of the complicated and well-fitting scheme had seemed +deliciously amusing to Knight in those days; that Van Vreck should use +his secret skill against his own brothers and nephews in the business +he had made; that the great expert should add to his fortune by stealing +from his own firm, or rather, from the great insurance company who would +repay their losses; that in such ways, with such money, he could add +treasures to his famous collection, practically at no expense to himself, +and have besides the exquisite pleasure of laughing in his sleeve at the +world.</p> + +<p>It had all added zest to the work. And Knight had been pleased with some +small inventions of his own, praised by Van Vreck: a smart hiding-place +in the heel of a boot, almost impossible to detect, and another equally +convenient and invisible in the jet standard of Madalena de Santiago's +famous crystal. He had enjoyed the excitement when he and Madalena and +their two assistants, among the other passengers on board ship, had +consented to be searched for the missing jewels. And he had laughed +sneeringly at the credulity of those who believed in Madalena's +trumped-up vision "of the small fair man," the lighted life-preserver +dropped into the sea at night, and the yacht which sent out a boat to +pick it up.</p> + +<p>For that other vision her crystal had supplied after the robbery in +Portman Square he was not responsible; but it was he who had suggested +the "pictures" for her to see on shipboard.</p> + +<p>He hated the recollection now. Even Annesley could not think it more +contemptible than he did.</p> + +<p>Still worse was the remembrance of Mrs. Ellsworth's latchkey, the keeping +of which had been accidental at first. Afterward he had gaily regarded +its possession as a gift from Providence. The way to Ruthven Smith's +house was made clear by it; and better still, through it the dragon could +be punished for years of cruelty to the captive princess. "Char" had been +the man to whom fell the honour of bestowing the punishment, and leaving +a missive from the princess's rescuer.</p> + +<p>Knight writhed in spirit as he wondered whether the princess guessed the +fate of the key.</p> + +<p>He wondered also if she asked herself what part he had had in the +disappearance of the Valley House heirlooms. She would loathe him more +intensely, if possible, could she know how her presence with him on that +public "show day" had helped to cloak with respectability his secret +mission. How mean he had been in distracting her attention from the two +Fragonards and from the cabinets containing the miniatures and the carved +Chinese gods of jade while he "marked" the prizes for the eyes of his two +assistants. How unsuspicious and happy the girl had been, trusting him +utterly, while behind her back he manipulated the diamond—the useful +diamond—he always carried for such purposes!</p> + +<p>Even then he had the grace to be ashamed of himself for disloyalty, +though not for dishonesty, as deftly the diamond cut the glass faces of +the cabinets directly opposite the miniatures and the Buddha meant to +enrich Paul Van Vreck's secret collection. He had been glad to hurry his +wife away, and let the eager pair of "tourists" crowding on his heels +finish the work he had begun.</p> + +<p>It seemed to Knight, as his thoughts travelled heavily along the past, +that no other woman but Annesley Grayle, this fragile white rose that +had freely given its sweetness, could have turned him from the vow of +vengeance for his parents' fate which as a boy he had sworn against the +world. Day by day, week by week, month by month, the fragrance of the +white rose had so changed him that looking back at himself, he saw a +stranger.</p> + +<p>Had it not been for certain engagements made with Paul Van Vreck and +others—engagements which had to be kept because there is honour among +thieves—that "den" of his in Portman Square would long ago have been +shut to his "at home" day visitors. No more "business" would have been +done on those or any premises; this party of Easter guests would not have +been invited to Valley House; and the Malindore diamond, sleeping away +its secret on Annesley's breast, would still be guarding his secret, too.</p> + +<p>While the others were at church she had sent him the diamond by +Parker—the blue diamond, and the rose sapphire; her engagement ring +also; the pearls he had given her the day before their marriage, and all +his other gifts (except the wedding ring), which had not been stolen on +the night when the Annesley-Setons' silver went.</p> + +<p>It had been a blow to open the box brought to his room by the maid +without a word of explanation—no lighter because it was deserved. It was +only less severe than had the wedding ring been with the rest.</p> + +<p>And perhaps, Knight reflected, it would have been there had Annesley +known of another trick played upon her: those cleverly "reconstructed" +pearls, gleaming ropes of them, and paste diamonds added to her +collection only for the purpose of disappearing in the "burglary." A +hateful trick, but he had believed it necessary at the time, while +despising it.</p> + +<p>Well, he was punished for everything at last—everything vile he had done +and thought in his whole life; even those things the White Rose did not +know!</p> + +<p>He was young still, but he felt old—old in sin and old in hopelessness; +for youth cannot exist in a heart deprived of hope. It seemed to Knight +that his heart had been deprived of hope for years, yet suddenly he +recalled the fact that a few moments before—up to the time when he had +begun counting his sins one by one, like the devil's rosary—he had been +thinking with something akin to hope of the future.</p> + +<p>"What if, after all——" he began to ask himself.</p> + +<p>But stumbling unseeingly from avenue to path, and path to lawn, he had +wandered near the house.</p> + +<p>By what seemed to him a strange coincidence he had come to a standstill +almost on the spot where he had stood last night when Annesley, at her +window, called him in.</p> + +<p>She had loved him then! She had called him in to be forgiven. But her +forgiveness, divine as it was, white and wide-winged as the flight of a +dove—had not been wide enough to cover his guilt.</p> + +<p>What a ghastly difference between last night and this! It was right that +the face of the moon, so bright then, should be veiled with ragged black +clouds. And yet, what if——</p> + +<p>The man's eyes strained through the darkness of that dark hour before the +dawn.</p> + +<p>"If her window is uncurtained, I'll take it as a good omen," he said.</p> + +<p>Noiselessly his feet trod the short, wet grass, going nearer to the +shadowed loggia to make sure....</p> + +<p>The curtains were drawn closely, and the window was shut.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2> + +<h3>DESTINY AND THE WALDOS</h3> + +<p>After the cablegram came, calling them to America, it took the Nelson +Smiths an incredibly short time to wind up their affairs and to break +the ties—many and intricate as the clinging tendrils of a vine—which +attached them to England.</p> + +<p>Of course, as their friends pointed out, it wasn't as if they had +had a home of their own. Luckily for them—unluckily for the +Annesley-Setons—they had taken the Portman Square house only month +by month. And in Devonshire they had been but paying—dearly +paying!—guests, as the world surmised.</p> + +<p>Everyone protested that they would be dreadfully missed, and begged to +know their plans, and whether Mr. Nelson Smith's business on the other +side (something to do with mines, wasn't it?) would not be finished, so +that they might come back in time for Henley and Cowes?</p> + +<p>But the American millionaire's answers were vague. He couldn't tell. He +could only hope. And his manner, unflatteringly, was indifferent. It was +Mrs. Nelson Smith who seemed depressed; "a changed girl," Constance said, +"from the moment that cable message arrived at Valley House."</p> + +<p>Connie thought, and mentioned her thought to others: very likely the +truth was that Nelson Smith had lost money. In contradiction to this +theory he was known to have given generously to charities just before +starting; not those queer, new-fangled societies he had tried to bolster +up while he was in London, but hospitals and orphan asylums, and +organizations of that sort which opened their mouths wide.</p> + +<p>Still, nobody could say for a certainty how much he gave, and it was +argued that Lady Annesley-Seton was sure to know more than most people +about Nelson Smith's private affairs. The story of possible money losses +ran about and grew rapidly, healing regrets for his absence. Soon the +pair dropped out of their late friends' conversation as a subject of +living interest.</p> + +<p>It was much the same with the Countess de Santiago. Whether her plans +were affected by those of the Nelson Smiths, nobody knew; and she said +that they were not. But about the time that their departure for America +was decided upon, Madalena had a sharp illness. It was, she wrote +Constance (who made inquiries, fearing something contagious), an unusual +form of neuralgia, from which she had suffered before. The only doctor +who had ever been able to relieve her pain lived in San Francisco, and +in San Francisco she must seek him.</p> + +<p>She had at first an idea of sailing on the same ship with the Nelson +Smiths; but for a reason which she did not explain, she changed her mind +the day after making it up, and engaged a cabin on a boat which started a +week earlier.</p> + +<p>She was missed, also, for a while. But then it was remembered that the +crystal visions had been mysteriously more favourable for those who +included the Countess in their nicest parties than for those who asked +her to their second best. Little malicious digs which she had given were +recalled, and those who had thought her wonderful when in their midst +began to doubt her powers.</p> + +<p>"Rather theatrical, don't you think?" said the Duchess of Peebles. "It's +more satisfactory to go to a woman you can pay with money and not +invitations."</p> + +<p>So Madalena was not mourned for long; and the Annesley-Setons were +fortunate enough to replace their lost American millionaire with one from +Australia. He was old, and his wife was fat; but you can't have +everything.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The Nelson Smiths took passage not on one of the great floating palaces +patronized by millionaires, but on an obscure, cheap little ship, which +bore out the gossip about the man's losses. As a matter of fact, however, +they chose that way of going by Annesley's desire. It would have been +Knight's way to vanish in a blaze of glory, as the setting sun plunges +behind the horizon after a gorgeous day.</p> + +<p>"I want to go on a ship," she said, "which none of the people we know +have ever heard of. I couldn't bear to come across anyone I ever met +before."</p> + +<p>But, as it turned out, she was forced to bear what she had thought +unbearable. At the top of the gangway as she went on board, a slightly +shrill voice called out, "Why, how <i>do</i> you do! Who would ever have +thought of meeting you two expensive creatures on board <i>this</i> tub?"</p> + +<p>With a sinking heart Annesley recognized a Mrs. Waldo, an American woman +(there was a husband in attendance) whom she and Knight had met during +their honeymoon at the Knowle Hotel. The pair had been so friendly and +kind that the Nelson Smiths had asked them to Portman Square more than +once during the three gay months which followed.</p> + +<p>But it was cruel, thought Annesley, that fate should bring them together +again now, just when she and the man she had married were at the parting +of the ways.</p> + +<p>Little had the girl dreamed when she first conceived a mild fancy for the +pretty, smiling woman and her silent, humorous husband, that the pair +were destined to decide her future—decide it in a way precisely opposite +to that in which she had decided it herself. But so it was to be.</p> + +<p>Mr. and Mrs. Waldo were returning to New York in its waning season +because the decorating of a house they had bought was just completed. +They begged Annesley and Knight to be their first visitors, and the +invitation was given so unexpectedly that Annesley, taken unawares, found +herself at a loss.</p> + +<p>"But I—I mean my husband—is going straight to Texas," she stammered.</p> + +<p>"All the more reason, if he has to run off so far on business, and leaves +you in New York, that you should stay with us, instead of in a hotel," +argued Mrs. Waldo.</p> + +<p>Annesley blushed, and for the first time since Easter eve looked for help +to Knight. But he was silent, and she blundered on, not daring to pause +lest the firm-willed little lady should seal her to a promise in spite of +herself.</p> + +<p>"You're very kind, and it would be delightful," she hurried along, "but I +didn't mean that I was to stop in New York. I——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, you are going together!" Mrs. Waldo caught her up. "I didn't +understand. Well, I'm sorry for our sakes. But couldn't you spare us two +or three days before you start?"</p> + +<p>"I—am afraid we must wait for another time," said Annesley. "My husband +has business. He can't waste a day——"</p> + +<p>"Surely you won't turn your back on New York the day you arrive, the +first time you've ever seen it!" cried the New York woman. "Why, it's +sacrilege! You must stay with us one night. If you could see the +<i>darling</i> new room we'll put you in: old rose and pearl gray, and Cupids +holding up the bed curtains!"</p> + +<p>In desperation the girl stuck to her point, no longer daring to look at +Knight.</p> + +<p>"Indeed we mustn't stay, even for one night. If there's a train the same +afternoon——"</p> + +<p>"There's a lovely train," Mrs. Waldo admitted, unable to resist praising +the American railway system. "We call it the 'Limited.' You can have a +beautiful stateroom, and run right through to Chicago without changing. +If they must go, we'll see them off, won't we, Steve?" with a glance for +the silent husband, "and bring them books and chocolates and flowers?"</p> + +<p>What was left for Annesley to say? Short of informing the kindly couple +that they were not wanted and had better mind their own business, and +refusing to decide upon a train, she could do nothing except thank Mrs. +Waldo.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," she thought, "they will forget, and things will settle +themselves between now and then. Or else I shall patch up some excuse."</p> + +<p>When the invitation was given, the <i>Minnewanda</i> was still four days +distant from New York; but the four days, though seeming long, were not +long enough to produce the prayed-for inspiration. Mrs. Waldo referred to +the journey whenever she saw Annesley, so there was no hope of her scheme +being forgotten; and the nearer loomed the new world, the more clearly +the girl was forced to see the thing to which a few hasty words had +committed her.</p> + +<p>She and Knight had staterooms adjoining, with a door between. That was to +save appearances, and it was no one's business that the door was never +opened. In reality, they might as well have had the length of the ship +between their cabins.</p> + +<p>Annesley kept to her own quarters as constantly as her jangled nerves +would allow; but the sea was provokingly smooth, and she proved to be a +good sailor. She felt as if she might become hysterical, and perhaps do +something foolish, if she tried the experiment of shutting herself up +from morning to night. She paced the deck, therefore, and was dimly +grateful to Knight because he seemed always to be in the smoking room +when she took her walks.</p> + +<p>At meals, however, unless she ate in her stateroom, they could not avoid +each other; and again she felt cause for gratitude because Knight had +accepted the Waldos' suggestion that they should take a table for four. +In spite of the Waldos' unwelcome attentions, their society was +preferable—infinitely preferable—to a duet with Knight.</p> + +<p>They talked on such occasions; and the sharpest-eared scandal mongers +could have guessed at nothing strange from their manner. But, save at +these luncheons and these dinners, they scarcely spoke to each other.</p> + +<p>Knight took his cue from Annesley. After the night when he had knelt at +her feet and begged her forgiveness he had never forced himself upon his +wife. He seemed to have a dread of being thought an intruder, and even +withdrew his eyes guiltily if the girl caught him looking at her with the +old wistful gaze to whose mystery she had now a tragic clue.</p> + +<p>Annesley hoped that, before they landed, Knight might make some +opportunity to discuss ways and means of getting out of the dilemma +created by the Waldos. But he never attempted to begin a conversation +with her, and she put off the evil moment from day to day, telling +herself that there was time yet, and he had probably solved the +problem—he, who was a specialist in solving problems.</p> + +<p>Loving the man no longer, her heart seeming to die anew whenever she even +thought of him, there remained still a ghost of her old trust; an almost +resentful confidence that he who was so clever, so hideously clever, +would be capable of overcoming any difficulty.</p> + +<p>"I told him that I'd go with him on the ship, and that then we must +part," she assured herself, lying awake at night, wondering feverishly +what was to happen in New York. "He said we'd see about all that later, +but he must know by the way I act that I haven't changed my mind. He will +have to get me out of the trouble about the train."</p> + +<p>The girl, in mapping the future, had thought of herself as being a +governess for American children. She did not know many things which +governesses ought to know, but if the children were small enough, she +did not see why she mightn't do very well.</p> + +<p>She could sing and play as nine girls out of ten could. She had been told +that she had quite a Parisian accent in French; and as for arithmetic and +geography and other alarming things which children ought to know and +grown-up people forget, one could teach them with the proper books.</p> + +<p>Besides, she had heard that Americans liked to have English governesses +for their children; it was considered "smart."</p> + +<p>She would go to an agent, and it ought to be easy to find a place in the +country or suburbs. It must not be New York, for fear of some chance +meeting with the Waldos. But if worst came to worst, and because of those +everlasting Waldos she had to get into the train with Knight, she would +get out again at the first good-sized place where it stopped. There must +be agencies for governesses and companions in every large town. One would +serve as well as another.</p> + +<p>As for money, she knew that she must have some to go on with until she +could begin to earn. So far she had been forced to let Knight pay her +way, as he said, out of the "good" fund. Her coming with him had been for +his sake, and to spare him from gossip. For herself, she was in no mood +to care what people said.</p> + +<p>But now, in sailing to America as his wife, she had done all that she had +ever promised to do. He would have to arrange things as best he could.</p> + +<p>Somehow the right time did not come to ask him what he intended to do; +for at the table, or if occasionally they were on deck together, they +were never alone.</p> + +<p>The ship docked late in the morning, and Knight was busy with the +custom-house men. It was noon when their luggage had been examined and +could be sent away; and the Waldos, under letter "W," were released at +the same moment that the Nelson Smiths, under "S," were able to escape.</p> + +<p>"Let's have lunch at the dear old Waldorf, our pet place and almost +namesake," proposed Mrs. Waldo. "You <i>owe</i> us that, after all the times +you entertained us in London; and you really see New York in the +restaurant. You've nothing to do till your train goes this afternoon, +and your husband can get your reservations right there in the hotel."</p> + +<p>Annesley's eyes went doubtfully to Knight's, and met a steady look which +seemed to say that he had made up his mind to some course.</p> + +<p>"Very well, we shall be delighted," she said, resignedly. "Shall we meet +at the—Waldorf—is it?—at luncheon time?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>my</i>, no!" exclaimed the older woman, radiant in the joy of +home coming. "It'll be lunch time in an hour. You <i>must</i> taxi up to +Sixty-first Street with us, and just <i>glance</i> at the house, or we shall +be <i>so</i> hurt. Then we'll spin you down to the hotel again in no time. I +wish we could feed you at home, but nothing will be in shape there till +to-night."</p> + +<p>There was still no chance for Annesley to ask Knight the long-delayed +question. They saw and duly admired the Waldos' house, and took another +taxi to the hotel, the Nelson Smiths' luggage having been "expressed" +to the Grand Central, to await them. Steve Waldo tried to engage his +favourite table, and Mrs. Waldo suggested that it would be a good moment +to get the reservations.</p> + +<p>Again Annesley's startled glance turned to Knight. Again his eyes +answered with decision. This time there was no longer any doubt in the +girl's mind. The Waldos, persistent to the last, would compel her to +leave New York with her husband.</p> + +<p>But whatever happened she would part with him forever before darkness +fell. "At the first big town," she told herself once more.</p> + +<p>They were at the desired table, which Steve had secured, when Knight +rejoined them, announcing that he had his tickets.</p> + +<p>"I hope you were able to get a nice stateroom?" fussed Mrs. Waldo. "Such +a <i>long</i> journey, and Mrs. Smith's first day in our country!"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Everything satisfactory," said Knight, in the calm way which +Annesley had once admired.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Waldo would have asked more questions if at that moment her eyes had +not lighted upon a couple at an adjacent table.</p> + +<p>"<i>Well</i>, of all <i>things</i>!" she cried, jumping up to meet a pretty girl +and a spruce young man, who had also jumped up. "George and Kitty Mason! +What a coincidence!"</p> + +<p>There were kissings and handshakings. Then Mr. and Mrs. Mason were +introduced to Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith. They, it seemed, had been +married in the early winter, just as Knight and Annesley had been. And +to add to the strangeness of the coincidence, which drew birdlike +exclamations from Jean Waldo, George and Kitty were starting for Kansas +City that afternoon. They were going by the same train in which the +Nelson Smiths would travel.</p> + +<p>"Why, you'll be together for <i>two days</i>!" shrieked Jean. "For goodness' +sake, look at your reservations, and see if you're in the same car!"</p> + +<p>George Mason pulled out his tickets. "We're in a boudoir car all the +way," he said. "We start in one called 'Elena.' After Chicago we're in +'Alvarado.'" Knight followed suit, not ungraciously, though without +enthusiasm. Annesley's heart was tapping like a hammer in her breast. She +felt giddy. There was a mist before her eyes; yet she saw clearly enough +to see that there were two railway tickets, alike in every way, even to +what seemed their extraordinary length. A flashing glance gave her the +name of the last station, at the end. It was in Texas.</p> + +<p>And their two staterooms were also in "Elena" and "Alvarado."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> + +<h3>THE THIN WALL</h3> + + +<p>"How <i>dared</i> he buy a ticket for me all the way to Texas!" Annesley asked +herself. "But I might have known how it would be," she thought. "Why +expect a man like him to keep a promise?"</p> + +<p>Yet she <i>had</i> expected it. She constantly found herself expecting to find +truth and greatness in the man who was a thief—who had been a thief for +half his life. It was strange. But everything about him was strange; and +stranger than the rest was his silent power over all who came near him, +even over herself, who knew now what he was. It would have seemed that +after his confession there would be no further room for disappointment +concerning his character; yet she was disappointed that his "plan," on +which she had been counting, had been nothing more original than to break +his word and "see what she would do."</p> + +<p>After luncheon, when the Waldos and Masons became absorbed for a few +minutes in talk, she turned a look on her husband. "I saw the tickets," +she said.</p> + +<p>"Did you?" he returned, pretending—as she thought—not to understand.</p> + +<p>"You bought one for me to Texas."</p> + +<p>"Of course. Did you think I wouldn't? That would have been poor economy +in the game we've been playing."</p> + +<p>It was her turn to show that she was puzzled. "What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"You never cared to talk things over. I saw you didn't want to, so I +didn't press. And when this complication about the Waldos came up, I +thought—perhaps I was mistaken—that you—trusted me to do the best +I could."</p> + +<p>"Yes. That's why I expected you not to get me a ticket to Texas."</p> + +<p>"How far <i>did</i> you expect me to get it?"</p> + +<p>"I—don't know."</p> + +<p>"That's just it. Neither did I know. I got the whole ticket, so you might +choose your stopping-place."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" Annesley was ashamed, though she was sure she had no need to be. +"That was why!"</p> + +<p>"That was why. Things being as they are, it was well I had your ticket to +show with mine, wasn't it?"</p> + +<p>"I—suppose so. But—what am I to do?"</p> + +<p>"We'll talk of that in the train. There won't be time before, because of +these people, and because I must leave you for two hours before the train +goes."</p> + +<p>"Leave me!" Annesley echoed the words blankly, then hoped that he had not +noticed the dismay in her tone.</p> + +<p>"You will be all right with the Waldos and their friends. I'll explain to +them. There's no time to lose. I must go off at once."</p> + +<p>Annesley was pricked with curiosity to know why and where he must go. She +would not ask. But while he was away and she was being whirled through +the park and along Riverside Drive at lightning speed, "to see New York +in a hurry," her thoughts were with her husband, imagining fantastic +things.</p> + +<p>"My mind is like a ghost," she thought, bitterly, "haunting what once it +loved. It seems doomed to follow wherever he goes, whatever he does. But +it will be different when we're parted. I shall escape in soul and body. +I shall have my own life to live."</p> + +<p>"That wonderful Italian house," Mrs. Waldo was saying, as the taxi slowed +down for one of her lectures, "is Paul Van Vreck's New York home. They +say it's a museum from garret to cellar (not that there <i>is</i> a garret!), +and I believe it's a copy of some palazzo in Venice. It's shut up now; +perhaps he's in Florida, or Egypt, where he—but look, somebody's coming +out—why, Mrs. Nelson Smith, it's your <i>husband</i>! Shall we stop——"</p> + +<p>"No, let's drive on," Annesley begged, anxiously. "My husband knows Mr. +Van Vreck. They have business together. He won't want us."</p> + +<p>The taxi was allowed to go on to the next place of interest. Annesley had +flung herself back in the seat, but she was not sure that Knight hadn't +seen her. She knew what powers of observation his quiet almost lazy +manner could hide.</p> + +<p>This chance meeting took place on the way to the Grand Central Station, +where they met the Masons, and were joined almost at the last moment by +Knight, just as Annesley had begun to wonder if, after all, he were not +coming.</p> + +<p>He was as calm as though there were no haste, and said he had been +delayed in collecting the luggage from the ship. He had a good deal to +say about that luggage; and what with thanks to the Waldos for books and +flowers and chocolates, and their kindness to Annesley, Mrs. Waldo (with +the best intentions) found no chance to mention Paul Van Vreck.</p> + +<p>Annesley had not meant to refer to him, though seeing Knight come out of +his shut-up house had given her a shivering sense of mystery; but when +the train had started, Knight came to the door of her stateroom.</p> + +<p>"There are one or two things I should like to speak to you about, if you +don't mind," he said, in the kind yet distant manner which had replaced +the old lover-like way when they were alone together.</p> + +<p>"Come in," she replied, and added, lowering her voice: "Mr. and Mrs. +Mason are next door."</p> + +<p>"They are too much in love to be thinking about us, or listening," he +answered; and Annesley imagined a ring of bitterness in his tone. "I've +come to talk over plans, but before we begin I want to explain something. +Once you made a guess in connection with Paul Van Vreck. Probably you +think that what you saw confirms it. Of course, the Waldos were telling +you whose house it was; and as luck would have it, I came out at that +instant.</p> + +<p>"Whether there was anything in your guess or not doesn't matter. You're +too sensible to mention it to any one except me. But I can't have you +torturing yourself with the idea that such dealings as you imagine with +Van Vreck are still going on, if they ever did go on. Because I have +faith in your discretion, and because I owe it to you, I'm going to +explain why I went to Van Vreck's house this afternoon—why I was obliged +to go. I knew he would have got back from Florida. I hear from him +sometimes, and I had to tell him that any business I'd ever done for him +was done for the last time, because—I was going to settle down to ranch +life in Texas.</p> + +<p>"Also I handed to him the Malindore diamond. His firm lost it. His firm +has by this time been paid the insurance. It's up to him how to dispose +of the property.</p> + +<p>"That's all I have to say about Van Vreck. I thought in fairness you +ought to know that I didn't keep the diamond. And I thought I might tell +you that my call at Van Vreck's didn't mean entering any new deal."</p> + +<p>"Thank you," Annesley said, stiffly. "I am glad."</p> + +<p>She <i>was</i> glad, yet she wished the man to understand how impersonal was +her gladness; how impossible it was that any atonement could bring them +together again in spirit; how dead was the past which he had slain. And +he did understand as clearly from her few words as if she had preached +him an hour's sermon.</p> + +<p>"Now, for what you are to do," he went on, crisply. "Although you and I +never discussed the situation on board ship, I realized what the Waldos +were letting you in for. I supposed you'd feel that your staying in New +York was out of the question. I bought our tickets to Texas. At the same +time I got a map and a guide-book which gives information about places on +the way and beyond.</p> + +<p>"The Masons being on the train to Kansas City was a new complication. +But it wasn't my fault. And it only means that the game of keeping up +appearances must be played a little farther.</p> + +<p>"Would you like to go to California? If you want to take back your maiden +name and be Miss Grayle—or if you care to have a new name to begin a new +life with, a quite respectable fellow called Michael Donaldson could +introduce you to a few influential people in Los Angeles. No danger of +meeting Madalena de Santiago there, though it's only a day's journey +from San Francisco, where she's very likely arrived by this time. She +has reasons for not liking Los Angeles. In her early days she had +some—er-financial troubles there, and she wouldn't enjoy being reminded +of them."</p> + +<p>"Is Los Angeles farther than El Paso?" Annesley inquired, keeping her +voice steady, though there was a sickly chill in her heart.</p> + +<p>"A good way farther," Knight went on, in the same businesslike tone which +separated him thousands of miles from the Knight she used to know. "Here, +I'll show you how the land lies."</p> + +<p>Opening a map of a western railroad, he drew a little closer to her on +the seat, and pointed out place after place along the black line; told +her when they would arrive at Kansas City, and how they would go on +without change to Albuquerque.</p> + +<p>There, he said, he must take another train for El Paso, and from El Paso +he must go a distance of twenty miles to the ranch, which lay close to +the border of Mexico, on the Rio Grande.</p> + +<p>"But you," he said, quietly, "you can keep straight along in the train +we'll get into at Chicago till you come to Los Angeles. There'll be time +in Chicago to buy your ticket to California, and I can write letters of +introduction. They'll be to good people. You needn't be afraid."</p> + +<p>Yet Annesley <i>was</i> afraid, deathly afraid. Not that Knight's friends +would not be "good people," but of going on alone to an unknown place in +an unknown country. It would not have been so terrible, she thought, to +have stayed in New York—if only the Waldos hadn't interfered. But to +have this man—who, after all, was her one link with the old world—get +out of the train which was hurling them through space and leave her to go +on alone!</p> + +<p>That was a fearful thing. She could not face the thought—at least not +yet. Perhaps she would feel more courageous to-morrow. On the ship she +had slept little. Her nerves felt like violin strings stretched too +tight—stretched to the point of breaking.</p> + +<p>"Does that plan suit you—as well as any other?" Knight was asking.</p> + +<p>"I—can't decide yet," the girl answered; and to keep tears back seemed +the most important thing just then. "It doesn't matter, does it, as I +<i>must</i> go on past Kansas City?"</p> + +<p>"No, it doesn't matter," Knight agreed. "You've plenty of time. I suppose +you'd like me to leave you now, to rest till dinner time? Here's the +guide-book. You might care to look it over."</p> + +<p>But when he had gone Annesley let the book lie unopened on the seat. She +was very tired. She could not think far ahead. Her mind would occupy +itself with the features of the journey, not with her own affairs.</p> + +<p>Everything was strange and new. Even the train was wonderful. She had +thought, in the immense station, that the cars looked like a procession +of splendidly built bungalows each painted a different colour and having +brightly polished metal balconies at the end. And inside, the car was +still like a bungalow, or perhaps a houseboat, with neat little panelled +rooms opening all the way down a long aisle.</p> + +<p>The coffee-coloured porter and maid were delightful. They smiled at her +kindly, and when they smiled it seemed sadder than ever not to be happy.</p> + +<p>The Masons' talk at dinner was disconcerting. They took it for granted +that she and Knight were an adoring newly married couple, like +themselves. Annesley was thankful to escape, and to go to bed in her +little panelled room.</p> + +<p>"To-morrow, when I'm rested, things will be easier," she told herself.</p> + +<p>But to-morrow came and she was not rested; for again she had not slept.</p> + +<p>In Chicago there were hours to wait before train time. The Masons +proposed taking a motor-car to see the sights, and lunching together at +a famous Chinese restaurant.</p> + +<p>At a sign from her, Knight consented. It was better to be with the Masons +than with him alone. After luncheon, however, Knight drew her aside.</p> + +<p>"What about Los Angeles?" he inquired. "Have you decided?"</p> + +<p>Annesley felt incapable of deciding anything, and her unhappy face +betrayed her state of mind.</p> + +<p>"If you'd rather think it over longer," he said, "I can buy your ticket +at Albuquerque."</p> + +<p>"Very well," Annesley replied. She did not remember where Albuquerque +was, though Knight had pointed it out on the map; and she did not care +to remember. All she wanted was not to decide then.</p> + +<p>Knight turned away without speaking. But there was a look almost of hope +in his eyes. Things could not be what they had been; yet they were better +than they might be.</p> + +<p>At Kansas City the Masons bade the Nelson Smiths good-bye. And from that +moment the Nelson Smiths ceased to exist. There were no initials on their +luggage.</p> + +<p>The man kept to his own stateroom. Annesley, alone next door, had plenty +of books to read, parting gifts from the Waldos; but the most engrossing +novel ever written could not have held her attention. The landscape +changed kaleidoscopically. She wondered when they would arrive at +Albuquerque, wondered, yet did not want to know.</p> + +<p>"Would you rather go to the dining car alone, or have me take you?" +Knight came to ask.</p> + +<p>"It's better to go together, or people may think it strange," she said. +Even as she spoke she wondered at herself. The Masons having gone, the +other travellers—strangers whom they would not meet again—were not of +much importance. Yet she let her words pass. And at dinner that evening +she forced herself to ask, "Do we get to Albuquerque to-night?"</p> + +<p>"Not till to-morrow forenoon," Knight informed her casually. He feared +for a moment that she might say she could not wait so long before making +up her mind; but she only looked startled, opened her lips as if to +speak, and closed them again.</p> + +<p>Next day there were no more apple orchards and flat or rolling meadow +lands. The train had brought them into another world, a world unlike +anything that Annesley had seen before. At the stations were flat-faced, +half-breed Indians and Mexicans; some poorly clad, others gaily dressed, +with big straw hats painted with flowers, and green leggings laced with +faded gold. In the distance were hills and mountains, and the train ran +through stretches of red desert sprinkled with rough grass, or cleft with +river-beds, where golden sands played over by winds were ruffled into +little waves.</p> + +<p>Toward noon Knight showed himself at the open door of the stateroom.</p> + +<p>"We'll be in Albuquerque before long now," he announced. "That's where I +change, you know, for Texas. The train stops for a while, and I can get +your ticket for Los Angeles. Those letters of introduction I told you +about are ready. I've left a blank for your name. I suppose you've made +up your mind what you want to do?"</p> + +<p>Some people with handbags pushed past, and Knight had to step into the +room to avoid them. The moment, long delayed, was upon her!</p> + +<p>Annesley remembered how she had put off deciding whether or not to sail +for America with Knight. Now a still more formidable decision was before +her and had to be faced. She glanced up at the tall, standing figure. +Knight was not looking at her. His eyes were on the desert landscape +flying past the windows.</p> + +<p>"What I <i>want</i> to do!" she echoed. "There's nothing in this world that +I want to do."</p> + +<p>"Then"—and Knight did not take his eyes from the window—"why not +drift?"</p> + +<p>"Drift?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. To Texas. Oh, I know! I asked you that before, and you said you +wouldn't. But hasn't destiny decided? Would it have sent you these +thousands of miles with me unless it meant you to fight it out on those +lines? You've travelled far enough, side by side with me, to learn that a +man and a woman with only a thin wall between them can be as far apart as +if they were separated by a continent.</p> + +<p>"Now, this minute, you've got to decide. It isn't <i>I</i> who tell you so. +It's fate. Will you go on alone from the place we're coming to, or—will +you try the thin wall?"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> + +<h3>THE ANNIVERSARY</h3> + + +<p>The girl felt as if some great flood were sweeping her off her feet. She +clutched mechanically at anything to save herself. Knight was there. He +stood between her and desolation; but if he had spoken then—if he had +said he wanted her, and begged her to stay, she would have chosen +desolation.</p> + +<p>Instead, he was silent, his eyes not on her, but on the desert.</p> + +<p>"You—swear you will let me live my own life?" she faltered.</p> + +<p>"I swear I will let you live your own life."</p> + +<p>He repeated her words, as he had repeated the words of the clergyman who +had, according to the law of God, given "this woman to this man."</p> + +<p>The train was stopping.</p> + +<p>Annesley knew that she could not go on alone.</p> + +<p>"I will try—Texas," she said in final decision.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Las Cruces Ranch was named, not after the New Mexico town thirty or forty +miles away, but in honour of the Holy Crosses which had rested there one +night, centuries ago, while on a sacred pilgrimage.</p> + +<p>It was a lonely ranch, as far from El Paso in Texas as it was from +the namesake town in New Mexico. Even the nearest village, a huddled +collection of low adobe houses and wooden shacks on the Rio Grande +("Furious River," as the Indians called it), was ten miles distant. Only +the river was near, as the word "near" is used in that land of vast +spaces. At night, if a great wind blew, Annesley fancied she could hear +the voice of the rushing water.</p> + +<p>When she first saw the place where she had bound herself to live, +her heart sank. It seemed that she would not be able to support the +loneliness; for it would be desperately lonely to live there, lacking the +companionship of someone dearly loved. But afterward—afterward she could +no more analyze her feeling for the country than for the man who had +brought her to it.</p> + +<p>Lonely as she was, she was never homesick. Indeed, she had no home to +long for, no one whose love called her back to the old world. And she was +glad that there were no neighbours to come, to call her "Mrs. Donaldson" +and ask questions about England.</p> + +<p>She had nobody except the Mexican servant woman and the cowboys who +stayed with the new rancher when the old one went away.</p> + +<p>Knight had suggested that she should wait in El Paso until he had seen +whether the house was habitable for her, and had made it so, if it were +not already. But Annesley had chosen to begin her new life without delay, +for she was in a mood where hardships seemed of no importance. It was +only when she had to face them in their sordid nakedness that she shrank.</p> + +<p>Yet, after all, what did it matter? If she had stepped into the most +luxurious surroundings she would have been no less unhappy.</p> + +<p>The low house was of adobe, plastered white, but stained and battered +where the walls were not hidden by rank-growing creepers, convolvulus, +and Madeira vines. If the girl had read its description in some book—the +veranda, formed by the steep-sloping roof of the one-story building; the +patio, walled mysteriously in with a high, flower-draped barrier; the +long windows with green shutters—she would have imagined it to be +picturesque.</p> + +<p>But it was not picturesque. It was only shabby and uninviting; at least +that was her impression when she arrived, toward evening, after a long, +jolting drive in a hired motor-car.</p> + +<p>The paintless wooden balustrade and flooring of the veranda were broken. +So also were the faded green shutters. The patio was but a little square +of dust and stringy grass. A few dilapidated chairs stood about, homemade +looking chairs with concave seats of worn cowskin.</p> + +<p>Inside the house there was little furniture, and what there was struck +Annesley as hideous. Nothing was whole. Everything was falling to pieces. +Illustrations cut out of newspapers were pasted on the dirty, whitewashed +walls.</p> + +<p>The slatternly servant, who could speak only "Mex," had got no supper +ready. Knight would let Annesley do nothing, but he deftly helped the +woman to fry some eggs and make coffee. He tried to find dishes which +were not cracked or broken, and could not.</p> + +<p>If he and Annesley had loved each other, or had even been friends, they +would have laughed and enjoyed the adventure. But Annesley had no heart +for laughter. She could only smile a frozen, polite little smile, and say +that it "did not matter. Everything would do very well." She would soon +get used to the place, and learn how to get on.</p> + +<p>When she had to speak to Knight she called him "you." There was no other +name which she could bear to use. He had had too many names in the past!</p> + +<p>As time went on, however, the girl surprised herself by not being able to +hate her home. She found mysteriously lovely colours in the yellow-gray +desert; shadows blue as lupines and purple as Russian violets; high +lights of shimmering, pale gold.</p> + +<p>Spanish bayonets, straight and sharp as enchanted swords which had +magically flowered, lilied the desert stretches, and there were strange +red blossoms like drops of blood clinging to the points of long daggers. +Bird of Paradise plants were there, too, well named for their plumy +splendour of crimson, white, and yellow; and as the spring advanced the +China trees brought memories of English lilacs.</p> + +<p>The air was sweet with the scent of locust blossoms, and along the clear +horizon fantastically formed mountains seemed to float like changing +cloud-shapes.</p> + +<p>The cattle, which Knight had bought from the departing rancher, had their +corrals and scanty pastures far from the house, but the cowboys' quarters +were near, and Annesley never tired of seeing the laughing young men +mount and ride their slim, nervous horses.</p> + +<p>This fact they got to know, and performed incredible antics to excite her +admiration. They thought her beautiful, and wondered if she had lost +someone whom she loved, that she should look so cold and sad.</p> + +<p>These men, though she seldom spoke to any, were a comfort to Annesley. +Without their shouts and rough jokes and laughter the place would have +been gloomy as a grave.</p> + +<p>There was a colony of prairie dogs which she could visit by taking a long +walk, and they, too, were comforting. It was Knight who told her of the +creatures and where to seek them; but he did not show her the way.</p> + +<p>If things had been well between them, the man's anxiety to please her +would have been adorable to Annesley. As soon as he saw the deficiencies +of the house, he went himself to El Paso to choose furniture and pretty +simple chintzes, old-fashioned china and delicate glass, bedroom and +table damask. He ordered books also, and subscribed for magazines and +papers.</p> + +<p>Returning, he said nothing of what he had done, for he hoped that the +surprise might prick the girl to interest, rousing her from the lethargy +which had settled over her like a fog. But her gratitude was perfunctory. +She was always polite, but the pretty things seemed to give her no real +pleasure.</p> + +<p>Knight had to realize that she was one of those people who, when inwardly +unhappy, are almost incapable of feeling small joys. Such as she had were +found in getting away from him as far as possible.</p> + +<p>She practically lived out of doors in the summertime, taking pains to go +where he would not pass on his rounds of the ranch; and even after the +sitting room had been made "liveable" with the new carpet laid by Knight +and the chintz curtains he put up with his own hands, she fled to her +room for sanctuary.</p> + +<p>Knight's search for capable servants was vain until he picked up a +Chinaman from over the Mexican border, illegal but valuable as a +household asset. Under the new régime there was good food, and Annesley +had no work save the hopeless task of finding happiness.</p> + +<p>It was easy to see from the white, set look of her face as the monotonous +months dragged on that she was no nearer to accomplishing that task than +on the day of her arrival. Nothing that Knight could do made any +difference. When an upright cottage piano appeared one day, the girl +seemed distressed rather than pleased.</p> + +<p>"You shouldn't spend money on me," she said in the gentle, weary way that +was becoming habitual.</p> + +<p>"It's the 'good fund' money," Knight explained, hastily and almost +humbly. "It's growing, you know. I've struck some fine investments. And +I'm going to do well with this ranch. We don't need to economize. I +thought you'd enjoy a piano."</p> + +<p>"Thank you. You're very kind," she answered, as if he had been a +stranger. "But I'm out of practice. I hardly feel energy to take it up +again."</p> + +<p>His hopes of what Texas might do for her faded slowly; and even when +their fire had died under cooling ashes, his silent, unobtrusive care +never relaxed.</p> + +<p>Only the deepest love—such love as can remake a man's whole +nature—could have been strong enough to bear the strain.</p> + +<p>But Annesley, blinded by the anguish which never ceased to ache, did +not see that it was possible for such a nature to change. She who had +believed passionately in her hero of romance was stripped of all belief +in him now, as a young tree in blossom is stripped of its delicate bloom +by an icy wind. Not believing in him, neither did she believe in his +love.</p> + +<p>She thought that he was sorry for her, that he was grateful for what she +had done to help him; that perhaps for the time being he intended to +"turn over a new leaf," not really for her sake, but because he had +been in danger of being found out.</p> + +<p>Scornfully she told herself that this pretence at ranching was one of the +many adventures dotted along his career; one act in the melodrama of +which he delighted to be the leading actor. His own love of luxury and +charming surroundings was enough to account for the improvements he +hastened to make at the ranchhouse.</p> + +<p>Anxiously she put away the thought that all he did was for her. She did +not wish to accept it. She did not want the obligation of gratitude. It +even seemed puerile that he should attempt to make up for spoiling her +life by supplying a few easy chairs and pictures and a Chinese cook.</p> + +<p>"He likes the things himself and can't live without them," she insisted. +And it was to show him that he could not atone in such childish ways that +she lived out of doors or hid in her own room.</p> + +<p>At first she locked the door of that room when she entered, thinking of +it defiantly as her fortress which must be defended. But when weeks grew +into months and the enemy never attacked the fortress her vigilance +relaxed. She forgot to lock the door.</p> + +<p>Summer passed. Autumn and then winter came. Knight was a good deal away, +for he had bought an interest in a newly opened copper mine in the Organ +Mountains, and was interested in the development which might mean +fortune. At night, however, he came back in the second-hand motor-car +which he had got at a bargain price in El Paso, and drove himself.</p> + +<p>Annesley never failed to hear him return, though she gave no sign. And +sometimes she would peep through the slats of her green shutters on one +side of the patio at the windows of his bedroom and "office," which were +opposite. It was seldom that his light did not burn late, and Annesley +went to bed thinking hard thoughts, asking herself what schemes of new +adventure he might be plotting for the day when he should tire of the +ranch.</p> + +<p>Often she wondered that her life was not more hateful than it was; for +somehow it was not hateful. Texas, with its vast spaces and blowing gusts +of ozone, had begun to mean more for her than her cold reserve let Knight +guess, more than she herself could understand.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>On Christmas morning, when she opened her bedroom door, she almost +stumbled over a covered Mexican basket of woven coloured straws. +Something inside it moved and sighed.</p> + +<p>She stooped, lifted the cover, and saw, curled up on a bit of red +blanketing, a miniature Chihuahua dog. It had a body as slight and +shivering as a tendril of grapevine; a tiny pointed face, with a high +forehead and immense, almost human eyes.</p> + +<p>At sight of her a thread of tail wagged, and Annesley felt a warm impulse +of affection toward the little creature. Of course it was a present from +Knight, though there was no word to tell her so; and if the dog had not +looked at her with an offer of all its love and self she would perhaps +have refused to accept it rather than encourage the giving of gifts.</p> + +<p>But after that look she could not let the animal go. Its possession made +life warmer; and it was good to see it lying in front of her open fire of +mesquite roots.</p> + +<p>She had no Christmas gift for Knight.</p> + +<p>He had made, soon after their coming to the ranch, a cactus fence round +the house enclosure; and seeing the dry ugliness of the long, straight +sticks placed close together, Annesley disliked and wondered at it. At +last she questioned Knight, and complained that the bristly barrier was +an eyesore. She wished it might be taken down.</p> + +<p>"Wait till spring," he answered. "It isn't a barrier; it's an allegory. +Maybe when you see what happens you'll understand. Maybe you won't. It +depends on your own feelings."</p> + +<p>Annesley said no more, but she did not forget. She thought, if her +understanding of the allegory meant any change of feeling which the man +might be looking for in her, she would never understand. She hated to +look at the line of stark, naked sticks, but they, and the "allegory" +they represented, constantly recurred to her mind.</p> + +<p>One day in spring she noticed that the sticks looked less dry. Knob-like +buds had broken out upon them, the first sign that they were living +things. It happened to be Easter eve, and she was restless, full of +strange thoughts as the yellow-flowering grease-wood bushes were full of +rushing sap.</p> + +<p>A year ago that night her love for her husband had died its sudden, +tragic death. In the very act of forgiveness, forgiveness had been +killed.</p> + +<p>Knight had gone off early that morning in his motor-car, the poor car +which was a pathetic contrast to the glories of last year in England. He +had gone before she was up, and had mentioned to the Chinese cook that he +might not be back until late.</p> + +<p>"That means after midnight," she told herself; and since she was free +as air, she decided to take a long walk in the afternoon, as far as the +river. It seemed that if she stayed in the house the thought of life as +it might have been and life as it was would kill her on this day of all +other days.</p> + +<p>"I wish I could die!" she said. "But not here. Somewhere a long way off +from everyone—and from <i>him</i>."</p> + +<p>As she passed the cactus fence the buds were big.</p> + +<p>Across the river, where the water flowed high and wide just then, lay +Mexico. Annesley had never been there, though she could easily have gone, +had she wished, from the ranch to El Paso, and from El Paso to the queer +old historic town of Juarez. But she could not have gone without Knight, +and there was no pleasure in travelling with him.</p> + +<p>Besides, there was trouble across the border, and fierce fighting now and +then. There had been some thievish raids made by Mexicans upon ranches +along the river not many miles away, and that reminded her how Knight had +remarked some weeks ago that she had better not go alone as far as the +river bank.</p> + +<p>"It isn't likely that anything would happen by day," he said, "but you +might be shot at from the other side." Annesley was not afraid, and there +was a faint stirring of pleasure in the thought that she was doing +something against his wish on this anniversary. Deliberately, she sat +alone by the river, waiting for the pageant of sunset to pass; and when +she reached home the moon was up, a great white moon that turned the +waving waste of pale, sparse grasses to a silver sea.</p> + +<p>She had taken sandwiches and fruit with her, telling the cook that she +would want no dinner when she came back. Away in the cow-punchers' +quarters there was music, and she flung herself into a hammock on the +veranda, to rest and listen.</p> + +<p>There was a soft yet cool wind from the south, bringing the fragrance of +creosote blossoms, and it seemed to the girl that never had she seen such +white floods of moonlight, not even that night a year ago at Valley +House.</p> + +<p>Even the sky was milk-white. There were no black shadows anywhere, only +dove-gray ones, except under the veranda roof. Her hammock was screened +from the light by one dark shadow, like a straight-hung curtain. Save for +the music of a fiddle and men's voices, the silver-white world lay silent +in enchanted sleep.</p> + +<p>Then suddenly something moved. A tall, dark figure was coming to the +veranda. It paused at the cactus fence.</p> + +<p>Could it be Knight, home already and on foot? No, it was a woman.</p> + +<p>She walked straight and fast and unhesitating to the veranda, where she +sat down on the steps.</p> + +<p>Annesley raised herself on her elbow, and peered out of the concealing +shadow. Who could the woman be? It was on the tip of her tongue to call, +"Who are you?" when a sudden lifting of the bent face under a drooping +hat brought it beneath the searchlight of the moon.</p> + +<p>The woman was the Countess de Santiago, and the moon's radiance so lit +her dark eyes that she seemed to look straight at Annesley in her +hammock. The girl's heart gave a leap of some emotion like fear, yet not +fear. She did not stop to analyze it, but she knew that she wished to +escape from the woman; and an instant's reflection told her that she +could not be seen if she kept still.</p> + +<p>She began to think quickly, and her thoughts, confused at first, +straightened themselves out like threads disentangled from a knot.</p> + +<p>The woman had marched up to the veranda with such unfaltering certainty +that it seemed she must have been there before. Perhaps she had arrived +while the mistress of the house was out, and had been walking about the +place, to pass away the time.</p> + +<p>"But she hasn't come to see me," the girl in the hammock thought. "She +has come to see Knight. It's for him she is waiting."</p> + +<p>Anger stirred in Annesley's heart, anger against Knight as well as +against Madalena.</p> + +<p>"Has <i>he</i> written and told her to come?" she asked herself. "Does she +think she can stay in this house? No, she shall not! I won't have her +here!"</p> + +<p>She was half-minded to rise abruptly and surprise the Countess, as the +Countess had surprised her; to ask why she had come, and to show that she +was not welcome. But if Madalena were here at Knight's invitation she +would stay. There would be a scene perhaps. The thought was revolting. +Annesley lay still; and in the distance she heard the throbbing of a +motor.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2> + +<h3>THE ALLEGORY</h3> + + +<p>Annesley knew that Knight was in the habit of coming home that way, in +order not to disturb her with the noise of the car if she had gone to +bed. If he were bringing parcels from the little mining town, he drove to +the house, left the packets, and ran the auto to a shanty he had rigged +up for a garage.</p> + +<p>A few seconds later the small open car came into sight, and Madalena +sprang up, waving a dark veil she had snatched off her hat. She feared, +no doubt, that the man might take another direction and perhaps get into +the house by some door she did not know before she could intercept him. +From a little distance the tall figure standing on the veranda steps must +have been silhouetted black against the white wall of the house, clearly +to be seen from the advancing motor.</p> + +<p>Quick as a bird in flight the car sped along the road, wheeled on to the +stiff grass, and drew up close to the veranda steps.</p> + +<p>"Good heavens, Madalena!" Annesley heard her husband exclaim. "I thought +it was my wife, and that something had gone wrong."</p> + +<p>The surprise sharpening his tone did away with the doubt in the mind of +the hidden listener. She had said to herself that the woman was here by +appointment, and that this hour had been chosen because the meeting was +to be secret.</p> + +<p>"I wanted you to think so, and to come straight to this place," returned +the once familiar voice. "Don, I've travelled from San Francisco to see +you. Do say you are glad!"</p> + +<p>"I can't," the man answered. "I'm not glad. You tried to ruin me. You +tried in a coward's way. You struck me in the back. I hoped never to see +you again. How did you find me?"</p> + +<p>"I've known for a long time that you were in Texas," said Madalena. "Lady +Annesley-Seton and I kept up a correspondence for months after you—sent +me away so cruelly, in such a hurry, believing hateful things, though you +had no proof. She wrote that 'Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith' would probably +never come back to England to settle, as she'd heard from a Mrs. Waldo +that they'd gone to live in Texas. She asked if I knew whether 'Nelson +Smith' had lost his money. I forgot to answer that question when I +answered the letter. But when she said 'Texas' I felt sure you must be +somewhere in this part. I remembered your telling me about the ranch that +consumptive gambler left to you on the Mexican frontier."</p> + +<p>"What a fool I was to tell you!" Knight exclaimed, roughly.</p> + +<p>The words and his way of flinging them at her were like a box on the ear; +and Annesley, lying in her hammock, heard with a thrill of pleasure. She +was ashamed of the thrill, and ashamed (because suddenly awakened to the +realization) that she was eavesdropping.</p> + +<p>But it seemed impossible that she should break in upon this talk and +reveal her presence. She felt that she could not do it; though, searching +her conscience, she was not sure whether she clung to silence because it +was the lesser of two evils or because she longed with a terrible longing +to know whether these two would patch up their old partnership.</p> + +<p>"If you knew why I have come all these miles, maybe you would not be so +hard," Madalena pleaded.</p> + +<p>"That I can't tell until I do hear," said Knight, dryly.</p> + +<p>"I am going to explain," she tried to soothe him. "A great thing has +happened. I can be rich and live easily all the rest of my years if I +choose. But—I wanted to see you before deciding.</p> + +<p>"I arrived in El Paso yesterday, and went to the Paso del Norte Hotel, to +inquire about you. I was almost certain you would have taken back your +own name, because I knew you used to be known by it when you stayed in +Texas. I soon found out that I'd guessed right. I heard you'd stopped at +that hotel last year on the way to your ranch. I hired a motor-car and +came here to-day; but I didn't let the man bring me to the house. I +didn't want to dash up and advertise myself.</p> + +<p>"I questioned some of your cowmen. They said you'd gone off, and would be +getting back at night in your automobile, not earlier than ten and maybe +a good deal later. So I waited. The car I hired is a covered one, and I +sat in it, a long way from the house out of sight behind a little rising +of the land. Perhaps you call it a hill."</p> + +<p>"We do," said Knight.</p> + +<p>"I brought some food and wine. The chauffeur's there with the car now. He +has cigarettes, and doesn't mind if we stay all night."</p> + +<p>"I mind," Knight cut her short. "You can't stay all night. The road's +good enough with such a moon for you to get back to El Paso. You'd better +start so as to reach there before she sets."</p> + +<p>"Wait till you hear why I've come before you advise me to hurry!" the +Countess protested. "There's no danger of our being disturbed, is there? +Where is your wife?"</p> + +<p>"In bed and asleep, I trust."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad. Then will you sit on the top of these steps in this heavenly +moonlight and let me tell you things that are important to me? Perhaps +you may think they are important to you as well. Who knows?"</p> + +<p>"I know. Nothing you can have to say will be important to me. I won't sit +down, thank you. I've been sitting in my car for hours. I prefer to +stand."</p> + +<p>"Very well. But—how hard you are! Even now, you won't believe I was +innocent of that thing you accused me of doing?"</p> + +<p>"I think now what I thought then. You were not innocent, but guilty. You +were just a plain, ordinary sneak, Madalena, because you were jealous +and spiteful."</p> + +<p>"It is not true! Spiteful against <i>you</i>! It was never in my heart to lie. +Jealous, perhaps. But that is not to say I wrote the letter you believe +I wrote. You didn't give me time to try and prove I did not write the +letter. You accused me brutally. You ordered me out of England, with +threats. I obeyed because I was heartbroken, not because I was afraid."</p> + +<p>"Why trouble to excuse yourself?" he asked. "It's not worth the time it +takes. If you've come to tell me anything in particular, tell it, and +let's make an end."</p> + +<p>"I have an offer of marriage from a millionaire," the Countess announced +in a clear, triumphant tone.</p> + +<p>"Which no doubt you accepted, not to say snapped at."</p> + +<p>"Not yet. I put him off, because I wanted to see you before I answered."</p> + +<p>"You flatter me!" Knight laughed, not pleasantly. "If you've come from +San Francisco to get my advice on that subject, I can give it while you +count three. Make sure of the unfortunate wretch before he changes his +mind."</p> + +<p>"Ah, if I could think that your harshness comes from just a +little—<i>ever</i> so little, jealousy!" Madalena sighed. "He won't change +his mind. There is no danger. He is old, and I seem a young girl to him. +He adores me. He is on his knees!"</p> + +<p>"Bad for rheumatism!"</p> + +<p>"He thinks I am the most wonderful creature who ever lived. I met him +through my work. He came from a friend of his who told him about my +crystal, and about me, too."</p> + +<p>"You are still working the crystal?"</p> + +<p>"But, of course! It has always given me the path to success. If I marry +this man I shall be able to rest."</p> + +<p>"On your laurels—such as they are!"</p> + +<p>"On his money. He can't live many years."</p> + +<p>"You are an affectionate fiancée!"</p> + +<p>"I am not a fiancée yet. Not till I give my answer. And that depends on +you.... Oh, Don, surely you must be sick of this—this existence, for it +is not life! I know you are angry with me, but you can't hate me really. +It is not possible for a man with blood in his body to hate a woman who +loves him as I love you.</p> + +<p>"I have tried to get over it. At first I thought I was succeeding. But +no, when the reaction came, I found that I cared more than ever. We were +born for each other. It must be so, for without you I am only half alive. +I haven't come for your advice, Don, but to make you an offer. Oh, not an +offer of myself. I should not dare, as you feel now. And it is not an +offer from me only; it is from a great person who has something to give +which is worth your accepting, even if my love is not!"</p> + +<p>"You've got in touch with <i>him</i>, have you?" Knight broke into the rushing +torrent of her words as a man might take a plunge into a cataract.</p> + +<p>"Why not?" she answered. "I didn't seek him out. It was he who sought +me."</p> + +<p>"You don't know how to speak the truth, Madalena! You said you found me +through Lady Annesley-Seton hearing from Mrs. Waldo, whereas you wrote to +Paul Van Vreck."</p> + +<p>"You do me injustice—always! I <i>did</i> hear from Constance. Then I—merely +ventured to write and ask Mr. Van Vreck if he kept up communication with +you, and——"</p> + +<p>"You said in your letter to him that you knew where I was, and gave him +to understand that we were in touch with each other, or he would have let +out nothing."</p> + +<p>"He has written and told you this!" She spoke breathlessly, as if in +fear.</p> + +<p>"Ah, you give yourself away! No, I haven't heard from Van Vreck since I +saw him in New York, and thought I convinced him that my working days +for him were over. I simply guessed—knowing you—what you would do."</p> + +<p>"I may have mentioned Texas," Madalena admitted. "I supposed he knew +where you were. I couldn't have told him, because I didn't know. But he +wrote and suggested I should use my influence with you to reconsider your +decision. Those were his words."</p> + +<p>"How much has he paid you for coming here?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing. As if I would take money for coming to <i>you</i>!"</p> + +<p>"You have taken it for some queer things, and will again if you don't +settle down to private life with your millionaire.... It's no use, +Madalena. Go back to San Francisco. Send in your bill to Van Vreck. Tell +him there's nothing doing. And make up your mind to marriage."</p> + +<p>"But, Don, you haven't heard what he offers."</p> + +<p>"It can't be more than he offered me himself when I saw him in New +York——"</p> + +<p>"It is more. He says that particularly. He raises the offer from last +time. It is <i>three times</i> higher! Think what that means. Oh, Don, it +means life, real life, not stagnation! I would give up safety and a +million to be with you—as your partner again, your humble partner.</p> + +<p>"Here, on this bleak ranch, it is like death—a death of dullness. I know +what you must be suffering because you are obstinate, because you have +taken a resolve, and are determined not to break it. You are afraid it +will be weakness to break it. There can be no other reason.</p> + +<p>"I have asked questions about your life here. I have learned things. I +know <i>she</i> is cold as ice. If you stay you will degenerate. You will +become a clod.</p> + +<p>"Leave this hideous gray place. Leave that woman who treats you like a +dog. Let the ranch be hers. Send her money. You will have it to spare. +She can divorce you, and you will be freed forever from the one great +mistake you ever made. As for me——"</p> + +<p>"As for you—be silent!" The command struck like a whiplash. "You are not +worthy to speak of 'that woman,' as you call her. If I did what you +deserve, I'd send you off without another word—turn my back on you and +let you go. But—" he drew in his breath sharply, then went on as if he +had taken some tonic decision—"I want you to understand why, if Paul Van +Vreck offered me <i>all</i> his money, and you offered me the love of all the +women on earth with your own, I shouldn't be tempted to accept.</p> + +<p>"It's because of 'that woman'—who is my wife. It may be true that she +treats me like a dog, for she wouldn't be cruel to the meanest cur. But +I'd rather be her dog than any other woman's master.</p> + +<p>"So you see now. It's come to that with me. I won her love and +married her for my own advantage. I lost her love because she found me +out—through you. Mild justice that, perhaps! But all the same, getting +her for mine <i>has</i> been for my advantage. In a different way from what I +planned, but ten thousand times greater. Though she's taken her love from +me, she's given me back my soul. Nothing can rob me of that so long as I +run straight.</p> + +<p>"And I tell you, Madalena, this ranch, where I'm working out some kind of +expiation and maybe redemption, <i>is</i> God's earth for me. <i>Now</i> do you +understand?"</p> + +<p>For an instant the woman was silent. Then she broke into loud sobbing, +which she did not try to check.</p> + +<p>"You are a fool, Don!" she wept. "A fool!"</p> + +<p>"Maybe. But I'm not the devil's fool as I used to be. Don't cry. You +might be heard. Come. It's time to go. We've said all we have to say to +each other except good-bye—if that's not mockery."</p> + +<p>Madalena dried her tears, still sobbing under her breath.</p> + +<p>"At least take me to the automobile," she said. "Don't send me off alone +in the night. I am afraid."</p> + +<p>"There's nothing to be afraid of," Knight answered, the flame of his +fierceness burnt down. "But I'll go with you, and put you on the way back +to El Paso. Come along!"</p> + +<p>As he spoke, he started, and Madalena was forced to go with him, forced +to keep up with his long strides if she would not be left behind.</p> + +<p>When they had gone Annesley lay motionless, as though she were under +a spell. The man's words to the other woman wove the spell which bound +her, listening as they repeated themselves in her mind. Again and again +she heard them, as they had fallen from his lips.</p> + +<p>His expiation—perhaps his redemption—here on his bit of "God's +earth" ... "It may be true that she treats me like a dog.... But I'd +rather be her dog than any other woman's master...." And this was Easter +eve, a year to the night since his martyrdom began!</p> + +<p>Something seemed to seize Annesley by the hand and break the bonds that +had held her, something strong although invisible. She sat up with a +faint cry, as of one awakened from a dream, and slipped out of the +hammock. There was a dim idea in her mind that she must go along the road +where they had gone, so as to meet Knight on his way back. She did not +know what she should say to him, or whether she could say anything at +all; but the something which had taken her hand and snatched her out +of the hammock dragged her on and on.</p> + +<p>At first she obeyed the force blindly.</p> + +<p>"I must see him! I must see him!" The words spoke themselves in her head. +But when she had hurried out of the enclosure walled in by the cactus +hedge, the brilliant moonlight seemed to pierce her brain, and make a +cold, calm appeal to her reason.</p> + +<p>"You can't tell him what you have heard," it said. "He would be +humiliated. Or"—the thought was sharp as a gimlet—"what if he <i>saw</i> +you, and knew you were listening? What if he talked just for effect? He +is so clever! He is subtle enough for that. And wouldn't it be more +<i>like</i> the man, than to say what he said <i>sincerely</i>?"</p> + +<p>She stopped, and was thankful not to see her husband returning. There was +time to go back if she hurried. And she must hurry! If he had seen her in +her hammock, and made that theatrical attempt to play upon her feelings, +he would laugh at his own success if she followed him. And if he had not +seen her, and were in earnest, it would be best—indeed the only right +way—not to let him guess that the scene on the veranda steps had had a +witness.</p> + +<p>Annesley turned to fly back faster than she had come. But passing the +cactus hedge her dress caught. It was as if the hedge sentiently took +hold of her.</p> + +<p>She bent down to free the thin white material; and suddenly colour blazed +up to her eyes in the rain of silver moonlight. The buds had opened since +she noticed them last.</p> + +<p>No longer was the hedge a grim barricade of stiff, dark sticks. Each +stalk had turned into a tall, straight flame of lambent rose. From a dead +thing of dreary ugliness it had become a thing of living beauty.</p> + +<p>Knight's allegory!</p> + +<p>He had said, perhaps she might understand when the time came; and perhaps +not.</p> + +<p>She <i>did</i> understand. But she had not faith to believe that the miracle +could repeat itself in life—her life and Knight's. She shut her eyes to +the thought, and when she had freed her dress ran very fast to the house.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h2> + +<h3>THE THREE WORDS</h3> + + +<p>Knight was generally far away long before Annesley was up in the morning, +and often he did not come in till evening. She thought that on Easter +Day, however, he would perhaps not go far. She half expected that he +would linger about the house or sit reading on the veranda; and she could +not resist the temptation to put on one of the dresses he had liked in +England.</p> + +<p>It was a little <i>passé</i> and old-fashioned, but he would not know this. +What he might remember was that she had worn it at Valley House.</p> + +<p>And the wish to say something, as if accidentally, about the flaming +miracle of the cactus hedge was as persistent in her heart as the desire +of a crocus to push through the earth to the sunshine on a spring +morning. She did not know whether the wish would survive the meeting with +her husband. She thought that would depend as much upon him as upon her +mood.</p> + +<p>But luncheon time came and Knight did not appear.</p> + +<p>Annesley lunched alone, in her gray frock. Even on days when Knight was +with her, and they sat through their meals formally, it was the same as +if she were alone, for they spoke little, and each was in the habit of +bringing a book to the table.</p> + +<p>But she had not meant it to be so on this Easter Day. Even if she did not +speak of the blossoming of the cactus, she had planned to show Knight +that she was willing to begin a conversation. To talk at meals would be +a way out of "treating him like a dog."</p> + +<p>The pretty frock and the good intention were wasted. Late in the +afternoon she heard from one of the line riders whom she happened to see +that something had gone wrong with a windmill which gave water to the +pumps for the cattle, and that her husband was attending to it.</p> + +<p>"He's a natural born engineer," said the man, whose business as "line +rider" was to keep up the wire fencing from one end of the ranch to the +other. "I don't know how much he <i>knows</i>, but I know what he can <i>do</i>. +Queer thing, ma'am! There don't seem to be much that Mike Donaldson +<i>can't</i> do!"</p> + +<p>Annesley smiled to hear Knight called "Mike" by one of his employees. She +knew that he was popular, but never before had she felt personal pleasure +in the men's tributes of affection.</p> + +<p>To-day she felt a thrill. Her heart was warm with the spring and the +miracle of the cactus hedge, and memories of impetuous—<i>seemingly</i> +impetuous—words of last night.</p> + +<p>If she could have seen Knight she would have spoken of his allegory; and +that small opening might have let sunlight into their darkness. But he +did not come even to dinner; and tired of waiting, and weary from a +sleepless night, she went to bed.</p> + +<p>Next morning a man arrived who wished to buy a bunch of Donaldson's +cattle, which were beginning to be famous. He stayed several days; and +when he left Knight had business at the copper mine—business that +concerned the sinking of a new shaft, which took him back and forth +nearly every day for a week. By and by the cactus flowers began to fade, +and Annesley had never found an opportunity of mentioning them, or what +they might signify.</p> + +<p>When she met Knight his manner was as usual: kind, unobtrusive, slightly +stiff, as though he were embarrassed—though he never showed signs of +embarrassment with any one else. She could hardly believe that she had +not dreamed those words overheard in the moonlight.</p> + +<p>Week after week slipped away. The one excitement at Las Cruces Ranch was +the fighting across the border; the great "scare" at El Paso, and the +stories of small yet sometimes tragic raids made by bands of cattle +stealers upon American ranches which touched the Rio Grande. The water +was low. This made private marauding expeditions easier, and the men of +Las Cruces Ranch were prepared for anything.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>One night in May there was a sandstorm, which as usual played strange +tricks with Annesley's nerves. She could never grow used to these storms, +and the moaning of the hot wind seemed to her a voice that wailed for +coming trouble. Knight had been away on one of his motoring expeditions +to the Organ Mountains, and though he had told the Chinese boy that he +would be back for dinner, he did not come. Doors and windows were closed +against the blowing sand, but they could not shut out the voice of the +wind.</p> + +<p>After dinner Annesley tried to read a new book from the library at El +Paso, but between her eyes and the printed page would float the picture +of a small, open automobile and its driver lost in clouds of yellow sand.</p> + +<p>Why should she care? The man was used to roughing it. He liked +adventures. He was afraid of nothing, and nothing ever hurt him. But she +did care. She seemed to feel the sting of the sharp grains of sand on +cheeks and eyes.</p> + +<p>She was sitting in her own room, as she was accustomed to do in the +evening if she were not out on the veranda—the pretty room which Knight +had extravagantly made possible for her, with chintzes and furnishings +from the best shops in El Paso. On this evening, however, she set both +doors wide open, one which led into the living room, another leading into +a corridor or hall. She could not fail to hear her husband when he came, +even if he left his noisy car at the garage and walked to the house.</p> + +<p>A travelling clock on the mantelpiece—Constance Annesley-Seton's +gift—struck nine. The girl looked up at the first stroke, wondering if +serious accidents were likely to happen in sandstorms; and before the +last note had ended she heard steps in the patio.</p> + +<p>"He has come!" she thought, with a throb of relief which shamed her. But +the step was not like Knight's. It was hurried and nervous; and as she +told herself this there sounded a loud knock at the door.</p> + +<p>There was an electric bell, which Knight had fitted up with his own +hands, but it was not visible at night. No one except herself could hear +this knocking, for the servants' quarters were at the far end of the +bungalow. A little frightened, recalling stories of cattle thieves and +things they had done, Annesley went into the hall.</p> + +<p>"Who is there?" she cried, her face near the closed door, which locked +itself in shutting. If a man's voice—the voice of a stranger—should +reply in "Mex," or with a foreign accent, the girl did not intend to let +him in. A man's voice did reply, but neither in "Mex" nor with a foreign +accent. It said: "My name is Paul Van Vreck. Open quickly, please. I may +be followed."</p> + +<p>Annesley's heart jumped; but without hesitation she pulled back the +latch, and as she opened the door a rush of sand-laden wind wrenched it +from her hand. She staggered away as the door swung free, and there was +just time to see a tall, thin figure slip in like a shadow before the +light of the hanging-lamp blew out. The girl and the newcomer were in the +dark save for a yellow ray that filtered into the hall from her room, but +she saw him stoop to place a bag or bundle on the floor, and then, +pulling the door to against the wind, slammed it shut with a click.</p> + +<p>Having done this, the tall shadow bent to pick up what it had laid down.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Mrs. Donaldson, for letting me in," said the most charming +voice Annesley had ever heard—more charming even than Knight's. +"Evidently you've heard your husband mention me, or you might have kept +me out there parleying, if you're alone, for these are stirring times."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I—I've heard you mentioned by—many people," the girl answered, +stammering like a nervous child. "Won't you come in—into the living +room? Not the room with the open door. That's mine. It's another, farther +along the hall. I'm sorry my husband's out."</p> + +<p>As she talked she wondered at herself. She knew Van Vreck for a super +thief. He did not steal with his own hands, but he commanded other hands +to steal, and that was even worse. Or she had thought it worse in her +husband's case, and for more than a year she had punished him for his +sins. Yet here she was almost welcoming this man.</p> + +<p>She did not understand why she felt—even without seeing him except as a +shadow—that she would find herself wishing to do whatever he might ask. +It must be, she thought, the influence of his voice. She had heard Paul +Van Vreck spoken of as an old man, but the voice was the voice of +magnetic youth.</p> + +<p>He opened the door of the living room, and, carrying his bundle, +followed her as she entered. There was only one lamp in this room, a tall +reading-lamp with a green silk shade, which stood on a table, its heavy +base surrounded by books and magazines. A good light for reading was +thrown from under the green shade on to the table, but the rest of the +room was of a cool, green dimness; and, looking up with irresistible +curiosity at the face of her night visitor, it floated pale on a vague +background, like a portrait by Whistler.</p> + +<p>It was unnaturally white, the girl thought, and—yes, it <i>was</i> old! But +it was a wonderful face, and the eyes illumined it; immense eyes, though +deepset and looking out of shadowed hollows under level brows black as +ink. Annesley had never seen eyes so like strange jewels, lit from +behind.</p> + +<p>That simile came to her, and she smiled, for it was appropriate that this +jewel expert should have jewels for eyes. They were dark topazes, and +from them gazed the spirit of the man with a compelling charm.</p> + +<p>Under a rolled-back wave of iron-gray hair he had a broad forehead, high +cheekbones, a pointed prominent chin, a mouth both sweet and humorous, +like that of some enchanting woman; but its sweetness was contradicted by +a hawk nose. Had it not been for that nose he would have been handsome.</p> + +<p>"I guessed by the startled tone of your voice, when you asked, 'Who is +there?' that your husband was out," explained the shadow, now transformed +by the light into an extremely tall, extremely thin man in gray +travelling clothes. "I had a moment of repentance at troubling a lady +alone; but, you see, the case was urgent."</p> + +<p>He had carelessly tossed his Panama hat on to the table, but kept the +black bag, which he now held out with a smile.</p> + +<p>"Not a big bag, is it? And so common, it wouldn't be likely to tempt +a thief. But it holds what is worth—if it has a price—about half a +million dollars."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" exclaimed Annesley. She looked horrified; and through the green +gloom the old man read her face.</p> + +<p>"I see!" he said, with a laugh in his young voice. "You have heard the +great secret! That makes another who knows. But I'm not afraid you'll +throw me to the dogs. You wouldn't do that even if you weren't +Donaldson's wife. Being his wife, you could not."</p> + +<p>"My husband has told me no secret about you, none at all," the girl +protested, defending Knight involuntarily. "I beg you to believe that, +Mr. Van Vreck."</p> + +<p>"I do believe it. If there's one thing I pride myself on, it's being a +judge of character. That's why I've made a success of life. You wouldn't +lie, perhaps not even to save the one you love best. I believe that he +did not tell you the secret. Yet I'm certain you know it. I suppose other +discoveries you must have made gave you supernatural intuition. You +guessed."</p> + +<p>Annesley did not answer. Yet she could not take her eyes from his.</p> + +<p>"You needn't mind confessing. But I won't catechize you. I'll take it +for granted that what Donaldson knows you know—not in detail, in the +rough.... In this bag are six gold images set with precious stones. They +are of the time of the Incas, and they've been up till now the most +precious things in Mexico. From now on they will be among the most +precious things in Paul Van Vreck's secret collection.</p> + +<p>"Some weeks ago I hoped that Donaldson would get them for me. He refused, +so I had to go myself. I couldn't trust any one else, though the only +difficulty was getting to Central Mexico with Constitutionals raging on +one side and Federals on the other. A man promised to deliver the goods +to my messenger. I've been bargaining over these things for years. But, +as I said, Don wouldn't go, so I had to do the job myself. You see, Mrs. +Donaldson, your husband is the only honest man I ever came across."</p> + +<p>"Honest!" The exclamation burst from Annesley's lips.</p> + +<p>"Yes. Honest is the word. I might add two others: 'true' and 'loyal.'" +Paul Van Vreck held her with his strange, straight look, commanding, yet +amused. "That is the opinion," he added after a pause, "of a very old +friend. It's worth its weight in—gold images."</p> + +<p>The girl gave him no answer. But the effort of keeping her face under +control made lips and eyelids quiver.</p> + +<p>"May I sit down, Mrs. Donaldson?" Van Vreck asked in a tone which changed +to commonplaceness—if his voice could ever be commonplace. "I'm a +fugitive, and have had a run for my money, so to speak. I'm seeking +sanctuary. Also I came in the hope of trying my eloquence on Donaldson. +But now I've seen you, I will not do that. In future he's safe from me, +I promise you."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" Annesley faltered. And then: "Thank you!" came out, grudgingly. +How astonishing that <i>she</i> should thank Paul Van Vreck, the monster of +wickedness and secrecy she had pictured, for "sparing" her husband—her +husband whom <i>he</i> called loyal, true, and honest; whom she had called in +her heart a thief!</p> + +<p>"Do sit down," she hurried on, hypnotized. "Forgive my not asking you. +I——"</p> + +<p>"I understand," he soothed her. "I've taken advantage of you—sprung +a surprise, as Don would say, and then turned on the tortures of the +Inquisition. Aren't <i>you</i> going to sit? I can't, you know, if you don't."</p> + +<p>"I thought you might like something to eat," the girl stammered. "I could +call our cook——"</p> + +<p>"No, thank you," replied Van Vreck. "I'm peculiar in more ways than one. +I never eat at night. I live mostly on milk, water, fruit, and nuts. +That's why I feel forty at seventy-two. I give out that I'm frail—an +invalid—that I spend much time in nursing homes. This is my joke on a +public which has no business to be curious about my habits. While it +thinks I'm recuperating in a nursing home I—but no matter! That won't +interest you."</p> + +<p>When she had obediently sat down, her knees trembling a little, Van Vreck +drew up a chair for himself, and, resting his arms on the table, leaned +across it gazing at the girl with a queer, humorous benevolence.</p> + +<p>"How soon do you think your husband will come?" he asked, abruptly.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," Annesley replied. "He told our Chinese boy he'd be early. +I suppose the sandstorm has delayed him."</p> + +<p>"No doubt.... And you're worried?"</p> + +<p>"No-o," she answered, looking sidewise at Van Vreck, her face half turned +from him. "I don't think that I'm worried."</p> + +<p>"May I talk to you frankly till Don does come?" the old man asked.</p> + +<p>"Certainly."</p> + +<p>"I'll take you at your word!... Mrs. Donaldson, when your husband called +on me a year ago last spring, in New York, he said nothing about you. I +knew he'd married an English girl of good connections (isn't that what +you say on your side?), and why he thought it would be wise to marry. But +when he informed me that our association was to be ended, that nothing +would induce him to continue it, I read between the lines. I'm sharp at +that! I knew as well as if he'd told me that he'd fallen in love with the +girl, that she'd unexpectedly become the important factor in his life, +and that—she'd found out a secret she'd never been meant to find out: +<i>his</i> secret, and maybe mine.</p> + +<p>"I realized by his face—the look in the eyes, the tone of the voice, or +rather, the tonelessness of the voice—what her finding out meant for +Don. I read by all signs that she was making him suffer atrociously and +I owed that girl a grudge. She'd taken him from me. For the first time a +power stronger than mine was at work; and yet, things being as they were, +my hope of getting him back lay in her."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" The question spoke itself. Annesley's lips felt cold +and stiff. Her hands, nervously clasped in her lap, were cold, too, +though the shut-up room had but lately seemed hot as a furnace.</p> + +<p>"I mean, if the girl behaved as I thought she would behave—as I think +you have behaved—he might grow tired of her and the cast-iron coat of +virtue he'd put on to please her. He might grow tired of life on a ranch +if his wife made him eat ashes and wear sack-cloth. That was my hope. +Well, I sent a messenger to find out how the land lay a few weeks ago."</p> + +<p>"The Countess de Santiago!" Annesley exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"He told you?"</p> + +<p>"No, I saw her. I—by accident—(it really was by accident!) I heard +things. He doesn't know—I believe he doesn't know—I was there."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps that's just as well. Perhaps not. But if I were you I'd tell him +when the right time comes. The Countess wrote me she'd had her journey in +vain, and why. She said—spitefully it struck me—that Don was bewitched +by his wife, a cold, cruel creature with ice in her veins, who treated +him like a dog."</p> + +<p>"She said that to you, too?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, she said that. She seemed to gather the impression. But the dog +stuck to his kennel. Nothing <i>she</i> could do would tempt him to budge. So +I decided to call here myself, on the way back from Mexico. I couldn't +delay the trip. A man was waiting for me. And waiting quietly is +difficult in Mexico just now. I got what I wanted, and crammed the lot +into this bag, which cost me at the outside, if I remember, five dollars. +A good idea of mine for putting thieves off the track. They expect sane +men to carry nightgowns and newspapers in such bags. I thought I'd +managed so well that I'd put the gang who follow me about, generally on +'spec,' off the track.</p> + +<p>"I speak Spanish well. I've been passing for a Mexican lawyer from +Chihuahua. But to-day I caught a look from a pair of eyes in a train. I +fancied I'd seen those eyes before—and the rest of the features. Perhaps +I imagined it. But I don't think so. I trust my instinct. I advise you +to! It's a tip.</p> + +<p>"At El Paso I bought a ticket for Albuquerque. The eyes were behind me. +I got into the train. So did Eyes, and a friend with a long nose. Not +into my car, however, so I was able to skip out again as the train was +starting. Not a bad feat for a man of my age! I hope Eyes and Nose, +and any other features that may have been with them, travelled on +unsuspectingly. But I can't be sure. Instinct says they saw my trick +and trumped it.</p> + +<p>"I oughtn't to have come here, bringing danger to your house, Mrs. +Donaldson. But I want to see Don, and I know he is afraid neither of man +nor devil—afraid of nothing in the world except one woman.</p> + +<p>"As for her—well, what I'd heard hadn't prepossessed me in her favour. +I sacrificed her for the safety of my golden images and my talk with Don. +But the sound of your voice behind the shut door broke the picture I'd +made of that young woman. And when I saw you—well, Mrs. Donaldson, I've +already told you I don't intend to exert my influence over your husband, +though to do so was my principal object in coming. Even if I did, I +believe yours would prove stronger. But if I could count on all my old +power over him, I wouldn't use it now I have seen you.</p> + +<p>"I adore myself, and—my specialties. But there must be an unselfish +streak in me which shows in moments like this. I respect and admire it. +You may treat Don like a dog, but he'd never be happy away from you. And +I am fool enough to want him to be happy. This kicked dog of yours, +madame, happens to be the finest fellow I ever knew or expect to know."</p> + +<p>"You say I treat him like a dog!" cried Annesley, roused to anger. +"But how ought I to treat him? He came into my life in a way I thought +romantic as a fairy tale. It was a trick—a play got up to deceive me! +I knew nothing of his life; but because of the faith he inspired, I +believed in him. No one except himself could have broken that belief. I +would not have listened to a word against him. But when he thought I'd +discovered something, the whole story came out. If I hadn't loved him so +much to begin with, and put him on such a high pedestal, the fall +wouldn't have been so great—wouldn't have broken my heart in pieces."</p> + +<p>"But Don gave up everything pleasant in his life, and came down here to +this God-forsaken ranch—a man like Michael Donaldson, with a few hundred +dollars where he'd had thousands—all for you," said Van Vreck, "and he's +had no thought except for you and the ranch for more than a year. Yet +apparently you haven't changed your opinion. By Jove, madame, you must +somehow, through your personality and God knows what besides, have got a +mighty hold on his heart, in the days when you loved him, or he wouldn't +have stood this dog's life, this punishment too harsh for human nature to +bear. Good Lord, how were you brought up? Evidently not as a Christian."</p> + +<p>"My father was a clergyman," said Annesley.</p> + +<p>"There are many clergymen who have got as far from the light as the moon +from the earth. I know more about Christianity myself than some of those +narrow men with their 'cold Christs and tangled Trinities'! That is, I +know all this on principle. I don't practise what I know, but that's my +affair. Did Don ever excuse himself by mentioning the influence I brought +to bear on him when he was almost a boy?"</p> + +<p>"No," breathed Annesley. "He didn't excuse himself at all except to tell +me about his father and mother, and a vow he'd made to revenge them on +society."</p> + +<p>"It was like him not to whine for your forgiveness."</p> + +<p>"He would never whine," the girl agreed. But she remembered that night of +confession when on his knees he had begged her to forgive, to grant him +another chance, and she had refused. He had never asked again. And he had +struggled alone for redemption.</p> + +<p>"I haven't forgotten some early teachings which impressed me," said Paul +Van Vreck. "Christ made a remark about forgiving till seventy times +seven. Did you forgive Donaldson four hundred and eighty-nine times, and +draw the line at the four hundred and ninetieth?"</p> + +<p>"No, I never had anything to forgive him—till that one thing came out. +But it was a very big thing. Too big!"</p> + +<p>"<i>Too</i> big, eh? There was another saying of Christ's about those without +sin throwing the first stone. Of course I'm sure <i>you</i> were without sin. +But you look as if you might have had a heart—once."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I had, I had!" Tears streamed down Annesley's pale face, and she did +not wipe them away. "It's dead now I think."</p> + +<p>"Think again. Think of what the man is—what he's proved himself to be. +He's twice as good now as one of your best saints of the Church. He's +purified by fire. You've got the face of an angel, Mrs. Donaldson, but in +my opinion you're a wicked woman unworthy of the love you've inspired."</p> + +<p>"You speak to me cruelly," the girl said through her tears. "I've been +very unhappy!"</p> + +<p>"Not as unhappy as you've made Don by <i>your</i> cruelty. Good heavens, these +tender girls can be more cruel when they set about punishing us, than the +hardest man! And to punish a fellow like that by making him live in an +ice-house, when you could have done anything with him by a little +kindness! Don't <i>I</i> know that?</p> + +<p>"I'm the sponsor for such sins as Don's committed. He was meant to be +straight. But I got hold of him through an agent, and caught his +imagination when that wild vow was freshly branded on his heart or brain. +I have the gift of fascination, Mrs. Donaldson. I know that better than I +know most things. <i>You</i> feel it to-night, or you wouldn't sit there +letting me tear your heart to pieces—what's left of your heart. And I +have an idea there's a good deal more than you think, if you have the +sense to patch the bits together.</p> + +<p>"I have fascination, and I've cultivated it. Napoleon himself didn't +study more ardently than I the art of winning men. I won Don. I appealed +to the romance in him. I became his hero and—slowly—I was able to make +him my servant. Not much of my money or anything else has ever stuck to +his hands. He's too generous—too impulsive; though I taught him it was +necessary to control his impulses.</p> + +<p>"What he did, he did for love of me, till you came along and lit another +sort of fire in his blood. I saw in one minute, when he called on me, +what had happened to his soul. It's taken you more than a year to see, +though he's lived for you and would have died for you. Great Heaven, +young woman, you ought to be on your knees before a miracle of God! +Instead, you've mounted a marble pedestal and worshipped your own +purity!"</p> + +<p>Annesley bowed her head under a wave of shame. <i>This</i> man, of all others, +had shown her a vision of herself as she was. It seemed that she could +never lift her eyes. But suddenly, into the crying of the wind, a shot +broke sharply; then another and another, till the sobbing wail was lost +in a crackling fusillade.</p> + +<p>The girl leaped to her feet.</p> + +<p>"Raiders!" she gasped. "Or else——"</p> + +<p>Paul Van Vreck sprang up also, his face paler, his eyes brighter than +before.</p> + +<p>"They've come after me," he said. "Clever trick—if they've bribed +ruffians from over the border to cover their ends. The real errand's +here, inside this house."</p> + +<p>Annesley's heart faltered.</p> + +<p>"You must hide," she breathed. "I must save you—somehow."</p> + +<p>"Why should you save <i>me</i>?" Van Vreck asked, sharply. "Why not think +about saving yourself?"</p> + +<p>"Because I know Knight would wish to save you," she answered. "I want to +do what he would do.... God help us, they're coming nearer! Take your +bag, and I'll hide you in the cellar. There's a corner there, behind some +barrels. If they break in, I'll say——"</p> + +<p>"Brave girl! But they won't break in."</p> + +<p>"How do you know?"</p> + +<p>"Your husband won't let them. Trust him, as I do."</p> + +<p>"He's not here. Do you think I told you a lie? Thank Heaven he <i>isn't</i> +here, or they'd kill him, and I could never beg him to forgive——" She +covered her face with her hands.</p> + +<p>The old man looked at her gravely.</p> + +<p>"You don't understand what's happening," he said, with a new gentleness. +"Don's out there now, defending you and his home. That's what the +shooting means. Do you think those brutes would advertise themselves with +their guns if they hadn't been attacked?"</p> + +<p>With a cry the girl rushed to the long window, and began to unfasten it, +but Van Vreck caught her hands.</p> + +<p>"Stop!" he commanded. "Don't play the robbers' own game for them! <i>How do +you know which is nearer the house, Don and his men, or the others?</i>"</p> + +<p>She stared at him, panting, "Don and his men?" she echoed.</p> + +<p>"Yes. Even if he were alone to begin with, I'll bet all I've got he +roused every cowpuncher on the ranch with his first shot; and they'd be +out with their guns like a streak of greased lightning. If you open that +window with a light in the room, the wrong lot may get in and barricade +themselves against Don and his bunch—to say nothing of what would happen +to us. But——"</p> + +<p>Annesley waited for no more. She ran to the table and blew out the flame +of the green-shaded lamp. Black darkness shut down like the lid of a box. +But she knew the room as she knew her own features. Straight and +unerring, she found her way back to the window.</p> + +<p>This time Van Vreck stood still while she opened it and began noiselessly +to undo the outside wooden shutters. As she pushed them apart, against +the wind, a spray of sand dashed into her face and Van Vreck's, stinging +their eyelids. But disregarding the pain, the two passed out into the +night.</p> + +<p>Clouds of blowing sand hid the stars, yet there was a faint glimmer of +light which showed moving figures on horseback. Men were shouting, and +with the bark of their guns fire spouted.</p> + +<p>Annesley rushed on to the veranda, but Van Vreck caught her dress.</p> + +<p>"Stay where you are!" he ordered. "Our side is winning. Don't you +see—don't you hear—the fight's going farther away? That means the +raid's failed—the skunks have got the worst of it. They're trying to get +back to the river and across to their own country. There'll be some, I +bet, who'll never see Mexico again!"</p> + +<p>"But Knight——" the girl faltered. "He may be shot——"</p> + +<p>"He may. We've got to take the chances and hope for the best. He wouldn't +leave the chase now if every door and window were open and lit for him. +Wait. Watch. That's the only thing to do."</p> + +<p>She yielded to the detaining hand. All strength had gone out of her. She +staggered a little, and fell back against Van Vreck's shoulder. He held +her up strongly, as though he had been a young man.</p> + +<p>"How can I live through it?" she moaned.</p> + +<p>"You care for him after all, then?" she heard the calm voice asking in +her ear. And she heard her own voice answer: "I love him more than ever." +She knew that it was true, true in spite of everything, and that she had +never ceased to love him. It would be joy to give her life to save +Knight's, with just one moment of breath to tell him that his atonement +had not been vain.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Away out of sight the chase went, but the watching eyes had time to see +that not all the figures were on horseback. Some ran on foot; and some +horses were riderless. As Van Vreck had said, there was nothing for him +and for Annesley to do except to wait. They stood silent in the rain of +sand, listening when there was nothing more to see. The shots were +scattered and blurred by distance. Annesley realized how a heart may stop +beating in the anguish of suspense.</p> + +<p>But at last when the fierce wind, purring like a tiger, was the only +sound in the night, there came a sudden padding of feet. A form stumbled +up the veranda steps, and before she could cry out in her surprise, the +girl recognized their Chinese servant.</p> + +<p>She had fancied him in bed. But she might have known he would be out!</p> + +<p>He had been running so fast that his breath came chokingly.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" Annesley implored.</p> + +<p>The boy pointed, trying to speak, "Bling Mist' Donal back," he gulped. +"Me come tell."</p> + +<p>Annesley pushed past him, and springing down the steps ran blindly +through the sand cloud, taking the way by which the Chinese boy must have +come home. Her mind pictured a procession carrying a dead man, or one +grievously wounded; but at the cactus hedge she came upon three men—one +in the centre, who limped, two who supported him on either side.</p> + +<p>"Why, Anita!" exclaimed her husband's voice.</p> + +<p>"Knight!" she sobbed. It was the first time since Easter a year ago that +she had given him the old name.</p> + +<p>"Thank God you're alive!"</p> + +<p>"If you thank Him, so do I," he answered, whether lightly or gravely she +could not tell. His tone was controlled, as if to hide pain. "It's all +right. You mustn't worry any more. Wish I could have sent you news +sooner. I hoped you'd guess we were getting the upper hand when the shots +died away. Coming home I spotted the sneaks fording the river. I turned +the car, and stirred up the boys. Then we had a shindy, and scared the +dogs cold—bagged a few, but I guess nobody croaked—anyhow, none of our +crowd. Half a dozen are after the curs.</p> + +<p>"As for me, I feel as if I'd got a dum-dum in my ankle, but I'll be fit +as a fiddle in a week or two. I'm afraid you had a fright."</p> + +<p>How strange it was to hear him speak so coolly after what she had +endured! But his calmness quieted her.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Van Vreck was with me," she said.</p> + +<p>"Van Vreck! Great Scott, then the raid was a frameup! I see. Boys, let's +get along to the house quick."</p> + +<p>"Wait an instant!" the girl intervened. "Knight, I never had a chance to +tell you—about the cactus blossoms. I understood. I understand even +better now. Mr. Van Vreck has made me understand. That is all I can tell +you. Let them help you to the house. I'll follow. Some other time I'll +explain."</p> + +<p>"No—now!" he said. "Let go a minute, boys. I can stand by myself. Three +words with my wife."</p> + +<p>As the two men moved off hastily, Annesley sprang forward, giving her +shoulder for her husband's support.</p> + +<p>"Lean on me," she said. "Oh, Knight, you don't need an explanation, for +the three words are, love—love and forgiveness. Forgiveness from <i>you</i> +to <i>me</i>."</p> + +<p>He held out his arms, and caught her to him fiercely. Neither could +speak. The past was forgotten. Only the present and future counted. Both +the man and woman had atoned.</p> + + +<p>THE END</p> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="BOOK_BY_THE_SAME_AUTHOR" id="BOOK_BY_THE_SAME_AUTHOR"></a>BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR</h2> + + + +<p><span class="smcap">Car of Destiny, The</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Chaperon, The</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Everyman's Land</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Golden Silence, The</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Guests of Hercules, The</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Heather Moon, The</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">It Happened in Egypt</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lady Betty Across the Water</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lightning Conductor, The</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lightning Conductor Discovers America, The</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lion's Mouse, The</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lord Loveland Discovers America</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Motor Maid, The</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">My Friend the Chauffeur</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Port of Adventure, The</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Princess Passes, The</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Princess Virginia</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Rosemary in Search of a Father</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Secret History</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Set in Silver</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Soldier of the Legion, A</span></p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SECOND LATCHKEY***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 18470-h.txt or 18470-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/4/7/18470">http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/4/7/18470</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Second Latchkey + + +Author: Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson + + + +Release Date: May 29, 2006 [eBook #18470] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SECOND LATCHKEY*** + + +E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg +Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustration. + See 18470-h.htm or 18470-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/4/7/18470/18470-h/18470-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/4/7/18470/18470-h.zip) + + + + + +THE SECOND LATCHKEY + +by + +C. N. & A. M. WILLIAMSON + +Frontispiece by Rudolph Tandler + + + + + + + +Garden City New York +Doubleday, Page & Company +1920 + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER + + I. A White Rose + + II. Smiths and Smiths + + III. Why She Came + + IV. The Great Moment + + V. The Second Latchkey + + VI. The Beginning--or the End? + + VII. The Countess de Santiago + + VIII. The Blue Diamond Ring + + IX. The Thing Knight Wanted + + X. Beginning of the Series + + XI. Annesley Remembers + + XII. The Crystal + + XIII. The Series Goes On + + XIV. The Test + + XV. Nelson Smith at Home + + XVI. Why Ruthven Smith Went + + XVII. Ruthven Smith's Eyeglasses + + XVIII. The Star Sapphire + + XIX. The Secret + + XX. The Plan + + XXI. The Devil's Rosary + + XXII. Destiny and the Waldos + + XXIII. The Thin Wall + + XXIV. The Anniversary + + XXV. The Allegory + + XXVI. The Three Words + + + + +THE SECOND LATCHKEY + + + + +CHAPTER I + +A WHITE ROSE + + +Even when Annesley Grayle turned out of the Strand toward the Savoy she +was uncertain whether she would have courage to walk into the hotel. With +each step the thing, the dreadful thing, that she had come to do, loomed +blacker. It was monstrous, impossible, like opening the door of the +lions' cage at the Zoo and stepping inside. + +There was time still to change her mind. She had only to turn +now ... jump into an omnibus ... jump out again at the familiar corner, +and everything would be as it had been. Life for the next five, ten, +maybe twenty years, would be what the last five had been. + +At the thought of the Savoy and the adventure waiting there, the girl's +skin had tingled and grown hot, as if a wind laden with grains of heated +sand had blown over her. But at the thought of turning back, of going +"home"--oh, misused word!--a leaden coldness shut her spirit into a tomb. + +She had walked fast, after descending at Bedford Street from a fierce +motor-bus with a party of comfortable people, bound for the Adelphi +Theatre. Never before had she been in a motor-omnibus, and she was not +sure whether the great hurtling thing would deign to stop, except at +trysting-places of its own; so it had seemed wise to bundle out rather +than risk a snub from the conductor, who looked like pictures of the Duke +of Wellington. + +But in the lighted Strand she had been stared at as well as jostled: +a girl alone at eight o'clock on a winter evening, bare-headed, +conspicuously tall if conspicuous in no other way; dressed for dinner or +the theatre in a pale gray, sequined gown under a mauve chiffon cloak +meant for warm nights of summer. + +Of course, as Mrs. Ellsworth (giver of dress and wrap) often pointed out, +"beggars mustn't be choosers"; and Annesley Grayle was worse off than a +beggar, because beggars needn't keep up appearances. She should have +thanked Heaven for good clothes, and so she did in chastened moods; but +it was a costume to make a girl hurry through the Strand, and just for an +instant she had been glad to turn from the white glare into comparative +dimness. + +That was because offensive eyes had made her forget the almost immediate +future in the quite immediate present. But the hotel, with light-hearted +taxis tearing up to it, brought remembrance with a shock. She envied +everyone else who was bound for the Savoy, even old women, and fat +gentlemen with large noses. They were going there because they wanted to +go, for their pleasure. Nobody in the world could be in such an appalling +situation as she was. + +It was then that Annesley's feet began to drag, and she slowed her steps +to gain more time to think. Could she--_could_ she do the thing? + +For days her soul had been rushing toward this moment with +thousand-horsepower speed, like a lonely comet tearing through space. +But then it had been distant, the terrible goal. She had not had to +gasp among her heart-throbs: "Now! It is now!" + +Creep as she might, three minutes' brought her from the turning out of +the Strand close to the welcoming entrance where revolving doors of glass +received radiant visions dazzling as moonlight on snow. + +"No, I can't!" the girl told herself, desperately. She wheeled more +quickly than the whirling door, hoping that no one would think her mad. +"All the same, I _was_ mad," she admitted, "to fancy I could do it. I +ought to have known I couldn't, when the time came. I'm the last person +to--well, I'm sane again now, anyway!" + +A few long steps carried the girl in the sparkling dress and transparent +cloak into the Strand again. But something queer was happening there. +People were shouting and running. A man with a raucous, alcoholic voice, +yelled words Annesley could not catch. A woman gave a squeaking scream +that sounded both ridiculous and dreadful. Breaking glass crashed. A +growl of human anger mingled with the roar of motor-omnibuses, and Miss +Grayle fell back from it as from a slammed door in a high wall. + +As she stood hesitating what to do and wondering if there were a fire or +a murder, two women, laughing hysterically, rushed past into the hotel +court. + +"Hurry up," panted one of them. "They'll think we belong to the gang. +Let's go into the hotel and stay until it's over." + +"Oh, what is it?" Annesley entreated, running after the couple. + +"Burglars at a jeweller's window close by--there are women--they're being +arrested," one of the pair flung over her shoulder, as both hurried on. + +"'Women ... being arrested ...'" That meant that if she plunged into the +fray she might be mistaken for a woman burglar, and arrested with the +guilty. Even if she lurked where she was, a prowling policeman might +suppose she sought concealment, and bag her as a militant. + +Imagine what Mrs. Ellsworth would say--and _do_--if she were taken off to +jail! + +Annesley's heart seemed to drop out of its place, to go "crossways," as +her old Irish nurse used to say a million years ago. + +Without stopping to think again, or even to breathe, she flew back to the +hotel entrance, as a migrating bird follows its leader, and slipped +through the revolving door behind the fugitives. + +"It's fate," she thought. "This must be a _sign_ coming just when I'd +made up my mind." + +Suddenly she was no longer afraid, though her heart was pounding under +the thin cloak. Fragrance of hot-house flowers and expensive perfume from +women's dresses intoxicated the girl as a glass of champagne forced upon +one who has never tasted wine flies to the head. She felt herself on the +tide of adventure, moving because she must; the soul which would have +fled, to return to Mrs. Ellsworth, was a coward not worthy to live in her +body. + +She had room in her crowded mind to think how queer it was--and how queer +it would seem all the rest of her life in looking back--that she should +have the course of her existence changed because burglars had broken some +panes of glass in the Strand. + +"Just because of them--creatures I'll never meet--I'm going to see this +through to the end," she said, flinging up her chin and looking entirely +unlike the Annesley Grayle Mrs. Ellsworth knew. "To the _end_!" + +She thrilled at the word, which had as much of the unknown in it as +though it were the world's end she referred to, and she were jumping off. + +"Will you please tell me where to leave my wrap?" she heard herself +inquiring of a footman as magnificent as, and far better dressed than, +the Apollo Belvedere. Her voice sounded natural. She was glad. This added +to her courage. It was wonderful to feel brave. Life was so deadly, +worse--so _stuffy_--at Mrs. Ellsworth's, that if she had ever been +normally brave like other girls, she had had the young splendour of her +courage crushed out. + +The statue in gray plush and dark blue cloth came to life, and showed her +the cloak-room. + +Other women were there, taking last, affectionate peeps at themselves +in the long mirrors. Annesley took a last peep at herself also, not an +affectionate but an anxious one. Compared with these visions, was she +(in Mrs. Ellsworth's cast-off clothes, made over in odd moments by the +wearer) so dowdy and second-hand that--that--a stranger would be ashamed +to----? + +The question feared to finish itself. + +"I _do_ look like a lady, anyhow," the girl thought with defiance. +"That's what he--that seems to be the test." + +Now she was in a hurry to get the ordeal over. Instead of hanging back +she walked briskly out of the cloak-room before those who had entered +ahead of her finished patting their hair or putting powder on their +noses. + +It was worse in the large vestibule, where men sat or stood, waiting for +their feminine belongings; and she was the only woman alone. But her boat +was launched on the wild sea. There was no returning. + +The rendezvous arranged was in what _he_ had called in his letter "the +foyer." + +Annesley went slowly down the steps, trying not to look aimless. She +decided to steer for one of the high-back brocaded chairs which had +little satellite tables. Better settle on one in the middle of the hall. + +This would give _him_ a chance to see and recognize her from the +description she had written of the dress she would wear (she had not +mentioned that she'd be spared all trouble in choosing, as it was her +only _real_ evening frock), and to notice that she wore, according to +arrangement, a white rose tucked into the neck of her bodice. + +She felt conscious of her hands, and especially of her feet and ankles, +for she had not been able to make Mrs. Ellsworth's dress quite long +enough. Luckily it was the fashion of the moment to wear the skirt short, +and she had painted her old white suede slippers silver. + +She believed that she had pretty feet. But oh! what if the darn running +up the heel of the pearl-gray silk stocking should show, or have burst +again into a hole as she jumped out of the omnibus? She could have +laughed hysterically, as the escaping women had laughed, when she +realized that the fear of such a catastrophe was overcoming graver +horrors. + +Perhaps it was well to have a counter-irritant. + +Though Annesley Grayle was the only manless woman in the foyer, the +people who sat there--with one exception--did not stare. Though she +had five feet eight inches of height, and was graceful despite +self-consciousness, her appearance was distinguished rather than +striking. Yes, "distinguished" was the word for it, decided the one +exception who gazed with particular interest at that tall, slight figure +in gray-sequined chiffon too old-looking for the young face. + +He was sitting in a corner against the wall, and had in his hands a copy +of the _Sphere_, which was so large when held high and wide open that the +reader could hide behind it. He had been in his corner for fifteen or +twenty minutes when Annesley Grayle arrived, glancing over the top of his +paper with a sort of jaunty carelessness every few minutes at the crowd +moving toward the restaurant, picking out some individual, then dropping +his eyes to the _Sphere_. + +For the girl in gray he had a long, appraising look, studying her every +point; but he did the thing so well that, even had she turned her head +his way, she need not have been embarrassed. All she would have seen was +a man's forehead and a rim of smooth black hair showing over the top of +an illustrated paper. + +What he saw was a clear profile with a delicate nose slightly tilting +upward in a proud rather than impertinent way; an arch of eyebrow +daintily sketched; a large eye which might be gray or violet; a drooping +mouth with a short upper lip; a really charming chin, and a long white +throat; skin softly pale, like white velvet; thick, ash-blond hair parted +in the middle and worn Madonna fashion--there seemed to be a lot of it in +the coil at the nape of her neck. + +The creature looked too simple, too--not dowdy, but too unsophisticated, +to have anything false about her. Figure too thin, hardly to be called a +"figure" at all, but agreeably girlish; and its owner might be anywhere +from twenty to five or six years older. Not beautiful: just an average, +lady-like English girl--or perhaps more of Irish type; but certainly with +possibilities. If she were a princess or a millionairess, she might be +glorified by newspapers as a beauty. + +Annesley forced her nervous limbs to slow movement, because she hoped, +or dreaded--anyhow, expected--that one of the dozen or so unattached men +would spring up and say, constrainedly, "Miss Grayle, I believe?--er--how +do you do?" If only he might not be fat or very bald-headed! + +He had not described himself at all. Everything was to depend on her gray +dress and the white rose. That seemed, now one came face to face with the +fear, rather ominous. + +But no one sprang up. No one wanted to know if she were Miss Grayle; and +this, although she was ten minutes late. + +Her instructions as to what to do at the Savoy were clear. If she were +not met in the foyer, she was to go into the restaurant and ask for a +table reserved for Mr. N. Smith. There she was to sit and wait to be +joined by him. She had never contemplated having to carry out the latter +clause, however; and when she had loitered for a few seconds, the thought +rushed over her that here was a loop-hole through which to slip, if she +wanted a loop-hole. + +One side of her did want it: the side she knew best and longest as +herself, Annesley Grayle, a timid girl brought up conventionally, and +taught that to rely on others older and wiser than she was the right way +for a well-born, sheltered woman to go through life. The other side, the +new, desperate side that Mrs. Ellsworth's "stuffiness" had developed, was +not looking for any means of escape; and this side had seized the upper +hand since the alarm of the burglars in the Strand. + +Annesley marched into the restaurant with the air of a soldier facing his +first battle, and asked a waiter where was Mr. Smith's table. + +The youth dashed off and produced a duke-like personage, his chief. A +list was consulted with care; and Annesley was respectfully informed that +no table had been engaged by a Mr. N. Smith for dinner that evening. + +"Are you sure?" persisted Annesley, bewildered and disappointed. + +"Yes, miss--madame, I am sure we have not the name on our list," said the +head-waiter. + +The blankness of the girl's disappointment looked out appealingly from +wistful, wide-apart eyes. The man was sorry. + +"There may be some misunderstanding," he consoled her. "Perhaps Mr. Smith +has telephoned, and we have not received the message. I hope it is not +the fault of the hotel. We do not often make mistakes; yet it is +possible. We have had a few early dinners before the theatre and there is +one small table disengaged. Would madame care to take it--it is here, +close to the door--and watch for the gentleman when he comes?" + +"When he comes!" The head-waiter comfortably took it for granted that Mr. +Smith had been delayed, that he would come, and that it would be a pity +to miss him. The polite person might be right, though with a sinking +heart Annesley began to suspect herself played with, abandoned, as she +deserved, for her dreadful boldness. + +Perhaps Mr. Smith had been in communication with someone else more +suitable than she, and had thrown over the appointment without troubling +to let her know. Or perhaps he had been waiting in the foyer, had +inspected her as she passed, and hadn't liked her looks. + +This latter supposition seemed probable; but the head-waiter was so +confident of what she ought to do that the girl could think of no excuse. +After all, it would do little harm to wait and "see what happened." As +Mr. Smith was apparently not living at the Savoy (he had merely asked her +to meet him there), he might have had an accident in train or taxi. +Annesley had made her plans to be away from home for two hours, so she +could give him the benefit of the doubt. + +A moment of hesitation, and she was seating herself in a chair offered by +the head-waiter. It was one of a couple drawn up at a small table for +two. Sitting thus, Annesley could see everybody who came in, and--what +was more important--could be seen. By what struck her as an odd +coincidence, the table was decorated with a vase of white roses whose +hearts blushed faintly in the light of a pink-shaded electric lamp. + +A quarter of an hour, twenty minutes, dragged along, and no Mr. Smith. +Annesley could follow the passing moments on her wrist-watch in its +silver bracelet, the only present Mrs. Ellsworth had ever given her, +with the exception of cast-off clothes, and a pocket handkerchief each +Christmas. + +Every nerve in the girl's body seemed to prickle with embarrassment. She +played with a dinner roll, changed the places of the flowers and the +lamp, trying to appear at ease, and not daring to look up lest she should +meet eyes curious or pitying. + +"What if they make me pay for dinner after I've kept the table so long?" +she thought in her ignorance of hotel customs. "And I've got only a +shilling!" + +Half an hour now, all but two minutes! There was nothing more to hope or +fear. But there was the ordeal of getting away. + +"I'll sit out the two minutes," she told herself. "Then I'll go. Ought I +to tip the waiter?" Horrible doubt! And she must have been dreaming to +touch that roll! Better sneak away while the waiter was busy at a +distance. + +Frightened, miserable, she was counting her chances when a man, whose +coming into the room her dilemma had caused her to miss, marched +unhesitatingly to her table. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +SMITHS AND SMITHS + + +Annesley glanced up, her face aflame, like a fanned coal. The man was +tall, dark, lean, square-jawed, handsome in just that thrilling way which +magazine illustrators and women love; the ideal story-hero to look at, +even to the clothes which any female serial writer would certainly have +described as "immaculate evening dress." + +It was too good--oh, far too wonderfully good!--to be true that this +man should be Mr. Smith. Yet if he were not Mr. Smith why should +he----Annesley got no farther in the thought, though it flashed through +her mind quick as light. Before she had time to seek an answer for her +question the man--who was young, or youngish, not more than thirty-three +or four--had bent over her as if greeting a friend, and had begun to +speak in a low voice blurred by haste or some excitement. + +"You will do me an immense service," he said, "if you'll pretend to know +me and let me sit down here. You sha'n't regret it, and it may save my +life." + +"Sit down," answered something in Annesley that was newly awake. She +found her hand being warmly shaken. Then the man took the chair reserved +for Mr. Smith, just as she realized fully that he wasn't Mr. Smith. Her +heart was beating fast, her eyes--fixed on the man's face, waiting for +some explanation--were dilated. + +"Thank you," he said, leaning toward her, in his hand a menu which the +waiter had placed before the girl while she was still alone. She noticed +that the hand was brown and nervous-looking, the hand of a man who might +be a musician or an artist. He was pretending to read the menu, and to +consult her about it. "You're a true woman, the right sort--brave. I +swear I'm not here for any impertinence. Now, will you go on helping me? +Can you keep your wits and not give me away, whatever happens?" + +"I think so," answered the new Annesley. "What do you want me to do?" She +took the pitch of her tone from his, speaking quietly, and wondering if +she would not wake up in her ugly brown bedroom at Mrs. Ellsworth's, as +she had done a dozen times when dreaming in advance of her rendezvous at +the Savoy. + +"It will be a shock when I tell you," he answered. "But for Heaven's +sake, don't misunderstand. I shouldn't ask this if it weren't absolutely +necessary. In case a man comes to this table and questions you, you must +let him suppose that you are my wife." + +"Oh!" gasped Annesley. Her eyes met the eyes that seemed to have been +waiting for her look, and they answered with an appeal which she could +not refuse. + +She did not stop to think that if the dark eyes had not been so handsome +they might have been easier to resist. She--the suppressed and timid +girl, never allowed to make up her mind--let herself go with the wave +of strong emotion carrying her along, and reached a resolve. + +"It means trusting you a great deal," she answered. "But you say you're +in danger, so I'll do what you ask. I think you can't be wicked enough to +pay me back by trying to hurt me." + +"You think right," the man said, and it struck her that his accent was +not quite English. She wondered if he were Canadian or American. Not that +she knew much about either. "A woman like you _would_ think right!" he +went on. "Only one woman out of ten thousand would have the nerve and +presence of mind and the humanity to do what you're doing. When I came +into this room and saw your face I counted on you." + +Annesley blushed again in a rush of happiness. She had always longed to +do something which would really matter to another soul. She had even +prayed for it. Now the moment seemed to have come. God would not let her +be the victim of an ignoble trick! + +"I'm glad," she said, her face lit by a light from within. And at that +moment, bending toward each other, they were a beautiful couple. A seeker +of romance would have taken them for lovers. + +"Tell me what you want me to do," Annesley said once more. + +"The worst of it is, I can't tell you exactly. Two men may come into this +restaurant looking for me. One or both will speak to me. They'll call me +a certain name, and I shall say they've made a mistake. You must say so, +too. You must tell them I'm your husband, and stick to that no matter +what the man, or men, may tell you about me. The principal thing now is +to choose a name. But--by Jove--I forgot it in my hurry! Are you +expecting any one to join you? If you are, it's awkward." + +"I was expecting someone, but I've given him up." + +"Was this table taken in his name or yours? Or, perhaps--but no, I'm sure +you're _not_!" + +"Sure I'm not what?" + +"Married. You're a girl. Your eyes haven't got any experience of life in +them." + +Annesley looked down; and when she looked down her face was very sweet. +She had long, curved brown lashes a shade or two darker than her hair. + +"I'm not married," she said, rather stiffly. "I thought a table had been +engaged in the name of Mr. Smith, but there was a misunderstanding. The +head waiter put me at this table in case Mr. Smith should come. I've +given him up now, and was going away when----" + +"When you took pity on a nameless man. But it seems indicated that he +should be Mr. Smith, unless you have any objection!" + +"No, I have none. You'd better take the name, as I mentioned it to the +waiter." + +"And the first name?" + +"I don't know. The initial I gave was N." + +"Very well, I choose Nelson. Where do we live?" + +Annesley stared, frightened. + +"Forgive me," the man said. "I ought to have explained what I meant +before asking you that, or put the question another way. Will you go on +as you've begun, and trust me farther, by letting me drive with you to +your home, if necessary, in case of being followed? At worst, I'll need +to beg no more than to stand inside your front door for a few minutes if +we're watched, and--but I see that this time I have passed the limit. I'm +expecting too much! How do you know but I may be a thief or a murderer?" + +"I hadn't thought of such a thing," Annesley stammered. "I was only +thinking--it isn't _my_ house. It doesn't even belong to my people. I +live with an old lady, Mrs. Ellsworth. I hope she'll be in bed when I get +back, and the servants, too. I have a key because--because I told a fib +about the place where I was going, and consequently Mrs. Ellsworth +approved. If she hadn't approved, I shouldn't have been allowed out. I +could let you stand inside the door. But if any one followed us to the +house, and saw the number, he could look in the directory, and find out +that it belonged to Mrs. Ellsworth, not Mr. Smith." + +"He couldn't have a directory in his pocket! By the time he got hold of +one and could make any use of his knowledge, I'd be far away." + +"Yes, I suppose you would," Annesley thought aloud, and a little voice +seemed to add sharply in her ear: "Far away out of my life." + +This brought to her memory what she had in her excitement forgotten: +the adventure she had come out to meet had faded into thin air! The +unexpected one which had so startlingly taken its place would end +to-night, and she would be left to the dreary existence from which she +had tried to break free. + +She was like a pebble that had succeeded in riding out to sea on a wave, +only to be washed back into its old place on the shore. The thought that, +after all, she had no change to look forward to, gave the girl a +passionate desire to make the most of this one living hour among many +that were born dead. + +"Mrs. Ellsworth's house," she said, "is 22-A, Torrington Square." + +"Thank you." Only these two words he spoke, but the eager dark eyes +seemed to add praise and blessings for her confidence. + +"My name is Annesley Grayle," she volunteered, as if to prove to the man +and to herself how far she trusted him; also perhaps as a bid for his +name in payment of that trust. So at least he must have understood, for +he said: "If I don't tell you mine, it's for your own protection. I'm not +ashamed of it; but it's better that you shouldn't know--that if you heard +it suddenly, it should be strange to you, just like any other name. Don't +you see I'm right?" + +"I dare say you are." + +"Then we'll leave it at that. But we can't go on pretending to study +this menu for ever! You came to dine with Mr. Smith. You'll dine with +his understudy instead. You'll let me order dinner? It's part of the +programme." + +"Very well," Annesley agreed. + +The man nodded to the head-waiter, who had been interested in the little +drama indirectly stage-managed by him. Instead of sending a subordinate, +he came himself to take the order. With wonderful promptness, considering +that Mr. Smith's thoughts had not been near the menu under his eyes, +several dishes were chosen and a wine selected. + +"Madame is glad now that I persuaded her not to go?" the waiter could not +resist, and Annesley replied that she was glad. As the man turned away, +"Mr. Smith" raised his eyebrows with rather a wistful smile. + +"I'm afraid you're sorry, really," he said. "If I'd come a minute later +than I did, you'd have been safe and happy at home by this time." + +"Not happy," amended the girl. "Because it isn't home. If it were, I +shouldn't have told fibs to Mrs. Ellsworth to-night." + +"That sounds interesting," remarked her companion. + +"It's _not_ interesting!" she assured him. "Nothing in my life is. I +don't want to bore you by talking about my affairs, but if you think we +may be--interrupted, perhaps, I'd better explain one or two things while +there's time. I wanted to come here this evening to keep an engagement +I'd made, but it's difficult for me to get out alone. Mrs. Ellsworth +doesn't like to be left, and she never lets me go anywhere without her +except to the house of some friends of mine, the only real friends I +have. It's odd, but _their_ name is Smith, and that saved my telling +a direct lie. Not that a half-lie isn't worse, it's so cowardly! + +"Mrs. Ellsworth likes me to go to Archdeacon and Mrs. Smith's +because--I'm afraid because she thinks they're 'swells.' Mrs. Smith has a +duke for an uncle! Mrs. Ellsworth said 'yes' at once, when I asked, and +gave me her key and permission to stop out till half-past ten, though +everyone in the house is supposed to be in bed by ten. She's almost sure +to be in bed herself, but if she gets interested in one of the books I +brought from the library to-day, it's possible she may be sitting up to +read, and to ask about my evening. + +"Our bedrooms are on the ground floor at the back of an addition to the +house. What if she should hear the latchkey (it's old fashioned and hard +to work), and what if she should come to the swing door at the end of the +corridor where she'd see you with me? What would you say or do?" + +"H'm! It would be awkward. But--isn't there a _young_ Smith in your +Archdeacon's family?" + +"There is one, but I haven't seen him since I was a little girl. He's a +sailor. He's away now on an Arctic expedition." + +"Then it wasn't _that_ Mr. Smith you came to meet at the Savoy?" + +"No. They're not related." As Annesley returned in thought to the Mr. +Smith who had thrown her over, she took from her bodice the white rose +which was to have identified her for him, and found it a place in the +vase with the other white roses. She had a special reason for doing this. +The real Mr. Smith, if by any chance he appeared now, would be a +complication. Without the rose he could not claim her acquaintance. + +"Why do you do that?" her companion broke the thread of his questioning +to ask. + +The girl was tempted to tell some easy fib that the rose was faded, or +too fragrant; but somehow she could not. They both seemed so close to the +deep-down things of life at this moment that to speak the truth was the +one possible thing. + +"I arranged to wear a white rose for Mr. Smith to recognize me. We--have +never seen each other," she confessed. + +"Yet you say there's nothing interesting in your life!" + +"It's true! _This_ thing was--was dreadful. It could happen only to a +girl whose life was not interesting." + +"Now I understand why you put away the rose--for my sake, in case +Mr. Smith should turn up, after all. Will you give it to me? I won't +flaunt it in my buttonhole. I'll hide it sacredly, in memory of this +evening--and of you. Not that I shall need to be reminded of anything +which concerns this night--you especially, and your generosity, your +courage. But it may be that the men I spoke of won't find me here. If +they don't, the worst of your ordeal is over. It will only be to finish +dinner, and let me put you into a taxi. To-morrow you can think that you +dreamed the wretch who appealed to you, and be glad that you will never +see him again." + +Annesley selected her white rose from its fellows, dried its stem +daintily with her napkin, and gave the flower to "Mr. Smith." Already it +looked refreshed, as she herself felt refreshed, after five years of +"stuffiness," by these few throbbing moments. + +Their hands touched, and through Annesley's darted a little tingle of +electricity that flashed up her arm to her heart, where it caught like a +hooked wire. She was surprised, almost frightened by the sensation, and +ashamed because she didn't find it disagreeable. + +"It must be that people who're really _alive_, as he is, give out +magnetism," she thought. And the thrill lingered as the man thanked her +with eyes and voice. + +When he had looked at the rose curiously, as if expecting to learn from +it the secret of its wearer, he put the flower away in a letter-case in +an inner breast pocket of his coat. + +For once Annesley was face to face with romance, and even though she +would presently go back to the old round (since the adventure she came +out to meet had failed), she was stirred to a wild gladness in this +other adventure. The _hors d'oeuvres_ appeared; then soup, and wine, +which Mr. Smith begged her to taste. + +"Drink luck for me," he insisted. "You and you alone can bring it." + +Annesley drank. And the champagne filliped colour to her cheeks. + +"Now we'll go on and think out the problem of what may happen at your +door--if Fate takes me there," the man said. "Your old friend's sailor +son is no use to me. He can't be whisked back from the North Pole to +London for my benefit. Perhaps I may be an acquaintance of Archdeacon +Smith's, mayn't I, if worst comes to worst? I've been dining there, and +brought you back in a taxi. Will that do? If there are fibs to tell, I'll +tell them myself and spare you if possible." + +"After all I've told to-night, one or two more can't matter," said +Annesley. "They won't hurt Mrs. Ellsworth. It's the other danger that's +more worrying--the danger from those men. I've thought of something that +may help if they follow us to Torrington Square. They may ask a policeman +whose house we've gone into, and find out it's Mrs. Ellsworth's, before +you can get away. So it will be better not to tell them it's _yours_. You +can be visiting. There is a Mr. Smith who comes sometimes from America, +where he lives, though he's not American. Even the policemen who have +that beat may have heard of him from Mrs. Ellsworth's servants. There's +a room kept always ready for him, and called 'Mr. Smith's room.'" + +"That does help," said the man. "It's clever and kind of you to rack your +brains for me. A Mr. Smith from America! It's easy for me to play that +part, I'm from America. Perhaps you've guessed that?" + +"But you're very different from Mrs. Ellsworth's Mr. Smith," Annesley +warned him, hastily. "He's middle-aged, eccentric, and not good-looking. +He comes to England for his 'nerves' when he has worked too hard and +tired himself out. I think he's rich; and once he was robbed in some big +hotel, so he likes to stay at a plain sort of house where there's no +danger. He has a horror of burglars, and won't even stop at the +Archdeacon's since they had a burglary a few years ago. He pays Mrs. +Ellsworth for his room, I believe. A funny arrangement!--it came about +through me. But that's not of importance to you." + +"It may be. We can't tell. Better let me know as much as possible about +these Smiths. There's Mrs. Ellsworth's Smith, and the Smith you came to +meet----" + +"We needn't talk of _him_, anyway!" + +There was a hint of anger in the girl's protest; but her resentment was +for the man who had humiliated her by breaking his appointment--_such_ an +appointment! + +She hurried on, trying to hide all signs of agitation. "You see, Mrs. +Ellsworth once hoped to have Archdeacon Smith and his wife for friends. +They didn't care for her, but they loved my father--oh, long ago in the +country, where we lived. When he died and I hadn't any money or training +for work, they were nice to Mrs. Ellsworth for my sake--or, rather, for +my father's sake--and persuaded her to take me as her companion. She was +glad to do it to please them; but soon she realized that they didn't mean +to reward her by being intimate. + +"Poor woman, I was almost sorry for her disappointment! You see, she's +a snob at heart, and though 'Smith' sounds a common name, both the +Archdeacon and his wife have titled relations. So have I--and that was +another reason for taking me. She adores a title. Doesn't that sound +pitiful? But she has few interests and no real friends, so she's never +given up hope of 'collecting' the Smiths. + +"That's why she lets me visit them. And when I happened to mention, for +something to say, that the Archdeacon had an eccentric cousin in America +who was afraid of hotels and even of visiting at their house because of a +fad about burglars, she offered to give him the better of her two spare +rooms whenever he came to England. I never thought he'd accept, but he +did, only he would insist on paying. + +"That's the story, if you can call it a story, for Mr. Ruthven Smith +isn't a bit exciting nor interesting. When he appears--generally quite +suddenly--he finds his room ready. He has his breakfast sent up, and +lunches out at his club or somewhere. He mostly dines out, too, but he +has a standing invitation to dine with Mrs. Ellsworth, and we always have +good dinners when he is staying, to be ready in case of the worst." + +The man smiled, rather a charming smile, Annesley could not help +noticing. + +"In case of the worst!" he repeated. "He must be deadly if his +society bores you more than that of an old lady on whom, I suppose, +you dance attendance morning, noon, and night. Now, my situation is +so--er--peculiar that I ought to be thankful to exchange identities +with any man. But I wouldn't with Mr. Ruthven Smith for all his money +and jewels." + +Annesley opened her eyes. "Did I say anything about jewels?" she asked. + +"No, you didn't," the man assured her, "except in mentioning the name of +Ruthven Smith. Anybody who has lived in America as long as I have, +associates jewels with the name of Ruthven Smith. His 'Ruthven' lifts him +far above the ruck of a _mere_ Smith--like myself, for instance"; and he +smiled again. + +Annesley began curiously to feel as if she knew him well. This made her +more anxious to give him help--for it would not be helping a stranger: it +would be helping a friend. + +"I've heard, of course, that he's something--I'm not sure what--in a firm +of jewellers," she said. "But I'd no idea of his being so important." + +"He's third partner with Van Vreck & Co.," her companion explained. "I've +heard he joined at first because of his great knowledge of jewels and +because he's been able to revive the lost art of making certain +transparent enamels. The Van Vrecks sent for him from England years ago. +He buys jewels for the firm now, I believe. No doubt that's why he's in +such a funk about burglars." + +"Fancy your knowing more about Mr. Smith than I know! Perhaps more than +Mrs. Ellsworth knows!" exclaimed Annesley, forgetting the strain of +expectation--the dread that a pair of mysterious, nightmare men might +break up the dreamlike dinner-party for two. + +"I don't know more about him than half America and Europe knows," laughed +the man. "It's lucky I _do_ know something, though, as I may have to be +mistaken for Ruthven Smith, and add an 'N' to his initials. I suppose +he's not in England now by any chance?" + +"No. It must be six or seven months since he was here last," said +Annesley. "I don't think Mrs. Ellsworth has heard from him. She hardly +ever does until a day or two before he's due to arrive; neither do his +cousins." + +"A peculiar fellow, it would seem," remarked her companion. And then, out +of a plunge into thought, "You say you've never seen the Mr. Smith you +came to meet at the Savoy? How can you be sure it isn't old 'R. S.' as +they call him at Van Vreck's, wanting to play you a trick--give you a +surprise?" + +Annesley shook her head. "If you knew Mr. Ruthven Smith, you'd know that +would be impossible. Why, I don't believe he remembers when I'm out of +sight that I exist." + +"Still more peculiar! Miss Grayle, I haven't any right to ask you +questions. But I shouldn't be a man if I weren't forgetting my own +affairs--in--in curiosity, if you want to call it that (I don't!), about +yours. No! I won't let it pass for ordinary curiosity. Can't you +understand you're doing for me more than any woman ever has done, or any +man would do? That does make a bond between us. You can't deny it. Tell +me about this Mr. Smith whom you don't know and never saw, yet came to +the Savoy Hotel to meet." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +WHY SHE CAME + + +Surprised by the abruptness of his question, Annesley's eyes dropped +from the eyes of her host, which tried to hold them. She felt that she +ought to be angry with him for taking advantage of her generosity--for +it amounted to that! Yet anger would not come, only shame and the desire +to hide a thing which would change his gratitude to contempt. + +"Don't let's waste time talking about me," she said. "We haven't +arranged----" + +"We've arranged everything as well as we can. For the rest, I must trust +to luck--and you. Do tell me why you came here, why you _thought_ you +came here, I mean; for I'm convinced you were sent for my sake by any +higher powers there may be. I felt that, the minute I saw you. I feel it +ten times more strongly now. I know that whatever your reason was, it's +nothing to be ashamed of." + +"I _am_ ashamed," Annesley was led on to confess. "You'd despise me if I +told you, for you can't realize what my life's been for five years. And +that's my one excuse." + +"Only a fool would want a woman like you to excuse herself for +anything. I swear I wouldn't despise you. I couldn't. If you should tell +me--knowing you as little, or as well, as I do, that you'd been plotting +a murder, I'd be certain you were justified, and my first thought would +be to save you, as you're saving me now." + +Annesley felt again the man's intense magnetism. Suddenly she wanted to +tell him everything. It would be a relief. She would watch his face and +see how it changed. It would be like having the verdict of the world on +what she had done--or meant to do. + +"I saw an advertisement in the _Morning Post_," she said with a kind of +breathless violence, "from a man who--who wanted to meet a girl with--a +'view to marriage.'" + +The words brought a blush so painful that the mounting blood forced tears +to her eyes. But she looked her _vis-a-vis_ unwaveringly in the face. + +That did not change at all, unless the interest in his eyes grew warmer. +The sympathy she saw there gave Annesley a new and passionate desire to +defend herself. If he had shown disgust, she would not have cared to try, +she thought. + +"I told you it was horrid, and not interesting or romantic," she +dashed on. "But I was desperate. Mrs. Ellsworth is awful! I don't +suppose you ever met such a woman. She's not cruel about starving my +body. It's only my soul she starves. What business have _I_ with a soul, +except in church, where it's proper to think about such things? But she +nags--_nags_! She makes my hair feel as if it were turning gray at the +roots, and my face drying up--like an apple. + +"I wasn't nineteen when I came to her. I'm twenty-three now, and I feel +_old_--desiccated, thanks to those piling-up hundreds of days with her. +They've killed my spirit. I used to be different. I can feel it. I can +see it in the mirror. It isn't only the passing days, but having nothing +better to look forward to. I'm too cowardly--or too religious or +something, to kill myself, even if I knew how to, decently. But the +deadliness of it all, the airlessness of her house and her heart! + +"A man couldn't imagine it. She's made me forget not only my own youth, +but that there's youth in the world. Why, at first I was so wild I should +have loved to say dreadful things, or strike her. But now I haven't the +spirit left to feel like that. My blood's turning white. The other day +when I was reading aloud to Mrs. Ellsworth (I read a lot: the stupidest +parts of the papers and the silliest books, that turn my brain to fluff) +I caught sight of an advertisement in the Personal Column. + +"I stopped just in time and didn't read it out. Only a glimpse I had, for +I was in the midst of something else when my eyes wandered. But when Mrs. +Ellsworth was taking her nap after luncheon I got the _Post_ again and +read the advertisement through carefully. The reason I was interested was +because even the glance I took showed that the girl who was 'wanted' +seemed in some ways rather like me. The advertisement said she must be +from twenty-one to twenty-six; needn't be a beauty, but of pleasant +appearance; money no object; the essentials were that she must have a +fair education and be of good birth and manners, so as to command a +certain position in society. + +"I believe those were the very words. And it didn't seem too conceited +to think that I answered the description. I'm not bad-looking, and my +mother's father was an earl--an Irish one. I couldn't get the +advertisement out of my head. It fascinated me." + +"No wonder!" exclaimed Mr. Smith. He had been listening intently, and +though she had paused, panting a little, more than once, he had not +broken in with a word. + +"Do you _honestly_ think it no wonder?" Annesley flashed at him. + +"It was like a prisoner seeing a key sticking in a door that has always +been locked," he said. + +"How strange you should think of that!" she cried. "It was the thought +which came into my mind, and seemed to excuse me if anything could." +Annesley felt grateful to the man. She was sure she could never have +explained herself in this way or pleaded her own cause with the real Mr. +Smith. A man cold-blooded enough to advertise for a wife "well-born and +able to command a certain position in society" would have frozen her into +an ice-block of reserve. + +She might possibly have accepted his "proposition" (one couldn't speak of +it in the ordinary way as a "proposal"), provided that, on seeing her, he +had judged her suitable for the place; but she could never have talked +her heart out to him as she was led on to do by this other man, equally +a stranger, yet sympathetic because of his own trouble and the mystery +which made of him a figure of romance. + +"It isn't strange I should think of the prison door and the key," her +companion said. "That was the situation. 'N. Smith' was rather clever in +his way. There must be many girls of good family and good looks who are +in prison, pining to escape. He must have had a lot of answers, that +fellow; but none of the girls could have come within a mile of you. I'm +selfish! I bless my lucky stars he didn't turn up here." + +"I dare say it's the best thing that could happen," Annesley agreed with +a sigh. "Probably he's horrible. But there was one thing: I thought, +though he must be a snob and vulgar, advertising as he did for a wife of +good birth, that very thing looked as if he were no _worse_ than a snob. +Not a villain, I mean. Otherwise, I shouldn't have dared answer. But I +did answer the same day, while I had the courage. I posted a letter with +some of Mrs. Ellsworth's, which she sent me out to drop into the box. His +address was 'N. S., the _Morning Post_'; and I told him to send a reply, +if he wrote, to the stationery shop and library where Mrs. Ellsworth +makes me go every day to change her books." + +"And the answer? What was it like? What impression did it give you?" +questioned the man who sat in Mr. Smith's place. + +"Oh, it was written in a good hand. But it was a stiff, commonplace sort +of letter, except that it asked me to wear a white rose. White roses +happen to be the ones I like best." + +"So do I," said Mr. Smith. "Did he tell you to come to a table here and +wait for him?" + +"Not exactly. He was to meet me in the foyer. But if he did not, I was +to understand he'd been delayed; and in that case I must come to the +restaurant and inquire for a table engaged by Mr. N. Smith. Lots of times +I decided not to do anything. But you see I came, and this is my reward." + +"A poor one," her companion finished. + +"I don't mean that! I mean he hasn't come at all. Maybe he never meant +to. Maybe he got some letter he liked better than mine, and arranged to +meet the girl somewhere else. A man of that sort wouldn't write to tell +the straight truth in time, and save the unwanted one from humiliation." + +"Are you very sorry he didn't?" + +"No," Annesley said, frankly. "I'm not sorry. It's good to be able to +help someone. I'm glad I came." + +"So am I," Mr. Smith answered with a sudden change in his voice from calm +to excitement. "And now the moment isn't far off, I think, for the help +to be given. The men I spoke of are here. They're in the restaurant. You +can't see them without turning your head, which would not be wise. +They're speaking to a waiter. They haven't seen me yet, but they're sure +to look soon. They're pointing to a table near us. It's free. The +waiter's leading them to it. In an instant you'll have a better view +of them than I shall. Now ... but don't look up yet." + +From under her lashes Annesley saw--in the way women do see without +seeming to use their eyes--two men conducted to a table directly in front +of her. As she sat on her host's right, at the end of the table, not +opposite to him, this gave her the advantage--or disadvantage--of +facing the newcomers fully, while Mr. Smith, who had faced them as they +entered, would have his profile turned toward their table. + +The pair seated themselves in the same way that Annesley and her +companion were placed, one at the right hand of the other. This caused +the first man to face the girl fully and gave her the second in profile. +One table only intervened between Mr. Smith's and that selected by the +late arrivals, and the latter had hardly sat down when the party of four +at the intermediate table rose to go. + +Under cover of their departure, bowing of waiters and readjustment of +ladies' sable or ermine stoles, Annesley ventured a lightning glance at +the men. She saw that both were black-haired and black-bearded, with dark +skins and long noses. There was a slight suggestion of resemblance +between them. They might be brothers. They were in evening dress, but +did not look, Annesley thought, like gentlemen. + +Mr. Smith was eating _blennes au caviar_ apparently with enjoyment. He +called a waiter and told him to put more whipped cream on the caviare as +yet untouched in the middle of Annesley's pancake. + +"That's better, I think," he said, genially. And as the waiter went away, +"What are they doing now?" + +Annesley lifted her champagne glass as an excuse to raise her eyes. "I'm +afraid they've seen us and are talking about you. Can't we--hadn't we +better go?" + +"Certainly not," replied Mr. Smith. "At least, _I_ can't. But if you +repent----" + +"I don't," Annesley broke in. "I was thinking of you, of course." + +"Bless you!" said her host. His tone was suddenly gay. She glanced at him +and saw that his face was gay also, his eyes bright and challenging, his +look almost boyish. She had taken him for thirty-three or four; now she +would have guessed him younger. + +Annesley could not help admiring his pluck, for he had said that the +arrival of these men meant danger. She ought to be sorry as well as +frightened because they had come, but at that moment she was neither. Her +companion's example was contagious. Her spirits rose. And the thought +flashed through her head, "This adventure won't end here!" If she had had +time she would have been ashamed of her gladness; but there was no time. +Smith was talking again in a suppressed yet cheerful tone. + +"You won't forget that we're Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith?" + +"No--no. I sha'n't forget." + +"You may have to call me Nelson, and I--to call you Annesley. It's a +pretty name, odd for a woman to have. How did you get it?" + +"Oh, you don't want to hear that now!" + +"Why not?--unless you'd rather not tell me. We can't do anything more +till the blow falls, except enjoy ourselves and go on with our dinner. +How did you come to be Annesley?" + +"It was part of my mother's maiden name. She was an Annesley-Seton." + +"There's a Lord Annesley-Seton, isn't there?" + +"Yes." + +"Related to you?" + +"A cousin. But Grayle isn't a name in their set. He and his wife have +forgotten my existence. I'm not likely to remind them of it." + +"His wife was an American girl, wasn't she?" + +"How odd that you should know!" + +"Not very. I remember there being a lot in the papers about the wedding +six or seven years ago. The girl was very rich--a Miss Haverstall. Her +father's lost his money since then." + +"How _can_ you keep such uninteresting things in your mind--just now?" + +"They're not uninteresting. They concern you!" + +"Lord Annesley-Seton's affairs don't concern me, and never will." + +"I wonder?" said Smith, looking thoughtful; and the girl wondered, too: +not about her future or her relatives, but what the next few minutes +would do with this strange young man, and how at such a time he could +bear to talk commonplaces. + +"If you're trying to keep me from being nervous," she whispered, "it's +not a bit of use! I can't think of anything or any one except those men. +They've stopped whispering. But they're looking at you. Now--they're +getting up. They're coming toward us!" + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE GREAT MOMENT + + +The men were staring so keenly at "Mr. N. Smith" that it seemed to +Annesley he must feel the stab of eyes, sharp as pin-pricks, in his back. +He had the self-control, however, not to look round, not even to change +expression. No man in the restaurant appeared more calmly at ease than +he. + +The couple had accompanied their stare with eager whisperings. Then, +as if on some hasty decision, they pushed back their chairs and got up. +Taking a few steps they separated, approaching Smith on right and left. +One, therefore, stood between him and Annesley as if to prevent an +exchange of words or glances. There was something Eastern and oddly +alien about them in spite of their conventional clothes. + +"Mr. Michael Varcoe!" said the bigger and older, he who stood on the left +of Smith. The other kept in the background, not to crowd with conspicuous +rudeness between Annesley and her host. The man who spoke had a thick +voice and a curious accent which the girl, with her small experience, was +unable to place. + +"No," answered "Smith," in a puzzled tone. "You mistake me for someone +else." + +"I think not," insisted the bearded man, in a hostile drawl. "I _think_ +not!" + +"I'm _sure_ not," echoed the other. "You are Michael Varcoe. There's no +getting away from that." + +The emphasis seemed to add, "And no getting away from _us_." + +Excitement stirred Annesley to courage. "Why, how horrid!" she exclaimed, +bending past the human obstacle; "people taking you for some _foreigner_! +I'm sure you can't be like a man with such a name as--Michael Varcoe! +Tell them who we are." + +"My name is Nelson Smith," said her official husband. "My wife is +not----" + +"Your wife!" repeated the man standing opposite Annesley. He stared with +insolent incredulity. "'Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith.' A good name to +take." + +"It happens to have been given me." Slight sharpness broke the tolerance +of Smith's tone. + +"I don't believe you!" exclaimed the other. + +Smith's black brows drew together. "It doesn't matter whether you believe +or not," he said. "What does matter is that you should annoy us. I tell +you I'm not Michael Varcoe, and never heard the name. If you're not +satisfied, and if you don't go back to your dinner and let us finish ours +in peace, I'll appeal to the management." + +"Well!" grumbled the taller of the pair. "If you're not the man I want, +you're his image--minus moustache and beard. You _must_ be Varcoe!" + +"Of course he's Varcoe," insisted the other. + +"Of course he's not!" said Annesley, with just the right amount of +irritation. "Our name is Smith. Nelson, do tell this--person to ask the +head-waiter who engaged the table, and not stay here making a fuss." + +"Anybody can engage a table in the name of Smith!" sneered the first +speaker. "That is nothing. We go by something more convincing than a +name. There are countries where men have been arrested on less +resemblance--or put out of the way." + +"Oh, Nelson, he's frightening me," faltered Annesley. "He must have lost +his senses." + +"You think that, do you?" The fierce eyes fixed her with a stare. "You +tell me--_you_, madame, that you are this man's wife?" + +"I do tell you so," the girl replied, firmly, "though I don't see that +it's your affair! Now go away." + +"Very well, we take your word," returned the man, in a tone which said +that he did nothing of the sort. "And we go--back to our table, to let +you finish your meal, Mr. and Mrs. Smith." + +His black glance sprang like a tarantula from her face to her +companion's, then to his friend's. The latter accepted the ultimatum and +followed in sulky silence; but when the pair were seated at their own +table, though they ordered food and wine, their attention was still for +the alleged Mr. and Mrs. Smith. + +Annesley tried to ignore the fact that they stared without ceasing, but +she could not help being aware of their eyes. She felt faint, and +everything in the room whirled giddily. + +"Drink some champagne," said Smith's quiet voice. + +The girl obeyed, and the ice-cold wine cooled the fire in blood and +nerves. + +"You have been splendid," Smith encouraged her. "I know you won't fail me +now." + +"I promise you I will not!" returned Annesley. "The worst is over. I feel +ready for anything." + +"How can I thank you?" he murmured. "If I had all the rest of my life to +do it in, instead of a few minutes, it wouldn't be too much. You were +perfect in your manner, not anxious, only annoyed; just the right air for +a self-respecting Mrs. Smith." + +They both laughed, and Annesley was surprised that she could laugh +naturally and gaily. Presently she laughed again, when Mr. Smith remarked +that she had missed her vocation in not being an actress--she, the +country mouse, who had hardly been inside a theatre. + +The two lingered over their dinner, watched with impatience by the men +at the other table, who had ordered only one dish and paid for it +immediately, that they might be ready for anything at an instant's +notice. They had also a small bottle of wine, which they sipped +abstemiously as an excuse to remain after their food had been eaten. + +When at last Mr. and Mrs. Smith had finished their _bombe surprise_, and +trifled with some fruit, Annesley said: "Evidently they don't care how +long they have to wait! I suppose there's nothing for us to do but to +go?" + +"Oh, yes, there's still something," said Smith. "We'll have coffee in the +foyer, and see what the enemy's next move is. It would be a mistake to +let the brutes believe they're frightening us." + +Annesley agreed in silence; but in her heart she was glad to lengthen out +the adventure. Soon she would have to creep back to her dull modern +substitute for a moated grange, and after that--not "the deluge"; nothing +so exciting: extinction. + +As they walked out of the restaurant together the girl glanced up at the +dark profile, mysterious as a stranger's, yet familiar as a friend's. The +man had told her nothing about himself except that he was in danger, and +had given no hint as to what that danger was; but the girl's heart was +warm with belief in him. If there were a question of crime, the crime was +not his. His superiority over those creatures must be moral as well as +physical and social. + +By an odd coincidence, Mr. Smith steered for the sofa in the corner +whence a man had stared from behind an open newspaper at a tall, lonely +girl in gray, earlier in the evening. Annesley knew nothing of this +coincidence, because she had not noticed the man; but even if she had, +she would have forgotten him. She had been thinking of herself when she +first trailed her gray dress over the red carpet of the foyer; now, +returning, she thought of the man who was with her and the two who were +certain to follow. + +Scarcely were she and Smith seated before the others appeared. The men +sat down in chairs drawn up at a little table; and not only must those in +the corner pass by them in escaping, but every word spoken above a +whisper must be overheard. + +This fact did not embarrass Smith. He ordered coffee and cigarettes, and +talked to Annesley in an ordinary tone about a motor trip which it would +be pleasant to take. The watchers also demanded coffee. But the waiter +they summoned was slow in fulfilling their order. When it was obeyed, +before the pair had time to lift cup to lip, Mr. Smith took impish +pleasure in getting to his feet. + +"Come, dear," he said, "we'd better be off." + +He laid on the table money for the coffee and cigarettes, with a +satisfactory tip. Then without looking at their neighbours he and +Annesley passed, walking shoulder to shoulder with a leisurely step +toward the entrance. + +"I suppose there's no chance of shaking them off?" the girl whispered. + +"None whatever," said Smith. "But we've had the fun of cheating them out +of their coffee, because they won't chance our stopping to pick up our +wraps. They'll be on our heels till the end of the journey, so there's +nothing for it except to stick to the original plan of my going home with +you. I hope you don't mind? I hope you're not afraid of me now?" + +"I'm not at all afraid," said Annesley. + +"Thank you for that. If our taxi outruns theirs, I sha'n't need to +trespass on your kindness beyond the doorstep. But if they overtake us, +and are on the spot before you can vanish into the house and I can +disappear in some other direction, are you still game to keep your +promise--the promise to let me go indoors with you?" + +"Yes, I am 'game' to the end--whatever the end may be," the girl +answered; and she wondered at herself, because her heart was as brave as +her words. + +Five minutes later Annesley, wrapped in her thin cloak, was stepping into +a taxi. As Smith followed and told the chauffeur where to drive, the two +watchers shot through the revolving door in time to overhear, and also to +order a taxi. + +Annesley wondered for one dismayed instant why her companion should have +given the real address. He might have mentioned some other street, and +thus have gained time; but a second thought told her that, with the +pursuing taxi so close upon their heels, an attempt to deceive would have +been useless. The policy of defiance was the only one. + +For a few moments neither the girl nor the man spoke, although Annesley +felt that there were a thousand things to say. Every second was taking +them nearer to Torrington Square; and their parting must come soon. After +that, all would be blankness for her, as before this wonderful night. + +Such thoughts made the girl a prisoner of silence; and "Mr. Smith" was +also tongue-tied. Was he concentrating his mind upon some plan of escape +from these mysterious enemies? She told herself this must be so; yet his +first words proved that he had been thinking of the risk she ran. + +"If the dragon comes out of her den and catches us at the door, will that +mean a catastrophe for you, or can I be explained away?" he inquired. + +"I don't know," said Annesley. "And somehow I don't care!" + +"I care," the man replied. "I can't have harm come to you through me. But +tell me, before we go farther--does it matter to you, Miss Grayle, that +in a little while you and I may see the last of each other? I feel I have +a sort of right to ask that question, because it matters such a lot to +me. I've got to know you better in this one evening than I could in a +year in a commonplace way. I don't want you to go out of my life, because +you're the best thing that ever came into it. And if I dared hope that I +might mean to you some day half what you've begun to mean for me already, +why, I wouldn't _let_ you go!" + +Annesley clasped her hands under her cloak. They were cold yet tingling. +Her blood was leaping; but she could not speak. She was afraid of saying +too much. + +"Can't you give me a grain of hope?" he went on. His voice was wistful. +"We have so little time." + +"What--do you want me to say?" Annesley stammered. + +"I want you to say--that you don't wish to see the last of me to-night." + +"I shouldn't be human if I _could_ wish that!" the words seemed to speak +themselves; and she, who had been taught to repress and hide emotion as +if it were a vice, was glad that the truth was out. After all they had +gone through together she couldn't send this man away believing her +indifferent. "I--it doesn't seem as if we were strangers," she faltered +on. + +"Strangers! I should think not," he echoed. "We mayn't know much about +each other's tastes, but we do know about each other's souls, which is +more than can be said of most men and women acquainted for half a +lifetime. As for our pasts, you haven't had one, and I--well, if I swear +to you that I've never murdered anybody, or been in prison, or committed +an unforgivable crime, will you take my word?" + +"If you told me you _were_ a murderer, or had committed some unforgivable +crime, I--I don't feel as if I could believe it," Annesley assured him. +"It--would hurt me to think evil of you. I'm sure it isn't you who are +evil, but these men." + +"You're an angel to feel like that and speak like that!" exclaimed Smith. +"I don't deserve your goodness, but I appreciate it. I'd like to take +your hand and kiss it when I thank you, but I won't, because you're alone +with me, under my protection. To save me from trouble you've risked +danger and put yourself in my power. I may be bad in some ways--most men +are, or would be in women's eyes if women saw them as they are; but I'm +not a brute. The worst I've ever done is to try to pay back a great +injury, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Do you blame me for +that?" + +"I have no right--I don't know what the injury was," said the girl; and, +hesitating a little, "still--I don't think _I_ could find happiness in +revenge." + +"I could, or anyhow, satisfaction: I confess that. About 'happiness,' I +don't know much. But you could teach me." + +"I?" + +"Yes. Do you believe there can be such a thing as love at first sight?" + +"I can't tell. Books say so. Perhaps----" + +"There's no 'perhaps.' I've found that out to-night. I believe love that +comes at sight must be the only real love--a sort of electric call from +soul to soul. The thing that's happened is just this: I've met the one +woman--my help-mate. If I come out of this trouble, and can ask a girl +like you to give herself to me, will you do it?" + +"Oh, you say this because you think you ought to be grateful!" cried +Annesley. "But I don't want gratitude. This is the first time I've ever +_lived_. I owe that to you. And it's more than you can owe to me." + +The man laughed, a happy laugh, as though danger were miles away instead +of on his heels. "You know almost as much about men as a child knows, +Miss Grayle," he said, "if you think I'm one of the sort--if there _is_ +such a sort--who would tie himself to a woman for gratitude. I've just +one motive in wanting you to marry me. I love you and need you. I +couldn't feel more if I'd known you months instead of hours." + +The wonder of it swept over Annesley in a flood. Even in her dreams--and +she had had wild dreams sometimes--she had never pictured a man such as +this loving her and wanting her. To the girl's mind he was so attractive +that it seemed impossible his choice of her could be from the heart. She +would wake up to a stale, flat to-morrow and find that none of these +things had really happened. + +Still, she might as well live up to the dream while it lasted, and have +the more to remember. + +"It's a fairy story, surely!" she said, trying to laugh. "There are so +many beautiful girls in the world for a man like you, that I----" + +"A man like me! What _am_ I like?" + +"Oh, it's hard to put into words. But--well, you're brave; I'm sure of +that." + +"I hope I'm not a coward. All normal men are brave. That's nothing. What +else am I--to you?" + +"Interesting. More interesting than--than any one I ever saw." + +"If you feel that, you don't want to send me out of your life, do +you?--after you've stood by and sheltered me from danger?" + +"No-o. I don't want to send you out of my life. But----" + +"There's only one way in which you can keep me and I can keep +you--circumstanced as we are. We must be husband and wife." + +"Oh!" The girl covered her face with both hands. The world was on fire +around her. + +"I frighten you. Yet you might have consented to marry that other Smith. +You went to meet him, to decide whether he was possible." + +"I know. But I see now, if he'd kept his appointment, it would have ended +in nothing, even if--if he had been pleased with me. I couldn't have +brought myself to say 'yes'." + +"How can you be certain?" + +"Because"--Annesley spoke almost in a whisper--"because he wasn't _you_." + +Smith snatched her clasped hands and kissed them. The warm touch of the +man's lips gave the girl a new, mysterious sensation. No man had ever +kissed even her hands. Suddenly she felt sure that what she felt must be +love--love at first sight, which, according to him, was an electric call +from soul to soul. His kiss told her that they belonged to each other for +good or evil. + +"Darling!" he said. "You are mine. I sha'n't let you go. For love of you +I'll free myself from this temporary trouble I'm in, and come back to +claim you soon. When I ask you to be my wife you'll say to me what you +_wouldn't_ have said to the other Smith?" + +"If I can escape to hear you. But--you don't know Mrs. Ellsworth." + +"St. George rescued the princess from the dragon: so will I, though I've +warned you I'm no saint. When we meet again I'll tell you what I am, and +perhaps my real name, which is better than Smith, though it mayn't be as +safe. Now, there are other things to say----" + +But there was no time to say them, for the taxi stopped. The time seemed +so short since the Savoy that Annesley couldn't believe they were in +Torrington Square. Perhaps the chauffeur had made a mistake? She looked +out, hoping that it might be so; but before her were the darkened windows +of the dull, familiar house, 22-A. The great moment was upon them. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE SECOND LATCHKEY + + +Without another word Smith opened the door and sprang out. As Annesley +put her hand into his to descend she gave him the latchkey. It had been +inside the neck of her dress, and the metal was warm from the warmth of +her heart. + +"Take this," she whispered. "If _they_ are watching, it will be best for +you to have the key." + +Mr. Smith bestowed a generous tip on the driver, and was rewarded with a +loud, cheerful "Thank you, sir!" which must have reached the ears of a +chauffeur in the act of stopping before a house near by. Annesley, +glancing sidewise at the other taxi, thought that it drew up with +suspicious suddenness, as if it had awaited a "cue." + +There was little doubt in her mind as to who the occupants were, and her +heart beat fast, though she controlled herself to walk with calmness +across the strip of pavement. On the doorstep she turned to wait for her +companion, and, without seeming to look past him, saw that no one got out +from the neighbouring taxi. + +"They don't care whether we guess who they are or not," was her thought. +"They mean to find out whether we have a latchkey and can let ourselves +into a house in this square. When they see us go in, will they believe +the story and drive away, or--will they stay on?" + +What would happen if the watchers persisted Annesley dared not think; but +she knew that she would sacrifice herself in any way rather than send the +man she loved (yes, she _did_ love him!) out to face peril. + +Having paid the chauffeur, Mr. N. Smith joined the figure on the +doorstep, and fitted into the lock Annesley's latchkey. Then he opened +the door for the girl, and followed her in with a cool air of +proprietorship which ought to have impressed the watchers. A minute +later, if another proof had been needed that Mr. and Mrs. Smith were +actually at home, it was given by a sudden glow of red curtains in the +two front windows of the ground floor. + +This touch of realism meant extra risk for Annesley in case Mrs. +Ellsworth were awake; but she took it with scarcely a qualm of fear. The +house was quiet, and there were ten chances to one against its mistress +being on the alert at this hour, so long past her bedtime. + +When the girl had switched on the lights of the two-branched chandelier +over the dining table she beckoned to her companion, who noiselessly +followed her from the dark corridor into the room. There, with one +sweeping glance at the dull red walls, the oil-painted landscapes in +sprawling gilt frames, the heavy plush curtains, the furniture with its +"saddle-bag" upholstery, the common Turkish carpet, and the mantel mirror +with tasteless, tasselled draperies, "Nelson Smith" seemed to comprehend +the deadly "stuffiness" of Annesley Grayle's existence. + +The look of Mrs. Ellsworth's middle-class dining room, and the atmosphere +whence oxygen had been excluded, were enough to tell him, if he had not +realized already, why the lady's companion had gone out to meet a strange +man "with a view to marriage." + +To Annesley, however, for the first time, this room was neither hideous +nor depressing. It seemed years since she had seen it. She was a +different girl from the spiritless slave who had crept out after +luncheon, in the wake of her mistress: that short, shapeless form with +a large head set on a short neck, and a trailing, old-fashioned dress +of black. + +Now, with a man holding her hands and calling her an angel--a "dear, +brave angel!"--it looked to the girl a beautiful room. There was glamour +upon it, and upon the rest of the world. Surely life could never seem +commonplace again! + +"Ssh!" Annesley whispered. "We mustn't wake Mrs. Ellsworth, or she'll run +to the front door in her dressing gown and call 'Police!' She's old, but +her ears are sharp as a cat's. She can almost hear one _thinking_. But +I'm glad she can't quite. How frightful if she could!" + +"Nothing about her need be frightful to you any more," said the man. "You +have saved me. Soon it will be my turn to rescue you." + +"I haven't saved you yet," the girl reminded him. "_They_ are sure to be +waiting to see whether you come out. But I've thought of one more thing +to make them believe that you live here. I can steal softly upstairs to +the front room on the second floor, above the drawing room--the one we +call 'Mr. Smith's'--to turn on the lights, and then those hateful +creatures will think----". She hesitated, and the colour sprang to her +cheeks. + +"That Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith have gone to their room," the man +finished her sentence. His eyes beamed love and gratitude, a glorious +reward. "You're wonderful! You forget nothing that can help. Do you know, +your trust, your faith in me, in spite of appearances, are the best +things that have come into my life? You call those fellows 'hateful +creatures,' because they're my enemies. Yet, for all you know, _they_ +may be injured innocents and I the 'hateful' one. This may be my way +of getting into a rich old woman's house to steal her jewels and +money--making you a cat's paw." + +"Don't!" Annesley cut him short. "I can't bear to hear you say such +things. I trust you because--surely a woman can tell by instinct which +men to trust. I don't need proof." + +"By Jove!" he exclaimed, his eyes fixed upon her face. "You are the kind +of girl whose faith could turn Lucifer back from devil into archangel. +I--you're a million times too good for me. I didn't even _want_ to meet a +white saint like you. But now I have met you, nothing on earth is going +to make me give you up, if you'll stand by me. I'm unworthy, and I don't +expect to be much better. But there's one thing: I can give you a gayer +life than here. Perhaps I can even make you happy, if you don't ask for +a saint to match yourself. You shall have my love and worship, and I'll +be true as steel----" + +"Oh, listen!" Annesley broke in. "Don't you hear a sound?" + +"Yes," he said. "A door creaked somewhere." + +"Mrs. Ellsworth's bedroom door. What shall we do? There's just the short +passage at the back, and then she'll be at the baize door that opens +into the front corridor. Quick! You, not I, must go upstairs--to that +second-floor front room I spoke of. Hurry! Before she gets to the swing +door----" + +Without a word he obeyed, remembering his hat, which he had laid on the +table. One step took him out of the lighted dining room into the dimness +beyond. Another step and he was on the stairs. There, for the moment at +least, he was safe from detection; for the staircase faced the front +door, and Mrs. Ellsworth must approach from the back. She would come to +the door of the dining room, and, expecting only the girl, would not +think of spying at the foot of the stairs. + +Besides, there was no light in the corridor except that which streamed +through the reddish globes of the chandelier above the dining table. If +only the man did not stumble on his way up, the situation might be saved. + +He was alert, deft, quick-witted, and light of foot as a panther. Who but +he would have remembered at such a moment to snatch up a compromising hat +and take it with him? + +Annesley stood still, rigid in every muscle, fighting to control her +heart-throbs, that she might be ready to answer a flood of questions. She +dared not even let her thoughts rush ahead. It was all she could do to +face the present. The rest must take care of itself. + +_He_ had said that she would "make a good actress." Now was the moment +to prove that he had judged her truly! She began to unfasten one of her +long gray gloves. A button was loose. She must give it a few stitches +to-morrow. Strange that there should be room for such a thought in her +mind. But she caught at it gladly. + +It calmed her as she heard a shuffling tread of slippered feet along the +corridor; and she forced herself not to look up until she was conscious +that a shapeless figure in a dressing gown filled the doorway, like a +badly painted portrait too large for its frame. + +"A nice time of night for you to be back!" barked the bronchitic voice +hoarsened by years of shut windows. "Give you an inch and you take an +ell! I told you half-past ten. Here it is eleven!" + +Annesley looked up as if surprised. "Oh, Mrs. Ellsworth, you frightened +me!" she exclaimed. "I was delayed. But it won't be eleven for ten +minutes. This dining-room clock keeps such good time, you know. And I've +been in the house for a few moments. I thought I came so softly! I'm +sorry I waked you up." + +"Waked me up!" repeated Mrs. Ellsworth. "I have not been to sleep. I +never can close my eyes when I know anybody is out and has got to come +back, especially a careless creature as likely as not to leave the front +door unlatched. That's why I said half-past ten at _latest_! If I don't +fall asleep before eleven I get nervous and lose my night's rest. You've +heard me say that twenty times, yet you have _no_ consideration!" + +"This is the first time I've been out late," Annesley defended herself. +As she spoke she looked at Mrs. Ellsworth as she might have looked at a +stranger. + +This fat old woman, with hard eyes, low, unintelligent forehead, and +sneering yet self-indulgent mouth, had been for five years the mistress +of her fate. The slave had feared to speak lest she should say the wrong +thing, had hesitated before taking the most insignificant step, knowing +that Mrs. Ellsworth's sharp tongue would accuse her of foolishness or +worse. But now Annesley wondered at her bondage. If only the man upstairs +could escape, never again would she be afraid of this old tyrant. + +"You don't need to tell me how long you have been in," said Mrs. +Ellsworth, blissfully ignorant that the iron chain was broken, and +enjoying her power to wound. "I've been sitting up watching the clock. My +fire's nearly out, and no more coals in the scuttle, the servants all +three snoring while I am kept up. If I'm in bed with a cold to-morrow I +shall have you to thank, Miss Grayle." + +"I'll get you some more coal if you want it," said Annesley. "Hadn't you +better go to bed now I am back?" + +"Not till I've made you understand that this must never occur again," +insisted the old woman. (Annesley was shocked at herself for daring to +think that the unwieldy bulk in the gray flannel dressing gown looked +like a hippopotamus.) "You don't seem to realize that you've done +anything out of the way. You're as calm as if it was eight o'clock. Not +a word of regret! Not a question as to _my_ evening, you're so taken up +with yourself and your smart clothes--clothes I gave you." + +"I haven't had much chance to ask questions, have I?" Annesley ventured +to remind her mistress. "Won't you tell me about your evening when you +are in bed and I have made up your fire? You say it is bad for you to +stand." + +"I say so because it is the truth, and doctor's orders," rapped out Mrs. +Ellsworth. "I thought I had been upset enough for one evening, but this +last straw had to be added to my burden." + +"Why, what can have upset you?" Annesley inquired, more for the sake +of appearing interested than because she was so. But the look on her +mistress's face told her that something really had happened. + +"I don't care to be kept out of my bed, to be catechized by you," +returned Mrs. Ellsworth, pleased that she had aroused curiosity and +determined not to gratify it. "Turn on the light in the corridor and +give me your arm. My rheumatism is very bad, owing to the chill I have +caught, and if I stumble I may be laid up for a week." + +The girl proffered a slender arm, hoping that the pounding of her heart +might not be detected by Mrs. Ellsworth's hand. She wished that she could +have slipped it under her right arm instead of the left, but owing to +Mrs. Ellsworth's position in the doorway it was impossible to do so, +except by pushing her aside. + +She rejoiced, however, in the order to put on the light in the corridor, +for this meant that after settling her mistress in bed and transferring +the dining-room coal scuttle to the bedroom she must return to switch the +electricity off. Then, with Mrs. Ellsworth out of the way, she could help +the man upstairs to escape, if the watchers had abandoned the game. + +The tyrant, shuffling along in heelless woollen slippers, made the most +of her infirmity, and hung on the arm of her tall companion. In silence +they passed through the baize door at the end of the corridor, so into +the addition at the back of the house, which contained Mrs. Ellsworth's +room and bath, with another small room suitable for a maid, and occupied +by Annesley. This addition had been built a year or two before Annesley's +arrival, and saved Mrs. Ellsworth the necessity of mounting and +descending the stairs, as she used the dining room to sit in and seldom +went into the drawing room on the floor above. Annesley was not surprised +to see that the fire in her mistress's room was still a bank of glowing +coals, for one of Mrs. Ellsworth's pleasures was to represent herself in +the light of a martyr. The girl made no remark, however: she was far too +experienced for such mistakes in tact. + +Still in silence, she peeled the stout figure of its dressing gown and +helped it into a short, knitted bed-jacket. + +"When you get the dining-room scuttle, put out the light there and in the +corridor," Mrs. Ellsworth said. "If you leave this door open you can see +your way with the coals. No use your creaking back and forth just as I've +settled down to rest. Besides, there's somebody else to think of. I hope +he hasn't been disturbed already!" + +"Somebody else?" echoed the girl with a gasp. There was no longer any +fear that her curiosity had not caught fire. Mrs. Ellsworth was +satisfied. + +"Yes, somebody else," she condescended to repeat. "A certain person has +come since you went out. I suppose, _in the circumstances_, you do not +need to be told _who_." + +"I--I don't know what you mean by 'in the circumstances'," Annesley +stammered. + +"That's not intelligent of you, considering where you have spent the +evening," sneered Mrs. Ellsworth. + +Annesley's ears tingled as if they had been boxed. Could it be that Mrs. +Ellsworth knew of the trick played on her--knew that her companion had +not been to the Smiths'? + +"I'm afraid I don't understand," she deprecated. + +Mrs. Ellsworth sat in bed staring up at her. "Either you are a fool," she +said, "or else I have caught you or _him_ in a lie. I don't know which +yet. But I soon shall. Perhaps you were not the only person in this house +who went out to-night with a latchkey. Now do you guess?" + +"No, I don't," the girl had to answer, though a dreadful idea was +whirring an alarm in her brain. + +"I dare say he is back before this, being more considerate of my feelings +than you, and less noisy," went on the old woman, anxious to prove that +Annesley Grayle and nobody else was responsible for keeping her from +rest. "Anyhow, what a man does is not my business. What you do, is. Now, +did or did _not_ a certain person walk in and surprise you at the +Archdeacon's? Don't stand there blinking like an owl. Speak out. Yes +or no?" + +"No," Annesley breathed. + +"Then you haven't been to the Smiths'. I can more easily believe you are +lying than _he_. Hark! There he comes. Isn't that a latchkey in the front +door?" + +"It--sounds like it. But--perhaps it's a mouse in the wall. Mice--make +such strange noises." + +"They're not making this one. He never could manage that key properly. +Nobody with ears could mistake the sound, with both my door and the baize +door open between, as they are now. + +"No! You aren't to run and let him in. I don't want him to think we spy +on him. He's free to come and go as he pleases, but I wish he wasn't so +fond of surprises. It's not fair to me, at my time of life. As I was +sitting down to dinner he walked in. Of course I had to ask him to dine, +though there wasn't enough food for two. However, he refused, saying he +would drop in at the Archdeacon's----" + +"Mr. Smith has come!" Annesley cried out, wildly, interrupting her +mistress for the first time in all their years together. "Oh, he will go +upstairs! I must stop him--I mean, speak to him! I----" + +"You will do nothing of the kind!" Mrs. Ellsworth leaned out of bed and +seized the girl's dress. Careless of any consequence save one, Annesley +struggled to free herself. But the old hand with its lumpy knuckles was +strong in spite of fat and rheumatism. It clung leechlike to chiffon of +cloak and gown, and though Annesley tore at the yellow fingers, she could +not loosen them. + +Desperate, she cried out in a choked voice, "Mr. Smith! Mr. Smith!" then +checked herself lest the wrong Mr. Smith should answer. + +But her voice was like the voice of one who tries to scream in a +nightmare. It was muffled; and though the two intervening doors were +ajar--the door of Mrs. Ellsworth's bedroom and the baize door dividing +the corridors old and new--her call did not reach even the real Mr. +Smith. To be sure, he was slightly deaf, and had to use an electric +apparatus if he went to the theatre or opera; still, Annesley hoped that +her choked cry might arrest him, that he might stop and listen for it to +come again, thus giving time for the man upstairs to change his quarters +after the grating of the latchkey in its lock. + +"Wicked, wicked girl!" Mrs. Ellsworth was shrilling. "How dare you hurt +my hand? Have you lost your _senses_? Out of my house you go to-morrow!" + +But Annesley did not hear. Her mind, her whole self, had escaped from her +body and rushed out into the hall to intercept Mr. Ruthven Smith. It +seemed that he _must_ feel the influence and stop. If he did not, some +terrible thing would happen--unless, indeed, the other man had heard and +heeded the warning sound at the front door. What if those two met on the +stairs, or in the room on the second floor? Her lover would believe that +she had betrayed him! + +"Mrs. Ellsworth," she said in a fierce, low voice utterly unlike her own, +"you must let me go, or you will regret it. I don't want to hurt you, +but--there's only one thing that matters. If----" + +The words seemed to be beaten back against her lips with a blow. From +somewhere above a sharp, dry explosion struck the girl's brain and +shattered her thoughts like breaking glass. + +Mrs. Ellsworth let go the chiffon cloak and dress so suddenly that +Annesley almost lost her balance. The noise had dazed the girl. The world +seemed full and echoing with it. She did not know what it was until she +heard Mrs. Ellsworth gasp, "A pistol shot! In my house! _Thieves! +Murder!_" + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE BEGINNING--OR THE END? + + +For one confused instant the girl stood statue-still, then, realizing +that she was free, without a thought for Mrs. Ellsworth she ran out of +the room. In the front corridor and in the dining room the electric light +was still on; and as she reached the stairs Annesley saw Ruthven Smith +standing near the top with a small pistol in his hand. + +She feared that he would fire a second shot, and there was no time to +reach him. Somehow, he must be stopped with a word--but what word? +Everything depended on that. Sheer desperation inspired her. + +"Stop! He's my lover!" she cried. "Don't shoot!" + +Ruthven Smith--a tall, lanky figure in a long over-coat--kept his weapon +aimed at someone out of the girl's sight, but he jerked his head aside +for a glance down at her. It was a brief glance, for the man who dreaded +burglars would not be caught napping. He turned again instantly to face +a possible antagonist, eyes as well as weapon ready. + +But the light from below had lit up his features for a second; and +Annesley realized that disgust and astonishment were the emotions her +"confession" had inspired. + +The fact that he was inclined to believe her statement showed how low +was his opinion of women. Annesley knew that he did not think highly +of her sex, but he had liked her and she had liked him despite his +eccentricities. His look said: "So you are the same as the rest! But in +case you're lying, I sha'n't be thrown off guard." + +The girl felt physically sick as she understood the irrevocability of +what she had just said, and the way in which her words were construed. If +she could have waited, "Nelson Smith" might have saved himself without +compromising her, for he was above all things resourceful. In announcing +that he was her "lover," she had committed him as well as herself. He +would have to make the best of a situation she had recklessly created. + +This she realized, but had no time to wonder how he would do it before he +spoke. + +"Mr. Ruthven Smith, what Miss Grayle says is the truth. We're engaged to +be married. All I want is a chance to explain why you find me where I am. +I'm not armed, so you can safely give me that chance." + +"You know my name?" exclaimed Ruthven Smith, suspiciously. He still +covered the other with his pistol, as Annesley could see now, because +"Nelson Smith" had coolly advanced within a yard of the Browning's small +black muzzle, and, finding the electric switch, had flooded the upper +corridor with light. + +"I've heard your name from Miss Grayle," said the younger man. "I know it +must be you, because no other person has a right to make himself at home +in this house as you are doing. I certainly haven't. But bringing her +home a few minutes ago, after dining out, we saw a light in what she said +was your room. She was afraid some thief had got in, and I proposed to +her that I should take a quiet look round while she went to see if Mrs. +Ellsworth was safe. No doubt she was all right, because I heard them +talking together while I examined your premises. The next thing I knew, +as I was coming down with the news that everything was quiet, you blazed +away. It was quite a surprise." + +"I fired in the air, not at you," Ruthven Smith excused himself, more or +less convinced. Annesley clutched the banisters in the sudden weakness of +a great revulsion from panic to relief. She might have known that _he_ +would somehow rescue her, even from her own blundering. + +The shamed red which had stained Annesley's cheeks at Ruthven Smith's +contempt died away. Her "lover"--he was openly that now--had miraculously +made his presence in the other Smith's room, after eleven o'clock at +night in this early bed-going household, the most natural thing in the +world. At least, Ruthven Smith's almost apologetic tone in answering +proved that he had been persuaded to think it so. + +With Mrs. Ellsworth, however, it would be different. There would lie the +stumbling-block; but with all danger from the Browning ended, the girl +was in no mood to borrow trouble for the future, even a future already +rushing into the arms of the present. + +"I should always fire the first shot in the air," Ruthven Smith went on, +"unless directly threatened." + +"Lucky for me," replied the other. "I don't want to die yet. And it would +have been hard lines, as I was trying to do you a good turn: rid you of a +thief if there were one. But I suppose you or some servant must have left +the light on in your room." + +"I'm pretty sure I didn't," said Ruthven Smith, still speaking with the +nervousness of a suspicious man, yet at the same time slowly, half +reluctantly, pocketing his pistol. "We must find out how this happened. +Perhaps there _has_ been a thief----" + +"No sign of anything being disturbed in your room," the younger man +assured him. "However, you'd best have a look round. If you like"--and he +laughed a frank-sounding laugh--"I'm quite willing to be searched before +I leave the house, so you can make sure I'm not going off with any +booty." + +"Certainly not! Nothing of the kind! I accept your explanation," +protested Ruthven Smith. He laughed also, though stiffly and with an +effort. "I have no valuables in my luggage--I have brought none with me. +It's not worth my while to open the boxes in my room, as there's nothing +there to tempt a thief. Still, one gets a start coming to a quiet house, +at this time of night, finding a light in one's windows that ought to be +dark, and then seeing a man walk out of one's room. My nerves aren't +over-strong. I confess I have a horror of night alarms. I travel a good +deal, and have got in the habit of carrying a pistol. However, all's well +that ends well. I apologize to you, and to Miss Grayle. When I know you +better, I hope you'll allow me to make up by congratulating you both on +your engagement." + +As he spoke, in his prim, old-fashioned way, he began to descend the +stairs, taking off his hat, as if to join the girl whom in thought he had +wronged for an instant. "Nelson Smith" followed, smiling at Annesley over +the elder man's high, narrow head sparsely covered with lank hair of +fading brown. + +It was at this moment Mrs. Ellsworth chose to appear, habited once more +in a hurriedly donned dressing gown, a white silk scarf substituted in +haste for a discarded nightcap. Panting with anger, and fierce with +curiosity, she had forgotten her rheumatism and abandoned her martyred +hobble for a waddling run. + +Thus she pounced out at the foot of the stairway, and was upon the girl +before the three absorbed actors in the scene had heard the shuffling +feet in woollen slippers. + +"What does this mean?" she quavered, so close to Annesley's ear that the +girl wheeled with a start of renewed alarm. "Who's this strange man in my +house? What's this talk about 'engagements'?" + +"A strange man!" echoed Ruthven Smith, prickling with suspicion again. +"Haven't you met him, Miss Grayle's fiance?" + +"Miss Grayle's fiddlesticks!" shrilled the old woman. "The girl's a +baggage, a worthless baggage! In my room just now she _struck_ me--beat +my poor rheumatic knuckles! For five years I've sheltered her, given her +the best of everything, even to the clothes she has on her back. This is +the way she repays me--with insults and cruelty, and smuggles strange men +secretly into my house at night, and pretends to be engaged to them!" + +The dark young man in evening dress passed the lean figure in travelling +clothes without a word and, putting Annesley gently aside, stepped +between her and Mrs. Ellsworth. + +"There is no question of 'pretending'," he said, sternly. "Miss Grayle +has promised to marry me. If our engagement has been kept a secret, it's +only because the right moment hadn't come for announcing it. I entered +your house for a few moments to-night, for the first time, on an errand +which seemed important, as Mr. Ruthven Smith will explain. I don't feel +called upon to apologize for my presence in the face of your attitude to +Miss Grayle. It was our intention that you should have plenty of notice +before she left you, time to find someone for her place; but after what +has happened, it's your own fault, madame, if we marry with a special +licence, and I take her out of this house to-morrow. I only wish it might +be now----" + +"It _shall_ be now!" Mrs. Ellsworth screamed him down. "The girl doesn't +darken my doors another hour. I don't know who you are, and I don't want +to know. But with or without you, Annesley Grayle leaves my house +to-night." + +"Mrs. Ellsworth, surely you haven't stopped to think what you're saying!" +protested Ruthven Smith. "You can't turn a girl into the street in the +middle of the night with a young man you don't know, even if she is +engaged to him." + +"I won't have her here, after the way she's treated me--after the way +she's acted altogether," Mrs. Ellsworth insisted. "Let her go to your +cousins' if you think they'd approve of her conduct. As for me, I doubt +it. And I'm sure she lied when she said they'd asked her to dine with +them to-night. I don't believe she went near them." + +Ruthven Smith, who had made a surprise visit at the Archdeacon's and +dined there, had heard no mention of Annesley Grayle being expected. For +an instant he was silenced, but the girl did not lack a defender. + +"She will not need to beg for Archdeacon Smith's hospitality," said the +young man. "And even if Mrs. Ellsworth implored her to stay, I couldn't +allow it now. I will see that Miss Grayle is properly sheltered and cared +for to-night by a lady whose kindness will make her forget what she has +suffered. As soon as possible we shall be married by special licence. Go +to your room, dearest, and put together a few things for to-night and +to-morrow morning--just what will fit into a hand-bag. If there's +anything else you value, it can be sent for later. Then I'll take you +away." + +The words were brave and comforting, and a wave of emotion swept +Annesley's soul toward the mysterious, unknown soul of her knight. It +was so strong, so compelling a wave that she had no fear in trusting, +herself to him. He was her refuge, her protector. + +For a moment of gratitude she even forgot he was mysterious, forgot that +a few hours ago she had been ignorant of his existence. When remembrance +flooded her brain, her only fear was for him. What if the watchers should +still be there when they went out of the house together? + +She had turned to go to her room as he suggested when suddenly this +question seemed to be shouted in her ear. Hesitating, she looked back, +her eyes imploring, to meet a smile so confident that it defied fate. + +Annesley saw that he understood what was in her mind, and this smile was +the answer. For some reason he thought himself sure that the watchers +were out of the way. The girl could not guess why, unless he had spied on +the taxi from Ruthven Smith's window and saw it go. But she would soon +learn. + +Her room was a mere bandbox at the back of the "addition," behind Mrs. +Ellsworth's bedroom and bath; and dashing into it now, the new, vividly +alive Annesley seemed to meet and pity the timid, hopeless girl whose one +safe haven these mean quarters had been. She tried to gather the old self +into her new self, that she might take it with her and comfort it, +rescuing it from the tyrant. + +The two trunks she had brought five years ago were stored in the basement +box-room; but under the camp bed was her dressing-bag, the only "lock-up" +receptacle she possessed. In it she kept a few letters and an abortive +diary which in some moods had given her the comfort of a confidant. + +The key of this bag was never absent from her purse, and opening it with +quivering hands, the girl threw in a few toilet things for the night, a +coat, skirt, and blouse for morning, and a small flat toque which would +not crush. Afterward--in that wonderful, dim "afterward" which shone +vaguely bright, like a sunlit landscape discerned through mist--she could +send for more of her possessions. But she would have nothing which had +been given her by Mrs. Ellsworth, and she would return the dress and +cloak she was wearing to-night. + +Three minutes were enough for the packing of the bag; then, luggage in +hand, she turned at the door for a last look, such as a released convict +might give to his cell. + +"Good-bye!" she said, with a thought of compassion for her successor. +And passing Mrs. Ellsworth's room she would have thrown a farewell glance +at its familiar chairs and tables, each one of which she hated with a +separate hatred; but with a shock of surprise, she found the door shut. + +That must mean that the dragon had retreated from the combat and retired +to her lair! + +Not to be chased from the house by the sharp arrows of insult seemed +almost too good to be true. But when Annesley arrived, bag in hand, in +the front corridor, it was to see Ruthven Smith standing there alone, and +the door open to the street. + +"Mrs. Ellsworth has gone to her room," he explained, "and--er--your +friend--your fiance--is looking for a taxi, not to keep you waiting. He +didn't leave till Mrs. Ellsworth went. I don't think he would have +trusted me to protect you without him, though I--er--I did my best with +her. Good heavens, what a fury! I never saw that side of her before! I +must say, I don't blame you for making your own plans, Miss Grayle. I--I +don't blame you for anything, and I hope you'll feel the same toward me. +I'd be sorry to think that--er--after our pleasant acquaintance this was +to be our last meeting. Won't you show that you forgive me for the +mistake I made--I think it was natural--and tell me what your married +name will be?" + +Annesley looked anxiously at the half-open front door. If only the absent +one would return and save her from this new dilemma! If she did not +speak, Mr. Ruthven Smith would think her harsh and unforgiving, yet she +could not answer unless she gave the name adopted temporarily for +convenience. She hesitated, her eyes on the door; but the darkness and +silence outside sent a doubt into her heart, cold and sickly as a bat +flapping in from the night. + +_What if he never came back?_ What if the watchers had been hiding out +there, lying in wait and, two against one--both bigger men physically +than he, and perhaps armed--they had overpowered him? What if she were +never to see him again, and this hour which had seemed the beginning of +hope were to be its end? + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE COUNTESS DE SANTIAGO + + +"You don't wish to tell me the name?" Ruthven Smith was saying. + +The repetition irritated the girl, whose nerves were strained to snapping +point. She could not parry the man's questions. She could not bear his +grieved or offended reproaches. If he persisted, through these moments of +suspense, she would scream or burst out crying. Trembling, with tears in +her voice, she heard herself answer. And yet it did not seem to be +herself, but something within, stronger than she, that suddenly took +control of her. + +"Why should I not wish to tell you?" the Something was saying. "The name +is the same as your own--Smith. Nelson Smith." And before the words had +left her lips a taxi drew up at the door. + +There was one instant of agony during which the previous suspense seemed +nothing--an instant when the girl forgot what she had said, her soul +pressing to the windows of her eyes. Was it he who had come, or---- + +It was he. Before she had time to finish the thought, he walked in, +confident and smiling as when she had left him a few minutes--or a few +years--ago; and in the wave of relief which overwhelmed her, Annesley +forgot Ruthven Smith's question and her answer. She remembered again, +only with the shock of hearing him address the newcomer by the name she +had given. + +"I hear from Miss Grayle that we are namesakes," Mr. Ruthven Smith said, +as "Nelson Smith" sprang in and took the girl's bag from her ice-cold +hand. + +"I--he asked me ... I told him," Annesley stammered, her eyes appealing, +seeking to explain, and begging pardon. "But if----" + +"Quite right. Why _not_ tell?" he answered instantly, his first glance +of surprise turning to cheerful reassurance. "Now Mrs. Ellsworth is +eliminated, I'm no longer a secret. And I expect you'll like to meet Mr. +Ruthven Smith again when you have a house to entertain him in." + +So speaking, he offered his hand with a smile to his "namesake"; and +Annesley realized from the outsider's point of view the peculiar +attraction of the man. Ruthven Smith felt it, as she had felt it, though +differently and in a lesser degree. Not only did he shake hands, but +actually came out to the taxi with them, asking Annesley if he should +tell his cousins of her engagement, or if she preferred to give the news +herself? + +It flashed into the girl's mind that it would be perfect if she could be +married to her knight by Archdeacon Smith; but she had been imprudent too +often already. She dared not make such a suggestion without consulting +the other person most concerned, so she answered that she would write +Mrs. Smith or see her. + +"To say that you, too, are going to be Mrs. Smith!" chuckled the +Archdeacon's cousin in his dry way, which made him seem even older than +he was. "Well, you can trust me with Mrs. Ellsworth. If she goes on as +she began to-night, I'm afraid I shall have to follow your example: 'fold +my tent like an Arab, and silently steal away.' Ha, ha! By the by, I dare +say she's owing you salary. I'll remind her of it if you like--tell her +you asked me. It may help with the trousseau." + +"Thank you, but my wife won't need to remind Mrs. Ellsworth of her debt," +the answer came before Annesley could speak. "And she _will_ be my wife +in a day or two at latest. Good-night! Glad to have met you, even if it +was an unpromising introduction." + +Then they were off, they two alone together; and Annesley guessed that +the chauffeur must have had his instructions where to drive, as she heard +none given. Perhaps it was best that their destination should not be +published aloud, for there are walls which have ears. It occurred to the +girl that precautions might still have to be taken. But in another moment +she was undeceived. + +"I thought old Ruthven Smith would be shocked if he knew the 'safe +refuge' I have for you is no more convent-like than the Savoy Hotel," her +companion laughed. "By Jove, neither you nor I dreamed when we got out of +the last taxi that we should soon be in another, going back to the place +we started from!" + +"The Savoy!" exclaimed Annesley. "Oh, but we mustn't go there, of all +places! Those men----" + +"I assure you it's safer now than anywhere in London!" the man cut her +short. "I can't explain why--that is, I _could_ explain if I cared to rig +up a story. But there's something about you makes me feel as if I'd like +to tell you the truth whenever I can: and the truth is, that for reasons +you may understand some day--though I hope to Heaven you'll never have +to!--my association with those men is one of the things I long to turn +the key upon. I know that that sounds like Bluebeard to Fatima, but it +isn't as bad as _that_. To me, it doesn't seem bad at all. And I swear +that whatever mystery--if you call it 'mystery'--there is about me, it +sha'n't hurt you. Will you believe this--and trust me for the rest?" + +"I've told you I would!" the girl reminded him. + +"I know. But things were different then--not so serious. They hadn't gone +so far. I didn't suppose that Fate would give you to me so soon. I didn't +dare hope it. I----" + +"Are you _sure_ you want me?" Annesley faltered. + +"Surer than I've ever been of anything in my life before. It's only of +you I'm thinking. I wanted to arrange my--business matters so as to be +fair to you. But you'll make the best of things." + +"You are being noble to me," said the girl, "and I've been very foolish. +I've complicated everything. First, by what I told Mr. Ruthven Smith +about--about _us_. And then--saying your name was Nelson Smith." + +"You weren't foolish!" he contradicted. "You were only--playing into +Fate's hands. You couldn't help yourself. Destiny! And all's for the +best. You were an angel to sacrifice yourself to save me, and your doing +it the way you did has made me a happy man at one stroke. As for the +name--what's in a name? We might as well be in reality what we played at +being to-night--'Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith.' There are even reasons why +I'm pleased that you've made me a present of the name. I thank you for +it--and for all the rest." + +"Oh, but if it isn't _really_ your name, we sha'n't be legally married, +shall we?" Annesley protested. + +"By Jove!" he exclaimed. "I hadn't thought of that. It's a difficulty. +But we'll obviate it--somehow. Don't worry! Only I'm afraid we can't ask +your friend the Archdeacon to marry us, as I meant to suggest, because I +was sure you'd like it." + +"I should. But it doesn't matter," said the girl. "Besides, I feel that +to-morrow I shall find I've dreamed--all this." + +"Then I've dreamed you, at the same time, and I'm not going to let you +slip out of my dream, now I've got you in it. I intend to go on dreaming +you for the rest of my life. And I shall take care _you_ don't wake up!" + +Afterward there came a time when Annesley called back those words and +wondered if they had held a deeper meaning than she guessed. But, having +uttered them, he seemed to put the thought out of his mind, and turn to +the next. + +"About the Savoy," he went on. "I want to take you there, because I +know a woman staying in the hotel--a woman old enough to be your +mother--who'll look after you, to please me, till we're married. +Afterward you'll be nice to her, and that will be doing her a good +turn, because she's apt to be lonesome in London. She's the widow of +a Spanish Count, and has lived in the Argentine, but I met her in New +York. She knows all about me--or enough--and if she'd been in the +restaurant at dinner this evening she could have done for me what you +did. I had reason to think she would be there when I bolted in to get +out of a fix. But she was missing. Are you sorry?" + +"If she'd been there, you would have gone to her table and sat down, and +we--should never have met!" Annesley thought aloud. "How strange! Just +that _little_ thing--your friend being out to dinner--and our whole lives +are to be changed. Oh, _you_ must be sorry?" + +"I tell you, meeting you and winning you in this way is worth the best +ten years of my life. But you haven't answered my question." + +"I'll answer it now!" cried the girl. "Meeting you is worth _all_ the +years of my life! I'm not much of a princess, but you _are_ St. George." + +"St. George!" he echoed, a ring of bitterness under his laugh. "That's +the first time I've been called a saint, and I'm afraid it will be the +last. I can't live up to that, but--if I can give you a happy life, and +a few of the beautiful things you deserve, why, it's _something_! +Besides, I'm going to worship my princess. I'd give anything to show you +how I--but no. I was good before, when I was tempted to kiss you. You're +at my mercy now, in a way, all the more because I'm taking you from your +old existence to one you don't know. + +"I sha'n't ask to kiss you--except maybe your little hand if you don't +mind--until the moment you're my wife. Meantime, I'll try to grow a bit +more like what your lover ought to be; and later I shall kiss you enough +to make up for lost time." + +If, five hours ago, any one had told Annesley Grayle that she would wish +to have a strange man take her in his arms and kiss her she would have +felt insulted. Yet so it was. She was sorry that he was so scrupulous. +She longed to have him hold her against his heart. + +The thought thrilled her like an electric shock a thousand times more +powerful than the tingling which had flashed up her arm at the first +touch of his hand, though even that had seemed terrifying then. But she +sat still in her corner of the taxi, and gave him no answer, lest she +should betray herself. + +Her silence, after the warmth of his words, seemed cold. Perhaps he felt +it so, for he went on after an instant's pause, as if he had waited for +something in vain, and his tone was changed. Annesley thought it, by +contrast, almost businesslike. + +"You mustn't be afraid," he said, "that I mean to stay at the Savoy +myself. Even if I'd been stopping there, I should move if I were going to +put you in the hotel. But I have my own lair in London. I've been over +here a number of times. Indeed, I'm partly English, born in Canada, +though I've spent most of my life in the United States. Nobody at the +Savoy but the Countess de Santiago knows who I am, and she'll understand +that it may be convenient for me to change my name. Nelson Smith is a +respectable one, and she'll respect it! + +"Now, my plan is to ask for her (she'll be in by this time), have a few +words of explanation on the quiet, not to embarrass you; and the Countess +will do the rest. She'll engage a room for you next to her own suite, or +as near as possible; then you'll be provided with a chaperon." + +"I'm not anxious about myself, but about you," Annesley said. "You +haven't told me yet what happened after you went upstairs at Mrs. +Ellsworth's, and how you knew those men were gone. I suppose you did +know? Or--did you chance it?" + +"I was as sure as I needed to be," Nelson Smith answered. "A moment after +I switched on the electricity in the room up there I heard a taxi drive +away. I turned off the light so I could look out. By flattening my nose +against the glass I could see that the place where those chaps had waited +was empty; but in case the taxi was only turning, and meant to pass the +house again, I lit the room once more, for realism. + +"That's what kept me rather long--that, and waiting for the dragon to go. +Otherwise I should have been down before Ruthven Smith trapped me. + +"For a second it looked as if the game of life was up. And then I found +out how much you meant to me. It was _you_ I thought of. It seemed +beastly hard luck to leave you fast in that old woman's clutches!" + +Annesley put out her hand with a warm impulse. He took it, raising it to +his lips, and both were startled when the taxi stopped. They had arrived +at the Savoy: and though Annesley seemed to have lived through a lifetime +of emotion, just one hour and thirty minutes had passed since she and her +companion drove away from these bright revolving doors. + +The foyer was as brilliant and crowded as when they left at half-past +ten. People were parting after supper; or they were lingering in the +restaurant beyond. Nobody paid the slightest attention to the newcomers, +and Annesley settled down unobtrusively in a corner, while her companion +went to scribble a line to the Countess de Santiago. + +When he had finished, and sent up the letter, he did not return, and +again the girl had a few moments of suspense, thinking of the danger +which might not, after all, be over. Just as she had begun to be anxious, +however, she saw him coming with a wonderful woman. + +Annesley could have laughed, remembering how he had said the Countess +would "mother" her. Any one less motherly than this Juno-like beauty in +flame-coloured chiffon over gold tissue it would be hard to imagine. + +The Spanish South American Countess was of a camelia paleness, and had +almond-shaped dark eyes with brooding lashes under slender brows that +met. In contrast, her hair was of a flame colour vivid as her draperies, +and her lips were red. + +At first glance Annesley thought that the dazzling creature could not be +more than thirty; but when the vision had come near enough to offer her +hand, without waiting for an introduction, a hardness about the handsome +face, a few lines about the eyes and mouth, and a fullness of the chin +showed that she was older--forty, perhaps. + +Still, Annesley hoped that her lover had not asked the lady to "mother" +his fiancee. She had not the air of one who would be complimented by such +a request. + +As Annesley put her hand into that of the Countess, she noticed that this +hand was as wonderful as the rest of the woman's personality. It was very +long, very narrow, with curiously supple-looking fingers exquisitely +manicured and wearing many rings. Even the thumb was abnormally long, +which fact prevented the hand from being as beautiful as it was, somehow, +unforgettable. + +"This is a pleasure and a surprise," began the Countess, smiling, her +eyes appearing to take in the full-length portrait of Annesley Grayle +with their wide, unmoving gaze. When she smiled she was still extremely +handsome, but not so perfect as with lips closed, for her white teeth +were too short, somewhat irregular, and set too wide apart. She spoke +English perfectly, with a slight foreign accent and a roll of the letter +"r." + +"My friend--Nelson Smith" (she turned, laughing, to him), "has told me +ex-_citing_ news. We have known each other a long time. I think this is +the best thing that can happen. And you will be a lucky girl. He, too, +will be lucky. I see that!" with another smile. + +Annesley was disappointed because the beautiful woman's voice was not +sweet. + +"Now you must engage her room," Nelson Smith said, abruptly. "It's late. +You can make friends afterward." + +"Very well," the Countess agreed. "And you--will you come to the desk? +Yet, no--it is better not. Miss Grayle and I will go together--two women +alone and independent. Lucky it's not the season, or we might find +nothing free at short notice. But Don--I mean Nelson--always did have +luck. I hope he always will!" + +She flashed him a meaning look, though what the meaning was Annesley +could not guess. She knew only that she did not like the Countess as she +had wished to like her lover's friend. There was something secret in the +dark eyes, something repellent about the long, slender thumb with its +glittering nail. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE BLUE DIAMOND RING + + +Annesley had not expected to sleep. There were a million things to +think of, and it was one o'clock before she was ready to slip into bed +in the green-and-white room with its bathroom annex. But the crowding +experiences of five hours had exhausted the girl. Sleep fell upon her as +her head nestled into a downy pillow, and she lay motionless as a marble +figure on a tomb until a sound of knocking forced itself into her dreams. + +She waked with a start. The curtains were drawn across the window, but +she could see that it was daylight. A streak of sunshine thrust a golden +wedge between the draperies, and seemed a good omen: for the sun had +hidden from London through many wintry weeks. + +The knocking was real, not part of a dream. It was at her door, and +jumping out of bed she could hardly believe a clock on the mantelpiece +which said half-past ten. + +"Who is it?" she asked, timidly, fearing that the Countess de Santiago's +voice might answer; but a man replied: "A note from a gentleman +downstairs, please, and he's waiting an answer." + +Annesley opened the door a crack, and took in a letter. The new master of +her destiny had written: + + Hurrah, my darling, our affairs march! I have been arranging about the + licence, _et cetera_, and I believe that you and I can join forces for + the rest of our lives to-morrow--blessed day! + + How soon can you come down and talk over plans? I've a hundred to + propose. Will you breakfast with me, or have you finished? + + Yours since last night, till eternal night, + + N. S. + +The girl scribbled an answer, confessing that she had overslept, but +promising to be down in half an hour for breakfast. She did not stop to +think of anything but the need for a quick reply; yet when the note was +sent, and she was "doing" her hair after a splash in the porcelain bath +(what luxury for the girl who had been practically a servant!), she +re-read her love-letter, spread on the dressing-table. + +She liked her lover's handwriting. It seemed to express character--just +such character as she imagined her knight's to be. There were dash and +determination, and an originality which would never let itself be bound +by convention. + +Perhaps if she had been critical--if the handwriting had been that of a +stranger--she might have thought it too bold. Long ago, when she was a +very young girl, she had superficially studied the "science" of +chirography from articles in a magazine, and had fancied herself a judge. +She remembered disliking Mrs. Ellsworth's writing the first time she saw +it, foreseeing the selfishness which afterward enslaved her. Since then +she had had little time to practise, until the day when she heard from +"Mr. N. Smith" after her answer to his advertisement in the _Morning +Post_. + +One reason for feeling sure she could never care for the man was because +his handwriting prejudiced her in advance, it was so stiff, so devoid of +character. How different, she reflected now, from the writing of the man +who had taken his place! + +She made such haste in dressing that her fingers seemed to be "all +thumbs"; and when at length she was ready she gazed gloomily into the +mirror. Last night she had not been so bad in evening dress; but now in +the cheap, ready-made brown velveteen coat and skirt and plain toque to +match, which had been her "best" for two winters, she feared lest _he_ +should find her commonplace. + +"The first thing I do, when he's had time to look me over, must be to +tell him he's free if he wants his freedom," she decided. And she kept +her word, when in the half-deserted foyer she had shaken hands with a +young man who wore a white rose in his buttonhole. "Please tell me +frankly if you don't like me as well by daylight," she gasped. + +"I like you better," he said. "You're still my white rose. See, I've +adopted it as your symbol. I shall never wear any other flower on my +coat. This is yours. No, it's _you_! And I've kept the one I took last +night. I mean to keep it always. No danger of _my_ changing my mind! But +you? I've lain awake worrying for fear you might." + +He held her hand, questioning her eyes with his. + +She shook her head, smiling. But he would not let the hand go. At that +hour there was no one to stare. "The Countess didn't warn you off me?" + +Annesley opened her eyes. "Of course not! Why, you told me you were old +friends!" + +"So we are--as friends go in this world: 'pals,' anyhow. She's done me +several good turns, and I've paid her. She'd always do what she could to +help, for her own sake as well as mine. But her idea of a man may be +different from yours." + +"She wasn't with me long," explained Annesley. "She said I needed sleep. +After she'd looked at my room to see if it were comfortable, she bade me +'good-night,' and we haven't met this morning. The few remarks she did +make about you were complimentary." + +"What did she say? I'm curious." + +"Well, if you must know, she said that you were a man few women could +resist; and--she didn't blame _me_." + +"H'm! You call that complimentary? Let's suppose she meant it so. Now +we'll have breakfast, and forget her--unless you'd like her called to go +with us on a shopping expedition I've set my heart on." + +"What kind of a shopping expedition?" Annesley wanted to know. + +"To buy you all the pretty things you've ever wished for." + +The girl laughed. "To do that would cost a fortune!" + +"Then we'll spend a fortune. Shall you and I do it ourselves, or would +you like to have the Countess de Santiago's taste?" + +"Oh, let us go without her," Annesley exclaimed, "unless you----" + +"Rather _not_. I want you to myself. You darling! We'll have a great +day--spending that fortune. The next thing we do--it can wait till +after we're married--is to look for a house in a good neighbourhood, +to rent furnished. But we'll get your swell cousins, Lord and Lady +Annesley-Seton, to help us choose. Perhaps there'll be something near +them." + +"Why, they hardly know I exist! I doubt if Lady Annesley-Seton _does_ +know," replied the girl. "They'll do nothing to help us, I'm sure." + +"Then _don't_ be sure, because if you made a bet you'd lose. Take +my word, they'll be pleased to remember a cousin who is marrying a +millionaire." + +"Good gracious!" gasped Annesley. "_Are_ you a millionaire?" + +Her lover laughed. "Well, I don't want to boast to you, though I may +to your cousins, but if I'm not one of your conventional, stodgy +millionaires, I have a sort of Fortunatus purse which is never empty. +I can always pull out whatever I want. We'll let your people understand +without any bragging. + +"I think Lady Annesley-Seton, _nee_ Miss Haverstall, whose father's purse +has flattened out like a pancake, will jump for joy when she hears what +you want her to do. But come along, let's have breakfast!" + +Overwhelmed, Annesley walked beside him in silence to the almost deserted +restaurant where the latest breakfasters had finished and the earliest +lunchers had not begun. + +So the mysterious Mr. Smith was rich. The news frightened rather +than pleased her. It seemed to throw a burden upon her shoulders which +she might not be able to carry with grace. The girl had little +self-confidence; but the man appeared to be troubled with no doubts of +her or of the future. Over their coffee and toast and hot-house fruit, he +began to propose exciting plans, and had got as far as an automobile when +the voice of the Countess surprised them. + +She had come close to their table without being heard. + +"Good morning!" she exclaimed. "I was going out, but from far off I saw +you two, with your profiles cut like silhouettes against all this glass +and sunshine. I couldn't resist asking how Miss Grayle slept, and if +there's anything I can do for her in the shops?" + +As she spoke her eyes dwelt on Annesley's plain toque and old-fashioned +shabby coat, as if to emphasize the word "shops." The girl flushed, and +Smith frowned at the Countess. + +"No, thank you," he replied for Annesley. "There's nothing we need +trouble you about till the wedding to-morrow afternoon. You can put on +your gladdest rags then, and be one of our witnesses. I believe that's +the legal term, isn't it?" + +"I do not know," said the Countess with a suppressed quiver in her voice, +and a flash in the eyes fixed studiously on the river. "I know nothing of +marriages in England. Who will be your other witness, if it's not +indiscreet to ask?" + +"I haven't decided yet," returned Smith, laconically. + +"Ah, of course, you have _plenty_ of friends to choose from; and so the +wedding will be to-morrow?" + +"Yes. One fixes up these things in next to no time with a special +license. Luckily I'm a British subject. I never thought much about it +before, but it simplifies matters; and I'll have been living in this +parish a fortnight to-morrow. That's providential, for it seems that +legally it must be a fortnight. I've been up since it was light, learning +the ropes and beginning to work them. Even the hour's fixed--two-thirty." + +(This was news for Annesley also, as there had been no time to begin +talking over the "hundred plans" Smith had mentioned in his letter.) + +"You are prompt--and businesslike!" returned the Countess, and again the +girl blushed. She did not like to think of her knight of romance being +"businesslike" in his haste to make her his wife. But perhaps the +Countess didn't mean to suggest anything uncomplimentary. "At what church +will the 'ceremony take place' as the newspapers say?" she went on. "It +is to be a fashionable one?" + +"No," replied, Smith, shortly. "Weddings in fashionable churches are +silly unless there's to be a crowd; and my wife and I are going to +collect our circle after we're married. I'll let you know in time where +we are going. As you'll be with the bride you can't lose yourself on the +way, so you needn't worry." + +"I don't!" laughed the Countess. "I'm at your service, and I shall try to +be worthy of the occasion. But now I shall take myself off, or your +coffee will be cold. You have a busy day and it's late--even later than +our breakfasts on the _Monarchic_ three weeks ago. Already it seems three +months. _Au revoir_, Don. _Au revoir_, Miss Grayle." + +She finished with a nod for Annesley, and turned away. Smith let her go +in silence; and the girl watched the tall figure--as perfect in shape and +as perfectly dressed as a French model--walk out of the restaurant into +the foyer. + +She seemed to have taken with her the golden glamour which had made up +for lack of sunshine in the room before her arrival; or if she had not +taken it, at least it was dimmed. Annesley gazed after the figure until +it disappeared, because she felt vaguely that it would be best not to +look at her companion just then. She knew that he was angry, and that he +wanted to compose himself. + +The Countess was as handsome by morning light, in her black velvet and +chinchilla, as at night in flame colour and gold. But--the girl hoped she +was not ill-natured--she looked _meretricious_. If she were "made up," +the process defied Annesley Grayle's eyes; yet surely never was skin so +flawlessly white; and such golden-red hair with dark eyes and eyebrows +must be unique. + +"Great Scott, I thought she meant to spend the morning with us!" Smith +broke out, viciously. "I realize, now I've seen you together, that she's +not--the ideal chaperon. But any port in a storm!" + +"I thought you liked her," Annesley said. + +"So I do--within limits. At least I appreciate qualities that she has. +But there are times--when a little of her goes a long way." + +"I'm afraid she realized that you weren't making her welcome," Annesley +smiled. "You weren't very nice to her, were you?" + +"I was as nice as she deserved," the man excused himself. + +"But she was good to me last night!" + +"She owes it to me to be good. It's a debt I expect her to pay, that's +all, and I'm not sure she's paying it generously. You needn't be too +grateful, dear." + +"Perhaps, as she's known you some time, she feels you're sacrificing +yourself," Annesley defended the Countess. "I don't blame her!" + +"She's sharp enough to see that I'm in great luck," said Smith. "But I +suppose there's always a dash of the cat in a woman of her race. I hope +there's no need to tell you that she has no right to be jealous. If she +had, I wouldn't have put you within reach of her claws. There are +assorted sizes and kinds of jealousy, though. Some women want all the +lime-light and grudge sparing any for a younger and prettier girl." + +Annesley laughed. "_Prettier!_ Why, she's a beauty, and I----" + +"Wait till I introduce you to Mrs. Nelson Smith, who's going to be one +of the best-dressed, best-looking young women in London, and you'll be +_sorry_ for the poor old Countess," returned Smith, warmly. "You can +afford then to heap coals of fire on her head, which can't make it redder +than it is. Meanwhile, it occurs to me, from the way the wind blows, +you'd better go carefully with the lady! Don't let her pump you about +yourself, or what happened at Mrs. Ellsworth's. It's not her business. +Don't confide any more than you need, and if she pretends to confide in +_you_ understand that it will be for a purpose. The Countess is no +_ingenue_! + +"But enough about her," he went on, abruptly. "She sha'n't spoil our +first breakfast together, even by reminding me of gloomy meals I used +sometimes to eat with her when we happened to find ourselves in each +other's society on board the _Monarchic_. I was feeling down on my luck +then, and she wasn't the one to cheer me up. But things are different +now. Have you noticed, by the way, that she has a nickname for me?" + +"Yes," Annesley admitted. "She calls you 'Don.'" + +"It's a name she made up because she used to say, when we first met, I +was like a Spaniard; and I can jabber Spanish among other lingos. It's +more her native tongue, you know, than English. I only refer to it +because I want you to have a special name of your own for me, and I don't +want it to be that one. It can't be Nelson, because--well, I can never be +at home as Nelson with the girl I love best--the one who knows how I came +to call myself that. Will you make up a name for me, and begin to get +used to it to-day? I'd like it if you could." + +"May I call you 'Knight'?" Annesley asked, shyly. "I've named you my +knight already in my mind and--and heart." + +He looked at her with rather a beautiful look: clear and wistful, even +remorseful. + +"It's too noble a name," he said. "Still--if you like it, I shall. Maybe +it will make me good. Jove! it would take something strong to do that! +But who knows? From now on I'm your 'Knight.' You needn't wrestle with +'Nelson' except when we're with strangers. + +"And--look here!" he broke off. "I've another favour to ask. Better get +them all over at once--the big ones that are hard to grant. You reminded +me last night that we wouldn't be legally married if I didn't use my own +name. That may be true. I can't very well make inquiries. But just in +case, I'm giving my real name and shall sign it in a register. That's why +our marriage must be quietly performed in a quiet place. It shall be in +church, because I know you wouldn't feel married if it wasn't, but it +must be in a church where nobody we're likely to meet ever goes; and the +parson must be one we won't stand a chance of knocking up against later. + +"Managed the way I shall manage it, there'll be no difficulty. Mr. and +Mrs. Blank will walk out of the vestry after they've signed their names, +and--_lose themselves_. No reason why they should ever be associated with +Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith. Do you much mind all these complications?" + +"Not if they're necessary to save you from danger," the girl answered. + +"By Jove, you're a trump! But I haven't come to the _big_ favour yet. Now +for it! When I write my real name in the register, I don't want you to +look. Is that the one thing too much?" + +Annesley tried not to flinch under his eyes. Yet--he had put her to a +severe test. Last night, when he said that it would be better for her not +to know his name, she had quietly agreed. + +But there was the widest difference between then and now. At that time +they had been strangers flung together by a wave of fate which, it +seemed, might tear them apart at any instant. In a few hours all was +changed. They belonged to each other. This man's name would be her name, +yet he wished her to be ignorant of it! + +If the girl had not thought of him truly as her knight, if she had not +been determined to trust him, the "big favour" would indeed have been too +big. + +Despite her trust, and the romantic, new-born love in her heart, she was +unable to answer for a moment. Her breath was snatched away; but as she +struggled to regain it and to speak, a bleak picture of the future +without him rose before her eyes. She couldn't give him up, and go on +living, after the glimpse he had shown her of what life might be! + +"No, it's not too much," she said, slowly. "It's only part of the trust +I've promised to--my knight." + +He gave a sigh of relief. "Thank you--and my lucky star for the prize you +are!" he exclaimed. Some men would have offered their thanks to God, or +to "Heaven." Annesley noticed that he praised his "star." + +This was one of many disquieting things, large and small; for she had +been brought up to be a religious girl, and was mentally on her knees +before God in gratitude for the happiness which illuminated her gray +life. She could not bear to think that God was nothing to the man who had +become everything to her. She wanted to shut her eyes to all that was +strange in him; but it was as difficult as for Psyche to resist lighting +the lantern for a peep at her mysterious husband in his sleep. + +For instance, there was the Countess de Santiago's reference to their +association on board the _Monarchic_, which Knight had refrained from +mentioning. He had spoken of it after the Countess had gone, to be sure; +but briefly, and because it would have seemed odd if he had not done so. +It had struck Annesley that his annoyance with the lady was connected +with that sharp little "dig" of hers, and she could not sweep her mind +clean of curiosity. + +The moment the _Monarchic's_ name was brought up she remembered reading +a newspaper paragraph about the last voyage of that great ship from New +York to Liverpool. Fortunately or unfortunately, her recollection of the +paragraph was nebulous, for when she read news aloud to her mistress she +permitted her mind to wander, unless the subject happened to be +interesting. She tried to keep up a vaguely intelligent knowledge of +world politics, but small events and blatant sensations, such as murders, +burglaries, and "society" divorces, she quickly erased from her brain. + +Something dramatic had occurred on the _Monarchic_. Her subconscious self +recalled that. But it was less than a month ago that she had read the +paragraph, therefore the sensation, whatever it was, must have happened +when Knight and the Countess de Santiago were on board, coming to +England, and she could easily learn what it was by inquiring. + +Not for the world, however, would she question her lover, to whom the +subject of the trip was evidently distasteful. Still less would she ask +the Countess behind his back. + +There was another way in which she could find out a sly voice seemed to +whisper in Annesley's ear. She could get old numbers of the _Morning +Post_, the only newspaper that entered Mrs. Ellsworth's house, and search +for the paragraph. But she was ashamed of herself for letting such a +thought enter her head. Of course she would not be guilty of a trick so +mean. She would not try to unearth one fact concerning her Knight--his +name, his past, or any circumstances surrounding him, even though by +stretching out her hand she could reach the key to his secret. + +He talked of things which at another time would have palpitated with +interest: their wedding, their honeymoon, their homecoming, and Annesley +responded without betraying absent-mindedness. It was the best she could +do, until the effect of the "biggest favour" and the doubts it raised +were blurred by new sensations. She would not have been a normal woman if +the shopping excursion planned by Knight had not swept her off her feet. + +The man with Fortunatus' purse seemed bent on trying to empty +it--temporarily--for her benefit: if she had been sent out alone to buy +everything she had ever wanted, with no regard to expense, Annesley +Grayle would not have spent a fifth of the sum he flung away on evening +gowns, street gowns, boudoir gowns, hats, high-heeled paste-buckled +slippers, a gold-fitted dressing-bag, an ermine wrap, a fur-lined +motor-coat, and more suede gloves and silk stockings than could be used +(it seemed to the girl) in the next ten years. + +He begged for the privilege of "helping choose," not because he didn't +trust her taste, but because he feared she might be economical; and +during the whole day in Bond Street, Regent Street, Oxford Street, and +Knightsbridge she was given only an hour to herself. That hour she was +expected to pass, and did pass, in providing herself with all sorts of +intimate daintiness of nainsook, lace, and ribbon, too sacred even for +a lover's eyes. + +And Knight spent the time of his absence from her upon an errand which he +did not explain. + +"I'll tell you what I did--and show you--to-morrow when I come to wish +you good morning," he said. "Unless you're going to be conventional and +refuse to see me till we 'meet at the altar,' as the sentimental writers +say. I think I've heard that's the smart thing. But I hope it won't be +your way. If I didn't see you from now till to-morrow afternoon I should +be afraid I'd lost you for ever." + +Annesley felt the same about him, and told him so. They dined together, +but not at the Savoy. The Countess's name was not mentioned, yet Annesley +guessed it was because of her that Knight proposed an Italian restaurant. + +When he left her at last at the door of her own hotel everything was +settled for the wedding-day and after. Knight was to produce two friends, +both men, to one of whom must fall the fatherly duty of giving the bride +away. He suggested their calling upon her in the morning, while he was +with her at the Savoy, in order that they might not meet as strangers at +the church, and the girl thought this a wise idea. + +As for the honeymoon, Knight confessed to knowing little of England, +outside London, and asked Annesley if she had a choice. Would she like to +have a week or so in some warm county like Devonshire or Cornwall, or +would she enjoy a trip to Paris or the Riviera? It was all one to him, he +assured her; only he had set his heart on getting back to London soon, +finding a house, and beginning life as they meant to live it. + +Annesley chose Devonshire. She said she would like to show it to Knight. + +"I think you'll love it," she told him. "We might stay at several places +I used to adore when I was a child. And if we get to Sidmouth, maybe +you'll have a glimpse of those cousins you were talking about, the +Annesley-Setons. I believe they have a place near by called Valley House; +but I don't know whether they live there or let it." + +"We'll go to Sidmouth," he said. + +The girl smiled. His desire that she should scrape acquaintance with Lord +and Lady Annesley-Seton seemed boyish and amusing to her, but she did not +see how it could be brought about. + +Next morning at eleven o'clock, when Annesley had been up for two +hours, packing her new things in her new trunks and the gorgeous new +dressing-bag, she was informed that Mr. Nelson Smith had arrived. +The girl had forgotten that Knight had hinted at something to tell and +something to show her on the morning of their marriage day, and expected +to find his two friends with him; but he had come alone. + +"We've got a half-hour together," he said. "Then Dr. Torrance and the +Marchese di Morello may turn up at any minute. Torrance is an elderly +man, a decent sort of chap, and deadly respectable. He'll do the heavy +father well enough. Paolo di Morello is an Italian. I don't care for him; +but the troublesome business about my name is a handicap. + +"I can trust these men. And at least they won't put you to shame. You can +judge them when they come, so enough talk about them for the present! +This is my excuse for being here," and he put into Annesley's hand a +flat, oval-shaped parcel. "My wedding gift to my bride," he added, in a +softer tone. "Open it, sweet." + +The white paper wrapping was fastened with small red seals. If the girl +had had knowledge of such things she would have known that it was a +jeweller's parcel. But the white, gold-stamped silk case within surprised +her. She pressed a tiny knob, and the cover flew up to show a string of +pearls which made her gasp. + +"For the Princess, from her Knight," he said. "And here"--he took +from the inner pocket of his coat a band of gold set with a big white +diamond--"is your engagement ring. Every girl must have one, you know, +even if her engagement _is_ the shortest on record. I've the wedding +ring, too. But it isn't the time for that. A good-sized diamond's the +obvious sort of thing: advertises itself for what it is, and that's +what we want. You'll wear it, as much as to say, 'I was engaged like +everybody else.' But if there wasn't a reason against it, _this_ is what +I should like to put on your finger." + +As he spoke, he hid the spark of light in his other hand, and from the +pocket whence it had come produced another ring. + +If she had not seen this, Annesley would have exclaimed against the word +"obvious" for the splendid brilliant as big as a small pea which Knight +put aside so carelessly. But the contrast between the modern ring with +its "solitaire" diamond and the wonderful rival he gave it silenced her. +She was no judge of jewellery, and had never possessed any worth having; +but she knew that this second ring was a rare as well as a beautiful +antique. It looked worthy, she thought, of a real princess. + +Even the gold was different from other gold, the little that was visible, +for the square-cut stone, of pale, scintillating blue, was surrounded by +a frame of tiny brilliants encrusting the rim as far as could be seen on +the back of the hand when the ring was worn. + +"A sapphire!" Annesley exclaimed. "My favourite stone. Yet I never saw a +sapphire like it before. It's wonderful--brighter than a diamond." + +"It is a diamond," said Knight. "A blue diamond, and considered +remarkable. It's what your friend Ruthven Smith would call a 'museum +piece,' if you showed it to him. But you mustn't. He'd move heaven and +earth to get it! Nobody must see it but you and me. It wouldn't be safe. +It's too valuable. And if you were known to have it, you'd be in danger +from all the jewel thieves in Europe and America. You wouldn't like +that." + +"No, it would be horrible!" Annesley shuddered. "But what a pity it must +be hidden. Is it yours?" + +"It's yours at present," said Knight, "if you'll keep it to yourself, and +look at it only when you and I are alone together. I can't give it to +you, precisely, to have and to hold (as I shall give you myself in a +few hours), because this ring is more a trust than a possession. +Something may happen which will force me to ask you for it. But again, it +may _not_. And, anyhow, I want you to have the ring until that time +comes. I've bought a thin gold chain, and you can hang it round your +neck, unless--I almost think you're inclined to refuse?" + +Another mystery! But the blue diamond in its scintillating frame was so +alluring that Annesley could not refuse. She knew that she would have +more pleasure in peeping surreptitiously at the secret blue diamond than +in seeing the "obvious" white one on her finger. + +"I can't give it up!" she said, laughing. "But I hope it isn't one of +those dreadful historic stones which have had murders committed for it, +like famous jewels one reads of. I should hate anything that came from +_you_ to bring bad luck." + +"So should I hate it. If there's any bad luck coming, I want it myself," +Knight said, gravely. + +"I wish I hadn't spoken of bad luck to-day!" the girl remorsefully +exclaimed. "But I am not afraid. Give me the ring." + +He gave it, and pulled from his pocket the slight gold chain on which he +meant it to hang. He was leisurely threading the ring upon this when two +men looked in at the door of the reading room. + +One of the pair was of more than middle age. He was tall, thin, and +slightly stooping. His respectable clothes seemed too loose for him. His +hair and straggling beard were gray, contrasting with the sallow darkness +of his skin. He wore gold-rimmed spectacles, and peered through them as +if they were not strong enough for his failing sight. + +The other man was younger. He, too, was dark and sallow, but his +close-cut hair was black. He was clean shaven and well dressed. He wore a +high, almost painfully high, collar, which caused him to keep his chin in +air. He might be a Spaniard or an Italian. + +Annesley had certainly not seen him before. She told herself this twice +over. Yet--she was frightened. There was something familiar about him. +It must be her foolish imagination which took alarm at everything! + +But, with fingers grown cold, she covered up the blue diamond. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE THING KNIGHT WANTED + + +When Dr. Torrance, who was to give her away, and the Marchese di Morello, +who was to be Knight's "best man," had been introduced to Annesley, she +laughed at the stupid "scare" which had chilled her heart for a moment. + +If Knight had remained with her after his friends finished their call, +she might have confessed to him how she had fancied in the tall, dark +young man a likeness to one of the dreaded _watchers_. Until Knight spoke +their names she had feared that the pair looking in at the door were +there to spy; that one, at all events, was disguised--cleverly, yet not +cleverly enough quite to hide his identity. But Knight said good-bye, and +went away with his friends, giving the girl no chance for further talk +with him. + +They did not meet again until--with the Countess de Santiago--Annesley +arrived at the obscure church chosen for the marriage ceremony. There Dr. +Torrance awaited them outside the door, and took charge of the bride, +while the Countess found her way in alone; and Annesley saw through the +mist of confused emotion her Knight of love and mystery waiting at the +altar. + +During the ceremony that followed he made his responses firmly, his eyes +calling so clearly to hers that she answered with an almost hypnotized +gaze. His look seemed to seal the promise of his words. In spite of all +that was strange and secret and unsatisfying about him, she had no +regrets. Love was worth everything, and she could but believe that he +loved her. This strong conviction went with the girl to the vestry, and +made it easier to turn away when his name--his real name, which she, +though his wife, was not to know--was recorded by him in the book. + +They parted from Torrance, Morello, and the Countess at the church door, +an arrangement which delighted Annesley. In the haste of making plans, +she and Knight had forgotten to discuss what they were to do after the +wedding and before their departure; but Knight had found time to decide +the matter. + +"These people were the best material I could get hold of at a moment's +notice," he remarked, coolly, when he and Annesley were in the motor-car +he had hired for the journey to Devonshire. "We've used them because we +needed them. Now we don't need them any longer. It seems to me that a +newly married couple ought to keep only dear friends around them or no +one. Later we can repay these three for the favour they've done us, if +you call it a favour. Meanwhile, we'll forget them." + +Knight had neglected no detail which could make for Annesley's comfort, +or save her from any embarrassment arising from the hurried wedding. Her +luggage had been packed by a maid in the hotel, and--all but the +dressing-bag and a small box made for an automobile--sent ahead by rail +to Devonshire. She and Knight were to travel in the comfortable limousine +which would protect them against weather. It did not matter, Knight said, +how long they were on the way. + +At Exeter they would visit some good agency in search of a lady's maid. +Annesley said that she did not need a woman to wait on her, since she had +been accustomed not only to taking care of herself but Mrs. Ellsworth. + +Knight, however, insisted that his wife must be looked after by a +competent woman. It was "the right thing"; but his idea was that, in the +circumstances, it would be pleasanter to have a country girl than a +sharp, London-bred woman or a Parisienne. + +In Exeter an ideal person was obtainable: a Devonshire girl who had been +trained to a maid's duties (as the agent boasted) by a "lady of title." +She had accompanied "the Marchioness" to France, and had had lessons in +Cannes from a hair dresser, masseuse, and manicurist. Now her mistress +was dead, and Parker was in search of another place. + +She was a gentle, sweet-looking girl, and though she asked for wages +higher than Mrs. Ellsworth had paid her companion, Knight pronounced them +reasonable. She was directed to go by train to the Knowle Hotel at +Sidmouth (where a suite had been engaged by telegram for Mr. and Mrs. +Nelson Smith and maid) and to have all the luggage unpacked before their +arrival. + +Flung thus into intimate association with a man, almost a stranger, +Annesley had been afraid in the midst of her happiness. She felt as a +young Christian maiden, a prisoner of Nero's day, might have felt if told +she was to be flung to a lion miraculously subdued by the influence of +Christianity. Such a maiden could not have been quite sure whether the +story were true or a fable; whether the lion would destroy her with a +blow or crouch at her feet. + +But Annesley's lion neither struck nor crouched. He stood by her side as +a protector. "Knight" seemed more and more appropriate as a name for +him. Though there were roughnesses and crudenesses in his manner and +choice of words, all he did and said made Annesley sure that she had been +right in her first impression. Not a cultured gentleman like Archdeacon +Smith, or Annesley's dead father, and the few men who had come near her +in early childhood before her home fell to pieces, he was a gentleman at +heart, she told herself, and in all essentials. + +It struck her as beautiful and even pathetic, rather than contemptible, +that he should humbly wish to learn of her the small refinements he had +missed in the past--that mysterious past which mattered less and less to +Annesley as the present became dear and vital. + +"I've knocked about a lot, all over the world," he explained in a casual +way during a talk they had had on the night of their marriage, at the +first stopping-place to which their motor brought them. "My mother died +when I was a small boy, died in a terrible way I don't want to talk +about, and losing her broke up my father and me for a while. He never got +over it as long as he lived, and I never will as long as I live. + +"The way my father died was almost as tragic as my mother's death," he +went on after a tense moment of remembering. "I was only a boy even then; +and ever since the 'knocking-about' process has been going on. I haven't +seen much of the best side of life, but I've wanted it. That was why, for +one reason, you made such an appeal to me at first sight. You were as +plucky and generous as any Bohemian, though I could see you were a +delicate, inexperienced girl, brought up under glass like the orchid you +look--and are. I'm used to making up my mind in a hurry--I've had to--so +it didn't take me many minutes to realize that if I could get you to link +up with me, I should have the thing I'd been looking for. + +"Well, by the biggest stroke of luck I've got you, sooner than I could +have dared to hope; and now I don't want to make you afraid of me. I know +my faults and failings, but I don't know how to put them right and be the +sort of man a girl like you can be proud of. It's up to you to show me +the way. Whenever you see me going wrong, you're to tell me. That's what +I want--turn me into a gentleman." + +When Annesley tenderly reassured him with loving flatteries, he only +laughed and caught her in his arms. + +"Like a prince, am I?" he echoed. "Well, I've got princely blood in my +veins through my mother; but there are pauper princes, and in the pauper +business the gilding gets rubbed off. I trust you to gild my battered +corners. No good trying to tell me I'm gold all through, because I know +better; but when you've made me shine on the outside, I'll keep the +surface bright." + +Annesley did not like the persistent way in which he spoke of himself +as a black sheep who, at best, could be whitened, and trained not to +disgrace the fold; yet it piqued her interest. Books said that women had +a weakness for men who were not good and she supposed that she was like +the rest. He was so dear and chivalrous that certain defiant hints as to +his lack of virtue vaguely added to the spice of mystery which decorated +the background of the picture--the vivid picture of the "stranger +knight." + +When they had been for three days in the best suite at the Knowle Hotel, +and had made several short excursions with the motor, he asked the girl +if she "felt like getting acquainted with her cousins." + +She did not protest as she had at first. Already she knew her Knight +well enough to be assured that when he resolved to do a thing it was +practically done. She had had chances to realize his force of character +in little ways as well as big ones; and she understood that he was bent +on scraping acquaintance with Lord and Lady Annesley-Seton. Had he not +decided upon Sidmouth the instant she mentioned their ownership of a +place in the neighbourhood? She had been certain that he would not +neglect the opportunity created. + +"How are we to set about it?" was all she said. + +"Oh, Valley House is a show place, I suppose you know," replied Knight. +"I've looked it up in the local guide-book. It's open to the public three +days a week. Any one with a shilling to spare can see the ancestral +portraits and treasures, and the equally ancestral rooms of your +distinguished family. Does that interest you?" + +"Ye-es. But I'm a distant relation--as well as a poor one," Annesley +reminded him with her old humility. + +"You're not poor now. And blood is thicker than water--when it's in a +golden cup. It's Lord and Lady Annesley-Seton's turn to play the poor +relations. It seems they're stony. Even the shillings the public pay to +see the place are an object to them." + +"Oh, I'm sorry!" exclaimed Annesley. + +"That's generous, seeing they never bothered themselves about you when +they had plenty of shillings and you had none." + +"I don't suppose they knew there _was_ a me." + +"Lord Annesley-Seton must have known, if his wife didn't know. But we'll +let that pass. I was thinking we might go to the house on one of the +public days, with the man who wrote the local guide-book. I've made his +acquaintance through writing him a note, complimenting him on his work +and his knowledge of history. He answered like a shot, with thanks for +the appreciation, and said if he could help me he'd be delighted. He's +the editor of a newspaper in Torquay. + +"If we invite him to lunch here at the Knowle, he'll fall over himself to +accept. Then we'll be able to kill two birds with one stone. He'll tell +us things about the heirlooms at Valley House we shouldn't be able to +find out without his help--or a lot of dreary drudgery--and also he'll +put a paragraph about us in his newspaper, which he'll send to your +cousins. Now, isn't that a combination of brilliant ideas?" + +"Yes," laughed Annesley. "But why should you take so much trouble--and +how can you tell that the editor's paragraph would make the +Annesley-Setons want to know us?" + +"As for the paragraph, you may put your faith in me. And as for the +trouble, nothing's too much to launch my wife on the top wave of society, +where she has every right to be. I want Mrs. Nelson Smith to have her +chance to shine. Money would do the trick sooner or later, but I want +it to be done sooner. Besides, I have a feeling I should like us to get +where we want to be, without the noisy splash money-bags make when +new-rich candidates for society are launched. Your people will see +excellent reasons why their late 'poor relation' is worth cultivating. + +"But trust them to save their faces by keeping their real motive secret!" +with a touch of sarcasm. "I seem to hear them going about among their +friends, whom they'll invite to meet us, saying how charming and unspoilt +you are though you've got more money than you know what to do with----" + +"I!" With the protesting pronoun Annesley disclaimed all ownership of her +husband's fortune, whatever it might be. + +"It's the same thing. You and I are one. Whatever is mine is yours. I +don't swear to make you a regular, unfailing allowance worthy of the new +position you're going to have, because you see I do business with several +countries, and my income's erratic; I'm never sure to the day when it +will come or how much it will be. But there's nothing you want which you +can't buy; remember that. And when we begin life in London, you shall +have a standing account at as many shops as you like." + +Annesley made no objection to Knight's plan for luring the journalist +into his "trap," which was a harmless one. According to his prophecy, Mr. +Milton Savage of the Torquay _Weekly Messenger_ accepted the invitation +from his correspondent, and came to luncheon on the day when the public +were free to view Valley House. + +He was a small man with a big head and eyes which glinted large behind +convex spectacles. Annesley was charming to him, not only in the wish to +please Knight but because she was kind-hearted and had intense sympathy +for suppressed people. Mr. Savage was grateful and admiring, and drank in +every word Knight dropped, as if carelessly, about the relationship to +Lord Annesley-Seton. + +Knight allowed himself to be pumped concerning it, and also his wife's +parentage, letting fall, with apparent inadvertence, bits of information +regarding himself, his travels, his adventures, and the fortune he had +picked up. + +"I'm the exception," he said, "to the proverb that 'a rolling stone +gathers no moss.' I've gathered all I want or know what to do with; and +now I'm married I mean to take a rest. I haven't decided yet where or +how, but it will be somewhere in England. We're looking for a house in +London, and later we might rent one in the country, too." + +Annesley admired his cleverness in touching the goal; but somehow these +smart hits disturbed rather than amused her. Knight's complexity was a +puzzle to her. She could not understand, despite his explanations, why +these fireworks of dexterity were worth while. Knight was a brave figure +of romance. She did not want her hero turned into an intriguer, no matter +how innocent his motive. + +After luncheon they drove five or six miles in the motor to Valley House, +a place of Jacobean times. There was an Italian garden, and an English +garden containing every flower, plant, and herb mentioned by Shakespeare. +Each garden had a distant view of the sea, darkly framed by Lebanon +cedars and immense beeches, while the house itself--not large as "show" +houses go--was perfect of its kind, with carved stone mantels, elaborate +oak panelling and staircases, leaded windows, and treasures of portraits, +armour, ancient books, and bric-a-brac which would have remade the family +fortune if all had not been heirlooms. + +There was not a picture on the walls nor an old piece of jewellery in the +many locked glass cabinets of which Mr. Milton Savage could not tell the +history as he guided the Nelson Smiths through hall and corridors and +rooms with marvellous moulded ceilings. The liveried servant told off to +show the crowd over the house had but a superficial knowledge of its +riches compared with the lore of the journalist; and the editor of the +Torquay _Weekly Messenger_ became inconveniently popular with the public. + +He was not blind to the compliment, however; and, motoring into Torquay +at the end of the afternoon with his host and hostess, expressed himself +delighted with his visit. + +That night was his night for going to press, but he found time to write +the paragraph which Nelson Smith expected. Next morning a copy of the +_Messenger_, with a page marked, arrived at the Knowle Hotel, and +another, also marked, went to Valley House. + +The bride and bridegroom were at breakfast when the paper came. There +were also three letters, all for Knight, the first which either had +received since their marriage. + +Knight cut open the envelopes slowly, one after the other, and made no +comment. Annesley could not help wondering if the Countess had written, +for an involuntary glance had made her sure that one of Knight's letters +was from a woman: a purple envelope with a purple monogram and a blob of +purple wax sealed with a crown. He read all three, put them back into +their envelopes, rose, dropped them into the fire, watched them burn to +ashes, and quietly returned to his seat. Then, as if really interested, +he tore the wrapping off the Torquay _Messenger_. + +"Now we shall see ourselves in print!" he said, and a moment later was +reading to Annesley an account of "the two most interesting guests the +Knowle Hotel has entertained this season." Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith were +described with enthusiasm. They were young and handsome. He was immensely +rich, she was "highly connected" as well as beautiful, having been a +Miss Annesley Grayle, related on her mother's side to the Earl of +Annesley-Seton. + +The modesty of the young couple was so great, however, that, though the +bridegroom was a millionaire well known in his adopted country, America, +and the bride quite closely linked with his lordship's family, they had +refused to make their presence in the neighbourhood known to the Earl and +Lady. Instead they had visited Valley House with a crowd of tourists on a +public day, expressing the opinion to a representative of the _Messenger_ +that it would be "intrusive" to present themselves to Lord and Lady +Annesley-Seton. They were spending their honeymoon in Devonshire, and +might find, during their motor tours, a suitable country place to buy or +rent. + +In any case, they would look for a house in which to settle on their +return to London. + +"Good for Milton Savage," laughed Knight. "Now we'll lie low, and see +what will happen." + +Annesley thought that nothing would happen; but she was wrong. The next +morning a note came by hand for Mrs. Nelson Smith, brought by a footman +on a bicycle. + +The note was from Lady Annesley-Seton. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +BEGINNING OF THE SERIES + + +No man who had not known the seamy side of life could have guessed the +effect of Milton Savage's paragraph upon the minds of Lord and Lady +Annesley-Seton. + +"I told you if you bet against me you would bet wrong," Knight said, when +the astonished girl handed the letter across the breakfast table. Even he +had hardly reckoned on such extreme cordiality. He had expected a bid for +acquaintanceship with the "millionaire" and his bride, but he had fancied +there would be a certain stiffness in the effort. + +Lady Annesley-Seton had begun, "My dear Cousin," and her frank American +way was disarming. She wrote four pages of apology for herself and her +husband, explaining why they had neglected "looking up Mrs. Nelson Smith +when she was Miss Annesley Grayle." The letter went on: + + I hadn't been married long when my husband read out of some newspaper + the notice of a clergyman's death, and mentioned that he was a cousin + by marriage whom he hadn't met since boyhood, although the clergyman's + living was in our county--somewhere off at the other end. + + My husband thought there was a daughter, and I remember his remarking + that we ought to write and find out if she'd been left badly off. Of + course, it was _my_ duty to have kept his idea alive, and to have + carried it out. But I was young and having such a good time that I'm + afraid it was a case of "out of sight, out of mind." + + We forgot to inquire, and heard no more. It was _horrid_ of us, and I'm + sure it was _our_ loss. Probably we should have remembered if things + had gone well with us: but perhaps you know that my father (whose money + used to seem unlimited to me) lost it all, and we were mixed up in the + smash. We've been poorer than any church mice since, and trying to make + ends meet has occupied our attention from that day to this. + + I have to confess that, if our attention hadn't been drawn to your + name, we might never have thought of it again. But now I've eased my + conscience, and as fate seems to have brought us within close touch, do + let us see what she means to do with us. We should so like to meet you + and Mr. Nelson Smith, who is, apparently, more or less a countryman of + mine. + + I'm not allowed out yet, in this cold weather, after an attack of + "flu"; but my husband will call this afternoon on the chance of finding + you in, carrying a warm invitation to you both to "waive ceremony" and + dine with us at Valley House _en famille_. + + Looking forward to meeting you, + + Yours most cordially, + + Constance Annesley-Seton. + +"Sweet of her, isn't it?" Annesley exclaimed when she and Knight had read +the letter through. + +Knight glanced at his wife quizzically, opened his lips to speak, and +closed them. Perhaps he thought it would be unwise as well as wrong to +disturb the girl's faith in Lady Annesley-Seton's disinterestedness. + +"Yes, it's _real_ sweet!" he said, exaggerating his American accent, but +keeping a grave face. + +They were duly "at home" that afternoon, though they had intended to go +out, and the caller found them in a private sitting room filled with +flowers, suggesting much money and a love of spending it. Annesley had +put on Knight's favourite frock, one of the "model dresses" he had chosen +for her in their whirlwind rush through Bond Street, a white cloth +trimmed with narrow bands of dark fur; and she had never looked prettier. + +Lord Annesley-Seton, a tall thin man of the eagle-nosed soldier type, +wearing pince-nez, but youthful-looking for the forty-four years Burke +gave him, could not help thinking her a satisfactory cousin to pick up: +and Nelson Smith was far from being in appearance the rough, self-made +man he had dreaded. + +He was delighted with them both--so young, so handsome, so happy, +so fortunate, and luckily so well bred. He did not make the short +conventional call he had intended, but stayed to tea, and at last went +home to give his wife an enthusiastic account of the visit. + +"The girl's a lady, and might be a beauty if she had more confidence in +herself--you know what I mean: taking herself for granted as a charmer, +the way you smart women do," he said. "She isn't that kind. But with you +to show her the ropes, she'll be liked by the right people. There's a +softness and sweetness and genuineness that you don't often see in girls +now. As for the man, you'll think him a ripper, Connie--so will other +women. Has the air of being a gentleman born, and then having roughed it +all over the world. A strong man, I should say. A man's man as well as a +woman's. Might 'take' if he's started right." + +"_We'll_ see to that," said Constance Annesley-Seton, who was not too ill +to go out but had not wanted to seem too eager. + +She was less than thirty, but looked more because she had worried and +drawn faint lines between her delicate auburn brows and at the corners +of her greenish-gray eyes. There were also a few fading threads in the +red locks which were her one real beauty; but she had a marvellous +hair-varnish which prevented them from showing. + +"We'll see to that! If they'll _let_ us. Are they going to let us?" + +"Yes, I think so," Annesley-Seton reassured her. "They're a pair of +children, willing to be guided. They can have anything they want in the +world, but they don't seem to know what to want." + +"Splendid!" laughed Constance. "Can't we will them to want our house in +town, and invite us to visit them?" + +"I shouldn't wonder," replied her husband. "You might make a start in +that direction when they come to dinner to-morrow evening." + +Lord Annesley-Seton had outgrown such enthusiasms as he might once have +had, therefore his account of the cousins encouraged Constance to hope +much, and she was not disappointed. On the contrary, she thought that he +had not said enough, especially about the man. + +If she had not had so many anxieties that her youthful love of "larks" +had been crushed out, she would have "adored" a flirtation with Nelson +Smith. It would have been "great fun" to steal him from the pretty +beanpole of a girl who would not know how to use her claws in a fight +for her man; but as it was, Connie thought only of conciliating "Cousin +Anne," and winning her confidence. Other women would try to take Nelson +Smith from his wife, but Connie would have her hands full in playing a +less amusing game. + +She thought, seeing that the handsome, dark young man she admired had a +mind of his own, it would be a difficult game to play; and Nelson Smith +saw that she thought so. His sense of humour caused him to smile at his +own cleverness in producing the impression; and he would have given a +good deal for someone to laugh with over her maneuvers to entice him +along the road he wished to travel. + +But he dared not point out to Annesley the fun of the situation. To do so +would be to put her against him and it. + +She, too, had a sense of humour, suppressed by five years of Mrs. +Ellsworth, but coming delightfully to life, like a half-frozen bird, in +the sunshine of safety and happiness. Knight appealed to and encouraged +it often, for he could not have lived with a humourless woman, no matter +how sweet. + +Yet he did not dare wake it where her cousins were concerned. Her sense +of honour was more valuable to him than her sense of humour. He was +afraid to put the former on the defensive, and he was glad to let her +believe the Annesley-Setons were genuinely "warming" to them in a way +which proved that blood was thicker than water. + +The girl had wondered from the first why he was determined to make +friends with these cousins whom she had never known, and he was grateful +because she believed in him too loyally to attribute his desire to +"snobbishness." He wished her to suppose he had set his heart on +providing her with influential guidance on the threshold of a new life; +and it was important that she should not begin criticizing his motives. + +By the time dinner was over Constance Annesley-Seton had decided that the +Nelson Smiths had been sent to her by the Powers that Be, and that it +would be tempting Providence not to annex them. Not that she put it in +that way to herself, for she did not trouble her mind about Providence. +All she knew was that she and Dick would be fools to let the chance slip. + +It was as much as she could do not to suggest the idea in her mind: that +the Nelson Smiths should take the house in Portman Square; that she and +her husband should introduce them to society, and that the Devonshire +place should either be let to them or that they should visit there when +they wished to be in the country, as paying guests. + +But she controlled her impatience, limiting herself to proposing plans +for future meetings. She suggested giving a dinner in honour of the bride +and bridegroom, and inviting people whom it would be "nice for them to +know" in town. + +Knight said that he and "Anita" (his new name for Annesley, a souvenir +of Spanish South America) would accept with pleasure. And the girl agreed +gladly, because she thought her cousin and his wife were very kind. + +After dinner Annesley-Seton and Knight followed Constance and "Anita" +almost directly, the former asking his guests if they would like to see +some of the family treasures which they could only have glanced at in +passing with the crowd the other day. + +"Before sugar went to smash, we blazed into all sorts of extravagances +here," he said, bitterly, with a glance at the deposed Sugar King's +daughter. "Among others, putting electric light into this old barn. We'll +have an illumination, and show you some trifles Connie and I wish to +Heaven a kind-hearted burglar would relieve us of. + +"Of course the beastly things are heirlooms, as I suppose you know. We +can't sell or pawn them, or I should have done one or the other long ago. +They're insured by the trustees, who are the bane of our lives, for the +estate. But a sporting sort of company has blossomed out lately, which +insures against 'loss of use'--I think that's the expression. I pay the +premium myself--even when I can't pay anything else!--and if the valuable +contents of this place are stolen or burned, we shall benefit personally. + +"I don't mind you or all the world knowing we're stony broke," he went +on, frankly. "And everyone _does_ know, anyhow, that we'd be in the deuce +of a hole without the tourists' shillings which pour in twice a week the +year round. You see, each object in the collection helps bring in those +shillings; and 'loss of use' of a single one would be a real deprivation. +So it's fair and above board. But thus far, I've paid my premium and got +no return, these last three years. Our tourists are so disgustingly +honest, or our burglars so clumsy and unenterprising, that, as you say +in the States, 'there's nothing doing.'" + +As he talked Dick Annesley-Seton sauntered about the immense room into +which they had come from the state banqueting hall, switching on more and +more of the electric candle-lights set high on the green brocade walls. +This was known as the "green drawing room" by the family, and the "Room +of the Miniatures" by the public, who read about it in catalogues. + +"Come and look at our white elephants," he went on, when the room, dimly +and economically lit at first, was ablaze with light; and Mr. and Mrs. +Nelson Smith joined him eagerly. Constance followed, too, bored but +resigned; and her husband paused before a tall, narrow glass cabinet +standing in a recess. + +"See these miniatures!" he exclaimed, fretfully. "There are plenty more, +but the best are in this cabinet; and there's a millionaire chap, in New +York--perhaps you can guess his name, Smith?--who has offered a hundred +thousand pounds for the thirty little bits of ivory in it." + +"I think that must have been the great Paul Van Vreck," Knight hazarded. + +"I thought you'd guess! There aren't many who'd make such an offer. Think +what it would mean to me if it could be accepted, and I could have the +handling of the money. There are three small pictures in the little +octagon gallery next door, too, Van Vreck took a fancy to on a visit he +paid us from Saturday to Monday last summer. We never thought much of +them, and they're in a dark place, labelled in the catalogue 'Artist +unknown: School of Fragonard'; but _he_ swore they were authentic +Fragonards, and would have backed his opinion to the tune of fifteen +thousand pounds for the trio, or six thousand for the one he liked best. +Isn't it aggravating? In the Chinese room he went mad over some bits of +jade, especially a Buddha nobody else had ever admired." + +"He's one of the few millionaire collectors who is really a judge of all +sorts of things," Knight replied. "But, great Scott! I'm no expert, yet +it strikes me these miniatures are something out of the ordinary!" + +"Well, yes, they are," Annesley-Seton admitted, modestly. "That queer one +at the top is a Nicholas Hilliard. I believe he was the first of the +miniaturists. And the two just underneath are Samuel Coopers. They say he +stood at the head of the Englishmen. There are three Richard Cosways and +rather a nice Angelica Kauffmann." + +"It was the Fragonard miniature Mr. Van Vreck liked best," put in +Constance. "It seems he painted only a few. And next, the Goya----" + +"Good heavens! where is the Fragonard?" cried Dick, his eyes bulging +behind his pince-nez. "Surely it was here----" + +"Oh, surely, yes!" panted his wife. "It was never anywhere else." + +For an instant they were stricken into silence, both staring at a blank +space on the black velvet background where twenty-nine miniatures hung. +There was no doubt about it when they had reviewed the rows of little +painted faces. The Fragonard was gone. + +"Stolen!" gasped Lady Annesley-Seton. + +"Unless one of you, or some servant you trust with the key, is a +somnambulist," said Knight. "I don't see how it would pay a thief to +steal such a thing. It must be too well known. He couldn't dispose of +it--that is if he weren't a collector himself; and even then he could +never show it. But--by Jove!" + +"What is it? What have you seen?" Annesley-Seton asked, sharply. + +Knight pointed, without touching the cabinet. He had never come near +enough to do that. "It looks to me as if a square bit of glass had been +cut out on the side where the lost miniature must have hung," he said. +"I can't be sure, from where I stand, because the cabinet is too close +to the wall of the recess." + +Dick Annesley-Seton thrust his arm into the space between green brocade +and glass, then slipped his hand through a neatly cut aperture just big +enough to admit its passage. With his hand in the square hole he could +reach the spot where the miniature had hung, and could have taken it off +the hook had it been there. But hook, as well as miniature, was missing. + +"That settles it!" he exclaimed. "It _is_ a theft, and a clever one! +Strange we should find it out when I was demonstrating to you how much I +wished it would happen. Hurrah! That miniature alone is insured against +burglary for seven or eight hundred pounds. Nothing to what it's worth, +but a lot to pay a premium on, with the rest of the things besides. I +wish now I hadn't been so cheese-paring. You'll be witnesses, you two, of +our discovery. I'm glad Connie and I weren't alone when we found it out. +Something nasty might have been said." + +"We'll back you up with pleasure," Knight replied. "What was the +miniature like? I wonder if we saw it when we were here the other day, +Anita? I remember these, but can't recall any other." + +"Neither can I," returned Annesley. "But I am stupid about such things. +We saw so many--and passed so quickly." + +"I wonder if Paul Van Vreck was here in disguise among the tourists?" +said Dick, beginning to laugh. "It would have been the one he'd have +chosen if he couldn't grab the lot." + +"Oh, surely no one in the crowd could have cut a piece of glass out of a +cabinet and stolen a miniature without being seen!" Annesley cried. + +"Dick is half in joke," Constance explained. "It would have been a +miracle, yet the servants are above suspicion. Those horrid trustees +never let me choose a new one without their interference. And, of +_course_ Dick didn't mean what he said about Mr. Van Vreck." + +"Of course not. I understood that," Annesley excused herself, blushing +lest she had appeared obtuse. + +"All the same, to carry on the joke, let's go into the octagon room +and see if the alleged Fragonard pictures have gone, too," said +Annesley-Seton. He led the way, turning on more light in the adjoining +room as he went; and, outdistancing the others, they heard him stammer, +"Good Lord!" before they were near enough to see what he saw. + +"They aren't gone?" shrieked his wife, hurrying after him. + +"One of them is." + +In an instant the three had grouped behind him, where he stood staring at +an empty frame, between two others of the same pattern and size, charming +old frames twelve or fourteen inches square, within whose boundaries of +carved and gilded wood, nymphs held hands and danced. + +"Are we _dreaming_ this?" gasped Constance. + +"Thank Heaven we're not!" the husband answered. "The two paintings are on +wood, you see. So was the missing one. Someone has simply unfastened it +from the frame, and trusted to this being a dark, out-of-the-way corner, +not to have the theft noticed for hours or maybe days. By all that's +wonderful, here's _another_ insurance haul for me! What about the jade +Buddha in the Chinese room?" + +They rushed back into the green drawing room, and so to the beautiful +Chinese room beyond, with its priceless lacquer tables and cabinets. In +one of these latter a collection of exquisite jade was gathered together. + +And the Buddha which Paul Van Vreck had coveted was gone! + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +ANNESLEY REMEMBERS + + +There was great excitement for the next few days at Valley House and +throughout the neighbourhood, for the Annesley-Setons made no secret of +the robbery, and the affair got into the papers, not only the local ones, +but the London dailies. + +Two of the latter sent representatives, to whom Lord Annesley-Seton +granted interviews. Something he said attracted the reporters' attention +to Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith, who had been dining at Valley House on the +evening when the theft was discovered, and Knight was begged for an +interview. + +He was asked if he had formed an opinion as to the disappearance of the +three heirlooms, and whether he knew personally Mr. Paul Van Vreck, the +American collector and retired head of the famous firm of jewellers, who +had wished to buy the vanished treasures. + +Having spent most of his life in America, Knight had the theory that +unless you wished to be misrepresented, the only safe thing was to let +yourself be interviewed. He was accordingly so good-natured and +interesting that the reporters were delighted with him. If he had been +wishing for a wide advertisement of his personality, his possessions, and +his plans, he could not have chosen a surer way of getting it. + +The two newspapers which had undertaken to boom the "Valley House +Heirloom Theft" had almost limitless circulations. One of them possessed +a Continental edition, and the other was immensely popular because of its +topical illustrations. + +Snapshots, not so unflattering as usual, were obtained of the young +Anglo-American millionaire and his bride, as they started away from the +Knowle Hotel in their motor, or as they walked in the garden. Though +Knight had disclaimed any personal acquaintance with the great Paul Van +Vreck, he was able to state that Mr. Van Vreck had been convalescing +at Palm Beach, in Florida, at the time of the robbery. He had had an +attack of pneumonia in the autumn, and instead of travelling in his yacht +to Egypt, as he generally did travel early in the winter, he had been +ordered by his doctors to be satisfied with a "place in the sun" nearer +home. + +Everyone in America knew this, Knight explained, and everyone in England +might know it also, unless it had been forgotten. If Mr. Van Vreck were +well enough to take an interest in the papers, he was sure to be amused +by the coincidence that the things stolen from Valley House were among +those he had wanted to buy. + +Knight thought, however, that even if the clever thief or thieves had +heard of Van Vreck's whim, no attempt would be made to dispose of the +spoil to him. The elderly millionaire, though one of the most eccentric +men living, was known as the soul of honour. + +The relationship between young Mrs. Nelson Smith and Lord Annesley-Seton +was touched upon in the papers; and though it was irrelevant to the +subject in hand, mention was made of the Nelson Smiths' plan to live in +London. + +This gave Constance her chance. At an impromptu luncheon at the Knowle +Hotel, before the intended dinner party at Valley House, she referred +to the interest Society would begin to take in this "romantic couple." + +"Everybody will have fallen in love with you already," she said, "from +those snapshots in the _Looking Glass_. They make you both look such +darlings--though they don't flatter either of you. All the people we know +will be clamouring to meet you, so you must hurry and find a nice house, +in the right part of town, before some other sensation comes up and +you're forgotten. How would it be if you took _our_ house for a couple +of months, while you're looking round? Naturally, if you _liked_ it, you +could keep it on. We'd be delighted, for we have to let it when we can, +and it would be a pleasure to think of you in it." + +"If we're in it, you must both come and stay, and not only 'think' of us, +but be with us: mustn't they, Anita?" Knight proposed. Of course Annesley +said yes, and meant yes. Not that she really wanted her duet with Knight +to be broken up into a chorus, but she longed to succeed as a woman of +the world, since that was what he wanted her to be; and she realized that +Lady Annesley-Seton's help would be invaluable. + +So, through the theft at Valley House and the developments therefrom, +the hidden desires of Nelson Smith and the daughter of the deposed +Sugar King accomplished themselves, Connie still believing that she had +engineered the affair with diplomatic skill, and Knight laughing silently +at the way she had played into his hands. + +Detectives were set to work by the two insurance companies, who hoped to +trace the thief and discover the stolen Fragonards and the jade Buddha; +but their efforts failed; and at the dinner party given in honour of the +new cousins, Lord and Lady Annesley-Seton rejoiced openly in their good +luck. + +"All the same," Constance said, "I _should_ like to know how the things +were spirited out of the house, and where they are. It is the first +mystery that has ever come into our lives. I wish I were a clairvoyante. +It would be fun!" + +"Did you ever hear of the Countess de Santiago, when you lived in +America?" asked Knight in his calm voice. He did not glance toward +Annesley, who sat at the other end of the table, but he must have guessed +that she would turn with a start of surprise on hearing the Countess's +name in this connection. + +"The Countess de Santiago?" Connie echoed. "No. What about her? She +sounds interesting." + +"She _is_ interesting. And beautiful." Everybody had stopped talking by +this time, to listen; and in the pause Knight appealed to his wife. +"That's not an exaggeration, is it, Anita?" + +Annesley, wondering and somewhat startled, answered that the Countess de +Santiago was one of the most beautiful women she had seen. + +This riveted the attention which Knight had caught. He had his audience, +and went on in a leisurely way. + +"Come to think of it, she can't have been heard of in your part of the +world until you'd left for England," he told Constance. "She's the most +extraordinary clairvoyante I ever heard of. That's what made me speak of +her. Unfortunately she's not a professional, and won't do anything unless +she happens to feel like it. But I wonder if I could persuade her to look +in her crystal for you, Lady Annesley-Seton? + +"She's an old acquaintance of mine," he went on, casually. "I met her +in Buenos Aires before her rich elderly husband died, about seven or +eight years ago. She was very young then. I came across her again in +California, when she was seeing the world as a free woman, after the old +fellow's death. Then I introduced her by letter to one or two people in +New York, and I believe she has been admired there, and at Newport. + +"But I've only _heard_ all that," Knight hastened to explain. "I've been +too busy till lately to know at first hand what goes on in the 'smart' or +the artistic set. _My_ world doesn't take much interest in crystal-gazers +and palmists, amateur or professional, even when they happen to be +handsome women, like the Countess. But I ran against her again on board +the _Monarchic_ about a month ago, crossing to this side, and we picked +up threads of old acquaintance. She was staying at the Savoy when I left +London." + +He paused a moment, and added: + +"As a favour to me, she might set her accomplishments to work on this +business. Only she'd have to meet you both and see this house, for I've +heard her say she couldn't do anything without knowing the people +concerned, and 'getting the atmosphere.'" + +"Oh, we _must_ have her!" cried Constance, and all the other women except +Annesley chimed in, begging their hostess to invite them if the Countess +came. + +No one thought it odd that Mrs. Nelson Smith should be silent, for her +remark about the Countess de Santiago's beauty showed that she had met +the lady; but to any one who had turned a critical stare upon her then, +her expression must have seemed strange. She had an unseeing look, the +look of one who has become deaf and blind to everything outside some +scene conjured up by the brain. + +What Annesley saw was a copy of the _Morning Post_. Knight's mention of +the Countess de Santiago's power of clairvoyance at the same time with +the liner _Monarchic_ printed before her eyes a paragraph which her +subconscious self had never forgotten. + +For the moment only her body sat between a young hunting baronet and a +distinguished elderly general at her cousins' dinner table. Her soul had +gone back to London, to the ugly dining room at 22-A, Torrington Square, +and was reading aloud from a newspaper to a stout old woman in a tea +gown. + +She was even able to recall what she had been thinking, as her lips +mechanically conveyed the news to Mrs. Ellsworth. She had been wondering +how much longer she could go on enduring the monotony, and what Mrs. +Ellsworth would do if her slave should stop reading, shriek, and throw +the _Morning Post_ in her face. + +As she pictured to herself the old woman's amazement, followed by rage, +she had pronounced the words: + + SENSATIONAL OCCURRENCE ON BOARD THE S.S. _MONARCHIC_ + +Even that exciting preface had not recalled her interest from her own +affairs. She could remember now the hollow, mechanical sound of her voice +in her own ears as she had half-heartedly gone on, tempted to turn the +picture of her wild revolt into reality. + +The paragraph, seemingly forgotten but merely buried under other +memories, had told of the disappearance on board the _Monarchic_ of +certain pearls and diamonds which were being secretly brought from New +York to London by an agent of a great jewellery firm. He had been blamed +by the chief officer for not handing the valuables over to the purser. + +The unfortunate man (who had not advertised the fact that he was an agent +for Van Vreck & Co. until he had had to complain of the theft) excused +this seeming carelessness by the statement that he had hoped his identity +might pass unsuspected. His theory was that safety lay in insignificance. + +He had engaged a small, cheap cabin for himself alone, taking an assumed +name; had pretended to be a schoolmaster on holiday, and had worn the +pearls and other things always on his person in a money belt. Even at +night he had kept the belt on his body, a revolver under his pillow, and +the door of his cabin locked, with an extra patent adjustable lock of his +own, invented by a member of the firm he served. It had not seemed +probable that he would be recognized, or possible that he could be +robbed. + +Yet one morning he had waked late, with a dull headache and sensation of +sickness, to find that his door, though closed, was unfastened, and that +all his most valuable possessions were missing from the belt. + +Some were left, as though the thief had fastidiously made his selection, +scorning to trouble himself with anything but the best. The mystery of +the affair was increased by the fact that, though the man (Annesley +vaguely recalled some odd name, like Jekyll or Jedkill) felt certain he +had fastened the door, there was no sign that it had been forced open. +His patent detachable lock, however, had disappeared, like the jewels. + +And despite the sensation of sickness, and pain in the head, there were +no symptoms of drugging by chloroform, or any odour of chloroform or +other anaesthetic in the room. + +It struck Annesley as strange, almost terrifying, that these details of +the _Monarchic_ "sensation" should come back to her now; but she could +not doubt that she had actually read them, and the rest of the story +continued to reprint itself on her brain, as the unrolling of a film +might bring back to one of the actors poses of his own which he had let +slip into oblivion. + +She remembered how some of the more important passengers had suggested +that everybody on board should be searched, even to the ship's officers, +sailors, and employes of all sorts; that the search had been made and +nothing found, but that a lady supposed to possess clairvoyant powers had +offered Mr. Jekyll or Jedkill to _consult her crystal_ for his benefit. + +She had done so, and had seen wireless messages passing between someone +on the _Monarchic_ and someone on another ship, with whom the former +person appeared to be in collusion. She had seen a small, fair man, +dressed as a woman, hypnotizing the jewellers' agent into the belief that +he was locking his door when instead he was leaving it unlocked. + +Then she had seen this man who, she asserted firmly, was dressed like +a woman, walk into his victim's cabin, hypnotize him into still deeper +unconsciousness, and take from his belt three long strings of pearls and +several magnificent diamonds, set and unset. These things she saw made +up into a bundle, wrapped in waterproof cloth, attached to a faintly +illuminated life-preserver, and thrown overboard. + +Almost immediately after, she said, the life preserver was picked up by a +man in a small motor-launch let down from a steam yacht. The launch +quickly returned to the yacht, was taken up, and the yacht made off in +the darkness. + +No life belt was missing from the _Monarchic_ and even if suspicion could +be entertained against any "small, fair man" (which was not the case, +apparently), there was no justification for a search. Therefore, although +a good many people believed in the seeress's vision, it proved nothing, +and the sensational affair remained as deep a mystery as ever when the +_Monarchic_ docked. + +"The Countess de Santiago was the woman who looked in the crystal!" +Annesley said to herself. She wondered why, if Knight had been vexed with +the Countess for speaking of their friendship and of the _Monarchic_, as +he had once seemed to be, he should refer to it before these strangers. + +She looked down the table, past the other faces to his face, and the +thought that came to her mind was, how simple and almost meaningless the +rest were compared to his. Among the fourteen guests--seven women and +seven men--though some had charm or distinction, his face alone was +complex, mysterious, and baffling. + +Yet she loved it. Now, more than ever, she loved and admired it! + +The dinner ended with a discussion between Knight and Constance as to how +the Countess de Santiago could be induced to pay a visit to Valley House, +despite the fact that she had never met Lord and Lady Annesley-Seton. +Like most women who had lived in Spanish countries, the Countess was +rather a "stickler for etiquette," her friend Nelson Smith announced. +Besides, her experience as an "amateur clairvoyante" made her quick to +resent anything which had the air of patronage. One must go delicately to +work to think out a scheme, if Lady Annesley-Seton were really in "dead +earnest" about wanting her to come. + +At this point Knight reflected for a minute, while everyone hung upon his +silence; and at last he had an inspiration: + +"I'll tell you what we can do!" he exclaimed. "My wife and I--you're +willing, aren't you, Anita?--can ask her to stay over this week-end with +us. I think she'll come if she isn't engaged; and we can invite you to +meet her at dinner." + +"Oh, you must invite us _all_!" pleaded a pretty woman sitting next to +Knight. + +"All of you who care to come, certainly," he agreed. "Won't we, Anita?" + +"Oh, of course. It will be splendid if everybody will dine with us!" +Annesley backed him up with one of the girlish blushes that made her seem +so young and ingenuously attractive. "We can--send a telegram to the +Countess." + +She did her best to speak enthusiastically, and succeeded. No one save +Knight and Constance guessed it was an effort. + +Knight saw, and was grateful. Constance saw also, and smiled to herself +at what she fancied was the girl's jealousy of an old friend of the new +husband--an old friend who was "one of the most beautiful women" the girl +had seen. Annesley's hesitation inclined Constance to be more interested +than ever in the Countess de Santiago. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE CRYSTAL + + +Motoring back from Valley House to the Knowle Hotel, Annesley was asking +herself whether she might dare refer to the _Monarchic_, and mention the +story she had read In the _Morning Post_. She burned to do so, yet +stopped each time a question pressed to her lips, remembering Knight's +eyes as he had looked at the Countess in the Savoy restaurant the day +before the wedding. + +Perhaps the wish would have conquered if some imp had not whispered, +"What about that purple envelope, addressed in a woman's handwriting? +Maybe it was from _her_, hinting to see him again, and that is what has +put this plan into his head. Perhaps he brought up the subject of the +Countess on purpose to make them invite her here!" + +This thought caused the Countess de Santiago to seem a powerful person, +with an influence over Knight, though he had appeared not to care for +her. Could it be that he wanted an excuse to have her near him? The +suggestion closed Annesley's mouth by making her afraid that she was +turning into a suspicious creature, like jealous brides she had read +about. She determined to be silent as a self-punishment, and firmly +steered the _Monarchic_ into a backwater of her thoughts, while Knight +talked of the Valley House party and their credulous superstition. + +"Every man Jack and every woman Jill of the lot believe in that crystal +and clairvoyant nonsense!" he laughed. "I mentioned it for fun, but I +went on simply to 'pull their legs.' I hope you don't mind having the +Countess down, do you, child? Of course, I made it out to be a favour +that so wonderful a being should consent to come at call. But between us, +Anita, the poor woman will fall over herself with joy. She's a restless, +lonely creature, who has drifted about the world without stopping +anywhere long enough to make friends, and I have a notion that her +heart's desire is to 'get into society' in England. This will give her a +chance, because these good ladies and gentlemen who are dying to see what +she's like, and persuade her to tell their pasts and futures, are at the +top of the tree. It's a cheap way for us to make her happy--and we can +afford it." + +"Don't you believe she really is clairvoyant, and sees things in her +crystal?" Annesley ventured. + +It was then that Knight made her heart beat by answering with a question. +"Didn't you read in the newspapers about the queer thing that happened +on board the _Monarchic_?" + +"Ye-es, I _did_ read it," the girl said, in so stifled a voice that the +reply became a confession. + +"Why didn't you tell me so?" + +"Because--the day I heard you were on the _Monarchic_, I couldn't +remember what I'd read. It was vague in my mind----" + +"No other reason?" + +"Only that--that--I fancied----" + +"You fancied I didn't like to talk about the _Monarchic_?" + +"Well, when the Countess spoke of it, you looked--cross." + +"I was cross. But only with the _way_ she spoke--as if she and I had come +over together because we were pals. That's all. Though I've every cause +to hate the memory of that trip! When did you remember what you had read +in the newspapers?" + +"Only this evening." + +"I thought so! At dinner. I saw a look come over your face." + +"I didn't know you noticed me." + +"I'm always noticing you. And I was proud of you to-night. Well! You +remembered----" + +"About a man on board being robbed, and a lady--an 'amateur +clairvoyante,' seeing things in a crystal. I thought it must have been +the Countess de Santiago." + +"It was, though her name was kept out of the papers by her request. She's +sensitive about the clairvoyance stuff: afraid people may consider her a +professional, and look down on her from patronizing social heights. Of +course, I suppose it's nonsense about seeing things in a glass ball, but +I believe she _does_ contrive to take it seriously, for she seems in +earnest. She did tell people on board ship things about themselves--true +things, they said; and they ought to know! + +"As for the jewel affair," he added, "nobody could be sure if there was +anything in her 'visions', but people thought them extraordinary--even +the captain, a hard-headed old chap. You see, a yacht had been sighted +the evening before the robbery while the passengers were at dinner. It +might have kept near, with lights out, for the _Monarchic_ is one of the +huge, slow-going giants, and the yacht might have been a regular little +greyhound. It seems she didn't answer signals. The captain hadn't thought +much of that, because there was a slight fog and she could have missed +them. But it came back to him afterward, and seemed to bear out the +Countess's rigmarole. + +"Besides, there was the finding of the patent lock, where she told the +man Jedfield he ought to look for it." + +"I don't remember that in the paper." + +"It was in several, if not all. She 'saw' the missing lock--a thing that +goes over a bolt and prevents it sliding back--in one of the lifeboats +upon the boat-deck, caught in the canvas covering. Well, it was there! +And there could be no suspicion of her putting the thing where it was +found, so as to make herself seem a true prophetess. She couldn't have +got to the place. + +"_That's_ why people were so impressed with the rest of the visions. +We're all inclined to be superstitious. Even I was interested. Though I +don't pin my faith in such things, I asked her to look into the crystal, +and see if she could tell what had become of my gold repeater, which +disappeared the same night." + +"Oh!" exclaimed Annesley. "So _you_ had something stolen?" + +"It looked like it. Anyhow, the watch went. And the Countess lost a ring +during the trip--a valuable one, I believe. She couldn't 'see' anything +for herself, but she got a glimpse of my repeater in the pocket of a red +waistcoat. Nobody on board confessed to a red waistcoat. And in the +searching of passengers' luggage--which I should have proposed myself if +I hadn't been among the robbed--nothing of the sort materialized. + +"However, that proved nothing. Jedfield's pearls and other trinkets must +have been somewhere on board, in someone's possession, if the yacht +vision wasn't true. Yet the strictest search gave no sign of them. It was +a miracle how they were disposed of, unless they _were_ thrown overboard +and picked up by someone in the plot, as the Countess said." + +"Is that why you hate to think of the trip--because you lost your watch?" +Annesley asked. + +"Yes. Just that. It wasn't so much the loss of the watch--though it was a +present and I valued it--as because it made me feel such a fool. I left +the repeater under my pillow when I got up in the middle of the night to +go on deck, thinking I heard a cry. I couldn't have heard one, for nobody +was there. And next morning, when I wanted to look at the time, my watch +was equally invisible. Then there was the business of the passengers +being searched, and the everlasting talk about the whole business. One +got sick and tired of it. I got tired of the Countess and her crystal, +too: but the effect is passing away now. I expect I can stand her if you +can." + +Annesley said that she would be interested. She refrained from adding +that she did not intend to make use of the seeress's gift for her own +benefit. + + * * * * * + +The Countess de Santiago wired her acceptance of the invitation, and +appeared at the Knowle Hotel on Saturday with a maid and a good deal of +luggage. Annesley had secretly feared that the effect of the beautiful +lady on the guests of the hotel would be overpowering, and had pictured +her, brilliantly coloured and exquisitely dressed, breaking like a +sunburst upon the dining room at luncheon time. + +But she had underrated the Countess's cleverness and sense of propriety. +The lady arrived in a neat, tailor-made travelling dress of russet-brown +tweed which, with a plain toque of brown velvet and fur, cooled the ruddy +flame of her hair. It seemed to Annesley also that her lips were less red +than before; and though she was as remarkable as ever for her beauty, she +was not to be remarked for meretriciousness. + +She was pleasanter in manner, too, as well as in appearance; and +Annesley's heart--which had difficulty in hardening itself for long--was +touched by the Countess's thanks for the invitation. + +"You are so happy and wrapped up in each other, I didn't expect you to +give a thought to me," the beautiful woman said. "You don't know what it +means to be asked down here, after so many lonely days in town, and to +find that you and Don are going to give me some new friends." + +This note, which Knight also had struck in explaining the Countess's +"heart's desire," was the right note to enlist Annesley's sympathy. One +might have thought that both had guessed this. + +Annesley and Knight gave their dinner party in a private room adjoining +their own sitting room, and connecting also with another smaller room +which they had had fitted up for a special purpose. This purpose was to +enshrine the seeress and her crystal. + +As Knight had said, she seemed to take her clairvoyant power seriously, +and insisted that she could do herself justice only in a room arranged in +a certain way. In the afternoon she directed that the furniture should be +removed with the exception of one small table and two chairs. Even the +pictures had to be taken down, and under the Countess's supervision +purple velvet draperies had to be put up, covering the walls and window. +These draperies she had brought with her, and they had curtain rings +sewn on at the upper edge, which could be attached to picture hooks or +nails. + +From the same trunk came also a white silk table-cover embroidered in +gold with figures representing the signs of the zodiac. There were in +addition three purple velvet cushions: two for the chairs and one--the +Countess explained--for the table, to "make an arm rest." By her further +desire a large number of hot-house lilies in pots were sent for, and +ranged on the floor round the walls. + +As for the Turkish carpet of banal reds, blues, and greens, it had to be +concealed under rugs of black fur which, luckily, the hotel possessed in +plenty. It was all very mysterious and exciting, and Annesley could +imagine the effective background these contrivances would give the +shining figure of the Countess. + +When, later on, she saw her guest dressed for dinner, the girl realized +even more vividly the genius of the artist who had planned the picture. +For the Countess de Santiago wore a clinging gown made in Greek fashion, +of a supple white material shot with interwoven silver threads. She wore +her copper-red hair in a classic knot with a wreath of emerald laurel +leaves. + +She would gleam like a moonlit statue in her lily-perfumed, purple +shrine, Annesley thought, and was not surprised that the lady should +achieve an instant success with the county folk who had begged for an +invitation to meet her. + +The Countess de Santiago did not seem to mind answering questions +about her powers, which everyone asked across the dinner-table. She +said that since her seventh birthday she had been able, under certain +circumstances, to see hidden things in people's lives, and future events. + +Her first experience, as a child, was being shut up in a darkened room, +and looking into a mirror, where figures and scenes appeared, like waking +dreams. She had been frightened, and screamed to be let out. Her mother +had taken pity and released her, saying that after all it was what "might +be expected from the seventh child of a seventh child, born on All +Saints' Eve." + +The Nelson Smiths' guests listened breathlessly to every word, and were +enchanted when she promised to give each man and woman a short "sitting" +with her crystal after dinner. + +Nothing was said about the purple room, so that the surprise could not +help being impressive. + +It was a delightful dinner, well thought out between the host and +head-waiter, but no one wished to linger over it. Never had "bridge +fiends" been so eager to "get to work" as these people were to +take their turn with the Countess and her crystal. At Lady +Annesley-Seton's suggestion they drew lots for these turns, and +Constance herself drew the first chance. She and the gleaming figure +of the Countess went out together, and ten or twelve minutes later +she returned alone. + +Everyone stared eagerly to see if she looked excited, and it took no +stretch of imagination to find her face flushed and her eyes dilated. + +"Well? Has she told you anything wonderful?" A clamour of voices joined +in the question. + +"Yes, she has," replied Constance. "She's simply _uncanny_! She could +pick up a fortune in London in one season, if she were a professional. +She has told me in what sort of place the heirlooms are now, but that we +shall never see them again." + +So saying, Lady Annesley-Seton plumped down on a sofa beside her hostess, +as the next person hurried off to plunge into the mysteries. "I feel +quite weak in the knees," Constance whispered to Annesley. "Has she told +you anything?" + +"No," said the girl "I don't--want to know things." + +She might have added: "Things told by _her_." But she did not say this. + +Constance shivered. "The woman frightened me with what she _knew_. I +mean, not about our robbery--that's a trifle--but about the past. That +crystal of hers seems to be--a sort of _Town Topics_. But I must say she +didn't foretell any horrors for the future--not for me personally. If +she goes on as she's begun she can do what she likes with us all. Dear +little Anne, you must ask her often to your house when you're 'finding +your feet'--and I'm helping you--in London. I prophesy that she'll prove +an attraction. Why, it would pay to have a room fitted up for her in +purple and black, with relays of fresh lilies." + +Annesley smiled. But she made up her mind that, if a room _were_ done in +purple and black with relays of lilies anywhere for the Countess de +Santiago, it would not be in her house. Unless, of course, Knight begged +it of her as a favour. + +And even then--but somehow she didn't believe, despite certain +appearances, that Knight was anxious to have his old friend near him. He +had the air of one who was paying a debt; and she remembered how he had +said, on the day of their wedding: "We will find a time to pay back the +favours they've done us." + +This visit and dinner and introduction to society was perhaps his way of +paying the Countess. Only--was it payment in full, or an instalment? +Annesley wondered. + +Vaguely she wondered also what had become of Dr. Torrance and the +Marchese di Morello. Would the next payment be for them, and what form +would it take? + +She was far from guessing. + +There was no anti-climax that night in the success of the Countess with +her "clients." They were deeply impressed, and even startled. Not one +woman said to herself that she had been tricked into giving the seeress a +"lead." There was nothing in the past hidden from that crystal and the +dark eyes which gazed into it! As for the future, her predictions were +remarkable; and she must have given people flattering accounts of their +characters, as everyone thought the analysis correct. + +What a pity, the women whispered, that such an astonishing person was not +a professional, who could be paid in cash! As it was, she would expect to +be rewarded with invitations: and though she was presentable, "You +_know_, my dear, she's frightfully pretty, the red-haired sort, that's +the most dangerous--not a bit safe to have about one's _men_. Still--no +price is too high. We shall all be fighting for her--or over her." + +And before the evening had come to an end the Countess de Santiago had +had several invitations for town and country houses. To be sure, they +were rather informal. But the beautiful lady knew when to be lenient, and +so she accepted them all. + +"She told me that our stolen things are hidden away for ever, and that +we'll be robbed again," Connie said to her husband on the way back to +Valley House. + +"She told me the same," said Dick. "And I hope to goodness we may be. +We've done jolly well out of that last affair!" + +"Yes," his wife agreed. "The only thing I don't like about it is the +_mystery_. It makes me feel as if something might be hanging over one's +head." + +"Over the trustees' heads!" laughed Lord Annesley-Seton. "I wish the +other night could be what the Countess called the 'first of a series.'" + +"The first of a series!" Constance repeated. "What a queer expression! +What was she talking about?" + +"She was--looking in her crystal," answered Dick, slowly, as if something +he had seen rose again before his eyes. + +Constance was pricked with curiosity. "You might tell me what the woman +said!" she exclaimed. + +"You haven't told me what message she had for you." + +"I've just said that she prophesied we should be robbed again." + +"That's only one thing. What about the rest?" + +"Oh! A lot of stuff which wouldn't interest _you_!" + +"You can keep your secret. And I'll keep mine," remarked Dick +Annesley-Seton, aggravatingly. "Anyhow, for the present. We'll see how it +works out." + +"See how _what_ works out?" his wife echoed. + +"The series." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE SERIES GOES ON + + +After all, Annesley had not written to her friends, Archdeacon Smith and +his wife, on leaving Mrs. Ellsworth's, to tell the surprising news of her +engagement. She had asked Mr. Ruthven Smith not to speak of it to his +cousins, because she would prefer to write. But then--the putting of the +news on paper in a way not to offend them, after their kindness in the +past, had been difficult. + +Besides, there had been little time to think out the difficulties, and +find a way of surmounting them. There had been only one whole day before +the wedding, and that day she had spent with Knight, buying her +trousseau. It had been a wonderful day, never to be forgotten, but its +end had found her tired; and when Knight had said "good-bye" and left +her, she had not been equal to composing a letter. + +Nevertheless, she had tried, for it had seemed dreadful to marry and go +away from London without letting her only friends know what had happened, +what she was doing, and why she had not invited them to her wedding. + +Ah, _why_? In explaining that she confronted the great obstacle. She +had not known how to exonerate herself without hurting their feelings, +or--telling a lie. + +The girl hated lying. She could not remember that in her life she had +ever spoken or written a lie in so many words, though, like most people +who are not saints, she had prevaricated a little occasionally to save +herself or others from some unpleasantness. + +In this case no innocent prevarication would serve. Even if she had been +willing to lie, she could think of no excuse which would seem plausible. +Tired as she had been that last night as Annesley Grayle, and throbbing +as she was with excitement at the thought of the new life before her, she +did begin a letter. + +It was a feeble effort. She tore it up and essayed another. The second +was worse than the first, and the third was scarcely an improvement. + +Discouraged, and so nerve-racked that she was on the point of tears, the +girl put off the attempt. But days passed, and when no inspiration came, +and she was still haunted by the thought of a duty undone, she +compromised by telegraphing from Devonshire. Her message ran: + + Dear Friends-- + + I beg you to forgive me for seeming neglect, but it was not really + that. I am married to a man I love. It had to be sudden. I could not + let you know in time, though I wanted to. I shall not be quite happy + till I've seen you and introduced my husband. Say to your cousin he may + explain as far as he can. When we meet will tell you more. Coming back + to London in fortnight to take house in Portman Square and settle down. + Love and gratitude always. My new name is same as yours. + + Annesley Smith. + +To this she added her address in Devonshire, feeling sure that, unless +the Archdeacon and his wife were hopelessly offended by her neglect and +horrified at Ruthven Smith's story, they would write. + +She cared for them very much, and it would always be a grief, she +thought, that she and Knight had not been married by her old friend. +Every night she prayed for a letter, waking with the hope that the +postman might bring one: and five days after the sending of her telegram +her heart leaped at sight of a fat envelope addressed in Mrs. Smith's +familiar handwriting. + +They forgave her! That was the principal thing. And they rejoiced in her +happiness. All explanations--if "dear Annesley wished to make any"--could +wait until they met. The kind woman wrote: + + Cousin James Ruthven Smith was loyal to his promise, and gave us no + hint of your news. We did not, of course, know of the promise till + after your telegram came, and we showed it to him. Then he confessed + that he was in your secret; that he had been witness of a scene in + which poor Mrs. Ellsworth made herself more than usually unpleasant; + and that you had asked him to let you tell us the glad tidings of your + engagement and hasty wedding. + + I say "poor Mrs. Ellsworth" because it seems she has been ill since you + left, and has had other misfortunes. The illness is not serious, and I + imagine, now I have heard fuller details of her treatment of you, that + it is merely a liver and nerve attack, the result of temper. If she had + not been confined to bed, and very sorry for herself, I am sure nothing + could have prevented her from writing to us a garbled account of the + quarrel and your departure. + + As it turned out, I hear she rang up the household after you went that + night, had hysterics, and sent a servant flying for the doctor. He--a + most inferior person, according to Cousin James--having a sister who is + a trained nurse, put _her_ in charge of the patient at once, where she + has remained since. In consequence of the nurse's tyrannical ways, the + servants gave a day's notice and left in a body. + + Three temporary ones were got in as soon as possible from some agency; + and last night (four days, I believe, after they were installed) a + burglary was committed in the house. + + Only fancy, _poor Ruthven_! He was afraid to stay even with us in our + quiet house, when he came to London, because once, years ago, we were + robbed! You know how reticent he is about his affairs, and how he never + says anything concerning business. One might think that to _us_ he + would show some of the beautiful jewels he is supposed to buy for the + Van Vrecks. + + But no, he never mentions them. We should not have known why he came to + England this time, after a shorter interval than usual, or that he had + valuables in his possession, if it had not been for this burglary. As + he was obliged to talk to the police, and describe to them what had + been stolen from him (I forgot to mention that he as well as Mrs. + Ellsworth was robbed, but you would have guessed that, from my + beginning, even if you haven't read the morning papers before taking up + my letter), there was no reason why, for once, he should not speak + freely to us. + + He has been lunching here and has just gone, as I write, but will + transfer himself later to our house, as it has now become unbearable + for him at Mrs. Ellsworth's. I fancy _that_ arrangement has been + brought to an end! Your presence in the _menage_ was the sole + alleviation. + + James, it appears, came to London on an unexpected mission, differing + from his ordinary trips. You may remember seeing in the papers some + weeks ago that an agent of the Van Vreck firm was robbed on shipboard + of a lot of pearls and things he was bringing to show an important + client in England--some Indian potentate. James tells us that _he_ + procured the finest of the collection for the Van Vrecks, and as he is + a great expert, and can recognize jewels he has once seen, even when + disguised or cut up, or in different settings, he was asked to go to + London to help the police find and identify some of the lost valuables. + + Also, he was instructed to buy more pearls, to be sold to the Indian + customer, instead of those stolen from the agent on shipboard. James + had not found any of the lost things; but he _had_ bought some pearls + the day before the burglary at Mrs. Ellsworth's. + + Wasn't it _too_ unlucky? I have tried to give the poor fellow a little + consolation by reminding him how fortunate it is he hadn't bought + _more_, and that the loss will be the Van Vrecks' or that of some + insurance company, not _his_ personally. But he cannot be comforted. He + says that his not having ten thousand pounds' worth of pearls doesn't + console him for being robbed of _eight_ thousand pounds' worth. + + James has little hope that the thieves will be found, for he feels that + the Van Vrecks are in for a run of bad luck, after the good fortune of + many years. They have lost the head of the firm--"the great Paul," as + James calls him--who has definitely retired, and occupies himself so + exclusively with his collection that he takes no interest in the + business. + + Then there was the robbery on the ship, which, in James's opinion, must + have been the work of a masterly combination. And now another theft! + The poor fellow has _quite_ lost his nerve, which, as you know, has for + years not been that of a young man. His deafness, no doubt, partly + accounts for the timidity with which he has been afflicted since the + first (and only other) time he was robbed. And now he blames it for + what happened last night. + + He's trained himself to be a light sleeper, and if he could hear as + well as other people, he thinks the thief would have waked him coming + into his room. Once in, the wretch must have drugged him, because the + pearls were in a parcel under his pillow. But how the man--or men--got + into the house is a mystery, unless one of the new servants was an + accomplice. + + _Nothing_ was broken open. In the morning every door and window was + as usual. Of course the servants are under suspicion; but they seem + stupid, ordinary people, according to James. + + As for Mrs. Ellsworth, he says she is making a fuss over the wretched + bits of jewellery she lost, things of no importance. She, too, slept + through the affair, and knew what had happened only when she waked to + see a safe she has in the wall of her bedroom wide open. + + It seems that in place of her jewel box and some money she kept there + was an _insulting_ note, announcing that for the first time something + belonging to her would be used for a good purpose. To James this is the + one bright spot in the darkness. + +When Annesley had read this long letter with its many italics, she passed +it to Knight who, in exchange, handed her a London newspaper with a page +folded so as to give prominence to a certain column. It was an account of +the burglary at Mrs. Ellsworth's house, which he had been reading. + + * * * * * + +Generous with money as "Nelson Smith" was, he was not a man who would +allow himself to be "done," and in some ways the Annesley-Setons were +disappointed in the bargain they arrived at with him. He appeared +delighted with the chance of getting their London house, and of having +them come to stay, in order to introduce his wife and himself to the +brightest, most "particular" stars in the galaxy of their friends. + +Yet, when it came to making definite terms he seemed to take it for +granted that, as the Annesley-Setons would be living in the house as +guests, they would not only be willing, but anxious, to accept a low +price. + +This had not been their intention. On the contrary, they had meant +their visit and social offices to be a great, extra favour, which +ought to raise rather than lower the rent. In some mysterious way, +however, without appearing to bargain or haggle, Nelson Smith, the young +millionaire from America, made his bride's relatives understand that he +was prepared to pay so much, and no more. That they could take him on his +own terms--or let him go. + +Terrified, therefore, lest he and his money should slip out of their +hands, they snapped at his carelessly made offer without venturing an +objection. And they realized at the same time in a way equally +mysterious, and to their own surprise, that not they but Mr. and Mrs. +Nelson Smith would be master and mistress of the house in Portman Square. +If there were ever a clash between wills, Nelson Smith's would prevail +over theirs. + +How this impression was conveyed to their intelligence they could hardly +have explained even to each other. The man was so pleasant, so careless +of finances or conventionalities, that not one word or look could be +treasured up against him. + +"The fellow's a genius!" Annesley-Seton said to Constance, when they were +talking over the latest phase of the game. And they respected him. + +Lady Annesley-Seton wished to bring to town the servants, including a +wonderful butler, who had been transferred for economy's sake to Valley +House. This proposal, however, Nelson Smith dismissed with a few +good-natured words. He had his eye upon a butler whose brother was +a chauffeur. + +"Besides, it wouldn't be fair to Anita," he explained. "Your servants +would scorn to take orders from her, and I want her to learn the dignity +of a married woman with responsibilities of her own. That's the first +step toward being the perfect hostess. She's the sweetest girl in the +world, but she's timid and distrustful of herself. I want her to know her +own worth, and then it won't be long before everyone around her knows +it." + +There was no answer to this except acquiescence, which Dick and Constance +were obliged to give. They did give it: the more readily because they +were inclined to suspect a hidden hint, a pill between layers of jam. + +If the girl had been transferred from the earth to Mars, the new +conditions of life could scarcely have been more different from the old +than was life in Portman Square married to Nelson Smith, from the +treadmill as Mrs. Ellsworth's slave-companion. What the Portman Square +experiences of the bride would have been if Knight had allowed the +Annesley-Setons to begin by ruling it would be dangerous to say. But he +had taken his stand; and without guessing that she owed her freedom of +action to her husband's strength of will, she revelled in it with a joy +so intense that it came close to pain. Sometimes, if he were within +reach, she ran to find Knight, and hugged him almost fiercely, with a +passion that surprised herself. + +"I'm so happy; that's all," she would explain, if he asked "What has +happened?" "My soul was buried. You've brought it back to life." + +When she said such things Knight smiled, and seemed glad. He would hold +her to him for a minute, or kiss her hand, like an humble squire with a +princess. But now and then he looked at her with a wistfulness that was +like a question she could not hear because she was deaf. She never got +any satisfaction, though, if she asked what the look meant. + +"Oh, I don't know. I was only thinking of you," he would answer, or some +other words of lover-language. + +The Annesley-Setons' first move on the social chessboard was to make use +of a pawn or two in the shape of "society reporters." They knew a few men +and women of good birth and no money who lived by writing anonymously for +the newspapers. These people were delighted to get material for a +paragraph, or photographs for their editors. Connie took her new cousin +to the woman photographer who was the success of the moment; and, as she +said to Knight, "the rest managed itself." + +Meanwhile, an application was made to the Lord Chamberlain for Mrs. +Nelson Smith's presentation by her cousin Lady Annesley-Seton at the +first Court of the season. It was granted, and the bride in white and +silver made her bow to their majesties. As for Knight, he laughingly +refused Dick's good offices. + +"No levees for me!" he said. "I've lived too long in America, and roughed +it in too many queer places, to take myself seriously in knee-breeches. +Besides, they have to know about your ancestors back to the Dark Ages, +don't they, or else they 'cancel' you? My father was a good man, and a +gentleman, but who _his_ father was I couldn't tell to save my head. My +mother was by way of being a swell; but she was a foreigner, so I can't +make use of any of her 'quarterings,' even if I could count them." + +Annesley was presented in February, and had by that time been settled in +Portman Square long enough to have met many of her cousins' friends. +After the Court, which launched her in society, she and Knight (with a +list supplied by Connie) gave a dinner-dance. The Countess de Santiago +was not asked; but soon afterward there was a luncheon entirely for +women, in American fashion, at which the Countess was present. + +When luncheon was over, she gave a short lecture on "the Science of +Palmistry" and "the Cultivation of Clairvoyant Powers." Then there was +tea; and the Countess allowed herself to be consulted by the guests--the +dozen most important women of Connie's acquaintance. + +Annesley, though she was not able to like the Countess, was pleased with +the praise lavished upon her both for her looks and her accomplishments +that afternoon. She had guessed, from the beautiful woman's constrained +manner when they met at a shop the day after the dinner-dance, that she +was hurt because she had not been invited: though why she should expect +to be asked to every entertainment which the Nelson Smiths gave, Annesley +could not see. + +Vaguely distressed, however, by the flash in the handsome eyes, and the +curt "How do you do?" the girl appealed to Knight. + +"Ought we to have had the Countess de Santiago last evening?" she asked, +perching on his knee in the room at the back of the house which he had +annexed as a "den." + +"Certainly not," he reassured her, promptly. "All the people were howling +swells. The Annesley-Setons had skimmed the topmost layer of the cream +for our benefit, and the Countess would have been 'out' of it in such a +set, unless she'd been telling fortunes. You can ask her when you've a +crowd of women. She'll amuse them, and gather glory for herself. But I'm +not going to have her encouraged to think we belong to her. We've set the +woman on her feet by what we've done. Now let her learn to stand alone." + +The ladies' luncheon was a direct consequence of this speech; but +complete as was the Countess's success, Annesley felt that she was not +satisfied: that it would take more than a luncheon party of which she was +the heroine to content the Countess, now that Nelson Smith and his bride +had a house and a circle in London. + +Occasionally, when she was giving an "At Home," or a dinner, Annesley +consulted Knight. "Shall we ask the Countess?" was her query, and the +first time she did this he answered with another question: "Do you want +her for your own pleasure? Do you like her better than you did?" + +Annesley had to say "no" to this catechizing, whereupon Knight briefly +disposed of the subject. "That settles it. We won't have her." + +And so, during the next few weeks, the Countess de Santiago (who had +moved from the Savoy Hotel into a charming, furnished flat in Cadogan +Gardens) came to Portman Square only for one luncheon and two or three +receptions. + +By this time, however, she had made friends of her own, and if she had +cared to accept a professional status she might have raked in a small +fortune from her seances. She would not take money, however, preferring +social recognition; but gifts were pressed upon her by those who, though +grateful and admiring, did not care for the obligation to admit the +Countess into their intimacy. + +She took the rings and bracelets and pendants, and flowers and fruit, and +bon-bons and books, because they were given in such a way that it would +have been ungracious to refuse. But the givers were the very women whose +bosom friend she would have liked to seem, in the sight of the world: a +duchess, a countess, or a woman distinguished above her sisters for some +reason. + +She worked to gain favour, and when she had any personal triumph without +direct aid from Portman Square, she put on an air of superiority over +Annesley when they met. If she suffered a gentle snub, she hid the smart, +but secretly brooded, blaming Mrs. Nelson Smith because she was asked to +their house only for big parties, or when she was wanted to amuse their +friends. + +She blamed Nelson, too; but, womanlike, blamed Annesley more. Sometimes +she determined to put out a claw and draw blood from both, but changed +her mind, remembering that to do them harm she must harm herself. + +Once it occurred to her to form a separate, secret alliance with +Constance Annesley-Seton. There were reasons why that might have suited +her, and she began one day to feel her ground when Connie had telephoned, +and had come to her flat for advice from the crystal. She had "seen +things" which she thought Lady Annesley-Seton would like her to see, and +when the seance was ended in a friendly talk, the Countess de Santiago +begged Constance to call her Madalena. "You are my _first_ real friend in +England!" she said. + +"Except my cousin Anne," Connie amended, with a sharp glance from the +green-gray eyes to see whether "Madalena" were "working up to anything." + +"Oh, I can't count _her_!" said the Countess. "She doesn't like me. She +wouldn't have me come near her if it weren't for her husband. I am quick +to feel things. You, I believe, really _do_ like me a little, so I can +speak freely to you. And you _know_ you can to me." + +But Constance, in the slang of her girlhood days, "wasn't taking any." +She was afraid that Madalena was trying to draw her into finding fault +with her host and hostess, in order to repeat what she said, with +embroideries, to Nelson Smith or Annesley. She was not a woman to be +caught by the subtleties of another; and in dread of compromising herself +did the Countess de Santiago an injustice. If she had ventured any +disparaging remarks of "Cousin Anne," they would not have been repeated. + + * * * * * + +The season began early and brilliantly that year, for the weather was +springlike, even in February; and people were ready to enjoy everything. +The one blot on the general brightness was a series of robberies. +Something happened on an average of every ten or twelve days, and always +in an unexpected quarter, where the police were not looking. + +Among the first to suffer were Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith. The Portman +Square house was broken into, the thief entering a window of the "den" +on the ground floor, and making a clean sweep of all the jewellery +Knight and Annesley owned except her engagement ring, the string of +pearls which had been her lover's wedding gift, and the wonderful blue +diamond on its thin gold chain. These things she wore by night as well as +day; but a gold-chain bag, a magnificent double rope of pearls, a diamond +dog-collar, several rings, brooches, and bangles which Knight had given +her since their marriage, all went. + +His pearl studs, his watch (a present out of Annesley's allowance, +hoarded for the purpose), and a collection of jewelled scarf-pins shared +the fate of his wife's treasures. + +Unfortunately, a great deal of the Annesley-Seton family silver went at +the same time, regretted by Knight far beyond his own losses. Dick was +inclined to be solemn over such a haul, but Constance laughed. + +"Who cares?" she said. "We've no children, and for my part I'm as pleased +as Punch that your horrid old third cousins will come into less when +we're swept off the board. Meanwhile, we get the insurance money for +'loss of use' again. It's simply splendid. And that dear Nelson Smith +insists on buying the best Sheffield plate to replace what's gone. It's +handsomer than the real!" + +Neither she nor Dick lost any jewellery, though they possessed a little +with which they had not had the courage to part. And this seemed +mysterious to Constance. She wondered over it: and remembering how the +Countess de Santiago had prophesied another robbery for them, telephoned +to ask if she'd be "a darling, and look again in her crystal." + +Madalena telephoned back: "I'll expect you this afternoon at four +o'clock." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE TEST + + +Madalena had meant to go out that afternoon, but she changed her mind and +stopped at home. "I know what you've come for," she said, as she kept +Connie's hand in hers. It was an effective way she had, as if contact +with a person helped her to read the condition of that person's mind. + +"Do you really?" exclaimed Constance. "Why, I--but you mean you've +guessed what has hap----" + +"It's not guessing, it's _seeing_," answered the Countess. "I'm in one of +my psychic moods to-day. A prophecy of mine has come true?" + +"No-o--yes. Well, in a way you're right. In a way you're wrong. What is +it you see?" + +"I see that you've lost something--probably last night. This morning I +waked with the impression. I wasn't surprised when you telephoned. Now, +let me go on holding your hand, and _think_. I'll shut my eyes. I don't +need my room and the crystal. Yes! The impression grows clearer. You +_have_ lost something. But it is not a thing to care about. You're glad +it's gone." + +"You _are_ extraordinary!" Constance wondered aloud. "Can you see what I +lost--and whether it was Dick's or mine, or both?" + +"His," said Madalena, after shutting her eyes again. "_His._ And he does +not care much, either. That seems strange. But I tell you what I _feel_." + +"You are telling me the truth," Constance admitted. "Now, go on: tell +what was the thing itself--and the way we lost it." + +"I haven't seen that yet. I haven't tried. Perhaps I shall be able to, +in the crystal; perhaps not. I don't always succeed. But--it comes to me +suddenly that this thing isn't directly or entirely what brought you +here?" + +"Right again, O Witch!" laughed Connie. "I came to ask you to find +out--you're so marvellous!-why I didn't lose _other_ things, which I +really _do_ value." + +The two women had been standing in the drawing room, Lady +Annesley-Seton's hand still in the Countess's. But now, without speaking +again, Madalena led her visitor into the room adjoining, which was fitted +up much as the room at the Devonshire hotel had been for her first +seance. The seeress gave herself, here at home, the same background of +purple velvet; the floor was carpeted with black, and spread with black +fur rugs; she was never without fragrant white lilies ranged in curious +pots along the purple walls; but in her own house the appointments were +more elaborate and impressive than the temporary fittings she carried +about for use when visiting. + +On her table was a cushion of cloth-of-gold, embroidered with amethysts +and emeralds, the "lucky" jewels of her horoscope; and her gleaming ball +of crystal lay like a bright bubble in a shallow cup of solid jet which, +she told everyone, had been given her in India by the greatest astrologer +in the world. + +What was the name of this man, and when she had visited him in India, she +did not reveal. + +They sat down at the table, she and Constance Annesley-Seton, opposite +each other. Madalena unveiled the crystal, which was hidden under a +covering of black velvet when not in use. At first she gazed into the +glittering ball in vain, and her companion watched her face anxiously. It +looked marble white and expressionless as that of a statue in the light +of seven wax candles grouped together in a silver candelabrum. + +Suddenly, as it seemed to Constance's hypnotized stare, the statue-face +"came alive." It was not the first time that Constance had seen this +thrilling change. It invariably happened when the crystal began to show +a picture; and so powerful was its effect on the nerves of the watcher in +this silent, perfumed room, as to give an illusion that she, too, could +see dimly what the seeress saw forming in those transparent depths. + +"A man is there," Madalena said in a low, measured voice, as if she were +talking in her sleep. "He is shutting a door. It is the front door of a +house like yours. Yes, it _is_ yours. There is the number over the door, +and I recognize the street. It is Portman Square. He puts a latchkey in +his pocket. How could he have got the key? I do not know. Perhaps I could +find out, but there is no time. I must follow him. + +"He is hurrying away. He carries a heavy travelling bag. A closed +carriage is coming along--not a public one. It has been waiting for him +I think. He gets in, and the coachman--who is in black--drives off very +fast. They go through street after street! I can't be sure where. It +seems to be north they are going. There's a park--Regent's Park, maybe. +I don't know London well. + +"The carriage is stopping--before a closed house in a quiet street. There +is a little garden in front, and a high wall. The man opens the gate and +walks in. The carriage drives off. The coachman must know where to go, +for no word is said. Someone inside the house is waiting. He lets the man +with the bag into a dark hallway. Now he shuts the door and goes into a +room. + +"There is a light. The first man puts the bag on a table; it is a dining +table. The other man--much older--watches. The first one takes things out +of the bag. Oh, a great deal of beautiful silver! I have seen it at your +house. And there are other things--a string of pearls and a lot of +jewellery. He pours it out of a brown handkerchief on to the table. + +"But still the second man is not pleased. I think he is asking why there +isn't more. The first man explains. He makes gestures. So does the other. +They are quarrelling. The man who brought the bag is afraid of the older +one. He apologizes. He seems to be talking about something that he will +do. He goes to a mantelpiece in the room and points to a calendar. He +touches a date with his forefinger." + +"What date?" Lady Annesley-Seton cried out. It was forbidden to speak to +the seeress in the midst of a vision, but Constance forgot in the strain +of her excitement. + +The Countess gave a gasp, fell back in her chair, and put her hands over +her eyes. "Oh!" she stammered, as though she awoke from sleep. "How my +head aches! It is all gone!" + +"I'm so sorry!" Constance apologized. "It began to seem so real, I +thought I was in that room with you. You are unaccountable! You couldn't +know what happened. Yet you have been seeing the thief who stole our +silver last night, and the Nelson Smiths' jewellery, but no jewellery of +ours. That is the strange part of the affair, for I have a few things I +adore--and they would have been easy to find. You didn't even know we +_had_ been robbed, did you?" + +"No, of course not," said the Countess. "I am sorry! Was it in the +papers?" + +"It will be this evening and to-morrow morning! But the police must hear +about this vision of yours, the vision of the man with the latchkey. It +may help them." + +"You must not tell the police!" Madalena said, "I have warned you all, +that if you talked too much about me and my crystal, the police might +hear and take notice. There are such stupid laws in England. I may be +doing something against them. If you or Lord Annesley-Seton speak of me +to the police I will go away, and you will never hear more of my +visions--as you call them--in future. Unless you promise that you will +let the police find the thieves in their own way, without dragging me in, +I shall be so unnerved that my eyes will be darkened." + +"Oh, I promise, if you feel so strongly about it," said Constance. "I +didn't realize that it might do you harm to be mentioned to the police." + +She wished very much to have Madalena go on looking in the crystal. She +had been excited, carried out of herself for a few minutes, but she had +not heard what she had come to hear--why she had been spared the loss of +her personal treasures. + +The desired promise hurriedly made, the Countess gave her attention once +more to the crystal. For a time she could see nothing. The mysterious +current had been severed by the diversion, and had slowly to be rewoven +by the seeress's will. + +"I can see only dimly," Madalena said. "It was clear before! I cannot +tell you why the things you care for were left.... Something _new_ is +coming. It seems that this time I am looking ahead, into the future. The +picture is blurred--like a badly developed photograph. The thing I see +has still to materialize." + +"Where?" whispered Constance, thrilled by the thought that some event on +its way to her down the unknown path of futurity was casting a shadow +into the crystal. "Where?" + +"I see a beautiful room. There are a number of people there--men and +women. You are with them, and Lord Annesley-Seton--and Nelson Smith and +your cousin Anne. I know most of the faces--not all. Everyone is excited. +Something has happened. They are talking it over.... Now I see the room +more clearly. It is as if a light were turned on in the crystal. Oh, it +is what you call the Chinese drawing room, at Valley House. I know why +the room lights up, and why I see everything so much more clearly. It is +because I myself am coming into the picture. + +"The people want me to tell them the meaning of the thing that has +happened. It seems that I know about it. I do not hesitate to answer. It +must be that I have been consulting the crystal, for I seem sure of what +I say to them! I point toward the door--or is it at something on the +wall--or is it a person? Ah, the picture is gone from the crystal!" + +"How irritating!" cried Lady Annesley-Seton, who felt that supernatural +forces ought to be subject to her convenience. "Can't you make it come +back if you concentrate?" + +Madalena shook her head. "No, it will not come back. I am sure of that, +because when the crystal clouds as if milk were pouring into it, I know +that I shall never see the same picture again. Whether it is a cross +current in myself or the crystal, I cannot tell; but it amounts to the +same thing. I am sorry! It is useless to try any more. Shall we go to the +other room and have tea?" + +Constance did not persist, as she wished to do. She had to take the +Countess's word that further effort would be useless, but she felt +thwarted, as if the curtain had fallen by mistake in the middle of an +act, and the characters on the stage had availed themselves of the chance +to go home. + +It was vexatious enough that Madalena had not been able to explain the +mystery of last night. But this was ten times more annoying. + +"Am I not to know the end of the act?" she asked as her hostess +poured tea. The latter shrugged her shoulders, as if to shake off +responsibility. "Ah, I cannot tell! Perhaps if----" + +She stopped, and handed her guest a cup. + +"Perhaps if--_what_?" + +"Oh, nothing!" Madalena tasted her own tea and put in more cream. + +"Do tell me what you were going to say, _dear_ Countess, unless you want +me to die of curiosity." + +"I should be sorry to have you do that!" smiled Madalena. "But if I said +what I was going to say, you might misunderstand. You might think--I was +asking for an invitation." + +Instantly Constance's mind unveiled the other's meaning. There was to be +an Easter party at Valley House--a very smart party. The Countess de +Santiago wished to be a member of it. Lady Annesley-Seton, shrewd as she +was, had a vein of superstition running through her nature, and, though +one side of that nature said that the scene with the crystal had been +arranged for this end, the other side held its belief in the vision. + +"You mean," she said, "that if you should be at Valley House when the +_thing_ happens, and we are puzzled and upset about it, you might be able +to help?" + +"The fancy passed through my head. It was the picture in the crystal +suggested it," Madalena explained. "Do have an eclair!" Face and voice +expressed indifference; but Constance knew that the other had set her +heart on being at Valley House for Easter; and there was really no +visible reason why she shouldn't be there. + +People liked her well enough: she was never a bore. + +"Well, you must be 'in at the death,' with the rest of us," Lady +Annesley-Seton assured her. "Of course, though it's my house, this +Easter party is practically the Nelson Smiths' affair. You know what +poverty-stricken wretches _we_ are! They are paying all expenses, and +taking the servants, so I suppose I am bound to go through the form of +consulting Anne before I ask even _you_. Still----" + +Madalena's eyes flamed. "Consult your cousin's husband!" she said. "It is +only _he_ who counts. As a favour to me, speak to him." + +Constance smiled at the other over her teacup, with a narrowed gaze. "Why +shouldn't I speak to them together?" + +"Because I want to know what to think. If _he_ says no, it will be a +test." + +"Very well, so be it!" said Constance, making light of what she knew was +somehow serious. "I'll tackle Nelson alone without Anne." + +"That is all I want. And if I am asked to be of your party, I think--I +can't tell why, but I feel it strongly--that everybody may have some +reason for being glad." + +It seemed unlikely there would be a chance for a talk that evening, as +Nelson Smith was dining at one of the clubs he had joined. The other +three members of the household were to have a hasty dinner and go to +the first performance of a new play--a play in which Knight was not +interested. Afterward they expected to sup at the Savoy with the +friend who had asked them to her box at the theatre; but the box was +empty save for themselves. + +While they wondered, a messenger brought a note of regret. Sudden illness +had kept their would-be hostess in her room. + +Without her, the supper was considered not worth while. The play had run +late, and the trio voted for home and bed. + +"If Nelson has come, I'll try and have a word with him to-night, after +all," thought Constance, "provided I can keep my promise by getting Anne +out of the way. Then I can phone to Madalena early in the morning, yes or +no, and put her out of her suspense. No such luck, though, as that he +will have got back from his club!" + +He had got back, however. The entrance hall was in twilight when Dick +Annesley-Seton let them into the house with his latchkey, for all the +electric lights save one were turned off. That one was shaded with red +silk, and in the ruddy glow it was easy to see the line of light under +the door of the "den." + +Annesley noticed it, but made no comment. Knight never asked her to join +him in the den, but alluded to it as an untidy place, a mere work room +which he kept littered with papers; and only the new butler, Charrington, +was allowed to straighten its disorder. + +This, of course, was not butler's business, but Knight said the footmen +were stupid, and Charrington had been persuaded or bribed into performing +the duty. Annesley's life of suppression had made her shy of putting +herself forward; and though Knight had never told her that she would be +a disturbing element in the den, his silence had bolted the door for her. + +Constance, however, was not so fastidious. + +"Oh, look!" she said, before Dick had time to switch on another light. +"Nelson's got tired of his club, and come home!" + +As she spoke, almost as if she had willed it, the door opened. But it was +not Knight who came out. It was the younger Charrington, the chauffeur, +called "Char," to distinguish him from his solemn elder brother, the +butler. + +The red-haired, red-faced, black-eyed young man stopped suddenly at sight +of the newcomers. He had evidently expected to find the hall untenanted. +Taking up his stand before the door, he barred the way with his tall, +liveried figure, and it struck Constance that he looked aggressive, as +if, had he dared, he would have shut the door again, almost in her face. + +"I beg your pardon, madame!" he said in so loud a voice that it was like +a warning to his master that an intruder might be expected. It occurred +to her also, for the first time, that his accent sounded rather American, +and he had forgotten to address her as "my lady." + +This was odd, for his brother was the most typical British butler +imaginable, as Nelson had remarked soon after the two servants had been +engaged. + +She stared, surprised; but Char still kept the door until his master +showed himself in the lighted aperture. Then the chauffeur, saluting +courteously, stepped aside. + +"Funny that he should be here!" thought Constance. She might have been +malicious enough to imagine that Nelson Smith had drunk too heavily at +his club, and had been helped into the house by Char, who wished to +protect him until the last; but he was unmistakably his usual self: cool, +and more than ordinarily alert. + +"Oh, how do you do?" he exclaimed. "I heard Char say 'Madame,' and +thought it was Anita at the door." + +"No, she has gone upstairs," explained Lady Annesley-Seton. "So has Dick. +I alone had courage to linger! I feel like Fatima with the blood-stained +key, in Bluebeard's house, you are such a bear about this den--you really +_are_, you know!" + +"I didn't expect you three so soon," said Knight, calmly. "If I'd known +you had a curiosity to see Bluebeard's Chamber, I'd have had it smartened +up. As it is, I shouldn't dare let you peep. You, the mistress of the +house before we took it over, would be critical of the state I delight +to keep it in. Untidiness is my _one_ fault!" + +"I'll put off the visit till a more propitious hour," Constance reassured +him, "if you'll spare me a moment in the hall. It's only a word--about +Madalena. She has asked me to call her that." + +"The Countess de Santiago?" Knight questioned, smiling. He closed the +door of the den, and came out into the hall, turning on still another of +the lights. + +"Yes. I've been to see her to-day. Will you believe it, she saw the +_whole_ affair of last night in her crystal--and the thief, and +everything!" + +"Oh, indeed, did she? How intelligent." + +"But she says we mustn't mention her name to the police." + +"She'd be lumped with common or garden palmists and fortune-tellers, I +suppose." + +"Yes, that's what she fears. But she wants to be in our Devonshire house +party at Easter--to save us from something." + +Knight looked interested. "Save us from what?" + +"She couldn't see it distinctly in the crystal." + +He laughed. "She could see distinctly that she wanted to be there. +Well--we hadn't thought of having her. She seemed out of the picture with +the lot who are coming--the Duchess of Peebles, for instance. But we'll +think it over. Why don't you ask Anita? It occurs to me that she is the +one to be consulted." + +Now was the moment for Madalena's test. + +"The Countess wished me to speak to you alone, and let you decide. +Probably because you're such an old friend. I think she feels that Anita +doesn't care for her." + +Knight's face hardened. "She gave you _that_ impression, did she? Yet, +thinking Anita _doesn't_ like her--and she's nearly right--she wants to +come all the same. She wants to presume on my--er--friendship to force +herself on my wife.... Jove! I guess that's a little too strong. It's +time we showed the fair Madalena her place, don't you think so, Lady A?" + +"What, precisely, is her place?" Connie laughed. + +"Well, she seems determined to push herself into the foreground. My +idea is that what artists call middle distance is better suited to her +colouring. Seriously, I resent her putting you up to appeal to me--over +Anita's head. I'm not taking any! + +"Please tell her, or write--or phone--or whatever you've arranged to +do--that we're both sorry--say '_both_,' please--that we don't feel +justified in persuading you to add her to the list of guests this time, +as Valley House will be full up." + +"She will be hurt," objected Constance. + +"I'm inclined to think she deserves to be hurt." + +"Oh, well, if you've made up your mind! But--she's a charming woman, of +course.... Still, I shouldn't wonder if there's something of the tigress +in her, and she could give a nasty dig." + +"Let her try!" said Knight. + +In the morning Constance telephoned to the flat in Cadogan Gardens. She +had not long to wait for an answer to her call. + +The Countess was evidently expecting to hear from her early in the day. + +"He wasn't in the right mood, I'm afraid, when I spoke to him," Connie +temporized. "He seemed to resent your wish to--to--as he expressed +it--'get at him over Anne's head.'" + +"That is what I wanted to be sure of," Madalena answered. "Now--I +_know_!" + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +NELSON SMITH AT HOME + + +The Countess de Santiago took her defeat like a soldier. But her line +both of attack and defence was of the sapping-and-mining order. + +Once she had cared as deeply as it was in her to care for the man known +to London as "Nelson Smith." He was of the type which calls forth intense +feeling in others. Men liked him immensely or disliked him extremely. +Women admired him fervently or detested him cordially. It was not +possible to regard him with indifference. His personality was too +magnetic to leave his neighbours cold; and as a rule it was only those +whom he wished to keep at a distance who disliked him. + +As for Madalena de Santiago, for a time she had enjoyed thinking herself +in love. There were reasons, she knew, why she could not hope to be the +man's wife, and if he had chosen a plain woman to help him on in the +world she would have made no objection to his marriage. + +But at first sight she had realized that Annesley Grayle, shy and +unconscious of power to charm as she was, might be dangerous. + +Madalena had anxiously watched the two together, and at breakfast the day +before the wedding she had distrusted the light in the man's eyes as he +looked at the girl. It had seemed incredible that he should be in love +with a creature so pale, so formless still in character (as Annesley +appeared to Madalena); that a man like "Don" should be caught by a pair +of gray eyes and a softness which was only the beauty of youth. + +Still, the Countess had been made to suffer; and if she could have found +a way to prevent the marriage without alienating her friend, she would +have seized it. But she could think of no way, except to drop a sharp +reminder of what Don owed to her. The hint had been unheeded. The +marriage had taken place, and Madalena had been obliged to play the part +of the bride's friend and chaperon. + +Afterward, to be sure, she had been paid. Her reward had come in the +shape of invitations and meetings with desirable people. Nelson Smith's +marriage had given her a place in the world, and at first her success +consoled her. Soon, however, the pain of jealousy overcame the anodyne. +She could not rest; she was forever asking herself whether Don were glad +of her success for her own sake, or because it distracted her attention +from him. + +Was he falling in love with his wife, or was his way of looking at the +girl, of speaking to the girl, only an intelligent piece of acting in the +drama? + +Once or twice Madalena tried being cavalier in her manner to Annesley +(she dared not be actually rude); and Nelson Smith appeared not to +notice; but afterward the offender was punished--by missing some +invitation. This might have been taken as the proof for which she +searched, could she have been sure where lay the responsibility for the +slight, whether on the shoulders of Annesley or of Annesley's husband. + +Madalena strove to make herself believe that the fault was the girl's. +But she could not decide. Sometimes she flattered her vanity that +Annesley was trying to keep her away from Don. Again, she would wrap +herself in black depression as in a pall, believing that the man was +seeking an excuse to put her outside the intimacy of his life. + +Then she burned for revenge upon them both; yet her hands were tied. + +Her fate seemed to be bound up with the fate of Nelson Smith, and evil +which might threaten his career would overwhelm hers also. She spent dark +moments in striving to plan some brilliant yet safe _coup_ which would +ruin him and Annesley, in case she should find out that he had tired of +her. + +At last, by much concentration, her mind developed an idea which appeared +feasible. She saw a thing she might do without compromising herself. But +first she must be certain where the blame lay. + +Constance Annesley-Seton's explanation over the telephone left her little +doubt of the truth. She had the self-control to answer quietly; then, +when she had hung up the receiver, she let herself go to pieces. She +raged up and down the room, swearing in Spanish, tears tracing red stains +on her magnolia complexion. She dashed a vase full of flowers on the +floor, and felt a fierce thrill as it crashed to pieces. + +"That is _you_, Michael Donaldson!" she cried. "Like this I will break +you! That girl shall curse the hour of your meeting. She shall wish +herself back in the house of the old woman where she was a servant! And +you can do nothing--nothing to hurt me!" + +Later that morning, when she had composed herself, Madalena wrote a +letter to Lady Annesley-Seton: + + My Kind Friend,-- + + I am sorry that I may not be with you for Easter, and sorry for the + reason. I can read between the lines! But that does not interest you. + Myself, I can do no more for your protection in the unknown danger + which threatens; but again I am in one of those psychic moods, when I + have glimpses of things beyond the veil. + + It comes to me that if the Archdeacon friend of your cousin could be + asked to join your house party with his wife, and _especially_ with his + relative who is so rare a judge of jewels (is not his name Ruthven + Smith?) trouble might be prevented. + + This is vague advice. But I cannot be more definite, because I am + saying these things under _guidance_. I am not responsible, nor can + I explain why the message is sent. I _feel_ that it is important. + + But you must not mention that it comes from me. Nelson and his wife + would resent that; and the scheme would fall to the ground. Write and + tell me what you do. I shall not be easy in my mind until your house + party is over. May all go well! + + Yours gratefully and affectionately, + + Madalena. + + P.S.--Better speak of having the Smiths, to Mrs. Nelson, not her + husband. He might refuse. + +Archdeacon Smith and his wife and their cousin, Ruthven Smith, were the +last persons on earth in whom Constance would have expected the Countess +de Santiago to interest herself. All the more, therefore, was Lady +Annesley-Seton ready to believe in a supernatural influence. Madalena's +request to be kept out of the affair would have meant nothing to her had +she not agreed that the Nelson Smiths would object to the Countess's +dictation. + +Constance proposed the Smith family as guests in a casual way to Annesley +when they were out shopping together, saying that it would be nice for +Anne to have her friends at Valley House. + +"The Archdeacon wouldn't be able to come," said Annesley. "Easter is +a busy time for him, and Mrs. Smith wouldn't leave him to go into the +country." + +"What a dear, old-fashioned wife!" laughed Connie. "Well, what about +their cousin, that Mr. Ruthven Smith who used to stay at your 'gorgon's' +till our friends the burglar-band called on him? There are things in +Valley House which would interest an expert in jewels. And you've never +asked him to anything, have you?" + +"Oh, yes," said Annesley, "he's been invited every time I've asked the +Archdeacon and Mrs. Smith, but he always refused, saying he was too deaf +and too dull for dinner parties. I'm sure he would hate a house party far +worse!" + +"Why not give the poor man a chance to decide?" Constance persisted. "He +must be a nervous wreck since the burglary. A change ought to do him +good. Besides, he would love Valley House. If you like to make a wager, +I'll bet you something that he'd jump at the invitation." + +Annesley refused the wager, but she agreed that it would be nice to have +all three of the Smiths. + +Constance was supposed to be hostess in her own house, though Knight was +responsible for the financial side of the Easter plan, and it was for her +to ask the guests, even those chosen by the Nelson Smiths. Remembering +Madalena's hint that Nelson might refuse to add Ruthven Smith's name to +the list, Connie gave Annesley no time to consult her husband. While her +companion was being fitted for a frock at Harrod's, Lady Annesley-Seton +availed herself of the chance to write two letters, one to Mrs. Smith, +inviting her and the Archdeacon; another to Ruthven, saying that she +wrote at "dear Anne's express wish" as well as her own. + +She added cordially on her own account: + + I have heard so much of you from Anne that it would be a pleasure + to show you the Valley House treasures, which, I think, you would + appreciate. Do come! + +She stamped her letters and slipped them into the box at the Harrod post +office before going to see if Anne were ready. Nothing more was said +about the invitation for the Smiths until that evening at dinner, when it +occurred to Annesley to mention it. Knight had come home late, just in +time to dress, and she had not thought to speak of the house party. + +"Oh, Knight," she said, "Cousin Constance proposed asking the Archdeacon +and his wife and Mr. Ruthven Smith. I'm sure the Archdeacon can't come, +but Mr. Ruthven might perhaps----" + +"Oh, I don't think I'd have him with a lot of people he doesn't know and +who don't want to know him," Knight vetoed the idea. "He's clever in his +way, but it's not a social way. Among the lot we're going to have he'd be +like an owl among peacocks." + +"But he'd love their jewels," Annesley persevered. "They'll bring some of +the most beautiful ones in England. You said so yourself." + +"I'm thinking more of their pleasure than his," said Knight. "He's deaf +as well as dull. The peacocks are invited already, and the owl isn't, +so----" + +"I'm afraid he is! When Anne agreed that she'd like to have the Smiths I +wrote at once; and by this time they've got my letters," Constance broke +in with a pretence at penitence. "Oh, dear, I have put my foot into it +with the best intentions! What _shall_ we do?" + +"Nothing," said Knight. "If they've been asked, they must come if they +want to. I doubt if they will." + +That doubt was dispelled with the morning post. Mrs. Smith was full of +regrets for herself and the Archdeacon, but Ruthven accepted in his +precise manner with "much pleasure and gratitude for so kind an +attention." The matter was settled, and Connie telephoned to Madalena. + +"No Archdeacon; no Mrs. Archdeacon! But I've bagged the jewel-man. Will +he be strong enough alone to spread over us that mantle of mysterious +protection your crystal showed you?" + +"I hope so," the Countess answered. + +Yet the woman at the other end of the wire thought the voice sounded +dull, and was disappointed, even vaguely anxious. Her anxiety would have +increased if she could have seen the face of the seeress. Now that the +match was close to the fuse, Madalena had a wild impulse to draw back. It +was not too late. Nothing irrevocable had been done. Ruthven Smith's +acceptance of the invitation to Valley House would mean only a few days +of boredom for his fellow guests, unless--she herself made the next move +in the game. + +Before she decided to make it, she resolved to see the man of whom she +thought as Michael Donaldson. + +So far nothing had happened to raise any visible barrier between them. +She was not supposed to know that he did not want her to join the Easter +house party, and he and she and Annesley were on friendly terms. It would +be easy for her to see Don, to see him alone, if she could only choose +the right time, unless----There was an "unless," but she thought the face +of the butler would settle it. + +There were certain times on certain days when Nelson Smith was "at home" +for certain people. These days were not those when Annesley and Constance +were "at home." + +In fact, they had been chosen purposely in order not to clash. + +The American millionaire had, from his first appearance in London, +interested himself in more than one charitable society. Representatives +of these associations called upon him during appointed hours, and were +shown straight to his "den." Indeed, they were the only persons welcomed +there, but the Countess de Santiago had some reason to expect that an +exception might be made in her favour. + +Luckily, the day when she heard the news from Lady Annesley-Seton was one +of the two days in the week when Nelson Smith was certain not to be out +of the house in the afternoon. Luckily also she knew that his wife was +equally certain to be absent. "Anita" was going to play bridge at a house +where Madalena was invited. + +She got her maid to telephone an excuse--"the Countess had a bad +headache." Had she said heartache it would have been nearer the truth. +But one does not tell the truth in these matters. + +Not for years--not since the strenuous times when Don had saved her from +serious trouble and put her on the road to success had Madalena de +Santiago been so unhappy. Whichever way she looked she saw darkness +ahead, yet she hoped something from her talk with Don--just what, she did +not specify to herself in words, but "_something_." + +"I wish to see Mr. Nelson Smith on important business," she said, looking +the butler straight in the eyes. It was he who opened the door of the +Portman Square house on the "charity days." He gave her back look for +look, losing the air of respectable servitude and suddenly becoming a +human being. + +"Mr. Smith is not alone," he answered, contriving to give some special +meaning to the ordinary words which made them almost cryptic. "But I +think he will be free before long, if you care to wait, madame, and I +will mention that you are here." + +"You must say it is important," she impressed upon him as she was ushered +into a little reception room. + +A few minutes later Charrington took her to the door of the "den," where +Knight received her with casual cheerfulness. + +"This is an unexpected pleasure!" he said. + +"Don't let us bother with conventionalities, Don!" she exclaimed, +her emotion showing itself in petulance. "I had to come and have an +understanding with you." + +"An understanding?" Knight was very calm, so calm that she--who knew him +in many phases--was stung with the conviction that he needed to ask no +questions. He was temporizing; and her anger--passionate, unavailing +anger, beating itself like waves on the rock of his strong nature--broke +out in tears. + +"You know what I mean!" She choked on the words. "You're tired of me! +There's nothing more I can do for you, and so--and so--oh, Don, say I'm +wrong! Say it's a mistake. Say it's not you but _she_ who doesn't want +me. She's jealous. Only say that. It's all I want. Just to know it is not +you who are so cruel--after the past!" + +Knight remained unmoved. He looked straight at her, frowning. "What +past?" he inquired, blankly. + +"You ask me that--_you_?" + +"We have never been anything to one another," Knight said. "Not even +friends. You know that as well as I do. We've been valuable to each other +after a fashion, I to you, you to me, and we can be the same in future if +you don't choose to play the fool." + +She was cowed, and hated herself for being cowed--hated Knight, too. + +"What do you call playing the fool?" she asked. + +"Behaving as you're behaving now; and as you've been behaving these last +few weeks. I'm not blind, you know. You have been trying your power over +me. I suppose that's what you'd call the trick. Well, my dear Madalena, +it won't work. I hoped you might realize that without making a scene; but +you wouldn't. You've brought this on yourself, and there's nothing for it +now but a straight talk. + +"My wife is not jealous. It's not in her to be jealous. If she doesn't +like you, Madalena, it's instinctive mistrust. I don't think she's even +seen the claws sticking out of the velvet. But _I_ have. I've seen +exactly what you are up to. You talk about our 'past'. You want to force +my hand. You expect me, because I've been a decent pal, and paid what I +thought was due, to pay higher, a fancy price. I won't. My wife had no +hand in keeping you out of the Easter house party. It was I who said you +weren't to be asked. You had to be taught that you couldn't dictate +terms. You wouldn't take 'no' for an answer, so the lesson had to be more +severe than I meant. Now we understand each other." + +"I doubt it!" cried Madalena. + +"You mean I don't understand _you_? I think I do, my friend. And I'm not +afraid. If I'm not a white angel, certainly _you're_ not. We're tarred +with the same brush. Forget this afternoon, if you like, and I'll forget +it. We can go back to where we were before. But only on the promise that +you'll be sensible. No cat-scratchings. No mysteries." + +It was all that the Countess de Santiago could do to bite back the threat +which alone could have given her relief. Yet she did bite it back. Her +triumph would be incomplete in ruining the man if he could not know that +he owed his punishment to her. But she must be satisfied with the second +best thing. She dared not put him on his guard, and she dared not let him +guess that she meant to strike. + +He would wonder perhaps, when the blow fell, and say to himself, "Can +Madalena have done this?" She must so act that his answer would be, "No. +It's an accident of fate." Knight was not the sort of man who for a mere +wandering suspicion, without an atom of proof, would pull a woman down. +And there would be no proof. + +"You are not kind," was the only response she ventured. "And you are not +just. I did not want to 'scratch.' I would not injure you for the world, +even if I could. Yet it does hurt to think our friendship in the past has +meant nothing to you, when it has meant so much to me. It hurts. But I +must bear it. I shall not trouble you about my feelings again." + +If she had hoped that her meekness might make him relent she was +disappointed. He merely said, "Very good. We'll go back to where we +were." + +That same evening Madalena wrote to Ruthven Smith. She took pains to +disguise her handwriting, and not satisfied with that precaution, went +out in a taxi and posted the letter in Hampstead. + +It was a short letter, and it had no signature; but it made an impression +on Ruthven Smith. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +WHY RUTHVEN SMITH WENT + + +Never in his life had Ruthven Smith been blessed or cursed by an +anonymous letter. He did not know what to make of it, or how to treat it. +Instead of exciting him, as it might had he been a man of mercurial +temperament, it irritated him intensely. + +That was the way when things out of the ordinary happened to Ruthven +Smith: he resented them. He was not--and recognized the fact that he was +not--the type of man to whom things ought to happen. It was only one +strange streak of the artistic in his nature which made him a marvellous +judge of jewels, and attracted adventures to come near him. + +He was constitutionally timid. He was conventional, and prim in his +thoughts of life and all he desired it to give. He was a creature of a +past generation; and whenever in time he had chanced to exist he would +always have lagged a generation behind. But there was that one colourful +streak which somehow, as if by a mistake in creation, had shot a narrow +rainbow vein through his drab soul, like a glittering opal in gray-brown +rock. + +He loved jewels. He had known all about them by instinct even before he +knew by painstaking research. He could judge jewels and recognize them +under any disguise of cutting. He could do this better than almost any +one in the world, and he could do nothing else well; therefore it was +preordained that he should find his present position with some such firm +as the Van Vrecks; and, being in it, adventures were bound to come. + +Many attempts to rob him had doubtless been made. One had lately +succeeded. His nerves were in a wretched state. He was "jumpy" by day as +well as night; and sometimes, when at his worst, he even felt for five +minutes at a time that he had better hand in his resignation to the firm +who had employed him for nearly twenty years, and retire into private +life, like a harried mouse into its hole. + +But that was only when he was at his very worst. Deep down within him he +was aware that, while the breath of life and his inscrutable genius were +together in him, he could not, would not, resign. + +It was part of Ruthven Smith, an intimate part of him, not to be able +to decide for a long time what to do when he was confronted with one of +those emergencies unsuited to his temperament. He was afraid of doing +the wrong thing, yet was too reserved to consult any one. He generally +counted on blundering through somehow; and so it was in the matter of +the anonymous letter. + +He had heard, and dimly believed, that it was morally wrong, and, still +worse, quite bad form, to take notice of anonymous letters. But this one +must be different, it seemed to him, from any other which anybody had +ever received. Duty to his employers and duty to the one thing he really +loved was above any other duty; and for fear of losing forever an +immense, an unhoped-for advantage, which might possibly be gained, he +dared not ignore the letter. + +At all events, he had told himself, no matter what he might decide later, +it was just as well that he had accepted the invitation to Valley House. +Perhaps someone--he could not think who--was playing a stupid practical +joke, with the object of getting him there. But he would risk that and +go, and let his conduct shape itself according to developments. + +For instance, if his eyes were able to detect the small detail +mysteriously mentioned in the letter, he would feel bound to act as it +suggested; yes, bound to act--but how unpleasant it would be! + +And the worst of the whole unpalatable affair was that if he _did_ act in +that suggested way, and if he accomplished what he might, with dreadful +deftness, be supposed to accomplish, it would be the moment when perhaps +he might be fooled. + +_If_ the letter were written by a practical joker, he would be made to +look ridiculous in the eyes of all who were in the secret. And that +thought brought him back to the question which over and over he asked +in his mind. Who could have written the anonymous letter? + +It must be someone acquainted with him, or with his profession; someone +who knew the Nelson Smiths and the Annesley-Setons well enough to be +aware that there was to be an Easter party at Valley House. The writer +hinted in vague terms that he was a private detective aware of certain +things, yet so placed that he could have no handling of the affair, +except from a distance, and through another person. He pretended a +disinterested desire to serve Ruthven Smith, and signed himself, "A +Well Wisher"; but the nervous recipient of the advice felt that his +correspondent was quite likely to be of the class opposed to detectives. + +What if there were some scheme for a robbery on a vast scale at Valley +House, and this letter were part of the scheme? What if the band of +thieves supposed to be "working" lately in London should try to make him +a cat's paw in bringing off their big haul? + +This was a terrifying idea, and more feasible than the one suggested by +the anonymous writer, that Mrs. Nelson Smith should--oh, certainly it +seemed the wildest nonsense! + +Still, there was his duty to the Van Vrecks. They must be considered +ahead of everything! So Ruthven Smith, nervous as a rabbit who has lost +its warren, travelled down to Devonshire on Saturday afternoon, invited +to stay at Valley House till Tuesday. + +It was as Knight had said: the dull, deaf man was as completely out of +the picture in that house party as an owl among peacocks; for he was an +inarticulate person and could not talk interestingly even on his own +subject, jewels. His idea of conversation with women was a discussion of +the weather, contrasting that of England with that of America, or perhaps +touching upon politics. He was afraid of questions about jewels lest he +should allow himself to be pumped, and the information he might +inadvertently give away be somehow "used." + +But he was by birth and education a gentleman; and his relationship to +Archdeacon Smith, whom everybody liked, was a passport to people's +kindness. + +Duchesses and countesses were of no particular interest to Ruthven Smith, +but their adornments were fascinating. At Valley House one duchess and +several countesses were assembled for the Easter party, and they were +women whose jewels were famous. Most of these were family heirlooms, but +their present owners had had the things reset, and no queen of fairyland +or musical comedy could have owned more becoming or exquisitely designed +tiaras, crowns, necklaces, earrings, dog-collars, brooches, bracelets, +and rings than these great ladies. + +For this reason the ladies themselves were interesting to Ruthven Smith, +and he might have been equally so to them if he would have told them +picturesquely all he knew about the history of their wonderful diamonds, +pearls, emeralds, and rubies. It was too bad that he wouldn't, for there +was not a famous jewel in England or Europe of which Ruthven Smith had +not every ancient scandal in connection with it at his tongue's end. + +But on his tongue's end it stayed, even when, for the sake of his own +pleasure if nothing else, his hosts and hostesses tried to draw him out. + +Nevertheless, he was not sorry that he had come. There was an element of +joy in seeing, met together, and sparkling together, those exquisite, +historic beauties of which he had read. + +It had been a bother to Lady Annesley-Seton and her cousin Anne to decide +how Ruthven Smith should be put at table. In a way, he was an outsider, +the only one among the guests without a title or military rank which +mechanically indicated his place in relation to others. Besides, no woman +would want to have him to scream at. + +Fortunately, however, there were two women asked on account of their +husbands, and so--according to Connie's code--of no importance in +themselves. Providence meant them to be pushed here and there like pawns +on a chessboard; and they were pushed to either side of Ruthven Smith at +the dinner-table on Saturday night. + +Both had been placated by being told beforehand what a wonderful man he +was, with frightfully exciting things to say, if he could tactfully be +made to say them. But only one of the two had courage or spirit to rise +to the occasion--the woman he was given to take in, a Lady Cartwright, +married to Major Sir Elmer Cartwright, who was always asked to every +house whenever the Duchess of Peebles was invited. + +Lady Cartwright was Irish, wrote plays, had a sense of humour, and was +not jealous of the Duchess. Because she wrote plays, she was continually +in search of material, digging it up, even when it looked unpromising. + +"I have heard such charming things about you," she began. + +"I _beg_ your pardon!" said Ruthven Smith, unable to believe his ears. +And because he was somewhat deaf himself, he could not gauge the +inflections of his own voice. Sometimes he spoke almost in a whisper, +sometimes very loudly. This time he spoke loudly, and several people, +surprised at the sound rising above other sounds like spray from a +flowing river, paused for an instant to listen. + +"What a wonderful expert in jewels you are," Lady Cartwright replied in +a higher tone, realizing that she had a deaf man to deal with. "And that +you have been one of the sufferers from that gang of thieves Scotland +Yard can't lay its hands on." + +Ruthven Smith was on the point of shrinking into himself, as was his wont +if any personal topic of conversation came up, when it flashed into his +mind that here was an opportunity. If he did not take it, so easy a one +might not occur again. He braced himself for a supreme effort. + +"Oh, yes, yes, I was robbed," he admitted. "A serious loss! Some fine +pearls I had been buying--not for myself, but for the Van Vrecks. I +seldom collect valuables for myself. I only wish these things had been +mine. I should not have that sense of being an unfaithful servant--though +I did my best----" + +"Of course you did," Lady Cartwright soothed him. "But these thieves--if +it's the same gang, as we all think--are too clever for the cleverest of +us. As for the police, they seem to be nowhere. I haven't suffered yet, +but each morning when I wake up, I'm astonished to find everything as +usual. Not that it wouldn't _seem_ as usual, even if the gang had paid us +a visit and made a clean sweep of our poor possessions. They appear to be +able to leak through keyholes, as nothing in the houses they go to is +ever disturbed." + +"Anyhow, they have latchkeys," retorted Ruthven Smith, with what for him +might be considered gaiety of manner. "The thief or thieves who relieved +me of my pearls--or rather, my employer's pearls--apparently walked in as +a member of the household might have done." + +Among those who had involuntarily suspended talk to hear what Ruthven +Smith was saying about jewels and jewel thieves was Annesley. Though the +party would never have been but for Knight and herself, Dick and +Constance were playing host and hostess with all the outward +responsibility of those parts. Lord Annesley-Seton had a duchess on his +right, a countess on his left; Lady Annesley-Seton was fenced in by the +duke and the count pertaining to these ladies; Mrs. Nelson Smith sat +between two less important men, who liked the dinner provided by the +American millionaire's miraculous new chef, and they could safely be +neglected for a moment. + +Annesley felt that Ruthven Smith was, in a way, her special guest, and +she was anxious that he should not be the failure Knight had prophesied. +She wanted him not to regret that he had flung himself on the tender +mercies of this smart house party, and almost equally she wanted his two +neighbours not to be bored by him. Knight would hate that. He attached so +much importance to amusing the people whom he invited! + +She listened and thought that Mr. Ruthven Smith and Lady Cartwright +seemed to have begun well. Then, as she turned to Lady Cartwright's +handsome husband (the Duchess of Peebles was talking to Dick +Annesley-Seton just then), she caught the word "latchkey." + +It seized her attention. She knew they were speaking of the burglary at +Mrs. Ellsworth's house. She heard Ruthven Smith go on to explain in his +high-pitched voice that the two woman servants had been suspected, but +that their characters had "emerged stainless" from the examination. + +"Besides," he continued, "neither of them had a latchkey to give to any +outside person. The two women slept together in one room. At the time of +the robbery there was no butler----" + +Annesley heard no more. Suddenly the door of her spirit seemed to close. +She was shut up within herself, listening to some voice there. + +"_What became of your latchkey?_" it asked. + +The blood streamed to her face and made her ears tingle, as it used to do +when she had been scolded by Mrs. Ellsworth. If any one had looked at her +then, it must have been to wonder what Sir Elmer Cartwright or Lord John +Dormer had said to make Mrs. Nelson Smith blush so furiously. + +She was remembering what she had done with her latchkey. She had given it +to Knight to open the front door, and so escape from the two watchers who +had followed them in a taxi to Torrington Square. She had never thought +of it from that moment to this. Could it be possible that some thief had +stolen the latchkey from Knight, and used it when Mrs. Ellsworth's house +was robbed? + +Her thoughts concentrated violently upon the key. Had her neighbours +spoken she would not have heard; but they did not speak. She was free to +let her thoughts run where they chose. They ran back to the first night +of her meeting with Nelson Smith, and her arrival with him at the house +in Torrington Square. She recalled, as if it were a moment ago, putting +the key into his hand, which had been warm and steady, despite the danger +he was in, while hers had been trembling and cold. She said to herself +that she must ask Knight, as soon as they were alone together, what he +had done with the key, whether he had left it in the house or flung it +away. + +But of course he must have left it in the house, or close by, otherwise +no thief would have known where it belonged. That made her feel guilty +toward Ruthven Smith. She ought not to have been so utterly absorbed in +her own affairs that night. She ought to have asked to have the key back, +and then to have laid it where it could be found by Mrs. Ellsworth in the +morning. + +Perhaps, indirectly, _she_ was responsible for the burglary at that +house. And, now she thought of it, what a queer burglary it had been! The +thieves must certainly have known something about Mrs. Ellsworth, or +else, in helping themselves to her valuables, it would not have occurred +to them to scrawl a sarcastic message. + +That message had delighted Knight when he heard of it. He had laughed and +said, "I like those chaps! They can have _my_ money when they want it!" + +Since then they _had_ had his money, and other possessions. If the theory +of the police were right, that a gang of foreign thieves was "working" +London, Annesley was glad that she and Knight had been robbed. It made +her feel less to blame for her carelessness in the matter of that +latchkey. + +At least, she had suffered, too, and so had Knight. + +Could it be, she asked herself, that the _watchers_ were somehow mixed +up in the business? Were _they_ members of the supposed gang? That did +not seem likely, for how could a man like Knight have got involved with +thieves? Yet it seemed, from what he had said that night at the +Savoy--and never referred to again--as if he were somehow in their power. + +How curiously like one of them Morello had been! She remembered thinking +so, with a shock of fear. Then she had lost the feeling of resemblance, +and told herself that she must have imagined it. + +The two faces came back to her now, and again she saw them alike. She was +glad that Knight had never invited Morello to call, and glad that when +grudgingly she had asked one day after the two men who had witnessed +their marriage, Knight had said, "Gone out of England. We just caught +them in time." + +As for the watchers, she had heard no more of them. Knight ignored the +episode, or the part of it connected with those men. The memory of them +was shut up in the locked box of his past, and he never left the key +lying about, as apparently he had left the key of Mrs. Ellsworth's house. + +Suddenly, while Annesley listened to Ruthven Smith, she became conscious +that, as he talked to Lady Cartwright, his eyes had turned to her. + +"This proves," the fancy ran through her head, "that if you look at or +even think of people, you attract their attention." + +She glanced away, and at her neighbours. They were both absorbed for the +moment; she need not worry lest they should find her neglectful. She took +some asparagus which was offered to her, and began to eat it; but she +still had the impression that Ruthven Smith was looking at her. She +wondered why. + +"He can't be expecting me to scream at him across the table," she +thought. + +"Yes," he was saying to Lady Cartwright, "it was a misfortune to lose +those pearls. Two I had selected to make a pair of earrings can scarcely +be duplicated. But none of the things stolen from me compared in value to +those our agent lost on board the _Monarchic_. I suppose you read of that +affair?" + +"Oh, yes," said Lady Cartwright, her voice raised in deference to her +neighbour's deafness. "It was most interesting. Especially about the +clairvoyant woman on board who saw a vision of the thief in her crystal, +throwing things into the sea attached to a life-belt with a light on it, +or something of the sort, to be picked up by a yacht. One would have +supposed, with that information to go upon, the police might have +recovered the jewels, but they didn't, and probably they never will now." + +"I'm not sure the police pinned their faith to the clairvoyante's +visions," replied Ruthven Smith, with his dry chuckle. + +"Really? But I've understood--though the name wasn't mentioned then, I +believe--that the woman was that wonderful Countess de Santiago we're so +excited about. She is certainly extraordinary. Nobody seems to doubt +_her_ powers! I rather thought she might be here." + +Ruthven Smith showed no interest in the Countess de Santiago. Once on the +subject of jewels, it was difficult to shunt him off on another at short +notice. Or possibly he had something to say which he particularly wished +not to leave unsaid at that stage of the conversation. + +"The newspapers did not publish a description of the jewels stolen on the +_Monarchic_," he went on, brushing the Countess de Santiago aside. "It +was thought best at the time not to give the reporters a list. To me, +that seemed a mistake. Who knows, for instance, through how many hands +the Malindore diamond may have passed? If some honest person, recognizing +it from a description in the papers, for instance----" + +"The Malindore diamond!" exclaimed Lady Cartwright, forgetting politeness +in her interest, and cutting short a sentence which began dully. "Isn't +that the wonderful blue diamond that the British Museum refused to buy +three years ago, because it hadn't enough money to spend, or something?" + +"Quite so," replied Ruthven Smith, adding with pride: "But the Van Vrecks +had enough money. They always have when a unique thing is for sale; and +they are rich enough to wait for years, with their money locked up, till +somebody comes along who wants the thing. That happened in the case of +the Malindore diamond. The Van Vrecks hoped to sell it to Mr. Pierpont +Morgan. But he died, and it was left on their hands till this last +autumn." + +"Ah, then that lovely blue diamond was sold with the other things the Van +Vreck agent lost on the _Monarchic_?" + +"_Was_ to be sold if the prospective buyer liked it. He had married a +white wife, you know, and----" + +"Oh, yes, of course. It was Lady Eve Cassenden. That marriage made a big +sensation among us. _Horrid_, I call it! But she hadn't a penny, and they +say he's the richest Maharajah in India." + +"The Malindore diamond was once in his family, I understand, about five +hundred years ago, when we first begin to get at its history," Ruthven +Smith went on, ignoring the Maharajah as he had ignored the Countess de +Santiago. "It was then the central jewel of a crown. But later, Louis +XIV, on obtaining possession of it, had it set in a ring, and surrounded +with small white brilliants. It still remains in that form, or did so +remain until it was stolen from our agent on the _Monarchic_. What form +it is in and where it is now, only those who know can say." + +So strong was the call from Ruthven Smith's eyes to Annesley's eyes that +she was forced to look up. She had been sure that she would meet his gaze +fixed upon her, and so it was. He was staring across the table at her, +with a curious expression on his long, hatchet face. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +RUTHVEN SMITH'S EYEGLASSES + + +Annesley could not read the look. Yet she felt that it might be read, if +her soul and body had not been wrenched apart, and hastily flung together +again, upside down, it seemed, with her brain where her heart had been, +and vice versa. + +Why had Ruthven Smith looked at her, as he spoke in his loud voice of the +stolen Malindore diamond--a blue diamond set with small brilliants, in a +ring? Had he found out that she--did he believe--but she could not finish +the thought. It seemed as though the ring Knight had given her--_and told +her to hide_--was burning her flesh! + +Could _her_ blue diamond be the famous diamond, about which the jewel +expert was telling Lady Cartwright? A horrible sensation overcame the +girl. She felt her blood growing cold, and oozing so sluggishly through +her veins that she could count the drops--drip, drip, drip! She hoped +that she had not turned ghastly pale. Above all things she hoped that she +was not going to faint! If she did that, Ruthven Smith would think--what +would he not think? + +She found herself praying for strength and the power of self-control that +she might reason with her own intelligence. Of course, if this were the +diamond, Knight didn't dream that it had been stolen. + +Just then a hand reached out at her left side and poured champagne into +her glass. It was the hand of Charrington, the butler. Annesley saw that +it was trembling. She had never seen Charrington's hand tremble before. +Butlers' hands were not supposed to tremble. Charrington spilled a little +champagne on the tablecloth, only a very little, no more than a drop or +two, yet Annesley started and glanced up. The butler was moving away when +she caught a glimpse of his face. + +It was red, as usual, for his complexion and that of his younger brother +were alike in colouring; but there was a look of _strain_ on his +features, as if he were keeping his muscles taut. + +Sir Elmer Cartwright began to talk to her. His voice buzzed unmeaningly +in her ears, as though she were coming out from under the influence of +chloroform. + +"What will become of me?" she said to herself, and then was afraid she +had said it aloud. How awful that would be! Her eyes turned imploringly +to Sir Elmer. He was smiling, unaware of anything unusual. + +"Oh, yes!" she exclaimed at random. Fortunately it seemed to be the right +answer; and the relief this assurance gave was like a helping hand to a +beginner skating on thin ice. Sir Elmer went on to repeat some story +which he said he had been telling the Duchess. + +Annesley suddenly thought of a woman rider she had seen at a circus when +she was a child. The woman stood on the bare back of one horse and drove +six others, three abreast, all going very fast and noiselessly round a +ring. + +"I must drive my thoughts as she did the horses," came flashing into the +girl's head. "I must think this out, and I must listen to Sir Elmer and +go on giving him right answers, and I must look just as usual. _I must!_ + +"For Knight's sake!" She seemed to hear the words whispered. Why for +Knight's sake? Oh, but of course she must try to think how it would +involve him if the blue diamond was the famous one stolen from the Van +Vrecks' agent on the _Monarchic_! + +He would not be to blame, for if he had known, he would not have bought +the diamond. + +And yet, _might_ he not have known? He had told her few details of his +life before they met, but he had said that it had been hard sometimes, +that he had travelled among rough people, and picked up some of their +rough ways. He had confessed frankly that his ideas of right and wrong +had got mixed and blunted. From the first he had never let her call him +good. + +Would it seem dreadful to him to buy a jewel which he might guess, from +its low cost, had to be got rid of at almost any price? + +Annesley was forced to admit, much as she loved Knight, that his daring, +original nature (so she called it to herself) might enter into strange +adventures and intrigues for sheer joy in taking risks. She imagined that +some wild escapade regretted too late might have led him into association +with the watchers. Maybe they had all three been members of a secret +society, she often told herself, and Knight had left against the others' +will, in spite of threats. + +That would be like him; and brave and splendid as was his image in her +heart, she could not say that he would never be guilty of an act which +might be classed as unscrupulous. + +This admission, instead of distressing, calmed her. Allowing that he had +certain faults seemed to chase away a dreadful thought which had pressed +near, out of sight, yet close as if it stood behind her chair, leaning +over her shoulder. + +For a moment she felt happy again. She would tell Knight what she had +heard about the Malindore diamond, and how like its description was to +hers. Then, no matter how much he might hate to let it go, he must show +the blue diamond ring to Mr. Ruthven Smith and have its identity decided. + +The girl drew a long breath, and determined to put the subject out of her +mind until after dinner, so that Sir Elmer Cartwright need not think her +a complete idiot. + +But the deep sigh that stirred her bosom stirred also the fine gold chain +on which hung the blue diamond. The chain lay loosely on her shoulders, +lost, or almost lost among soft folds of lace. She wore it like that with +a low dress, not only to prevent it from attracting attention and making +people wonder what ornament she hid, but also because the thin band of +gold, if seen, would break the symmetry of line. It was Knight who had +given her this little piece of advice, the first time after their +marriage that she had dined with him in evening dress, and since then +she had never forgotten to follow it. + +To-night, however, feeling suddenly conscious of the chain, she was on +the point of looking down to make sure that it was shrouded in her laces. +Something stopped her. With a quick warning thump of the heart she +glanced across at Ruthven Smith. + +A few minutes ago he had not been wearing his eyeglasses. Now they were +on, pinching the high-bridged, thin nose. And he was peering through them +at her--peering at her neck, her dress, as if he searched for something. + +Ruthven Smith knew about the blue diamond. He knew that she wore it on +a chain, hidden in her dress. The certainty of this shot through brain +and body like forked lightning and seemed to sear her flesh. She was +afraid. She could not tell yet of what she was afraid, but when she could +disentangle her twisted thoughts one from another the reason would be +clear. + +Then it was as if her mind separated itself from the rest of her and +began to run back along the path she had travelled with Knight since the +hour of their first meeting. It ran looking on the ground, seeking and +picking up things dropped and almost forgotten. + +Knight had not been pleased when the Countess de Santiago talked to him +of their being together on the _Monarchic_. The Countess had seemed +wishful to annoy him in some way. She had taken that way. They had known +each other well and for a long time. They knew a good deal about each +other's affairs. Sometimes one would say that the Countess still liked +to annoy Knight, and he resented that. He had been unwilling to have her +asked to Valley House for Easter, though he knew she longed to come. + +And Ruthven Smith! Knight had not wanted him. Could it possibly be on +account of the blue diamond? Had Knight heard what _she_ had heard there +at the dinner-table, and was he anxious about what might happen next? + +Hastily she flung a glance toward her husband. He was not looking at her, +but it seemed--perhaps she imagined it--that his face had something of +the same tense, strained expression she had caught on Charrington's. + +How odd, if it were true, that both should have that look. One would +almost fancy they shared a secret trouble. But Annesley shook the idea +away, as she would have shaken a hornet trying to sting. How dare she let +such a disloyal fancy even cross the threshold of her mind? A secret +between her husband and his servant--a secret concerning the blue +diamond, which stabbed them both with the same prick of anxiety at the +mention of the jewel! + +No sooner was the venomous thing dislodged than it crept back and settled +close over her heart. For Knight's eyes turned to her, and in them was +the look of a drowning man. + +Just for the fraction of a second she saw it. Then the curtain was drawn +over his real self that had come to the window and signalled for help. He +smiled a friendly smile, and took up the conversation with his right-hand +neighbour. But he had hidden his soul too late. The message could not be +taken back, and Annesley was sure that he, too, had heard the story +Ruthven Smith had told so loudly to Lady Cartwright. + +The fact that he had lost his unruffled, nonchalant coolness even for a +single instant warned Annesley that Knight must be desperately troubled. + +"He bought the diamond for me, knowing what it was," she told herself, +"and knowing that it must have been stolen. Of course that's why he made +me wear it where nobody could see. But who else knew besides the man who +sold it to Knight? _Somebody_ must have known, and told Mr. Ruthven +Smith. Perhaps the thief himself, hoping to be spared, and to get money +from both sides. That is why Mr. Ruthven Smith accepted the invitation +here, which I was so sure he would refuse. He has come because he thinks +the Malindore diamond is in this house. That must be it! But how can he +have found out that I am wearing it?" + +As she thought these things, asking herself questions, sometimes +answering them, sometimes unable to answer, she managed to keep up some +desultory talk first with one of her neighbours, then with the other. It +seemed to take all her strength to do this, and made her feel weak and +broken, not excited and vital, as she had felt on the wonderful night at +the Savoy when "Nelson Smith" had praised her pluck and presence of mind +in saving him from a danger which had never been explained. + +How she wished with all her anxious, troubled heart that she knew how to +save him to-night! + +It had been very wrong to buy a stolen diamond, but he had done it from +no mercenary motives, for he had given it to her. She supposed that he +had loved the beautiful thing, and felt when it was offered to him that +he could not bear to let it go.... Perhaps the Countess de Santiago had +stolen it on the _Monarchic_! That might be a cruel thought, but Annesley +could not help having it, for it would explain many things. + +Besides, it would help to exonerate Knight. He was very chivalrous where +women were concerned, and he would have felt bound to protect his old +friend. At all events, he could not have given her up to justice, and +very likely she had been in debt and needed money. She had wonderful +clothes, and must be extravagant. + +Yes, the more Annesley dwelt on the idea the more convinced she became +that Madalena de Santiago had stolen the blue diamond, and perhaps all +the other things on the _Monarchic_, while pretending to have a vision in +her crystal of the thief, and of the way the jewel had been smuggled off +the ship. Then the Countess had been angry with Knight, and had tried to +have him suspected, even of being mixed up in the theft--though that last +idea seemed too far-fetched. + +"How hateful, how mean of her!" Annesley thought, ashamed because it was +so easy to believe bad things of the Countess, and to pile up one upon +another. "Probably she put it into Constance's head to suggest having Mr. +Ruthven Smith asked. And then she put it into his head to--to----" + +The girl stopped short, appalled. _What_ had been put into the jewel +expert's head? What precisely had he come to Valley House to do? + +"He has come to _find_ the blue diamond!" the answer flashed into her +brain. + +Madalena de Santiago's eyes were as piercing as they were beautiful. She +might have noticed the fine gold chain which her "pal's" wife wore always +round her neck. She might have guessed that the ring with the blue +diamond was hidden at the end of the chain; yet she could not _know for +certain_, because Knight would never have told her that. + +Therefore it followed that neither could Ruthven Smith know for certain. +He meant to find out, and if he did find out, Knight would be punished +far more severely than he deserved for buying a thing illegally come by. + +"I will save him again," Annesley resolved. + +But how? What might she expect to happen? And whatever it was, how could +she prevent it happening? + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE STAR SAPPHIRE + + +Picture after picture grew and faded in her mind. She saw policemen +coming to the house; she saw Ruthven Smith demanding that she and +Knight be searched, and arrested if the diamond were found. + +It might be difficult to prove that they had had nothing to do with the +theft, especially as Knight had been on board the _Monarchic_. He must +have travelled under his own name then, the name that he had not let her +see when he wrote it in the register after the wedding. If Ruthven Smith +knew about the _Monarchic_ and the change of name, he might make things +very unpleasant for Knight. And what must he himself be thinking at this +moment as he peered through his eyeglasses? + +Annesley had always told herself that Ruthven Smith looked like a +schoolmaster. He looked more than ever like one to-night--a very severe +schoolmaster, planning to punish a rebellious pupil. + +"But he can't have accepted our invitation, and have come to this house +to make a scene and a scandal before everybody," she tried to reassure +her troubled heart. "Still, he wouldn't look like that if he didn't +believe that I'm wearing the diamond, and if he did not mean to do +something about it." + +It was a terrifying prospect for Annesley, and suddenly, with a shock of +certainty, she told herself that Ruthven Smith would not give her time, +if he could help it, to get rid of the ring and conceal it somewhere +else. "He'll think of an excuse after dinner to make me show what I have +on my chain, or perhaps he has thought of the excuse already!" + +It seemed to the girl that the room had become bitterly cold. She +shivered slightly. "I must take off the ring and put something else on +the chain when we go away and leave the men," she decided. + +But no! Even then it might be too late. Ruthven Smith neither smoked +nor drank. Very likely he would follow the ladies to the drawing room +without giving her the chance of cheating him. If she were to save Knight +from trouble she must do the thing she had to do at once. + +That thing was to unfasten the clasp of the chain, slip off the ring with +the blue diamond, substitute another ring, fasten the chain again and +replace it inside her dress, all without letting Ruthven Smith across the +table, or her neighbours, suspect what was being done. + +Her plate was whisked away at that moment, and leaning back in her chair +she seized the opportunity of looking at her hands. Brain and heart were +throbbing so fast that she could not remember, without counting, what +rings she had put on. + +Knight had tried to console her for the loss she'd suffered through the +burglary a fortnight before by making her a present of half a dozen new +rings. Poor Knight! How anxious he always was to give her pleasure, no +matter at what expense! He had such good taste in choosing jewellery, +too, that one might almost fancy him as great an expert as Ruthven Smith. + +But he had laughed when she said this to him, protesting that he was a +"rank amateur." + +The new rings were all beautiful, each unique in its way. The big white +diamond of her engagement ring was the least original of her possessions. +To-night, in addition to that and her wedding ring, she wore on her left +hand a grayish star sapphire, of oval shape, curiously set with four +small diamonds, white ones at top and bottom, pale pink and yellow at the +sides. This ring was rather large for her, and as she wore it above the +engagement ring, the stones easily slipped round toward the palm. + +The dark blue scarab on her right hand Ruthven might have observed; but +she was hopeful that the star sapphire had escaped his notice. + +She took it off and laid it in her lap, ready. + +Her dress of white charmeuse, embroidered with violets, was fastened in +front under a folded and crossed fichu of "shadow" lace and a bunch of +real violets held on by an old-fashioned brooch. Bending forward, she +played at eating Punch a la Romaine, while with her left hand she +contrived to undo three or four hooks from their delicately worked +eyelets. Then, slipping two fingers into the aperture, she tore open her +lace underbodice. + +This accomplished, she felt the ring of the blue diamond; but she dared +not break the chain, as she could easily have done. If Ruthven Smith were +planning some trick by which to obtain a glimpse of ring and chain, the +latter must be intact. + +Pinching the chain between thumb and finger patiently, persistently, and +very cautiously, she pulled it along until she touched the tiny clasp. +As she did this she glanced down at the lace of her fichu now and then to +make sure that she did not draw the thin line of gold so tightly across +her neck that it became visible in moving. + +At last she had the clasp in her hand. Pressed upon sharply, it opened, +and the ring with the blue diamond fell into her palm. She pushed it +inside her frock as far down as her fingers would reach and slid the star +sapphire ring on to the chain before fastening the clasp again. + +She was shivering still as if with cold, and her hands trembled so that +she could hardly put the hooks of her dress into their eyelets. But +somehow she did at last, and was sure that no one had seen. + +More than one course had come and gone before her stealthy task was +finished, and three or four minutes after the last hook had decided to +bite, Constance looked at the Duchess of Peebles. Everyone rose, and, as +Annesley had feared, Ruthven Smith followed the ladies out of the great +dining hall. + +Constance led them to the Chinese drawing room for coffee, and as the +women grouped themselves to chat, or gaze at Buddhas and treasures of +ancient dynasties, she suddenly recalled Madalena's latest vision in the +crystal. + +It seemed that it would interest rather than frighten her friends to hear +of it. Besides, if it did frighten them a little, she didn't much mind. +She bore the Duchess of Peebles and several others a grudge because they +had come to Valley House not on her account, or Dick's, but because it +was an open secret who were the real host and hostess on this occasion. +Last year, if she had invited these people, they would have been +"dreadfully sorry they were already promised for Easter." + +It was Nelson Smith's money and popularity which had lured them. They +knew they would have wonderful things to eat, and probably the women +were counting on presents of Easter eggs in the morning with exciting +surprises inside! + +"Are you all very brave?" she asked aloud and gaily. "Because I've +just remembered that the Countess de Santiago saw a picture of us in +her crystal, grouped together as we are now, in this very room, +and--something happening." + +"Something nice, or horrid?" asked the Duchess, a tall, pretty woman, +who looked as if Rossetti had created her, with finishing touches by +Burne-Jones. + +"Ah, she couldn't see. The vision faded," Constance replied. "But perhaps +_we_ shall see--if this is to be the night." + +As she spoke the men came into the room. Ruthven Smith's example was +contagious. They had been deserted by the ladies hardly ten minutes ago. +Annesley felt sure that Knight had contrived to hurry the others. He, +too, then, had guessed why Ruthven Smith had gone out of the dining hall +with the women. Perhaps he also had a plan! + +He came straight to his wife, who was standing with Lady Cartwright. Not +far off was Ruthven Smith, still with his eyeglasses on. He was hovering +with a nervous air in front of a cabinet full of beautiful things, at +which he scarcely glanced. + +Seeing Knight approach Annesley, he lifted his head, took a hesitating +step in her direction, and stopped. He looked timid and miserable, yet +obstinate. + +"Anita, I've been telling the Duke about that star sapphire I picked up +for you the other day," Knight began. "He says he never saw one with +anything resembling a star in it. Will you fetch it for him to look at? I +noticed as you got up from the table that you hadn't put it on to-night." + +For an instant the girl could not answer. If only he had hit upon +something else. If only it had occurred to her to hide her left hand +after taking off the ring! But she could not have foreseen this. + +For the first time she inclined to believe in the Countess de Santiago's +supernatural power. Could it be that this scene had pictured itself in +the crystal? Could it be that now in a moment something dreadful would +happen? + +She realized that Knight was trusting to the quickness of her wits; that +not only had he overheard Ruthven Smith's talk about the Malindore +diamond, but he credited her with having caught the drift of the words, +and counted on her loyalty to help him. As he spoke he looked at her with +the wistful, seeking look she had seen in his eyes when they were first +married. + +"He's afraid I'm angry with him for buying the diamond in spite of +knowing what it was," she thought, "but he trusts me to stand by him +now." + +Her mind grew clear. After a pause no longer than the drawing of a breath +she was ready to rise to the situation Knight had created. In fact, she +saw safety for him and herself, as well as a realistic surprise for +Ruthven Smith. But the latter, rendered brave to act through fear of +loss, was too quick for her. + +"I beg your pardon! Before you go, may I have the pleasure of a nearer +look at that beautiful enamel brooch of yours?" + +It was Annesley's impulse to step back as without waiting for permission +the narrow head, sleekly brushed and slightly bald at the top, bent over +her laces. But she remembered herself in time and stood still. She dared +not glance at Knight, to send him a message of encouragement, but she +knew that for once even his resourcefulness had failed, and that he must +be steeling himself to the brutal discovery of his secret. + +Yet even then she did not guess what Ruthven Smith's plan was until the +thing had happened. He peered at the brooch, which represented a bunch of +grapes in small cabochon amethysts and leaves of green enamel. Adjusting +his eyeglasses, they slipped from his nose and fell on the lace of her +fichu. + +"Oh, how awkward of me! A thousand pardons!" he cried. Making a nervous +grab for the glasses, which hung from a chain, he snatched up her chain +as well, and with a quick jerk of seeming inadvertence wrenched from its +warm hiding-place a ring with a flash of brilliants and a glint of blue. + +Annesley's heart had given one great throb and then missed a beat, for +there had been an awful instant as the "plan" developed when she feared +that the ring with the blue diamond might, after all her pains, have +become entangled with the chain. If it had, the violence of the jerk +might have brought it to light. + +But she had accomplished her task well. She could afford to smile, though +her lips trembled, as she saw the bird-of-prey look fade from Ruthven +Smith's face and turn into bewildered humiliation. + +Right was on his side; yet he had the air of a culprit, and some wild +strain in Annesley's nature which had been asleep till that instant sang +a song of triumph in the victory of her "plan" over his. How delighted +Knight would be, and how amazed and grateful--grateful as he had been +when she "stood by him" with the watchers! + +As Ruthven Smith stammered apologies her eyes flashed to Knight's; but +there was none of the defiant laughter she had expected, and felt bound +to reproach him for later. + +He was pale, and though his immense power of self-control kept him in +check, Annesley shrank almost with horror from the fury of rage against +Ruthven Smith which she read in her husband's gaze and the beating of the +veins in his temples. + +Terrified lest his anger should break out in words, she hurried on to say +what she would have said before the sudden move by the jewel expert. + +"Here is the sapphire ring you asked about, Knight," she said. "I was +just going to take off this chain and give it to you to show to the Duke +when----" + +"When Mr. Ruthven Smith took an unwarrantable liberty," Knight finished +the sentence icily. + +"I--I meant nothing. Really, I can't tell you how I regret----" the +wretched man stuttered. But Knight was without mercy. + +"Pray don't try any further," he cut in. "My wife is not a figurine in a +shop window to have her ornaments stared at and pawed over. You are an +old friend of hers, Mr. Ruthven Smith, and you are my guest--or rather my +friend Annesley-Seton's guest--therefore I will say no more. But in some +countries where I have lived such an incident would have ended +differently." + +"Oh, _please_, Knight!" exclaimed Annesley, thankful that at least he had +spoken his harsh words in so low a voice that no one outside their own +group of three could hear. But she was shocked out of her brief +exultation by his white rage and the depths revealed by the lightning +flash of anger. Also she was sorry for Ruthven Smith, even while she +resented the plot which it was evident he had come to carry out. + +With unsteady hands she lifted the delicate chain over her hair and gave +it to her husband. + +"The ring is rather large for my finger. Here it is for you to show to +the Duke," she reminded him. + +"Thank you, Anita," he said. And she knew that he thanked her for more +than what she gave him. + +"I am a thousand times sorry," Ruthven Smith persisted. "More sorry than +I can ever explain, or you will ever know." + +"Indeed it was nothing," the girl comforted him in her soft young voice. +But she read in his words a hidden meaning, as she had read one into +Knight's. She _did_ know that which he believed she would never know: the +meaning of his act, and the effort it had cost to screw his courage to +the sticking place. + +Also, as the star sapphire with its sparkle of diamonds had flashed into +sight, she had seemed to read his mind. She guessed he must be telling +himself that his informant--the Countess, or some other--had mistaken one +blue stone for another. + +"Let's go and join Constance and the Duchess," she went on, quietly. +"They're looking at some lovely things you will like to see. And you must +forget that Knight was cross. He has lived in wild places, and he has a +hot temper." + +"I deserved what I got, I'm afraid," murmured Ruthven Smith. + +"After all, nothing exciting seems likely to happen to-night in this +room, in spite of the Countess's prophecy," said Constance. "Perhaps it +may be to-morrow or Monday." + +"I hope nothing more exciting will happen then than to-night!" Annesley +exclaimed, with a kindly glance at her companion. She pitied him, but she +pitied herself more, for by and by she and Knight would have to talk this +thing out together. + +For the first time she dreaded the moment of being alone with her +husband. There was a stain of clay on the feet of her idol, and though +she had helped him to hide it from other eyes, nothing could be right +between them again until she had told him what she thought--until he had +promised to make restitution somehow of the thing he should never have +possessed. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE SECRET + + +Knight and Annesley had a suite of rooms on the ground floor in what was +known as "the new wing" at Valley House. On the floor above were the +rooms occupied by Lord and Lady Annesley-Seton. + +This wing was a dreadful anachronism, shocking to architects, for it had +been tacked on to the house in the eighteenth century by some member of +the family who had made the "grand tour" and fallen in love with Italy. +Seeing no reason why a classic addition with a high-pillared loggia +should be unsuitable to a house in England built in Elizabethan and +Jacobean days, he had made it. + +Fortunately it was so situated as not to be seen from the front of the +building, or anywhere else except from the one side which it deformed; +and there a more artistic grandson had hidden the abortion as much as +possible by planting a grove of beautiful stone-pines. + +As for the wing itself, the interior was the most "liveable" part of the +house, and with the modern improvements put in to please the American +bride before her fortune vanished, it had become charming within. +Annesley's bedroom and her husband's adjoining had long windows opening +out on the loggia and looking between tall, straight trunks of umbrella +pines toward the distant sea. + +It was late before she could slip away to her own quarters, for she had +been wanted for bridge, an amusement which she secretly thought the last +refuge for the mentally destitute. She had told her maid not to sit up; +and she was thankful to close the door of the small corridor or vestibule +which led into the suite, knowing that until Knight came she would be +alone. + +She wanted him to come, and meant to wait (it did not matter how long) +until they could have that talk she wished for yet dreaded intensely. +Meanwhile, however, it was good to have a few minutes in which to compose +her mind, to decide whether she should begin, or expect Knight to do so; +and how she could frankly let him see her state of mind without seeming +too harsh, too relentless, to the man who had given her happiness with +both hands--the only real happiness she had ever known. + +She sat for a while in the boudoir, thinking that Knight might come soon, +before she began to undress. There was a dying glow of coal and logs in +the fireplace, but staring into the rosy mass brought no inspiration. She +could not concentrate her thoughts on the scene which must presently be +enacted; they would go straggling wearily to other scenes already acted, +even as far back as that hour at the Savoy when a young man who looked to +her like the hero of a novel begged to sit at her table. + +He still seemed as much as ever like the hero of a novel in which he had +splendidly made her the heroine; but it was not a pleasant chapter she +had to read now. It reminded her too intensely of the mystery surrounding +the hero, and forced her to realize that stories of real life have not +always happy endings. + +"But ours must!" she said to herself, springing up, unable to rest. +"Nothing can break our love; and while we have that we have everything!" + +She could no longer sit still, and going into her bedroom she peeped +through the door into Knight's room beyond. It was dark, as she expected +to find it; for she had been almost sure that she would have heard him if +he had entered the vestibule. + +Returning to her own rooms, she pulled back the sea-blue curtains +which covered the large window looking on to the loggia. The sky was +silver-white with moonlight between the black stems of the tall pines, +and a flood of radiance poured into the room. It was so beautiful and +bright, bringing with it so heavenly a sense of peace, that the girl +could not bear to draw the curtains again. She began slowly to undress +by moonlight and the faint red glow in the fireplace. + +Her first act was to recover the blue diamond ring and to drop it with +shrinking fingers into the jewel-case on her dressing table. + +Taking off her dinner frock, she put on a white silk gown which turned +her into a pale spirit flitting hither and thither in the silver dusk. +Still Knight had not come. She pulled out the four great tortoise-shell +pins which held up her hair, and let it tumble over her shoulders. As she +began to twist it into one heavy plait, she walked to the window and +stood looking out. + +It seemed to her that the black trunks and outstretched branches of the +trees were like prison bars across the moonlight. She wished she had not +had that thought, but as it persisted, a figure moved behind the bars, +the figure of a man. + +At first she was startled, for it was very late, long after one o'clock; +but as the man came nearer, she recognized him, although the light was at +his back. It was Knight; and as though her thought called to him, he +stopped suddenly, pausing on the lawn not far from the loggia. She could +not see his face, but it seemed that he was staring straight up at her +window. + +"He has been walking in the moonlight, thinking things over just as I +have in here!" the girl told herself. Surely he could see her! But no, +he turned, and was striding away with his head down, when she knocked +sharply and impulsively on the pane. + +Hearing the sound, yet not knowing whence it came, he stopped again, and +so gave Annesley time to open the window. + +"Knight!" she called, softly. + +Then he came straight to her across the strip of lawn and up the two +steps that led to the loggia. She met him on the threshold and saw his +face deadly pale in the moonlight. Perhaps it was only an effect of +light, but she thought that he looked tired, even ill. Still he did not +speak. + +"Knight, you almost frightened me!" she said. "I was afraid for an +instant you might be--might be----" + +"A thief!" he finished for her. + +"Or a ghost," she amended. "Weren't you coming in?" + +"No," he said. "I hadn't thought of it. Do you want--shall I come in?" + +"Yes, please do. I--I've been waiting for you." + +"I'm sorry! I hoped you'd have gone to bed. But I might have known you +wouldn't." + +As she retreated from the window, he followed her, as if reluctantly, +into the room. + +"Shall I draw the curtains?" he asked. There was weariness in his voice, +as in his face. Annesley's heart went out to her beloved sinner with even +more tenderness than before. + +"No, let's talk in the moonlight," she answered. "Oh, Knight, I _am_ glad +you've come! I began to think you never would!" + +"Did you? That's not strange, for I was saying to myself that same +thing." + +"What same thing? I don't understand." + +"That I--well, that I never ought to come to you again." + +She sank down on a low sofa near the window, and looked up to him as he +stood tall and straight, seeming to tower over her like one of the pine +trees out there under the moon. + +"Oh, Knight!" she faltered. "It's not--so bad as that!" + +"Isn't it?" he caught her up sharply, eagerly. "Do you mean what you say? +Isn't it, to you--as bad as that?" + +"No--no," she soothed him. "You see, I love you. That's all the +difference, isn't it? You've been everything to me. You've made my +life--that used to be so gray--so bright, so sweet. Only the blackest +thing--oh, an unimaginably blackest thing!--could come between us, +or----" + +Before she could finish, he was on his knees at her feet, holding her in +his arms, crushing her against his breast, soft and yielding in her light +dressing-gown, with her flowing hair. + +"My God, Annesley, it's too good to be true!" he said, his breath hot +on her face as he kissed her cheek, her hair, her eyes. "You can +_forgive_ me? I thought you'd go away. I thought you'd refuse to let +me come near you. I was walking out there wondering how to make it easy +for you--whether I could get rid of myself without scandal." + +She had been sure that he must have repented long ago, and that it would +hurt him dreadfully to have her find out the thing he had done, but she +had not dreamed that his self-abasement would be so complete. She put +her arms around him as he held her, and pressed his head against her +neck--the dear, smooth black head which she loved better than ever in +this rush of pardoning pity. + +"Dearest!" she whispered. "Never, never think or speak of such a dreadful +way out! Of course it was horribly wrong, and of course it was a great +shock to me, but you might have known from my doing what I could to help +that I didn't hate you. I said to myself there must be some excuse--some +_big_ excuse. And now, if only you wouldn't mind telling me about it from +the beginning, I believe it would be the best way for us both. Then I +might understand." + +"You are God's own angel, Anita!" he said in a choked voice. "You don't +know how I've learned to love you, better than anything in this world or +the next--if there is a next. I knew you were a saint, but I didn't know +that saints forgave men like me.... Shall I really tell you from the +beginning? You'll listen--and bear it? It's a long story." + +Annesley did not see why the story of his buying the historic stolen +diamond and giving it to her should be so very long, even with its +explanations; but she did not say this. + +"I don't care how long it is," she told him. "But you will be tired--down +on your knees----" + +"I couldn't tell my story to you in any way except on my knees," he +answered. And the new humility of the man she had loved half fearfully +for his daring, his defiant way of facing life, almost hurt, as his +sudden passion had startled the girl. + +"I hardly know how to begin," he said. "Perhaps it had better be with my +father and mother, because it was the tragedy of their lives that shaped +mine." He was silent for a moment, as if thinking. Then he drew a long +breath, as a man does when he is ready to take a plunge into deep water. + +"My mother was a Russian. Her people were noble, but that didn't keep +them from going to Siberia. She was brought to America by a man and woman +who'd been servants in her family. She was very young, only fifteen. Her +name was Michaela. I'm named after her--Michael. The three had only money +enough to be allowed to land as immigrants, and to get out west--though +her people had been rich." He paused a moment for a sigh. + +"She and the servants--they passed as her father and mother--found work +in Chicago. My father was a lawyer there. He was an Englishman, you +know--I've told you that before--but he thought his profession was +overstocked at home, so he tried his luck on the other side. The old +Russian chap was hurt in the factory where he worked, and that's the +way my father--whose name was Robert Donaldson--got to know my mother. +There was a question of compensation, and my father conducted the case. +He won it. + +"And he won a wife, too. She was nineteen when I was born. Father was +getting on, but they were poor and had a hard time to make ends meet. +They worshipped each other and worshipped me. You can think whether I +adored them! + +"Mother was the most beautiful creature you ever saw. Everyone looked +at her. I used to notice that when I was a wee chap, walking with my +hand in hers. When I was ten and going to school my father had a bad +illness--rheumatic fever. We got hard up while he was sick; and then came +a letter for mother from Russia. Some distant relations in Moscow had had +her traced by detectives. It seemed there was quite a lot of money which +ought to come to her, and if she would go to Russia and prove who she was +she could get it. + +"If father'd been well and making enough for us all he'd never have let +her go, but he was weak and anxious about the future, so she took things +into her own hands and went, without waiting for yes or no, or anything +except to find a woman who'd look after father and me while she was gone. +Well, she never came back. Can you guess what became of her?" he asked, +huskily. + +"She died?" Annesley asked, forgetting in her interest, which grew with +the story, to wonder what the history of Knight's childhood and his +parents' troubles had to do with the Malindore diamond. + +"She died before my father could find her; but not for a long time. +God--what a time of agony for her! Things happened I can't tell you +about. We heard nothing, after a letter from the ship and a cable from +Moscow with two words--'Well. Love.' + +"For a while father waited and tried not to be too anxious; but after a +time he telegraphed, and then again and again. No answer. He went nearly +mad. Before he was well enough to travel he borrowed money and started +for Russia to look for her. I stayed in Chicago--and kept on going to +school. The friends who took care of me made me do that ... or thought +so. + +"But when I could, I played truant. I was in a restless state. I remember +how I felt as if it were yesterday. Nothing seemed real, except my father +and mother. I thought about them all the time. I couldn't sleep, and I +couldn't study. I couldn't bear to sit at a desk. I picked up some queer +pals in those months--or they picked me up. I suppose that was the +beginning of the end. + +"I think while he was away, finding out terrible, unspeakable things, my +father forgot about me--or else he didn't realize I was big enough to +mind. He never wrote. When he came back, after eleven months, he was an +old man, with gray hair. I'll never forget the night he came, and how he +told me about mother. It was a moonlight night, like this--with no light +in the room. It was the last night of my childhood." + +As the man talked, he had lifted his head from the soft pillow of the +girl's white neck, and was looking into her eyes, his face close to hers. +Annesley was not thinking about the diamond. + +"For a long time," Knight went on, slowly, "father could not trace my +mother. He expected to find the relations who had sent her word about the +legacy, but they were gone--nobody could tell where. Nobody wanted to +speak of them. They seemed afraid. Father went to the British and +American Embassies; no use! But at last he got to know, in subterranean +ways, that mother hadn't realized how dangerous it is to speak your mind +in Russia. She'd left there before she was sixteen! + +"She had said things about her father and mother, and what she thought +of the ruling powers, and that same night--she'd been in Moscow two +days--she and her relatives disappeared. It leaked out through a +member of the secret police that she could have been saved by her +beauty--someone high up offered to get her free. But she preferred +another fate. + +"She was sent to Siberia where her father and mother had gone, and had +died years before. My father met a man who had seen her on the way as he +was coming back. She was only just alive. The man was sure she couldn't +have lived more than a few weeks. + +"Yet father wouldn't give up. He went after her.... But what's the use of +going on? He found the place where she had died.... Which ends that part +of the story, as a story. + +"Only it didn't end it for us. It filled our hearts with bitterness. We +wanted revenge. Yet my father was too good a man to take it when his +chance came. His conscience held him back. But he talked--talked like an +anarchist, a man out to fight and smash all the hypocritical institutions +of society. If it hadn't been for me he'd have killed himself in Siberia +where his wife had died a martyr; and it would have been well for him if +he had! + +"Because of the wild way he talked when suspicion of fraud was thrown on +him by a partner the fool public believed in his guilt. He died in prison +when I was fifteen, and I swore to punish the beast of a world that had +killed all I loved. I swore I'd make that my life's work, and I have. +But--God!--I've punished myself, too, at last. I'm punished through you, +because I've fallen in love with you, Anita, and for your sake I'd give +the years that may be in front of me--all time but one day to be glad in, +if I could blot out the past!" + +"Maybe," the girl faltered, "maybe you're too hard on yourself. I can't +believe that you, who have been so good to me, could have been very bad +to others." + +"If I could hope you wouldn't be too hard on me, that's all I care for +now!" he cried, passionately. "You remember my saying that night in the +taxi that the worst I'd ever done was to try and pay back a great wrong, +and take revenge on society? If I could hope you meant what you said +about understanding I'd tell you the story of that revenge." + +"I _did_ mean it, Knight. My love will help me to understand." + +"You make me believe in a God, for surely only God could have sent such +an angel as you into my life.... In a way, I haven't deceived you about +myself, for I warned you I was a bad man. But when I think of the night +we met and the trick I played on you, it makes me sick! I thought you'd +loathe me if you ever found out. But I didn't intend to let you find out. +It was to be a dead secret forever, like the rest. Yet if I tell you what +my life has been you'll have to know that part, too. If I kept it back +you might think it worse than it was." + +"A trick?" echoed Annesley. + +"Yes. A trick to interest you--to make you like and want to help me. +Besides, it was to be a test of your courage and presence of mind. If you +hadn't those qualities you'd have been a failure from my point of view. +You see, I hadn't had time to fall in love with you then. And I wanted +you for a 'help-mate' in the literal sense of the word. It seems a pretty +sordid sense, looking back from where we've got to now. But that was my +scheme. A mean, cowardly scheme! And it's thanks to you and your blessed +dearness I see it in its true light.... Do you begin to understand, +Anita--knowing something of what my life has been, or must I explain?" + +"I--I'm afraid you must explain," she answered in a small voice, like a +child's. She felt suddenly weak and sick, as if she might collapse in the +man's arms. It was as if some terrible weapon wrapped round and half +hidden in folds of velvet were lifted above her head to strike her down. + +She shrank from the blow, yet asked for it. Already she guessed dimly +that Knight's confession was to be very different from and far more +terrible than anything she had expected. + +"I was the man whose advertisement you answered--the man who wrote you +the stiff letter in the handwriting you didn't like, signed N. Smith." + +"Oh!" The word broke from her in a moan. + +"Darling! Have I lost you if I go on?" + +"You must go on!" she cried out, sharply. "For both our sakes you must go +on!" + +"I know how it looks to you. And it was vile. But I couldn't be sure when +I advertised what an angel would answer to my call, and what a brute I +should be to deceive her. I thought the sort of girl who'd reply to an +'ad' for a wife would be fair game; that I should be giving her an +equivalent for what she'd give me. + +"For my business that I had to carry out in England I needed a wife of +another sort from any woman I knew, or could get to know, in an ordinary +way; she had to be of good birth and education, nice-looking and +pleasant-mannered--if possible with highly placed friends or relatives. +Money didn't matter. I had enough--or would have. I got a lot of answers, +but the only one that seemed good was yours. I felt nearly certain you +were the woman I wanted, so I rigged up a plan. You know how it worked +out." + +"Maybe I'm stupid," Annesley said, dry-lipped. "I don't understand yet." + +"Why, I thought the thing over, and it seemed to me that married life--if +it came to that--would be easier for both if the man could make some sort +of appeal to the love of romance in a girl. Well, she wouldn't think the +man who had to get the right sort of wife by advertising much of a figure +of romance. So the idea came to me of--of starting two personalities. I +wrote you a stiff, precise sort of letter in a disguised business hand, +making an appointment at the Savoy. When that was done, the writer went +out of your life. + +"He just ceased to exist, except that he sat behind a big screen of +newspaper and watched for a girl in gray-and-purple, wearing a white +rose, to pass through the foyer. That was his way of finding out if she'd +suit. Jove, how beastly it does sound, put into words, and confessed to +_you_! But you said I must go on." + +"Yes--go on," Annesley breathed. + +"You were about one hundred times better than my highest hopes. And +seeing what you were, I was glad I'd thought out that plan. Even then, it +was borne in on me that it wouldn't be long before I found myself falling +in love, if I had the luck to secure you. And from that minute the +business turned into an exciting play for me, just as I meant to make it +for you. I let you wait for a while, but if you'd showed any signs of +vanishing I'd have stepped up. I'd got a trick ready for that emergency. + +"But I hoped you'd follow instructions and go to the restaurant. Once +there, I was sure the head-waiter'd persuade you to sit down at a table; +and the rest went exactly as I planned. The two men we called the +'watchers' used to be vaudeville actors--did a turn together, and their +specialty was lightning changes. Their make-ups, even at short notice, +could fool Sherlock Holmes. Even though you despise me for it, Anita, you +must admit it was a smart way to make you take an interest, and prove +your character. + +"Lord, but you stood the test! I wouldn't have given you up at any price +then, even if I hadn't begun falling in love. I saw how good you were; +and in that taxi going to Torrington Square I felt mean as dirt for +tricking you. But of course I had to go on as I'd begun. + +"At first I thought it was luck, tumbling into the same house with +Ruthven Smith; but now I see it was the devil's luck. If it hadn't been +for Ruthven Smith I might have gone on living the part I played. You need +never have known the truth. And I swear to you, Annesley, I'd made up my +mind, after finishing off my work with the men who are with me, that I'd +run straight for the rest of my days. The business was making me sick, +for being close to your goodness threw a light into dark places. + +"By heaven, Anita, it does seem hard, just as I was near to being the man +you thought me, that that dried-up curmudgeon Ruthven Smith should call +my hand and make me show you the man I was! But I can't help seeing +there's a kind of--what they call poetical justice in it, the blow coming +from him. I've always been like that: seeing both sides of a thing even +when I wanted to see only one. But if _you_ can see both sides, you will +make the good grow, as the bright side of the moon grows, and turns the +dark side to gold. + +"Can you do that, do you think, Anita? Can you see any excuse for me in +going against the world to pay it out for going against me and mine? If +you've been piecing bits of evidence together since Ruthven Smith spoke, +you'll have remembered that only heirlooms and things insured by, or +belonging to, public companies, have been taken; no poor people have been +robbed; and except in the case of Mrs. Ellsworth, where I wanted to see +her paid out for her treatment of you----" + +"'Robbed'!" Catching the word, Annesley heard none of those that +followed. "_Robbed!_ Oh, it's not possible you mean----" + +Her voice broke. With both hands against his breast she pushed him off, +and struggled to rise, to tear herself loose from him. But he would not +let her go. + +"What's the matter? How have I hurt you worse than you were hurt already +by finding out?" he appealed to her, his arms like a band of steel round +her shuddering body. "When you heard the truth about the diamond, it was +the same as if you'd heard everything, wasn't it? You guessed Ruthven +Smith suspected--someone must have told him--Madalena perhaps. You +guessed he had some trick to play, and in the quietest, cleverest way you +checkmated him, without hint or help from any one. You saved me from +ruin, and not only me, but others. And on top of all that, when I hoped +for nothing more from you, you promised me forgiveness. That's what I +understood. Was I mistaken?" + +"_I_ was mistaken," she answered, almost coldly; then broke down with one +agonized sob. "I thought--oh, what good is it now to tell you what I +thought?" + +"You must tell me!" + +"I thought you had bought the blue diamond, knowing it had been stolen, +but wanting it so much you didn't care how you got it. I didn't dream +that you were a----" + +"That I was--what?" + +"A thief--and a cheat!" + +"My God! And now you know I'm both, you hate me, Anita? You must, or you +wouldn't throw those words at me like stones." + +"Let me go," she panted, pushing him from her again with trembling, +ice-cold hands. + +He obeyed instantly. The band of steel that had held her fell apart. She +stumbled up from the low sofa, and trying to pass him as he knelt, she +would have fallen if he had not sprung to his feet and caught her. + +But recovering herself she turned away quickly and almost ran to a chair +in front of the dressing table not far off. There she flung herself down +and buried her face on her bare arms. + +Knight followed, to stand staring in stunned silence at the bowed +head and shaking shoulders. He could hear the ticking of a small, +nervous-sounding clock on the mantelpiece. It was like the beating +of a heart that must soon break. At last, when the ticking had gone +on unbearably long, he spoke. + +"Anita, you called me a cheat," he said. "I suppose you mean that I +cheated you by playing the hero that night at the Savoy, and stealing +your sympathy and help under false pretenses; that I've been steadily +cheating you and your friends every day since. That's true, in a way--or +it was at first. But lately it's not been the same sort of cheating. It +began to be the real thing with me. I mean I felt it in me to be the +real thing. As for the other name you gave me--thief--I'm not exactly +that--not a thief who steals with his own hands, though I dare say I'm +as bad. + +"If I haven't stolen, I've shown others the most artistic way to steal. +I've shown men and women how to make stealing a fine art, and I've been +in with them in the game. Indeed, it was my game. Madalena de Santiago, +and the two men you knew first as the 'watchers,' then as Torrance and +Morello, now as Charrington and Char, have been no more than the pawns I +used, or rather they've been my cat's paws. There's only one other man at +the head of the show besides me, and that is one whose name I can't give +away even to you. + +"But he's a great man, a kind of financial Napoleon--a great artist, too. +He doesn't call himself a thief. He's honoured by society in Europe and +America; yet what I've done in comparison to what he's done is like a +brook to the size of the ocean. He has a picture gallery and a private +museum which are famous; but there's another gallery of pictures and +another museum which nobody except himself has ever seen. His real life, +his real joy, are in them. Most of the masterpieces and treasures of this +world which have disappeared are safe in that hidden place, which I've +helped to fill. + +"That man has no regrets. He revels in what he calls his 'secret +orchard.' He thinks I ought to be proud of what I've done for him; and so +I was once. I came here and brought the other people over to England to +work for him. + +"Not that that fact will whitewash me in your eyes; not that I wasn't +working for myself, too, and not that I'm trying to make more excuses by +explaining this. But I'd like you to understand, at least for the sake of +your own pride, that you haven't been cheated into loving and living with +a common thief. Does that make it hurt less?" + +"No," she said in a strange tone which made her voice sound like that of +an old woman. "That doesn't make it hurt less. It makes no difference. +I think nothing can ever make any difference. My life is--over." + +"Don't, for God's sake, say that! Don't force me to feel a murderer!" he +cried out, sharply. + +"There's nothing else to say. I wish I could die to-night." + +"If one of us is to die," he said, "let it be me. If you hadn't happened +to see me and call me in when I was under the trees bidding good-bye to +your window, by this time I might have found a way out of the difficulty +without any scandal or trouble to you whatever. No one would have known +that it wasn't an accident----" + +"I should have known." + +"But if you had, it would have been a relief----" + +"No. Because I--I hadn't heard the truth. I didn't understand at all. I +thought you had done _one_ unscrupulous thing. I didn't dream your whole +life was--what it is. I loved you as much as ever. It would have broken +my heart if you----" + +"But now that you don't love me, it wouldn't break your heart." + +"I don't seem to have any heart," Annesley sighed. "It feels as if it +had crumbled to dust. But it would break my life if you ended yours. If +anything could be worse than what is, it would be that." + +"Very well, you can rid yourself of me in another way," the man answered. +"You can denounce me--give me up to 'justice.' If you hand over the +Malindore diamond to Ruthven Smith and tell him how you got it----" + +"You must know I wouldn't do that!" + +"Why not?" + +"Because I--couldn't." + +"It needn't spoil your life. No one could blame you. I would tell the +story of how I deceived you. You could free yourself--get a divorce----" + +"Don't!" the girl cut him short. "I'm not thinking of myself. I'm +thinking of you. I can't love you again, and I wouldn't if I could, now +that I--know. You're a different man. The one I loved doesn't exist and +never did; yet you've told me your secret, and I'm bound to keep it. I +don't need to stop and reflect about that. But as for what's to become +of me, and how we're to manage not to let people guess that everything's +changed, I don't know! I must think. I must think all to-night, until +to-morrow. Perhaps by that time I can decide. Now--I beg of you to go +and leave me--this moment. I can't bear any more and live." + +He stood looking at her, but she turned her head away with a petulant +gesture of repulsion; and lest her eyes might feel the call of his she +covered them with her hands. Her hopelessness, her loathing of him +enclosed her like a wall of ice. + +"So! The dream's over!" he said. "'This woman to this man'! What a +farce--what a tragedy!" + +When she looked up again he had gone and the door between their rooms was +shut. + +The moon no longer lit the high window. With Knight's going darkness +fell. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE PLAN + + +Annesley sat as Knight had left her for a long time--minutes, perhaps, or +hours. But at last she was very tired and very cold, so tired that she +threw herself weakly on the bed, in her dressing-gown, because she +couldn't sit up. All through the rest of the dark hours she lay +shivering, and did not even trouble to roll herself in the warm down +coverlet spread lightly over the bed. + +It seemed right, somehow, that she should be cold and miserable +physically. She did not care or wish to be comfortable. + +Over and over again she asked herself: "What shall I do? What is to +become of me--of both of us?" She tried to pray, but her heart was too +hard toward the man who had trampled on her life and love for his own +cruel purposes. It seemed to her that God would not hear a prayer sent +up in such a mood; yet she did not want to soften her heart toward the +sinner. + +Because it had been so full of forgiveness before he poisoned the chalice +with the bitter stream of confession, it was the more impossible to +forgive now. It even seemed to Annesley that it would be monstrous to +forgive, in the ordinary, human sense of the word, a man who was a living +lie. + +If there were room for thanksgiving in her wretchedness, it lay in the +fact that her love had died a swift and sudden death. Had she gone on +loving in spite of all, such love, she thought, must have brought death +into her soul. + +She did not know how to name her husband now. Even in thinking of him she +would not call him "Knight." + +What a mockery the name had been! How he must have laughed to know that +she was fool enough to believe him a knight of chivalry, who had come +like St. George to rescue her from the dragon! + +She knew at last that the name he had not wished her to see in the parish +register was Michael Donaldson. That meant, she supposed, that her name +was Donaldson, too; a name he had dragged through the mire. + +He pretended to love her. But such a man could not speak the truth. +He had tried to excuse himself in every way. To talk of love and its +purifying influence was only one of these ways. He would not even have +confessed if he had not fallen into the mistake of thinking she +understood that he was a thief, or head of a gang of thieves. + +He seemed almost to boast of what he was.... Oh, how horrible life had +become, and how she wished that it were over! She wondered if it would +be wicked to pray that her heart might stop beating to-night. + +Yet morning came and her heart beat on. She did not even feel very ill, +only weak, with a wiry throbbing of each separate nerve in her head. She +had meant to use the quiet hours to decide what must be done next, but +always, when she had tried to pin her mind to the question, it had +escaped like a fluttering moth, and turned to self-pity, or to calling +up pictures of the past which brought tears to her eyes. + +Now the time was upon her when realities must be faced. Before seven +o'clock it was light, but neither she nor Knight were accustomed to early +tea, and there was more than an hour to spare before they would be called +by Parker. + +The girl sat up shivering, though the room, heated by steam, had not +grown bitterly cold when the grate fire died. She looked, heavy-eyed, +toward her husband's closed door. They must talk things over, and make +some plan. + +She hated the very word "plan" since his story of the trick he had played +at the Savoy. She hated the necessity to talk with him; but it _was_ a +necessity. They ought to arrange something for the future--the blank and +hateful future--before Parker came, and daily life began. There would be +many things to settle, questions to ask and answer; a sort of hideous +campaign would have to be mapped out in details not one of which defined +itself clearly in her tired brain. + +"It's no use," she said to herself. "I can't think, after all, until I +see him again. Perhaps he will make some suggestions, and I can accept or +refuse. But I _can't_ go to his door and call him." + +As she hesitated, Knight--who was a knight no longer in her eyes--opened +the door, very softly, not to disturb her if she slept. In the morning +light which paled the uncurtained window their eyes met. + +Annesley slipped off the bed and stood up, cloaking her bare white neck +with her hair. Suddenly she felt that he was a strange man who had no +right to be in her room. He was not the husband she had loved with a +beautiful and sacred love. + +"I won't come if you'd rather I didn't," he said. "I only looked in to +see if you were awake. I thought if you were, and if you could stand it, +it would be best to--talk about what's to be done." He spoke quietly, +standing at the door. He was dressed for the day, as if nothing had +happened; and Annesley felt dimly resentful because he looked bathed and +well-groomed, his black hair smooth and carefully brushed; altogether his +usual self, except that he was pale and grave. + +"You had better come in, I suppose," the girl replied, grudgingly. "I was +thinking, too, that we must talk. Let us--get it over." + +"You haven't been to bed, I see," he said, his eyes lingering on her +sadly. It flashed through Annesley's mind that it was as if he were +looking for the last time at the sweetness and happiness of life. But +her heart did not soften. It was his fault that there was no longer any +happiness or sweetness left in their lives. + +"No, I haven't been to bed," she returned. "But it doesn't matter. I am +not ill. Please let us not waste time in discussing me. There are other +things." + +"Yes, there are other things," he agreed. "But we'll not begin to talk of +them until you have got into bed and covered yourself up. You're as white +as marble." + +"I don't want----" she began; but he cut her short. + +"What will Parker think if she finds your bed hasn't been slept in?" + +"Oh, very well!" Annesley assented, impatiently. "I must get used to +tricks!" + +"Perhaps not," said Knight. "I've been thinking of ways and means. Have +you? Because if there's anything you feel you would like to do, you've +only to tell me." + +"I haven't been able to think," she confessed. + +"Well, then, I'll tell you what I've thought." + +Annesley had now crept into bed; and before she could protest Knight had +carefully covered her with the down quilt. Having done this, he drew a +chair near, yet not too near, and sat down. It was as if he recognized +her right to keep him at a distance. + +"You said last night," he began, "that you didn't mean to denounce me. If +you've changed your mind, I shan't blame you; I deserve it. All I ask is +that you grant me time to warn certain persons who would go down if I +went down, and give them time to make a bolt. Madalena de Santiago is +one. I'm pretty sure that out of spite she put Ruthven Smith on to +looking for the diamond, but I don't want to punish her. Evidently +she--or whoever it was--didn't have much information to give, or the man +wouldn't have backed down and apologized. I should like to find out +exactly what he had to go upon. But if you've changed your mind, it's not +worth while to bother about that----" + +"I have not changed my mind," Annesley said. + +"You are very good, a very noble woman. If I were the only one to suffer +by being denounced, I don't think I'd care much, as things have turned +out. But there are others. And above all, there's you. You could patch up +your life, but you'd have to suffer more or less if I were dragged over +the coals. And so, taking everything together, I'm thankful to accept +your generosity. + +"We'll call that settled. I don't think Ruthven Smith has any suspicion. +We'll see about that later. Meanwhile, he doesn't count. And Madalena at +her worst I can manage. There's nothing to be feared. But the question +is, how are we two to go on?" + +"You must--whatever else we decide--you must give up----" the girl +stammered from her pillows, and could not bring herself to finish. + +"That goes without saying, doesn't it? In any case, there was only to be +one more _coup_. I'd warned everybody concerned of my decision as to +that." + +"_One more?_ How terrible! Not--_here_?" + +"Yes, if you must have that, too; it was to be here. It was to be a big +thing. But there's time to stop it." + +Annesley buried her head with a stifled moan. + +"It wouldn't have hurt any of the people. Only family heirlooms +again--everything insured. And as for the insurance companies, if +you worry over them, it's part of the game. They're wallowing in +money ... But I'll call the thing off. And that's the end for me. I'm +not rich--not the millionaire I pose for; still, I've earned something. +My 'Napoleon' has paid me well, and I've had a share now and then of +some good things. There's enough to make you comfortable----" + +"Do you think I'd take a penny of such money?" the girl cried, sick with +indignation. + +"I've worked for it," Knight said, with a kind of unhappy defiance, "and +it was come by as honestly as a lot of fortunes made on the stock market. +You must have money----" + +"I can earn some, as I did before." + +"No, _never_ as you did before! Besides, I thought you'd decided on +having no open break between us, no scandal. Or wasn't that what you +meant?" + +"It was. But--I don't see yet how it can be managed. Do you?" + +"The way I had in my mind was, since I've lost your love--oh, I'm not +complaining!--the way I had in my mind was to leave you over here with +plenty of money, and be suddenly called to America on business. Then, if +it would hurt your feelings to have me put myself out of the way, it +needn't hurt them for something to _seem_ to happen. Nelson Smith could +be wiped off the map; and if you weren't free to marry somebody else, at +least you'd be free of me. + +"But if you won't take my money that plan will not work. You can hate me +as much as you like, but I'm not going to leave you alone in the world +without a penny. Neither you nor any one can force me to that.... I've +thought of another thing, though, since we began to talk. Only I don't +like to propose it, Anita. It isn't a good plan--from your point of +view." + +"I'd better hear it." + +"Well, I might get a cable hurrying me across to the other side, and--you +might go along." + +"Oh!" + +"I warned you you wouldn't think it a good plan. But since I've begun, +let me finish. In Canada and the United States I'm known--in my least +important character--as Michael Donaldson, and I've tried to keep the +name clean because of my father and mother. When there's been anything +shady doing I've taken a fancy name and made such changes as I could in +myself. The reason I didn't want you to see the name in the register was +because of what happened on the _Monarchic_. I'd given you that ring, you +know. I couldn't resist doing that. I wanted you to have it, not because +of its value, but because it's beautiful. I thought it was like you, +somehow. I had to make up its loss in another way to the man who expected +to have it--that 'Napoleon' I mentioned." + +"I know, the old man--Paul Van Vreck," Annesley guessed with weary +impatience. + +"I'll not say yes or no to that. But it will be bad for me, and perhaps +for you, too, if you ever mention Paul Van Vreck in such a connection. +Not that you'd be believed." + +"I sha'n't mention him again." + +"Just as well not.... But it was my name and my plan I began to speak +about. I was going to say, you needn't be afraid that if you took my +name (which is yours now), you'd have to be ashamed of it. We could +go to America, and in England Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith would soon be +forgotten. I'd hand over the money you hate to charities--not the kind +of charities I've been supporting here! They've all been part of what +you call my fraud, and have only given me a chance to bring some rather +queer-looking fish around me, who might have raised curiosity if I +couldn't have accounted for them. But real charities. + +"And if you'd stick by me--I don't mean love me; I know you can't do +that; but live in the same house and not chuck me altogether, I'd turn +over a new leaf. I'd begin again from the beginning. + +"In Texas I've got some land--a ranch. It isn't worth much, I'm afraid, +but I came by it honestly, for me. I won it at poker from a man named +Jack Haslett. He was a devil for cards, but it didn't matter. He was +rich; and he had a better ranch that he lived on. He's dead now--was near +dead then, of consumption. He liked me. Said he was glad I'd won the +ranch. It was only a bother to him. + +"I was with Jack when he died, and did what I could to ease him at the +end. He was grateful, and what money his bad luck at cards had left him +he willed to me. It was only eight thousand dollars. + +"If it had come to me any other way, I dare say I'd have chucked it away +in a month. It wouldn't have seemed worth saving. But I was sort of +sentimental about poor old Haslett and his feeling for me. I didn't care +to lump his money in with what I got in my line of life. I made a +separate fund of it. + +"Some had to go toward improvements on the place before I could let the +ranch to any one, but there's about six thousand dollars left, I guess. +The fellow I let to wrote me a few weeks ago that he was tired of +ranching and wanted to clear out. He hoped I could find someone to buy +his cattle and the furniture he's put in the house. The letter was +forwarded by a man I keep in touch with my business and whereabouts, so +he can look after my interests. I've had no time to answer yet. + +"I was going to write that I didn't know any one who cared to settle in +Texas; but now what if I wrote that I'd take the place and everything on +it off the fellow's hands myself?" + +"I don't know what Texas is like," Annesley replied, coldly. "But +anything would be better than the life you're leading now." + +"I wasn't intending to go alone," Knight reminded her. "I said, if you'd +stick by me, not throw me over altogether, I'd try and begin again. In +that case, Texas would do as well as anywhere; and the place and the +money are clean." + +"How could I go with you, and live under the same roof, with everything +so changed?" the girl exclaimed. "It would kill me!" + +"As bad as that?... Well, then, I must rack my brains for something else. +But I'm sorry this won't do. Would you care to live with Archdeacon +Smith and his wife?" + +"No. No! And they wouldn't want me." + +"That seems queer to me: that any one should have the chance of keeping +you with them, and not want you ... How would it be for you to go on the +same ship with me, and find a little home somewhere on an allowance I +could make you out of that fund? You see, you are my wife in the eyes of +the law, so I'm bound to support you. And you're bound to let me do it, +if I can do it honestly." + +Annesley flung up her arms in a gesture of abandonment. "Let it go at +that," she sighed, "until I can think of something better." + +"Very well. We won't argue that part yet. The thing to make sure of at +the moment is this: Do I get a cable, say on the day everyone's leaving +Valley House, calling me back to America on urgent business, and do I +take you with me?" + +Annesley's thoughts raced through her head and would not stop. Knight did +not speak. He was waiting with outward patience for her decision. + +It seemed that she would never know what to say. She was about to tell +him in despair that she must have the rest of the day to make up her +mind, but before she could speak Parker knocked at the door. + +"I'll go with you," the girl said, hastily. "On the ship. But after +that----" + +Parker knocked again. + +"Come in!" called Annesley. + +"Thank you," Knight said, getting up from his chair near her bed. + +"_Don't_ thank me. I----" + +But Parker had opened the door. All that was conventional and agreeably +commonplace in the lives of happy, well-to-do people seemed to enter the +room with her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE DEVIL'S ROSARY + + +Ruthven Smith summoned courage to ask for a few words alone with Knight +that Easter morning, in order to explain as well as apologize for the +"seeming liberty he had taken." By dint of stammering, and punctuating +his sentences with short, dry coughs, he made "a clean breast," as he +called it, of the "whole business." + +He had come to Valley House, he confessed, because of an anonymous +letter, written apparently by a person of education, to inform him that +the Malindore diamond had come into the possession of the Nelson Smiths. +Whether they were aware of its identity, the writer was not sure; but in +any case their ownership of the jewel was kept secret. + +Having got so far in his story, Ruthven Smith decided that the easiest +way of finishing it would be to produce the letter. He did so (a +typewritten sheet of plain creamy paper, in an envelope post-marked +"West Hampstead"), and simplified things for himself by pointing to the +last sentence. + + Mrs. Nelson Smith always wears a thin gold chain round her neck, which + she lets drop to her shoulders for evening dress. What precious thing + which has to be hidden hangs on that chain? Mr. Ruthven Smith is + advised to find out. + +"I see now," the unfortunate man excused himself, "that someone has been +taking advantage of my anxiety about the losses of my firm to play a +cruel practical joke on me. I can't help thinking, at the same time, +that the person must have had a grudge against you and your wife also." + +"Or else a desire to make mischief between you and us," was Knight's calm +suggestion. + +Ruthven Smith caught it up, eagerly. "Ah, that possibility hadn't +occurred to me." + +"I suppose we all have enemies." Knight pursued the subject without +excitement. "The writer probably wished to put the idea in your head that +I had deliberately bought an historic diamond which I knew to be stolen." + +"But that would have been ridiculous!" exclaimed the jewel expert, and +felt sincere in making his protest. + +Nevertheless, he had glanced at Annesley's face while talking of the +Malindore diamond to Lady Cartwright. It had been on the edge of his mind +that, if she looked self-conscious, it would be a point against her and +her husband. Also he had determined to make his daring attempt at +discovery before she had time to get rid of the diamond if she were +hiding it. Now, however, in the light of her shining innocence, he had +almost forgotten that he had suspected an underhand design on her part. + +He asked Nelson Smith if he could think of any one, man or woman, among +his acquaintances capable of writing the anonymous letter. Nelson Smith +replied that his brain was a blank, and that he hardly thought it worth +while to follow the matter up, unless Ruthven Smith wished to do so. In +that case they might put the affair in the hands of the police. + +But the elder man was of the younger's opinion. He had made a fool of +himself, and was ashamed that he had attached importance to an unsigned +communication. All he desired was to let the unpleasant business drop. + +This being settled, Knight, in whose hand was the typewritten letter, +tossed the thing into the fireplace of the library, where the two had +been talking. When he and Ruthven Smith had shaken hands and agreed to +forget the whole incident the latter was glad to escape from the +interview. He went to his room and lay down, to soothe his nerves and +think of an excuse to return to London early on Monday morning. + +As soon as his meagre back was turned Knight stooped and retrieved the +letter in its envelope, unscorched, from the fireplace. There was nothing +about it--not even a tell-tale perfume--to give any clue to the writer. + +Nevertheless, Knight considered it of value. He intended to use it as a +bluff to frighten the Countess de Santiago, for only through her own fear +could he prove her treachery. + +Most of the guests at Valley House went to church, to give thanks for +the fairy-like Easter eggs they had received. Annesley had a headache, +however, and no one was surprised that her husband should choose to stop +at home to look after her. + +His adoring devotion for the girl was no secret. People laughed at it, +but admired it, too, and some women envied Annesley. They imagined him +spending the morning with his wife, but as a matter of fact he did not +go near her. He feared to speak lest she might change her decision and +refuse to travel to America with him. + +His one hope--a desperate hope--lay in her going. He decided not to see +her alone again until Monday evening, after the arrival of the cable from +America. + +In order to insure the coming of this message, and to make it realistic, +he motored into Torquay and sent a long telegram, partly in cipher. +Returning, he had a conversation with Charrington, the butler, and Char, +the chauffeur, a conversation which left the brothers grave and subdued. +Later Char went off in the car again, though it poured with rain, and was +gone until late at night. + +Between twelve and one o'clock Knight, strolling toward the garage, heard +the automobile return, and stopped in the blaze of the acetylene for the +motor to slow down. + +"Is it all right?" he inquired. + +"It's all right," Char answered, somewhat sullenly, yet with a certain +reluctant respect. "Nothing will happen here Monday night." + +"Good!" his master answered, and smiled at the thought of Madalena's +malicious prophecy which would not be fulfilled. It was not a pleasant +smile, yet, as he had said to Annesley, he planned no revenge against +the tigress--the woman whose claws had ripped his heart open. + +Tigress or no, she was a woman, and he knew that, as far as she was +capable of caring, she had cared for him. + +Perhaps it had been partly his fault. She was handsome, and had been +years younger when he had met her first. She was married then to an old +man, jealous and suspicious, knowing that his money had won the beautiful +wild creature for him. It was at Buenos Aires, and the husband had found +Madalena out in an intrigue; partly political, partly mercenary, and +partly passionate. He had turned her from his house without a penny, and +Knight--not personally concerned in the intrigue, but interested--had +been flush enough at the time to lend her a thousand dollars, enough to +go away with. It had been called a loan, but he had not expected to get +the money back, and never did get it. + +In California she had set herself up as a palmist and had become +successful, a success she duplicated in New York; and she had gladly made +herself useful in many ways to "Don" and those with whom he "worked." + +One way was to find out the number and worth of her rich clients' jewels, +and where they were kept. Through her crystal gazing she was able to +conjure women's secrets without their realizing that they, not she, gave +them to the light. And aboard the _Monarchic_ was not by any means the +first time that Madalena had been invaluable in diverting suspicion +by throwing it upon the wrong track. + +Knight had consulted her, praised her, and flattered her from time to +time. Now he told himself that he was paying for his thoughtlessness. +He had taken Madalena for granted, regarding her as a machine rather +than a woman; and though he owed to her the loss of his happiness, that +happiness had been undeserved and, as he expressed it to himself, walking +the wet paths at midnight, he had "stood to lose it anyhow." + +He would frighten Madalena so that she would never dare to try her tricks +again, and he would let her understand that because of what she had done +their partnership had come to an end once and forever. Otherwise she +should feel herself safe from him. + +Bad he might be, and was, as he knew; but he didn't think it was in his +make-up, somehow, to strike a woman. + +He did not go back to the house, after his short talk with Char, until +after he had heard the stable clock strike four. It was easier to think +and see things clearly out of doors than in his room adjoining +Annesley's--that closed room, forbidden to him now, where she was perhaps +crying, and surely hating him. As for the long nightmare day he had lived +through, it had been too full for much deliberate thinking; and he wanted +to plan for the future: how to begin again, and how to keep the woman who +had come to mean more for him than anything else had ever meant--more, he +knew, than anything else could mean. + +He was not sure whether the love in his heart was a punishment or a +blessing, but there it was. It had come to stay. + +"This woman to this man!" + +He found himself repeating the words he remembered best in the marriage +service, not bitterly as he had repeated them to Annesley, but +yearningly, clingingly, groping after some promise of hope in them. + +"She gave herself to me. I'm the same man she loved, after all, though +she says I'm not," he told himself. "God! What's the good of being a man +at all, if I can't get her back?" + +As he wandered through one winter-saddened garden after another--the +Italian garden, the Dutch garden, the rose garden--he searched his soul, +asking it how much more he should have to tell the girl about his past. +In a kind of desperate resignation he persuaded himself that there was +nothing he would not be willing to tell her now, if it were for her good, +and if she wished to hear. + +But something within him said that she would wish to hear no more. She +would deign to put no questions to him, even if she felt curiosity. She +would doubtless refuse to listen if he volunteered a further confession. +He was instinctively sure of his ground there; and in his bitterness of +spirit there was a faint gleam of comfort; certain details of his +degradation (she would think it that) might be kept decently hidden. + +For instance, he would not have to tell her how, as a boy in Chicago, he +had learned to make strange use of those clever, nervous hands of his, +which she had lovingly praised as "sensitive and artistic." He could +almost see the girl shudder and grow pale at hearing how proud he had +been at sixteen of being admitted to friendship with a "swell mobsman" +fascinating as any "Raffles" of fiction; how it had amused the fellow to +teach him a deft and delicate touch, beginning his lessons with the game +of jack-straws, in which he was given prizes if he could separate the +whole stack, one straw from another, without disturbing the balance of +the pile. + +It would gain him no credit in Annesley's eyes if he should assure her +that, though he knew how to pick pockets--none better--he had somehow +never cared to put his skill in practice, but had always preferred, +leaving that part of the industry to others. No excuse could help him +with her, and he was glad she need not know all the ways in which he had +served the eccentric friend and employer with whose interests he had been +associated more or less since his twenty-fifth year. + +How disgusting would seem to Anita the inside history of the _Monarchic_ +episode, upon which he had rather prided himself until love for her had +begun making subtle changes in his view of life. He and old Paul Van +Vreck had laughed together at the patent lock on which the agent +depended--a lock invented by the retired member of the firm himself, +and followed by a second invention, even more clever: a little instrument +designed to open a door in spite of it. + +There had been the drug, too, which leaving no odour behind, had the same +effect as chloroform, and "took" even more quickly. Paul Van Vreck had +read of certain experiments made by a professor of chemistry in Tours, +had gone to France to see the man, had bought the formula, which had not +yet proved itself entirely successful; had added an ingredient on his own +account, and triumphed. + +These parts of the complicated and well-fitting scheme had seemed +deliciously amusing to Knight in those days; that Van Vreck should use +his secret skill against his own brothers and nephews in the business +he had made; that the great expert should add to his fortune by stealing +from his own firm, or rather, from the great insurance company who would +repay their losses; that in such ways, with such money, he could add +treasures to his famous collection, practically at no expense to himself, +and have besides the exquisite pleasure of laughing in his sleeve at the +world. + +It had all added zest to the work. And Knight had been pleased with some +small inventions of his own, praised by Van Vreck: a smart hiding-place +in the heel of a boot, almost impossible to detect, and another equally +convenient and invisible in the jet standard of Madalena de Santiago's +famous crystal. He had enjoyed the excitement when he and Madalena and +their two assistants, among the other passengers on board ship, had +consented to be searched for the missing jewels. And he had laughed +sneeringly at the credulity of those who believed in Madalena's +trumped-up vision "of the small fair man," the lighted life-preserver +dropped into the sea at night, and the yacht which sent out a boat to +pick it up. + +For that other vision her crystal had supplied after the robbery in +Portman Square he was not responsible; but it was he who had suggested +the "pictures" for her to see on shipboard. + +He hated the recollection now. Even Annesley could not think it more +contemptible than he did. + +Still worse was the remembrance of Mrs. Ellsworth's latchkey, the keeping +of which had been accidental at first. Afterward he had gaily regarded +its possession as a gift from Providence. The way to Ruthven Smith's +house was made clear by it; and better still, through it the dragon could +be punished for years of cruelty to the captive princess. "Char" had been +the man to whom fell the honour of bestowing the punishment, and leaving +a missive from the princess's rescuer. + +Knight writhed in spirit as he wondered whether the princess guessed the +fate of the key. + +He wondered also if she asked herself what part he had had in the +disappearance of the Valley House heirlooms. She would loathe him more +intensely, if possible, could she know how her presence with him on that +public "show day" had helped to cloak with respectability his secret +mission. How mean he had been in distracting her attention from the two +Fragonards and from the cabinets containing the miniatures and the carved +Chinese gods of jade while he "marked" the prizes for the eyes of his two +assistants. How unsuspicious and happy the girl had been, trusting him +utterly, while behind her back he manipulated the diamond--the useful +diamond--he always carried for such purposes! + +Even then he had the grace to be ashamed of himself for disloyalty, +though not for dishonesty, as deftly the diamond cut the glass faces of +the cabinets directly opposite the miniatures and the Buddha meant to +enrich Paul Van Vreck's secret collection. He had been glad to hurry his +wife away, and let the eager pair of "tourists" crowding on his heels +finish the work he had begun. + +It seemed to Knight, as his thoughts travelled heavily along the past, +that no other woman but Annesley Grayle, this fragile white rose that +had freely given its sweetness, could have turned him from the vow of +vengeance for his parents' fate which as a boy he had sworn against the +world. Day by day, week by week, month by month, the fragrance of the +white rose had so changed him that looking back at himself, he saw a +stranger. + +Had it not been for certain engagements made with Paul Van Vreck and +others--engagements which had to be kept because there is honour among +thieves--that "den" of his in Portman Square would long ago have been +shut to his "at home" day visitors. No more "business" would have been +done on those or any premises; this party of Easter guests would not have +been invited to Valley House; and the Malindore diamond, sleeping away +its secret on Annesley's breast, would still be guarding his secret, too. + +While the others were at church she had sent him the diamond by +Parker--the blue diamond, and the rose sapphire; her engagement ring +also; the pearls he had given her the day before their marriage, and all +his other gifts (except the wedding ring), which had not been stolen on +the night when the Annesley-Setons' silver went. + +It had been a blow to open the box brought to his room by the maid +without a word of explanation--no lighter because it was deserved. It was +only less severe than had the wedding ring been with the rest. + +And perhaps, Knight reflected, it would have been there had Annesley +known of another trick played upon her: those cleverly "reconstructed" +pearls, gleaming ropes of them, and paste diamonds added to her +collection only for the purpose of disappearing in the "burglary." A +hateful trick, but he had believed it necessary at the time, while +despising it. + +Well, he was punished for everything at last--everything vile he had done +and thought in his whole life; even those things the White Rose did not +know! + +He was young still, but he felt old--old in sin and old in hopelessness; +for youth cannot exist in a heart deprived of hope. It seemed to Knight +that his heart had been deprived of hope for years, yet suddenly he +recalled the fact that a few moments before--up to the time when he had +begun counting his sins one by one, like the devil's rosary--he had been +thinking with something akin to hope of the future. + +"What if, after all----" he began to ask himself. + +But stumbling unseeingly from avenue to path, and path to lawn, he had +wandered near the house. + +By what seemed to him a strange coincidence he had come to a standstill +almost on the spot where he had stood last night when Annesley, at her +window, called him in. + +She had loved him then! She had called him in to be forgiven. But her +forgiveness, divine as it was, white and wide-winged as the flight of a +dove--had not been wide enough to cover his guilt. + +What a ghastly difference between last night and this! It was right that +the face of the moon, so bright then, should be veiled with ragged black +clouds. And yet, what if---- + +The man's eyes strained through the darkness of that dark hour before the +dawn. + +"If her window is uncurtained, I'll take it as a good omen," he said. + +Noiselessly his feet trod the short, wet grass, going nearer to the +shadowed loggia to make sure.... + +The curtains were drawn closely, and the window was shut. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +DESTINY AND THE WALDOS + + +After the cablegram came, calling them to America, it took the Nelson +Smiths an incredibly short time to wind up their affairs and to break +the ties--many and intricate as the clinging tendrils of a vine--which +attached them to England. + +Of course, as their friends pointed out, it wasn't as if they had +had a home of their own. Luckily for them--unluckily for the +Annesley-Setons--they had taken the Portman Square house only month +by month. And in Devonshire they had been but paying--dearly +paying!--guests, as the world surmised. + +Everyone protested that they would be dreadfully missed, and begged to +know their plans, and whether Mr. Nelson Smith's business on the other +side (something to do with mines, wasn't it?) would not be finished, so +that they might come back in time for Henley and Cowes? + +But the American millionaire's answers were vague. He couldn't tell. He +could only hope. And his manner, unflatteringly, was indifferent. It was +Mrs. Nelson Smith who seemed depressed; "a changed girl," Constance said, +"from the moment that cable message arrived at Valley House." + +Connie thought, and mentioned her thought to others: very likely the +truth was that Nelson Smith had lost money. In contradiction to this +theory he was known to have given generously to charities just before +starting; not those queer, new-fangled societies he had tried to bolster +up while he was in London, but hospitals and orphan asylums, and +organizations of that sort which opened their mouths wide. + +Still, nobody could say for a certainty how much he gave, and it was +argued that Lady Annesley-Seton was sure to know more than most people +about Nelson Smith's private affairs. The story of possible money losses +ran about and grew rapidly, healing regrets for his absence. Soon the +pair dropped out of their late friends' conversation as a subject of +living interest. + +It was much the same with the Countess de Santiago. Whether her plans +were affected by those of the Nelson Smiths, nobody knew; and she said +that they were not. But about the time that their departure for America +was decided upon, Madalena had a sharp illness. It was, she wrote +Constance (who made inquiries, fearing something contagious), an unusual +form of neuralgia, from which she had suffered before. The only doctor +who had ever been able to relieve her pain lived in San Francisco, and +in San Francisco she must seek him. + +She had at first an idea of sailing on the same ship with the Nelson +Smiths; but for a reason which she did not explain, she changed her mind +the day after making it up, and engaged a cabin on a boat which started a +week earlier. + +She was missed, also, for a while. But then it was remembered that the +crystal visions had been mysteriously more favourable for those who +included the Countess in their nicest parties than for those who asked +her to their second best. Little malicious digs which she had given were +recalled, and those who had thought her wonderful when in their midst +began to doubt her powers. + +"Rather theatrical, don't you think?" said the Duchess of Peebles. "It's +more satisfactory to go to a woman you can pay with money and not +invitations." + +So Madalena was not mourned for long; and the Annesley-Setons were +fortunate enough to replace their lost American millionaire with one from +Australia. He was old, and his wife was fat; but you can't have +everything. + + * * * * * + +The Nelson Smiths took passage not on one of the great floating palaces +patronized by millionaires, but on an obscure, cheap little ship, which +bore out the gossip about the man's losses. As a matter of fact, however, +they chose that way of going by Annesley's desire. It would have been +Knight's way to vanish in a blaze of glory, as the setting sun plunges +behind the horizon after a gorgeous day. + +"I want to go on a ship," she said, "which none of the people we know +have ever heard of. I couldn't bear to come across anyone I ever met +before." + +But, as it turned out, she was forced to bear what she had thought +unbearable. At the top of the gangway as she went on board, a slightly +shrill voice called out, "Why, how _do_ you do! Who would ever have +thought of meeting you two expensive creatures on board _this_ tub?" + +With a sinking heart Annesley recognized a Mrs. Waldo, an American woman +(there was a husband in attendance) whom she and Knight had met during +their honeymoon at the Knowle Hotel. The pair had been so friendly and +kind that the Nelson Smiths had asked them to Portman Square more than +once during the three gay months which followed. + +But it was cruel, thought Annesley, that fate should bring them together +again now, just when she and the man she had married were at the parting +of the ways. + +Little had the girl dreamed when she first conceived a mild fancy for the +pretty, smiling woman and her silent, humorous husband, that the pair +were destined to decide her future--decide it in a way precisely opposite +to that in which she had decided it herself. But so it was to be. + +Mr. and Mrs. Waldo were returning to New York in its waning season +because the decorating of a house they had bought was just completed. +They begged Annesley and Knight to be their first visitors, and the +invitation was given so unexpectedly that Annesley, taken unawares, found +herself at a loss. + +"But I--I mean my husband--is going straight to Texas," she stammered. + +"All the more reason, if he has to run off so far on business, and leaves +you in New York, that you should stay with us, instead of in a hotel," +argued Mrs. Waldo. + +Annesley blushed, and for the first time since Easter eve looked for help +to Knight. But he was silent, and she blundered on, not daring to pause +lest the firm-willed little lady should seal her to a promise in spite of +herself. + +"You're very kind, and it would be delightful," she hurried along, "but I +didn't mean that I was to stop in New York. I----" + +"Oh, you are going together!" Mrs. Waldo caught her up. "I didn't +understand. Well, I'm sorry for our sakes. But couldn't you spare us two +or three days before you start?" + +"I--am afraid we must wait for another time," said Annesley. "My husband +has business. He can't waste a day----" + +"Surely you won't turn your back on New York the day you arrive, the +first time you've ever seen it!" cried the New York woman. "Why, it's +sacrilege! You must stay with us one night. If you could see the +_darling_ new room we'll put you in: old rose and pearl gray, and Cupids +holding up the bed curtains!" + +In desperation the girl stuck to her point, no longer daring to look at +Knight. + +"Indeed we mustn't stay, even for one night. If there's a train the same +afternoon----" + +"There's a lovely train," Mrs. Waldo admitted, unable to resist praising +the American railway system. "We call it the 'Limited.' You can have a +beautiful stateroom, and run right through to Chicago without changing. +If they must go, we'll see them off, won't we, Steve?" with a glance for +the silent husband, "and bring them books and chocolates and flowers?" + +What was left for Annesley to say? Short of informing the kindly couple +that they were not wanted and had better mind their own business, and +refusing to decide upon a train, she could do nothing except thank Mrs. +Waldo. + +"Perhaps," she thought, "they will forget, and things will settle +themselves between now and then. Or else I shall patch up some excuse." + +When the invitation was given, the _Minnewanda_ was still four days +distant from New York; but the four days, though seeming long, were not +long enough to produce the prayed-for inspiration. Mrs. Waldo referred to +the journey whenever she saw Annesley, so there was no hope of her scheme +being forgotten; and the nearer loomed the new world, the more clearly +the girl was forced to see the thing to which a few hasty words had +committed her. + +She and Knight had staterooms adjoining, with a door between. That was to +save appearances, and it was no one's business that the door was never +opened. In reality, they might as well have had the length of the ship +between their cabins. + +Annesley kept to her own quarters as constantly as her jangled nerves +would allow; but the sea was provokingly smooth, and she proved to be a +good sailor. She felt as if she might become hysterical, and perhaps do +something foolish, if she tried the experiment of shutting herself up +from morning to night. She paced the deck, therefore, and was dimly +grateful to Knight because he seemed always to be in the smoking room +when she took her walks. + +At meals, however, unless she ate in her stateroom, they could not avoid +each other; and again she felt cause for gratitude because Knight had +accepted the Waldos' suggestion that they should take a table for four. +In spite of the Waldos' unwelcome attentions, their society was +preferable--infinitely preferable--to a duet with Knight. + +They talked on such occasions; and the sharpest-eared scandal mongers +could have guessed at nothing strange from their manner. But, save at +these luncheons and these dinners, they scarcely spoke to each other. + +Knight took his cue from Annesley. After the night when he had knelt at +her feet and begged her forgiveness he had never forced himself upon his +wife. He seemed to have a dread of being thought an intruder, and even +withdrew his eyes guiltily if the girl caught him looking at her with the +old wistful gaze to whose mystery she had now a tragic clue. + +Annesley hoped that, before they landed, Knight might make some +opportunity to discuss ways and means of getting out of the dilemma +created by the Waldos. But he never attempted to begin a conversation +with her, and she put off the evil moment from day to day, telling +herself that there was time yet, and he had probably solved the +problem--he, who was a specialist in solving problems. + +Loving the man no longer, her heart seeming to die anew whenever she even +thought of him, there remained still a ghost of her old trust; an almost +resentful confidence that he who was so clever, so hideously clever, +would be capable of overcoming any difficulty. + +"I told him that I'd go with him on the ship, and that then we must +part," she assured herself, lying awake at night, wondering feverishly +what was to happen in New York. "He said we'd see about all that later, +but he must know by the way I act that I haven't changed my mind. He will +have to get me out of the trouble about the train." + +The girl, in mapping the future, had thought of herself as being a +governess for American children. She did not know many things which +governesses ought to know, but if the children were small enough, she +did not see why she mightn't do very well. + +She could sing and play as nine girls out of ten could. She had been told +that she had quite a Parisian accent in French; and as for arithmetic and +geography and other alarming things which children ought to know and +grown-up people forget, one could teach them with the proper books. + +Besides, she had heard that Americans liked to have English governesses +for their children; it was considered "smart." + +She would go to an agent, and it ought to be easy to find a place in the +country or suburbs. It must not be New York, for fear of some chance +meeting with the Waldos. But if worst came to worst, and because of those +everlasting Waldos she had to get into the train with Knight, she would +get out again at the first good-sized place where it stopped. There must +be agencies for governesses and companions in every large town. One would +serve as well as another. + +As for money, she knew that she must have some to go on with until she +could begin to earn. So far she had been forced to let Knight pay her +way, as he said, out of the "good" fund. Her coming with him had been for +his sake, and to spare him from gossip. For herself, she was in no mood +to care what people said. + +But now, in sailing to America as his wife, she had done all that she had +ever promised to do. He would have to arrange things as best he could. + +Somehow the right time did not come to ask him what he intended to do; +for at the table, or if occasionally they were on deck together, they +were never alone. + +The ship docked late in the morning, and Knight was busy with the +custom-house men. It was noon when their luggage had been examined and +could be sent away; and the Waldos, under letter "W," were released at +the same moment that the Nelson Smiths, under "S," were able to escape. + +"Let's have lunch at the dear old Waldorf, our pet place and almost +namesake," proposed Mrs. Waldo. "You _owe_ us that, after all the times +you entertained us in London; and you really see New York in the +restaurant. You've nothing to do till your train goes this afternoon, +and your husband can get your reservations right there in the hotel." + +Annesley's eyes went doubtfully to Knight's, and met a steady look which +seemed to say that he had made up his mind to some course. + +"Very well, we shall be delighted," she said, resignedly. "Shall we meet +at the--Waldorf--is it?--at luncheon time?" + +"Oh, _my_, no!" exclaimed the older woman, radiant in the joy of +home coming. "It'll be lunch time in an hour. You _must_ taxi up to +Sixty-first Street with us, and just _glance_ at the house, or we shall +be _so_ hurt. Then we'll spin you down to the hotel again in no time. I +wish we could feed you at home, but nothing will be in shape there till +to-night." + +There was still no chance for Annesley to ask Knight the long-delayed +question. They saw and duly admired the Waldos' house, and took another +taxi to the hotel, the Nelson Smiths' luggage having been "expressed" +to the Grand Central, to await them. Steve Waldo tried to engage his +favourite table, and Mrs. Waldo suggested that it would be a good moment +to get the reservations. + +Again Annesley's startled glance turned to Knight. Again his eyes +answered with decision. This time there was no longer any doubt in the +girl's mind. The Waldos, persistent to the last, would compel her to +leave New York with her husband. + +But whatever happened she would part with him forever before darkness +fell. "At the first big town," she told herself once more. + +They were at the desired table, which Steve had secured, when Knight +rejoined them, announcing that he had his tickets. + +"I hope you were able to get a nice stateroom?" fussed Mrs. Waldo. "Such +a _long_ journey, and Mrs. Smith's first day in our country!" + +"Yes. Everything satisfactory," said Knight, in the calm way which +Annesley had once admired. + +Mrs. Waldo would have asked more questions if at that moment her eyes had +not lighted upon a couple at an adjacent table. + +"_Well_, of all _things_!" she cried, jumping up to meet a pretty girl +and a spruce young man, who had also jumped up. "George and Kitty Mason! +What a coincidence!" + +There were kissings and handshakings. Then Mr. and Mrs. Mason were +introduced to Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith. They, it seemed, had been +married in the early winter, just as Knight and Annesley had been. And +to add to the strangeness of the coincidence, which drew birdlike +exclamations from Jean Waldo, George and Kitty were starting for Kansas +City that afternoon. They were going by the same train in which the +Nelson Smiths would travel. + +"Why, you'll be together for _two days_!" shrieked Jean. "For goodness' +sake, look at your reservations, and see if you're in the same car!" + +George Mason pulled out his tickets. "We're in a boudoir car all the +way," he said. "We start in one called 'Elena.' After Chicago we're in +'Alvarado.'" Knight followed suit, not ungraciously, though without +enthusiasm. Annesley's heart was tapping like a hammer in her breast. She +felt giddy. There was a mist before her eyes; yet she saw clearly enough +to see that there were two railway tickets, alike in every way, even to +what seemed their extraordinary length. A flashing glance gave her the +name of the last station, at the end. It was in Texas. + +And their two staterooms were also in "Elena" and "Alvarado." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE THIN WALL + + +"How _dared_ he buy a ticket for me all the way to Texas!" Annesley asked +herself. "But I might have known how it would be," she thought. "Why +expect a man like him to keep a promise?" + +Yet she _had_ expected it. She constantly found herself expecting to find +truth and greatness in the man who was a thief--who had been a thief for +half his life. It was strange. But everything about him was strange; and +stranger than the rest was his silent power over all who came near him, +even over herself, who knew now what he was. It would have seemed that +after his confession there would be no further room for disappointment +concerning his character; yet she was disappointed that his "plan," on +which she had been counting, had been nothing more original than to break +his word and "see what she would do." + +After luncheon, when the Waldos and Masons became absorbed for a few +minutes in talk, she turned a look on her husband. "I saw the tickets," +she said. + +"Did you?" he returned, pretending--as she thought--not to understand. + +"You bought one for me to Texas." + +"Of course. Did you think I wouldn't? That would have been poor economy +in the game we've been playing." + +It was her turn to show that she was puzzled. "What do you mean?" + +"You never cared to talk things over. I saw you didn't want to, so I +didn't press. And when this complication about the Waldos came up, I +thought--perhaps I was mistaken--that you--trusted me to do the best +I could." + +"Yes. That's why I expected you not to get me a ticket to Texas." + +"How far _did_ you expect me to get it?" + +"I--don't know." + +"That's just it. Neither did I know. I got the whole ticket, so you might +choose your stopping-place." + +"Oh!" Annesley was ashamed, though she was sure she had no need to be. +"That was why!" + +"That was why. Things being as they are, it was well I had your ticket to +show with mine, wasn't it?" + +"I--suppose so. But--what am I to do?" + +"We'll talk of that in the train. There won't be time before, because of +these people, and because I must leave you for two hours before the train +goes." + +"Leave me!" Annesley echoed the words blankly, then hoped that he had not +noticed the dismay in her tone. + +"You will be all right with the Waldos and their friends. I'll explain to +them. There's no time to lose. I must go off at once." + +Annesley was pricked with curiosity to know why and where he must go. She +would not ask. But while he was away and she was being whirled through +the park and along Riverside Drive at lightning speed, "to see New York +in a hurry," her thoughts were with her husband, imagining fantastic +things. + +"My mind is like a ghost," she thought, bitterly, "haunting what once it +loved. It seems doomed to follow wherever he goes, whatever he does. But +it will be different when we're parted. I shall escape in soul and body. +I shall have my own life to live." + +"That wonderful Italian house," Mrs. Waldo was saying, as the taxi slowed +down for one of her lectures, "is Paul Van Vreck's New York home. They +say it's a museum from garret to cellar (not that there _is_ a garret!), +and I believe it's a copy of some palazzo in Venice. It's shut up now; +perhaps he's in Florida, or Egypt, where he--but look, somebody's coming +out--why, Mrs. Nelson Smith, it's your _husband_! Shall we stop----" + +"No, let's drive on," Annesley begged, anxiously. "My husband knows Mr. +Van Vreck. They have business together. He won't want us." + +The taxi was allowed to go on to the next place of interest. Annesley had +flung herself back in the seat, but she was not sure that Knight hadn't +seen her. She knew what powers of observation his quiet almost lazy +manner could hide. + +This chance meeting took place on the way to the Grand Central Station, +where they met the Masons, and were joined almost at the last moment by +Knight, just as Annesley had begun to wonder if, after all, he were not +coming. + +He was as calm as though there were no haste, and said he had been +delayed in collecting the luggage from the ship. He had a good deal to +say about that luggage; and what with thanks to the Waldos for books and +flowers and chocolates, and their kindness to Annesley, Mrs. Waldo (with +the best intentions) found no chance to mention Paul Van Vreck. + +Annesley had not meant to refer to him, though seeing Knight come out of +his shut-up house had given her a shivering sense of mystery; but when +the train had started, Knight came to the door of her stateroom. + +"There are one or two things I should like to speak to you about, if you +don't mind," he said, in the kind yet distant manner which had replaced +the old lover-like way when they were alone together. + +"Come in," she replied, and added, lowering her voice: "Mr. and Mrs. +Mason are next door." + +"They are too much in love to be thinking about us, or listening," he +answered; and Annesley imagined a ring of bitterness in his tone. "I've +come to talk over plans, but before we begin I want to explain something. +Once you made a guess in connection with Paul Van Vreck. Probably you +think that what you saw confirms it. Of course, the Waldos were telling +you whose house it was; and as luck would have it, I came out at that +instant. + +"Whether there was anything in your guess or not doesn't matter. You're +too sensible to mention it to any one except me. But I can't have you +torturing yourself with the idea that such dealings as you imagine with +Van Vreck are still going on, if they ever did go on. Because I have +faith in your discretion, and because I owe it to you, I'm going to +explain why I went to Van Vreck's house this afternoon--why I was obliged +to go. I knew he would have got back from Florida. I hear from him +sometimes, and I had to tell him that any business I'd ever done for him +was done for the last time, because--I was going to settle down to ranch +life in Texas. + +"Also I handed to him the Malindore diamond. His firm lost it. His firm +has by this time been paid the insurance. It's up to him how to dispose +of the property. + +"That's all I have to say about Van Vreck. I thought in fairness you +ought to know that I didn't keep the diamond. And I thought I might tell +you that my call at Van Vreck's didn't mean entering any new deal." + +"Thank you," Annesley said, stiffly. "I am glad." + +She _was_ glad, yet she wished the man to understand how impersonal was +her gladness; how impossible it was that any atonement could bring them +together again in spirit; how dead was the past which he had slain. And +he did understand as clearly from her few words as if she had preached +him an hour's sermon. + +"Now, for what you are to do," he went on, crisply. "Although you and I +never discussed the situation on board ship, I realized what the Waldos +were letting you in for. I supposed you'd feel that your staying in New +York was out of the question. I bought our tickets to Texas. At the same +time I got a map and a guide-book which gives information about places on +the way and beyond. + +"The Masons being on the train to Kansas City was a new complication. +But it wasn't my fault. And it only means that the game of keeping up +appearances must be played a little farther. + +"Would you like to go to California? If you want to take back your maiden +name and be Miss Grayle--or if you care to have a new name to begin a new +life with, a quite respectable fellow called Michael Donaldson could +introduce you to a few influential people in Los Angeles. No danger of +meeting Madalena de Santiago there, though it's only a day's journey +from San Francisco, where she's very likely arrived by this time. She +has reasons for not liking Los Angeles. In her early days she had +some--er-financial troubles there, and she wouldn't enjoy being reminded +of them." + +"Is Los Angeles farther than El Paso?" Annesley inquired, keeping her +voice steady, though there was a sickly chill in her heart. + +"A good way farther," Knight went on, in the same businesslike tone which +separated him thousands of miles from the Knight she used to know. "Here, +I'll show you how the land lies." + +Opening a map of a western railroad, he drew a little closer to her on +the seat, and pointed out place after place along the black line; told +her when they would arrive at Kansas City, and how they would go on +without change to Albuquerque. + +There, he said, he must take another train for El Paso, and from El Paso +he must go a distance of twenty miles to the ranch, which lay close to +the border of Mexico, on the Rio Grande. + +"But you," he said, quietly, "you can keep straight along in the train +we'll get into at Chicago till you come to Los Angeles. There'll be time +in Chicago to buy your ticket to California, and I can write letters of +introduction. They'll be to good people. You needn't be afraid." + +Yet Annesley _was_ afraid, deathly afraid. Not that Knight's friends +would not be "good people," but of going on alone to an unknown place in +an unknown country. It would not have been so terrible, she thought, to +have stayed in New York--if only the Waldos hadn't interfered. But to +have this man--who, after all, was her one link with the old world--get +out of the train which was hurling them through space and leave her to go +on alone! + +That was a fearful thing. She could not face the thought--at least not +yet. Perhaps she would feel more courageous to-morrow. On the ship she +had slept little. Her nerves felt like violin strings stretched too +tight--stretched to the point of breaking. + +"Does that plan suit you--as well as any other?" Knight was asking. + +"I--can't decide yet," the girl answered; and to keep tears back seemed +the most important thing just then. "It doesn't matter, does it, as I +_must_ go on past Kansas City?" + +"No, it doesn't matter," Knight agreed. "You've plenty of time. I suppose +you'd like me to leave you now, to rest till dinner time? Here's the +guide-book. You might care to look it over." + +But when he had gone Annesley let the book lie unopened on the seat. She +was very tired. She could not think far ahead. Her mind would occupy +itself with the features of the journey, not with her own affairs. + +Everything was strange and new. Even the train was wonderful. She had +thought, in the immense station, that the cars looked like a procession +of splendidly built bungalows each painted a different colour and having +brightly polished metal balconies at the end. And inside, the car was +still like a bungalow, or perhaps a houseboat, with neat little panelled +rooms opening all the way down a long aisle. + +The coffee-coloured porter and maid were delightful. They smiled at her +kindly, and when they smiled it seemed sadder than ever not to be happy. + +The Masons' talk at dinner was disconcerting. They took it for granted +that she and Knight were an adoring newly married couple, like +themselves. Annesley was thankful to escape, and to go to bed in her +little panelled room. + +"To-morrow, when I'm rested, things will be easier," she told herself. + +But to-morrow came and she was not rested; for again she had not slept. + +In Chicago there were hours to wait before train time. The Masons +proposed taking a motor-car to see the sights, and lunching together at +a famous Chinese restaurant. + +At a sign from her, Knight consented. It was better to be with the Masons +than with him alone. After luncheon, however, Knight drew her aside. + +"What about Los Angeles?" he inquired. "Have you decided?" + +Annesley felt incapable of deciding anything, and her unhappy face +betrayed her state of mind. + +"If you'd rather think it over longer," he said, "I can buy your ticket +at Albuquerque." + +"Very well," Annesley replied. She did not remember where Albuquerque +was, though Knight had pointed it out on the map; and she did not care +to remember. All she wanted was not to decide then. + +Knight turned away without speaking. But there was a look almost of hope +in his eyes. Things could not be what they had been; yet they were better +than they might be. + +At Kansas City the Masons bade the Nelson Smiths good-bye. And from that +moment the Nelson Smiths ceased to exist. There were no initials on their +luggage. + +The man kept to his own stateroom. Annesley, alone next door, had plenty +of books to read, parting gifts from the Waldos; but the most engrossing +novel ever written could not have held her attention. The landscape +changed kaleidoscopically. She wondered when they would arrive at +Albuquerque, wondered, yet did not want to know. + +"Would you rather go to the dining car alone, or have me take you?" +Knight came to ask. + +"It's better to go together, or people may think it strange," she said. +Even as she spoke she wondered at herself. The Masons having gone, the +other travellers--strangers whom they would not meet again--were not of +much importance. Yet she let her words pass. And at dinner that evening +she forced herself to ask, "Do we get to Albuquerque to-night?" + +"Not till to-morrow forenoon," Knight informed her casually. He feared +for a moment that she might say she could not wait so long before making +up her mind; but she only looked startled, opened her lips as if to +speak, and closed them again. + +Next day there were no more apple orchards and flat or rolling meadow +lands. The train had brought them into another world, a world unlike +anything that Annesley had seen before. At the stations were flat-faced, +half-breed Indians and Mexicans; some poorly clad, others gaily dressed, +with big straw hats painted with flowers, and green leggings laced with +faded gold. In the distance were hills and mountains, and the train ran +through stretches of red desert sprinkled with rough grass, or cleft with +river-beds, where golden sands played over by winds were ruffled into +little waves. + +Toward noon Knight showed himself at the open door of the stateroom. + +"We'll be in Albuquerque before long now," he announced. "That's where I +change, you know, for Texas. The train stops for a while, and I can get +your ticket for Los Angeles. Those letters of introduction I told you +about are ready. I've left a blank for your name. I suppose you've made +up your mind what you want to do?" + +Some people with handbags pushed past, and Knight had to step into the +room to avoid them. The moment, long delayed, was upon her! + +Annesley remembered how she had put off deciding whether or not to sail +for America with Knight. Now a still more formidable decision was before +her and had to be faced. She glanced up at the tall, standing figure. +Knight was not looking at her. His eyes were on the desert landscape +flying past the windows. + +"What I _want_ to do!" she echoed. "There's nothing in this world that +I want to do." + +"Then"--and Knight did not take his eyes from the window--"why not +drift?" + +"Drift?" + +"Yes. To Texas. Oh, I know! I asked you that before, and you said you +wouldn't. But hasn't destiny decided? Would it have sent you these +thousands of miles with me unless it meant you to fight it out on those +lines? You've travelled far enough, side by side with me, to learn that a +man and a woman with only a thin wall between them can be as far apart as +if they were separated by a continent. + +"Now, this minute, you've got to decide. It isn't _I_ who tell you so. +It's fate. Will you go on alone from the place we're coming to, or--will +you try the thin wall?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +THE ANNIVERSARY + + +The girl felt as if some great flood were sweeping her off her feet. She +clutched mechanically at anything to save herself. Knight was there. He +stood between her and desolation; but if he had spoken then--if he had +said he wanted her, and begged her to stay, she would have chosen +desolation. + +Instead, he was silent, his eyes not on her, but on the desert. + +"You--swear you will let me live my own life?" she faltered. + +"I swear I will let you live your own life." + +He repeated her words, as he had repeated the words of the clergyman who +had, according to the law of God, given "this woman to this man." + +The train was stopping. + +Annesley knew that she could not go on alone. + +"I will try--Texas," she said in final decision. + + * * * * * + +Las Cruces Ranch was named, not after the New Mexico town thirty or forty +miles away, but in honour of the Holy Crosses which had rested there one +night, centuries ago, while on a sacred pilgrimage. + +It was a lonely ranch, as far from El Paso in Texas as it was from +the namesake town in New Mexico. Even the nearest village, a huddled +collection of low adobe houses and wooden shacks on the Rio Grande +("Furious River," as the Indians called it), was ten miles distant. Only +the river was near, as the word "near" is used in that land of vast +spaces. At night, if a great wind blew, Annesley fancied she could hear +the voice of the rushing water. + +When she first saw the place where she had bound herself to live, +her heart sank. It seemed that she would not be able to support the +loneliness; for it would be desperately lonely to live there, lacking the +companionship of someone dearly loved. But afterward--afterward she could +no more analyze her feeling for the country than for the man who had +brought her to it. + +Lonely as she was, she was never homesick. Indeed, she had no home to +long for, no one whose love called her back to the old world. And she was +glad that there were no neighbours to come, to call her "Mrs. Donaldson" +and ask questions about England. + +She had nobody except the Mexican servant woman and the cowboys who +stayed with the new rancher when the old one went away. + +Knight had suggested that she should wait in El Paso until he had seen +whether the house was habitable for her, and had made it so, if it were +not already. But Annesley had chosen to begin her new life without delay, +for she was in a mood where hardships seemed of no importance. It was +only when she had to face them in their sordid nakedness that she shrank. + +Yet, after all, what did it matter? If she had stepped into the most +luxurious surroundings she would have been no less unhappy. + +The low house was of adobe, plastered white, but stained and battered +where the walls were not hidden by rank-growing creepers, convolvulus, +and Madeira vines. If the girl had read its description in some book--the +veranda, formed by the steep-sloping roof of the one-story building; the +patio, walled mysteriously in with a high, flower-draped barrier; the +long windows with green shutters--she would have imagined it to be +picturesque. + +But it was not picturesque. It was only shabby and uninviting; at least +that was her impression when she arrived, toward evening, after a long, +jolting drive in a hired motor-car. + +The paintless wooden balustrade and flooring of the veranda were broken. +So also were the faded green shutters. The patio was but a little square +of dust and stringy grass. A few dilapidated chairs stood about, homemade +looking chairs with concave seats of worn cowskin. + +Inside the house there was little furniture, and what there was struck +Annesley as hideous. Nothing was whole. Everything was falling to pieces. +Illustrations cut out of newspapers were pasted on the dirty, whitewashed +walls. + +The slatternly servant, who could speak only "Mex," had got no supper +ready. Knight would let Annesley do nothing, but he deftly helped the +woman to fry some eggs and make coffee. He tried to find dishes which +were not cracked or broken, and could not. + +If he and Annesley had loved each other, or had even been friends, they +would have laughed and enjoyed the adventure. But Annesley had no heart +for laughter. She could only smile a frozen, polite little smile, and say +that it "did not matter. Everything would do very well." She would soon +get used to the place, and learn how to get on. + +When she had to speak to Knight she called him "you." There was no other +name which she could bear to use. He had had too many names in the past! + +As time went on, however, the girl surprised herself by not being able to +hate her home. She found mysteriously lovely colours in the yellow-gray +desert; shadows blue as lupines and purple as Russian violets; high +lights of shimmering, pale gold. + +Spanish bayonets, straight and sharp as enchanted swords which had +magically flowered, lilied the desert stretches, and there were strange +red blossoms like drops of blood clinging to the points of long daggers. +Bird of Paradise plants were there, too, well named for their plumy +splendour of crimson, white, and yellow; and as the spring advanced the +China trees brought memories of English lilacs. + +The air was sweet with the scent of locust blossoms, and along the clear +horizon fantastically formed mountains seemed to float like changing +cloud-shapes. + +The cattle, which Knight had bought from the departing rancher, had their +corrals and scanty pastures far from the house, but the cowboys' quarters +were near, and Annesley never tired of seeing the laughing young men +mount and ride their slim, nervous horses. + +This fact they got to know, and performed incredible antics to excite her +admiration. They thought her beautiful, and wondered if she had lost +someone whom she loved, that she should look so cold and sad. + +These men, though she seldom spoke to any, were a comfort to Annesley. +Without their shouts and rough jokes and laughter the place would have +been gloomy as a grave. + +There was a colony of prairie dogs which she could visit by taking a long +walk, and they, too, were comforting. It was Knight who told her of the +creatures and where to seek them; but he did not show her the way. + +If things had been well between them, the man's anxiety to please her +would have been adorable to Annesley. As soon as he saw the deficiencies +of the house, he went himself to El Paso to choose furniture and pretty +simple chintzes, old-fashioned china and delicate glass, bedroom and +table damask. He ordered books also, and subscribed for magazines and +papers. + +Returning, he said nothing of what he had done, for he hoped that the +surprise might prick the girl to interest, rousing her from the lethargy +which had settled over her like a fog. But her gratitude was perfunctory. +She was always polite, but the pretty things seemed to give her no real +pleasure. + +Knight had to realize that she was one of those people who, when inwardly +unhappy, are almost incapable of feeling small joys. Such as she had were +found in getting away from him as far as possible. + +She practically lived out of doors in the summertime, taking pains to go +where he would not pass on his rounds of the ranch; and even after the +sitting room had been made "liveable" with the new carpet laid by Knight +and the chintz curtains he put up with his own hands, she fled to her +room for sanctuary. + +Knight's search for capable servants was vain until he picked up a +Chinaman from over the Mexican border, illegal but valuable as a +household asset. Under the new regime there was good food, and Annesley +had no work save the hopeless task of finding happiness. + +It was easy to see from the white, set look of her face as the monotonous +months dragged on that she was no nearer to accomplishing that task than +on the day of her arrival. Nothing that Knight could do made any +difference. When an upright cottage piano appeared one day, the girl +seemed distressed rather than pleased. + +"You shouldn't spend money on me," she said in the gentle, weary way that +was becoming habitual. + +"It's the 'good fund' money," Knight explained, hastily and almost +humbly. "It's growing, you know. I've struck some fine investments. And +I'm going to do well with this ranch. We don't need to economize. I +thought you'd enjoy a piano." + +"Thank you. You're very kind," she answered, as if he had been a +stranger. "But I'm out of practice. I hardly feel energy to take it up +again." + +His hopes of what Texas might do for her faded slowly; and even when +their fire had died under cooling ashes, his silent, unobtrusive care +never relaxed. + +Only the deepest love--such love as can remake a man's whole +nature--could have been strong enough to bear the strain. + +But Annesley, blinded by the anguish which never ceased to ache, did +not see that it was possible for such a nature to change. She who had +believed passionately in her hero of romance was stripped of all belief +in him now, as a young tree in blossom is stripped of its delicate bloom +by an icy wind. Not believing in him, neither did she believe in his +love. + +She thought that he was sorry for her, that he was grateful for what she +had done to help him; that perhaps for the time being he intended to +"turn over a new leaf," not really for her sake, but because he had +been in danger of being found out. + +Scornfully she told herself that this pretence at ranching was one of the +many adventures dotted along his career; one act in the melodrama of +which he delighted to be the leading actor. His own love of luxury and +charming surroundings was enough to account for the improvements he +hastened to make at the ranchhouse. + +Anxiously she put away the thought that all he did was for her. She did +not wish to accept it. She did not want the obligation of gratitude. It +even seemed puerile that he should attempt to make up for spoiling her +life by supplying a few easy chairs and pictures and a Chinese cook. + +"He likes the things himself and can't live without them," she insisted. +And it was to show him that he could not atone in such childish ways that +she lived out of doors or hid in her own room. + +At first she locked the door of that room when she entered, thinking of +it defiantly as her fortress which must be defended. But when weeks grew +into months and the enemy never attacked the fortress her vigilance +relaxed. She forgot to lock the door. + +Summer passed. Autumn and then winter came. Knight was a good deal away, +for he had bought an interest in a newly opened copper mine in the Organ +Mountains, and was interested in the development which might mean +fortune. At night, however, he came back in the second-hand motor-car +which he had got at a bargain price in El Paso, and drove himself. + +Annesley never failed to hear him return, though she gave no sign. And +sometimes she would peep through the slats of her green shutters on one +side of the patio at the windows of his bedroom and "office," which were +opposite. It was seldom that his light did not burn late, and Annesley +went to bed thinking hard thoughts, asking herself what schemes of new +adventure he might be plotting for the day when he should tire of the +ranch. + +Often she wondered that her life was not more hateful than it was; for +somehow it was not hateful. Texas, with its vast spaces and blowing gusts +of ozone, had begun to mean more for her than her cold reserve let Knight +guess, more than she herself could understand. + + * * * * * + +On Christmas morning, when she opened her bedroom door, she almost +stumbled over a covered Mexican basket of woven coloured straws. +Something inside it moved and sighed. + +She stooped, lifted the cover, and saw, curled up on a bit of red +blanketing, a miniature Chihuahua dog. It had a body as slight and +shivering as a tendril of grapevine; a tiny pointed face, with a high +forehead and immense, almost human eyes. + +At sight of her a thread of tail wagged, and Annesley felt a warm impulse +of affection toward the little creature. Of course it was a present from +Knight, though there was no word to tell her so; and if the dog had not +looked at her with an offer of all its love and self she would perhaps +have refused to accept it rather than encourage the giving of gifts. + +But after that look she could not let the animal go. Its possession made +life warmer; and it was good to see it lying in front of her open fire of +mesquite roots. + +She had no Christmas gift for Knight. + +He had made, soon after their coming to the ranch, a cactus fence round +the house enclosure; and seeing the dry ugliness of the long, straight +sticks placed close together, Annesley disliked and wondered at it. At +last she questioned Knight, and complained that the bristly barrier was +an eyesore. She wished it might be taken down. + +"Wait till spring," he answered. "It isn't a barrier; it's an allegory. +Maybe when you see what happens you'll understand. Maybe you won't. It +depends on your own feelings." + +Annesley said no more, but she did not forget. She thought, if her +understanding of the allegory meant any change of feeling which the man +might be looking for in her, she would never understand. She hated to +look at the line of stark, naked sticks, but they, and the "allegory" +they represented, constantly recurred to her mind. + +One day in spring she noticed that the sticks looked less dry. Knob-like +buds had broken out upon them, the first sign that they were living +things. It happened to be Easter eve, and she was restless, full of +strange thoughts as the yellow-flowering grease-wood bushes were full of +rushing sap. + +A year ago that night her love for her husband had died its sudden, +tragic death. In the very act of forgiveness, forgiveness had been +killed. + +Knight had gone off early that morning in his motor-car, the poor car +which was a pathetic contrast to the glories of last year in England. He +had gone before she was up, and had mentioned to the Chinese cook that he +might not be back until late. + +"That means after midnight," she told herself; and since she was free +as air, she decided to take a long walk in the afternoon, as far as the +river. It seemed that if she stayed in the house the thought of life as +it might have been and life as it was would kill her on this day of all +other days. + +"I wish I could die!" she said. "But not here. Somewhere a long way off +from everyone--and from _him_." + +As she passed the cactus fence the buds were big. + +Across the river, where the water flowed high and wide just then, lay +Mexico. Annesley had never been there, though she could easily have gone, +had she wished, from the ranch to El Paso, and from El Paso to the queer +old historic town of Juarez. But she could not have gone without Knight, +and there was no pleasure in travelling with him. + +Besides, there was trouble across the border, and fierce fighting now and +then. There had been some thievish raids made by Mexicans upon ranches +along the river not many miles away, and that reminded her how Knight had +remarked some weeks ago that she had better not go alone as far as the +river bank. + +"It isn't likely that anything would happen by day," he said, "but you +might be shot at from the other side." Annesley was not afraid, and there +was a faint stirring of pleasure in the thought that she was doing +something against his wish on this anniversary. Deliberately, she sat +alone by the river, waiting for the pageant of sunset to pass; and when +she reached home the moon was up, a great white moon that turned the +waving waste of pale, sparse grasses to a silver sea. + +She had taken sandwiches and fruit with her, telling the cook that she +would want no dinner when she came back. Away in the cow-punchers' +quarters there was music, and she flung herself into a hammock on the +veranda, to rest and listen. + +There was a soft yet cool wind from the south, bringing the fragrance of +creosote blossoms, and it seemed to the girl that never had she seen such +white floods of moonlight, not even that night a year ago at Valley +House. + +Even the sky was milk-white. There were no black shadows anywhere, only +dove-gray ones, except under the veranda roof. Her hammock was screened +from the light by one dark shadow, like a straight-hung curtain. Save for +the music of a fiddle and men's voices, the silver-white world lay silent +in enchanted sleep. + +Then suddenly something moved. A tall, dark figure was coming to the +veranda. It paused at the cactus fence. + +Could it be Knight, home already and on foot? No, it was a woman. + +She walked straight and fast and unhesitating to the veranda, where she +sat down on the steps. + +Annesley raised herself on her elbow, and peered out of the concealing +shadow. Who could the woman be? It was on the tip of her tongue to call, +"Who are you?" when a sudden lifting of the bent face under a drooping +hat brought it beneath the searchlight of the moon. + +The woman was the Countess de Santiago, and the moon's radiance so lit +her dark eyes that she seemed to look straight at Annesley in her +hammock. The girl's heart gave a leap of some emotion like fear, yet not +fear. She did not stop to analyze it, but she knew that she wished to +escape from the woman; and an instant's reflection told her that she +could not be seen if she kept still. + +She began to think quickly, and her thoughts, confused at first, +straightened themselves out like threads disentangled from a knot. + +The woman had marched up to the veranda with such unfaltering certainty +that it seemed she must have been there before. Perhaps she had arrived +while the mistress of the house was out, and had been walking about the +place, to pass away the time. + +"But she hasn't come to see me," the girl in the hammock thought. "She +has come to see Knight. It's for him she is waiting." + +Anger stirred in Annesley's heart, anger against Knight as well as +against Madalena. + +"Has _he_ written and told her to come?" she asked herself. "Does she +think she can stay in this house? No, she shall not! I won't have her +here!" + +She was half-minded to rise abruptly and surprise the Countess, as the +Countess had surprised her; to ask why she had come, and to show that she +was not welcome. But if Madalena were here at Knight's invitation she +would stay. There would be a scene perhaps. The thought was revolting. +Annesley lay still; and in the distance she heard the throbbing of a +motor. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +THE ALLEGORY + + +Annesley knew that Knight was in the habit of coming home that way, in +order not to disturb her with the noise of the car if she had gone to +bed. If he were bringing parcels from the little mining town, he drove to +the house, left the packets, and ran the auto to a shanty he had rigged +up for a garage. + +A few seconds later the small open car came into sight, and Madalena +sprang up, waving a dark veil she had snatched off her hat. She feared, +no doubt, that the man might take another direction and perhaps get into +the house by some door she did not know before she could intercept him. +From a little distance the tall figure standing on the veranda steps must +have been silhouetted black against the white wall of the house, clearly +to be seen from the advancing motor. + +Quick as a bird in flight the car sped along the road, wheeled on to the +stiff grass, and drew up close to the veranda steps. + +"Good heavens, Madalena!" Annesley heard her husband exclaim. "I thought +it was my wife, and that something had gone wrong." + +The surprise sharpening his tone did away with the doubt in the mind of +the hidden listener. She had said to herself that the woman was here by +appointment, and that this hour had been chosen because the meeting was +to be secret. + +"I wanted you to think so, and to come straight to this place," returned +the once familiar voice. "Don, I've travelled from San Francisco to see +you. Do say you are glad!" + +"I can't," the man answered. "I'm not glad. You tried to ruin me. You +tried in a coward's way. You struck me in the back. I hoped never to see +you again. How did you find me?" + +"I've known for a long time that you were in Texas," said Madalena. "Lady +Annesley-Seton and I kept up a correspondence for months after you--sent +me away so cruelly, in such a hurry, believing hateful things, though you +had no proof. She wrote that 'Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith' would probably +never come back to England to settle, as she'd heard from a Mrs. Waldo +that they'd gone to live in Texas. She asked if I knew whether 'Nelson +Smith' had lost his money. I forgot to answer that question when I +answered the letter. But when she said 'Texas' I felt sure you must be +somewhere in this part. I remembered your telling me about the ranch that +consumptive gambler left to you on the Mexican frontier." + +"What a fool I was to tell you!" Knight exclaimed, roughly. + +The words and his way of flinging them at her were like a box on the ear; +and Annesley, lying in her hammock, heard with a thrill of pleasure. She +was ashamed of the thrill, and ashamed (because suddenly awakened to the +realization) that she was eavesdropping. + +But it seemed impossible that she should break in upon this talk and +reveal her presence. She felt that she could not do it; though, searching +her conscience, she was not sure whether she clung to silence because it +was the lesser of two evils or because she longed with a terrible longing +to know whether these two would patch up their old partnership. + +"If you knew why I have come all these miles, maybe you would not be so +hard," Madalena pleaded. + +"That I can't tell until I do hear," said Knight, dryly. + +"I am going to explain," she tried to soothe him. "A great thing has +happened. I can be rich and live easily all the rest of my years if I +choose. But--I wanted to see you before deciding. + +"I arrived in El Paso yesterday, and went to the Paso del Norte Hotel, to +inquire about you. I was almost certain you would have taken back your +own name, because I knew you used to be known by it when you stayed in +Texas. I soon found out that I'd guessed right. I heard you'd stopped at +that hotel last year on the way to your ranch. I hired a motor-car and +came here to-day; but I didn't let the man bring me to the house. I +didn't want to dash up and advertise myself. + +"I questioned some of your cowmen. They said you'd gone off, and would be +getting back at night in your automobile, not earlier than ten and maybe +a good deal later. So I waited. The car I hired is a covered one, and I +sat in it, a long way from the house out of sight behind a little rising +of the land. Perhaps you call it a hill." + +"We do," said Knight. + +"I brought some food and wine. The chauffeur's there with the car now. He +has cigarettes, and doesn't mind if we stay all night." + +"I mind," Knight cut her short. "You can't stay all night. The road's +good enough with such a moon for you to get back to El Paso. You'd better +start so as to reach there before she sets." + +"Wait till you hear why I've come before you advise me to hurry!" the +Countess protested. "There's no danger of our being disturbed, is there? +Where is your wife?" + +"In bed and asleep, I trust." + +"I'm glad. Then will you sit on the top of these steps in this heavenly +moonlight and let me tell you things that are important to me? Perhaps +you may think they are important to you as well. Who knows?" + +"I know. Nothing you can have to say will be important to me. I won't sit +down, thank you. I've been sitting in my car for hours. I prefer to +stand." + +"Very well. But--how hard you are! Even now, you won't believe I was +innocent of that thing you accused me of doing?" + +"I think now what I thought then. You were not innocent, but guilty. You +were just a plain, ordinary sneak, Madalena, because you were jealous +and spiteful." + +"It is not true! Spiteful against _you_! It was never in my heart to lie. +Jealous, perhaps. But that is not to say I wrote the letter you believe +I wrote. You didn't give me time to try and prove I did not write the +letter. You accused me brutally. You ordered me out of England, with +threats. I obeyed because I was heartbroken, not because I was afraid." + +"Why trouble to excuse yourself?" he asked. "It's not worth the time it +takes. If you've come to tell me anything in particular, tell it, and +let's make an end." + +"I have an offer of marriage from a millionaire," the Countess announced +in a clear, triumphant tone. + +"Which no doubt you accepted, not to say snapped at." + +"Not yet. I put him off, because I wanted to see you before I answered." + +"You flatter me!" Knight laughed, not pleasantly. "If you've come from +San Francisco to get my advice on that subject, I can give it while you +count three. Make sure of the unfortunate wretch before he changes his +mind." + +"Ah, if I could think that your harshness comes from just a +little--_ever_ so little, jealousy!" Madalena sighed. "He won't change +his mind. There is no danger. He is old, and I seem a young girl to him. +He adores me. He is on his knees!" + +"Bad for rheumatism!" + +"He thinks I am the most wonderful creature who ever lived. I met him +through my work. He came from a friend of his who told him about my +crystal, and about me, too." + +"You are still working the crystal?" + +"But, of course! It has always given me the path to success. If I marry +this man I shall be able to rest." + +"On your laurels--such as they are!" + +"On his money. He can't live many years." + +"You are an affectionate fiancee!" + +"I am not a fiancee yet. Not till I give my answer. And that depends on +you.... Oh, Don, surely you must be sick of this--this existence, for it +is not life! I know you are angry with me, but you can't hate me really. +It is not possible for a man with blood in his body to hate a woman who +loves him as I love you. + +"I have tried to get over it. At first I thought I was succeeding. But +no, when the reaction came, I found that I cared more than ever. We were +born for each other. It must be so, for without you I am only half alive. +I haven't come for your advice, Don, but to make you an offer. Oh, not an +offer of myself. I should not dare, as you feel now. And it is not an +offer from me only; it is from a great person who has something to give +which is worth your accepting, even if my love is not!" + +"You've got in touch with _him_, have you?" Knight broke into the rushing +torrent of her words as a man might take a plunge into a cataract. + +"Why not?" she answered. "I didn't seek him out. It was he who sought +me." + +"You don't know how to speak the truth, Madalena! You said you found me +through Lady Annesley-Seton hearing from Mrs. Waldo, whereas you wrote to +Paul Van Vreck." + +"You do me injustice--always! I _did_ hear from Constance. Then I--merely +ventured to write and ask Mr. Van Vreck if he kept up communication with +you, and----" + +"You said in your letter to him that you knew where I was, and gave him +to understand that we were in touch with each other, or he would have let +out nothing." + +"He has written and told you this!" She spoke breathlessly, as if in +fear. + +"Ah, you give yourself away! No, I haven't heard from Van Vreck since I +saw him in New York, and thought I convinced him that my working days +for him were over. I simply guessed--knowing you--what you would do." + +"I may have mentioned Texas," Madalena admitted. "I supposed he knew +where you were. I couldn't have told him, because I didn't know. But he +wrote and suggested I should use my influence with you to reconsider your +decision. Those were his words." + +"How much has he paid you for coming here?" + +"Nothing. As if I would take money for coming to _you_!" + +"You have taken it for some queer things, and will again if you don't +settle down to private life with your millionaire.... It's no use, +Madalena. Go back to San Francisco. Send in your bill to Van Vreck. Tell +him there's nothing doing. And make up your mind to marriage." + +"But, Don, you haven't heard what he offers." + +"It can't be more than he offered me himself when I saw him in New +York----" + +"It is more. He says that particularly. He raises the offer from last +time. It is _three times_ higher! Think what that means. Oh, Don, it +means life, real life, not stagnation! I would give up safety and a +million to be with you--as your partner again, your humble partner. + +"Here, on this bleak ranch, it is like death--a death of dullness. I know +what you must be suffering because you are obstinate, because you have +taken a resolve, and are determined not to break it. You are afraid it +will be weakness to break it. There can be no other reason. + +"I have asked questions about your life here. I have learned things. I +know _she_ is cold as ice. If you stay you will degenerate. You will +become a clod. + +"Leave this hideous gray place. Leave that woman who treats you like a +dog. Let the ranch be hers. Send her money. You will have it to spare. +She can divorce you, and you will be freed forever from the one great +mistake you ever made. As for me----" + +"As for you--be silent!" The command struck like a whiplash. "You are not +worthy to speak of 'that woman,' as you call her. If I did what you +deserve, I'd send you off without another word--turn my back on you and +let you go. But--" he drew in his breath sharply, then went on as if he +had taken some tonic decision--"I want you to understand why, if Paul Van +Vreck offered me _all_ his money, and you offered me the love of all the +women on earth with your own, I shouldn't be tempted to accept. + +"It's because of 'that woman'--who is my wife. It may be true that she +treats me like a dog, for she wouldn't be cruel to the meanest cur. But +I'd rather be her dog than any other woman's master. + +"So you see now. It's come to that with me. I won her love and +married her for my own advantage. I lost her love because she found me +out--through you. Mild justice that, perhaps! But all the same, getting +her for mine _has_ been for my advantage. In a different way from what I +planned, but ten thousand times greater. Though she's taken her love from +me, she's given me back my soul. Nothing can rob me of that so long as I +run straight. + +"And I tell you, Madalena, this ranch, where I'm working out some kind of +expiation and maybe redemption, _is_ God's earth for me. _Now_ do you +understand?" + +For an instant the woman was silent. Then she broke into loud sobbing, +which she did not try to check. + +"You are a fool, Don!" she wept. "A fool!" + +"Maybe. But I'm not the devil's fool as I used to be. Don't cry. You +might be heard. Come. It's time to go. We've said all we have to say to +each other except good-bye--if that's not mockery." + +Madalena dried her tears, still sobbing under her breath. + +"At least take me to the automobile," she said. "Don't send me off alone +in the night. I am afraid." + +"There's nothing to be afraid of," Knight answered, the flame of his +fierceness burnt down. "But I'll go with you, and put you on the way back +to El Paso. Come along!" + +As he spoke, he started, and Madalena was forced to go with him, forced +to keep up with his long strides if she would not be left behind. + +When they had gone Annesley lay motionless, as though she were under +a spell. The man's words to the other woman wove the spell which bound +her, listening as they repeated themselves in her mind. Again and again +she heard them, as they had fallen from his lips. + +His expiation--perhaps his redemption--here on his bit of "God's +earth" ... "It may be true that she treats me like a dog.... But I'd +rather be her dog than any other woman's master...." And this was Easter +eve, a year to the night since his martyrdom began! + +Something seemed to seize Annesley by the hand and break the bonds that +had held her, something strong although invisible. She sat up with a +faint cry, as of one awakened from a dream, and slipped out of the +hammock. There was a dim idea in her mind that she must go along the road +where they had gone, so as to meet Knight on his way back. She did not +know what she should say to him, or whether she could say anything at +all; but the something which had taken her hand and snatched her out +of the hammock dragged her on and on. + +At first she obeyed the force blindly. + +"I must see him! I must see him!" The words spoke themselves in her head. +But when she had hurried out of the enclosure walled in by the cactus +hedge, the brilliant moonlight seemed to pierce her brain, and make a +cold, calm appeal to her reason. + +"You can't tell him what you have heard," it said. "He would be +humiliated. Or"--the thought was sharp as a gimlet--"what if he _saw_ +you, and knew you were listening? What if he talked just for effect? He +is so clever! He is subtle enough for that. And wouldn't it be more +_like_ the man, than to say what he said _sincerely_?" + +She stopped, and was thankful not to see her husband returning. There was +time to go back if she hurried. And she must hurry! If he had seen her in +her hammock, and made that theatrical attempt to play upon her feelings, +he would laugh at his own success if she followed him. And if he had not +seen her, and were in earnest, it would be best--indeed the only right +way--not to let him guess that the scene on the veranda steps had had a +witness. + +Annesley turned to fly back faster than she had come. But passing the +cactus hedge her dress caught. It was as if the hedge sentiently took +hold of her. + +She bent down to free the thin white material; and suddenly colour blazed +up to her eyes in the rain of silver moonlight. The buds had opened since +she noticed them last. + +No longer was the hedge a grim barricade of stiff, dark sticks. Each +stalk had turned into a tall, straight flame of lambent rose. From a dead +thing of dreary ugliness it had become a thing of living beauty. + +Knight's allegory! + +He had said, perhaps she might understand when the time came; and perhaps +not. + +She _did_ understand. But she had not faith to believe that the miracle +could repeat itself in life--her life and Knight's. She shut her eyes to +the thought, and when she had freed her dress ran very fast to the house. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +THE THREE WORDS + + +Knight was generally far away long before Annesley was up in the morning, +and often he did not come in till evening. She thought that on Easter +Day, however, he would perhaps not go far. She half expected that he +would linger about the house or sit reading on the veranda; and she could +not resist the temptation to put on one of the dresses he had liked in +England. + +It was a little _passe_ and old-fashioned, but he would not know this. +What he might remember was that she had worn it at Valley House. + +And the wish to say something, as if accidentally, about the flaming +miracle of the cactus hedge was as persistent in her heart as the desire +of a crocus to push through the earth to the sunshine on a spring +morning. She did not know whether the wish would survive the meeting with +her husband. She thought that would depend as much upon him as upon her +mood. + +But luncheon time came and Knight did not appear. + +Annesley lunched alone, in her gray frock. Even on days when Knight was +with her, and they sat through their meals formally, it was the same as +if she were alone, for they spoke little, and each was in the habit of +bringing a book to the table. + +But she had not meant it to be so on this Easter Day. Even if she did not +speak of the blossoming of the cactus, she had planned to show Knight +that she was willing to begin a conversation. To talk at meals would be +a way out of "treating him like a dog." + +The pretty frock and the good intention were wasted. Late in the +afternoon she heard from one of the line riders whom she happened to see +that something had gone wrong with a windmill which gave water to the +pumps for the cattle, and that her husband was attending to it. + +"He's a natural born engineer," said the man, whose business as "line +rider" was to keep up the wire fencing from one end of the ranch to the +other. "I don't know how much he _knows_, but I know what he can _do_. +Queer thing, ma'am! There don't seem to be much that Mike Donaldson +_can't_ do!" + +Annesley smiled to hear Knight called "Mike" by one of his employees. She +knew that he was popular, but never before had she felt personal pleasure +in the men's tributes of affection. + +To-day she felt a thrill. Her heart was warm with the spring and the +miracle of the cactus hedge, and memories of impetuous--_seemingly_ +impetuous--words of last night. + +If she could have seen Knight she would have spoken of his allegory; and +that small opening might have let sunlight into their darkness. But he +did not come even to dinner; and tired of waiting, and weary from a +sleepless night, she went to bed. + +Next morning a man arrived who wished to buy a bunch of Donaldson's +cattle, which were beginning to be famous. He stayed several days; and +when he left Knight had business at the copper mine--business that +concerned the sinking of a new shaft, which took him back and forth +nearly every day for a week. By and by the cactus flowers began to fade, +and Annesley had never found an opportunity of mentioning them, or what +they might signify. + +When she met Knight his manner was as usual: kind, unobtrusive, slightly +stiff, as though he were embarrassed--though he never showed signs of +embarrassment with any one else. She could hardly believe that she had +not dreamed those words overheard in the moonlight. + +Week after week slipped away. The one excitement at Las Cruces Ranch was +the fighting across the border; the great "scare" at El Paso, and the +stories of small yet sometimes tragic raids made by bands of cattle +stealers upon American ranches which touched the Rio Grande. The water +was low. This made private marauding expeditions easier, and the men of +Las Cruces Ranch were prepared for anything. + + * * * * * + +One night in May there was a sandstorm, which as usual played strange +tricks with Annesley's nerves. She could never grow used to these storms, +and the moaning of the hot wind seemed to her a voice that wailed for +coming trouble. Knight had been away on one of his motoring expeditions +to the Organ Mountains, and though he had told the Chinese boy that he +would be back for dinner, he did not come. Doors and windows were closed +against the blowing sand, but they could not shut out the voice of the +wind. + +After dinner Annesley tried to read a new book from the library at El +Paso, but between her eyes and the printed page would float the picture +of a small, open automobile and its driver lost in clouds of yellow sand. + +Why should she care? The man was used to roughing it. He liked +adventures. He was afraid of nothing, and nothing ever hurt him. But she +did care. She seemed to feel the sting of the sharp grains of sand on +cheeks and eyes. + +She was sitting in her own room, as she was accustomed to do in the +evening if she were not out on the veranda--the pretty room which Knight +had extravagantly made possible for her, with chintzes and furnishings +from the best shops in El Paso. On this evening, however, she set both +doors wide open, one which led into the living room, another leading into +a corridor or hall. She could not fail to hear her husband when he came, +even if he left his noisy car at the garage and walked to the house. + +A travelling clock on the mantelpiece--Constance Annesley-Seton's +gift--struck nine. The girl looked up at the first stroke, wondering if +serious accidents were likely to happen in sandstorms; and before the +last note had ended she heard steps in the patio. + +"He has come!" she thought, with a throb of relief which shamed her. But +the step was not like Knight's. It was hurried and nervous; and as she +told herself this there sounded a loud knock at the door. + +There was an electric bell, which Knight had fitted up with his own +hands, but it was not visible at night. No one except herself could hear +this knocking, for the servants' quarters were at the far end of the +bungalow. A little frightened, recalling stories of cattle thieves and +things they had done, Annesley went into the hall. + +"Who is there?" she cried, her face near the closed door, which locked +itself in shutting. If a man's voice--the voice of a stranger--should +reply in "Mex," or with a foreign accent, the girl did not intend to let +him in. A man's voice did reply, but neither in "Mex" nor with a foreign +accent. It said: "My name is Paul Van Vreck. Open quickly, please. I may +be followed." + +Annesley's heart jumped; but without hesitation she pulled back the +latch, and as she opened the door a rush of sand-laden wind wrenched it +from her hand. She staggered away as the door swung free, and there was +just time to see a tall, thin figure slip in like a shadow before the +light of the hanging-lamp blew out. The girl and the newcomer were in the +dark save for a yellow ray that filtered into the hall from her room, but +she saw him stoop to place a bag or bundle on the floor, and then, +pulling the door to against the wind, slammed it shut with a click. + +Having done this, the tall shadow bent to pick up what it had laid down. + +"Thank you, Mrs. Donaldson, for letting me in," said the most charming +voice Annesley had ever heard--more charming even than Knight's. +"Evidently you've heard your husband mention me, or you might have kept +me out there parleying, if you're alone, for these are stirring times." + +"Yes, I--I've heard you mentioned by--many people," the girl answered, +stammering like a nervous child. "Won't you come in--into the living +room? Not the room with the open door. That's mine. It's another, farther +along the hall. I'm sorry my husband's out." + +As she talked she wondered at herself. She knew Van Vreck for a super +thief. He did not steal with his own hands, but he commanded other hands +to steal, and that was even worse. Or she had thought it worse in her +husband's case, and for more than a year she had punished him for his +sins. Yet here she was almost welcoming this man. + +She did not understand why she felt--even without seeing him except as a +shadow--that she would find herself wishing to do whatever he might ask. +It must be, she thought, the influence of his voice. She had heard Paul +Van Vreck spoken of as an old man, but the voice was the voice of +magnetic youth. + +He opened the door of the living room, and, carrying his bundle, +followed her as she entered. There was only one lamp in this room, a tall +reading-lamp with a green silk shade, which stood on a table, its heavy +base surrounded by books and magazines. A good light for reading was +thrown from under the green shade on to the table, but the rest of the +room was of a cool, green dimness; and, looking up with irresistible +curiosity at the face of her night visitor, it floated pale on a vague +background, like a portrait by Whistler. + +It was unnaturally white, the girl thought, and--yes, it _was_ old! But +it was a wonderful face, and the eyes illumined it; immense eyes, though +deepset and looking out of shadowed hollows under level brows black as +ink. Annesley had never seen eyes so like strange jewels, lit from +behind. + +That simile came to her, and she smiled, for it was appropriate that this +jewel expert should have jewels for eyes. They were dark topazes, and +from them gazed the spirit of the man with a compelling charm. + +Under a rolled-back wave of iron-gray hair he had a broad forehead, high +cheekbones, a pointed prominent chin, a mouth both sweet and humorous, +like that of some enchanting woman; but its sweetness was contradicted by +a hawk nose. Had it not been for that nose he would have been handsome. + +"I guessed by the startled tone of your voice, when you asked, 'Who is +there?' that your husband was out," explained the shadow, now transformed +by the light into an extremely tall, extremely thin man in gray +travelling clothes. "I had a moment of repentance at troubling a lady +alone; but, you see, the case was urgent." + +He had carelessly tossed his Panama hat on to the table, but kept the +black bag, which he now held out with a smile. + +"Not a big bag, is it? And so common, it wouldn't be likely to tempt +a thief. But it holds what is worth--if it has a price--about half a +million dollars." + +"Oh!" exclaimed Annesley. She looked horrified; and through the green +gloom the old man read her face. + +"I see!" he said, with a laugh in his young voice. "You have heard the +great secret! That makes another who knows. But I'm not afraid you'll +throw me to the dogs. You wouldn't do that even if you weren't +Donaldson's wife. Being his wife, you could not." + +"My husband has told me no secret about you, none at all," the girl +protested, defending Knight involuntarily. "I beg you to believe that, +Mr. Van Vreck." + +"I do believe it. If there's one thing I pride myself on, it's being a +judge of character. That's why I've made a success of life. You wouldn't +lie, perhaps not even to save the one you love best. I believe that he +did not tell you the secret. Yet I'm certain you know it. I suppose other +discoveries you must have made gave you supernatural intuition. You +guessed." + +Annesley did not answer. Yet she could not take her eyes from his. + +"You needn't mind confessing. But I won't catechize you. I'll take it +for granted that what Donaldson knows you know--not in detail, in the +rough.... In this bag are six gold images set with precious stones. They +are of the time of the Incas, and they've been up till now the most +precious things in Mexico. From now on they will be among the most +precious things in Paul Van Vreck's secret collection. + +"Some weeks ago I hoped that Donaldson would get them for me. He refused, +so I had to go myself. I couldn't trust any one else, though the only +difficulty was getting to Central Mexico with Constitutionals raging on +one side and Federals on the other. A man promised to deliver the goods +to my messenger. I've been bargaining over these things for years. But, +as I said, Don wouldn't go, so I had to do the job myself. You see, Mrs. +Donaldson, your husband is the only honest man I ever came across." + +"Honest!" The exclamation burst from Annesley's lips. + +"Yes. Honest is the word. I might add two others: 'true' and 'loyal.'" +Paul Van Vreck held her with his strange, straight look, commanding, yet +amused. "That is the opinion," he added after a pause, "of a very old +friend. It's worth its weight in--gold images." + +The girl gave him no answer. But the effort of keeping her face under +control made lips and eyelids quiver. + +"May I sit down, Mrs. Donaldson?" Van Vreck asked in a tone which changed +to commonplaceness--if his voice could ever be commonplace. "I'm a +fugitive, and have had a run for my money, so to speak. I'm seeking +sanctuary. Also I came in the hope of trying my eloquence on Donaldson. +But now I've seen you, I will not do that. In future he's safe from me, +I promise you." + +"Oh!" Annesley faltered. And then: "Thank you!" came out, grudgingly. +How astonishing that _she_ should thank Paul Van Vreck, the monster of +wickedness and secrecy she had pictured, for "sparing" her husband--her +husband whom _he_ called loyal, true, and honest; whom she had called in +her heart a thief! + +"Do sit down," she hurried on, hypnotized. "Forgive my not asking you. +I----" + +"I understand," he soothed her. "I've taken advantage of you--sprung +a surprise, as Don would say, and then turned on the tortures of the +Inquisition. Aren't _you_ going to sit? I can't, you know, if you don't." + +"I thought you might like something to eat," the girl stammered. "I could +call our cook----" + +"No, thank you," replied Van Vreck. "I'm peculiar in more ways than one. +I never eat at night. I live mostly on milk, water, fruit, and nuts. +That's why I feel forty at seventy-two. I give out that I'm frail--an +invalid--that I spend much time in nursing homes. This is my joke on a +public which has no business to be curious about my habits. While it +thinks I'm recuperating in a nursing home I--but no matter! That won't +interest you." + +When she had obediently sat down, her knees trembling a little, Van Vreck +drew up a chair for himself, and, resting his arms on the table, leaned +across it gazing at the girl with a queer, humorous benevolence. + +"How soon do you think your husband will come?" he asked, abruptly. + +"I don't know," Annesley replied. "He told our Chinese boy he'd be early. +I suppose the sandstorm has delayed him." + +"No doubt.... And you're worried?" + +"No-o," she answered, looking sidewise at Van Vreck, her face half turned +from him. "I don't think that I'm worried." + +"May I talk to you frankly till Don does come?" the old man asked. + +"Certainly." + +"I'll take you at your word!... Mrs. Donaldson, when your husband called +on me a year ago last spring, in New York, he said nothing about you. I +knew he'd married an English girl of good connections (isn't that what +you say on your side?), and why he thought it would be wise to marry. But +when he informed me that our association was to be ended, that nothing +would induce him to continue it, I read between the lines. I'm sharp at +that! I knew as well as if he'd told me that he'd fallen in love with the +girl, that she'd unexpectedly become the important factor in his life, +and that--she'd found out a secret she'd never been meant to find out: +_his_ secret, and maybe mine. + +"I realized by his face--the look in the eyes, the tone of the voice, or +rather, the tonelessness of the voice--what her finding out meant for +Don. I read by all signs that she was making him suffer atrociously and +I owed that girl a grudge. She'd taken him from me. For the first time a +power stronger than mine was at work; and yet, things being as they were, +my hope of getting him back lay in her." + +"What do you mean?" The question spoke itself. Annesley's lips felt cold +and stiff. Her hands, nervously clasped in her lap, were cold, too, +though the shut-up room had but lately seemed hot as a furnace. + +"I mean, if the girl behaved as I thought she would behave--as I think +you have behaved--he might grow tired of her and the cast-iron coat of +virtue he'd put on to please her. He might grow tired of life on a ranch +if his wife made him eat ashes and wear sack-cloth. That was my hope. +Well, I sent a messenger to find out how the land lay a few weeks ago." + +"The Countess de Santiago!" Annesley exclaimed. + +"He told you?" + +"No, I saw her. I--by accident--(it really was by accident!) I heard +things. He doesn't know--I believe he doesn't know--I was there." + +"Perhaps that's just as well. Perhaps not. But if I were you I'd tell him +when the right time comes. The Countess wrote me she'd had her journey in +vain, and why. She said--spitefully it struck me--that Don was bewitched +by his wife, a cold, cruel creature with ice in her veins, who treated +him like a dog." + +"She said that to you, too?" + +"Yes, she said that. She seemed to gather the impression. But the dog +stuck to his kennel. Nothing _she_ could do would tempt him to budge. So +I decided to call here myself, on the way back from Mexico. I couldn't +delay the trip. A man was waiting for me. And waiting quietly is +difficult in Mexico just now. I got what I wanted, and crammed the lot +into this bag, which cost me at the outside, if I remember, five dollars. +A good idea of mine for putting thieves off the track. They expect sane +men to carry nightgowns and newspapers in such bags. I thought I'd +managed so well that I'd put the gang who follow me about, generally on +'spec,' off the track. + +"I speak Spanish well. I've been passing for a Mexican lawyer from +Chihuahua. But to-day I caught a look from a pair of eyes in a train. I +fancied I'd seen those eyes before--and the rest of the features. Perhaps +I imagined it. But I don't think so. I trust my instinct. I advise you +to! It's a tip. + +"At El Paso I bought a ticket for Albuquerque. The eyes were behind me. +I got into the train. So did Eyes, and a friend with a long nose. Not +into my car, however, so I was able to skip out again as the train was +starting. Not a bad feat for a man of my age! I hope Eyes and Nose, +and any other features that may have been with them, travelled on +unsuspectingly. But I can't be sure. Instinct says they saw my trick +and trumped it. + +"I oughtn't to have come here, bringing danger to your house, Mrs. +Donaldson. But I want to see Don, and I know he is afraid neither of man +nor devil--afraid of nothing in the world except one woman. + +"As for her--well, what I'd heard hadn't prepossessed me in her favour. +I sacrificed her for the safety of my golden images and my talk with Don. +But the sound of your voice behind the shut door broke the picture I'd +made of that young woman. And when I saw you--well, Mrs. Donaldson, I've +already told you I don't intend to exert my influence over your husband, +though to do so was my principal object in coming. Even if I did, I +believe yours would prove stronger. But if I could count on all my old +power over him, I wouldn't use it now I have seen you. + +"I adore myself, and--my specialties. But there must be an unselfish +streak in me which shows in moments like this. I respect and admire it. +You may treat Don like a dog, but he'd never be happy away from you. And +I am fool enough to want him to be happy. This kicked dog of yours, +madame, happens to be the finest fellow I ever knew or expect to know." + +"You say I treat him like a dog!" cried Annesley, roused to anger. +"But how ought I to treat him? He came into my life in a way I thought +romantic as a fairy tale. It was a trick--a play got up to deceive me! +I knew nothing of his life; but because of the faith he inspired, I +believed in him. No one except himself could have broken that belief. I +would not have listened to a word against him. But when he thought I'd +discovered something, the whole story came out. If I hadn't loved him so +much to begin with, and put him on such a high pedestal, the fall +wouldn't have been so great--wouldn't have broken my heart in pieces." + +"But Don gave up everything pleasant in his life, and came down here to +this God-forsaken ranch--a man like Michael Donaldson, with a few hundred +dollars where he'd had thousands--all for you," said Van Vreck, "and he's +had no thought except for you and the ranch for more than a year. Yet +apparently you haven't changed your opinion. By Jove, madame, you must +somehow, through your personality and God knows what besides, have got a +mighty hold on his heart, in the days when you loved him, or he wouldn't +have stood this dog's life, this punishment too harsh for human nature to +bear. Good Lord, how were you brought up? Evidently not as a Christian." + +"My father was a clergyman," said Annesley. + +"There are many clergymen who have got as far from the light as the moon +from the earth. I know more about Christianity myself than some of those +narrow men with their 'cold Christs and tangled Trinities'! That is, I +know all this on principle. I don't practise what I know, but that's my +affair. Did Don ever excuse himself by mentioning the influence I brought +to bear on him when he was almost a boy?" + +"No," breathed Annesley. "He didn't excuse himself at all except to tell +me about his father and mother, and a vow he'd made to revenge them on +society." + +"It was like him not to whine for your forgiveness." + +"He would never whine," the girl agreed. But she remembered that night of +confession when on his knees he had begged her to forgive, to grant him +another chance, and she had refused. He had never asked again. And he had +struggled alone for redemption. + +"I haven't forgotten some early teachings which impressed me," said Paul +Van Vreck. "Christ made a remark about forgiving till seventy times +seven. Did you forgive Donaldson four hundred and eighty-nine times, and +draw the line at the four hundred and ninetieth?" + +"No, I never had anything to forgive him--till that one thing came out. +But it was a very big thing. Too big!" + +"_Too_ big, eh? There was another saying of Christ's about those without +sin throwing the first stone. Of course I'm sure _you_ were without sin. +But you look as if you might have had a heart--once." + +"Oh, I had, I had!" Tears streamed down Annesley's pale face, and she did +not wipe them away. "It's dead now I think." + +"Think again. Think of what the man is--what he's proved himself to be. +He's twice as good now as one of your best saints of the Church. He's +purified by fire. You've got the face of an angel, Mrs. Donaldson, but in +my opinion you're a wicked woman unworthy of the love you've inspired." + +"You speak to me cruelly," the girl said through her tears. "I've been +very unhappy!" + +"Not as unhappy as you've made Don by _your_ cruelty. Good heavens, these +tender girls can be more cruel when they set about punishing us, than the +hardest man! And to punish a fellow like that by making him live in an +ice-house, when you could have done anything with him by a little +kindness! Don't _I_ know that? + +"I'm the sponsor for such sins as Don's committed. He was meant to be +straight. But I got hold of him through an agent, and caught his +imagination when that wild vow was freshly branded on his heart or brain. +I have the gift of fascination, Mrs. Donaldson. I know that better than I +know most things. _You_ feel it to-night, or you wouldn't sit there +letting me tear your heart to pieces--what's left of your heart. And I +have an idea there's a good deal more than you think, if you have the +sense to patch the bits together. + +"I have fascination, and I've cultivated it. Napoleon himself didn't +study more ardently than I the art of winning men. I won Don. I appealed +to the romance in him. I became his hero and--slowly--I was able to make +him my servant. Not much of my money or anything else has ever stuck to +his hands. He's too generous--too impulsive; though I taught him it was +necessary to control his impulses. + +"What he did, he did for love of me, till you came along and lit another +sort of fire in his blood. I saw in one minute, when he called on me, +what had happened to his soul. It's taken you more than a year to see, +though he's lived for you and would have died for you. Great Heaven, +young woman, you ought to be on your knees before a miracle of God! +Instead, you've mounted a marble pedestal and worshipped your own +purity!" + +Annesley bowed her head under a wave of shame. _This_ man, of all others, +had shown her a vision of herself as she was. It seemed that she could +never lift her eyes. But suddenly, into the crying of the wind, a shot +broke sharply; then another and another, till the sobbing wail was lost +in a crackling fusillade. + +The girl leaped to her feet. + +"Raiders!" she gasped. "Or else----" + +Paul Van Vreck sprang up also, his face paler, his eyes brighter than +before. + +"They've come after me," he said. "Clever trick--if they've bribed +ruffians from over the border to cover their ends. The real errand's +here, inside this house." + +Annesley's heart faltered. + +"You must hide," she breathed. "I must save you--somehow." + +"Why should you save _me_?" Van Vreck asked, sharply. "Why not think +about saving yourself?" + +"Because I know Knight would wish to save you," she answered. "I want to +do what he would do.... God help us, they're coming nearer! Take your +bag, and I'll hide you in the cellar. There's a corner there, behind some +barrels. If they break in, I'll say----" + +"Brave girl! But they won't break in." + +"How do you know?" + +"Your husband won't let them. Trust him, as I do." + +"He's not here. Do you think I told you a lie? Thank Heaven he _isn't_ +here, or they'd kill him, and I could never beg him to forgive----" She +covered her face with her hands. + +The old man looked at her gravely. + +"You don't understand what's happening," he said, with a new gentleness. +"Don's out there now, defending you and his home. That's what the +shooting means. Do you think those brutes would advertise themselves with +their guns if they hadn't been attacked?" + +With a cry the girl rushed to the long window, and began to unfasten it, +but Van Vreck caught her hands. + +"Stop!" he commanded. "Don't play the robbers' own game for them! _How do +you know which is nearer the house, Don and his men, or the others?_" + +She stared at him, panting, "Don and his men?" she echoed. + +"Yes. Even if he were alone to begin with, I'll bet all I've got he +roused every cowpuncher on the ranch with his first shot; and they'd be +out with their guns like a streak of greased lightning. If you open that +window with a light in the room, the wrong lot may get in and barricade +themselves against Don and his bunch--to say nothing of what would happen +to us. But----" + +Annesley waited for no more. She ran to the table and blew out the flame +of the green-shaded lamp. Black darkness shut down like the lid of a box. +But she knew the room as she knew her own features. Straight and +unerring, she found her way back to the window. + +This time Van Vreck stood still while she opened it and began noiselessly +to undo the outside wooden shutters. As she pushed them apart, against +the wind, a spray of sand dashed into her face and Van Vreck's, stinging +their eyelids. But disregarding the pain, the two passed out into the +night. + +Clouds of blowing sand hid the stars, yet there was a faint glimmer of +light which showed moving figures on horseback. Men were shouting, and +with the bark of their guns fire spouted. + +Annesley rushed on to the veranda, but Van Vreck caught her dress. + +"Stay where you are!" he ordered. "Our side is winning. Don't you +see--don't you hear--the fight's going farther away? That means the +raid's failed--the skunks have got the worst of it. They're trying to get +back to the river and across to their own country. There'll be some, I +bet, who'll never see Mexico again!" + +"But Knight----" the girl faltered. "He may be shot----" + +"He may. We've got to take the chances and hope for the best. He wouldn't +leave the chase now if every door and window were open and lit for him. +Wait. Watch. That's the only thing to do." + +She yielded to the detaining hand. All strength had gone out of her. She +staggered a little, and fell back against Van Vreck's shoulder. He held +her up strongly, as though he had been a young man. + +"How can I live through it?" she moaned. + +"You care for him after all, then?" she heard the calm voice asking in +her ear. And she heard her own voice answer: "I love him more than ever." +She knew that it was true, true in spite of everything, and that she had +never ceased to love him. It would be joy to give her life to save +Knight's, with just one moment of breath to tell him that his atonement +had not been vain. + + * * * * * + +Away out of sight the chase went, but the watching eyes had time to see +that not all the figures were on horseback. Some ran on foot; and some +horses were riderless. As Van Vreck had said, there was nothing for him +and for Annesley to do except to wait. They stood silent in the rain of +sand, listening when there was nothing more to see. The shots were +scattered and blurred by distance. Annesley realized how a heart may stop +beating in the anguish of suspense. + +But at last when the fierce wind, purring like a tiger, was the only +sound in the night, there came a sudden padding of feet. A form stumbled +up the veranda steps, and before she could cry out in her surprise, the +girl recognized their Chinese servant. + +She had fancied him in bed. But she might have known he would be out! + +He had been running so fast that his breath came chokingly. + +"What is it?" Annesley implored. + +The boy pointed, trying to speak, "Bling Mist' Donal back," he gulped. +"Me come tell." + +Annesley pushed past him, and springing down the steps ran blindly +through the sand cloud, taking the way by which the Chinese boy must have +come home. Her mind pictured a procession carrying a dead man, or one +grievously wounded; but at the cactus hedge she came upon three men--one +in the centre, who limped, two who supported him on either side. + +"Why, Anita!" exclaimed her husband's voice. + +"Knight!" she sobbed. It was the first time since Easter a year ago that +she had given him the old name. + +"Thank God you're alive!" + +"If you thank Him, so do I," he answered, whether lightly or gravely she +could not tell. His tone was controlled, as if to hide pain. "It's all +right. You mustn't worry any more. Wish I could have sent you news +sooner. I hoped you'd guess we were getting the upper hand when the shots +died away. Coming home I spotted the sneaks fording the river. I turned +the car, and stirred up the boys. Then we had a shindy, and scared the +dogs cold--bagged a few, but I guess nobody croaked--anyhow, none of our +crowd. Half a dozen are after the curs. + +"As for me, I feel as if I'd got a dum-dum in my ankle, but I'll be fit +as a fiddle in a week or two. I'm afraid you had a fright." + +How strange it was to hear him speak so coolly after what she had +endured! But his calmness quieted her. + +"Mr. Van Vreck was with me," she said. + +"Van Vreck! Great Scott, then the raid was a frameup! I see. Boys, let's +get along to the house quick." + +"Wait an instant!" the girl intervened. "Knight, I never had a chance to +tell you--about the cactus blossoms. I understood. I understand even +better now. Mr. Van Vreck has made me understand. That is all I can tell +you. Let them help you to the house. I'll follow. Some other time I'll +explain." + +"No--now!" he said. "Let go a minute, boys. I can stand by myself. Three +words with my wife." + +As the two men moved off hastily, Annesley sprang forward, giving her +shoulder for her husband's support. + +"Lean on me," she said. "Oh, Knight, you don't need an explanation, for +the three words are, love--love and forgiveness. Forgiveness from _you_ +to _me_." + +He held out his arms, and caught her to him fiercely. Neither could +speak. The past was forgotten. Only the present and future counted. Both +the man and woman had atoned. + + +THE END + + + * * * * * + + + +_Books by the Same Authors_ + +Car of Destiny, The + +Chaperon, The + +Everyman's Land + +Golden Silence, The + +Guests of Hercules, The + +Heather Moon, The + +It Happened in Egypt + +Lady Betty Across the Water + +Lightning Conductor, The + +Lightning Conductor Discovers America, The + +Lion's Mouse, The + +Lord Loveland Discovers America + +Motor Maid, The + +My Friend the Chauffeur + +Port of Adventure, The + +Princess Passes, The + +Princess Virginia + +Rosemary in Search of a Father + +Secret History + +Set in Silver + +Soldier of the Legion, A + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SECOND LATCHKEY*** + + +******* This file should be named 18470.txt or 18470.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/4/7/18470 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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