diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-14 20:05:52 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-14 20:05:52 -0700 |
| commit | 9696d3d8d88d188745827ee9410d5414455b674e (patch) | |
| tree | 3428ec8bd5e2042c08845aae7760ff1f5203bf40 | |
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 36467-8.txt | 7498 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 36467-8.zip | bin | 0 -> 111625 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 36467-h.zip | bin | 0 -> 366065 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 36467-h/36467-h.htm | 7745 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 36467-h/images/cover.jpg | bin | 0 -> 50181 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 36467-h/images/illus1.jpg | bin | 0 -> 42406 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 36467-h/images/illus2.jpg | bin | 0 -> 59357 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 36467-h/images/illus3.jpg | bin | 0 -> 58066 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 36467-h/images/illus4.jpg | bin | 0 -> 40440 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 36467.txt | 7498 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 36467.zip | bin | 0 -> 111566 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 |
14 files changed, 22757 insertions, 0 deletions
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/36467-8.txt b/36467-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5a4c505 --- /dev/null +++ b/36467-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7498 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Butterfly on the Wheel, by +Cyril Arthur Edward Ranger Gull + +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: A Butterfly on the Wheel + +Author: Cyril Arthur Edward Ranger Gull + +Release Date: June 19, 2011 [EBook #36467] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BUTTERFLY ON THE WHEEL *** + + + + +Produced by Mark C. Orton, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive) + + + + + + + + + + + + A BUTTERFLY ON THE WHEEL + + _A Novel_ + + By C. RANGER GULL + + _Author of "A Woman in the Case," etc._ + + Founded on the successful play by E. G. Hemmerde, K. C., + M. P., and Francis Neilson, M. P. + + _WITH PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE PLAY_ + + NEW YORK + + WILLIAM RICKEY & COMPANY + + 1912 + + Copyrighted 1912, by + WILLIAM RICKEY & COMPANY + + PRESS OF WILLIAM G. HEWITT, 61-67 NAVY ST., BROOKLYN, N. Y. + + + + +[Illustration: "Forgive me, George," she sobbed, "forgive me."] + + + + +ORIGINAL PROGRAM OF A BUTTERFLY ON THE WHEEL + +Produced at the 39th Street Theatre, beginning Tuesday Evening, January +9th, 1912 + + MR. LEWIS WALLER + Has the Honor to Submit + A Butterfly on the Wheel + By Edward G. Hemmerde, K. C., and Francis Neilson, M. P. + Produced under the personal supervision of Lewis Waller + + The Rt. Hon. George Admaston, M. P. Eille Norwood + Roderick Collingwood Charles Quartermaine + Lord Ellerdine Evelyn Beerbohm + Sir John Burroughes, President of the + Divorce Court, Herbert Budd + Sir Robert Fyffe, K. C., M. P., Admaston's + leading counsel, Sidney Valentine + Gervaise McArthur, K. C., Collingwood's + leading counsel, Lewis Broughton + Stuart Menzies, K. C., Collingwood's + leading counsel, Denis Cleugh + Jacques, waiter at the Hôtel des Tuileries Walter Cluxton + Jean DuBois, detective John Wilmer + Foreman of the jury James Stuart + Footman Frank Dossert + Lady Attwill Olive Temple + Pauline, Miss Admaston's maid Loretta Wells + Peggy, George Admaston's wife Madge Titheradge + + General Manager Victor Lewis + Business Manager John Wilmer + Stage Manager Lewis Broughton + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + +"Forgive me, George," she sobbed, "forgive me" + +"We all got on the wrong train and we all stayed the night at this +hotel" + +"Don't you see, man, if you call in the court to break her wings, you'll +only drive her to me!" + +"He caught her in his arms--in his strong arms" + + + + +PREFACE + + +Of all the English plays that have come to this country none has created +more of a sensation than "A BUTTERFLY ON THE WHEEL," and without +question will be received the same by the public over the entire country +as it has been received in New York. The play opened at the Thirty-ninth +Street Theatre on Tuesday evening, January 9th, and has played to +"standing room only" at every performance since. + +The story in book form has been done by C. Ranger Gull (pen name), a +writer who has already gained a big reputation as an author both in +America and England, and the success of "A BUTTERFLY ON THE WHEEL" goes +without saying. + +THE PUBLISHER. + + + + +A BUTTERFLY ON THE WHEEL + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +It was shortly after midnight in the great Hôtel des Tuileries at Paris. + +Beyond the façade of the hotel the gardens of the Tuileries were +sleeping in the warm night. To the left the Louvre etched itself in +solid black against the sky, and all up and down the Rue de Rivoli +carriages and automobiles were still moving. + +But in the great thoroughfare the tide of vehicles and foot passengers +was perceptibly thinning. Paris is a midnight city, it is true, and at +this hour the heights of Montmartre were thronged with pleasure-seekers, +dancing and supping till the pale dawn should come with its message of +purity and reproach. + +But down in the Rue de Rivoli even the great hotels were beginning to +prepare for sleep. + +One enters the Hôtel des Tuileries, as every one knows, through the +revolving doors, passes into the entresol, and then into the huge +glass-domed lounge with its comfortable fauteuils, its big settee, its +little tables covered with beaten copper, and its great palms, which +seem as if they had been cunningly enamelled jade-green by some +jeweller. + +The lounge was now almost empty of people, though the shaded electric +light threw a topaz-coloured radiance over everything. + +In one corner--just where the big marble stair-case springs upwards to +the gilded gallery--two men in evening dress were sitting together. + +They were obviously English, tall, thin, bronzed men, as obviously in +the service. As a matter of fact, one was Colonel Adams, attached to the +Viceroy's staff in India, the other a civilian's secretary--Henry +Passhe. + +They were both smoking briar pipes--delighted that the lateness of the +hour allowed them to do so in the lounge; and before each man was a long +glass full of crushed ice and some effervescing water innocent of +whisky. + +A man in black clothes, obviously a valet, came up to Colonel Adams. + +"I've put everything ready in your room, sir," he said. "Is there +anything else?" + +"No, there is nothing else, Snell," the soldier answered. "You can go to +bed now." + +The man was moving away when Adams called him back. + +"Oh, by the way, Snell, did you find out what I asked you? It is Mrs. +Admaston who is staying here, isn't it?" + +"Yes, sir, she is here with her maid, and----" + +"Well?" + +The man seemed to hesitate slightly, but at length he spoke: "Mr. +Roderick Collingwood is here too, sir." + +"Is he, by Jove!" Adams said, more to his friend than to his servant. +"Very well, Snell. Good night." + +The valet withdrew, and Colonel Adams puffed vigorously at his pipe for +a minute or two. + +"_The_--the Mrs. Admaston?" the civilian asked. + +Colonel Adams nodded. "The great, little Peggy herself," he said; "none +other. Surely you've met her, Passhe?" + +"I was introduced to her some months ago at a Foreign Office reception," +the younger man answered; "but I really can't say that I know her. I've +never been to any of the Admastons' parties. In fact, my dear Adams, I +am a little bit out of things in town now. Ask me anything about any of +the Indian set and I can tell you, but as far as society goes in London +I am a back number. I won't say, though, that I haven't heard this and +that about the Admastons. One can't go anywhere without hearing their +names. However, I know nothing of the rights or wrongs of the story--if +story there is at all. But certainly every one has heard this man +Collingwood's name mentioned in connection with that of Mrs. Admaston. +Who was she, any way? You know everything about everybody. Tell me all +about them." + +Colonel Adams sipped his Perrier quietly, and his brown, lean face +became unusually meditative. + +"Aren't you sleepy?" he said. + +"Can't sleep, confound it!" Passhe replied. "Liver. Have lunch, take an +afternoon nap, and then can't get to sleep at night for the Lord knows +how long." + +"I know," Adams said sympathetically. "Liver is the very devil. That's +the worst of India. Now, there is nothing, my dear chap, that I should +enjoy more at this moment than a two-finger peg of whisky. Can I take +it? Damn it, no! I should have heartburn for hours--that's India! But +since you are not sleepy, and I am sure I'm not, I will tell you about +the Admastons." + +The colonel's pipe had gone out. He relit it, pressed down the ashes +with the head of a little silver pencil-case which he took from his +waistcoat pocket, sent out a cloud of fragrant blue-grey smoke, leant +back in his arm-chair, and began. + +"Admaston," Colonel Adams began, "is one of the most hard-working +Johnnies of the day. He's as rich as what-d'you-call-him, of course, but +he hasn't used his wealth to make his position in Parliament or to get +him his place in the Cabinet. He's done it by sheer ability, by Jove! +He's of an old family, but there haven't been any members of it in big +political positions to help him over the heads of those who have to +shift for themselves. + +"He was at Harrow with me, though considerably my junior, and I remember +he played cricket with an energy that deserved a much higher batting +average than he got. He wasn't a studious youth by any means, though he +learnt enough to know his way about. He was still at school and I had +just passed into Sandhurst when his father died and left him a huge +fortune. Then he went to Oxford--New College it may have been, or +possibly the House. I don't think he did anything much at Oxford. I'm +told by men who were up with him that the sense of the enormous +responsibility which fell on him after his father's death, and the +anxieties of having to manage a great estate and a huge business, spoilt +him for the schools and rather put him off cricket. He might have got +into the Eleven, but he didn't care enough about it to try hard." + +"A bit phlegmatic in temperament?" Passhe asked. + +"That's it," replied Colonel Adams. "Nothing seemed to move him much. If +ever a man was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, George Admaston +was the chap. But I don't believe he cared particularly whether his +spoon was silver or pewter, by Jove! Just a plain fellow of frugal +habits. I am told that when he met the deputation from the Northern +Division of Lancashire, which went up to town to ask him to contest that +constituency, after the interview one of the local Johnnies said, 'Mr. +Admaston was so nice that he might be nobody.' At anyrate, George has +found his _métier_ in politics. Three years in opposition gave him a +great reputation as a quick and ready debater. He is a great asset to +his party now, and at by-elections he's the night-before-the-poll man." + +"But what about his wife?" said the civilian. + +"I'm coming to that, Henry," Adams answered. "And if I am a bit +long-winded you've jolly well brought it on yourself. It's like this. +George's father was the head of Admaston, Grainger & Co., the big City +financiers. Old Grainger had a daughter, much younger than George +Admaston. Peggy Grainger was only a tiny little girl when Admaston's +father died. I'm told that the old men when they were together would +chaff each other about their children. Old Grainger used to say that +they must certainly marry--keep the firm together, and so on, don't you +know. In fact, the last letter that George ever got from his father +referred to old Grainger's notion that George should marry Peggy. Now, +Peggy's mother was a Frenchwoman, a Mlle. Guillou, and the girl was +educated in France. George hadn't been long in the Cabinet when old +Grainger brought Peggy to London. She was about nineteen then, and the +prettiest, most flirtatious, whimsical little butterfly of a thing that +you could possibly imagine. Well, her father established Peggy in a big +house in St. James's--huge retinue of servants and so forth. All London +began to talk about the rich Miss Grainger. The girl spent just what she +liked--her father encouraged her to do it; there was really nothing else +to be done with the money. But whenever George came to the house--and he +saw a lot of the Graingers the first year when Peggy came to London--the +old boy was always hinting to him that he ought to marry Peggy. + +"One evening Admaston was called off the Treasury Bench in the House to +speak at the telephone. He thought it was Peggy, but it wasn't. It was +her old maid, Pauline, who is here with her in this hotel to-night, and +who has looked after her all her life nearly. Pauline said that old +Grainger had just passed in his cheques, by Jove! He was a big fleshy +fellow--always did himself top hole. He'd made a big dinner, laughed at +a joke like anything with his daughter, had a stroke, and was cooling +by ten o'clock." + +"And then?" Henry Passhe asked. + +"Well, of course, Peggy was left quite alone. There were no relatives. +In fact, there was nobody except this old nurse, Pauline, a woman of +about forty. Mrs. Grainger had been a chronic invalid, and she had left +the girl in charge of the 'bonne.' Old Grainger often used to say that +Pauline was more of a mother to Peggy than even his wife had been, and +after his death Peggy relied upon the woman for almost everything. She's +been with her ever since, and is more like a mother to her still than a +servant. Pauline, in fact, took charge of the household, looked after +the servants in every way, and controlled everything. It was a curious +_ménage_. + +"One day Peggy and Admaston met at a country house for a week-end party. +Nobody knows exactly how it happened, but at anyrate George proposed and +Peggy accepted him. I remember the fuss they made about it in the +society papers--fulsome, sickenin' sort of hog-wash they wrote. 'Love at +first sight,' and all that sort of thing. 'Little Peggy was to be the +wife of a Prime Minister'--'they adored each other,' etc. But I'll eat +my hand if they did anything of the kind. They simply remembered the +wishes of their fathers and saw it was best to consolidate their huge +commercial interests. I daresay Peggy felt very lonely and George felt +very sorry for her. At anyrate, the engagement was announced. + +"George had an aunt--has her still, I suppose--the rich Miss Admaston, a +damned old cat who gives thousands to foreign missions. I've met some of +the missionaries of her particular gospel-shop in India, and a nice lot +of touts they are too. Well, the old cat was fearfully cut up by the +news of the engagement. She thought Peggy was far too French and +frivolous for George, and, of course, Peggy has always been rather +go-ahead. For my part, I don't care what they are saying now, I don't +think there is an ounce of vice in the girl. + +"It's gettin' rather late, Henry, and I'm afraid I'm boring you?" + +"Not a bit; go on, do," the secretary answered. + +"Very well. George's engagement to Peggy seriously affected the lives of +two people who are deucedly well known in society. One of them was Lady +Attwill, widow of 'Clipper' Attwill, who scuppered his yacht and himself +too somewhere in the Mediterranean--a thorough bad hat, Clipper was. +Lady Attwill had been setting her cap at George for a long time. Every +one knew it but George. It was a regular joke of one season. She +couldn't get hold of him, though, despite everything she could do. +George hadn't an idea of what the woman wanted. He was really fond of +her. He looked on her as a very dear friend, and he took all her +kindnesses and so forth just in that light, with a calm complacency that +must have sent her raving at times. Of course, all Lady Attwill's +friends did their very best to bring the two together upon every +possible occasion; and when George steered clear and proposed to Peggy, +every one said the poor, dear chap was one of the craftiest politicians +on the Front Bench. And all the time, Henry, I'll lay you what you like +that Admaston was as innocent as a canary. + +"There were two people, I said, who were seriously affected by George's +engagement. Well, the other was Roderick Collingwood, who's staying in +the hotel now, as Snell has just told us. + +"Colling--everybody calls him Colling--knew Peggy's governor. He's a +bally millionaire also, and he used to have a good many dealings with +the firm. Collingwood travels about a great deal--always has done,--and +he first met Peggy when she was a flapper of fifteen at old Grainger's +place near Chantilly--old Grainger used to run horses a lot in France. + +"Collingwood has always been an extraordinary sort of chap; he was then, +it appears. Like any other young man of great wealth, he found +everything done for him, anything he liked ready to his hand, and +simply let himself go. When Peggy's father died, Colling was going it +hell-for-leather--just about as fast as they're made. Of course, Peggy +knew nothing of the real facts. But she heard gossip and hints, and one +night she taxed him with the way he was living, referring specially to +one or two of his more recent escapades. He admitted there was some +truth in what she said, and, if what they say is true, made her some +sort of a promise of reformation. At anyrate, he pulled up; there's no +doubt of that. + +"Afterwards the two met fairly regularly, and I was staying at Lord +Ellerdine's place in Yorkshire when I believe Collingwood told Peggy of +the good influence she had been, and showed himself as a reformed rake, +by Jove! I think there's no doubt at all that he would have proposed to +the girl if George Admaston had not forestalled him. They say +Collingwood was frightfully cut up. At anyrate, he wasn't in England +when the marriage took place. + +"It was a great wedding. Everybody who was anybody was there, only +excepting Collingwood and Lady Attwill. In their case, I remember that +people said they were falling back on their own reserves; but that was +pure scandal, of course. When Collingwood was in Spain, Lady Attwill +was in Switzerland. As a matter of fact, they were both great friends; +and no doubt when Clipper went down in his yacht and left Lady Attwill +very badly off, Collingwood was quite generous to her. + +"Well, to cut a long story short--I see it's nearly one +o'clock,--Admaston and his wife spent their honeymoon in Italy--Rome, I +think it was, or Florence. Shortly after their return George introduced +his long and complicated bill on National Roads. It had over a hundred +clauses. Ill-natured people said that he married in order to have an +excuse to get a holiday in which to draft his measure. At anyrate, after +the introduction of the bill George became the absolute centre of the +political strife of the day. He worked harder than ever. His party had +been in office for three years, and their declining favour urged him on +to rouse his followers in the House and in the country to tackle some +necessary reforms before the ensuing General Election. In fact, for +months after his marriage Admaston seemed to live for his Department and +the Front Bench. He was hardly ever seen with Peggy. + +"On her part, Peggy went everywhere, and soon the gossips had it that +Admaston was disappointed, while his wife lived a really butterfly life. + +"Mrs. Admaston's conduct certainly puzzled the gossips. No one could say +with any sort of certainty that she did anything wrong. Even her best +friends--generally the first persons to give one away--only laughed when +they were questioned, and said, 'It's only Peggy.' She and Roderick +Collingwood met again and again, renewing their old friendship. After +the marriage it was said that Collingwood had a very bad time. There was +a broad wicked streak in him, and everybody assumed that he had gone +back to his old fast living. Well, at anyrate, Peggy took him up again. +She was the kind that either had to be mothered or have someone she +could mother herself. George, apparently, wasn't very much about, and so +she started once more in the effort to exert a benign influence over an +erratic chap like Collingwood. Of course, people said on all sides that +it was a very dangerous game to play. + +"Old-fashioned people shook their heads and fore-told all sorts of +trouble for the little butterfly that fluttered so near to the flame +which every one supposed was burning perpetually in Collingwood's heart. + +"About this time Lady Attwill returned to England and sought out George +Admaston. What she did quite upset the calculations of the people who +talk. She became very attentive to George, and yet, at the same time, +managed to get about a good bit with Peggy. In fact, she seemed in a +sort of way to console Admaston and to be encouraging his wife. Society +has been perplexed by the whole business for a considerable time. No one +knows what to make of the position. They all met, for instance, at +Ellerdine's for the shooting. Admaston ran down for a week-end only. +Then during the late winter, after a long autumn session, rumours flew +thick and fast, and everybody seemed to be waiting for the storm to +break. Why there should be a storm nobody really seemed to know. +Collingwood and Peggy have been talked about to the exclusion of almost +every other subject. They're talked about now. London and the Faubourg +Saint Honoré is buzzing with them. And here, my dear Passhe, you and I +away up at the Tuileries for a merry week of theatres in Paris, and we +find Peggy staying here and Collingwood, too, by Jove!--what! what! Damn +it, Passhe, you're asleep!" + +A long-drawn and not entirely unmelodious snore proclaimed that Colonel +Adams's long recital had somewhat wearied the civilian, who was not "in +society." + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +Mrs. Admaston's sitting-room at the Hôtel des Tuileries was a large and +beautiful apartment, one of the best in the hotel. Save for the long +French windows, which were now, at midnight, covered with curtains of +green tussore silk, there was nothing distinctively foreign about the +room. The best French hotels nowadays have all adopted English and +American standards of comfort. The stove, the uncarpeted and slippery +parquet floor, the impossible chairs, and a ceiling painted to resemble +a nightmare of a fruiterer's shop, are all things of the past. + +Electric lights in softly shaded globes threw a pleasant yellow radiance +over everything. A fire of cedarwood logs glowed on the tiled hearth, +and a great bunch of lilac stood in a copper bowl upon a small mahogany +table which was placed between two doors which faced the one leading to +Mrs. Admaston's bedroom. + +Some tall silver candlesticks stood upon the Broadwood piano; and there +were others, in which the candles were not lit, upon brackets on either +side of the telephone. + +It was just upon midnight when the door of Mrs. Admaston's bedroom +opened and her confidential maid and companion came into the room. +Pauline Toché was a woman of some forty years of age. Her black hair +streaked with grey was drawn tightly back from her forehead. The face, a +little hard and watchful perhaps, nevertheless showed signs of marked +intelligence. The eyes had something of the ferocity but also the +fidelity of a well-trained watch-dog. She was dressed unassumingly +enough in black, and she wore an apron also of some black material. + +Such a face and figure may be seen a dozen times in any Breton village, +and more than once her friends had said to Mrs. Admaston that Pauline +seemed to require the coif of her country--the snowy white and goffered +_col_ which is worn over the shoulders; a pair of sabots even! + +The maid was a Breton woman, a daughter of one of the millers of +Pont-Aven, and preserved still all the characteristics of that hardy +Celtic race. + +As the maid entered the sitting-room there was a knock at the door, and +in response to her "Entrez" a waiter came into the room. He was an +odd-looking person with brilliant red hair--rather a rare thing in +France, but cropped close to his head in the French manner, so that it +seemed to be almost squirting out of his scalp. The man, with his +napkin over his arm, his short Eton jacket, and boots soled with list, +was dressed just like any other waiter in the hotel, but somehow or +other there was something unusual in his aspect. + +He carried a tray, and went up to a small round table, gleaming with +cut-glass and silver, on which supper had been laid. + +"Are you quite sure there is no train from Chalons before morning?" +Pauline asked the man in French. + +"No train before five o'clock, mademoiselle," the man replied. "The last +fast train reaches Paris at eight-forty." + +The Breton woman nodded. + +"Thank you," she said, gazing at him rather keenly; and then +suddenly--"You're not French, are you?" + +With great precision, almost as if he was practising something learnt by +rote and not entirely natural to him, the waiter clicked his heels +together, spread out the palms of his hands, and bowed. + +"Mais oui, mademoiselle," he said. + +Pauline shook her head slightly. + +"You do not deceive me," she said. "There is something about you--you +_are_ a Frenchman?" + +The waiter had been piling plates up on a tray. He put the tray down on +the table, smiled with a total change of manner, and answered her. + +"No," he said with a grin. + +"I knew it," Pauline said. "Is it then that you are Irish, M. Jacques?" + +"Most certainly not," replied the waiter. + +"I figure to myself that you are English?" + +Jacques came up still closer to the maid, his voice dropped, and his +manner became confidential. "Not even quite English, mademoiselle," he +said. "I'm a Scotsman. I was born at Ecclefechan." + +"Mon Dieu!" said Pauline; "Eccle----! What a name of barbarity! I did +not know that there were such names. La! la! But your name, monsieur, +your name--Jacques?" + +"Mademoiselle speaks English?" + +"Quite well," Pauline replied. + +"Well, you see, miss, I've been here a long time, and I am a great +favourite with the English visitors. It would never do to tell them that +I'm a Scotsman, and that my real name is Jock. You see, they like to +practise their French on me. The management always send me to wait upon +English visitors. Of course, I can understand what they mean, and it +flatters them to think that they're really speaking French. I heard an +old lady the other day talking to her daughter. 'My dear,' she said, +'those extra French lessons at the High School have not been wasted. +That nice, attentive French waiter understands you perfectly'; and so I +did of course, miss, though when she wanted the mussels she said, +'Esker voos avvy des moulins?' And when she wanted the pastry she +called it 'tapisserie' instead of 'patisserie.' So you see my French +name is one of my great assets, though you, mademoiselle, saw through me +very easily." Here the waiter once more relapsed into his best French +manner and made a flourishing little bow. "Do you stay long in Paris, +mademoiselle?" he asked, going back to the table and beginning to remove +the dishes. + +"I can't say," Pauline replied. "As a matter of fact, we are here quite +by accident. We are really going to Switzerland." + +"The wrong train?" inquired the waiter. + +"Yes, that was it," Pauline answered. "We took the wrong train, and our +party got divided somewhere." + +"What bad luck!" Jacques answered. Then he gave a rather searching +glance at Pauline. "But surely M. Collingwood knows the Continent?" he +asked. + +The maid gave an almost imperceptible start, and went up to the +fireplace, where she began to pull about the flowers in one of the +vases. "Oh yes, I think so," she answered, in a voice which strove to +appear quite indifferent to the question. + +"Well, I can tell you," the waiter went on--"I can tell you that M. +Collingwood knows the Continent as well as a Cook's agent. He's always +travelling about. You can see his name in the Riviera lists, in the +Paris _Daily Mail_ or the _New York Herald_. He's at Nice for the races. +He's at Monte Carlo for the pigeon-shooting. He's at Marienbad for a +cure, or climbing mountains in the Bernese Oberland. He is everywhere, +is M. Collingwood. He was staying here last year, for instance." + +The maid turned slowly from the fire and looked towards the +supper-table. + +"Yes, yes?" she said with some eagerness. "He is here often? At this +hotel?" + +"I can remember him being here three times," the man replied. And there +was something rather furtive in his look, something which seemed to +speak of a suppressed curiosity and watchfulness. Many waiters in smart +hotels, both in London and in Paris, have this look--the veritable +expression of Paul Pry. "Have you been long with Mr. and Mrs. Admaston?" + +"I've been many years with madame," Pauline replied. And then, speaking +rather suddenly, "You seem to have a very good memory, Mr. Jock +Jacques." + +"It is necessary," the man answered, with all the dryness of a Scotsman. + +"And yet sometimes," Pauline replied, "it is necessary not to have a +good memory." + +"Perhaps," the waiter answered. "Certainly sometimes discretion is the +better part of recollection," giving her a look of great slyness as he +spoke. + +Pauline shrugged her shoulders. There was a note of veiled contempt in +her voice. "To forget easily is sometimes very convenient, n'est-ce +pas?" she said. + +"When it is worth more than a good memory," he answered. + +"Doubtless you are very well off, Mr. Jock," Pauline continued, and this +time the sneer in her voice was hardly veiled. + +At this the waiter began brushing the crumbs from the table very +vigorously. "I'm only a poor waiter," he said. + +"Then surely that must be your own fault? There ought to be many +opportunities in a hotel of this sort of making a good use of a +convenient memory?" + +"Well, yes, you're right there," came from the man, with a rather +ill-favoured leer. "But, you see, I am too sentimental for that." + +Pauline laughed in answer, and not very pleasantly. "Don't tell me," she +said. "I've been in Scotland for the shooting of the grouse. There is no +Scotsman too sentimental to make money. What part of Scotland did you +say you came from? La! la! la! And at your age, too!" + +"On the contrary, the older I grow the more sentimental I become." + +Pauline shook her head. "Mon Dieu!" she said; "every one knows that +sentiment ends at forty." + +The waiter, a quick-witted rogue enough, seemed to be thoroughly +enjoying this midnight conversation. He stood with one arm akimbo, the +other resting on the table, and grinned like a vulgar Mephistopheles. +"If sentiment ends at forty," he said, "you, mademoiselle, will suffer +from it for a long time to come." + +"Ma foi, no! No suffering for me," Pauline replied. "I'm a very +practical person. It would take a great deal to make me sentimental." + +"I wonder how much?" the man answered. "A nice little hotel with a good +trade, say?" + +Pauline shrugged her shoulders. "No, that would mean work. I am used to +seeing a life of sentiment without work." + +The waiter once more began to clear the table. "It is a pity we see so +much of what we cannot have," he answered, rattling the coffee-cups and +silver. + +Pauline made no reply to this, but stood by the fireplace in silence +watching the waiter, and showing plainly by her manner that the +conversation was over and that she was waiting for him to go. + +Suddenly she started violently, as Jacques did also. + +The heavy mahogany door leading to the corridor outside was flung open, +and a short, thick-set, bearded Frenchman came briskly into the room. +There was nothing particularly remarkable about him. He might have been +an ordinary commercial traveller, save for a pair of singularly alert +eyes, which glanced rapidly hither and thither and took in the whole +room in one comprehensive sweep. This was done with lightning-like +rapidity, and then the fellow's face assumed an expression of great +surprise--a little bit overdone and too forced to seem real. + +"A thousand pardons!" he said, with a bow. "The wrong room! My mistake! +I am very sorry. Accept my apologies." + +With that he once more glanced round the room and left it, though with +not quite the alacrity of his entrance, closing the door quietly behind +him. + +But into the quiet room something strangely disturbing had come. + +It was no longer a confidential maid gossiping with the casual waiter of +a smart hotel. The air, which had before been charged with little +suspicions, toy fencings, as it were, between people of no great +importance, was now informed with something more pressing, more +imminent, more real. + +Pauline herself positively staggered back from the fireplace towards the +table, and nearer to the waiter. Her brown face became grey, she seemed +for a moment to lose control of herself, while the ferret eyes of the +waiter watched her with an excited glitter in them. + +"That man!" ... The exclamation came from Pauline almost like a cry. +"That man!" + +Jacques was all bent to attention. He hurried up to the woman. "Yes, +yes?" he said. + +"Do you know who he is?" Pauline asked. "Have you seen him before, M. +Jacques?" + +The man watched her keenly. "I don't know, mademoiselle," he answered in +a guarded voice. + +"That man, I say--have you seen him before?... I remember." + +The waiter hastened to agree, obviously wishing to discover the reason +of Pauline's agitation. + +"Yes," he said. "Now you mention it, mademoiselle, I remember too. He +was outside--there--in the corridor--just after I had shown M. +Collingwood and you and madame to your rooms." + +"Was that when we arrived?" Pauline asked. Her brown hands were +trembling, her eyes were informed with anxiety. + +Jacques bent his head forward. The two were _vis-à-vis_--he watched her +intently. + +"Yes," he answered. + +Then Pauline seemed to lose all her caution. She threw up her hands and +her face became wrinkled with excitement. + +"La! la!" she cried, "but he was looking at madame's boxes at +Boulogne...." + +With quiet but hurried steps she went up to the door leading to the +corridor, turned the handle gently, flung it open and gazed out. + +There was obviously nobody there, for in a moment she returned, closed +the door, and once more confronted the waiter with a grey and troubled +face. + +"Que diable fait-il?" she said in a frightened voice. "But M. Jacques, +what _can_ it mean?" + +Again the ugly leer came over the _garçon's_ face. "Sentiment," he said. + +The middle-aged Breton woman pressed both hands to her heart with one of +those wild and expressive Celtic gestures which seem so exaggerated to +English folk, but which are, nevertheless, so truly expressive of +emotion. + +"Madame!" she cried. + +"I was not thinking of madame," Jacques answered quickly. + +As if clutching at a hope, Pauline made a tremendous effort to get in +key with her tormentor. + +"No, no!" she said with an affectation of brightness. "What? Is it that +you were thinking of me? Merci!--that would be funny!" + +"Sans doute. That's what they say in England when they advertise 'No +followers.'" + +The woman caught the last word. Her face had been strained in anxious +thought. + +"Followers!" she said. "Even the English do not expect followers from +London to Paris." + +By this time Jacques had filled his tray, had folded up the shining +white table-cloth and placed it over his pyramid of plates. + +"Mademoiselle is too modest," he said, moving towards the door, but +still watching Pauline intently. + +The creature's ears seemed literally to twitch with greed of news as he +crossed the great quiet room. + +Pauline was speaking to herself. "It's queer," she said. "I do not like +that. Everything has gone wrong to-day. First we nearly missed the +train. Then on the boat we were all seasick. Then the douanier was a +suspicious fool. Then at Boulogne we got on the wrong train and lost +Lord Ellerdine and Lady Attwill----" + +A little hard chuckle of amusement came from the retiring waiter, and as +Pauline turned to him in indignation a distant voice called her name: + +"Pauline!" + +"Madame!" + +"Good night, mademoiselle," the waiter said, one hand supporting the +heavy tray, the other upon the handle of the door. "Good night, +mademoiselle. Remember that Jock from Ecclefechan has a good memory." + +Pauline was trembling, but she turned to the fellow. "Good night, Jock +from----" She spluttered in her throat, laughed artificially, shut the +door after the man, and then turned eagerly towards the door which led +to Mrs. Admaston's bedroom. + +There was a note of tremendous relief in her voice as she cried out +"Madame!" once more. + +The door from the bedroom opened and Mrs. Admaston entered. + +She was a slim, girlish-looking woman, with a cascade of long dark hair +falling over her shoulders. + +The face was small, the complexion of it rose-brown, the eyes dark wells +of laughing light, the lips twin rosebuds with a sense of humour. + +She was wearing a long wrap, half tea-gown, half dressing-gown, of +topaz-coloured silk, and round her slender waist was a cord of +light-blue and gold threads ending in two large tassels of gold. + +Now there was something half tired, half petulant, and wholly puzzled +about her face as she swept into the room. + +"It's no use," she said in a rippling musical voice; "it isn't a bit of +use, Pauline! I can't go to sleep. In fact, I'm not in the least +sleepy." + +She looked round the room and sighed. + +"What a barn of a place this is!" she said. "I hate those green +curtains. They're so horribly conscious of the colour scheme. And then +the topaz-shaded lights over the lamps--it's all so dreadfully wearing. +And in my room, too, Pauline, it's simply horrid. It reminds me of a +sarcophagus, or a mausoleum, or some appalling place like that. And the +bed is too low! I don't think much of this room, but after all it's +nicer in here." + +She sank down with a sigh into an arm-chair. + +"Yes," she said once more, "it really is much nicer in here. Make me +cosy, Pauline, and do my hair." + +She had brought two ivory brushes into the room, and placed them on the +table. Now she pointed to them with a little hand as sweetly, faintly +pink as the inside of a sea-shell. The light caught the broad wedding +ring of dull gold as she did so. + +Pauline took up the brushes and went up to her mistress. "I thought you +wouldn't like the bed," she said, with the brusque familiarity of an old +servant and friend. "In fact, I knew you wouldn't like it directly we +arrived. You always wanted to sleep up in the air." + +"Tiens, Pauline! I don't want to sleep anywhere to-night. Soothe me, +make me comfortable. Be a good Pauline!" + +The elder woman took up the brushes and stroked the shining hair with +tender, loving hand. "It's been an upsetting day," she said. + +Mrs. Admaston gave a sigh of relief as the kind hands busied themselves +about her hair. + +"Upsetting!" she cried; "that's it--just the word. I am upset. +Everything has been upset. Lord Ellerdine will be fearfully upset. Oh, +Pauline, just fancy our getting into the wrong train!" + +The maid did not answer anything, but went on with her work. + +"It was all owing to that fool of a Customs officer," the girl continued +in a less strained voice. "And turning my things upside down! The way he +upset my clothes was perfectly disgraceful. And before Mr. Collingwood, +too! And all for half a dozen boxes of cigarettes! Keeping us there, +paying their beastly tariff, until the last moment!" + +Pauline put the brushes down upon the table and came round to the front +of the chair. She looked critically at her mistress's hair. "Yes," she +said; "but, after all, it was very lucky the porters put the boxes in +the Paris train." + +"Wasn't it?" + +"Yes, madame." + +"What a bit of luck!" + +Pauline left her mistress for a moment and went into the bedroom. She +returned with a bottle of eau-de-cologne and a handkerchief. Sprinkling +some of the spirit upon it, she held it to Mrs. Admaston's forehead. + +"There!" she said. "You seem tired, my dear; that will do you good. It +was very clever of Mr. Collingwood not to have your boxes registered at +Charing Cross." + +For a moment or two Peggy Admaston leant back in the arm-chair with +closed eyes. "Yes, wasn't it?" she said drowsily. There was a pause for +a moment or two, and then suddenly the girl twisted round in her chair, +caught hold of the elder woman's arm and looked at her searchingly. + +"Pauline! what did you mean then?" she said. + +"What did I mean, madame?" Pauline asked. + +Peggy nodded. "Do you think--well, I suppose he forgot?" + +Pauline raised her eyebrows. "Eh, bien," she said, "they do not as a +rule let you forget to register at Charing Cross." + +Peggy rose from the chair and began to walk up and down the +sitting-room. Her little bronze bedroom slippers peeped in and out from +her trailing draperies of topaz-coloured silk. One slender wrist was +clasped by an old Moorish bracelet of dull silver, the intricate +filigree work studded here and there with Balas rubies. With her long +hair coiled loosely in a shining coronet upon her head, her whole +expression--an atmosphere she exhaled--of sprightly innocence, she +seemed indeed a fragile little butterfly. Something of the sort crossed +the mind of the faithful Breton woman. She sighed, and unperceived her +hand went up to her bodice, where she wore a little silver cross. + +Suddenly Peggy stopped and turned towards the maid. + +"Pauline," she said, "you naughty old thing! I do believe you suspect +something." + +"No, madame," Pauline answered quickly, and there was something almost +sulky in her tone. + +Peggy went up to her and put her bare white arm upon her shoulder, +leaning upon her caressingly. + +"You do," she said. "Oh, but I know you do! When you say 'No, madame,' +like that, I always know that there's something wrong." + +"I only think of you, chèrie," Pauline said, holding the little hand, +which was like a thing of carved ivory. + +Peggy gave a half-sigh and once more began to walk up and down the room. + +"You old silly, I know well that you only think of me," she said; "but +tell me, what is it?" + +"What is what?" + +Peggy smiled mischievously. "There again!" she said. "That's just the +way you do when you want me to coax you. Pauline, be nice to me! Now, +what is it? Tell me what you suspect. What about the boxes?" + +"Well, I do not like Lady Attwill," Pauline replied slowly. + +"Oh, but Pauline!" she said. + +"It is no use, madame; I cannot be two-faced with you. I am not able to +conceal anything. I must speak straight out. I never could hide anything +from you, and now it is no use trying. I really can't do it." + +Her voice had risen towards that high and almost whining note of +excitement and protest which is so peculiarly characteristic of the +Bretons. + +"Good gracious! what an outburst for you! What has Lady Attwill done? +What on earth has she to do with the boxes?" + +Pauline made a gesture with her hands. "But what an innocent!" she said, +in half-humorous despair. "You never see things. You are just as +confiding--I mean ignorant of people--as you were when you were twelve +years old. Madame, Lady Attwill is no friend of yours." + +"But that is absurd, Pauline," Peggy answered. "Lady Attwill is devoted +to me. I am certain of it." + +The maid wrinkled up her face, pushed out her lips, and nodded her head +to emphasise her words. "Indeed! indeed, madame! Well, tell me this. +Would she have kept dodging Lord Ellerdine out of the way at Charing +Cross and afterwards at Boulogne if she was your friend?" + +Peggy pouted. "I suppose she wanted to be alone with Lord Ellerdine," +she said. + +"Jamais! she can be alone with him at her flat--she need not wait to be +alone with him at a public railway station." + +Peggy laughed mischievously. "I suppose, Pauline, you think that's one +to you," she said. + +"Tais-toi!" said the old woman, both voice and manner growing more +serious every moment. + +"Well, go on," Peggy replied petulantly. + +Pauline's voice became as impressive as she knew how to make it. + +"I am sure Lady Attwill knew that Mr. Collingwood did not want Lord +Ellerdine in the way. At Boulogne it was just the same. Lady Attwill's +things were examined quickly, and then off she went with Lord Ellerdine +in the Swiss express, and we didn't see them again. She went out of +sight. Now, tell me, was not that strange?" + +"Heavens! how hot it is!" Peggy said. "Shall I have a cigarette? Yes, I +really think I will. Fetch me my cigarette-case, Pauline. It is on the +dressing-table in my bedroom." + +In a moment the Breton woman returned with a dainty little case of gold +with a monogram of sapphires in one corner. Peggy took a cigarette, lit +it, and inhaled a breath of the fragrant smoke with great satisfaction. +Then she began her noiseless walk up and down the room again. + +"Certainly," she said suddenly, "Lady Attwill is not a person to go out +of sight for nothing." + +Pauline sneered. "Oh, miladi is a convenience," she said. "M. +Collingwood has only to raise his little finger and she will do +anything." + +"You mean that she is fond of him?" + +"Of his money, rather." + +"Pauline, that is really perfectly awful of you." + +Again Pauline sneered. "She's a poor widow, madame. Lord Attwill left +her nothing. Oh, I know! I always find out. She has a flat at three +hundred pounds, an electric brougham, a box at the opera, and a little +place at Henley. Lord Ellerdine is not so rich as that. M. Collingwood +is very rich--very--very--very." + +Peggy stopped in her walk now and faced Pauline, who had been sitting +upon the settee. "You mean she gets money from Mr. Collingwood?" she +asked. + +The maid rose and came up to her mistress, touching her arm imploringly. +"Oh, madame," she said with deep feeling, "do be careful. I think only +of you. Don't trust Lady Attwill. She is no friend of yours. She has +never forgiven you for marrying M. Admaston, and she would bring +mischief between you both if she could." + +"Pauline, you mustn't say that," Peggy replied gently. + +"But, madame, it is true. She wanted to marry monsieur herself, and she +is mad because you came in her way. And if she can get you out of her +way she will." + +"Pauline, you are terrible," Peggy said, still in the same light voice, +and with a half-pitying, half-humorous smile such as one gives to an +importunate child. + +The maid took no notice. "Remember, madame," she went on, "it was Lady +Attwill who planned this trip to the Engadine. It was her idea to go +with Lord Ellerdine and M. Collingwood. And now where are we? I ask you, +where are we? In Paris, and she and Lord Ellerdine in the express near +Switzerland by now. Madame, listen to me! Let us go home to-morrow; make +some excuse to M. Collingwood--any will do." + +At last the Butterfly seemed a little impressed. There was such real +earnestness, so much underlying meaning, in Pauline's voice that she +paused and her eyes became thoughtful. + +"It does seem strange," she said. + +Pauline nodded. "N'est-ce pas? I feel as if you were in a trap." + +The girl shivered, and her voice became pleading. "Oh, Pauline, do +watch me! Look after me! I have no one now but you!" + +The old bonne kissed the delicate, shrinking little figure. "La! la!" +she said. "With my last breath I will shield you! Nevertheless, you are +a mischief and make some men mad. Oh, the things they say about you! But +it is only play." + +"Only play?" + +"That is all, chèrie; I am sure of it." + +Peggy went up to the fireplace. "Sometimes," she said, "I think it is +very foolish play. I only hope that it won't end in tears." She looked +down at the logs--smouldering now and with no more flame of rose-pink +and amethyst. + +"Tears? For you? Never!" + +Peggy turned half round. "Pauline--I am going to be sensible. I shall +turn over a new leaf. I shall become a _grande dame_, give great +entertainments, hold court at Admaston House in Hampshire, and at Castle +Netherby--then I shall not have time to make men mad!" + +Pauline clapped her hands. "That will be splendid!" she said. "That will +make him so happy!" + +"Who, my husband?" + +"Exactement. Monsieur adores you." + +"I wonder?" Peggy said slowly, more to herself than to Pauline. + +The maid nodded. "Madame," she went on, "he is a great big dog. You can +do anything with him. He will never bite nor snarl, nor show even a +little bit of his teeth." + +"Perhaps it would be better if he would," Peggy replied in a rather +broken voice. "I am so lonely, Pauline. Sometimes I think that his +politics don't leave even a little corner for me." + +"Bien!" said Pauline with a chuckle. "You would not feel lonely, madame, +unless you loved him." + +Peggy went up to the piano, which was open, and struck two or three +resonant chords. "Certainly there is something in that," she said +musingly. + +"Yes, madame," Pauline replied, "he is a man, and you are proud of him. +He is so different from all the others." + +Peggy's idle fingers rattled out a little trilling catch from the +Chanson Florian. Suddenly she stopped and turned her head swiftly. "You +do not like Mr. Collingwood?" she asked, watching Pauline's face +intently. + +"Ma Doue!" Pauline answered in her native Breton, "but I like M. +Collingwood well enough. All the women that there are like M. +Collingwood. He is a terrible flirt, but he is not wicked. But madame +must be careful, that is all. He loves madame not as he loves the +others." + +Peggy closed the lid of the piano with a bang. "Now, Pauline," she +said, "don't be silly. Off you go to bed. I feel ever so much better +now." + +The maid gathered up the brushes and the bottle of eau-de-cologne from +the table and took them into Mrs. Admaston's room. Then she returned. +"Good night, madame," she said. "If you want me, that little bell there +rings in my room. Boone nuit. Dormez bien, chèrie." + +She kissed her mistress and left the room. + +Peggy remained alone. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +Mrs. Admaston pulled aside the long curtains of green silk. She turned +the oblong handle which released two of the windows, pulled it towards +her, and drank in the fresh night air. + +How fragrant and stimulating it was. How pure, and how different from +the horrid, scented air of the sitting-room! + +"'From the cool cisterns of the midnight air my spirit drinks repose,'" +Peggy quoted to herself; and she did, indeed, seem to be bathed by a +sweet and delicate refreshment, a cleansing, reviving air, which washed +all hot and feverish thoughts away and made her one with the stainless +spirit of the night. + +The black masses--the black, blotted masses--of the trees in the +Tuileries gardens cut into the sky-line. But even now, late as it was, +innumerable lights twinkled over Paris, and a big honey-coloured moon, +which shamed the firefly lights below, and seemed almost like a harvest +moon, had risen and was staring down upon the City of Pleasure. + +In front of the window was a balcony, and, lightly clad as she was, the +girl went out upon it and with an impulsive gesture stretched out her +arms to where the Lamp of the night, depended from a little drift of +fleecy-white and amber-coloured clouds, swung over Paris. + +"O moon," she said, "dear, round, red moon, I am going to be good! I +really, really am. I am going to turn over a new leaf; I am going...." + +There was a sharp whirr, hard, metallic, and insistent, from the room +behind. + +The telephone bell was ringing. + +Peggy started--the world called her back. In her mind, as it were, she +put down her good resolutions on the balcony and hurried in to see who +had rung her up. + +She fluttered up to the telephone, caught the receiver to her ear, and +spoke breathlessly: + +"Well, who is it? What? Yes. Who is it? Oh! Where are you? Chalons! You +have arrived, then? What?" + +A voice, not over the telephone wire, but behind her and in the room, +came to Peggy's disengaged ear. + +She started violently and turned round as if upon a pivot. + +She saw standing before her a slim, tall, clean-shaved man, anywhere +between thirty and forty. He was in evening clothes--that is to say, he +wore a dinner jacket and black tie. His hair was dark and curly and +grew low upon his forehead; his eyebrows were beautifully pencilled; and +below them two shrewd, mocking, and yet somehow simple and merry eyes of +a brilliant grey looked out upon Mrs. Admaston. The nose was aquiline; +the lips, a trifle full, were nevertheless beautifully shaped. They were +parted now in a smile. + +"Who is it? Let me speak, Peggy?" Collingwood said. + +Peggy looked at him. "Oh, how you startled me!" she cried, with a little +shriek of alarm and embarrassment. Then without a further word she +fluttered towards the door of her bedroom, dropping the receiver of the +telephone, which hung by its twisted cord and swung this way and that. + +Roderick Collingwood took a couple of quick, decisive steps to the wall. +He caught up the receiver. + +"Hello! That you, Ellerdine? Yes, just finished supper. What? What? 2.34 +to-night--I mean this morning? What time do you reach Paris? What?--five +o'clock?" + +He turned round to Peggy, who was standing by her bedroom door. "They +are coming on here," he said. + +"Now?" the girl asked. + +"Yes! they get here at five." He caught up the receiver again and +pressed it to his ear, leaning forward to the mouthpiece. + +"I say, Ellerdine--I say, why not wait for us at Chalons? What? You have +decided not to go on? Very well. We will wait for you." + +He placed the receiver of the telephone back upon its rest, and turned +the handle to ring off. Then he looked at Peggy, walking slowly towards +her as he spoke. + +"Ellerdine is vexed," he said. + +Peggy's face was the most alluring pink, her eyes looked angry. + +"Please leave the room," she said. + +Collingwood stopped. "I am sorry," he said. "I heard the telephone ring, +and before I knew where I was...." + +Peggy cut him short, pointing to the door on the left-hand side of the +room, the door not far from that which led into the corridor. "Is that +your room?" taking a couple of steps towards him. + +"Yes," the dark man answered; "the hotel was full--it was the only room +left. Don't be vexed, Peggy." + +The girl's face had a sort of hard impatience in it, though mingled with +something else also--something very difficult to define. "Wait," she +said. "That door was locked when I tried it before you came in to +supper. Did you unlock it?" + +Mr. Collingwood laughed a pleasant, musical laugh, which seemed to +resolve the somewhat tragic note of Mrs. Admaston's voice into +nothing--to make it seem rather unnecessary and absurd. It was a +thoroughly boyish laugh. + +"Why, Peggy," he said, "what a very serious mood you are in! Unlock it? +Of course I unlocked it, when I heard you at the telephone. I thought +you would not mind. Besides, I wanted to know what Ellerdine was up to. +Come, come, Peggy; this is not the first time we have been together so +late." + +Peggy looked at him with wide eyes. "Oh, but it is different," she said; +"we are in a strange hotel--by accident. Colling, it was by accident, +wasn't it?" + +He started, bent forward a little, and answered her with great +eagerness. + +"Of course, of course; surely you did not think----" + +"Oh, I don't know what I thought; but I feel so funny, so nervous." + +Collingwood laughed again--really, it was the most reassuring and +musical laugh. "Peggy nervous?" + +"Well, it is rather alarming," Peggy replied. + +Collingwood laughed once more, and stepped up towards her. "But rather +nice--isn't it rather nice?--what, Peggy?" + +There was something so irresistibly amusing in his voice and smile that +Mrs. Admaston began to bubble over with laughter. + +"Isn't it rather nice?" he went on, crossing over to the little +switch-board and putting out the big central light which depended from +the roof. "Isn't it rather nice?" + +Peggy had entrenched herself behind the little table on which supper had +been laid. She was obviously tremendously amused, but she made a great +effort to be serious. "Colling!" she said, "it is mad. Supposing anybody +knew!" + +Collingwood was quite calm. He treated the whole thing as if it were the +most ordinary occasion. He strolled lazily over to the fireplace, took a +cigarette-case from his pocket, a cigarette from it, and struck a light. + +"How can anyone know?" he asked. + +Peggy seemed alarmed once more. + +"No! Colling, please don't light a cigarette. It is too late. I must go +to bed." + +Collingwood's only answer was to blow out a cloud of smoke, to cross +over to the sofa and throw himself upon it. + +"Not yet," he said. "Don't be unkind, Peggy. Just one cigarette. Just +one, in front of the fire--which, by the way, is out,--and then +bye-byes." + +"Well, one cigarette, but only one," Peggy said. + +Collingwood sat up. "Good little Peggy," he said in a low, quiet voice; +and then, raising his head, he looked at her intently with his brilliant +grey eyes. + +Peggy looked him straight in the face also, and then the spirit of +mischief, the excitement of this odd meeting, got the better of her +prudence. She came to the back of the sofa and leant over it. "Isn't +Peggy going to have one?" she said. + +The man took his cigarette-case from his waistcoat pocket, opened it, +and gave her a cigarette. Her face was tantalisingly close to his, and +she noticed, well enough, that his hand was trembling as he did so. She +kept her face close to his just half a moment longer than the situation +required. + +Collingwood's voice began to shake also. "Now, Peggy, you little devil," +he said. + +"Why is Peggy a little devil?" + +With a slim brown hand, which, despite all the man's _sang-froid_, still +shook like a leaf in the wind, he lit the cigarette for the girl, +looking up into her face as he did so. + + "Either I mistake your shape and making quite, + Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite + Called Robin Goodfellow." + +There came a little bubble of laughter from Peggy, which seemed to +remove all diffidence from Collingwood. "How are you, my friend Puck?" +he said. + +Peggy perched herself upon the head of the sofa. "Oh, Puck was an imp of +mischief," she said. + +"Well?" he asked. + +The girl puffed her cigarette contentedly for a few seconds; then she +bent towards him, swinging her little brown-shoed foot. "Tell me, +Colling," she asked: "why weren't my boxes registered?" + +"Well--of all the suspicious little demons I ever came across! +Registered?" + +"Yes, registered." + +"Well, I suppose that fool of a porter at Charing Cross forgot to do +it," Collingwood replied. + +"It was a bit of luck, wasn't it?" Peggy said. + +Collingwood seemed to be thinking of something else. He was gazing at +the end of his cigarette and not looking at her at all. "Yes," he said +in an absent-minded voice. + +"I wonder----" Peggy went on; and then suddenly she stopped, and +Collingwood looked up with a start. + +"I wonder," Peggy continued, "what the Attwill will think?" + +"Think?" he answered. "She can jolly well think what she likes." + +"I don't much mind what she thinks," Peggy said; "but I'll bet she's put +some rotten idea into Ellerdine's head. Colling, I don't like +her--really I don't." + +Although Peggy did not notice it, the man's voice became slightly +strained. The lips assumed an appearance of somewhat exaggerated +indifference, but there was a glint of watchfulness in the eyes. + +"You don't like Lady Attwill?" he said. + +"That's it," Peggy replied. "Where does she get her money from?" + +Collingwood started slightly. The girl did not notice it. "I don't +know," he said a little uneasily. + +"Is that true, Colling?" Peggy asked, with mischief in her eyes. + +"By the way, has she any?" Collingwood asked. + +"Well, if she hasn't, how does she do it?" + +"By her wits, my dear." + +"Ellerdine doesn't go in for wits," Peggy remarked. + +"Poor, dear Dicky! he is the diplomatic failure of the century." + +"I suppose he is, but it is an ill wind that blows nobody good. The +Empire's loss is Attwill's gain." + +Collingwood laughed. "Well," he said, "she's the only post he has been +able to keep." + +"I don't know that he can afford to keep anything. Can he be in love +with her, do you think?" + +Collingwood puffed slowly at his cigarette. + +"My dear Peggy," he said, looking her up and down with a curious +meditative gaze--"my dear Peggy, if a man loves a woman he doesn't +leave a comfortable hotel to travel all night in a slow train with her. +Ellerdine is as likely to spend his money on a home for lost cats as on +the Attwill." + +"She's a very attractive cat," Peggy said. + +"He doesn't care two straws about her," Collingwood replied quite +definitely. + +"Then why did he come?" + +"To please you--for no other reason." + +"Anyway, I don't like her," Peggy said. "Do you? I believe you do, +Colling." + +Collingwood jumped up from the sofa. "Now, stop that, Peggy," he said. + +The glint of mischief in Peggy's eyes glowed more strongly. "She's a +very attractive woman," she said. + +"Well, she's not the sort of woman who attracts me," Collingwood +replied, sitting down again upon the couch and tapping impatiently with +his foot upon the carpet. He seemed disturbed, uneasy, under the +influence of some suppressed emotion. + +Peggy stroked her nose with one little finger, and then she leant down +towards Collingwood. "What sort of woman attracts you?" she said in a +low voice. + +Again the man jumped up, and a keen observer would have noticed that +tiny beads of perspiration had come out upon his forehead like seed +pearls. + +"Peggy," he cried, "you are a tantalising little fiend!" + +Peggy shook with laughter. She was absolutely happy. "I suppose I ought +not to have said that," she bubbled. + +"Why not?" he asked, and into his voice came something of deep yearning, +and the note of passion restrained till now, broke through all reserves +and all defences at last. + +"Why not?" he said. Again his voice grew in emotional force and power. +"Why not, Peggy? I love you when you are in this mood. I love you in all +your moods, dear." + +Peggy slid down from the end of the sofa and moved a little way towards +the door of her bedroom. "What about that cigarette?" she asked, and +there was a distinct note of nervousness in her voice. + +She had provoked the beginnings of passion, and, having done so, +womanlike, she was startled and afraid. + +"Cigarette," he said. "Oh, I haven't finished it yet. But listen! Peggy +darling, you must listen!" + +She was really startled now. "Not to-night, Colling; you promised," she +said. "Now, Colling, go--please go!" + +"I can't go, Peggy; I love you so!" he answered. + +"Please, Colling, don't talk like that!" + +Now his voice became almost dogged, though it lost nothing of its power. +"I can't help it," he said; "I love you!" + +The girl clutched nervously at her tea-gown and shrank back nearer yet +to the door. + +"Don't talk of love," she said in a low voice. + +He took three quick steps up to her, and again she shrank away, not this +time into the sure defence of her bedroom, but towards the window. + +"Don't talk of love?" he said, and his voice reverberated and rang with +feeling. "Why not? It is in the air--the very night is charged with +love. You cannot look out on a night like this and not think of love." + +"Don't, Colling; you frighten me," she said. + +"Oh, but why should my love frighten you, my Peggy? My darling, it is +brightness, tenderness, and love that you want. I know how monotonous +and dull your life must be. Good God! don't I know it? Am I not always +thinking of it? Poor little Butterfly! What a flutter you make to be +free, to warm your dainty wings in sunny places! Peggy, sweetheart, I +want to show you the sunny places." + +"Please go, Colling!" she said, and her flute-like voice was tremulous +with fear. "Please go, Colling! It isn't fair. I am afraid. You see, I +am so fond of you, and I am such a _little_ Butterfly!" + +He held out his hands towards her, palms upwards, with a curious +foreign gesture which showed how greatly he was moved. "I can't +go, Peggy," he said. "I want you so badly--want you for my +own--to-night--to-morrow, all the nights and all the days. I have been +very good. I have always done what you have told me. I have come and +gone just exactly as the whim has struck you. Ah! you know how deeply, +how dearly I love you!" + +She moved past him with a sudden, gliding step, and placed the settee +between them. + +"I only know you are my friend, my very dear friend," she said. + +"No! no! no!" he cried, coming after her. + +"Yes--only that friend!" + +"Lover! Peggy," he said passionately. "I am a man--devoured by love of +you. I have waited for you--longed for you--and now----" With a sudden +movement he caught her in his arms, straining her to him wildly, +showering kisses upon the shining coronet of her hair. "We're alone, +Peggy," he cried, "just you and I!" and his voice rang with triumph. +"We're alone! There are no others in the world--no others! You are mine, +Peggy, mine at last!" + +She struggled in his arms, her face pale as linen, her voice with a note +of almost shrill alarm. + +"Colling, I can't bear it--you will spoil everything. Do help me, +Colling! I don't love you like that. I'm sorry if it hurts you. I'd +rather die." + +There was a note in her voice of such absolute sincerity, mingled with +fear, that he opened his arms and let her flutter away. + +The passion upon his face changed and melted into something else. + +"My God!" he cried. "You would rather die----" + +He stumbled rather than walked towards the sofa and sat down upon it, +burying his face in his long lean hands, that trembled exceedingly. + +"My God!" she heard him whisper to himself; "she would rather die!..." + +Peggy had followed him, and she stood at the end of the sofa, aghast at +what she had done. She began to speak slowly and nervously. + +"Colling, don't do that. I really can't bear that you should think me +unkind. I like you too well to let you do anything that would spoil our +happiness. I am not unkind--really I am not. Have not I shown how fond +of you I am? We have been such good friends!" + +"Friends!" he said bitterly, without looking up from his hands. + +His voice was so cold, so charged with misery and sudden realisation, +that it cut the girl to the heart. She went round from the back of the +sofa and knelt at his feet, stretching out her hand timidly, and +touching the sleeve of his coat. + +"Colling, dear, what else can we be?" she said. + +He looked down at her, and for a moment his voice did not soften. There +was a quiet, dogged misery in it. + +"We have passed the merely friendship line," he said; "and you know that +well enough, Peggy. That has been passed a long time. You would not have +left London with me if we had only been friends and nothing more. Were +we only friends when we used to sit up together night after night at +Ellerdine's house? Do 'friends' speak to each other as we have spoken? +Why, you have only to touch my hand to know that I burn with longing." + +"Colling, you mustn't say such things!" + +He jumped up roughly, leaving her kneeling upon the floor, and passed +with rapid steps to the window. + +"Friends!" he cried, and his voice had a razor edge to it. "Friends! +It's not true! Do friends run the risks that we have run? For God's +sake, here and now let us be honest with each other. Why, we haven't +even tried to fool society! For Heaven's sake, Peggy, don't let's try to +fool ourselves!" + +Peggy rose slowly to her feet, trembling all over. "Colling! oh, +Colling!" she said in a piteous voice, "surely people don't think we +are----" + +"People don't think! People are only too glad to think. You know well +enough what is said about others----" + +Her face grew paler still, her eyes were wide with fear and slowly +dawning realisation. She clasped both hands to her breast, and the light +shone upon the rubies set in the old Moorish bracelets that she was +wearing. + +"Oh!" she said. + +He came up to her again. + +"Peggy, you don't care, do you?" + +"Don't care, Colling!" she gasped. "Tell me, do people think we are----" + +"Think!--how can they help thinking it? Haven't we given them every +reason?" + +"No, no, no! Oh! I hate to think of that! We have only been very fond +friends. Why should they think otherwise?" + +There were tears of agony in her voice. She kept clasping and unclasping +her hands. + +"Oh! I suppose it is all my fault," she said brokenly--"all my fault. I +don't think ungenerous things of others. I have been too trusting--too +confiding. Why should people thing such things? I only wanted a good +friend, a companion." + +He still stood by her, looking at her keenly, and the bitterness in his +voice did not die away. "Friends! Oh yes, I know! You wanted someone to +pet you, to pamper you. What you wanted was someone to satisfy all your +vanities--your yearning for devotion, for adulation, for sense of power. +I know! You wanted all the joys and none of the risks. That sums up the +whole thing in a nutshell. There are lots of women like you. They drive +men mad--make drunkards, gamblers, swindlers of them. I have seen it +often enough. I have seen men fall out and lose themselves among the +army of crooks that throng the second-rate shows. But I won't let you +drive me mad." + +The bitterness in his voice was terrible. His words seemed to scourge +her, to lash her like a whip. She stared at him in helpless amazement +and misery. He had paused in his rapid torrent of speech, and as he saw +her distress he seemed to be a little touched. + +"Peggy!" he said, and once more the note of passion came into his voice, +while the anger died out of it--"Peggy! I mean you to be mine. There +will be a crash soon--that is certain. Admaston will take notice of what +everybody is saying about us. He will come out of his political shell, +wake up, do things, put an end to it at once and for ever!" + +"Oh, my God! What have I done!" the girl cried. + +"Done! What have you done to deserve your husband's neglect? Why, he +doesn't even know that you exist. His heart beats by Act of Parliament. +He'd a thousand times rather address a village meeting than spend an +hour in your company. Are you to pass your youth in the company of----" + +"Stop! stop!" she cried. "Say what you like about me--scold me if you +like, but say nothing against him. You do not know my husband. We are +neither of us fit to mention his name. He is a big man, and he loves +me." + +"But, Peggy, you won't say that you love him?" Collingwood said, with a +curious note of perplexity in his voice. The situation, tragic as it +was, got a little bit beyond him. + +"Love him?" she answered. "I don't know. I have had no chance to love +anyone the way you regard love." + +Collingwood put his hands into his pockets, swung round upon his heels +and swung back again. "I see," he said; "you mean you don't love +Admaston, and won't love anybody else?" + +"Oh, I don't know," Peggy replied; "but I certainly don't love anybody +else. You think I am neglected. That is absurd. It was my father's wish +that we should marry. George knew that I did not love him. He trusts me +fully. There will be no crash." + +He heard the note in her voice which told him that she was trying to +persuade herself that her fears were groundless, and smiled rather +grimly. + +"There will be," he said. "You take my word for it. No man--not even +Admaston--can stand _ridicule_ for long. Remember, I mean to win you. I +shall marry no one if I don't marry you." + +She tried to speak lightly. + +"Colling, don't be so silly! You are one of the best matches in England. +You will marry a beautiful girl who will lead society and make you a +very proud and ambitious man. Don't shake your head--that's only because +you want to be gallant. Heavens! how I would do things if I were a man! +You, with all your talents and your money, ought to rise to any +position." + +"You are mad about position," he said impatiently. + +"Yes," Peggy answered. "I like men who have some big purpose in life and +who fight the world and win." + +"Like George Admaston!" Collingwood answered, and now for the first time +there came a glint of malicious and real ill-humour over his face. It +came and passed in a second, but it had been there. + +"Yes," Peggy replied; "like George Admaston! He is a fighter, Colling. I +think many women would love George. He is not the butterfly +type--but----" + +"But he has all the luck," Collingwood broke in fiercely. "I could do +anything if you were with me. I must have something--or someone--to +fight for. My nature must be baffled. There must be obstacles in the way +for me. I have a wicked streak in me somewhere that turns red when I +can't get what I want. Peggy, you must let Admaston get a divorce." + +The words seemed to strike her dumb. All colour had left her face long +since, but now almost all expression went from it also for a moment. It +was as if she had been struck some paralysing blow. + +He was watching her keenly, and as he noted the effect of his words a +spasm of pain went through him, though he showed nothing of it in his +face or manner. He loved her, he loved her dearly; there was no doubt +about that. He hated to give her pain, yet he felt he was being cruel +only to be kind. She must face the situation once and for all, and then +perhaps everything might be right. The situation, serious as it was, was +very largely of his own creation. Seeing no other way, he had +deliberately endeavoured to compromise Mrs. Admaston. All his plans, all +his ideas, had been directed to this end. He wanted to force her +husband's hand and to marry Peggy after the divorce. He loved her +wildly, madly, passionately. He would have been a perfect husband to +her--there can be no doubt of that. + +But his love was selfish. In order to win this woman for his own he was +ready to subject her to all the indignities and all the shame of a +process in the courts. In his overmastering desire, her reputation, her +honour, mattered nothing to him. It was she that he wanted, and any +means should be taken to achieve that end. + +Men like Roderick Collingwood have few guiding principles in life, save +only those of their own appetites. Of course, the public school and the +university have given them a certain code. They must pay their gambling +debts, they must do various other things of that sort; but as far as any +conception of the morality and decency, which have made England what it +is, is concerned, they are absolutely without it. + +He nodded at Peggy, driving home the words. + +"Divorce! Oh, you mustn't talk like that. You know how it hurts me," she +said at last, when she had recovered a little. "Really, really, you are +mistaken. I am quite satisfied with my life--only, sometimes when I am +foolish I feel just a bit lonely and neglected." + +He turned on her almost with a sneer. He was bitterly hurt and angry, +and there is no doubt that, from his point of view, he had reason for +complaint. She had led him on. She had flirted outrageously with him. +She had deliberately done her best to be provocative. Her intentions, +doubtless, were innocent enough as far as any dishonour to her husband +entered into the question. But her love of adulation, her vanity, her +desire of power, were all gratified by her conquest of him; while at the +same time she still had a real and genuine friendship for a man who, +with all his faults, was essentially charming, good-natured, and kind. + +"Then you have deceived me!" he cried. + +"Colling, don't say that. I never meant----" + +"Never meant? Good heavens! I told you six months ago that I loved you, +and ever since then you have let me go here and there with you, and I +have told you of my love again and again." + +"But you have always been so good. You have never been unkind to me +before to-night." + +"Good God! Unkind! Why, most men would have divorced their wives on far +less evidence than we have furnished. And all the while you have +accepted the position without a murmur. You don't know what you have +done." + +"Colling, what do you mean?" + +"Mean?" he answered. "I mean that you have led me to believe that you +didn't care what we did--what people said about us. Mean? I mean that +the call of love is in the spring, Peggy, whispering to you and me. +Mean? I mean that I am a man and you are a woman--our souls stand bare +to one another--that I love you and that you love me." + +He sprang at her and caught her up in his arms once more. + +"I don't love you, Colling! Let me go!" she cried. + +"I can't let you go! It is my hour! It is your fault as well as mine! +Kiss me, Peggy! You have tortured me long enough! Kiss me!" + +He held her tight, tight! His face blazed. There was a fury in his +voice. + +At that very moment when he stopped speaking and was gazing down at her, +while she lay for a moment almost passive in his arms after her first +fight and struggle, a loud, sharp, clear sound rang out in the room. It +was the bell of the telephone upon the wall. + +"Ellerdine!" Peggy said. + +"Let him ring," Collingwood answered. + +They stood there for another moment clasped together, and once more the +insistent summons of the bell came. + +"No, no," Peggy cried; "answer him, please!" + +With an odd, instinctive gesture Collingwood put his arm right round +her. Before he had been straining her to him passionately. Now there was +something protective in his attitude. + +And again the bell whirred. + +At last with great reluctance Collingwood stepped up to the wall and +caught up the receiver. + +"Well, well!" he said. "Who is it? What! Ad----Admaston!" + +A voice which was robbed of all ordinary qualities shivered out into the +room. + +"My husband!" said Peggy. + +Collingwood made a warning gesture with his left hand, telling her to +keep quiet. + +"Yes," he said; "we took the wrong train. Yes, Collingwood. Yes, it is +he speaking." + +"Where is he?" came hissing to the ears of the man at the telephone. +Again he motioned her to silence, giving a slight impatient tap with his +foot upon the carpet. + +"Oh yes. We have just finished supper. What? I can't hear you +distinctly. You want to speak to Ellerdine? Hold the line a moment; I'll +call him." + +He put down the receiver upon the table and ran up to Peggy, who was +shaking like a leaf in the wind. + +"He wants to speak to you, too, I think," Collingwood said in a low, +fierce whisper; "but perhaps you had better not." + +"I can't," Peggy answered, swaying this way and that as if about to +fall. He put out his arm and steadied her. + +"All right, darling," he said; "it is all right!" + +"Where is he? London?" she said. + +"I didn't ask," he replied. "Wait a minute!" + +He hurried to the telephone again. "Hello! Ellerdine has just gone out. +Hello! Where are you speaking from? Damn! We're cut off. Hello! Hello!" + +He listened for nearly half a minute, taut and strained as a greyhound +on the leash; then he flung the receiver angrily upon the bracket. + +"We're cut off," he repeated, looking at her almost stupidly, as if the +situation was beyond him. + +Collingwood said nothing for a little time. At last he spoke. "I didn't +think of that," he said. "Can he have had us----" + +"What? What?" she almost shrieked. + +"Followed?" + +He plunged his hands into the pockets of his dinner-jacket and bent his +head, thinking deeply. Then he looked up at Peggy. "Peggy," he said at +length, "rumour--he has been ridiculed into action--the crash has come." + +The girl held out both hands towards him as if warding off a blow. "Go, +go!" she cried; "please go! I sha'n't speak another word to you +to-night. Go at once!" + +"I can't leave you now, Peggy. I just worship you." + +"I shall ring for my maid," she said, and moved towards the bell-push. + +"No, don't do that. Don't be cruel, Peggy!" he said, in a voice instinct +with agonised pleading. "Don't be cruel, Peggy! No, no! Don't ring!" + +"I shall," she said firmly, and stretched out her hand. + +"Peggy, trust me. I love you better than anything in the world--better +than myself. For you I will sacrifice wealth, honour." + +"Honour!" she cried. + +"I'll do anything to win you. Everything I have done has been to win +you--to have you for my own. You know it is true. Peggy, before God, I +believed that you loved me too. Don't judge me harshly--oh, don't do +that!" + +Peggy put out her hand and pressed the bell-push. + +"I must be alone," she said in a dull, muffled voice. + +He saw that it was useless, that he had failed, that the plans of months +had all miscarried, that everything was over for him as far as she was +concerned. Undisciplined as his nature was, baffled and disowned as he +felt, he nevertheless showed himself rather fine in that moment. He made +an almost superhuman effort at self-control--and succeeded. + +"All right, Peggy dear," he said. "Don't be afraid. Everything will come +right. Good night." With one last lingering look at her he left the +room, closing the door which led into his own. + +Peggy sank down upon the sofa almost over-mastered by her rising +hysteria, limp and half unconscious. + +She lay there breathing hurriedly, and with her eyes closed, when the +corridor door opened and Pauline came rapidly into the room. + +"Madame!" she cried. + +Peggy gave one great sob of relief. + +"Pauline!--you have not gone to bed?" + +"No, madame! I was so anxious about you I could not sleep." + +"Oh, my head is bursting!" the girl cried; "there is a pain like the +thrust of a sword in my head." + +"Poor darling!" Pauline said, her voice guttural with excitement, her +trembling hands passing over the young girl's form with loving, +frightened caresses. "Poor darling! There is something altogether wrong. +Just now, when I came down, I saw a man standing at your door +listening." + +"At that door?" + +"Yes. Twice I have seen him to-day. He was at Boulogne; I saw him +looking at your boxes. Then just after supper he came in--when I was +speaking to the waiter." + +"Then we have been followed," Peggy answered, breaking down utterly. +"Pauline, I feel that something dreadful is going to happen. Stay with +me--don't go back to your room. Soothe me, Pauline, as you used to when +I was little and afraid of the dark." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +It was about nine o'clock the next morning. The heat of the night before +had given place to that incomparable freshness which spring mornings +have in Paris. + +The windows of Mrs. Admaston's sitting-room were open, and a +delightfully scented air, from the lilac blossoms and all the flowers of +the gardens in the Tuileries, flooded and floated into the room. + +Rooms have an aspect of this or that emotion according to the hour in +which the events of the soul have taken place within them. + +There are some rooms which always have the same mood. When one goes into +them one doesn't impose one's mood, one's fancy, or one's ideas upon the +place, but is dominated by one lasting personality--of furniture, of +aspect, of general _mise en scène_. + +It would be impossible, for example, to have a merry breakfast-party in +the hangman's ante-room to the gallows; and one has known rooms in +hotels which one enters gladly, unconscious of the pervading gloom which +seems to cling to floor and ceiling and rises up like a spectre into +the heart and brain after a few minutes' sojourn there. + +The sitting-room in the Hôtel des Tuileries, which had been the theatre +of such tragic emotions on the last spring midnight, was now ordinary +and comfortable enough. + +The chairs and settees were all in their proper places. The carpet had +been brushed, and its dull blues, greys, and brick-dust reds were all +essentially artistic. + +And they had brought new flowers there also. The bowls and vases were +filled with fresh purple and white lilac. The silver candlesticks had +been polished--there were no drippings of wax upon them any more. Tall +white candles, fresh, virginal, and unfired, filled all the +candlesticks. + +In the middle of all this freshness two people were--a man and a woman. + +One, Lord Ellerdine, was very tall and lean. He was dressed in a suit of +very immaculate grey flannel--not the greyish-green which the ordinary +person who wears flannels imagines to be the right thing, but the real +grey-grey which costs a good deal of money; if the tailors in Sackville +Street and Waterloo Place, from whom we suffer, are to be believed. + +Lord Ellerdine's hair--and he hadn't much of it--was what he himself +would have described as "the same old dust-colour." He wore a stiff +double collar with blue lines upon it, a tie of China silk, and a big +black pearl, stuck right down at the bottom, so that it only peeped out +from the opening of his waistcoat now and again. + +Lord Ellerdine had red eyes--that is to say, that there was a sort of +red glint in them. The brows which overhung them were straight and dark, +and contradicted with an odd grotesquerie the flickering attempt to +really be at home and happy with the world. The face itself was rather +tanned and brown, lean in contour and suggesting the explorer and the +travelled man; and all this was oddly contradicted by an engaging little +button of a mouth, which twitched and lisped and was always rather more +jolly than the occasion warranted. + +By the side of Lord Ellerdine--or rather standing in the middle of the +room and looking down upon him, for he had thrown himself upon the +sofa--was a tall, slim, and gracious woman, perfectly dressed in a +travelling coat and skirt of tweed. She looked round her rather +fretfully. + +Her face was radiant--there is no other word for it. Although she had +been travelling all night, she appeared to be as fresh as paint--and +that exactly describes her. + +The complexion was perfect. It had that creamy _morbidezza_ one sees in +a furled magnolia bud. Two straight, decisive lips seemed like a "band +of scarlet upon a tower of ivory." Lady Attwill's eyes were +sapphire-blue and suspicious, but entirely charming. She was, in short, +a thoroughly handsome woman, and the sunlight struck curious radiances +from the little pearls she wore in the shell-like lobes of her ears. + +"Tell madame, will you, Pauline?" she said. + +"I'll tell madame that you have arrived," the maid said with a little +bow. She crossed the room, knocked, opened the door leading into Mrs. +Admaston's bedroom, and disappeared. + +Almost immediately Lady Attwill's face changed from its quiet calm and +became vivid. + +"Cheer up, Dicky!" she said to Lord Ellerdine; "you've been in many a +worse fix than this." + +The diplomatist looked at her for a moment, his whole silly--but somehow +distinguished--face covered with a sort of desperate cheerfulness. + +"Worse!" he said. "I should say so. I don't mind gettin' into a 'fix,' +as you call it." + +"Then what in the world are you grumbling about?" Lady Attwill asked. + +"Why, how am I going to get _out_ of it? Any fool can get into a +fix--any time. It's gettin' out--what? That's the bally riddle, +Alice--gettin' out of it. What?" + +Lady Attwill went up to him and dug him confidentially in the shoulder +with one pretty gloved thumb. + +"Look here, Dicky," she said; "now, did I ever fail you?" + +"Oh no, no. You've always been pretty good." + +"Now, haven't I got you out of many a scrape?" + +Lord Ellerdine seemed to think--that is to say, call upon the resources +of a somewhat attenuated memory. "Yes," he replied; "not so confounded +many--only two; and--yes--well, of course, that other one was rather +awkward." + +He chuckled to himself. "But, after all, this is different," he +continued. "I am not in this one, exactly. No more are you. It's Peggy's +fix. And we don't _quite_ know how she's got into it. I don't like the +look of it." + +Lady Attwill listened to him with an aspect of particular attention. But +if the man had been able to realise it he would have seen the flash of +contempt which came and went over her face. He did not, however, and she +replied in her ordinary tones: + +"Look of it! It's merely a frolic--nothing serious. Collingwood is not +the man to run risks. He believes in the simple life." + +"Does he, by Jove!" Lord Ellerdine said. "He's not so simple as that, +Alice." + +"He is not so simple as to get into a complication with Admaston," she +answered. "He's no fool--you take my word for it." + +Lord Ellerdine grinned his fatuous little grin. + +"Seems I have to take your word for everything," he said. + +"All right, Dicky," she answered; "just you leave all the thinking to +me." + +"You don't give me time to think," he answered. "I know I am deuced slow +at it. But tell me this. How did Peggy and Collingwood get to my place +last autumn before ten o'clock in the morning? Tell me that--what?" + +"They motored through the night, of course." + +"They jolly well didn't," replied his lordship. + +"But Colling told us he did," said Lady Attwill. + +"I knew he did. But they didn't." + +Lady Attwill had been glancing over the _Matin_ of that day, which had +been laid upon the breakfast table. At these words of her companion's +she put down the paper rather hurriedly and looked up. + +"Dicky," she said, "I believe you know something." + +"I know I do." + +"What is it, then?" + +"Bad breakdown at Selby overnight. They came on to my place in a hired +motor next morning. I heard all about it from the man who drove them +down from Selby." + +Lady Attwill was very genuinely interested, or achieved a fair +assumption of interest. "Dicky!" she cried. + +Lord Ellerdine nodded his thin head vigorously. "It's a fact," he +replied triumphantly. "The fellow is now my second chauffeur. So you see +I can find out things if I have time enough. Alice, I don't like this +fix Peggy's in. Staying at Selby with Collingwood all night was bad +enough, but----" + +"Good gracious!" Lady Attwill answered, "can't a woman stay at the same +hotel with a man she knows without scandal?" + +"Scandal!" Lord Ellerdine replied. "Damn the scandal! It's what folks +think. It's who you are. Lots of women wouldn't mind staying at the same +hotel I was staying at, and nobody would dream that there was anything +wrong--you wouldn't, Alice. But Peggy and Collingwood _make_ people +suspect them." + +Lady Attwill went up to Lord Ellerdine and pinched his arm playfully. +"You silly old Dicky," she said, "you've been listening to a lot of +stupid twaddle at your clubs." + +"Well," he answered, "they know pretty well what's going on." + +"Yes, I suppose _they_ do," she said. "Talk about women and their +gossip! Why, Dicky, they're not in it with your smoke-room gang." + +At that moment Pauline entered from Mrs. Admaston's bedroom. There was a +hardly veiled hostility in her face as she spoke, though her manner was +civil enough. "Madame will see Lady Attwill," she said. + +Lady Attwill swept across the room, flashing a somewhat curious glance +at the old maidservant as she passed her, and entered the bedroom. + +Lord Ellerdine had strolled up to the fireplace. "Tell Peggy I am +waiting," he called out. + +"All right," Lady Attwill said. "You amuse yourself for a few minutes." + +Lord Ellerdine began to hum a little tune; then he noticed Pauline, who +was arranging some violets upon a side table. "Morning, Pauline," he +said. "How's madame?" + +"She has a headache," the maid replied; "just a little nervous. Is your +lordship well?" + +"No, I am not well, Pauline, I am sorry to say. I feel very groggy. I +have been all night in a confounded slow train." + +Pauline said nothing, but left the room just as the third door opened +and Collingwood came briskly into the room. + +He was wearing a lounge suit of dark blue. The air of poise and easy +carriage which was so marked a part of his personality was very much in +evidence now. There was a quiet spring in his step, a brisk and cheery +purpose in his movements, and he seemed singularly alert and +_débonnaire_; perfectly dressed, a very proper man to look at, but +somehow or other without a suggestion of foppishness, which Lord +Ellerdine always managed to convey. His face was calm and composed, but +a close observer would have noticed that there were dark rings under the +eyes and that the face was slightly paler than its wont. + +"Oh, there you are!" Lord Ellerdine said. + +"Hello, Ellerdine!" Collingwood replied. "Bright and early as usual?" + +"Early, yes," said the other; "but not so deuced bright, old chap." + +"When did you get here?" + +"About five o'clock." + +"Had breakfast?" + +"No," said Lord Ellerdine. "I had a bath, a shave, a change, and a +brandy-and-soda." + +Collingwood went up to the window and sat looking idly down into the Rue +de Rivoli. + +"Refreshing, but not very filling," he said. "Staying here?" + +"No," Lord Ellerdine replied; "they would not let us in. It's race-week, +you know. They are packed out. The place is full of big bookies and +racing fellows. We had to go to the St. Denis. A nice fix you've got us +all in, Collingwood!" + +Collingwood turned away from the window. + +"Fix? I've got you in? How do you mean?" + +Lord Ellerdine struggled to find words in which to express his meaning. + +"I'm blowed if I know--quite. Anyway, we're in it." + +"I don't understand," Collingwood answered. + +"Oh, come on!" replied Lord Ellerdine. "Chuck that business, Colling! I +know your beastly way of putting a fellow off, but you can't leave me +out of this." + +Collingwood lit a cigarette very deliberately. "Leave you out?" he said. + +"Wish to heavens you could!" was the rejoinder. + +Collingwood perched himself on the end of the sofa, swinging his legs. +"Look here, what's up?" + +"Are we at St. Moritz?" Lord Ellerdine asked. + +"No," Collingwood answered coolly. + +"Are we in Switzerland?" + +"No." + +"Well, where are we?" + +"I make a good guess," Collingwood said, "that we are in Paris." + +Lord Ellerdine flushed up and began to get angry. + +"Well, there you are!" he said. "Damn it, there you are! And you have +got the sublime cheek to ask me what's up." + +Collingwood smiled. "Now, don't get ratty, Dicky," he said. "It's all +right. Only a trifling contretemps. We got on the wrong train--by +mistake." + +Lord Ellerdine began to stroll up and down the room. He tried to be +judicial in his manner. "Now, are you telling me that for a fact or for +a joke?" he asked. + +"Fact--absolute fact. We were kept until the last moment paying duty on +Peggy's cigarettes, and had to rush for the train----" + +He had been going to say something further, but Lord Ellerdine +interrupted him. "I saw you," he said. + +Here Collingwood cut in suddenly: "Yes, getting into the train that was +on the move." + +"Yes," Lord Ellerdine said, "the Paris express. You jumped Peggy on and +sprang after her, dragging her maid with you. A clever bit of work, my +friend." + +Collingwood shrugged his shoulders. "Well, where were you?" he replied. + +"In the other train--the right one. With Alice. It was a rotten thing +for you to do." + +"What, leave you with Alice?" + +Lord Ellerdine shook his head impatiently. "No, no," he said irritably; +"to leave us in the lurch like that." + +"But I telegraphed to you to Chalons that we had got on the wrong +train." + +"Yes, you wired to Chalons right enough, but that didn't make it true. I +would not have gone if Alice had not persuaded me that the train was +running in two parts, and that you would be sure to join us at Chalons." + +"Well, it's all right now," Collingwood replied, still preserving the +perfect _sang-froid_ with which he had listened to all the other's +remarks. "It's all right now, so don't let's say any more about it." + +"All right now, by Jove!" Ellerdine replied. "Is it? Suppose Admaston +hears about it--what?" + +"Of course," Collingwood said, "if you think it is absolutely necessary, +we'll invent some yarn that will satisfy him." + +"I do think it necessary. But _you'll_ have to do it. I never could +invent--never. No good at it. Confound you, Colling, leaving us...." + +Collingwood's manner changed from coolness to something more intimate. +"Now, look here, Dicky," he said persuasively. "I didn't think you'd cut +up rough about it. I thought Alice possibly might, but not you." + +"Oh, she doesn't mind," Ellerdine answered. "She never believes that +people get on the wrong train, or have motor accidents so that they can +have a night off." + +Collingwood put his feet down to the floor and threw the end of his +cigarette into the fireplace. "Now, look here," he said; "do you mean +that you think that I----" He hesitated for a moment. + +"No, I don't," Lord Ellerdine answered; "but what will Admaston think? +He is sure to hear of it. I'll bet you a fiver it's known in London +to-night. There is always someone on the spot to notice things that go +wrong, and this is so suspicious--so damned suspicious, mind you. Why, +_I_ don't like the look of it--mind, the look of it--myself." + +"Then we must set your conscience at rest, that's all," Collingwood +replied. + +"How?" + +"Well, we must all have a proper, coherent, connected yarn to tell. +That's quite simple." + +Ellerdine shook his head thoughtfully. "I don't think it will work," he +said. "You can't get four people to tell the same yarn without +variation. There's sure to be one let it down just where it ought to be +kept up." + +"If it were a long, complicated yarn, perhaps," said Collingwood; "but I +don't mean that at all. Just a plain, unvarnished tale." + +"Unvarnished!" the peer replied. "Well, it'll take a deuce of a lot of +paint to make this one look all right." + +"Not a bit of it," Collingwood replied. "Easy as anything." + +Lord Ellerdine went to the fireplace once more and stood with his back +to the flames. "Right ho," he said; "go ahead." + +"Here you are, then," Collingwood began. "We all got on the wrong +train." + +"But we didn't." + +"Damn it!" Collingwood said, "of course we didn't; but we'll say we +did." + +Lord Ellerdine began to check the points upon the fingers of one hand, +as if anxious to commit them to memory even at this early stage. "Am I +to say we did?" he asked. + +"We will all say we did," Collingwood replied. + +"I shall never be able to," Lord Ellerdine remarked hopelessly. + +"Confound it, Dicky! Are you the George Washington of the lot?" + +The peer shook his head more vigorously. That imputation, at anyrate, he +was anxious to avoid. "No, no," he said quickly; "it's not the truth +that bothers me. It's getting the blooming fib to sound all right." + +Collingwood repeated his instruction as if he were teaching a lesson to +a child, speaking slowly and impressively. "'We all got on the wrong +train.' There's nothing difficult about saying that." + +Lord Ellerdine repeated the sentence in exactly the same voice. + +"'We all got on the wrong train.'" + +"Bravo, Dicky!" said Collingwood. "Now then, don't relax your attention, +old chap. The next is that we all stayed the night at this hotel." + +The index finger of Lord Ellerdine's right hand moved from the thumb to +the first finger of his left. He appeared to have got it all right, when +suddenly a doubt seemed to enter the vacant spaces of his mind. + +"What, here?" he asked. + +"Yes, here; at this hotel." + +"Oh! Come, old chap! Doesn't that look like a bally lie? Now think it +over for yourself. Listen. 'We all stayed the night at this hotel.'" + +Collingwood was a patient man, and he listened without any betrayal of +what he really felt in dealing with this pleasant fool. + +"Well," he said, "what's wrong with it?" + +"Oh! it lacks something," was the reply; and though the speaker did not +amplify his statement, his voice was full of doubt and hesitation. + +"Oh, rot!" Collingwood answered. "It's only wrong because we didn't stay +here. If you can say, 'We all got on the wrong train,' surely to +goodness you can say that we all stayed the night at this hotel?" + +"Yes," Ellerdine answered slowly. "I suppose it ought to be easy +enough." + +"No wonder you chucked diplomacy," Collingwood said. + +"Oh! I didn't mind a fib or two for international reasons." + +"I see," Collingwood rejoined. "Your conscience begins to prick you only +when fibs are told for domestic purposes." + +"Well, you see, you run much greater risks of being found out. It's +awful to be found out in an _ordinary_ lie--people make such a _fuss_ of +other people's lies." + +"Do you mean to tell me that national lies are never found out?" + +"Well, you see," Ellerdine replied--the discussion was getting a little +bit beyond him, and again he struggled to find words,--"you see, +national lies are not about persons." Then he shook his head. "I'm +damned bad at it, Collingwood," he said in a final sort of voice. "I +can't rely on my memory. I suppose there's no other way out of it?" + +"My dear chap, none whatever," Collingwood said. + +"'We all got on the wrong train,'" Ellerdine repeated to himself slowly +in a sing-song voice; and then, looking up brightly, "Does seem easy, +doesn't it?" + +"Top hole," said Collingwood. + +Thus encouraged, Lord Ellerdine began to repeat the second half of his +lesson. "'We all stayed the night at this hotel.' There's something +wrong with that." + +"It's only your sense of the scrupulous," Collingwood replied. "Only say +it often enough. Say it thirty or forty times; then it will sound all +right." + +At this moment the door opened and Lady Attwill came in. She looked +quickly at Collingwood and he at her. + +"Good morning," he said. "Well, how is Peggy?" + +"She has a bad headache," Lady Attwill replied. "She's coming in in a +minute or two. I have had a warm quarter of an hour, I can tell you, +though I am sure I don't know what _I_ have done...." + +If the woman was acting she was acting supremely, for there seemed +genuine disgust in her voice. + +"Is she much cut up?" Lord Ellerdine asked. + +"I should think she is! She's dreadfully cut up! I don't know what we +are to do," Lady Attwill said. + +Lord Ellerdine suddenly became important; his little mouth smiled +brightly. He was the bearer of good news. "Oh, that's all settled," he +said, rubbing his hands briskly together. "I and Collingwood have +arranged it all." + +"Arranged what?" Lady Attwill asked. + +"Well, do you see, we all----" + +The bright expression faded from the ex-diplomatist's face. "Tell her, +Collingwood," he said. "My head won't work. I've forgotten everything +already." + +"You've never given Dicky anything to think about?" Lady Attwill said in +mock alarm. + +"Not much," Collingwood answered. + +Ellerdine flushed up angrily. "Not much!" he cried. "He gets on the +wrong train. He leaves us standing at the post like a couple of sublime +martyrs. Goes off to Paris and leaves us kicking our confounded heels at +Chalons. We come here after them--find the hotel full of bookies--travel +all night in a beastly slow train--no sleep, no food, no Switzerland. +Not much to think about! I shall have an attack of brain fever after +this affair." + +Lady Attwill went up to the enraged gentleman. "Poor Dicky!" she said +soothingly. "He's had a bad night. Dicky is no good unless he gets his +proper sleep. Now sit down, there's a good boy, and let's talk it over +properly." + +She led him to a chair with a radiant smile, and then turned to +Collingwood. "Now tell me, what is it that you have arranged?" As she +said this she felt in the side pocket of his coat and drew out his +cigarette case. Opening it, she gave him one and took one for herself, +struck a match and lit it. + +"Well," Collingwood answered, leaning over the back of the sofa on which +his friend had seated herself. "A short, straight tale--simple, to the +point, and easy to tell." + +"The truth?" Lady Attwill asked. + +"The truth! Never! Who's going to tell Admaston the truth?" Lord +Ellerdine burst out. + +"How's _he_ to know?" Lady Attwill said. + +"Know!" Ellerdine retorted. "I'll bet Collingwood a fiver all _London_ +knows to-night." + +He looked anxiously at the other man, unable to understand how he could +take things so easily, absolutely unconscious of anything underlying +this unfortunate occurrence, absolutely unsuspicious of the sinister +forces at work around him. + +"Oh, bosh!" Collingwood answered. "Anyway, we can say we all got on the +wrong train." + +"'That we all got on the wrong train,'" came with parrot-like precision +from the diplomatist. + +"But we didn't," Lady Attwill said, looking from one to the other. + +Lord Ellerdine jumped up from his chair, his face radiant with triumph. +"There you are!" he said to Collingwood. "Just what I told you!" + +Lady Attwill became alive to the situation. "Oh, I see," she said; +"that is the short, straight, simple tale. I see. 'We all got on the +wrong train.'" + +"You see, Dicky!" Collingwood said with a smile. "See how quickly Alice +picks it up." + +"Oh, she's used to it," said Ellerdine. "She picks up things very +quickly. But tell her the sequel--that's the water-jump for me." + +"Come on; let's have a look at it," said Lady Attwill. + +Collingwood seemed vastly amused. He assumed the air of a comedian. His +hands fluttered before him in pantomime. His handsome face became droll +and merry. + +"'We all stayed the night at this hotel,'" he said. + +Lord Ellerdine nodded with an anxious look in his eyes towards Lady +Attwill. "Now try that," he said. + +"'We all stayed the night at this hotel,'" said Lady Attwill with +perfect naturalness and ease. + +"There you are!" said Collingwood. + +The middle-aged fool in the arm-chair was quite interested and pleased. +He saw nothing of the grimness which underlay this gay, light-hearted +chatter, in this gay and brilliant room. The other two, man and woman, +were playing their parts most skilfully--not so much to deceive +Ellerdine, but to trick themselves into the belief that they were not +engaged in a very dirty, ugly business. + +It's an extraordinary thing, but nevertheless perfectly true, that +people who are able to infuse a sinister and tragic moment with mocking +gaiety certainly provide for themselves an anodyne to the pain and fear +it would otherwise bring them. + +No doubt that is why the devil is generally represented as smirking or +leering. + +The door opened and the Scotch-French waiter with a large tray entered, +followed by another also carrying a tray, but whose swarthy features and +thick purple lips proclaimed him no hybrid, but a true son of the Côte +d'Azur. + +Lord Ellerdine jumped up. "Food!" he said. "I am starving." + +Lady Attwill rose also. "Poor Dicky must always have his food," she +said. "I always think he never seems quite human till he has had his +breakfast. When we were down at his place together----" + +Collingwood nudged her with a warning look. "Piano!" he said. + +"What about?" she whispered, with a rather sardonic grin. "I don't want +to play." + +"The waiter, I mean," Collingwood replied. + +"Bien!" she answered, seating herself in front of the cafetière and +pouring out the hot brown coffee. + +Lord Ellerdine had also sat down. He looked at his as yet empty plate +and drummed with his fingers upon the table-cloth. "'We all stayed the +night at this hotel,'" he said in a perfectly audible voice. + +"Oui, monsieur," said Jacques of Ecclefechan suddenly. + +Ellerdine started and looked up, his face expressing great surprise. +"Get away," he said. "I wasn't speaking to you." + +Collingwood frowned. His nerves, now, didn't seem quite under the same +control as they had been before. "Laissez les autres choses, garçon. +Nous nous servirons." + +"Bien, monsieur," said the waiter, with an ugly and furtive smile upon +his face, which nobody noticed, as he left the room. + +"Come on, Alice. Where's my coffee?" said Lord Ellerdine. + +"There you are," she answered. "Coffee, Colling?" + +Collingwood nodded. "What is there?" he asked. + +Lady Attwill lifted the covers. "Omelette, bacon, sole, mushrooms." + +"Sole for me." + +"Bacon and mushrooms, Alice," Ellerdine remarked, quite himself again at +the thought of breakfast. + +"You have no idea how I buck up after a cup of coffee," he continued; +"but, upon my soul, I feel like a fried flounder this morning. I don't +think I shall ever be in a hotter place than that confounded train from +Chalons." + +"Yes, you will, Dicky," Lady Attwill remarked, taking a piece of toast +from the rack. + +"Oh yes, you will, Dicky," Collingwood echoed; "don't make any mistake +about that." + +"After all," Lady Attwill went on, "it wasn't so bad. You worried; that +was what made you hot." + +"You don't know anything about it. You slept like a log all the way," +Ellerdine said. + +"Easy conscience," answered the lady, beginning her breakfast with great +satisfaction. + +"You didn't get on the wrong train," said Ellerdine meaningly. + +Collingwood put down his fish-fork. The long strain to which his nerves +had been subjected, the irritation which he had so well suppressed until +now, had its way with him and burst out. + +"Oh, damn it!" he said, "you two make me tired. Do shut up about the +wrong train. Let's have our breakfast in peace." + +Lord Ellerdine busied himself with his mushrooms. "I wish I had a hide +as thick as yours, Colling, old man," he said. "You do take things +smoothly. Look at him, Alice--eating away as if he was on his +honeymoon!" + +Collingwood glared at his _vis-à-vis_. "Honeymoon!" he said. + +"He doesn't care a fig about getting us into this mess. What excellent +bacon they have here!" Lord Ellerdine went on. + +Again Collingwood got the better of his rising temper. "Oh, you'll be +all right, Dicky," he said, "when we get to St. Moritz to-morrow." + +"We're not going," Lady Attwill said shortly. + +Collingwood started. "We are," he said. + +"Wrong, my boy," said Lady Attwill again. "Peggy is going back." + +"Back! Back where?" + +"To London." + +"She doesn't mean it?" Collingwood said, putting down his fork and +looking straight at Lady Attwill. + +She nodded at him, and he knew that what she said was true. + +"There you are!" piped out in Lord Ellerdine's voice. "I knew it; I felt +it in my bones all the time I was in that beastly train. Peggy's got the +hump. You have spoilt the whole show, Colling. I can't eat any more." + +He pushed his chair away from the table with a perplexed and angry face, +and began to walk up and down the room. + +"Hang it!" Collingwood said, "is this the first time that anyone got on +the wrong train?" + +"No, it is not," Ellerdine answered shortly. "But it is the first time +it has happened to _Peggy_. Anybody but _Peggy_." + +"It seems to me," Collingwood said, "that we are making a lot of +unnecessary fuss." + +"Yes; let's drop it," came from Lady Attwill. + +"Alice," Lord Ellerdine persisted, "don't you agree with me?" + +She sighed, but it was necessary to preserve appearances. "Well, Dicky," +she said, "Peggy has not shown a tenacious desire to observe the strict +letter of every propriety. I know that there has been nothing wrong. +Absolutely nothing but little frisks and frolics now and then--quite all +right actually--looking perhaps worse than they were--nothing else. But, +after all, it is not what you do; the trouble of it is what other folks +say you do." + +The persistent moralist was not to be put off. "The married woman," he +said, in a voice as near to a pulpit manner as he could get, "cannot +afford to have anyone say a word. Look at Alice. Before Attwill kicked +the bucket she lived in a glass case. Didn't you, Alice?" + +Collingwood chuckled: not merrily at all, but with a rather nasty +cynicism--a snigger, in fact. + +"Look here, Dicky," he said, "if you don't stop your sickening habit of +preaching left-handed morality at me I'll give you up. I can't stand it. +I am _not_ moral--don't know the first thing about it--never met anybody +who did. Man is not moral; environment makes it impossible. You're not +moral, Dicky, although you may think you are. And as for society, it is +absolutely unmoral." + +"I say! I say! I say! Listen to our future Home Secretary!" said Lord +Ellerdine. + +"No fear," Collingwood answered. "I leave that field to Admaston and the +other cackling crew of humbugs." + +Lady Attwill laughed amusedly, and Ellerdine was about to say something +else, when the door opened and Peggy entered. + +She was very simply but very expensively dressed in an exquisite +walking-dress of a colour which was neither grey nor amethyst, but a +cunning blend of both. At her breast she wore a little sprig of white +lilac. There was a sudden silence as she entered, a silence almost as if +the three people were conspirators. + +Peggy walked briskly up to the table, nodding and smiling. "Well, you're +a nice lot," she said. "Why didn't you tell me breakfast was ready? I +have been dying for a cup of coffee. Anything good in the food line? +Something smells good. What is it? Mushrooms--just the very thing! I +like mushrooms. Remind one of early risings and misty mornings. How are +you, Dicky? Alice, give me some coffee, there's a dear. Hello, Colling! +any news?" + +Her chatter was more general than addressed to any particular person, +and she didn't seem to require any answer to her questions. At anyrate, +nobody made any answer, and there was an uncomfortable silence as Peggy +began her breakfast. + +"You're a jolly lot," she said after a minute or so. "What's up with you +all? These mushrooms are nice. Dicky, pass the toast. What? I thought +you said something, Alice." + +Lady Attwill shook her head. "No," she answered in a rather strained +voice. + +There was another silence. Suddenly Peggy put down her knife and fork +with a little clatter and rose from her chair. "This room is horribly +stuffy," she said, going to the window. "There, that's better. Oh! what +a lovely morning! Dear old Paris! how I do love it!" + +She seemed restless and unable to remain long in one position, and soon +she had fluttered back to the breakfast-table. + +"Alice," she said, "please pour me out another cup of coffee.--Well, +Dicky, I put my foot into it nicely last night, didn't I?" + +"Yes, you jolly well did," Lord Ellerdine answered shortly. + +"I knew what you wanted to talk about, Dicky," she said. + +Collingwood interposed. "Peggy, don't go on like that. I have explained +it to Dicky." + +"Were you quite the one to explain?" she asked. + +"Well," Collingwood replied, "it was my fault I rushed you into the +train." + +Lord Ellerdine started. Something already beginning to be familiar had +penetrated his consciousness. "We all got on the wrong train," he said. + +"Oh! All?" Peggy asked. + +"Yes," said the diplomatist--"yes--no--that's what we're going to say." + +"To whom?" asked Peggy. + +"Well--well--to--well, to anyone who wants to know." + +"Who should want to know?" Peggy asked. + +"Oh, no one, Peggy," said Lady Attwill; "but it's best to be prepared, +you know." + +"But I don't know. Why should I know? Be prepared for what?" + +"Nothing, dear, absolutely nothing. Only, some chatty fool might ask." + +"Ask what?" + +"Well--awkward questions." + +"About getting on the wrong train?" + +[Illustration: "We all got on the wrong train and we all stayed the +night at this hotel"] + +"Yes--and----" + +Peggy pressed home her questions. She would not understand. "What else?" +she said. + +"We all stayed the night at this hotel," Lord Ellerdine remarked. + +"Did we?" Peggy asked. + +"Yes," he said--"no! Oh! But it is best to be prepared." + +"I see," Peggy said at last. "What a dull creature I am! Dear me! how +stupid I didn't see it before! You have all made it up to put me right. +You and Alice didn't go to Switzerland--you came on to Paris. You and +Alice didn't get to Chalons and come on here by the slow train--you +stayed here _all_ night. I see. Now, that's so kind and thoughtful of +you all! But for whom is this delightful story?" + +"Dicky's scruples," Collingwood said hurriedly. + +"I see. Dicky wanted it, did he?" Peggy replied. "Well, Dicky, I hope +your moral sensibilities are quite satisfied. We all got on the wrong +train and we all stayed the night at this hotel." + +"Quite so," Ellerdine said quickly; "just a short, straight, simple +tale, ready for any emergency." + +"And what emergency do you _expect_?" + +"Dearest Peggy, none at all," Lady Attwill said, with a note of anxious +affection in her voice. + +"I see. I understand. But don't you think the tale will need a lot of +corroboration?" + +"But only if someone questions it." + +"Oh!" Peggy said, and there was a world of meaning in the exclamation. + +"You see," Lord Ellerdine went on anxiously--"you see, it's all right, +Peggy. We have left nothing to chance." + +Lady Attwill nodded. "Nothing at all," she said, echoing her friend. + +Peggy looked at them each in turn. Her sweet and youthful face bore +little trace of what she had gone through the night before; and though +her head was throbbing and her nerves were all jangling and raw, her +freshness and purity of countenance remained absolutely unimpaired. +Beside her Alice Attwill suddenly seemed to have grown old. + +She looked at them each in turn with grave contemplation--lastly at +Collingwood. "And what do you think about it, Colling?" she asked at +length. "Don't you think that we are a precious set of fools? No--that's +unkind of me. Not you, Alice. Not you, Dicky. I am the precious fool. +Fool! Why, I should have been in cap and bells! A thing to make the +whole world laugh. For only the fool will ask for an explanation--the +wise, if they ask, will look on the explanation as the better part of +the joke. But tell me, Dicky, why is the explanation necessary?" + +"Oh! Come, Peggy, come. Confound it!" Lord Ellerdine blundered out. "It +_looks_ so deuced bad." + +Peggy made a grimace at him. "Candid!" she said. "Now that was frank. +'It _looks_ so deuced bad.' That's it. Looks! But only _looks_. What do +you think, Colling? Can't we tell the truth? Is there anything to hide?" + +"Nothing," Collingwood said. + +"There," Peggy went on; "there's nothing to hide." + +"Oh, we all know that," Lord Ellerdine said hastily. + +Peggy's rising temper almost got the better of her. "Then why the +explanation--the 'short, straight, simple tale'? Why not the truth?" + +She clenched her hands, and an angry light burned in her eyes. "Oh! I'll +leave you for a moment. I must go out. This place is stifling! We ought +all to be out in the air. We'll grow mouldy in here--plotting. Alice, +I'll put on my hat. Colling, you must invent another tale to satisfy +Dicky's scruples. Think it over." + +She tore out of the room into her own and shut the door with a rather +vicious slam. + +"Well, I'm jiggered!" Lord Ellerdine said. + +Lady Attwill nodded with a slight tightening of the lips. "I told you +she was upset," she answered. + +Collingwood rose from the table and went towards his own room. + +"Well, Dicky," he said, "I have done the best I can to satisfy you. I'll +get my hat and take Peggy for a walk and talk it over." And he also left +the room. + +"Well," Ellerdine remarked, "this comes of thinking of your friends." He +went to the fireplace and gazed rather gloomily at the glowing logs. +"May the devil take me if I ever care a damn again what folks think of +'em," he went on. + +Alice Attwill went up to the window. "Dicky, it is very strange," she +said. "I have never seen Peggy in that nasty mood before." + +"I've a jolly good mind to think the worst has happened," the man +remarked. + +She shrugged her shoulders. "Well, anyway, Colling is not in Peggy's +good books," she said, and, pulling one of the large windows open, she +stepped out upon the balcony. + +Lord Ellerdine was left alone. His face was grave and perplexed; but +seeing the _Matin_ lying on the sofa, where Lady Attwill had dropped it +before breakfast, he went up, sat down, and was soon immersed in the +news of the day. + +There came a light tap upon the door leading into the corridor, which +was flung open immediately afterwards. Jacques stood there holding the +door open. + +"Mr. Admaston," he said in a loud, clear voice. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +A Thunderbolt crashing through the roof of the hotel could not have +startled Lord Ellerdine more than the waiter's announcement: + +"Mr. Admaston." + +He dropped the paper, sprang to his feet as if someone had struck him, +while his face grew absolutely white and the little mouth became a round +"O" of consternation and alarm. + +George Admaston walked slowly into the room. + +He was a big man of about forty years of age, very quiet in manner, and +with a strong, resolute face. The eyes were grey and steadfast, and wore +that look which some people mistake for abstraction, but which is +anything but that. They had the expression of one who thinks often and +much. The finely chiselled mouth was set somewhat grimly, and there was +great force and assertiveness about the slightly forward thrust of the +massive chin. He was dressed in quiet grey tweeds, carried a bowler hat +in his hand and a light coat over his arm. + +"Hello, Ellerdine!" he said. "What are you doing here?" + +The voice was deep and mellow, informed with weight and gravity, though +pleasantly musical. + +Lord Ellerdine looked hurriedly round the room. It might have been +thought he was seeking an avenue of escape. + +There was no one to help him, however, and he began to stutter horribly, +while his eyes wore the look of a startled hare. "Here?" he gasped out. +"Oh!" His eyes fell upon the breakfast-table, and an inspiration came to +him. "Oh," he stuttered, "just had breakfast, don't you know." + +"Early for you, isn't it?" said the big man, looking the wretched object +before him full in the face. + +"It is rather early," Lord Ellerdine replied. "Been travelling all----" + +"All what?" Admaston asked quickly. + +The other was in despair. He realised what he had done. He looked +hopelessly round the room for Alice Attwill. + +"Where's Lady Attwill gone?" he gasped. + +Never relaxing his gaze for a single instant, and standing in the middle +of the room without advancing further, Admaston continued: "Is she +here?" + +"Oh yes," replied Lord Ellerdine. "She's here. In fact, we're all here." + +"Where's my wife?" + +"In her room. Changing her gown. She's going for a walk." + +"But I thought you went to Switzerland," Admaston went on. + +"Did you really?" Ellerdine answered, with a ghastly assumption of +ingratiating affability, though his hands were shaking, his mouth +worked, and beads of perspiration were plainly rolling down his face. + +Again came the grave, persistent voice: "Yes. That was the plan, wasn't +it?" + +"Oh! Yes--of course. But we all got on the wrong train." + +"What?" Admaston said sharply, and a new note in his voice made the +ex-diplomatist jump from the floor. + +"We all got on the wrong train," he repeated. + +"Who are we?" + +"Collingwood and Peggy----" + +"And what train did you and Lady Attwill get on?" + +"The wrong one. Stupid mistake, wasn't it?" + +"Very," Admaston answered. + +Lord Ellerdine brightened a little. He thought he was carrying things +very well now. "Yes," he said, "and so we all stayed the night at this +hotel." + +"Indeed!" Admaston replied. + +The other put his shaking hands into his trousers pockets. "Oh yes! +all," he said. "The proprieties were most carefully observed, +Admaston." + +"Now, that is very interesting," Admaston remarked; and if the other had +been a member of the Lower House instead of the Upper, which he never +entered, he would have known what that bland suavity of voice portended +when the Cabinet Minister rose to speak. + +Lord Ellerdine nodded. "Yes," he said. "But what the deuce are you doing +here in Paris?" + +"Oh! a whim." + +"Didn't expect to find us here," the wretched fool continued--"did you?" + +"There's something on?" Admaston answered, going towards the window and +talking as he went. "Racing or something, isn't there?" + +"Yes," Lord Ellerdine said. "Auteuil. Going out?" + +Lady Attwill appeared at the window. "Oh! Alice," Admaston said. + +She smiled brightly, extending her little manicured hand, upon which +diamonds and sapphires flashed and sparkled in the brilliant light of +the sun. "How do you do, George?" she said. "Who ever expected to see +you here?" + +"I don't run over often," Admaston answered, just taking her hand and no +more. "But I thought you were at St. Moritz?" + +"St. Moritz? Oh!--no. We changed our minds and came on to Paris." + +"Then _you_ didn't get on the wrong train?" Admaston said with grim +politeness. + +The wretched Ellerdine, who had retreated to the breakfast-table and +sank down upon a chair, heard this, and was about to lay his head in the +bacon dish with alarm, when Lady Attwill's next words did a little to +reassure him. + +"Oh yes," she said easily, going into the centre of the room; "we all +got on the wrong train, but we changed our minds when we discovered our +mistake." + +"Good thing you did it before it was too late." + +"Did what?" she asked in a flat voice. + +"Why, changed your minds before you could change on to the right train." + +"Wasn't it!" she replied. "And, by the way, I saw an old friend of yours +on the train, George." + +"And who was that?" Admaston asked. + +"Sir Peter Stoke," she answered. + +"Really! But he must have been on the right train. He was going to the +Conference at Geneva." + +"Oh!" she replied, "I met him at Boulogne." + +There was a pause, and when he spoke again Admaston's voice grew colder +and colder with every sentence. + +"Strange," he said, nodding his head with an appearance of +thoughtfulness. "He wrote to me from Amiens, where he has been staying +for the past week, that he was joining the train there; and Amiens is +the first stop on the Swiss express, isn't it?" + +Lady Attwill almost whispered her assent. + +"And the Paris express doesn't stop at Amiens?" + +It suddenly occurred to Lord Ellerdine that he was being left out of the +conversation. + +"No," he said brightly. + +Admaston turned round to him. + +"Funny that, being already at Amiens, where the Swiss express does stop, +he should have gone to Boulogne to catch it!" + +Even the diplomatist, who had imagined that things were going better, +began to realise the game was almost up. + +"Yes, damned funny of him, wasn't it?" he said feebly. + +For a few moments there was an absolute silence in the room. Outside, +the roar of the morning traffic, the tooting of motor horns, and all the +gay welter of things which marks a Parisian morning in fine weather, +only accentuated the silence in the richly furnished salon. + +Admaston turned and walked twice up and down the room. Lord Ellerdine +was still sitting, guilty and miserable of aspect, in his chair at the +breakfast table. Lady Attwill stood quite still where she was, near the +window. They were both waiting to hear what should come next. Suddenly +Admaston spoke. + +"You found Paris very full?" he said in his icy voice. + +"Very," Alice Attwill replied; "so we were lucky to get _in_ here." + +"Here?" the big man asked. + +"Yes; we all stayed the night at this hotel." + +"You used to have a very fine old parrot," Admaston said. + +There was spirit in the woman. She gave a little toss of her head. +"Er--I have her still," she replied. + +"Not stuffed, I hope," he said. + +"No, indeed. Alive and kicking." + +There was a rattle of a handle, and the door of Collingwood's room +opened and he came into the room. + +He gave one slight start, no more, and his manner immediately became +easy and natural. "Hallo!" he said. "Admaston!" + +The big man regarded him gravely, showing no emotion whatever. + +"Well, Collingwood," he said very slowly and distinctly, "I thought I +would just run over and see----" Then he stopped speaking. + +"How did you know that we were here?" Collingwood said. + +"From a friend," Admaston answered. + +The fool had to have his say. "That's very funny, Admaston," he said. +"We didn't know ourselves." + +"You surprise me. Didn't you know you were going to St. Moritz?" + +"Of course we didn't know," Lady Attwill said quickly. + +"Then how on earth could your friend know?" Lord Ellerdine asked. + +There was a complete pause. Nobody said a word, but Admaston was the +centre and focus of the place. All eyes went to him, and then back and +round to each other's. He stood there, however, calm and imperturbable, +radiating, as it were, not only quiet strength and absolute +determination, but also sending out rays of fear, of uneasiness and +disturbance. + +Lord Ellerdine broke the silence with his plaintive bleat, repeating his +former sentence: "Then how on earth could your friend know?" + +"That's what I want to know," said Admaston. "But why on earth are you +all up so early?" + +Collingwood's face had been growing sharp and hostile, his nostrils +twitched a little; he seemed now to be definitely on the defensive, +ready for the attack. What he said was this: "Mrs. Admaston wanted to go +out early to see the people _en route_ to Auteuil." + +Admaston raised one firm, shapely hand and brought it down upon the back +of the other with a slow movement that ended in a little "click" of +noise. "Mrs.?" he said. "Why Mrs. Admaston? Why are you so ceremonious, +Colling? Why not Peggy?" + +Collingwood looked dangerous, sulky and dangerous. + +"Don't know," he said shortly. "I thought perhaps you were offended." + +"Offended?" the relentless voice continued--so cold, relentless, and +full of purpose that it chilled them all as it echoed out into the room. +"Is there any reason why I should be offended?" + +"Certainly not," said Lord Ellerdine in a staccato bleat. + +"Good gracious! What an idea!" Alice Attwill chimed in. + +Admaston turned to the ex-diplomatist. "Ellerdine," he said, "you ought +not to sit up so late. You look very shaky this morning, and your voice +has a peculiarly uncertain sound." + +"Do I look shaky, old man? That damned journey----" + +"To Paris," Admaston said quickly. + +"Yes, yes, to Paris." + +Admaston went up to him, gazing down at him with calm, reflective eyes +as a mastiff regards some terrified small dog. "Late suppers don't +agree with you," he said. + +"With me?" asked the fool, perplexed. + +"With Dicky? Late suppers?" Lady Attwill interrupted. + +There was again a momentary pause. + +The thing was closing in. The conspirators knew well enough that they +were being played with, with the cold ferocity of a cat with a mouse. +They were brave still. They preserved their pitiful pretences, but to +the heart of each of them a little icicle had come. + +"It was after midnight before he had finished his supper?" Admaston +said. + +"When?" Ellerdine inquired. + +"Last night," Admaston rapped out. + +"Dicky?" Lady Attwill said. "Why, he didn't have _any_ supper last +night." + +"Not a bally mouthful," said Lord Ellerdine, shaking his head +mournfully. + +"Collingwood told me," Admaston remarked, "that you had just finished +supper, well after midnight." + +"Well, that was a whopper," said Lady Attwill. + +"He didn't know," Ellerdine spluttered in. + +"Oh! I thought not," Admaston said. "But you all stayed here last +night." + +At that moment the sun, which had been filling the room with radiance, +had become obscured by a floating cloud. The place was informed by a +momentary greyness. It was only early spring, after all, and summer with +its perpetual radiance, its perpetual heat, its _air_ of summer, which +will always make a room cheerful even when a thunderstorm approaches, +had not yet arrived. + +The room became as grey as the faces of the people who were in it, as +grey and cold as the accusing voice which could not be silenced, which +continued remorselessly. "But you all stayed here last night," Admaston +repeated slowly, clearly, and with a definite, staccato voice. + +Then there was an odd chiming of tone. The anxious musical contralto of +Lady Attwill mingled with the more anxious, and definitely tremulous, +bleat of the diplomatist. + +"Oh yes. We were all here," they said together. + +"But no supper?" + +"No supper, George," Ellerdine said in a faint voice.... + +The door opened and Jacques of Ecclefechan entered. + +He looked towards Lord Ellerdine. "Your man, my lord, to see you," he +said in excellent Scotch-English. + +A little wizened, elderly man with grey hair closely cropped to his +head, and dressed in a decorous lounge suit of black, came drooping +into the room. + +His face was anxious, and at the same time pleased. + +"I telephoned to Chalons, my lord," he said. + +Lord Ellerdine jumped up as if he had suddenly sat down upon a pin. + +"What?" he said. + +"The railway people are sure they put your dispatch-box on the 2.43 with +you and Lady Attwill." + +Lord Ellerdine's face became the colour of brick. If his mouth had been +larger it would have foamed at the corners. "Get out!" he spluttered. + +The little man started back a step, his arms shot out in amazement, his +face a mere mask of one. + +"My lord!" he said. + +"Get out!" + +The poor fellow realised that there was obviously something very wrong. +It was a situation he could only deal with in one way, and that was by +being thoroughly polite. + +"Yes, my lord," he said, in a voice from which he vainly tried to +eliminate the amazement he felt. + +Admaston turned sharply to the peer. + +"What, Ellerdine?" he said. "Has your dispatch-box got on the wrong +train, too? What a chapter of accidents!" + +Again there was a horrible silence in the place. + +It was broken by a sudden, loud cry. + +Peggy had entered from her room, and had seen them all standing +there--like figures in a tableau in the big hall at Madame Tussaud's. + +"George!" she cried. + +At that moment there was a singular change of poise among the tense, +strained people who were there. + +Lady Attwill, radiant and beautiful, strolled up to the piano. + +Admaston remained where he was. Collingwood bent forward, almost in the +attitude of a man about to spring. + +"Well, Peggy. Going out?" Admaston asked. + +"I was," Peggy answered; and if ever guilty fear was manifested in a +human voice, the people in that room heard it now. It must be remembered +that to people who have been upon the brink of crime or +misbehaviour--even though they may have escaped it--the suspicion, when +they are confronted with it, has much the same effect upon their +attitude as if the thing had already been done. The nerves of the +innocent have often proclaimed them guilty to the most indulgent eyes. + +"I was going out," Peggy faltered. + +"Wait a moment," Admaston said. + +Peggy almost drooped together. + +She was like an early lily of the valley suddenly withered by a sharp, +cold wind--and all gardeners will tell one how sudden and complete that +withering and collapse can be. + +"Very well," the girl answered. + +Admaston raised his right hand a little, while he was looking at her, +grave and straight. Then his arm dropped to his side. + +"Ellerdine tells me that you all got on the wrong train at Boulogne." + +"Yes," Peggy answered. She looked anxiously, and indeed piteously, at +the others, wondering what they had been saying, longing to be adequate, +conscious of her own innocence, but dreadfully conscious of the +appearance of her guilt. + +Admaston--and nothing escaped him--saw the way her look flickered round +the salon. + +"You did?" he said in a voice of doom. + +She did the fatal thing; she answered "Yes." + +"Ellerdine also says," Admaston continued, "that he and Lady Attwill +stayed here last night?" + +The ex-diplomatist, who, though he was a perfect fool, was also a +thorough gentleman, flushed up and spoke in a voice from which all the +fear and bleating noise had gone. + +"Of course we did, Admaston," he barked. "Why the devil--don't you +believe us?" + +But it was of no use; the resolute, ice-cold voice went on. + +"And were you all at supper at midnight?" + +Peggy broke in. "Why do you ask?" she said--and if ever there was pain +and yearning in a human voice it was in hers at that moment. + +"Because Collingwood told me that you were," Admaston answered, "and +Ellerdine says he didn't have any supper. Lady Attwill corroborates +Ellerdine's statement." + +"Then why ask me? Don't you believe Colling?" Peggy said with a wail of +despair. + +"No, I don't," Admaston said shortly. + +Collingwood drummed upon the carpet with his left foot. + +"Admaston!" he said. + +Admaston turned round to him, and his face became, for the first time, +suffused with blood. + +The quiet grey eyes blazed with anger; the big, capable face was +transformed into a single accusation. The voice, at last, was directly +accusing. It was wonderful in its pain, its suppressed horror, its +certain purpose. + +"I don't believe a single word I have heard since I have come into this +room," he said. + +Lord Ellerdine took a step towards the Minister. "By God! Admaston," he +said. + +Lady Attwill ran up to Lord Ellerdine and caught him by the arm. + +"Dicky, keep quiet," she said in a frightened but very decisive voice. + +"You have lied--you lied to me on the telephone last night." + +Collingwood glared at him. + +"Telephone!" Lord Ellerdine said, also turning to Collingwood. "Did +Admaston speak to you last night--on the telephone?" + +"Yes," Collingwood answered. + +The diplomatist was genuinely distressed. "My dear fellow," he said, +"why _didn't_ you tell us?" + +"Would that have saved you from saying that you all got on to the wrong +train? Collingwood lied to me. You have lied to me. Lady +Attwill--well--I beg your pardon...." + +Collingwood took two steps towards Peggy. + +"Why should you come catechising us?" he said to Admaston, and then he +stepped up to him. + +The two men stood in front of each other. Admaston, with a white fire of +enragement in his face, still preserved his absolute calm of poise. His +hands were clasped behind his back, his whole forceful personality +seemed whetted for the aggression of the other. + +Collingwood, on the other hand, was panther-like and alert. He almost +crouched to spring at the other. He was a little younger, infinitely +more _débonnaire_--probably not really so physically powerful, but at +least lithe, brave, and ready for anything. + +The two men stood there for a moment, when Peggy ran between them. "Oh! +don't!" she cried, spreading out her arms--in front of Collingwood. She +seemed to fear her husband's heavy and certain onslaught. + +She protected Collingwood, not George Admaston. Doubtless her action +showed her knowledge of the stronger man, her wish to protect the weaker +from his attack. But it was certainly most unfortunate. + +"Go!" she cried. "Please go!" And then, turning rapidly to Lord +Ellerdine, "Dicky, take Alice away." + +Lord Ellerdine was trembling exceedingly. He was not trembling from any +physical fear. He would have joined in the row with perfect happiness. +It would have suited him very well. He knew that he had cut a sorry +figure on this occasion--and he was not accustomed to cutting sorry +figures. He was not a clever man; nobody knew it better than himself. +But he had always considered himself to be an honourable one. + +Lady Attwill seemed perfectly composed. Her face did not alter in +expression at all, but she caught hold of her friend by the arm and led +him out of the room. + +The last thing that was heard as the two departed was the plaintive +voice of the ex-diplomatist: "I knew it--I knew it." + +Admaston waited until the door was closed, and then he turned to +Collingwood. "Why don't you go?" he said. + +"What are you going to do?" Collingwood asked, facing him. + +The two men were white with passion. "What the devil has that got to do +with you?" Admaston said. + +"A great deal. If you loved your wife as I love her you would understand +what it has to do with me." + +"I loved her--and trusted her implicitly," Admaston answered, and even +in his passion his wife could detect a note of sorrow. + +"Your presence here looks like it," Collingwood said quickly. "Why, how +did you know she was here unless you had her watched? Loved and trusted +her! Good God! man, you never knew she existed until another man wanted +her!" + +"You admit that you wanted her!" Admaston snarled out. + +"Yes," the other answered, standing well up; "and much good may the +admission do you. I wanted her, and I fought with all the weapons I +dared employ, and I have failed. What fight have you made for her? It +was her own purity that kept her sweet. It was that purity that I +wanted, but I have lost her." He made a passionate gesture with his +hands which showed how deeply he was moved--a gesture quite unlike the +ordinary English habit. + +"If you have any instincts of a gentleman, you have won," Admaston +answered. + +"What do you mean?" + +Peggy, who stood there trembling, gave a wail of despair. + +"George, you cannot mean----" + +Admaston took no notice of her. + +"Your methods have not been over nice," he said with biting scorn: "to +betray your friend--to seduce his wife." + +"That's a lie! I don't defend myself--but don't you dare to say a word +against her. We were great friends. I loved her, and thought she loved +me. But she doesn't; she loves you." + +"Pretty love!" the big man said. "I have finished with it and with her." + +Again there came a wild cry from the trembling woman. "George, for God's +sake!" + +Now for the first time a look of fear came into Collingwood's eyes. "You +mean to cast her off?" he said--"to break her spirit? No--no--you dare +not do it. You don't know what you are saying--you have no right...." + +"That's for the court to decide," Admaston answered. + +Peggy tried to step up to him, but he motioned her not to advance +further. + +"Court!" she wailed. "No, George, not that! I have done nothing, George, +to forfeit your love!" + +"Stop! You don't realise how much I know. I saw a letter at the house +yesterday before four o'clock. It told me everything you intended to +do--everything you have done. That letter brought me over after you. I +sent a detective to Boulogne to meet you." + +Peggy shook with fear. "That man?" she whispered to herself, with a +light of horror in her eyes. + +"Yes," Admaston said. "I sent him. He followed you to this hotel. He was +here last night. He is in the hotel now. He has given me this report, +and it leaves no doubt as to your guilt." + +"My guilt! It is not true, George--I swear to you it is not true. I +don't care what you have done, or what letters or reports you have +received. I am your wife. I didn't love you at first--you knew that--I +was honest, I told you all--but now...." + +"You blind fool!" Collingwood snarled out in a fury of indignation, +"don't you see what you are doing? You are playing my game, not your +own. I have tried to win, I have treated her pretty badly, but I don't +want to win her now. Don't you see, man, if you call in the court to +break her wings you'll only drive her to me?" + +[Illustration: "Don't you see, man, if you call in the court to break +her wings, you'll only drive her to me!"] + +"Yes," Admaston answered with a bitter sneer, "I see--and you don't seem +very anxious to go through with it." + +Collingwood looked at him for a moment, trembling with the desire to fly +at his throat. He restrained himself, however, with a tremendous effort, +and with an inarticulate growl of rage turned and left the room. + +Peggy came timidly towards her husband. "George, you are not going to +send me away?" she said. + +Admaston covered his face with his hands. "My God! Peggy, you lied to +me," he said in a broken voice. "A lie--a lie on your lips! Oh, Peggy, +Peggy, what have I done to you?" + +"George, I did lie," she wailed--"yes, I did; but only that, only that! +I am your wife! Believe me! believe me!" + +"My wife! No--no! How am I to believe you? How am I to tell whether +that's a lie or not?" + +"It's the truth!" she reiterated, her voice shrill with pain. "I swear +it! I am as much your wife as I was the day you married me." + +Unable to stand longer, she sank down upon the sofa, sobbing terribly. + +"You have broken me," the man said--"crushed me. Oh! I was mad to let +you do it! I was a fool to leave you alone! But I trusted you. I laughed +at the gossip. The ridicule only made my trust in you the greater. I +worshipped you, adored you! My whole life was a prayer to you, my +ambition to make you proud of me. My whole aim in life was to win you, +by doing big things--for you. And now it is all turned to +desecration--to be the mock of the crowd!" + +"Forgive me, George," she sobbed, "forgive me! I'll come to you. I am +humble, not you. I am struck down, crushed. But I'll be your slave. I am +still your wife. I am still----" + +He gazed at her searchingly. "You love Collingwood," he said in a +hollow, empty voice. + +"No, no! There was a time when I thought I did." + +"You thought you did! When did you think it? Last night?" + +"No, George, no! I love you! I knew that last night, if I never knew it +before. I love you, George!" + +"I don't believe you," he answered coldly. "You and he were together +alone when I telephoned." + +He spoke very deliberately now. "Was he," he asked--"was he with you +when I telephoned at one o'clock?" + +"Yes," Peggy answered, knowing well what the admission must convey. +"Yes--but...." + +"Alone together from ten o'clock?..." + +"Yes," she said, still more faintly; "but...." + +"Alone together from the time I telephoned?" + +"No, no, George!--not after that; I swear it!" + +"I know far too much to believe a word you say," he replied, and there +was a note of absolute finality in his voice. + +She saw that he had made up his mind--that she was doomed. + +"I know too much to believe a word you say," he repeated. "You were +alone with him. My God! Alone with him!" + +In a moment or two Peggy looked up through a mist of tears. The room was +empty. + +Peggy was left alone. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +One morning upon a dull day in the late summer of the same year in which +Mrs. Admaston had stayed at the Hôtel des Tuileries in Paris, Colonel +Adams came down to breakfast at the Cocoa Tree Club. He ordered his +grilled kidneys in the quaint, old-fashioned dining-room, with its rare +sporting prints and air of sober comfort, and took up his morning paper. +His eyes fell upon the cause list of the Royal Courts of Justice, and he +sighed. + +A few minutes afterwards Henry Passhe, whose leave from India had been +extended for reasons of health, and who was also a member of the famous +club in St. James's Street, entered and sat down by his friend. + +"Well," he said, "do you still hold to your resolution, Adams?" + +The colonel sighed, and put down his knife and fork. "I don't know, old +chap," he said doubtfully. "It's different for you. You see, you don't +know Mrs. Admaston. I know her quite well, and I really doubt whether it +is the chivalrous thing to do, to go and stare at her, as if she was a +sort of show. She'll be undergoing tortures all day, poor little +thing!" + +"Just as you like," Passhe answered. "I confess to great curiosity +myself, and of course everyone who can possibly get in will be going, +whether they are friends of Mrs. Admaston or of her husband. It's great +good luck, my getting two seats like this; but don't come unless you +like. I can easily find someone else who will be only too glad to drop +in for an hour or two. That's all I want to do--just to see what's going +on. You see it is the case of the century almost. I am not up in the +statistics of this sort of thing, but I doubt if a Cabinet Minister, who +is also one of the wealthiest men in England, has ever brought an action +for divorce against his wife, who is not only as rich as he in her own +right, but also is co-partner in one of the biggest financial houses in +Europe. That's the way I look at it." + +"Well, I'll come," the colonel said suddenly. "It can't do any harm, +after all; and I am sure all my sympathies are with Mrs. Admaston, +though of course...." + +Passhe nodded. "But there is absolutely no doubt about it," he said, "of +course. But naturally, old chap, the fact of our both being in the hotel +in Paris at the very time it all happened gives the thing a special +interest for us. When I go back to India everybody will be wanting to +know all about it; and as I have got a chance to be present at part of +the trial, I really can't forego it." + +"That's settled, then," Adams replied, as the two men strolled into the +big smoke-room, where the brown-cased Cocoa Tree is put with all its old +associations of the past. They fidgeted about a little, smoked a +cigarette, while they looked down into the busy St. James's Street from +the great Georgian windows, looked at their watches, and then hailed a +taxi-cab and were driven to the Law Courts. + + * * * * * + +Court II. in the Probate, Divorce, and Admiralty Division of the High +Court of Justice was crowded almost to suffocation as the two men +entered and found, with some difficulty, the seats which had been +allotted to them. They settled themselves quietly in their places in the +well of the court. + +The President was writing something in the book before him, and seated +below the judge was the associate, while the usher stood a few yards +away. + +Lots of people--and these the most fortunate--have never had occasion to +visit a law court. It was so with Colonel Adams. This was the first time +he had ever entered the great building at the junction of Fleet Street +and the Strand, and he gazed round him with great interest. + +He saw many faces that he knew. Immediately around him were the +privileged of society sitting behind the solicitors; Admaston, Roderick +Collingwood, the maid Pauline, and Lord Ellerdine. + +In the second row the leading counsel sat. + +Mr. Menzies, hawk-faced and saturnine of aspect, the horse-hair wig +which framed his face only accentuating the hatchet-like alertness of +his countenance. Sir Robert Fyffe, huge-framed, and with a face like the +risen moon. Mr. M'Arthur, a youthful-looking man, handsome and +_débonnaire_, but with something rather dangerous and threatening in his +face. + +Behind the leaders sat a row of junior counsel; and then Lady Attwill, +other members of society, and the two friends who had driven from the +Cocoa Tree Club. + +The gallery at the back of the court was packed with people, and there +was a curious hush and stillness over everything. + +All eyes were directed to one point--to the witness-box, where Mrs. +Admaston was standing. + +At the moment when the two men entered both Mr. M'Arthur and Sir Robert +Fyffe were standing up. + +"I have noted your question, Mr. M'Arthur, and do not think it is +admissible at this stage," the President was saying. "No doubt, if Sir +Robert's cross-examination follows a certain line, you can return to +the matter when you re-examine your witness." + +Sir Robert Fyffe sat down. + +"If your lordship pleases," he said + +Mr. M'Arthur turned over the leaves of a notebook. He was Mrs. +Admaston's leading counsel, and his examination continued: + +"Now, Mrs. Admaston, let me be quite sure that you clearly understand +the charges you have to meet. It is alleged that you arranged to miss +the train at Boulogne in order to spend the evening in Paris with the +co-respondent." + +"That is not true," pierced through the dull, blanket-like silence of +the court. + +Few people enough have any experience of a court. They read long and +large accounts of what goes on in the daily papers. Well-known +descriptive writers endeavour to present a true picture of what they +themselves have witnessed. And in the result almost every one whose +experience of trials is taken almost entirely from the newspapers +imagines that the scene of justice is some vast hall. It is all +magnified and splendid in their thoughts. The reality is quite +different. + +A quite small room, panelled, badly lighted, thronged with people--this +is the real theatre where the dramas of society are played in London +town.... + +"It is alleged," Mr. M'Arthur, Peggy's own counsel, continued, "that, +having reached Paris, you permitted Mr. Collingwood to engage +rooms--connected the one with the other." + +"I did not know that Mr. Collingwood's room opened out of mine," Mrs. +Admaston said. "It seems the hotel was full." + +Everyone in the court--one person only excepted--was looking at the slim +young woman in the witness-box. She was very simply dressed. Her face +was perfectly pale, but her self-possession was marvellous. + +From their seats behind the junior counsel, Colonel Adams and Henry +Passhe looked on with sympathetic interest. + +Passhe--who was somewhat of a psychologist--remarked upon the extreme +simplicity of Mrs. Admaston's dress to his friend. "I call it +ostentatious," he said, "or something of a trick. When a woman has an +income of eighty thousand pounds a year quite apart from her husband, it +seems to me exaggerated humility to appear in the clothes that any +little milliner might wear." + +Colonel Adams shrugged his shoulders. He didn't in the least understand +his friend's point of view.... + +"After you went to bed"--the handsome young-elderly Mr. M'Arthur +continued,--"it is said that you permitted Mr. Collingwood to enter your +room--you being at the time undressed--and to stay there a considerable +time." + +Peggy's little white-gloved hands rested upon the rail of the +witness-box. + +"I don't know about permitting," she said in a clear voice. "He came in +because he heard the telephone. I think he thought that I had gone to +bed, and that the call might be from our friends." + +"At anyrate, he came in, and you permitted him to stay?" + +"Yes, I suppose I did. I asked him to go, but we were great friends, +and--well--I let him stay and smoke a cigarette." + +The court was dead silent now; the keen face of the President regarded +counsel and witness with an intent scrutiny. + +The society people who were there looked at each other and held their +breath. The junior counsel leant forward from their benches, keenly +attentive to the efforts of the respondent's friend. + +"It is alleged," Mr. M'Arthur continued, "that while you were alone +together you were unfaithful to your husband." + +"That is a lie." The voice was so poignant, so ringing, so instinct with +indignation, that even the President looked up and watched the witness +keenly. Mr. M'Arthur nodded to himself as if very pleased with the +response he had elicited. He put his hands together and made a motion as +though he was congratulating himself. + +When he looked up again his face was perfectly bright and cheerful. + +"I will put this generally," he said. "Have you ever, Mrs. +Admaston--ever, on any occasion or in any place--been unfaithful to your +husband?" + +"Never--never--never!" Peggy replied.... + +She seemed no more the young and frivolous person she had been. Tense +and strung up, her personality had become arresting and real--her voice +seemed to carry conviction. + +Mr. M'Arthur looked round the court--with a half glance at the +President--and sat down. + +As a matter of fact, he had the very gravest doubt as to the possible +success of his case. That sleuth-hound, Sir Robert Fyffe, was against +him, and the case itself was a thoroughly weak one. He, accomplished +barrister, actor, and man of the world as he was, sat down with a +quietly suggested air of triumph that impressed every one. + +Sir Robert Fyffe rose. + +Sir Robert Fyffe was the absolute leader in his own particular line. +There was something so red-faced and jolly about him--such a suggestion +of friendliness even when he was most deadly,--that the eminence he +enjoyed was very well deserved. His voice was mellow; indeed, it was +more than that, and had a suggestion of treacle. + +He looked at Mrs. Admaston with a bland smile. + +"You will, I am sure, admit, Mrs. Admaston, that the events of the 23rd +March give ground for very grave suspicion." + +Peggy Admaston did not seem at all distressed by this question. Her +voice showed the pain that she was enduring, but all her answers to +counsel were delivered clearly and openly. They had either a frank +innocence about them, or else she was certainly one of the most +accomplished actresses and liars of her time. + +"Some persons are more suspicious than others," Peggy answered. + +"And one would be more justly suspicious of some persons than of +others?" + +"Yes, perhaps so." + +"And may I take it that you class yourself among those persons upon whom +suspicion should not readily fall?" + +Peggy nodded vigorously. "I think so," she said. + +The great, round, red face of Sir Robert beamed upon her in the +kindliest way. His voice--which carried right through the court--was +still ingratiating and honey-sweet. + +"You say," he said, "that your husband ought not to have allowed even +these circumstances to make him suspect you?" + +"He had always trusted me implicitly," she replied. + +The accomplished counsel made a remark _sotto voce_. "Perhaps too +implicitly," he said. + +Mr. M'Arthur jumped up in a second and looked at the judge. + +"My learned friend has no right to say that," he said. + +The President, with his air of taking very little interest at all in the +proceedings, raised his eyelids. + +"I did not hear what he said," he remarked blandly. + +"Never mind, Mr. M'Arthur; _I_ don't mind Sir Robert," Peggy said from +the witness-box very sweetly. + +"I am sure we shall get on very well," Sir Robert replied. "Now, Mrs. +Admaston, I suppose you were very annoyed at finding you were in the +wrong train?" + +"I was annoyed, I suppose," Peggy answered; "but not very seriously. You +see, it really didn't matter very much." + +Sir Robert nodded his great bewigged head. "I suppose not," he said. +"Was it your fault?" + +The girl's clear accents rang out into the court. "I don't think it was +anybody's fault, except the fussy customs officer's." + +"This fussiness could have been avoided by registering the luggage +through--yes?" + +"I suppose so," Peggy answered Sir Robert. + +The big man leant forward with the most ingratiating face. "Can you," he +asked, "suggest any reason why the luggage was not registered?" + +"I believe it was the mistake of a porter at Charing Cross." + +"The mistake of a porter, the fussiness of a custom-house officer--quite +a chapter of accidents!" Sir Robert continued blandly. + +Mrs. Admaston seemed to find something consoling in the voice of the +great K.C. + +"Wasn't it!" she said brightly. + +There was no response in the manner or in the voice of Mr. Admaston's +counsel. + +"Was your luggage with Mr. Collingwood's at Charing Cross?" he +asked--blandly still, but with a threatening hint of what was to come in +his voice. + +"All the luggage was together when I saw it." + +"All? The luggage of the whole party?" + +"Yes," Peggy replied. + +"Was it labelled, Mrs. Admaston? I mean, apart from the railway labels?" + +"Mine wasn't." + +"Don't you generally label your luggage when you go abroad?" Sir Robert +continued. + +"I always do." + +"Well, Mrs. Admaston, why did you not do so this time?" + +"Well, you see," Peggy answered, "Mr. Collingwood, who is a great +traveller, chaffed me about being such an old maid. He said it was quite +unnecessary." + +The big moon-faced counsel almost jumped--experienced as he was--at this +remark. + +"Oh!" he said, "Mr. Collingwood said _that_, did he?" + +"It was lucky," Peggy replied; "wasn't it?" + +Suddenly the President looked up. His kindly but austere face became +surprised. + +"Lucky?" he said. + +Peggy turned towards the judge. "Yes, my lord," she said; "otherwise I +should have reached Paris without any clothes." + +The President nodded gravely. "Yes, I see," he said. "The boxes +fortunately made the same mistake as you did." + +Peggy laughed. "Yes, Sir John," she said, and as she did it there was a +little ripple of amusement round the crowded court. + +Of course, everybody knew that the judge who was trying this case had +met the Admastons over and over again. + +Every one there, with the exception of the people in the gallery, was a +member of what is called society. Peggy, in her innocent simplicity, +could not quite differentiate between Sir John Burroughes, who was +trying the case of her innocence or guilt, and Mr. M'Arthur or Sir +Robert Fyffe, K.C., M.P. She was bewildered. She had met all these men +at dinner-parties or receptions. She still thought that this was all a +kind of weird game. She did not realise that Sir Robert Fyffe was about +to hunt her to the death of her reputation, or that Sir John +Burroughes--the President--would give his judgment without fear or +favour. + +As a matter of fact, there was a little ripple of laughter right through +the court when she addressed the President as "Sir John." + +Sir Robert Fyffe continued his examination. "Very lucky, Mrs. Admaston," +he said grimly. "And did Mr. Collingwood's luggage make the same mistake +as yours?" + +"Yes," Peggy answered. + +"And the luggage belonging to Lord Ellerdine and Lady Attwill had the +intelligence to go straight to Chalons?" + +"Yes," Peggy answered again. + +"Didn't it strike you as rather odd that your luggage should not have +been registered?" + +Peggy tried to recollect. "No, it didn't," she said. "It struck my maid +as odd, I remember." + +A keen note came into Sir Robert Fyffe's voice. The blandness and +suavity seemed to have left it. + +"It struck your maid as odd?" he said sharply. + +"Maids who are devoted to us are often more suspicious than we are," +Peggy answered. "Don't you think so, Sir Robert?" + +The big red face turned full upon her for a moment. People who watched +it carefully might have discerned a slight expression of compunction. He +had known this little butterfly in private life, but now professional +considerations overbore everything. He was Sir Robert Fyffe because he +did his job--had always done his job. + +"I am afraid I am not here to say what I think," he answered quickly. + +Peggy realised the situation in a moment. She was fighting desperately, +but nothing gave an index to the fact. + +"Oh, we all know that, Sir Robert!" she said, and there was a slight +murmur and ripple of laughter through the court. + +The President raised his eyes above his glasses and stared gravely +round. + +Silence was restored. + +"Your maid's luggage," said Sir Robert, "had the good fortune to reach +Paris too?" + +"Yes." + +"Did Mr. Collingwood attend to the luggage at Charing Cross--the luggage +of the whole party, I mean?" + +"Yes, I think he did." + +"Do you think, Mrs. Admaston, that you would remember the porter who +made the mistake?" + +Peggy seemed to be trying to remember something. "No," she said +doubtfully. "I don't think I could." + +"Do you remember having a conversation with him?" Sir Robert continued, +his face as bland and confidential as any face could be. + +"No, I don't remember." + +"Your name was on your boxes in full, wasn't it?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, Mrs. Admaston, don't you remember having a talk with him about +your husband?" + +Peggy looked up brightly. Something seemed to have struck her. + +"Oh yes," she said quickly. "Wasn't he a constituent?" + +Sir Robert bowed sweetly. "I think he was," he said. "At anyrate, a +great admirer." Then he turned round. "Will Mr. Stevens please stand +up?" + +Just behind the barristers and the seats in which the society people +were sitting, a broad, short, and sturdy man rose from the pit of the +court. + +"Now," Sir Robert said to Mrs. Admaston, "do you recognise him?" + +Peggy leant over the rail of the box with real interest--if it was not +affectation. + +"No," she said doubtfully; "I could not say for certain." + +"But if Mr. Stevens can swear that he is the man with whom you had the +conversation?" + +"Oh! then he must be right, Sir Robert," Peggy answered. + +Mr. Menzies rose in his place. "My client, Mr. Collingwood, recognises +the man, m'lud--there is no doubt about it." + +"Very well," the President answered quietly. "We shall have that later." + +"So that is the porter who made the mistake," Sir Robert resumed in a +voice full of meaning. "You can sit down, Mr. Stevens. Would you be +surprised to hear that your luggage and Mr. Collingwood's was not +registered, upon the express instructions of Mr. Collingwood, and that +Lord Ellerdine's and Lady Attwill's luggage was registered through, also +upon his instructions?" + +Mr. M'Arthur rose. "My lord," he said, "this cannot be evidence against +my client. Even if Mr. Collingwood was acting as her agent, such +instructions were clearly outside his authority." + +Sir Robert glanced round quickly. "One moment, Mr. M'Arthur," he said, +in a voice full of meaning. "If it should turn out, Mrs. Admaston, that +Mr. Collingwood gave express instructions that your luggage should not +be registered--that, you say, was not according to your instructions?" + +"It is incredible that he _should_ have given such instructions," Peggy +said. + +"Incredible!" said Sir Robert Fyffe. + +"Unless----" Peggy replied, then stopped short and bit her lip. + +Every one in the court noticed that the judge had lifted his head and +was looking keenly at her. + +"Well? Unless what, Mrs. Admaston?" Sir Robert Fyffe asked quickly. + +Peggy did not answer at all. + +"Shall I finish it for you?" Sir Robert continued, with his famous +little menacing gesture of the right hand. "Unless he had intended to +give his friends the slip at Boulogne, and stay the night in Paris with +you. Is that what you were going to say?" + +"Yes, it was, for a moment," the girl answered, "until it struck me how +absurd it was." + +"It strikes you as absurd, does it?" + +"Yes, it does rather," she replied. + +"I suppose it would strike you as equally absurd that Mr. Collingwood +had already engaged rooms at the Hôtel des Tuileries for himself and a +lady, two days before you left London? Or do you think the rooms were +engaged for some other lady?" + +"I don't believe they were engaged at all before we arrived," came the +answer quickly. + +Sir Robert nodded his big head. "We shall hear, no doubt, from Mr. +Collingwood. Am I to take it, then, that you had no knowledge of the +fact that your luggage was not registered, and that you had no knowledge +of the fact that Mr. Collingwood had already taken rooms for himself and +a lady before you left London?" + +"I had no knowledge whatever--none at all," Peggy replied with great +emphasis. + +"And I think you told my learned friend in examination-in-chief that you +had no knowledge of the fact that both your bedroom and Mr. +Collingwood's opened out of the same sitting-room?" + +"That is so, Sir Robert." + +"I think you telegraphed to Chalons when you got to Paris to tell Lord +Ellerdine of your mistake?" + +"Mr. Collingwood did so for me." + +"And to your husband?" + +"No; that was not necessary." + +In some subtle, but very real fashion, the atmosphere of the court was +becoming more and more charged with excitement. Everybody was sitting +perfectly still. All eyes were directed to the slim figure of the girl +in the witness-box. The hush was not broken by any sounds, save only +that of the great counsel's voice with its deadly innuendo, its +remorseless logic of fact, and the replies of the sweet-voiced girl. + +"Why not?" Sir Robert asked, with a deep note of suggestion. + +"I did not want to worry him with our silly mistakes," was the answer; +and even as she gave it Peggy's heart sank like lead within her, +realising how inadequate and feeble it sounded. + +"Did you think that it would annoy your husband to think that you and +Mr. Collingwood were alone in Paris?" + +"Not a bit," she replied. + +"Then why didn't you tell him? You had nothing to hide?" + +"Nothing whatever." + +There was a pause. Sir Robert's face still wore an expectant look. He +was obviously waiting for a reply. + +It came at length, and every person in the court as they heard it +smiled, frowned, or sighed according to their several temperaments. + +"I really don't know why I didn't tell him." + +"Let me suggest a reason. You didn't tell because you didn't want him to +know?" + +"I don't think that is true," Peggy answered. + +"Come, Mrs. Admaston; you heard the evidence of the detective?" + +"Yes, I did." + +"He has told the jury that when the telephone message came through from +your husband you were in the room; that you stayed by and heard the +co-respondent tell your husband that Lord Ellerdine was staying at the +hotel--a deliberate lie; and that you refused to speak to your husband. +Is that true?" + +The answer, the miserable answer, came in the faintest of voices from +the box: + +"Yes." + +And now there was every sign of what the newspapers call a "sensation" +in court. Colonel Adams and Henry Passhe looked at each other +significantly. "That's done for her," Passhe whispered to his friend. +Ladies nudged each other. The reporters wrote furiously. The judge +leaned forward a little more over his desk. + +"Why did you connive at this lie?" + +"I don't know. Really, I don't know." + +"Why did you refuse to speak to your husband?" + +Peggy was silently gazing downwards. + +"You have told us that it would not have annoyed your husband to think +that you and Mr. Collingwood were alone in Paris." + +"Why should it have annoyed him," Peggy answered, "if it were an +accident?" + +"Exactly!" Sir Robert continued--"if it were an accident. I put it to +you that the only fact which made you afraid to speak to your husband +was because you knew it was not an accident, and that he had just cause +for resentment." + +"That is not true," Peggy said, with a little flicker of the spirit she +had shown at first. + +"I don't wish to be unfair," said Sir Robert Fyffe--and no man at the +Bar was fairer than the famous counsel in his cross-examinations. + +"You are not unfair, Sir Robert," Peggy said; "but, oh! it is all +unfair." + +Sir Robert gave a little sigh, which may or may not have been a genuine +expression of feeling, but was probably sincere enough. His duty lay +before him, however, and, like some sworn torturer of the Middle Ages, +he must pursue it to the end. + +"I must press you upon this point," he said. "What made you afraid to +tell your husband that you were alone in Paris? What made you agree with +Mr. Collingwood, Lord Ellerdine, and Lady Attwill to say that you had +not been alone with Mr. Collingwood in Paris?" + +"I cannot tell you," Peggy answered. "I was very upset, and really not +quite myself." + +"Not quite yourself?" followed upon the heels of her answer with +lightning rapidity. "Very upset? What had happened to upset you?" + +Peggy made a motion--an instinctive motion--as if to free herself from +something, something that was slowly but surely tightening round her. +Every one noticed it, every one understood it. + +"Nothing," she said at length. + +At this there was a ripple of laughter through the court, and cutting in +upon it, before it had quite died away, the accusing voice was heard: +"Nothing? If that is so, can you give any reason why Lord Ellerdine and +Lady Attwill should have connived at this deception?" + +"I suppose they thought they were shielding me." + +"Shielding you!" Sir Robert cried in mock surprise. "From what? Tell me, +Mrs. Admaston," he continued, as Peggy looked round the court +helplessly--"tell me, do you think that Lord Ellerdine--he is an old +friend?" + +"Yes, a dear old friend," Peggy said, glad to be able to say something +for a moment which did not tell against her. + +"Do you think that Lord Ellerdine and Lady Attwill believed that you +were in Paris, by accident?" + +"How can I tell?" Peggy replied, not in the least seeing to what this +was leading. + +"Have you any doubt? Why do you think that Lord Ellerdine returned to +Paris by the night train instead of letting you join them at Chalons, +except that he thought something was very seriously wrong?" + +"I have told you," Peggy replied, "that he thought he was shielding me." + +"But you have not told me from what he thought he was shielding you. +What was he to shield you from?" + +"Nothing," Peggy said once more. And again there was a ripple of +laughter throughout the court. + +At this Sir Robert Fyffe allowed himself his first look at the jury, and +a most significant one it was. Then he turned quickly to the +witness-box. "Nothing!" he cried. "Then why did you invent--or connive +at the invention of--this story?" + +"Why did I?" the girl said helplessly. "I don't know. I thought it +foolish. I saw that they had told a lying story to my husband, thinking +to serve me, and I didn't want to give them away." + +"You lied to your husband because you didn't wish to give your +good-natured friends away. Is that really your reason, Mrs. Admaston?" + +"Yes," she answered, "and I loathed myself for it." + +"It was perhaps the first time that you had deceived your husband?" Sir +Robert said blandly. + +"Yes," came the answer with a pause, and very faintly given. + +"You arrived at the hotel under the impression that your presence in +Paris was due to a mistake?" + +"Yes." + +"You supped in your room with Mr. Collingwood?" + +"Yes." + +"And what time did you sup?" + +"About 10 or 10.15." + +"What did you do after supper? I suppose you finished about 11?" + +"I suppose so," Peggy replied. + +"Well--what did you do? The table, I think, was not cleared before you +retired to bed--that is so, isn't it?" + +"Yes." + +"How did you spend the time between 11 and 12.30?" + +"We were talking." + +"No doubt you told the waiter not to clear away so that you should not +be disturbed?" + +"I really forget," Peggy said. + +"At anyrate, you were not disturbed?" + +"No." + +"And spent a charming evening?" + +"Yes." + +"Unspoilt by any idea that your presence there was due to a deliberate +and successful device to give your companions the slip?" + +Helpless as she was in those skilled, remorseless hands, Peggy +nevertheless flared up at this. + +"To have had such an idea," she said, with a dignity which was strangely +piteous under the circumstances, "would have been an insult to Mr. +Collingwood." + +"Always assuming," said Sir Robert, "that Mr. Collingwood made his plans +without your knowledge." + +"I don't believe that Mr. Collingwood made the plans you suggest." + +"And nothing will shake your faith in Mr. Collingwood?" said Sir Robert +with great suavity. + +"My faith in him is not likely to be shaken by the hired evidence of +detectives, railway porters, or hotel servants." + +"You mustn't talk like that, Mrs. Admaston," the judge said gravely. + +"When did it first seem to you that your presence in Paris was not due +to a mistake?" Sir Robert went on. + +"My maid hinted it to me while she was doing my hair before I went to +bed." + +"Your maid is an old and privileged servant?" + +"She is far more than a servant. She is a devoted friend." + +"You are sure of that?" + +"Absolutely." + +Sir Robert nodded to himself, and his nod sent a shiver of apprehension +through the girl in the witness-box. + +"The subject admits of no discussion?" he asked, and there was a +suppressed eagerness in his voice. + +"None," Peggy answered. + +Sir Robert nodded again. "Very well," he said _sotto voce_. "You have +told me that you were annoyed, but not seriously, at missing the train, +and I suppose, Mrs. Admaston, I may add at finding yourself in Paris?" + +The examination seemed to have fallen a little from its strained note. + +"That is so," Peggy replied, slightly relieved. + +"Did Mr. Collingwood seem much distressed at the turn of events?" asked +Sir Robert. + +And then--it might have been rising hysteria, or it might have been a +totally innocent misapprehension of what was going on, but Peggy +laughed. + +Her laugh went rippling out into the court. + +"He did not seem inconsolable," she said. + +Her laughter was echoed by that of every one in the court; even Sir +Robert's red and genial face relaxed into a smile. + +"And I daresay," he said in quite a kindly voice,--"I daresay you would +as soon be stranded in Paris with Mr. Collingwood as with any one?" + +"Oh, much sooner," Peggy said. "He is a very charming companion." + +"Perhaps," Sir Robert Fyffe answered, "I may allow myself to say the +same of his companion?" + +Peggy smiled brightly. "Well," she said, "it would not be the first time +you had said so, Sir Robert." + +"Nor will it be the last, Mrs. Admaston," the K.C. replied with a +courtly bow, and a really charming smile upon his face. + +Then suddenly he stood a little more upright, shifted the gown upon his +shoulders, touched his wig, and looked at Peggy keenly. He was once more +the keen advocate doing his duty, whatever it might cost him in personal +emotion. + +"But we must pass on," he said. "Very well. You finished supper at last, +and about 12.30 you went to bed. Your maid joined you and you got +undressed." Here Sir Robert put his pince-nez upon his nose, and leant +over to see the ground-plan of the rooms of the Hôtel des Tuileries, +which the solicitor on the bench before him held up for his inspection. + +Sir Robert looked at the coloured plan for a moment with intense +scrutiny. Then, having refreshed his memory, he turned his face once +more to the witness-box. + +"Mr. Collingwood," he continued, "had left you by the door leading into +the passage, I suppose?" + +"Yes," Peggy replied. + +"You had no idea that he was occupying the room communicating with +yours?" + +"None." + +"You then sent your maid to bed?" + +"Yes." + +"And it was shortly after that that the telephone bell rang--the call +from Chalons?" + +"Very shortly after," Peggy replied. + +She seemed to be extremely interested in this conversation between +herself and Sir Robert Fyffe--interested in it as if she were playing +some game of which the issue would not matter. At this period of the +famous cross-examination she seemed to be perfectly bright and +unconcerned. + +"And you went to answer it?" Sir Robert went on. + +"Yes," she said. + +Sir Robert clutched the bands of his gown and looked at her with the +very keenest scrutiny. + +"And will you tell my lord and the jury what happened?" he said. + +"While I was speaking--I had my back to the door--I suddenly heard Mr. +Collingwood's voice behind me." + +Sir Robert started. "You were surprised--startled?" he said in an eager +voice. + +"I was," Peggy answered--"very." + +The K.C.'s head was bent forward and was swaying slightly from side to +side, as the head of a snake sways before it strikes. He was quite +unconscious of the marked hostility of his attitude, but the game, the +big, exciting game which he was playing, which he was paid so highly to +play, and which had become the chief excitement of his life, had caught +hold of him in all his nerves. + +"Had he knocked?" he said. + +"I didn't hear him," Peggy replied, "or of course I should not have let +him come in." + +"I see," Sir Robert replied. "You were hardly dressed to receive +gentlemen visitors?" + +"Well, hardly." + +"You were angry, Mrs. Admaston?" + +"I _was_ angry," Peggy replied. + +"Now! how did you show your anger?" + +"By telling him to go back to his room." + +"Did he go?" + +"No." + +And now laughter, loud and almost inextinguishable, filled the court. +Every one was enjoying himself or herself enormously. There was a sort +of atmosphere of French farce about the sombre court. Every one had, by +now, forgotten that they had lunched and dined at the hospitable tables +of Mr. and Mrs. Admaston. They were there for a show--they were out for +blood--it was a bull-fight to these pleasant ladies and gentlemen. + +Mr. Henry Passhe was obviously enjoying himself. He laughed as loudly as +any one, until the warning "Hush!" of the usher suppressed the +merriment. He looked towards his friend, but he saw that Colonel Adams's +lean brown face was drawn and wrinkled up with pain. Then he +himself--for he was a decent-minded man enough--felt a little ashamed of +his jocularity, and he turned once more to an intent watching of this +tragic spectacle. + +"No doubt," Sir Robert said, "that made you more angry--yes?" + +Mrs. Admaston did not answer, but Sir Robert persisted. + +"_Didn't_ it make you more angry?" he said. + +Suddenly Peggy looked up, and her voice rippled with laughter--she was a +butterfly, a thing of sunshine and shadow, but shadow never distressed +her for very long. + +"I never remain angry very long," she said. + +Sir Robert took no notice of the way in which she answered. His big +voice went on, tolling quietly like a distant bell. + +"But you were angry?" + +"I wanted him to go," Peggy replied impatiently. + +"Quite so," said Sir Robert. "But you allowed him to stay?" + +She heard once more that inexorable persistence, that bland, +passionless, but remorseless voice. + +The little flicker of gaiety and of respite was over. She braced herself +once more to stand up against this relentless onslaught, and clutched +the rail of the witness-box before her. + +"We are very old friends, Sir Robert," she answered. "I saw no +particular harm in it." + +"If you saw no particular harm in it, why did you not care to speak to +your husband when he rang up?" + +"One may do perfectly harmless things," she replied, "and yet not care +to tell every one about them." + +"And this was one of those perfectly harmless things which you didn't +care to tell every one, or even your husband, about?" + +"There was no harm in it," Peggy replied, and her voice rang out with a +dreadful sense of suppressed irritation and pain. + +"So little that you permitted Mr. Collingwood to stay with you--for +quite a long time?" + +"Not very long," she answered. + +"Until the telephone call from your husband?" + +"I suppose so." + +Sir Robert Fyffe began to seem very pleased with himself. There was no +bitterness in his voice--only an extreme politeness. But by now he kept +glancing carefully at the jury, watching them with lightning glances, +and gathering all the information he possibly could from the expressions +on their faces--their immobility or movements of interest. + +"Up to that time," Sir Robert remarked--and his question had really the +note of a casual inquiry--"up to that time had he shown any sign of +going?" + +"I don't think so." + +The next query startled the whole court, not so much from its +directness--though that was patent enough,--but by reason of the way in +which it was rapped out. + +It was said in a hard, threatening, staccato voice: "What were you both +doing?" + +The answer was rather reflective than otherwise. It showed no +apprehension of the intention of the examiner. + +"Sitting on the sofa--he was smoking, I think," Peggy said. + +"Should I be right in saying that during most of this time he was making +passionate love to you?" + +All the reporters looked up, their pencils poised, their eyes avid of +sensation. + +"He was very fond of me," Mrs. Admaston replied. + +"Passionately in love with you?" + +There was a perceptible hesitation. "I think he was very fond of me." + +Sir Robert's words came from him like the blows of a hammer upon a +nail: "Have you any doubt that he was passionately in love with you?" + +"He told me so." + +"I put it to you that you knew it, and had known it for months?" + +It was an odd contrast between the triumphant note which had crept into +the great barrister's voice and the diminuendo of Peggy's. + +There was no gaiety now. The forces were joined. The battle, which had +been an affair of skirmishes before, was now in full cry. + +"I only knew what he told me." The voice was quite desperate now. + +"And when did he first tell you? The night you were in Paris? Is that +when you say?" + +"Yes," the answer came, and the President leant forward to be sure that +he heard the admission aright. + +The big, round, red face of Sir Robert Fyffe was now redder than ever. +His eyes blinked as if the lids could hardly veil the silent fire which +peered out from them. + +"Do you swear that? Please be careful...." + +"I think that was the first time." + +"I suggest to you," said Sir Robert, turning towards the jury, the +President, and then to Peggy--"I suggest to you, Mrs. Admaston, that he +had been making passionate love to you for months." + +There was an intense silence in the court. + +The members of the jury were obviously excited. Different members showed +it in different ways. There were men who struggled to give no indication +of their feelings, and made effort at an entire lack of expression. +Others showed evident and lively interest. + +"I knew for some months that he was very fond of me." + +"And did your husband know?" echoed out into the court. + +"I suppose so," was the faint answer. + +"Do you suggest that your husband would ever have permitted you to go +away, even in the company of friends, with a man who had been abusing +his friendship by making passionate love to his wife?" + +There was no answer to that. No sound came from the witness-box--the +whole court waited for the response. + +Sir Robert was leaning forward now, his head shaking from side to side, +his blood-hound face, his extremely vivid eyes, fixed upon Peggy's face. +"Do you really ask the jury to believe that?" he said. + +Still Peggy was silent. She seemed to have drooped into something like a +faded flower. She said nothing. There was nothing for her to say. + +And in the silence the calm, judicial voice of the President, +full of commiseration--without prejudice one way or the other, +nevertheless,--made its demand. "You must answer, Mrs. Admaston," said +the judge. + +"I don't think my husband knew _how_ fond of me he was," Peggy said. + +"If he had known," Sir Robert said, very gently now, and with a little +quiver in his voice--"if he had known, don't you think, Mrs. Admaston, +he would have been very angry to know how you were situated in Paris?" + +Sentence after sentence was wrung from her by torture. + +"I think perhaps he might not have liked it," she said in a fainting +voice. + +The bully came out in Sir Robert's voice. All along the line he was +being tremendously successful.... + +"Perhaps! Would _any_ man like it? Do you think, madam, that you were +treating your husband fairly in encouraging this very charming +gentleman's attentions?" + +Very faint, very slow, very hesitating, and extremely weary, "I did not +encourage them," the answer came. + +"We shall see. Didn't it make you feel very embarrassed to find yourself +sitting up in a strange hotel into the small hours of the morning, with +this man making passionate love to you?" + +There was a dead silence in the court. Once more the person on the rack +had nothing to say. + +"Or had this _liaison_ gone too far by this time for you to feel +embarrassed?" + +Mr. M'Arthur jumped up. + +His face blazed with simulated fury. "My lord," he barked, "I protest +against these insulting suggestions." + +The excited voice of the counsel rather failed of its effect as the +judge looked down upon him. "Sir Robert is within his rights, Mr. +M'Arthur," he said. "He would not ask these questions without good +reason." + +Sir Robert Fyffe saw his chance at once. He glanced at the jury; he made +a little deprecating motion of his head to the President. "Too good +reason, my lord! My duty is not a pleasant one.... Was this the first +time, Mrs. Admaston, that you had received Mr. Collingwood in this state +of undress--when the rest of the household was asleep?" + +Peggy had clasped her hands. She threw them apart with a wild gesture +and clutched the rail of the witness-box. "My lord!" she said, "I assure +you that nothing has ever taken place between us." + +The President gazed at her with calm compassion. + +He had heard appeals like this one too often. He was not there to be +influenced by emotions, or to be prejudiced by his natural kindness of +heart. + +He was there to judge. + +"You must answer Sir Robert, Mrs. Admaston," he said quietly. + +"We used to sit up late sometimes at Lord Ellerdine's and talk," Peggy +admitted. + +There were murmurs all over the court. Society was interested. + +Sir Robert Fyffe leant forward to the solicitor in front of him, said +something in an undertone, and then looked up. + +"Was that at Lord Ellerdine's place in Yorkshire?" + +"Yes." + +"When were you last there?" + +"About a year ago," Peggy replied. + +"Indeed! About a year ago----" + +"Hardly a year." + +"At anyrate, several months before the Paris trip Mr. Collingwood was +sitting up in your room into the small hours of the morning making +passionate love to you?" + +Mrs. Admaston said nothing at all. + +"Is not that so?" the insistent voice inquired. + +"There was no harm, Sir Robert," was the hesitating answer. + +"No harm! Did Lord Ellerdine know?" + +"No." + +"Did your husband know?" + +"No." + +And now into the voice of the great counsel began to creep a note of +contempt, which was doubtless perfectly genuine. He had met the woman he +was cross-examining in society. He had liked her. But, as every one +knew, Sir Robert's own domestic life was one of singular happiness and +accord. + +It is pretty certain that--having known Admaston and his wife--he was +becoming genuinely indignant at what he thought the treachery of the +girl. + +"Was this another of those perfectly harmless things which you didn't +care to tell your husband about?" he said. + +"I saw no harm in it," Peggy replied, and in answer to the colder note +in Sir Robert's voice her own became stubborn. + +"But you would not have liked him to know? Well! You have now admitted +that Mr. Collingwood had been making passionate love to you for months +before the trip to Paris. We are getting at the truth gradually. I +suppose that he made these declarations of love several times at Lord +Ellerdine's?" + +"I think he spoke to me on two or three occasions," Peggy almost +murmured. + +"And was this really the first time he declared his love for you?" + +"Yes, the first time." + +"You are sure?" + +"Quite sure." + +"And you still went about everywhere with him--but you were careful not +to tell your husband the truth?" + +"My husband trusted me. I never abused his trust." + +As Peggy said this, the foreman of the jury, a plump, shortish, +clean-shaved gentleman who in private life was a chemist, looked up with +a puzzled expression upon his face. + +He thought he detected a ring of real sincerity in the witness's voice +which the facts did not seem to justify. + +"Was not this an abuse of his trust?" Sir Robert said--perhaps more +gravely than he had spoken yet. + +"Oh! we can't all be perfect! I don't deny that I flirted," Peggy +answered. + +Her affectation of lightness went very ill with the weighty, measured +accusations of Sir Robert Fyffe. + +It struck a jarring note in the court. It did her harm. + +"You do not deny that you flirted," Sir Robert said, with a little nod +of his head--"and encouraged this man, this very charming companion, to +flirt with you?" + +"And if I did," she replied, still defiant, "my husband trusted me, and +knew that there was nothing in it." + +"Mrs. Admaston, if that is true, why were you afraid to talk to him upon +the night of the 23rd March, and why did you connive at a deliberate lie +on the following day?" + +There was a cold and deliberate disgust in Sir Robert's voice, and +almost every person there gave a little sympathetic shudder. + +But Peggy, brave to the last, still fought on. "I was a fool," she said, +with a little shrug of the shoulders, as if the question was of no great +moment. "I was a fool. The others thought the thing much worse than it +was, and that frightened me. I have told you already that I loathed +myself for lying as I did." + +Sir Robert knitted his brows for a moment, and then decided on his +course of action. + +That brilliant brain was never at a loss. Again, after a second's +hesitation, the deadly thrust was delivered. It was delivered with such +apparent suavity and innocence, with such a relaxation of the hard, +accusing note, that the girl in the witness-box was utterly deceived. + +"You mean," said Sir Robert, "that though you did not tell your husband +everything about your harmless flirtations--your peccadilloes--you never +before deliberately lied to shield yourself?" + +"Yes," Peggy replied eagerly; "that is what I mean." + +"Does it not strike you, Mrs. Admaston, that any one who knew of your +previous adventures with Mr. Collingwood, the pleasure you obviously +find in his society, and the methods you have adopted to blind your +husband to the progress of this innocent friendship, would have good +ground for supposing that the accident which brought about the last of +this series of innocent and pleasant reunions was in reality not +accident, but deliberate design?" + +"I see what you mean," she answered; "but whatever any one thought, it +_was_ an accident!" + +"An accident! Oh, just consider this chapter of accidents! By +_accident_, you and Mr. Collingwood got on to the wrong train at +Boulogne; by _accident_, although the luggage of the whole party was +together at Charing Cross Station and Mr. Collingwood was instructed to +register it all through to St. Moritz, your luggage and Mr. +Collingwood's was not registered--an _accident_ which enabled you to +take it on with you upon the Paris train, which you only entered by +_accident_. By _accident_, Mr. Collingwood seems to have taken for +himself and a lady rooms at an hotel in Paris which, but for the +_accident_ which took you and him to Paris, could have been of no +possible use to him. Do you still ask the jury to believe that your +visit to Paris was an accident?" + +Sir Robert had a little over-emphasised himself--that is, as far as the +witness was concerned,--though his accentuated speech had its effect +upon the jury. Peggy herself recognised artifice. When there _had_ been +a real note of sincerity in the counsel's voice it had frightened her +far more than any rhetoric could. + +"Certainly I do," she answered with spirit. + +The barrister recognised in a moment that, while he had made an effect +upon the court, he had at the same time given new courage to the +witness. He was, as all great counsel are, a psychologist of the first +order. He responded instantly, and in this duel of two minds--his and +Mrs. Admaston's--his keener and more trained intelligence realised +exactly what was passing in her thoughts. + +"I suggest to you, Mrs. Admaston," he said very briskly, "that you and +Mr. Collingwood had planned this trip to Paris--that he took the rooms +with your knowledge--that you both missed the train deliberately, and +reached Paris in accordance with your preconceived design?" + +"And I tell you," Peggy replied, "that all these suggestions are +absolutely false." + +"Absolutely false?" + +Her voice rang out into the court shrill with the long torture of her +examination, but passionate with her own certainty of her innocence. +"There's not a rag of truth in any of them. You may think you can make +black white, and white black, you may hire spies, tamper with railway +servants and waiters...." + +An instant reproof came from the judge--two words: "Mrs. Admaston!" he +said. + +She looked up, but hardly heard him. + +"... And do all the rest of the degrading work which seems inseparable +from this court." + +"Mrs. Admaston," the President said again, "you must not speak like +that." + +All men, even judges, are influenced by circumstance. It is probable +that the President would have been far more severe at such an outburst +as this, if Mrs. Admaston had not been a millionairess in her own right +and the wife of a prominent Cabinet Minister. And it is sure also that, +under such circumstances as these, an ordinary woman, without the +unconscious consciousness of her financial and social position, would +not have dared to do as Peggy did. + +Despite the President's admonition, a torrent of half hysterical, wholly +indignant words poured from the witness-box. + +"And what right have they to treat me like this?" Peggy cried. "Am I to +be treated as guilty, merely because I have foolishly courted +temptation? I don't know what I have said, I don't know what I shall say +before this torture is completed; but I am sensible enough to know that +I have no chance in all this farrago of horrible insinuation which +twists every little piece of harmless and girlish folly into some +vicious and debasing form. I cannot keep quiet under it. I tell you it +is all--all--lies--nothing but lies!" + +"Now, Mrs. Admaston," Sir Robert said, apparently unmoved by this +tirade, "I must ask you to give me your very close attention." + +"You must try to be more composed," the President said kindly to Peggy, +"if you wish to do yourself justice." + +Peggy's white, set face looked straight out before her. She summoned up +all her courage to bear the remainder of her torture. + +"You still persist," said Sir Robert, "in saying that your trip to Paris +resulted from an accident?" + +"Emphatically I do," she answered. + +Sir Robert looked towards the judge. + +"Has your lordship got that document," he said, "which Mr. Admaston +identified when he was in the witness-box?" + +The President nodded. "That was the anonymous letter received by Miss +Admaston--Mr. Admaston's aunt,--was it not, and produced by her on +subpoena yesterday? Yes. I have it here in the envelope." + +"Perhaps your lordship will allow the witness to look at the envelope." + +Mr. M'Arthur jumped up. "My lord," he said, "I submit again that nothing +can make this letter evidence." + +"And you are quite right, Mr. M'Arthur," the judge answered. "But at +present Sir Robert is not suggesting that it is evidence--Usher," he +continued, "please hand this to the witness." + +"Look at that envelope," Sir Robert continued. "You will see that it is +dated March 23rd, and the postmark shows that it was collected at 10.30 +a.m. Now, you persist in saying that at the time that letter was posted +nothing was further from your mind than that you would be staying the +night in Paris." + +"I have already said so," Peggy answered. + +"And do you say so still?" + +"Of course I do," she answered tartly. + +"We shall see," Sir Robert Fyffe rapped out. "The letter is addressed to +Miss Admaston--is it not? And Mr. Admaston has sworn that she brought it +to him to the House of Commons just after three o'clock on the same +day. Is Miss Admaston a friend of yours?" + +"I don't think she altogether approves of me," Peggy answered. + +"You know that Mr. Admaston has sworn that it was the information +contained in that letter which determined him to have you watched in +Boulogne and in Paris?" + +"Yes, I know." + +"And at the time that letter was written, no one could possibly have +known that you were going to spend the night in Paris or miss the train +at Boulogne?" + +"Of course they couldn't." + +"May I take it, therefore," Sir Robert continued, "that you believed +your husband when he says that that letter was in his hands soon after +three o'clock--long before you even reach Folkestone?" + +"I believe my husband implicitly," Peggy said, and there was a little +quaver in her voice. + +"Do you recognise the handwriting?" Sir Robert asked. + +"I have never seen it before," she answered. + +The judge looked intently at the K.C. "I don't want to interrupt you, +Sir Robert," he said; "but do you know whose handwriting it is?" + +"No, my lord," Sir Robert replied. "I am really asking for +information." + +"It is very curious," said the judge. + +"It is, my lord," said Sir Robert. "My learned friend, Mr. Carteret, who +is watching the case on behalf of Miss Admaston, informs me that he has +had it submitted to every well-known handwriting expert in the United +Kingdom, and indeed in Europe." + +"And compared with the writing of every person however remotely +connected with the parties concerned in this case?" + +"He has even had it compared with Mrs. Admaston's, my lord." + +"And no doubt with Mr. Collingwood's?" the judge continued. + +"Yes," Sir Robert said, "and with Mr. Collingwood's too, my +lord--though, I regret to say, with no result." + +He turned from the judge to Peggy. "And can't you help us, Mrs. +Admaston?" he concluded. + +"No, not from the envelope," Peggy answered. + +"It is a most peculiar handwriting," the judge observed, leaning back in +his seat. + +Sir Robert continued his cross-examination. "Now, Mrs. Admaston," he +said, "remember that that letter was in the hands of your husband just +after three o'clock on 23rd March. Now, will you be so good as to read +it?" + +"Out loud?" + +"Oh no. Read it to yourself." + +There was dead silence in the court as with trembling hands the girl +took the letter from the envelope and began to read it. All the +spectators, those engaged in the case, and several members of the jury +knew that the dramatic moment of all had arrived. There had been many +dramatic moments, but this was to be the culminating one. + +The excitement was intense, and, when Peggy suddenly gave a little cry, +there was a low murmur of sound. She cried out loudly, sharply, as if in +pain, while the judge and jury regarded her intently. Then she bent +forward over the letter again and appeared to re-read it. + +Suddenly she lifted her head and turned desperately to the President. +"Oh! my lord, this is infamous!" she cried. + +Without any hesitation at all Sir Robert made his point. + +"Do you still persist, Mrs. Admaston, in your statement that your trip +to Paris was the result of an accident?" + +Peggy was desperate. "My lord--this letter--it is a trap--it must be--a +trap----" she wailed. + +"Come, Mrs. Admaston," Sir Robert said very sternly; "can you still keep +up this farce, this hypocritical farce?" + +Suddenly Collingwood jumped up from his place. "My lord, I protest!" he +said, in a voice which trembled with indignation. + +The judge gave him a keen look as he subsided, muttering to himself. + +"You will have an opportunity to-morrow," the judge said, "of showing +your sympathy." + +"Now, madam, having read that letter----" Sir Robert resumed. + +The foreman of the jury rose. "My lord," he said, "the jury would like +to see that letter." + +"What do you say, Mr. M'Arthur and Mr. Menzies?" asked the judge. + +"I can see no purpose in keeping it out any longer, my lord," Mr. +M'Arthur answered, while Mr. Menzies said that any mischief which it +might do had been done already. + +The President seemed to approve. "I think you are right," he said. +"Usher, give me the letter." + +The letter was handed up again to the bench, and, adjusting his +pince-nez, the judge proceeded to read it. + +"Listen, gentlemen," he said, "and I will read it to you. The importance +of this letter, gentlemen, which, as you have seen, has so terribly +upset this poor lady, is that it was clearly written before 10.30 on the +morning of the 23rd March, and was in the hands of Mr. Admaston long +before Mrs. Admaston and her friends reached Folkestone--let alone +Boulogne. The letter is dated March 23rd, and it is unsigned. Now, +gentlemen, an anonymous letter is open to grave suspicion, but in the +peculiar circumstances of this case the fact of its being anonymous +makes no difference. If any one, other than the respondent and +co-respondent, knew that they were going to stay in Paris on the night +of the 23rd, and knew that before they started, it is difficult to +exaggerate the importance of the fact. I will now read the letter:-- + + "'Mrs. Admaston will be staying at Paris to-night alone with + Mr. Collingwood. They have arranged to get separated from Lord + Ellerdine and Lady Attwill at Boulogne and to stay the night + together at the Hôtel des Tuileries. If Mr. Admaston does not + believe this, let him telephone the hotel to-night.' + +Mr. Carteret," the judge concluded, "were any other letters in this +strange handwriting received by Miss Admaston?" + +"One other, my lord, three days ago," said Mr. Carteret. + +"I should like to see it," said the President. + +The second letter was handed up to him, and he read it through +carefully. + +"It is all very mysterious," he said, shaking his head. "I think, +gentlemen, that you had better hear it. It is as follows:-- + + "'Please destroy the other letter and this, and save an old + servant who honours the family from the anger of Mrs. + Admaston.'" + +The judge paused, carefully scrutinising the letter; then he took up an +ivory reading-glass and looked at the letter through the magnifying +lens. + +"Am I right, Mr. Carteret," he said, "in my view that this letter has +been blotted and not allowed to dry?" + +Mr. Carteret leant over and had a hurried conversation with his +handwriting expert. "I am instructed that there is no doubt as to that, +my lord," he said, looking up. + +"I should much like to see that blotting-paper," the President remarked. + +"Blotting-paper!" said Sir Robert Fyffe. "So should we all, my lord." +Then he rose to his feet. "Now, Mrs. Admaston, having read this letter, +do you still dare to repeat that until you had the misfortune to miss +the train at Boulogne you had no intention of spending the night in +Paris with Mr. Collingwood?" + +Peggy did not answer. + +She stared at the letter upon the judge's desk as if fascinated by it. + +"My lord and the jury are waiting for an answer," Sir Robert repeated. +"Come, madam." + +"And what answer can I give?" the tortured girl said faintly. + +Sir Robert was showing her no mercy now. "The truth, madam, if you can," +he said. + +"The truth!" she answered. "What is the truth to you? It's not the truth +you want. It's me--my very soul--that's what you want! Not to wring the +truth out of me, but just so much of it as will serve your ends!" + +"Mrs. Admaston," the President said compassionately, but with emphasis, +"these outbursts do not assist your case." + +"My case!" Peggy cried helplessly. "My lord, who will believe me in the +face of this lying letter? It is a trap--a trap, I say! I have been +hunted and hounded into it. I am not surprised now that innocent women +in hundreds let their cases go by default rather than face the +humiliation and torture of this awful place." + +"Madam, I must insist upon an answer," Sir Robert said relentlessly. + +"What am I to answer?" she cried again, wringing her hands with a +terribly piteous gesture. + +"If you ask me, Mrs. Admaston, let me advise you to answer the truth." + +"The truth?" + +"Yes, the truth--that this trip to Paris was all arranged between you +and your lover"--his voice sank and became deeply impressive; "that at +the very moment in which your husband was trying to reach you upon the +telephone you were in that lover's arms?" + +"It is a lie!" she said despairingly. + +"The telephone bell rang several times before it was answered, did it +not?" + +"Yes, but----" + +Sir Robert cut her short. "I suggest to you that even then you were in +your lover's arms?" he said with bitter scorn. + +"It is a lie!" Peggy answered once more. + +"Then, Mrs. Admaston, and for the last time, I press for an answer. Do +you still insist that you and your lover----" + +She didn't allow him to finish his sentence. Desperate as she was, the +hot words poured from her in a cataract of sound. + +"How dare you suggest that he is my lover!" she cried. "I tell you that +I have never loved him!--never--never--never--never! If I had loved him +do you think that I would be here now? For months and months he has +begged and entreated me to let my husband divorce me so that I could +marry him. If I had loved him, do you think that I would have faced this +horrible place? I have never loved him. I have been foolish--I have +played with fire--I have loved his admiration. I did not know that the +law--man's law--made no difference between the opportunity to do wrong +and the wrong itself. I know now. Some day men who know women will make +other laws--some of us must have our lives broken first. In the face of +that letter and the evidence, no man would ever believe me, whatever I +say; but I swear before God that it was all an accident--our being in +Paris. I swear that I meant no harm by all my little lies. I swear I +have done nothing wrong--nothing; but no one will believe me now--no +one." Her voice sank and dropped, and she ended her outburst with a deep +moan of pain. + +"I think we will adjourn now," said the President, and there was pain in +his voice also. + +He gathered up the papers before him on his desk and rose. The court +rose also. + +There was an immediate hum and bustle, which broke out into the loud +murmurs of subdued conversation as the judge left his seat and +disappeared through the door at the back. + +Peggy Admaston, wringing her hands, her face a white wedge of anguish, +the pallor dreadfully accentuated by the burnished masses of her dark +hair, almost stumbled down the steps of the witness-box. Mr. M'Arthur +and her solicitor--a little confused knot of people, indeed--hastened up +to her, and with a grim face Sir Robert Fyffe, not looking in the +girl's direction, arranged his papers and spoke earnestly to his junior. + +The scene was one of indescribable excitement. + +It was as though a thunderbolt had fallen, and people looked at each +other with pale, questioning faces. + +The hum died down for an instant, as the weeping woman was led gently +from the court. + +Then it recommenced louder than ever, mingled with the shuffling of +innumerable feet. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +Directly the President had risen, Society streamed out into the great +hall of the Law Courts. + +Innumerable motor broughams and private carriages were waiting in Fleet +Street, and despite the dullness of the afternoon the eager +photographers of the illustrated papers were waiting to get snap-shots +of celebrated people as they passed from the sordid theatre of Court No. +II. _en route_ for afternoon tea and scandal. + +Henry Passhe had an engagement, and, saying good-bye to Colonel Adams, +hurried away. The other remained in the big central hall for a moment or +two looking round to see if he could find an acquaintance. + +To him, as he stood there, came Lord Ellerdine and struck him on the +shoulder. + +"Hullo, Adams!" he said, in a voice which was very subdued. "Thought I +saw you in court. Been watching this dreadful business?" + +Colonel Adams nodded. "Yes, Ellerdine," he said. "Henry Passhe brought +me. He much wanted to come. I hesitated whether I should go or not, and +now I am very sorry I did. To see a charming little woman like Mrs. +Admaston tortured--that isn't very pleasant." + +The other thrust his arm into the colonel's. "Damned dreadful, isn't +it?" he said in an agitated voice. "Well, look here, let's get out of +this. What are you going to do?" + +"I have nothing particular to do at present; but why do you ask, +Ellerdine?" + +"Look here," Lord Ellerdine replied--"we can't talk here, but I have got +an idea." His voice glowed with pride as he said it. "I haven't +mentioned it to a soul, and I don't want to mention it to any one +concerned in the case. Upon my soul, Adams, it is a godsend to have met +you. I want to hear what you think. Are you game to listen?" + +Adams nodded. He liked Lord Ellerdine, as everybody did, though he had +no higher opinion of that gentleman's intelligence than the rest of the +world. + +"Quite at your service, Ellerdine," he answered; "and if your idea is +one that may possibly help Mrs. Admaston, I shall be more pleased +still." + +"Of course it is," Lord Ellerdine answered. "Well, let's go and talk it +over. It is impossible in this infernal rush." + +"All right," Colonel Adams replied, "Come to the Cocoa Tree, or, if you +like, I will come with you to White's." + +Lord Ellerdine shook his head. "We will have some tea," he said. "But I +don't want to go west now until I have talked this idea of mine over +with you. If you agree that there is anything in it, then we should only +have to come back to this part of the world again. Can't we get a cup of +tea somewhere about here?" + +By this time the two men had walked outside the Law Courts and were +standing among the motley crowd which was pouring out of the great +central doorway and also the side approaches to the public galleries and +courts. + +They looked around them. Both of them were absolutely at sea in this +part of London. + +"Tell you what," Ellerdine said suddenly: "I have got another idea. +Let's go to an A.B.C.--what?" + +"What do you mean?" Adams replied. + +"Why," Lord Ellerdine answered, "the A.B.C. you know, where clerks and +people have tea. There are always lots of them in every street, I +believe." + +They turned eastwards and began to walk slowly down Fleet Street. + +"Ellerdine," Colonel Adams exclaimed bitterly, "look at this!" + +The pavements were lined with news-venders displaying great contents +bills of the evening papers: + +"MRS. ADMASTON ON THE RACk"; "SOCIETY LADY'S ADMISSIONS"; and in a +violently Radical sheet, "SOCIETY BUTTERFLY EXAMINED." + +Lord Ellerdine saw the placards also. "Sickening, isn't it?" he said, +with a real note of pain in his voice. "Poor little Peggy! Poor little +girl! I would have done anything to stop it, Adams; and in half an +hour--these newspaper fellows are so damned clever--in half an hour +there'll be all about the last scene, the letter and all that. By the +time we get back to town"--Lord Ellerdine didn't imagine that he was +really in London at the moment,--"by the time we get back to town it +will be in all the clubs just as it has come over the tape machines for +the last two hours, only with further details--how Peggy looked and all +that. Sickening!" + +Colonel Adams agreed. He did not in the least know what his rather +fatuous friend was about to propose or had in his mind; but he was, at +anyrate, glad of his companionship, weary and unhappy as he felt at the +terrible spectacle which he had found almost impossible to endure. + +"I could kill that man Robert Fyffe," he said savagely as they walked +slowly eastwards. "Great, big, damned bully, I call him." + +"Well, I know him," Ellerdine replied; "and really, Adams, he is quite +a decent chap in private life. It is his job, you know, and he has got +to do it as well as he can. I believe he gets about a hundred a day or +more for a case like this." + +"Filthy cruelty, I call it," Adams answered, "whether he is a decent +chap or not. To be paid--to earn your living, by Gad!--to torture men +and women like that seems to me a low way of earning your +bread-and-butter." + +"Perhaps it is," the other replied. "At the same time, Adams, it might +be said of your job too. That Afghan business, when there was no +quarter, that you were in: there were a whole lot of sentimentalists in +the Radical press that howled and held you up to execration as a sort of +Pontius Pilate with a flavour of Nero, at home. You were out there doing +the work. I was home and read the papers--you didn't. Bally monster, +they called you--what?" + +"Damn all newspaper writers!" the old white-haired colonel growled. "But +I say, Ellerdine, what about this cup of tea?" + +Lord Ellerdine looked round anxiously, and then his face lighted up. +"Here's an A.B.C.," he said, pointing to some adjacent windows covered +with letters in white enamel and displaying buns and pastry. + +"How will this do, old chap?" + +The soldier nodded, and together the two men entered the shop. + +"What do we do now?" Ellerdine said, looking round him with some +perplexity. "By Jove! there's a pretty girl." + +One of the waitresses, realising suddenly that the two gentlemen who had +just entered were quite unaccustomed to the ways of the establishment, +and having one of her tables vacant, hurried up to them. + +"Tea?" she said engagingly. + +"That's just it, my dear," said Lord Ellerdine, with a pleased smile. +"Now, you show us all the ropes, will you?" + +"Come this way," said the pretty waitress, with an engaging little toss +of her head and a consciousness of something pleasantly unusual. She led +them to a little round-topped marble table where two cheap cane chairs +were waiting, upon which Lord Ellerdine and Colonel Adams seated +themselves. + +"Tea, I think you said?" said the waitress to Lord Ellerdine, whom she +obviously found the most sympathetic of the pair. + +The ex-diplomatist nodded. "But we must have something to eat--what? +Well, my dear, we will leave it to you. _Carte blanche_--what?" + +"Now look here, Adams," Lord Ellerdine said, "what I want to tell you is +this. Of course, I am tremendously interested in this case. I am mixed +up in it considerably, and also I am a great friend of Peggy's--one of +her oldest friends. You know her too, though not as well as I do, and +you know what a charming little woman she is. I would do anything to +save her if I could, and I have got an idea! Now, some time ago," Lord +Ellerdine continued, "a silly Johnny--a secretary it was--forged my +name. It was on a cheque. There was considerable difficulty in finding +out who was the actual culprit, as owing to the circumstances there were +several people who might have done it. My solicitors told me that the +only way to really find out was to go to a handwriting expert. I didn't +know what that was until they explained, but it seems there are Johnnies +who make a regular profession of studying people's writing." + +"Are there, by Jove!" said the colonel, much interested. + +"Yes; and just at that time--it was some two years ago--the king and +skipper of the whole lot had come over from America and established a +branch in London. His name is William Q. Devereux." + +"Is it, by Jove!" said the colonel again. + +Ellerdine nodded. "Odd," he said, "but true, _parole d'honneur_. He +started an office in London to help all the commercial Johnnies in the +city, and so I went to him with my papers; and I am damned if the chap +didn't find out who forged my name in about an hour, and we had him +nailed that same evening. Cost me a tenner, that's all." + +Colonel Adams nodded, looking with some trepidation at the pile of +rather too luscious-looking pastry which had by now been set upon the +table. + +"I don't think I will venture," he said to himself; and then to +Ellerdine, "Well, go on, Ellerdine." + +"Now, in my pocket," Lord Ellerdine continued, "I have got exact +photographs and tracings of the letters which have made such a fuss this +afternoon. My idea, Adams, is that you and I--if you have time, that +is--should go down into the City and see this expert chap and see if he +can throw some light on the situation. They have tried all the experts +in London on Peggy's case, but they don't seem to know about my American +friend. I believe in him. He is one of the most astute people going. +What do you say to trying him--for poor little Peggy's sake?" + +"Excellent idea, by Jove!" the other answered. "You've got his address, +of course?" + +"Oh yes," Lord Ellerdine replied; "it's in Coleman Street, E.C. Now, I +wonder if you would mind going down with me and seeing what he has got +to say?" + +"Not in the least," Colonel Adams answered. "In fact, I shall be +tremendously interested. I'd do a good deal more than that, my dear +Ellerdine, if I could, to help Mrs. Admaston in any way." + +"Very well, then," said the peer. "We'll just finish our tea, and pay +that pretty-looking girl and take a taxi at once." + +In five minutes they had dismissed the cab and were being carried in a +lift to the third floor of a big block of buildings in Coleman Street. + +The door of Mr. Devereux's office was marked "Enter," and the newcomers +found themselves in a small but comfortably furnished room. At a round +polished table, on which there was a typewriting machine, sat a young +lady, who was reading a novel of Miss Marie Corelli's. + +"Mr. Devereux is in," she said in answer to their queries, "but he is +just about to leave. However, I will take your name and see if he can +see you." + +Some people would have been annoyed at this fashion of greeting, but to +the two simple gentlemen in question it seemed quite right and proper +that such a rare bird as an American handwriting expert should be fenced +round with a certain ritual. + +"Tell Mr. Devereux," said Lord Ellerdine, "that Lord Ellerdine is here. +Mr. Devereux knows me." + +Unlike the young person in the café, the young lady in the office did +not seem at all impressed, but languidly sauntered through the door +which led to the inner room. She came back much more quickly than she +had entered. "Mr. Devereux begs that you will step in," she said, and +once more fell to her enthralling romance as the door closed behind the +visitors. + +Mr. Devereux was a well-dressed, trim young American with a hard, +clean-shaved face. His manner was brisk, business-like, and deferential, +and his whole appearance suggested energy and capability. + +Upon his large leather-covered writing-table were various appliances +used in his business. + +One saw a microscope of some peculiar construction. There were a variety +of small lenses and reading-glasses, together with various instruments +of shining steel for measuring, with extreme accuracy, the length of a +letter or a line. + +There was also an enlarging camera upon a shelf by the window, and a +door in one corner of the place was marked "Dark room." + +"Glad to see you again, my lord," said Mr. Devereux. "Not a forgery case +this time, I hope?" + +"Not a bit of it," Lord Ellerdine replied, shaking hands with the +expert. "Glad to see you, Mr. Devereux. No; it is something far more +important than a cheque for fifty pounds. It is to do with the Admaston +divorce case." + +Mr. Devereux started. His face became almost ferret-like in its +intentness, while he said nasally, but with suppressed eagerness in his +voice, "I guess this is a bit of luck. I have just seen this evening's +paper, and of course I have followed the case with great interest from +first to last. I know without any possibility of doubt that all my +brother experts in London have been consulted. And from the first it has +rather hurt me that nobody had come to me, because I do claim----" + +Lord Ellerdine interrupted him. "I know, I know," he said; "there is no +one that can touch you, Mr. Devereux. But probably, you see----" He +hesitated in his effort to soothe the somewhat wounded feelings of the +expert. + +Colonel Adams came to the rescue. "Well, Mr. Devereux," he said, "here +we are, and we have got something very important on which to ask your +opinion." + +The expert became all attention once more. "What is it?" he said +briefly. + +Lord Ellerdine put his hand in the breast-pocket of his coat and +withdrew a long envelope full of papers. + +"I have here," he said, "exact photographs and tracings--everything that +you will probably find needful, in fact--of the two letters which you +have just been reading about in the evening paper, and which have caused +such a tremendous sensation this afternoon. It seems at the moment that +Mrs. Admaston has absolutely lost her case. To all outward appearances +these letters have ruined her. At the same time, I am certain that she +knew nothing about them, and that Mr. Collingwood knew nothing about +them either. You follow me?" + +Lord Ellerdine had never been so concise and explanatory before, but the +occasion had come, and he had risen to it. + +"I follow you perfectly," said the expert. + +"Very well, then," Lord Ellerdine said; "here are the letters, and I +want you to tell me what you think about them." + +He gave the envelope to the expert, who withdrew the papers it contained +and spread them upon the table. + +He began to study them with grave attention. The two men sat in the +comfortable chairs he had indicated to them. + +"My lord," said the expert, looking up suddenly, "I guess you won't +realise the necessity of it, but I should very much like to be left +alone for say twenty minutes. I can think better when I am alone, and I +gather you want an immediate opinion?" + +"We do," Lord Ellerdine replied. "All right; we will go, and come back +in half an hour or so." + +The two gentlemen re-entered the waiting-room. + +"Well, my dear," said Lord Ellerdine briskly to the young lady, "we are +put out here while Mr. Devereux examines some papers I have brought in; +and he tells us that we are to talk to you--what?" + +The young lady put down her volume. "Frightfully cold," she said, "isn't +it?" And for the next half-hour Lord Ellerdine and Colonel Adams and +this very superior young lady conversed with a studied propriety which +certainly did not obtain in the drawing-rooms where the two gentlemen +were accustomed to visit. + +At the end of that time the door opened and the keen-faced American came +out. + +He was rubbing his hands briskly as though pleased with himself. "Guess +I have got something for you, at anyrate," he said, "if you will come in +here." + +They re-entered the inner room, and Devereux began. "I can tell you one +thing," he said, "and one thing only." + +Lord Ellerdine was trembling with excitement. "What is it?" he said +breathlessly. "Will it help?" + +"It may," the expert replied; "but at anyrate it is this. Those two +letters were written by some one who can write with the left hand as +well as with the right. There is not the slightest doubt about it, and I +don't care what any of your darned English experts may say." + +Lord Ellerdine's face fell. "With the left hand?" he asked vaguely. + +The expert nodded. "I will explain to you," he said, pulling a large +book of manuscripts towards him; and illustrating his theory with swift, +decisive movements upon a blank sheet of paper, he showed the two men +exactly the reasons for his diagnosis. + +"Now, my lord," he said, when he had finished and made certain that both +of them thoroughly understood--"now, my lord, all you have to do is to +find the person who writes with his or her left hand and could have +possibly been sufficiently acquainted with the facts to produce those +two letters. When that is done you will have the person." + +Lord Ellerdine was considerably disappointed. He had imagined that by +some occult means the expert would have been immediately able to name +the writer of the letters. He strove to conceal what he felt, however; +and after paying Mr. Devereux's fee the two men left the building. + +"It isn't much," Lord Ellerdine said, as they got into a cab and drove +rapidly towards the West End. "It isn't much, but it is something. I +will drop you at your club--Cocoa Tree, isn't it?--and then drive +straight to Collingwood's solicitors to find out where he is. It is not +much, but it is something," he repeated rather vaguely to himself; and +then both men became occupied with their own thoughts and were silent. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +The drawing-room of Mrs. Admaston's house in St. James's was thought by +many people to be one of the most delightful rooms in town. + +The Morris and æsthetic conventions were entirely ignored in it. There +were no soft greys or greens, no patterns of pomegranates, no brown and +pleasing sombreness. The room expressed Peggy herself, and was designed +entirely by her. + +It was large, panelled entirely in white with sparse gilding, and the +ceiling was white also, though slightly different in tone. The very few +pictures which hung upon the walls were all of the gay Watteau school, +and there were some fans painted on silk and framed by Charles Conder. + +The furniture was not obtrusive. It was in the light style of the Second +Empire, fragile and delicate in appearance, but strong and comfortable +enough in experience. + +The room was essentially a summer room, and yet one could see that even +in winter time it would strike a note of warmth, hospitality, and +comfort. + +For, with great wisdom, Peggy had made concessions. While the +drawing-room still preserved its gay French air, there was, +nevertheless, a huge open hearth on which, in winter, logs and coal +glowed redly. Now, it was filled with great bunches of the simple pink +foxglove. + +Standing out from the fireplace, at right angles to the wall, was a +large sofa of blue linen; and there was also a big writing-table with a +pleasant furniture of chased silver upon it. + +This room in the luxurious house was called the "drawing-room," but it +was not really that. It was, in fact, Mrs. Admaston's own particular +room--she hated the word boudoir. The big reception-rooms had no such +intimate and pleasant aspect--splendid as they were--as this. + +The flowers bloomed on the hearth, the long dull-green curtains had not +yet veiled the warm outside evening, when a footman entered and flung +open the two big doors which led into this delightful place. + +The man stood waiting with one arm stretched out upon one leaf of the +door. + +Mrs. Admaston and Lady Attwill entered, and Pauline followed them. + +"Bring some tea at once," Pauline said in a low voice to the footman. + +Then she turned to Peggy. "Madame," she said in a voice full of pain, +"do compose yourself. You will be very ill if you go on like this." + +Peggy's face was dangerously flushed. Her eyes glittered, her hands +clasped and unclasped themselves. + +"That letter!" she cried. "That fiendish letter! Who could have sent it? +What _devil_ planned that trap?" + +Lady Attwill shrugged her shoulders. "Anonymous--take no notice," she +said. + +Peggy turned on her like a whirlwind. "Don't be absurd, Alice!" she +cried. "It was sent before we left London. Who knew we should go to +Paris? Who knew that we should stay at the Tuileries?" + +Pauline was hovering round her mistress with a face that was all +anxiety, with hands that trembled to touch and soothe. "Remember, +madame," she said, "it was sent to your aunt. Very funny that! She has +never liked you, that grim old lady!" + +"Why did she dislike me?" Peggy said petulantly. + +"Madame, you were gay, happy--like sunbeams. Your old aunt lived in the +shadows. She is a dour old maid." + +"I don't see what she has to do with it," Peggy answered. "The letter +was written by some one who knew that we were going to stay in Paris, +and even where we were going to stay." + +Lady Attwill went up to the fireplace and sank down upon the sofa of +blue linen. + +In her smart afternoon costume of grey silk, and a large straw hat upon +which the flowers were amethyst and purple, she made a perfect +colour-harmony as she sat. + +"Why was it sent to her?" Lady Attwill asked. + +Peggy sighed. "I don't know, except that she was the one to poison +George's mind. Without her he would probably have ignored it. But who +was it who _knew_ that we should be in Paris that night? No one imagines +that I knew or--Pauline. Then there's Dicky--that's absurd." + +Peggy's face seemed to have grown older. The terrible ordeal that she +had undergone had left vivid traces upon it. It was not a frightened +face--it was the face of one who had been agonised, but it was also a +face of great perplexity. + +Pauline interposed. "Madame," she said, "if you did not know that you +would be staying at Paris that night, the writer of that letter must be +some one who did know, and who planned this trick to compromise you. +There are only two who could have known. Madame--I do not like...." + +In the maid's voice the old, harsh Breton determination had flashed out. +She turned towards Lady Attwill, and her whole voice and bearing were a +challenge. + +Her head was pushed a little forward, moving from side to side like a +snake about to strike; unconsciously her arms were set akimbo. + +Lady Attwill looked languidly at the angry woman. "You need have no +delicacy, Pauline," she said. "Ca fait rien, expliquez-vous. Tiens! What +you want to say is that the letter was written by Mr. Collingwood or by +myself--or by somebody or other procured by us to do it. C'est votre +idée, n'est-ce pas?" + +The woman, in her way--in her languid way--was defiant as the old Breton +bonne herself. + +Peggy rose and began to walk up and down the room. She had been sitting +almost opposite Lady Attwill, but now there seemed to be hesitation and +perplexity, not only in her voice, but in her whole attitude. + +"But you could not have done it, Alice," she said. "The luggage, don't +you know--it was Colling who saw that it was not registered." + +"That is only what the porter says," Alice Attwill answered grimly. + +"Oh, my dear," Peggy replied, "it is only too obviously true. Pauline +saw through it the same night. Didn't you think it was very funny?" + +Lady Attwill fell immediately into the suggestion. + +"Well, dear," she said, "Dicky and I were a little bit suspicious, +since you put it to me; but I hardly liked to suggest----" + +Peggy turned from both of them and went up to the piano, standing by it +and drumming upon it with her gloved fingers. "Colling!" she muttered. +"It's impossible! And yet just now when I left the court I could not +think how else it could have been done." + +She wheeled round. "Alice," she said, "do you think it _could_ have been +Colling? Do you? What reason could he have had?" + +Alice Attwill's hands were clasped upon her knee. She was bending +forward, nodding her head slightly from time to time, and had an almost +judicial pose. + +She appeared to be thinking. "My dear Peggy," she said at length, "I can +see plenty of reasons. After all, we know that Colling won't be sorry if +Admaston gets his divorce." + +"I beg miladi's pardon," Pauline broke in, "but I do not think that is +so." + +"C'est bien possible," Lady Attwill replied to the maid. And then, +looking at Peggy, "I am sure I can't imagine Mr. Collingwood doing such +a thing. I am the last person to make mischief." + +She rose as she spoke and walked towards the door. "Come along, Peggy," +she said; "you must get your things off--you've had such a horrible +day." + +Peggy looked at her wildly. She hardly seemed to hear what she was +saying. + +"No--no--let me think--I must think!" she cried, and there was a rising +note of hysteria in her voice. + +"Well," Lady Attwill said calmly, "I must get out of my things, at +anyrate." Then she spoke with something which sounded like affection in +her voice. + +"Peggy," she said, "you really must lie down and rest--I shall be down +in a few minutes." + +With a bright smile she took her parasol and left the room. + +Then Peggy let herself go. + +"Oh! How cruel it is!" she cried, raging up and down the drawing-room. +"They have taken all the joy out of my life! I feel as if they had burnt +the damning letter in scarlet upon my breast--branded by law, +divorce-court law! Oh, the ignominy, the shame of it all--the shame! It +is barbarous! To hold a woman up and torture her before a pruriently +minded crowd whether she is guilty or not! Am I guilty because I can't +prove that I am innocent?" + +The old maid ran up to Peggy and caught her firmly by the arms, pressing +her down into a chair. + +"Rest! rest!" she said, with the tears rolling down her cheeks. "Mignon, +you will break my heart if you go on like this. You are innocent; I +stake my soul on that. Wait--wait till to-morrow when I am witness. I +will tell them!" + +Peggy's arms went round the old maid's neck and she drew the gnarled +face to hers. "Pauline," she said, "dear Pauline! They will torture you +as they did me. It is useless. Sir Robert Fyffe will make you say just +what he wants. It is not justice that triumphs in the end--it is +intellect that damns. Pauline, do you think that Mr. Collingwood knew +that we should be in Paris that night, and that he wrote the letter?" + +Pauline kissed her. "I think, madame," she said, "that M. Collingwood +knew that we should be in Paris. But I am certain he did not write that +letter. M. Collingwood might have done a very foolish thing, thinking +that you loved him--but he is a gentleman." + +"But if he did not write it--then you think that Lady Attwill?..." + +"Comme vous voulez? If it is not M. Collingwood, madame, it must be Lady +Attwill." + +"But why should she have done such a fiendish thing?" + +"She has never forgiven you for marrying Mr. Admaston. Did I not tell +you, madame? Did I not say that to you in Paris?" + +Peggy nodded. "Yes, Pauline," she replied; "but I can't believe you. +She has seen my misery. No, Pauline, it is impossible!" + +"Madame, it is not impossible. She can only conquer by your misery." + +Peggy jumped up from the sofa, her whole body shaking, her face aflame +with righteous anger. "Pauline!" she said in a shrill voice, "I _must_ +find out who wrote that letter." + +"Yes, madame," the old maid replied, with a despairing gesture of her +hands; "but how will you do it?" + +"I shall employ the same weapons to find out that as they have brought +against me. The law, the officers, the craft and cunning of the whole +machine. I am very rich, Pauline, quite apart from my husband--as you +know very well; but, if it cost me every penny I had, I would spend it +all, if necessary, to find out who wrote that letter." + +The door opened and two footmen came in with the tea equipage. Peggy +looked up at them, annoyed at the interruption; then her eye fell upon +the windows at the end of the room which led upon a long, secluded +terrace outside the drawing-room. It was called the "terrace lounge." + +"Not here," she said impatiently; "on the terrace." + +The men took the table through the windows, pulling aside the curtains +which half veiled the view beyond. + +"I'll rest and think, Pauline," Peggy said. "I can always think in that +old Sheraton chair on the terrace." + +"But if M. Collingwood calls?" Pauline asked. + +"Why should he call?" Peggy said. "I see no reason." + +"He telephoned asking if you would see him," the maid replied. + +"Ah!" Peggy said, with a sudden note of resolve. + +It frightened the faithful Breton maid. "Don't see him, madame!" she +cried. "Rest!" + +"No rest for us yet, Pauline.... I will see him. I _must_ see him. Let +him be shown in here. Tell me as soon as he comes." + +She turned and went through one of the windows just as the two +men-servants came out of the other, having arranged the things for tea. + +"When M. Collingwood comes," Pauline said, "show him in here." + +The first footman bowed. Pauline's word was law in this house; and, +though it was bitterly resented below-stairs that she, a servant +herself, should have such authority, no one ventured to dispute it. + +At the far end of the drawing-room--not the end where the curtained +windows led out on to the terrace lounge--there was a tall screen of +carved teakwood from Benares. Behind it upon a little table stood a +telephone. The Admastons--husband and wife--had always made a great +point of using the telephone. Peggy herself, with her impulsive moods, +found it most convenient, and insisted upon having one in any room that +she habitually used. + +Pauline, her face wrinkled in thought, strolled mechanically to this +corner of the room and gazed down upon the glittering little machine of +ebony and silver with a frown of dislike. She was thinking of +Collingwood and his message, and a dull resentment glowed in her brain +at these mechanical facilities of life. + +There were no telephones in Pont-Aven when she was a girl in the ancient +Breton town, and these things seemed to her part and parcel of the hot, +feverish, and hurried life in which her beloved mistress was suffering +so greatly. + +The old bonne's face, kindly and sweet enough when it wore its ordinary +expression, was now mocking and malevolent as she stared at the table. +Suddenly she stiffened, raised her head, and listened intently. + +She had heard the door of the drawing-room open and close quietly, and +there came a rustle of silk skirts. + +Lady Attwill had glided quietly into the room and stepped up to the big +writing-table at which Peggy conducted most of her correspondence. + +The maid stepped out from behind the screen, her eyes shining curiously. +"Can I do anything for madame?" she asked. "Miladi a oublié quelque +chose, n'est-ce pas?" + +The tall, slim woman seemed strangely confused. Her face was a little +flushed, her glance at Pauline distinctly uneasy. + +She made an exclamation in French, paused to think, and then answered +Pauline in English. + +"I thought I left my bag down here," she said lamely. + +Without troubling to disguise the suspicion and hostility in her voice, +and with a slightly sneering note of triumph in it, as if she was +pleased at Alice Attwill's confusion, Pauline made a little mocking bow. + +"Madame had her bag in her hand when she went upstairs. But I will ring +and ask." She went towards the nearest bell-push. + +"No! no!" Lady Attwill answered; "please don't trouble. I must be +mistaken." + +Without a backward glance she almost hurried from the room. + +Pauline's face was now extraordinarily watchful and alert. All the +peasant cunning flashed out upon it. Any one who has seen the wives and +daughters of the small Breton farmers selling a cow or a pony on +market-day in some old-world town has seen this cautious, watchful look. +One can see it even on the face and in the eyes of a pointer when birds +are near: it is of the soil, primeval, part of the eternal hidden +warfare of life. + +"Yes, perhaps madame _is_ mistaken," the woman said to herself with an +ugly grin. + +She walked up to the writing-table and looked down upon it thoughtfully. + +Suddenly something seemed to strike her and she stretched out her hand +to open the great blotter of Nile-green leather, bordered with silver, +when the telephone bell rang sharply out into the drawing-room. + +She hurried to the telephone. "Who is it?" she said. "What? Yes, this is +Admaston House--yes. She is in. Who is it? Yes, sir." + +Still holding the receiver in her hand, the woman staggered back from +the mouthpiece. She began to tremble violently. Her face became crimson +with excitement. + +"Oh, sir! she is...." + +And now Pauline burst out crying. The tears ran down her cheeks, her old +mouth trembled, she seemed upon the point of a breakdown. + +"Oh, sir!" she cried again, "she has gone out upon the terrace, and is +resting. Monsieur, I can hardly speak to you! Your wife is nearly mad, +monsieur! Monsieur, she is innocent--on my soul!" + +Her face became intensely eager. "Yes," she sobbed, "come. Yes, by the +gate leading from the Park. You have the key. No. Yes, come; I will +promise." + +With hands that shook terribly, Pauline replaced the receiver on the +bracket and came round from behind the Indian screen, walking towards +the door. She had not got within three paces of it when it was flung +open and the footman announced "Mr. Collingwood." + +Roderick Collingwood entered, spruce, _débonnaire_ as ever, but showing +in his face traces of the ordeal he was passing through. + +"Hullo, Pauline; where is madame?" he said. + +"Madame is resting," the maid said, with distinct hostility. + +"Out upon the terrace?" he answered, moving towards the windows. + +Pauline made a swift movement and placed herself between him and the +curtains. + +"No; I think she is in her room, monsieur. Please wait here." + +Collingwood looked at Pauline in some surprise. He seemed hurt. "What is +the matter, Pauline?" he said. + +"Nothing is the matter, sir. Would you like to see the news?" + +She handed him the evening paper from the writing-table. "I will tell +madame," she said, and hurried from the room--well knowing that there +was another door from the hall by which the terrace could be reached. + +Collingwood picked up the paper, opened it, and eagerly scanned the +report of the day's proceedings. Then he flung it down with an oath just +as a footman entered the room. "Lord Ellerdine wishes to speak to you, +sir," said the footman. + +"Is he here?" Collingwood replied. + +"Yes, sir." + +"Show him up at once." + +In a moment or two more Lord Ellerdine, looking flurried and hot, +entered the drawing-room. + +His hat was in his hand, and he was wearing a light grey overcoat. + +"My dear Dicky," Collingwood said, "what on earth brings you here?" + +Collingwood had risen and strolled over to the big settee of blue linen. +He sat down upon it calmly. + +"I wanted to ask you something," Lord Ellerdine said in a rather +unsteady voice; "so I went round to your solicitors' office, and they +told me that I should find you here." + +"Well, what is it?" Collingwood asked imperturbably. + +"I say, Colling--do you write with your left hand?" + +The other made a movement of impatience. "My dear Dicky," he said +irritably, "what the devil?..." + +"But do you?" Ellerdine insisted. + +"Of course I don't," Collingwood answered shortly. + +"I thought as much," said Lord Ellerdine, with a sigh of relief. + +"You did, did you?" Collingwood replied, with a slight smile. "What is +the game, Dicky?" + +"It's not a game, Colling; it's dead serious," said the ex-diplomatist. + +"Why, Dicky, what's up?" + +"You remember some time ago when some silly ass forged my name on a +cheque?" Lord Ellerdine asked, still flurried and ill at ease. + +"Well?" + +"Well, I got to know a handwriting expert--an American--a devilish smart +fellow. When we left the court just now, and Peggy was thinking pretty +rotten things about you, I thought I would go and have a word with him." + +Collingwood's languid manner entirely disappeared. He bent forward with +a keen, searching look at his friend. "You found him?" he asked. + +Ellerdine nodded. + +"Well, what does he say?" + +"I showed him the photos of the letters," Lord Ellerdine continued, "and +then the originals, and he says that they are written by some one who +writes easily and fluently with his left hand." + +"Left hand! Great Scott! Is he sure?" + +"As sure as an American expert can be of anything," the peer returned. + +"That's sure enough," Collingwood replied, shrugging his shoulders and +rising up from the sofa. + +He began to walk up and down the room. "That clears me, at anyrate," he +said. "But what the devil can it all mean, Ellerdine?" + +Lord Ellerdine had been looking at his friend, pathetically waiting for +a word of praise. Now he ventured upon a little fishing remark: + +"Mighty good thing I thought of that American chap--don't you think so, +Colling?" + +Collingwood hardly seemed to hear him. His head was bent forward and he +was deep in thought. + +"Yes, Dicky, yes. Left hand, eh?" + +"Yes," Lord Ellerdine answered, with a plaintive note in his voice. "I +think, Colling, I've handled this business with some skill--what?" + +"Left hand," the other repeated, in a brown study. + +"With some skill, Colling--what? Skill--what?" Lord Ellerdine bleated. + +Collingwood looked up at this note in the other's voice. He suddenly +realised that the poor gentleman was pining for praise, and began to +administer it in the heartiest possible fashion. + +He smacked him on the shoulder and his voice became absolutely jovial. +"Skill!" he said. "My dear Dicky, it's splendid! Really, you missed your +vocation. Diplomacy! Never! You're a detective, Dicky! A sleuth-hound! A +regular Sherlock Holmes, don't you know!" + +Lord Ellerdine was the happiest man in the three kingdoms at that +moment. His little mouth twitched with pleasure. His face beamed like +the rising sun. "I say, Colling, do you think so--do you really think +so, Colling?" + +"Think so!" Collingwood answered, laughing. "I'm sure of it, old chap"; +and then, with a sudden, swift transition of manner, "Dicky, look +here--have you told Admaston?" + +"Not yet," Lord Ellerdine replied. "George Admaston is hard hit, +devilish hard hit. He doesn't believe Peggy's guilty--he'd chuck the +case if it wasn't for Fyffe." + +"Chuck the case!" Collingwood said eagerly. + +"I honestly believe he would," Lord Ellerdine answered. "It's the letter +which sticks with Fyffe, and I don't understand it--we come against the +beastly thing all the time." + +Collingwood nodded. "Yes," he said; "that letter's hell." + +He suddenly raised his head. "Look here, Dicky," he said, "I think I +hear Peggy coming; so off you go, please. Get your American expert to +dine with us to-night at your place, at eight o'clock. Run along." + +Ellerdine went to the door. "All right, old chap," he said; "that is +what I'll do. Eight o'clock. I'm so glad it wasn't you, old chap--such a +dirty business!" + +He went out of the room, not noticing that he had left his hat and +gloves upon the writing-table. + +A moment afterwards Peggy entered, pulling aside the curtains of the +terrace window. She started violently when she saw Collingwood. "You +here!" she said, and there was an ugly note of apprehension and even of +anger in her voice. "You----" + +Collingwood went up to her. "Peggy!" he said. + +"Wasn't that Dicky I heard?" + +"Yes." + +Collingwood had hardly said it, and the two were looking at each other +strangely enough, when the door leading into the hall opened and Lord +Ellerdine came back. "Forgot my hat, old chap," he said, going up to +the table. Then he saw Peggy. + +"Peggy!" he cried, going up to her and taking one of her hands in both +of his. "Buck up, little woman! It'll be all right--we'll pull you +through!" + +Then he began to hesitate and stammer, while his cheeks flushed and he +showed every possible sign of embarrassment. + +"Yes," he continued, "we'll pull you through. Won't we, Colling?" + +He hesitated, at a loss for words; and then his eye fell upon the table. +"Ah!" he said. "My hat--yes--good-bye. Buck up, little woman! And, +Colling, don't forget eight o'clock to-night." + +Red and shy as a schoolgirl, Lord Ellerdine somehow got himself out of +the room. + +"Poor, dear old Dicky!" Peggy said with a sigh, more to herself than to +her companion; and then, turning, "Colling, why have you come?" + +Collingwood held out both his hands. "Peggy--dear little Peggy!" he +said. "My heart bleeds for you!" + +Peggy stepped back. "Don't let's talk about that," she said swiftly. + +"But, Peggy----" + +"It is rather late," the girl returned in the same cold voice; "the time +for sympathy is long past. Why did you ask to see me?" + +There was a deep note of passion in Collingwood's voice as he answered. +"I could not let you think what I could see you were thinking," he said. + +Peggy did not appear moved in any way. "You promised," she said, +"neither to come nor to ask to see me." + +"I could not stay away any longer," he answered; and if ever a man had +tears in his voice, Collingwood had then. + +"Have you come to tell me that the man Stevens is telling a lie, and +that our trip to Paris was only accident?" + +"No," the man replied. "Peggy dear, can you ever----" + +"Colling! Colling! why did you do it?" she wailed. + +His body went back suddenly as if he had received an actual blow in the +chest. + +"Oh, Peggy--for God's sake!..." + +"You have thought neither of God nor me," she answered bitterly. + +"Of you," he cried--"always of you, Peggy!" + +She shook her head. "No," she said. "Thought of me would have made you +think of all I have had to suffer. Did you think of _me_ when you +planned to go to Paris? When did you ever think of me--my being--my +life--my soul? What excuse can you offer?" + +His arms fell to his side, his face was pale and passionate. "Only my +love," he answered--"my fierce, burning love. The mad desire to have you +for my own. I have thought of nothing else since I met you." + +She bent forward and threw out her arm. The little ivory-white hand was +palm upwards, and it shook in dreadful accusation. + +"Thought of me?" she cried. "Was it thought of me that drove me under +the lash of that man's scourge to-day? Was it thought of me that placed +me like a criminal in that court to-day? How could you have thought of +me and not foreseen the shame, the misery, and the torture to which I +have been subjected? Where was your love for me when you were conscious +of the mass of evidence these creatures were piling up against me? Did +your love of me foresee newsboys rushing about the streets with placards +blazing out like letters of fire, 'MRS. ADMASTON ON THE RACK'? Rack, +Colling!" + +He shook his head with a terrible gesture of sadness. + +"No. I did not foresee it," he said, "because you made me believe that +you were in earnest--that you loved me. If you had loved me you wouldn't +have cared." + +"I liked you, Colling, I liked you," she said; and now all the fire had +gone from her voice. + +"Liked me! Was it mere liking that made you take all those risks? You +knew my intention. I told you again and again I wanted him to divorce +you." + +"I never realised----" the girl said hopelessly. + +His voice as he answered her was very soft and tender. + +"No, dear; you played with me. I am not blaming you, but don't be too +harsh in judging me. I know the torture you are suffering now, Peggy, +and I would give my right hand to save you from it. But don't you ever +think of the torture you have given me? All the pain, the longing of +months and months--is it all to be forgotten? Oh, I know it is no excuse +to the others; but you, dear, will know in your heart that I did it +because I loved you, thinking to make you happy." + +"I think I understand, Colling," Peggy said; "but the letter----" + +Collingwood appeared dazed. "The letter!" he murmured. + +"Oh, Colling," she answered, "I'll forgive you anything you have done +because you loved me; but the letter--you will own up, Colling?" + +"Own up?" + +"Yes, dear," Peggy said; "my life depends on it. You are a man. You can +begin again. Don't see me go under. There is no hope for a woman. Don't +stand there and watch me struggle while there is a chance to save me. +I'll forgive everything--yes, everything--but the letter." + +Collingwood seemed genuinely surprised. His face, which at first +appeared perplexed, now showed nothing but astonishment as he realised +what she meant. "Peggy--little Peggy," he said, "surely you don't judge +me as harshly as that, do you? No, dear; I have done much that I am +sorry for--that I shall never be able to forgive myself for as long as I +live, but not that. The letter is the work of some one else. I never +wrote it." + +"Oh, Colling," she replied, "I am so glad--so very glad! But the +letter--the letter is everything after all. It means everything to me. +Then, if you didn't write it--there is only one other person who could +possibly have done so." + +"Exactly," Collingwood answered. "Lady Attwill and I were the only two +people who knew anything about the Paris trip, who could know anything +about it. But the question is, how on earth are we going to prove that +she wrote that letter? I do not see any possible way in which it can be +done, and I am sure you don't." + +"If we prove it," Peggy answered, "do you think it will satisfy George, +Colling?" + +"Satisfy?" Collingwood replied, seating himself on the edge of the +writing-table. "I should think so--he is satisfied already. But still, +you know, Peggy, the letter sticks. Why, even Lady Attwill knew that +there was nothing between us. It was only the appearance of guilt which +she schemed for, and that letter gives it." + +"And if we can't prove it, and the worst happens, she hopes to marry +George," Peggy said despairingly. + +The bitterness of the thought was terrible. It seemed as she sat there +that such treachery and black-heartedness were almost incredible. Could +the woman who had been her constant friend, who had stayed with her for +months at a time, on whom she had lavished innumerable favours, be so +base and despicable of soul as this? + +Collingwood saw what was passing in her mind, and nodded. + +"That is her game without a doubt, Peggy," he said earnestly. + +"Then why has she stood by me all these months? Why? Why? That is what I +want to know," Peggy said. + +Collingwood smiled bitterly. "Why, don't you see?" he said. "Because her +devotion to you will touch George, who still loves you." + +Peggy's face changed in a moment. "Oh, Colling!" she said, and her voice +was inexpressibly pathetic--"oh, Colling, do you think George does love +me still?" + +"I know he does, and that you love him. My dear, if I could have won you +I should not have stayed away all these months; but I owed you that--and +I tried to play the game." + +"Colling," she answered, in a burst of warmth and kindliness, "I never +liked you so much as I do now, Colling. I think it is because I feel I +can lean upon you and trust you----" + +"Poor little Butterfly!" he answered; and there were tears in the eyes +of this hardened man of fashion, tears which sprang to his eyes in spite +of himself and showed the deep tenderness beneath. + +"But, Colling," Peggy went on anxiously, "have we any chance at all of +proving it against her? She has been awfully clever about it all, hasn't +she?" + +Collingwood shook his head rather hopelessly. "I doubt if we have any +chance at all," he said. "But there is just one thing--I have just +remembered it. I have a sort of clue, and that is one which Dicky has +just given me when he was here a few minutes ago." + +"Oh! Dicky!" Peggy said, with a wan little smile. + +"Well," Collingwood resumed, "of course no one would call Dicky +intellectual and that, but I really think there is something in what he +said this time. I'll tell you. He has consulted an American handwriting +expert about the letters, and he says that they are the work of some one +who can write with the left hand. I know that I can't write with my left +hand. But what about Alice?" + +"I don't know," Peggy answered slowly; "I have never heard of her doing +so." + +"Or using it more than the ordinary?" Collingwood continued. + +"Yes--stay," Peggy replied eagerly. "She is ever so good with it at +billiards." + +Collingwood laughed. + +"Oh, don't laugh, Colling!" she continued--"please don't laugh at +me--but I remember she did tell me--yes--that she broke her right arm +sleighing when she was a girl, and that she is almost ambidextrous. It +has only just come back to me. She told me many years ago." + +Collingwood jumped up from the table alert and excited. + +"That is something--by Jove! it is," he cried. "Tell me, where is she?" + +"She has only gone upstairs for a moment," Peggy said. "I am expecting +her down every moment." + +"By the way, Peggy," Collingwood asked, "where does she write her +letters and things when she is here with you?" + +"She always writes there," Peggy answered, pointing to the table, "where +you have been sitting." + +"Look here," Collingwood said decisively, "when she comes, leave her +alone with me. I'll do what I can. I'll tackle her. You had better not +be here at all." + +"But, Colling, can't I help?" Peggy asked. "I think I might be of use, +though of course it will be dreadfully unpleasant. But, for my own sake, +I must stick at nothing now." + +"No, Peggy," he replied firmly. "I feel I can manage this much better +myself. Look here--you go out upon the terrace again. I will just come +with you and settle you in your chair--how tired you look!--and then a +_mauvais quart d'heure_ for Alice, if she ever had one in her life." + +"But it may not be true after all," Peggy said, as they walked together +towards the long windows. + +He shook his head at that. "It must be true," he said; "no one else +could have done it; and what you have just told me, and what Dicky said, +make it conclusive to my mind." + +They passed behind the curtains together, and there was the sound of a +chair being moved over the tessellated floor. + + + + +THE LAST CHAPTER + + +Lady Attwill was upstairs in her bedroom. + +It was very large, and luxuriously furnished, with Chippendale chairs +and Adams ceiling, while the walls were covered with a paper of white +upon which, here and there, tiny apple blossoms of pink and grass-green +were indicated. + +Despite its size, the room felt close, and Alice Attwill had thrown open +all the windows to the summer afternoon. + +The cooler air, scented with flowers, poured into the place, but she +seemed to notice nothing of it. + +She walked up and down the room with her feline grace--for this was +natural to her, and no careful pose or cultivated mannerism. Her lovely +head was bent a little forward as she walked, and the hands which were +clasped behind her slim waist folded and unfolded themselves nervously. + +The face itself was very white, the eyes glistened, the lips twitched +nervously, and there was about her an atmosphere of terror. + +She made it herself, this beautiful woman walking up and down a +beautiful room; but fear there was in that quiet place, and it did not +come in there from the open windows, but radiated out from a guilty mind +and a wildly pulsating heart. Every now and again, as she walked up and +down, Alice Attwill moistened her lips with her tongue and glanced at +the travelling-clock covered with red leather which stood upon the +mantlepiece. + +At last she stopped with one thoughtful glance at the clock. + +"It'll be all right now," she said to herself. "I am sure they must be +beginning to suspect me. Fool that I was! Why, every novel and almost +every play has this question of the blotting-book in it. It is such a +simple device, and yet in real life how often it _does_ happen! Here am +I confronted with the worst crisis in my whole life, simply because I +forgot the blotting-book." + +Clenching her teeth she quietly left the room, descended the wide +Georgian stairs into the hall, and opened the door of the drawing-room. + +She peered cautiously into the room, now lit up by clusters of electric +lights. + +Satisfied that no one was there, she closed the door very quietly, and +with silent, cat-like steps walked up to the writing-table. + +Again, as her hand fell upon the blotting-book, she looked round in an +agony of apprehension. Then, opening it hurriedly, she searched among +the leaves with a puzzled brow. + +Some of the leaves were heavily blotted and no writing upon them was +wholly distinguishable, while others only bore a few well-defined +imprints. + +Her slender, trembling fingers turned over the leaves in an agony of +anxiety, but--either she was too agitated or too inexperienced--she was +unable to find what she sought. + +Suddenly a thought came to her. + +The mirror!--yes, that was the thing. By the aid of the mirror she would +be able to identify the sheet she wanted at once. She hurried up to the +fireplace. + +Above it was an oval mirror framed in wood which had been painted white, +and, shaking exceedingly, hardly knowing what she did, she held up the +heavy blotter with the paper facing the mirror, and slowly turned over +the thick white sheets. + +While she was doing this, with a perfectly livid face, she heard the +faint sound of an advancing footstep. + +It was at the very moment when she thought she had discovered what she +wanted, and with twitching fingers was about to tear it out from the +book. + +The sound of the step came from behind the curtains which hung over the +windows leading to the terrace. + +Lady Attwill almost bounded back to the writing-table and put down the +blotter upon it. + +She had hardly done so, and was actually closing the book, when the +curtains parted with a soft swish and Collingwood came into the room. + +He came in jauntily and easily enough, but there was something in his +face which made Alice Attwill give a little startled gasp of alarm and +despair. + +"Writing letters, Alice?" Collingwood said easily, though there was a +chill in his voice which sounded like the note of doom in the miserable +woman's ears. + +"I have finished writing," she said, stammering--"just finished." + +Collingwood came up to her without removing his eyes from hers. He came +slowly up, with a steady, persistent stare, magnetic, horrible. + +"Just got up from writing, eh? That's lucky!" he said. "I want to have a +talk with you, Alice--by the way, let me post your letters." + +"Please don't trouble," she faltered. + +"No trouble, I assure you," he answered, his voice becoming more cold, +dangerous, and menacing than ever. "I assure you it is no trouble, +Alice. There can't even be a great weight of letters for me to take to +the post--because, you see, Peggy and I were here until about two +minutes ago." + +There was a revolving chair of green leather in front of the +writing-table. Lady Attwill sank into it. She felt as if the whole +room, with all its contents, was spinning round her with horrible +rapidity. She sank into the chair, unable to stand longer; but, even as +she did so, one last despairing gleam of hope prompted her to make an +effort to show that she was still unconcerned and sitting down in a +natural way. + +"I hardly expected to see you here," she said in a rather high, staccato +voice, the words coming from her one by one as if each separate word was +produced with great difficulty. + +"Indeed?" Collingwood asked. "And why not?" + +The fact that she was sitting down, that she had the arms of the chair +to hold, that she was _somewhere_, seemed to give Alice Attwill more +courage. + +In a voice which was still tremulous, but in which an ugly note of +temper was beginning to displace the abject indications of fear, she +answered him. + +She pushed her head a little forward, and her eyes shone with malice. + +"I should have thought that the revelations of this afternoon would +have----" + +Collingwood recognised the change of attitude in a moment. + +"Closed these doors to those who planned the trip to Paris--yes?" + +"I was not thinking of the trip to Paris," she said. + +Collingwood shrugged his shoulders. "Because we were partners in that, +of course," he replied. + +"Partners!" she cried shrilly. "I knew nothing about it. It was you who +gave the orders to the porter and booked the rooms--I don't come in +anywhere!" + +Collingwood folded his arms and stood with his feet somewhat apart, +looking down upon her with a face which, in its contempt and strength, +once more drove her into an extremity of fear. + +When he spoke again his voice had lost its bitterness and contempt, but +it had become harsh and imperative. It was the voice of a bullying +counsel in the courts--the voice in which a low man speaks to a servant. + +"That is your game, is it?" he said. "You never knew of the trip to +Paris?" + +The woman was spurred up to answer. She met his voice with one precisely +in the same key; it was a voice a succession of unfortunate lady's-maids +knew very well. + +"Absolutely nothing," she said; "where as you--your guilt, my friend, is +clear, transparently clear." + +She nodded two or three times to emphasise her assertion, and by this +time her composure had returned to her and she was ready for anything. + +Collingwood, who had been watching her with the most intense scrutiny, +had followed with perfect clearness the changes in her voice and +attitude. He now knew where he was. The bluff was over, he was about to +play his hand. + +More particularly than anything else his mind, intensely alert and +active at this supreme moment, noticed that Alice Attwill had wheeled +round upon her chair and seemed in a most marked way to be interposing +herself between him and the writing-table. + +It was as though some precious possession lay there of which she feared +she would be robbed. + +Feeling certain now of the woman's guilt, he said: "Perhaps you are also +going to suggest that I wrote that dastardly letter?" + +Lady Attwill sneered. "One of us obviously must have written it," she +said, "and your motive--well, it is pretty clear, isn't it?" + +"And yours," he said--"and isn't yours clear also?" + +"Do you think so?" she asked, with a toss of her head. + +He bent forward, gazing at her with an almost deadly look of hate. + +"Look here," he said: "don't you hope to marry Admaston if Peggy loses +this case?" + +She was frightened--obviously very frightened; but she did her best to +throw it off. + +"My dear Colling," she said in a light and airy manner, "you are so +imbued with the remarkable excellence of Sir Robert Fyffe's methods +that you are imitating him. But you are doing it so badly, Colling--so +extremely badly!" + +His face did not change in the slightest. It remained as set and firm as +before, absolutely uninfluenced by what she was saying. + +"Isn't it true that you hope to marry George Admaston?" he repeated in +exactly the same tone. + +She lifted her pretty left hand in the air and snapped her fingers in a +gesture full of mingled insolence and provocation. + +"Why should I satisfy your curiosity?" she said. + +Again the man, intent upon one great purpose, absolutely not to be +deterred from it or to be influenced in any way by what she was saying, +repeated his query. + +"How can you explain that letter?" he said, in the insistent tone of a +judge. "Who else could have written it except you or me?" + +Her eyelids fluttered. She looked up at him quickly. "I don't attempt to +explain it," she said; "but I certainly agree with you that one of us +must have written it--any fool can see that; but which of us?" + +She paused for a moment, and then looked him straightly in the face, +defiant and at bay at last. + +"But which of us?" she repeated. "That's the point upon which we shall +differ, Colling." + +"I see," he said. "You mean that you will endeavour to father this +cowardly trick upon me?" + +Alice Attwill smiled bitterly. "The public will judge," she said. "Ever +since that night have I not been in constant attendance here, her +devoted and trusted friend?--while you--I thought you had been forbidden +the house." + +"That's a lie," Collingwood said sharply. + +"It is quite unnecessary to become abusive," she went on, her voice +gaining confidence for a moment and her manner becoming infinitely more +assured. "You are in a very tight corner, and the sooner you recognise +the fact the better it will be for you." + +"You think you can threaten me?" Collingwood asked quietly. + +"I know my cards," she replied, "and what I can do with them. You +needn't try to bluff me, Colling, for I know your cards too. Even if I +did write that letter--how can you ever prove it? You can assert it, but +who will believe you--you who stand convicted of decoying your friend's +wife to Paris to attempt her seduction?..." + +He winced at that. Even in his present mood of penitence and help, it +was a palpable hit. + +"With your assistance," he said, and that was all. + +She pressed her momentary triumph. "So you will assert," she said.... +"But I shall deny it--and there is nothing but your word. It will be +suggested to you--by Peggy's counsel, if not by Admaston's--that you +wrote the letter which has caused all the bother. You will try to put it +on to me----" + +He interrupted her quickly. "You will never dare to deny it," he said in +a voice of conviction. + +"My dear, simple friend," she answered, "why not? I loved George +Admaston, as you have said. Do you think I shall sacrifice myself and +save you? You can make your mind easy on that score. No, my dear +Colling, there is only one way out. To-morrow your counsel will have to +say that in the face of the evidence to-day he can contest the case no +further. Then you will not go into the witness-box." + +"Not go into the witness-box?" he asked. + +"Admaston will get his divorce," she went on in a final voice, but one +in which a note of conciliation had crept. "You will marry Peggy--I +shall marry Admaston--and no one will know about the letters. But if you +dare to fight, you will leave the court dishonoured. Peggy will never +look at you. You take my advice, Colling, and marry the girl you love, +and don't try to interfere with my plans, just when victory is assured." + +The note of conciliation in her voice stung every fibre of decency, +every sense of honour in him. He raised his eyebrows in extreme contempt +and surprise. "You must have a pretty poor opinion of me," he said. + +"The highest, my dear Colling," she replied; "but the situation is just +a little too big for you." + +"We shall see," he answered. "You have been very frank with me. I gather +that you don't deny your authorship of that infamous letter." + +Her face, and indeed her whole manner, had by now become almost +indifferent. "I am not called upon to deny anything that cannot be +proved," she said. "You have heard this afternoon that the experts have +entirely failed to identify the writing. How did you manage to deceive +them, Colling? Still, I suppose it is not very difficult to trick a +handwriting expert." + +"Don't be too disrespectful to experts yet, my lady. I have a notion +that a report I have just received from an American expert may give you +food for thought. After all, if you hadn't been afraid of these experts +you wouldn't have written that second letter three days ago." + +She glared at him. "Well, what does your Yankee say?" she asked. + +"He has proved conclusively that I could not have written the letter." + +At that she jumped up from her seat, still keeping herself between the +writing-table and him. "What do you mean?" she said. + +Collingwood dealt his trump card. "I mean," he said, "that since you +have finished writing your own letters, you will have no objection to my +writing there for a moment." + +His voice was so pregnant with meaning, so fraught with decision, that +Alice Attwill slunk away from the table, trembling, as Collingwood +seated himself in the writing-chair. + +"Writing what?" she asked almost in a whisper. + +"A confession----" he said. + +"A confession?" + +"--Which you will sign. I intend before I leave this room to have from +you a signed confession that you wrote that letter." + +"You are proposing to make a long stay," she said, slowly and +venomously. + +Collingwood did not answer her at all. He took a sheet of paper and +wrote a few sentences upon it in a firm, bold handwriting. + +When he had finished he held it up to her. "Will you read it through?" +he said. + +With the utmost carelessness she bent forward over the writing-table. +Her manner was that of one who was reading some casual note. + +"I have done so," she said at length. + +Collingwood fell into her mood. "Now," he said, "if I had your signature +to that, _par exemple_, there would be an end of Admaston _versus_ +Admaston and Collingwood, wouldn't there?" + +Alice Attwill smiled. "That is obvious enough," she said. + +Collingwood took the paper and opened the blotting-book, while Lady +Attwill walked towards the fireplace. + +She walked away with the same assumed air of indifference, but, when she +heard the heavy leather-and-silver cover fall upon the table, she looked +round and watched the man intently. + +She saw him blot the confession upon a blank sheet at the beginning of +the book, and then with the utmost care and deliberation turn over each +separate leaf, scrutinising it like a man who looks at something through +a microscope. + +Suddenly one page seemed to strike his attention. He smoothed it out, +pulled the blotter closer towards him, and took from his pocket +photographs of the famous letters in the case. + +He put one of the photographs upon a leaf of the blotter and compared +them carefully. Then he took a small glass from his pocket and examined +the photograph and the page of the blotter with that. + +When he had, apparently, satisfied himself, he looked round with a +white, stern face to where the defiant but trembling woman was standing +by the fireplace. + +There was a silence for a moment. It was broken by Lady Attwill saying, +"Can I do anything for you?" + +"Yes," Collingwood replied; "you can bring me that looking-glass from +that small table there." + +She looked at him without saying a word. + +"You don't seem very eager," he said. "But there is an excellent mirror +over the fireplace." + +At that, as if hypnotised, she went up to the little table by the piano +and took up a small Italian mirror framed in ivory and silver. + +She gave it to him. "Well," she asked, "have you solved the mystery?" + +"Wait!" he replied. He took the mirror in one hand, propping up the +blotter with its back towards him, and looking intently into the glass. + +After a moment or two he looked up. "You should be more careful where +you blot your letters," he said simply. "You will notice that the +impression upon the blotting-paper is not complete--though they +obviously tally." + +Speechless with terror, she made a sudden snatch at the sheet in the +blotter which she had already begun to tear out when his entrance +disturbed her. + +He caught her by the wrist. "No," he said, very quietly and sternly. "I +thought you would do that. I saw you trying to do it when I came in just +now. Now, look here--look at the photograph and at the representation +of your writing in the mirror. Have you any doubt that the impression +upon the blotting-paper is the impression made by the blotting of that +letter?" + +"And if it is," she said, in one last faint effort, "what does that +prove? Why should not you have written it and blotted it?" + +"Because, my dear Alice," he replied, "I have not been in this house +until this afternoon for six months. Listen! To-day the judge dropped a +remark about the importance of finding the paper on which this letter +was blotted. You alone knew where it was. Very well, in the sequence of +events, Pauline found you here--the first moment the room was +empty--with a cock-and-bull story about your bag. A few minutes later I, +having heard this from Pauline, find you in the act of destroying this +damning evidence--see, it's half torn out already. Come, the game's up." + +Aristocrat as she was, something low, vulgar, and malignantly mocking +came out upon Lady Attwill's face as Collingwood said this. + +"Is it?" she said. "Do you think I am afraid of you and your game of +bluff? You have forgotten the important link in your chain. How do you +explain the discrepancy in the writing? That writing is not mine." + +"Isn't it?" he asked quietly. + +"No!" she almost shouted. "A pretty conspiracy!--to damn me and save +Peggy Admaston. Why shouldn't Pauline have written it?" + +Up to this he had listened to her with some patience. Now his face +blazed at her for a moment. He sat down in the writing-chair, pulling it +up to the table as he did so. "I'll show you," he said. "Sit down +there." + +She looked at him defiantly. + +"Sit down there," he said again, and she did so. "Now take the pen and +write what I dictate," he went on. + +He began to dictate, "'Please destroy the other letter....'" + +He leant over the table, tapping gently upon it with his knuckles. + +"No! the other hand, please," he said. + +The woman almost fell over the table. + +"With my left hand?" she gasped. "What on earth do you mean? I can't +write with my left hand." + +"My expert thinks you can," he said sternly. "Come--write; or would you +prefer to write to-morrow in court?" + +She jumped up, and hysteria mastered her. + +"I won't write!" she cried, in a voice which was hardly human. "Neither +here nor in court! You can't make me ... the judge can't make me!" + +Collingwood punctuated her shrill remarks with gentle taps of his firm +hand upon the table. "You shall write to-morrow with all London looking +on; they'll know I could not have done it--this book shows that. They'll +hear how you tried to tear out the page." + +"They won't believe you!" she gasped. + +"They'll believe the evidence of Pauline," he went on calmly. "They'll +hear from Peggy how you broke your arm and learnt to use your left hand. +Every newspaper in England will be full of it. _This_ is not the first +time you've written with your left hand; there'll be other specimens +somewhere--some other witness will be forthcoming. You have been very +clever, but the cleverest of people like you bungle in the end. You've +got to do it, Alice!" + +Once more she sank down in the chair. + +Her face was ghastly. "No!" was all that she could say. + +"Believe me," he went on more calmly and more kindly--"believe me, you +had better write now! Society may never know--Admaston may be generous. +Come! Write! And do it quickly." + +Absolutely broken and submissive, Lady Attwill took up the pen in her +left hand and began to write to Collingwood's dictation. + +"'Please destroy the other letter....'" he began. + +She wrote the first word, and then looked up at him with a face which +was a white wedge of hate. + +"Quickly, please," he said, tapping his foot upon the carpet. "Now, or +to-morrow with all London." + +The wretched woman bent down once more to her shameful task. + +"'... and this,'" he went on, "'and save an old servant who honours the +family....'" + +Again she looked up at him. + +"Quickly!" he said imperatively, rapping his knuckles upon the table. +"Quickly!--or----" + +Cowed and subdued, she wrote again. "'... from the anger of Mrs. +Admaston,'" came the cool, dictating voice. + +She finished, and as she did so her head fell upon her arms and she +burst into a fit of hysterical sobs--shaking, convulsed, in a terrible +downfall of remorse and shame. + +Suddenly--as Collingwood held the precious paper in his hand and looked +with a certain compassion at his old friend and companion of so many +years, whom he had tortured so dreadfully--a high, joyous voice burst +into the room. + +It was Peggy calling. + +The curtains which led to the terrace were pulled aside and she ran into +the drawing-room. + +Her face was radiant. + +"Colling! Colling!" she cried. "George is here!" She hurried up to +Collingwood, looking for a moment rather strangely at Alice Attwill. + +George Admaston, big, burly, and with all the weariness of the past +weeks sponged and smoothed from his face, followed her into the +drawing-room. + +"Hullo, Colling," he said rather shyly, but with real geniality in his +voice. + +Collingwood ignored the outstretched hand. "Wait first, please," he +said. "Lady Attwill has written you another copy of the letter she wrote +three days ago." He handed the confession to Admaston. + +There was a dead silence in the room as Admaston scrutinised the +confession. + +Then he went up to Lady Attwill, crouching over the table as she was, +and put his hand not unkindly on her shoulder. "Good God!" he said. +"Alice--why did you?" + +A lovely tear-stained face looked up into the room. + +A broken and unhappy voice sobbed out into the silence, "Let me go; let +me go, I say!" + +Admaston gently removed his hand. There was a swish of skirts, one deep +sob, and then the door closed behind Alice Attwill. + +Peggy went up to her husband and clung lovingly to his arm. + +She looked at Collingwood. "Colling," she said, "how on earth did you +find out?" + +Collingwood pointed to the blotter. "Look there," he said. + +Peggy and Admaston, still clinging together, went up to the +writing-table and stared as if fascinated at the fatal and decisive +page. + +"Poor Alice!" Collingwood said. "I suppose it is because I have been a +bit of a blackguard myself that I can't help feeling sorry for her. +Perhaps, Admaston, you will find it in your heart, when the great case +is withdrawn to-morrow, to let her down as lightly as possible." + +He hesitated for a moment, and then he said in a quiet voice, "I think +in her heart she really loved you, don't you know." + +Admaston nodded. + +"Yes, yes; I see," he said. "I will do what I can." + +Collingwood, realising that he had been emotional, pulled himself +together with immense aplomb. "It must be a comforting and flattering +reflection that, but for the fit of nerves which caused Alice to write +that second letter three days ago, there is probably not a judge nor +jury in the world which would have refused to make you miserable for +life, Admaston." + +"You are right, Colling," he said; "but at the moment when no judge nor +jury would have doubted her guilt--then, for the first time, I knew in +my heart she was innocent." + +Collingwood had listened to this, but had also been moving slowly +towards the door of the drawing-room. + +"But you, Colling----" Peggy said. + +Collingwood's hand was upon the door. "Never mind about me," he said. +"Peggy, I did a rotten thing because I cared for you, but I've tried to +play the game since for the same reason; and if George can really +forgive me for just the same reason----" + +He stopped, looking with a wan, pathetic, but very tender face at the +two who stood there clinging to each other. + +Peggy looked up into her husband's face. "George!" she said quietly. + +"--I think I'll go on playing it," Collingwood ended. + +Admaston did not look at Collingwood, but he looked down at his wife. +Then he lifted his head and smiled with a sort of grave kindness at the +man by the door. + +"I think I can forgive you anything to-day, Colling," he said. + +Collingwood half turned the handle. "Good-bye, then, little Butterfly," +he said, and there was a dreadful pain in his voice. + +Peggy looked up into her husband's face. + +What she saw there satisfied her. + +She left him and walked shyly towards Collingwood and held out her hand. + + +He took it, bowed over it as if to kiss it, refrained, and then opened +the door. + +"Your wings are not really broken--not really," he said in a voice which +was absolutely broken. + +There was a sound of the soft closing of a door--a little click as it +fell into place. + +Peggy ran back to her husband and put her hands upon his shoulders. + +"My husband!" she said. + +He caught her in his arms--in his strong arms. + +[Illustration: "He caught her in his arms--in his strong arms."] + +"Little Peggy!" he answered. + +"George!" she said. "I have wanted you so!" + + * * * * * + +But both Mr. Roderick Collingwood and Lady Alice Attwill dined alone +with their thoughts that night. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Butterfly on the Wheel, by +Cyril Arthur Edward Ranger Gull + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BUTTERFLY ON THE WHEEL *** + +***** This file should be named 36467-8.txt or 36467-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/4/6/36467/ + +Produced by Mark C. Orton, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive) + + +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. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +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 + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/36467-8.zip b/36467-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c66034c --- /dev/null +++ b/36467-8.zip diff --git a/36467-h.zip b/36467-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7bc0518 --- /dev/null +++ b/36467-h.zip diff --git a/36467-h/36467-h.htm b/36467-h/36467-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..51f5423 --- /dev/null +++ b/36467-h/36467-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,7745 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ --> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Butterfly On The Wheel, by C. RANGER GULL. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; +} /* page numbers */ + +.linenum { + position: absolute; + top: auto; + left: 4%; +} /* poetry number */ + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.sidenote { + width: 20%; + padding-bottom: .5em; + padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; + padding-right: .5em; + margin-left: 1em; + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; + color: black; + background: #eeeeee; + border: dashed 1px; +} + +.bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + +.bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + +.bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + +.br {border-right: solid 2px;} + +.bbox {border: solid 2px;} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.u {text-decoration: underline;} + +.caption {font-weight: bold;} + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + +.figleft { + float: left; + clear: left; + margin-left: 0; + margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 1em; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +.figright { + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-left: 1em; + margin-bottom: + 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 0; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +/* Footnotes */ +.footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: + none; +} + +/* Poetry */ +.poem { + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + text-align: left; +} + +.poem br {display: none;} + +.poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + +.poem span.i0 { + display: block; + margin-left: 0em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i2 { + display: block; + margin-left: 2em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i4 { + display: block; + margin-left: 4em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Butterfly on the Wheel, by +Cyril Arthur Edward Ranger Gull + +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: A Butterfly on the Wheel + +Author: Cyril Arthur Edward Ranger Gull + +Release Date: June 19, 2011 [EBook #36467] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BUTTERFLY ON THE WHEEL *** + + + + +Produced by Mark C. Orton, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<h1>A BUTTERFLY ON THE WHEEL</h1> + +<h3><i>A Novel</i></h3> + +<h2><span class="smcap">By</span> C. RANGER GULL</h2> + +<h3><i>Author of "A Woman in the Case," etc.</i></h3> + +<h3>Founded on the successful play by E. G. Hemmerde, K. C.,<br /> +M. P., and Francis Neilson, M. P.</h3> + +<h3><i>WITH PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE PLAY</i></h3> + +<h3>NEW YORK</h3> + +<h3>WILLIAM RICKEY & COMPANY</h3> + +<h3>1912</h3> + +<h3>Copyrighted 1912, by<br /> +WILLIAM RICKEY & COMPANY</h3> + +<h3>PRESS OF WILLIAM G. HEWITT, 61-67 NAVY ST., BROOKLYN, N. Y.</h3> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus1" id="illus1"></a> +<img src="images/illus1.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>"Forgive me, George," she sobbed, "forgive me."</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<h3>ORIGINAL PROGRAM OF A BUTTERFLY ON THE WHEEL</h3> + +<h4>Produced at the 39th Street Theatre, beginning Tuesday Evening, January +9th, 1912</h4> + + +<h3>MR. LEWIS WALLER<br /> +Has the Honor to Submit<br /> +A Butterfly on the Wheel<br /> +By Edward G. Hemmerde, K. C., and Francis Neilson, M. P.<br /> +Produced under the personal supervision of Lewis Waller</h3> + +<table width="75%"> +<tr><td>The Rt. Hon. George Admaston, M. P. </td><td align="right">Eille Norwood</td></tr> +<tr><td>Roderick Collingwood </td><td align="right">Charles Quartermaine</td></tr> +<tr><td>Lord Ellerdine </td><td align="right">Evelyn Beerbohm</td></tr> +<tr><td>Sir John Burroughes, President of the Divorce Court, </td><td align="right">Herbert Budd</td></tr> +<tr><td>Sir Robert Fyffe, K. C., M. P., Admaston's leading counsel, </td><td align="right">Sidney Valentine</td></tr> +<tr><td>Gervaise McArthur, K. C., Collingwood's leading counsel, </td><td align="right">Lewis Broughton</td></tr> +<tr><td>Stuart Menzies, K. C., Collingwood's leading counsel, </td><td align="right">Denis Cleugh</td></tr> +<tr><td>Jacques, waiter at the Hôtel des Tuileries </td><td align="right">Walter Cluxton</td></tr> +<tr><td>Jean DuBois, detective </td><td align="right">John Wilmer</td></tr> +<tr><td>Foreman of the jury </td><td align="right">James Stuart</td></tr> +<tr><td>Footman </td><td align="right">Frank Dossert</td></tr> +<tr><td>Lady Attwill </td><td align="right">Olive Temple</td></tr> +<tr><td>Pauline, Miss Admaston's maid </td><td align="right">Loretta Wells</td></tr> +<tr><td>Peggy, George Admaston's wife </td><td align="right">Madge Titheradge</td></tr> +</table> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<table width="75%"> +<tr><td>General Manager </td><td align="right">Victor Lewis</td></tr> +<tr><td>Business Manager </td><td align="right">John Wilmer</td></tr> +<tr><td>Stage Manager </td><td align="right">Lewis Broughton</td></tr> +</table> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> +<p> +<a href="#PREFACE">PREFACE</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII</a><br /> +<a href="#THE_LAST_CHAPTER">THE LAST CHAPTER</a><br /> +</p> +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> + + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> + + +<p><a href="#illus1">"Forgive me, George," she sobbed, "forgive me"</a></p> + +<p><a href="#illus2">"We all got on the wrong train and we all stayed the night at this +hotel"</a></p> + +<p><a href="#illus3">"Don't you see, man, if you call in the court to break her wings, you'll +only drive her to me!"</a></p> + +<p><a href="#illus4">"He caught her in his arms—in his strong arms"</a></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE</h2> + + +<p>Of all the English plays that have come to this country none has created +more of a sensation than "<span class="smcap">A Butterfly on the Wheel</span>," and without +question will be received the same by the public over the entire country +as it has been received in New York. The play opened at the Thirty-ninth +Street Theatre on Tuesday evening, January 9th, and has played to +"standing room only" at every performance since.</p> + +<p>The story in book form has been done by C. Ranger Gull (pen name), a +writer who has already gained a big reputation as an author both in +America and England, and the success of "<span class="smcap">A Butterfly on the Wheel</span>" goes +without saying.</p> + +<p>THE PUBLISHER.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>A BUTTERFLY ON THE WHEEL</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + + +<p>It was shortly after midnight in the great Hôtel des Tuileries at Paris.</p> + +<p>Beyond the façade of the hotel the gardens of the Tuileries were +sleeping in the warm night. To the left the Louvre etched itself in +solid black against the sky, and all up and down the Rue de Rivoli +carriages and automobiles were still moving.</p> + +<p>But in the great thoroughfare the tide of vehicles and foot passengers +was perceptibly thinning. Paris is a midnight city, it is true, and at +this hour the heights of Montmartre were thronged with pleasure-seekers, +dancing and supping till the pale dawn should come with its message of +purity and reproach.</p> + +<p>But down in the Rue de Rivoli even the great hotels were beginning to +prepare for sleep.</p> + +<p>One enters the Hôtel des Tuileries, as every one knows, through the +revolving doors, passes into the entresol, and then into the huge +glass-domed lounge with its comfortable fauteuils, its big settee, its +little tables covered with beaten copper, and its great palms, which +seem as if they had been cunningly enamelled jade-green by some +jeweller.</p> + +<p>The lounge was now almost empty of people, though the shaded electric +light threw a topaz-coloured radiance over everything.</p> + +<p>In one corner—just where the big marble stair-case springs upwards to +the gilded gallery—two men in evening dress were sitting together.</p> + +<p>They were obviously English, tall, thin, bronzed men, as obviously in +the service. As a matter of fact, one was Colonel Adams, attached to the +Viceroy's staff in India, the other a civilian's secretary—Henry +Passhe.</p> + +<p>They were both smoking briar pipes—delighted that the lateness of the +hour allowed them to do so in the lounge; and before each man was a long +glass full of crushed ice and some effervescing water innocent of +whisky.</p> + +<p>A man in black clothes, obviously a valet, came up to Colonel Adams.</p> + +<p>"I've put everything ready in your room, sir," he said. "Is there +anything else?"</p> + +<p>"No, there is nothing else, Snell," the soldier answered. "You can go to +bed now."</p> + +<p>The man was moving away when Adams called him back.</p> + +<p>"Oh, by the way, Snell, did you find out what I asked you? It is Mrs. +Admaston who is staying here, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir, she is here with her maid, and——"</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>The man seemed to hesitate slightly, but at length he spoke: "Mr. +Roderick Collingwood is here too, sir."</p> + +<p>"Is he, by Jove!" Adams said, more to his friend than to his servant. +"Very well, Snell. Good night."</p> + +<p>The valet withdrew, and Colonel Adams puffed vigorously at his pipe for +a minute or two.</p> + +<p>"<i>The</i>—the Mrs. Admaston?" the civilian asked.</p> + +<p>Colonel Adams nodded. "The great, little Peggy herself," he said; "none +other. Surely you've met her, Passhe?"</p> + +<p>"I was introduced to her some months ago at a Foreign Office reception," +the younger man answered; "but I really can't say that I know her. I've +never been to any of the Admastons' parties. In fact, my dear Adams, I +am a little bit out of things in town now. Ask me anything about any of +the Indian set and I can tell you, but as far as society goes in London +I am a back number. I won't say, though, that I haven't heard this and +that about the Admastons. One can't go anywhere without hearing their +names. However, I know nothing of the rights or wrongs of the story—if +story there is at all. But certainly every one has heard this man +Collingwood's name mentioned in connection with that of Mrs. Admaston. +Who was she, any way? You know everything about everybody. Tell me all +about them."</p> + +<p>Colonel Adams sipped his Perrier quietly, and his brown, lean face +became unusually meditative.</p> + +<p>"Aren't you sleepy?" he said.</p> + +<p>"Can't sleep, confound it!" Passhe replied. "Liver. Have lunch, take an +afternoon nap, and then can't get to sleep at night for the Lord knows +how long."</p> + +<p>"I know," Adams said sympathetically. "Liver is the very devil. That's +the worst of India. Now, there is nothing, my dear chap, that I should +enjoy more at this moment than a two-finger peg of whisky. Can I take +it? Damn it, no! I should have heartburn for hours—that's India! But +since you are not sleepy, and I am sure I'm not, I will tell you about +the Admastons."</p> + +<p>The colonel's pipe had gone out. He relit it, pressed down the ashes +with the head of a little silver pencil-case which he took from his +waistcoat pocket, sent out a cloud of fragrant blue-grey smoke, leant +back in his arm-chair, and began.</p> + +<p>"Admaston," Colonel Adams began, "is one of the most hard-working +Johnnies of the day. He's as rich as what-d'you-call-him, of course, but +he hasn't used his wealth to make his position in Parliament or to get +him his place in the Cabinet. He's done it by sheer ability, by Jove! +He's of an old family, but there haven't been any members of it in big +political positions to help him over the heads of those who have to +shift for themselves.</p> + +<p>"He was at Harrow with me, though considerably my junior, and I remember +he played cricket with an energy that deserved a much higher batting +average than he got. He wasn't a studious youth by any means, though he +learnt enough to know his way about. He was still at school and I had +just passed into Sandhurst when his father died and left him a huge +fortune. Then he went to Oxford—New College it may have been, or +possibly the House. I don't think he did anything much at Oxford. I'm +told by men who were up with him that the sense of the enormous +responsibility which fell on him after his father's death, and the +anxieties of having to manage a great estate and a huge business, spoilt +him for the schools and rather put him off cricket. He might have got +into the Eleven, but he didn't care enough about it to try hard."</p> + +<p>"A bit phlegmatic in temperament?" Passhe asked.</p> + +<p>"That's it," replied Colonel Adams. "Nothing seemed to move him much. If +ever a man was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, George Admaston +was the chap. But I don't believe he cared particularly whether his +spoon was silver or pewter, by Jove! Just a plain fellow of frugal +habits. I am told that when he met the deputation from the Northern +Division of Lancashire, which went up to town to ask him to contest that +constituency, after the interview one of the local Johnnies said, 'Mr. +Admaston was so nice that he might be nobody.' At anyrate, George has +found his <i>métier</i> in politics. Three years in opposition gave him a +great reputation as a quick and ready debater. He is a great asset to +his party now, and at by-elections he's the night-before-the-poll man."</p> + +<p>"But what about his wife?" said the civilian.</p> + +<p>"I'm coming to that, Henry," Adams answered. "And if I am a bit +long-winded you've jolly well brought it on yourself. It's like this. +George's father was the head of Admaston, Grainger & Co., the big City +financiers. Old Grainger had a daughter, much younger than George +Admaston. Peggy Grainger was only a tiny little girl when Admaston's +father died. I'm told that the old men when they were together would +chaff each other about their children. Old Grainger used to say that +they must certainly marry—keep the firm together, and so on, don't you +know. In fact, the last letter that George ever got from his father +referred to old Grainger's notion that George should marry Peggy. Now, +Peggy's mother was a Frenchwoman, a Mlle. Guillou, and the girl was +educated in France. George hadn't been long in the Cabinet when old +Grainger brought Peggy to London. She was about nineteen then, and the +prettiest, most flirtatious, whimsical little butterfly of a thing that +you could possibly imagine. Well, her father established Peggy in a big +house in St. James's—huge retinue of servants and so forth. All London +began to talk about the rich Miss Grainger. The girl spent just what she +liked—her father encouraged her to do it; there was really nothing else +to be done with the money. But whenever George came to the house—and he +saw a lot of the Graingers the first year when Peggy came to London—the +old boy was always hinting to him that he ought to marry Peggy.</p> + +<p>"One evening Admaston was called off the Treasury Bench in the House to +speak at the telephone. He thought it was Peggy, but it wasn't. It was +her old maid, Pauline, who is here with her in this hotel to-night, and +who has looked after her all her life nearly. Pauline said that old +Grainger had just passed in his cheques, by Jove! He was a big fleshy +fellow—always did himself top hole. He'd made a big dinner, laughed at +a joke like anything with his daughter, had a stroke, and was cooling +by ten o'clock."</p> + +<p>"And then?" Henry Passhe asked.</p> + +<p>"Well, of course, Peggy was left quite alone. There were no relatives. +In fact, there was nobody except this old nurse, Pauline, a woman of +about forty. Mrs. Grainger had been a chronic invalid, and she had left +the girl in charge of the 'bonne.' Old Grainger often used to say that +Pauline was more of a mother to Peggy than even his wife had been, and +after his death Peggy relied upon the woman for almost everything. She's +been with her ever since, and is more like a mother to her still than a +servant. Pauline, in fact, took charge of the household, looked after +the servants in every way, and controlled everything. It was a curious +<i>ménage</i>.</p> + +<p>"One day Peggy and Admaston met at a country house for a week-end party. +Nobody knows exactly how it happened, but at anyrate George proposed and +Peggy accepted him. I remember the fuss they made about it in the +society papers—fulsome, sickenin' sort of hog-wash they wrote. 'Love at +first sight,' and all that sort of thing. 'Little Peggy was to be the +wife of a Prime Minister'—'they adored each other,' etc. But I'll eat +my hand if they did anything of the kind. They simply remembered the +wishes of their fathers and saw it was best to consolidate their huge +commercial interests. I daresay Peggy felt very lonely and George felt +very sorry for her. At anyrate, the engagement was announced.</p> + +<p>"George had an aunt—has her still, I suppose—the rich Miss Admaston, a +damned old cat who gives thousands to foreign missions. I've met some of +the missionaries of her particular gospel-shop in India, and a nice lot +of touts they are too. Well, the old cat was fearfully cut up by the +news of the engagement. She thought Peggy was far too French and +frivolous for George, and, of course, Peggy has always been rather +go-ahead. For my part, I don't care what they are saying now, I don't +think there is an ounce of vice in the girl.</p> + +<p>"It's gettin' rather late, Henry, and I'm afraid I'm boring you?"</p> + +<p>"Not a bit; go on, do," the secretary answered.</p> + +<p>"Very well. George's engagement to Peggy seriously affected the lives of +two people who are deucedly well known in society. One of them was Lady +Attwill, widow of 'Clipper' Attwill, who scuppered his yacht and himself +too somewhere in the Mediterranean—a thorough bad hat, Clipper was. +Lady Attwill had been setting her cap at George for a long time. Every +one knew it but George. It was a regular joke of one season. She +couldn't get hold of him, though, despite everything she could do. +George hadn't an idea of what the woman wanted. He was really fond of +her. He looked on her as a very dear friend, and he took all her +kindnesses and so forth just in that light, with a calm complacency that +must have sent her raving at times. Of course, all Lady Attwill's +friends did their very best to bring the two together upon every +possible occasion; and when George steered clear and proposed to Peggy, +every one said the poor, dear chap was one of the craftiest politicians +on the Front Bench. And all the time, Henry, I'll lay you what you like +that Admaston was as innocent as a canary.</p> + +<p>"There were two people, I said, who were seriously affected by George's +engagement. Well, the other was Roderick Collingwood, who's staying in +the hotel now, as Snell has just told us.</p> + +<p>"Colling—everybody calls him Colling—knew Peggy's governor. He's a +bally millionaire also, and he used to have a good many dealings with +the firm. Collingwood travels about a great deal—always has done,—and +he first met Peggy when she was a flapper of fifteen at old Grainger's +place near Chantilly—old Grainger used to run horses a lot in France.</p> + +<p>"Collingwood has always been an extraordinary sort of chap; he was then, +it appears. Like any other young man of great wealth, he found +everything done for him, anything he liked ready to his hand, and +simply let himself go. When Peggy's father died, Colling was going it +hell-for-leather—just about as fast as they're made. Of course, Peggy +knew nothing of the real facts. But she heard gossip and hints, and one +night she taxed him with the way he was living, referring specially to +one or two of his more recent escapades. He admitted there was some +truth in what she said, and, if what they say is true, made her some +sort of a promise of reformation. At anyrate, he pulled up; there's no +doubt of that.</p> + +<p>"Afterwards the two met fairly regularly, and I was staying at Lord +Ellerdine's place in Yorkshire when I believe Collingwood told Peggy of +the good influence she had been, and showed himself as a reformed rake, +by Jove! I think there's no doubt at all that he would have proposed to +the girl if George Admaston had not forestalled him. They say +Collingwood was frightfully cut up. At anyrate, he wasn't in England +when the marriage took place.</p> + +<p>"It was a great wedding. Everybody who was anybody was there, only +excepting Collingwood and Lady Attwill. In their case, I remember that +people said they were falling back on their own reserves; but that was +pure scandal, of course. When Collingwood was in Spain, Lady Attwill +was in Switzerland. As a matter of fact, they were both great friends; +and no doubt when Clipper went down in his yacht and left Lady Attwill +very badly off, Collingwood was quite generous to her.</p> + +<p>"Well, to cut a long story short—I see it's nearly one +o'clock,—Admaston and his wife spent their honeymoon in Italy—Rome, I +think it was, or Florence. Shortly after their return George introduced +his long and complicated bill on National Roads. It had over a hundred +clauses. Ill-natured people said that he married in order to have an +excuse to get a holiday in which to draft his measure. At anyrate, after +the introduction of the bill George became the absolute centre of the +political strife of the day. He worked harder than ever. His party had +been in office for three years, and their declining favour urged him on +to rouse his followers in the House and in the country to tackle some +necessary reforms before the ensuing General Election. In fact, for +months after his marriage Admaston seemed to live for his Department and +the Front Bench. He was hardly ever seen with Peggy.</p> + +<p>"On her part, Peggy went everywhere, and soon the gossips had it that +Admaston was disappointed, while his wife lived a really butterfly life.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Admaston's conduct certainly puzzled the gossips. No one could say +with any sort of certainty that she did anything wrong. Even her best +friends—generally the first persons to give one away—only laughed when +they were questioned, and said, 'It's only Peggy.' She and Roderick +Collingwood met again and again, renewing their old friendship. After +the marriage it was said that Collingwood had a very bad time. There was +a broad wicked streak in him, and everybody assumed that he had gone +back to his old fast living. Well, at anyrate, Peggy took him up again. +She was the kind that either had to be mothered or have someone she +could mother herself. George, apparently, wasn't very much about, and so +she started once more in the effort to exert a benign influence over an +erratic chap like Collingwood. Of course, people said on all sides that +it was a very dangerous game to play.</p> + +<p>"Old-fashioned people shook their heads and fore-told all sorts of +trouble for the little butterfly that fluttered so near to the flame +which every one supposed was burning perpetually in Collingwood's heart.</p> + +<p>"About this time Lady Attwill returned to England and sought out George +Admaston. What she did quite upset the calculations of the people who +talk. She became very attentive to George, and yet, at the same time, +managed to get about a good bit with Peggy. In fact, she seemed in a +sort of way to console Admaston and to be encouraging his wife. Society +has been perplexed by the whole business for a considerable time. No one +knows what to make of the position. They all met, for instance, at +Ellerdine's for the shooting. Admaston ran down for a week-end only. +Then during the late winter, after a long autumn session, rumours flew +thick and fast, and everybody seemed to be waiting for the storm to +break. Why there should be a storm nobody really seemed to know. +Collingwood and Peggy have been talked about to the exclusion of almost +every other subject. They're talked about now. London and the Faubourg +Saint Honoré is buzzing with them. And here, my dear Passhe, you and I +away up at the Tuileries for a merry week of theatres in Paris, and we +find Peggy staying here and Collingwood, too, by Jove!—what! what! Damn +it, Passhe, you're asleep!"</p> + +<p>A long-drawn and not entirely unmelodious snore proclaimed that Colonel +Adams's long recital had somewhat wearied the civilian, who was not "in +society."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + + +<p>Mrs. Admaston's sitting-room at the Hôtel des Tuileries was a large and +beautiful apartment, one of the best in the hotel. Save for the long +French windows, which were now, at midnight, covered with curtains of +green tussore silk, there was nothing distinctively foreign about the +room. The best French hotels nowadays have all adopted English and +American standards of comfort. The stove, the uncarpeted and slippery +parquet floor, the impossible chairs, and a ceiling painted to resemble +a nightmare of a fruiterer's shop, are all things of the past.</p> + +<p>Electric lights in softly shaded globes threw a pleasant yellow radiance +over everything. A fire of cedarwood logs glowed on the tiled hearth, +and a great bunch of lilac stood in a copper bowl upon a small mahogany +table which was placed between two doors which faced the one leading to +Mrs. Admaston's bedroom.</p> + +<p>Some tall silver candlesticks stood upon the Broadwood piano; and there +were others, in which the candles were not lit, upon brackets on either +side of the telephone.</p> + +<p>It was just upon midnight when the door of Mrs. Admaston's bedroom +opened and her confidential maid and companion came into the room. +Pauline Toché was a woman of some forty years of age. Her black hair +streaked with grey was drawn tightly back from her forehead. The face, a +little hard and watchful perhaps, nevertheless showed signs of marked +intelligence. The eyes had something of the ferocity but also the +fidelity of a well-trained watch-dog. She was dressed unassumingly +enough in black, and she wore an apron also of some black material.</p> + +<p>Such a face and figure may be seen a dozen times in any Breton village, +and more than once her friends had said to Mrs. Admaston that Pauline +seemed to require the coif of her country—the snowy white and goffered +<i>col</i> which is worn over the shoulders; a pair of sabots even!</p> + +<p>The maid was a Breton woman, a daughter of one of the millers of +Pont-Aven, and preserved still all the characteristics of that hardy +Celtic race.</p> + +<p>As the maid entered the sitting-room there was a knock at the door, and +in response to her "Entrez" a waiter came into the room. He was an +odd-looking person with brilliant red hair—rather a rare thing in +France, but cropped close to his head in the French manner, so that it +seemed to be almost squirting out of his scalp. The man, with his +napkin over his arm, his short Eton jacket, and boots soled with list, +was dressed just like any other waiter in the hotel, but somehow or +other there was something unusual in his aspect.</p> + +<p>He carried a tray, and went up to a small round table, gleaming with +cut-glass and silver, on which supper had been laid.</p> + +<p>"Are you quite sure there is no train from Chalons before morning?" +Pauline asked the man in French.</p> + +<p>"No train before five o'clock, mademoiselle," the man replied. "The last +fast train reaches Paris at eight-forty."</p> + +<p>The Breton woman nodded.</p> + +<p>"Thank you," she said, gazing at him rather keenly; and then +suddenly—"You're not French, are you?"</p> + +<p>With great precision, almost as if he was practising something learnt by +rote and not entirely natural to him, the waiter clicked his heels +together, spread out the palms of his hands, and bowed.</p> + +<p>"Mais oui, mademoiselle," he said.</p> + +<p>Pauline shook her head slightly.</p> + +<p>"You do not deceive me," she said. "There is something about you—you +<i>are</i> a Frenchman?"</p> + +<p>The waiter had been piling plates up on a tray. He put the tray down on +the table, smiled with a total change of manner, and answered her.</p> + +<p>"No," he said with a grin.</p> + +<p>"I knew it," Pauline said. "Is it then that you are Irish, M. Jacques?"</p> + +<p>"Most certainly not," replied the waiter.</p> + +<p>"I figure to myself that you are English?"</p> + +<p>Jacques came up still closer to the maid, his voice dropped, and his +manner became confidential. "Not even quite English, mademoiselle," he +said. "I'm a Scotsman. I was born at Ecclefechan."</p> + +<p>"Mon Dieu!" said Pauline; "Eccle——! What a name of barbarity! I did +not know that there were such names. La! la! But your name, monsieur, +your name—Jacques?"</p> + +<p>"Mademoiselle speaks English?"</p> + +<p>"Quite well," Pauline replied.</p> + +<p>"Well, you see, miss, I've been here a long time, and I am a great +favourite with the English visitors. It would never do to tell them that +I'm a Scotsman, and that my real name is Jock. You see, they like to +practise their French on me. The management always send me to wait upon +English visitors. Of course, I can understand what they mean, and it +flatters them to think that they're really speaking French. I heard an +old lady the other day talking to her daughter. 'My dear,' she said, +'those extra French lessons at the High School have not been wasted. +That nice, attentive French waiter understands you perfectly'; and so I +did of course, miss, though when she wanted the mussels she said, +'Esker voos avvy des moulins?' And when she wanted the pastry she +called it 'tapisserie' instead of 'patisserie.' So you see my French +name is one of my great assets, though you, mademoiselle, saw through me +very easily." Here the waiter once more relapsed into his best French +manner and made a flourishing little bow. "Do you stay long in Paris, +mademoiselle?" he asked, going back to the table and beginning to remove +the dishes.</p> + +<p>"I can't say," Pauline replied. "As a matter of fact, we are here quite +by accident. We are really going to Switzerland."</p> + +<p>"The wrong train?" inquired the waiter.</p> + +<p>"Yes, that was it," Pauline answered. "We took the wrong train, and our +party got divided somewhere."</p> + +<p>"What bad luck!" Jacques answered. Then he gave a rather searching +glance at Pauline. "But surely M. Collingwood knows the Continent?" he +asked.</p> + +<p>The maid gave an almost imperceptible start, and went up to the +fireplace, where she began to pull about the flowers in one of the +vases. "Oh yes, I think so," she answered, in a voice which strove to +appear quite indifferent to the question.</p> + +<p>"Well, I can tell you," the waiter went on—"I can tell you that M. +Collingwood knows the Continent as well as a Cook's agent. He's always +travelling about. You can see his name in the Riviera lists, in the +Paris <i>Daily Mail</i> or the <i>New York Herald</i>. He's at Nice for the races. +He's at Monte Carlo for the pigeon-shooting. He's at Marienbad for a +cure, or climbing mountains in the Bernese Oberland. He is everywhere, +is M. Collingwood. He was staying here last year, for instance."</p> + +<p>The maid turned slowly from the fire and looked towards the +supper-table.</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes?" she said with some eagerness. "He is here often? At this +hotel?"</p> + +<p>"I can remember him being here three times," the man replied. And there +was something rather furtive in his look, something which seemed to +speak of a suppressed curiosity and watchfulness. Many waiters in smart +hotels, both in London and in Paris, have this look—the veritable +expression of Paul Pry. "Have you been long with Mr. and Mrs. Admaston?"</p> + +<p>"I've been many years with madame," Pauline replied. And then, speaking +rather suddenly, "You seem to have a very good memory, Mr. Jock +Jacques."</p> + +<p>"It is necessary," the man answered, with all the dryness of a Scotsman.</p> + +<p>"And yet sometimes," Pauline replied, "it is necessary not to have a +good memory."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," the waiter answered. "Certainly sometimes discretion is the +better part of recollection," giving her a look of great slyness as he +spoke.</p> + +<p>Pauline shrugged her shoulders. There was a note of veiled contempt in +her voice. "To forget easily is sometimes very convenient, n'est-ce +pas?" she said.</p> + +<p>"When it is worth more than a good memory," he answered.</p> + +<p>"Doubtless you are very well off, Mr. Jock," Pauline continued, and this +time the sneer in her voice was hardly veiled.</p> + +<p>At this the waiter began brushing the crumbs from the table very +vigorously. "I'm only a poor waiter," he said.</p> + +<p>"Then surely that must be your own fault? There ought to be many +opportunities in a hotel of this sort of making a good use of a +convenient memory?"</p> + +<p>"Well, yes, you're right there," came from the man, with a rather +ill-favoured leer. "But, you see, I am too sentimental for that."</p> + +<p>Pauline laughed in answer, and not very pleasantly. "Don't tell me," she +said. "I've been in Scotland for the shooting of the grouse. There is no +Scotsman too sentimental to make money. What part of Scotland did you +say you came from? La! la! la! And at your age, too!"</p> + +<p>"On the contrary, the older I grow the more sentimental I become."</p> + +<p>Pauline shook her head. "Mon Dieu!" she said; "every one knows that +sentiment ends at forty."</p> + +<p>The waiter, a quick-witted rogue enough, seemed to be thoroughly +enjoying this midnight conversation. He stood with one arm akimbo, the +other resting on the table, and grinned like a vulgar Mephistopheles. +"If sentiment ends at forty," he said, "you, mademoiselle, will suffer +from it for a long time to come."</p> + +<p>"Ma foi, no! No suffering for me," Pauline replied. "I'm a very +practical person. It would take a great deal to make me sentimental."</p> + +<p>"I wonder how much?" the man answered. "A nice little hotel with a good +trade, say?"</p> + +<p>Pauline shrugged her shoulders. "No, that would mean work. I am used to +seeing a life of sentiment without work."</p> + +<p>The waiter once more began to clear the table. "It is a pity we see so +much of what we cannot have," he answered, rattling the coffee-cups and +silver.</p> + +<p>Pauline made no reply to this, but stood by the fireplace in silence +watching the waiter, and showing plainly by her manner that the +conversation was over and that she was waiting for him to go.</p> + +<p>Suddenly she started violently, as Jacques did also.</p> + +<p>The heavy mahogany door leading to the corridor outside was flung open, +and a short, thick-set, bearded Frenchman came briskly into the room. +There was nothing particularly remarkable about him. He might have been +an ordinary commercial traveller, save for a pair of singularly alert +eyes, which glanced rapidly hither and thither and took in the whole +room in one comprehensive sweep. This was done with lightning-like +rapidity, and then the fellow's face assumed an expression of great +surprise—a little bit overdone and too forced to seem real.</p> + +<p>"A thousand pardons!" he said, with a bow. "The wrong room! My mistake! +I am very sorry. Accept my apologies."</p> + +<p>With that he once more glanced round the room and left it, though with +not quite the alacrity of his entrance, closing the door quietly behind +him.</p> + +<p>But into the quiet room something strangely disturbing had come.</p> + +<p>It was no longer a confidential maid gossiping with the casual waiter of +a smart hotel. The air, which had before been charged with little +suspicions, toy fencings, as it were, between people of no great +importance, was now informed with something more pressing, more +imminent, more real.</p> + +<p>Pauline herself positively staggered back from the fireplace towards the +table, and nearer to the waiter. Her brown face became grey, she seemed +for a moment to lose control of herself, while the ferret eyes of the +waiter watched her with an excited glitter in them.</p> + +<p>"That man!" ... The exclamation came from Pauline almost like a cry. +"That man!"</p> + +<p>Jacques was all bent to attention. He hurried up to the woman. "Yes, +yes?" he said.</p> + +<p>"Do you know who he is?" Pauline asked. "Have you seen him before, M. +Jacques?"</p> + +<p>The man watched her keenly. "I don't know, mademoiselle," he answered in +a guarded voice.</p> + +<p>"That man, I say—have you seen him before?... I remember."</p> + +<p>The waiter hastened to agree, obviously wishing to discover the reason +of Pauline's agitation.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said. "Now you mention it, mademoiselle, I remember too. He +was outside—there—in the corridor—just after I had shown M. +Collingwood and you and madame to your rooms."</p> + +<p>"Was that when we arrived?" Pauline asked. Her brown hands were +trembling, her eyes were informed with anxiety.</p> + +<p>Jacques bent his head forward. The two were <i>vis-à-vis</i>—he watched her +intently.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he answered.</p> + +<p>Then Pauline seemed to lose all her caution. She threw up her hands and +her face became wrinkled with excitement.</p> + +<p>"La! la!" she cried, "but he was looking at madame's boxes at +Boulogne...."</p> + +<p>With quiet but hurried steps she went up to the door leading to the +corridor, turned the handle gently, flung it open and gazed out.</p> + +<p>There was obviously nobody there, for in a moment she returned, closed +the door, and once more confronted the waiter with a grey and troubled +face.</p> + +<p>"Que diable fait-il?" she said in a frightened voice. "But M. Jacques, +what <i>can</i> it mean?"</p> + +<p>Again the ugly leer came over the <i>garçon's</i> face. "Sentiment," he said.</p> + +<p>The middle-aged Breton woman pressed both hands to her heart with one of +those wild and expressive Celtic gestures which seem so exaggerated to +English folk, but which are, nevertheless, so truly expressive of +emotion.</p> + +<p>"Madame!" she cried.</p> + +<p>"I was not thinking of madame," Jacques answered quickly.</p> + +<p>As if clutching at a hope, Pauline made a tremendous effort to get in +key with her tormentor.</p> + +<p>"No, no!" she said with an affectation of brightness. "What? Is it that +you were thinking of me? Merci!—that would be funny!"</p> + +<p>"Sans doute. That's what they say in England when they advertise 'No +followers.'"</p> + +<p>The woman caught the last word. Her face had been strained in anxious +thought.</p> + +<p>"Followers!" she said. "Even the English do not expect followers from +London to Paris."</p> + +<p>By this time Jacques had filled his tray, had folded up the shining +white table-cloth and placed it over his pyramid of plates.</p> + +<p>"Mademoiselle is too modest," he said, moving towards the door, but +still watching Pauline intently.</p> + +<p>The creature's ears seemed literally to twitch with greed of news as he +crossed the great quiet room.</p> + +<p>Pauline was speaking to herself. "It's queer," she said. "I do not like +that. Everything has gone wrong to-day. First we nearly missed the +train. Then on the boat we were all seasick. Then the douanier was a +suspicious fool. Then at Boulogne we got on the wrong train and lost +Lord Ellerdine and Lady Attwill——"</p> + +<p>A little hard chuckle of amusement came from the retiring waiter, and as +Pauline turned to him in indignation a distant voice called her name:</p> + +<p>"Pauline!"</p> + +<p>"Madame!"</p> + +<p>"Good night, mademoiselle," the waiter said, one hand supporting the +heavy tray, the other upon the handle of the door. "Good night, +mademoiselle. Remember that Jock from Ecclefechan has a good memory."</p> + +<p>Pauline was trembling, but she turned to the fellow. "Good night, Jock +from——" She spluttered in her throat, laughed artificially, shut the +door after the man, and then turned eagerly towards the door which led +to Mrs. Admaston's bedroom.</p> + +<p>There was a note of tremendous relief in her voice as she cried out +"Madame!" once more.</p> + +<p>The door from the bedroom opened and Mrs. Admaston entered.</p> + +<p>She was a slim, girlish-looking woman, with a cascade of long dark hair +falling over her shoulders.</p> + +<p>The face was small, the complexion of it rose-brown, the eyes dark wells +of laughing light, the lips twin rosebuds with a sense of humour.</p> + +<p>She was wearing a long wrap, half tea-gown, half dressing-gown, of +topaz-coloured silk, and round her slender waist was a cord of +light-blue and gold threads ending in two large tassels of gold.</p> + +<p>Now there was something half tired, half petulant, and wholly puzzled +about her face as she swept into the room.</p> + +<p>"It's no use," she said in a rippling musical voice; "it isn't a bit of +use, Pauline! I can't go to sleep. In fact, I'm not in the least +sleepy."</p> + +<p>She looked round the room and sighed.</p> + +<p>"What a barn of a place this is!" she said. "I hate those green +curtains. They're so horribly conscious of the colour scheme. And then +the topaz-shaded lights over the lamps—it's all so dreadfully wearing. +And in my room, too, Pauline, it's simply horrid. It reminds me of a +sarcophagus, or a mausoleum, or some appalling place like that. And the +bed is too low! I don't think much of this room, but after all it's +nicer in here."</p> + +<p>She sank down with a sigh into an arm-chair.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said once more, "it really is much nicer in here. Make me +cosy, Pauline, and do my hair."</p> + +<p>She had brought two ivory brushes into the room, and placed them on the +table. Now she pointed to them with a little hand as sweetly, faintly +pink as the inside of a sea-shell. The light caught the broad wedding +ring of dull gold as she did so.</p> + +<p>Pauline took up the brushes and went up to her mistress. "I thought you +wouldn't like the bed," she said, with the brusque familiarity of an old +servant and friend. "In fact, I knew you wouldn't like it directly we +arrived. You always wanted to sleep up in the air."</p> + +<p>"Tiens, Pauline! I don't want to sleep anywhere to-night. Soothe me, +make me comfortable. Be a good Pauline!"</p> + +<p>The elder woman took up the brushes and stroked the shining hair with +tender, loving hand. "It's been an upsetting day," she said.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Admaston gave a sigh of relief as the kind hands busied themselves +about her hair.</p> + +<p>"Upsetting!" she cried; "that's it—just the word. I am upset. +Everything has been upset. Lord Ellerdine will be fearfully upset. Oh, +Pauline, just fancy our getting into the wrong train!"</p> + +<p>The maid did not answer anything, but went on with her work.</p> + +<p>"It was all owing to that fool of a Customs officer," the girl continued +in a less strained voice. "And turning my things upside down! The way he +upset my clothes was perfectly disgraceful. And before Mr. Collingwood, +too! And all for half a dozen boxes of cigarettes! Keeping us there, +paying their beastly tariff, until the last moment!"</p> + +<p>Pauline put the brushes down upon the table and came round to the front +of the chair. She looked critically at her mistress's hair. "Yes," she +said; "but, after all, it was very lucky the porters put the boxes in +the Paris train."</p> + +<p>"Wasn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, madame."</p> + +<p>"What a bit of luck!"</p> + +<p>Pauline left her mistress for a moment and went into the bedroom. She +returned with a bottle of eau-de-cologne and a handkerchief. Sprinkling +some of the spirit upon it, she held it to Mrs. Admaston's forehead.</p> + +<p>"There!" she said. "You seem tired, my dear; that will do you good. It +was very clever of Mr. Collingwood not to have your boxes registered at +Charing Cross."</p> + +<p>For a moment or two Peggy Admaston leant back in the arm-chair with +closed eyes. "Yes, wasn't it?" she said drowsily. There was a pause for +a moment or two, and then suddenly the girl twisted round in her chair, +caught hold of the elder woman's arm and looked at her searchingly.</p> + +<p>"Pauline! what did you mean then?" she said.</p> + +<p>"What did I mean, madame?" Pauline asked.</p> + +<p>Peggy nodded. "Do you think—well, I suppose he forgot?"</p> + +<p>Pauline raised her eyebrows. "Eh, bien," she said, "they do not as a +rule let you forget to register at Charing Cross."</p> + +<p>Peggy rose from the chair and began to walk up and down the +sitting-room. Her little bronze bedroom slippers peeped in and out from +her trailing draperies of topaz-coloured silk. One slender wrist was +clasped by an old Moorish bracelet of dull silver, the intricate +filigree work studded here and there with Balas rubies. With her long +hair coiled loosely in a shining coronet upon her head, her whole +expression—an atmosphere she exhaled—of sprightly innocence, she +seemed indeed a fragile little butterfly. Something of the sort crossed +the mind of the faithful Breton woman. She sighed, and unperceived her +hand went up to her bodice, where she wore a little silver cross.</p> + +<p>Suddenly Peggy stopped and turned towards the maid.</p> + +<p>"Pauline," she said, "you naughty old thing! I do believe you suspect +something."</p> + +<p>"No, madame," Pauline answered quickly, and there was something almost +sulky in her tone.</p> + +<p>Peggy went up to her and put her bare white arm upon her shoulder, +leaning upon her caressingly.</p> + +<p>"You do," she said. "Oh, but I know you do! When you say 'No, madame,' +like that, I always know that there's something wrong."</p> + +<p>"I only think of you, chèrie," Pauline said, holding the little hand, +which was like a thing of carved ivory.</p> + +<p>Peggy gave a half-sigh and once more began to walk up and down the room.</p> + +<p>"You old silly, I know well that you only think of me," she said; "but +tell me, what is it?"</p> + +<p>"What is what?"</p> + +<p>Peggy smiled mischievously. "There again!" she said. "That's just the +way you do when you want me to coax you. Pauline, be nice to me! Now, +what is it? Tell me what you suspect. What about the boxes?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I do not like Lady Attwill," Pauline replied slowly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, but Pauline!" she said.</p> + +<p>"It is no use, madame; I cannot be two-faced with you. I am not able to +conceal anything. I must speak straight out. I never could hide anything +from you, and now it is no use trying. I really can't do it."</p> + +<p>Her voice had risen towards that high and almost whining note of +excitement and protest which is so peculiarly characteristic of the +Bretons.</p> + +<p>"Good gracious! what an outburst for you! What has Lady Attwill done? +What on earth has she to do with the boxes?"</p> + +<p>Pauline made a gesture with her hands. "But what an innocent!" she said, +in half-humorous despair. "You never see things. You are just as +confiding—I mean ignorant of people—as you were when you were twelve +years old. Madame, Lady Attwill is no friend of yours."</p> + +<p>"But that is absurd, Pauline," Peggy answered. "Lady Attwill is devoted +to me. I am certain of it."</p> + +<p>The maid wrinkled up her face, pushed out her lips, and nodded her head +to emphasise her words. "Indeed! indeed, madame! Well, tell me this. +Would she have kept dodging Lord Ellerdine out of the way at Charing +Cross and afterwards at Boulogne if she was your friend?"</p> + +<p>Peggy pouted. "I suppose she wanted to be alone with Lord Ellerdine," +she said.</p> + +<p>"Jamais! she can be alone with him at her flat—she need not wait to be +alone with him at a public railway station."</p> + +<p>Peggy laughed mischievously. "I suppose, Pauline, you think that's one +to you," she said.</p> + +<p>"Tais-toi!" said the old woman, both voice and manner growing more +serious every moment.</p> + +<p>"Well, go on," Peggy replied petulantly.</p> + +<p>Pauline's voice became as impressive as she knew how to make it.</p> + +<p>"I am sure Lady Attwill knew that Mr. Collingwood did not want Lord +Ellerdine in the way. At Boulogne it was just the same. Lady Attwill's +things were examined quickly, and then off she went with Lord Ellerdine +in the Swiss express, and we didn't see them again. She went out of +sight. Now, tell me, was not that strange?"</p> + +<p>"Heavens! how hot it is!" Peggy said. "Shall I have a cigarette? Yes, I +really think I will. Fetch me my cigarette-case, Pauline. It is on the +dressing-table in my bedroom."</p> + +<p>In a moment the Breton woman returned with a dainty little case of gold +with a monogram of sapphires in one corner. Peggy took a cigarette, lit +it, and inhaled a breath of the fragrant smoke with great satisfaction. +Then she began her noiseless walk up and down the room again.</p> + +<p>"Certainly," she said suddenly, "Lady Attwill is not a person to go out +of sight for nothing."</p> + +<p>Pauline sneered. "Oh, miladi is a convenience," she said. "M. +Collingwood has only to raise his little finger and she will do +anything."</p> + +<p>"You mean that she is fond of him?"</p> + +<p>"Of his money, rather."</p> + +<p>"Pauline, that is really perfectly awful of you."</p> + +<p>Again Pauline sneered. "She's a poor widow, madame. Lord Attwill left +her nothing. Oh, I know! I always find out. She has a flat at three +hundred pounds, an electric brougham, a box at the opera, and a little +place at Henley. Lord Ellerdine is not so rich as that. M. Collingwood +is very rich—very—very—very."</p> + +<p>Peggy stopped in her walk now and faced Pauline, who had been sitting +upon the settee. "You mean she gets money from Mr. Collingwood?" she +asked.</p> + +<p>The maid rose and came up to her mistress, touching her arm imploringly. +"Oh, madame," she said with deep feeling, "do be careful. I think only +of you. Don't trust Lady Attwill. She is no friend of yours. She has +never forgiven you for marrying M. Admaston, and she would bring +mischief between you both if she could."</p> + +<p>"Pauline, you mustn't say that," Peggy replied gently.</p> + +<p>"But, madame, it is true. She wanted to marry monsieur herself, and she +is mad because you came in her way. And if she can get you out of her +way she will."</p> + +<p>"Pauline, you are terrible," Peggy said, still in the same light voice, +and with a half-pitying, half-humorous smile such as one gives to an +importunate child.</p> + +<p>The maid took no notice. "Remember, madame," she went on, "it was Lady +Attwill who planned this trip to the Engadine. It was her idea to go +with Lord Ellerdine and M. Collingwood. And now where are we? I ask you, +where are we? In Paris, and she and Lord Ellerdine in the express near +Switzerland by now. Madame, listen to me! Let us go home to-morrow; make +some excuse to M. Collingwood—any will do."</p> + +<p>At last the Butterfly seemed a little impressed. There was such real +earnestness, so much underlying meaning, in Pauline's voice that she +paused and her eyes became thoughtful.</p> + +<p>"It does seem strange," she said.</p> + +<p>Pauline nodded. "N'est-ce pas? I feel as if you were in a trap."</p> + +<p>The girl shivered, and her voice became pleading. "Oh, Pauline, do +watch me! Look after me! I have no one now but you!"</p> + +<p>The old bonne kissed the delicate, shrinking little figure. "La! la!" +she said. "With my last breath I will shield you! Nevertheless, you are +a mischief and make some men mad. Oh, the things they say about you! But +it is only play."</p> + +<p>"Only play?"</p> + +<p>"That is all, chèrie; I am sure of it."</p> + +<p>Peggy went up to the fireplace. "Sometimes," she said, "I think it is +very foolish play. I only hope that it won't end in tears." She looked +down at the logs—smouldering now and with no more flame of rose-pink +and amethyst.</p> + +<p>"Tears? For you? Never!"</p> + +<p>Peggy turned half round. "Pauline—I am going to be sensible. I shall +turn over a new leaf. I shall become a <i>grande dame</i>, give great +entertainments, hold court at Admaston House in Hampshire, and at Castle +Netherby—then I shall not have time to make men mad!"</p> + +<p>Pauline clapped her hands. "That will be splendid!" she said. "That will +make him so happy!"</p> + +<p>"Who, my husband?"</p> + +<p>"Exactement. Monsieur adores you."</p> + +<p>"I wonder?" Peggy said slowly, more to herself than to Pauline.</p> + +<p>The maid nodded. "Madame," she went on, "he is a great big dog. You can +do anything with him. He will never bite nor snarl, nor show even a +little bit of his teeth."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it would be better if he would," Peggy replied in a rather +broken voice. "I am so lonely, Pauline. Sometimes I think that his +politics don't leave even a little corner for me."</p> + +<p>"Bien!" said Pauline with a chuckle. "You would not feel lonely, madame, +unless you loved him."</p> + +<p>Peggy went up to the piano, which was open, and struck two or three +resonant chords. "Certainly there is something in that," she said +musingly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, madame," Pauline replied, "he is a man, and you are proud of him. +He is so different from all the others."</p> + +<p>Peggy's idle fingers rattled out a little trilling catch from the +Chanson Florian. Suddenly she stopped and turned her head swiftly. "You +do not like Mr. Collingwood?" she asked, watching Pauline's face +intently.</p> + +<p>"Ma Doue!" Pauline answered in her native Breton, "but I like M. +Collingwood well enough. All the women that there are like M. +Collingwood. He is a terrible flirt, but he is not wicked. But madame +must be careful, that is all. He loves madame not as he loves the +others."</p> + +<p>Peggy closed the lid of the piano with a bang. "Now, Pauline," she +said, "don't be silly. Off you go to bed. I feel ever so much better +now."</p> + +<p>The maid gathered up the brushes and the bottle of eau-de-cologne from +the table and took them into Mrs. Admaston's room. Then she returned. +"Good night, madame," she said. "If you want me, that little bell there +rings in my room. Boone nuit. Dormez bien, chèrie."</p> + +<p>She kissed her mistress and left the room.</p> + +<p>Peggy remained alone.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + + +<p>Mrs. Admaston pulled aside the long curtains of green silk. She turned +the oblong handle which released two of the windows, pulled it towards +her, and drank in the fresh night air.</p> + +<p>How fragrant and stimulating it was. How pure, and how different from +the horrid, scented air of the sitting-room!</p> + +<p>"'From the cool cisterns of the midnight air my spirit drinks repose,'" +Peggy quoted to herself; and she did, indeed, seem to be bathed by a +sweet and delicate refreshment, a cleansing, reviving air, which washed +all hot and feverish thoughts away and made her one with the stainless +spirit of the night.</p> + +<p>The black masses—the black, blotted masses—of the trees in the +Tuileries gardens cut into the sky-line. But even now, late as it was, +innumerable lights twinkled over Paris, and a big honey-coloured moon, +which shamed the firefly lights below, and seemed almost like a harvest +moon, had risen and was staring down upon the City of Pleasure.</p> + +<p>In front of the window was a balcony, and, lightly clad as she was, the +girl went out upon it and with an impulsive gesture stretched out her +arms to where the Lamp of the night, depended from a little drift of +fleecy-white and amber-coloured clouds, swung over Paris.</p> + +<p>"O moon," she said, "dear, round, red moon, I am going to be good! I +really, really am. I am going to turn over a new leaf; I am going...."</p> + +<p>There was a sharp whirr, hard, metallic, and insistent, from the room +behind.</p> + +<p>The telephone bell was ringing.</p> + +<p>Peggy started—the world called her back. In her mind, as it were, she +put down her good resolutions on the balcony and hurried in to see who +had rung her up.</p> + +<p>She fluttered up to the telephone, caught the receiver to her ear, and +spoke breathlessly:</p> + +<p>"Well, who is it? What? Yes. Who is it? Oh! Where are you? Chalons! You +have arrived, then? What?"</p> + +<p>A voice, not over the telephone wire, but behind her and in the room, +came to Peggy's disengaged ear.</p> + +<p>She started violently and turned round as if upon a pivot.</p> + +<p>She saw standing before her a slim, tall, clean-shaved man, anywhere +between thirty and forty. He was in evening clothes—that is to say, he +wore a dinner jacket and black tie. His hair was dark and curly and +grew low upon his forehead; his eyebrows were beautifully pencilled; and +below them two shrewd, mocking, and yet somehow simple and merry eyes of +a brilliant grey looked out upon Mrs. Admaston. The nose was aquiline; +the lips, a trifle full, were nevertheless beautifully shaped. They were +parted now in a smile.</p> + +<p>"Who is it? Let me speak, Peggy?" Collingwood said.</p> + +<p>Peggy looked at him. "Oh, how you startled me!" she cried, with a little +shriek of alarm and embarrassment. Then without a further word she +fluttered towards the door of her bedroom, dropping the receiver of the +telephone, which hung by its twisted cord and swung this way and that.</p> + +<p>Roderick Collingwood took a couple of quick, decisive steps to the wall. +He caught up the receiver.</p> + +<p>"Hello! That you, Ellerdine? Yes, just finished supper. What? What? 2.34 +to-night—I mean this morning? What time do you reach Paris? What?—five +o'clock?"</p> + +<p>He turned round to Peggy, who was standing by her bedroom door. "They +are coming on here," he said.</p> + +<p>"Now?" the girl asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes! they get here at five." He caught up the receiver again and +pressed it to his ear, leaning forward to the mouthpiece.</p> + +<p>"I say, Ellerdine—I say, why not wait for us at Chalons? What? You have +decided not to go on? Very well. We will wait for you."</p> + +<p>He placed the receiver of the telephone back upon its rest, and turned +the handle to ring off. Then he looked at Peggy, walking slowly towards +her as he spoke.</p> + +<p>"Ellerdine is vexed," he said.</p> + +<p>Peggy's face was the most alluring pink, her eyes looked angry.</p> + +<p>"Please leave the room," she said.</p> + +<p>Collingwood stopped. "I am sorry," he said. "I heard the telephone ring, +and before I knew where I was...."</p> + +<p>Peggy cut him short, pointing to the door on the left-hand side of the +room, the door not far from that which led into the corridor. "Is that +your room?" taking a couple of steps towards him.</p> + +<p>"Yes," the dark man answered; "the hotel was full—it was the only room +left. Don't be vexed, Peggy."</p> + +<p>The girl's face had a sort of hard impatience in it, though mingled with +something else also—something very difficult to define. "Wait," she +said. "That door was locked when I tried it before you came in to +supper. Did you unlock it?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Collingwood laughed a pleasant, musical laugh, which seemed to +resolve the somewhat tragic note of Mrs. Admaston's voice into +nothing—to make it seem rather unnecessary and absurd. It was a +thoroughly boyish laugh.</p> + +<p>"Why, Peggy," he said, "what a very serious mood you are in! Unlock it? +Of course I unlocked it, when I heard you at the telephone. I thought +you would not mind. Besides, I wanted to know what Ellerdine was up to. +Come, come, Peggy; this is not the first time we have been together so +late."</p> + +<p>Peggy looked at him with wide eyes. "Oh, but it is different," she said; +"we are in a strange hotel—by accident. Colling, it was by accident, +wasn't it?"</p> + +<p>He started, bent forward a little, and answered her with great +eagerness.</p> + +<p>"Of course, of course; surely you did not think——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know what I thought; but I feel so funny, so nervous."</p> + +<p>Collingwood laughed again—really, it was the most reassuring and +musical laugh. "Peggy nervous?"</p> + +<p>"Well, it is rather alarming," Peggy replied.</p> + +<p>Collingwood laughed once more, and stepped up towards her. "But rather +nice—isn't it rather nice?—what, Peggy?"</p> + +<p>There was something so irresistibly amusing in his voice and smile that +Mrs. Admaston began to bubble over with laughter.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it rather nice?" he went on, crossing over to the little +switch-board and putting out the big central light which depended from +the roof. "Isn't it rather nice?"</p> + +<p>Peggy had entrenched herself behind the little table on which supper had +been laid. She was obviously tremendously amused, but she made a great +effort to be serious. "Colling!" she said, "it is mad. Supposing anybody +knew!"</p> + +<p>Collingwood was quite calm. He treated the whole thing as if it were the +most ordinary occasion. He strolled lazily over to the fireplace, took a +cigarette-case from his pocket, a cigarette from it, and struck a light.</p> + +<p>"How can anyone know?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Peggy seemed alarmed once more.</p> + +<p>"No! Colling, please don't light a cigarette. It is too late. I must go +to bed."</p> + +<p>Collingwood's only answer was to blow out a cloud of smoke, to cross +over to the sofa and throw himself upon it.</p> + +<p>"Not yet," he said. "Don't be unkind, Peggy. Just one cigarette. Just +one, in front of the fire—which, by the way, is out,—and then +bye-byes."</p> + +<p>"Well, one cigarette, but only one," Peggy said.</p> + +<p>Collingwood sat up. "Good little Peggy," he said in a low, quiet voice; +and then, raising his head, he looked at her intently with his brilliant +grey eyes.</p> + +<p>Peggy looked him straight in the face also, and then the spirit of +mischief, the excitement of this odd meeting, got the better of her +prudence. She came to the back of the sofa and leant over it. "Isn't +Peggy going to have one?" she said.</p> + +<p>The man took his cigarette-case from his waistcoat pocket, opened it, +and gave her a cigarette. Her face was tantalisingly close to his, and +she noticed, well enough, that his hand was trembling as he did so. She +kept her face close to his just half a moment longer than the situation +required.</p> + +<p>Collingwood's voice began to shake also. "Now, Peggy, you little devil," +he said.</p> + +<p>"Why is Peggy a little devil?"</p> + +<p>With a slim brown hand, which, despite all the man's <i>sang-froid</i>, still +shook like a leaf in the wind, he lit the cigarette for the girl, +looking up into her face as he did so.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Either I mistake your shape and making quite,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Called Robin Goodfellow."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>There came a little bubble of laughter from Peggy, which seemed to +remove all diffidence from Collingwood. "How are you, my friend Puck?" +he said.</p> + +<p>Peggy perched herself upon the head of the sofa. "Oh, Puck was an imp of +mischief," she said.</p> + +<p>"Well?" he asked.</p> + +<p>The girl puffed her cigarette contentedly for a few seconds; then she +bent towards him, swinging her little brown-shoed foot. "Tell me, +Colling," she asked: "why weren't my boxes registered?"</p> + +<p>"Well—of all the suspicious little demons I ever came across! +Registered?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, registered."</p> + +<p>"Well, I suppose that fool of a porter at Charing Cross forgot to do +it," Collingwood replied.</p> + +<p>"It was a bit of luck, wasn't it?" Peggy said.</p> + +<p>Collingwood seemed to be thinking of something else. He was gazing at +the end of his cigarette and not looking at her at all. "Yes," he said +in an absent-minded voice.</p> + +<p>"I wonder——" Peggy went on; and then suddenly she stopped, and +Collingwood looked up with a start.</p> + +<p>"I wonder," Peggy continued, "what the Attwill will think?"</p> + +<p>"Think?" he answered. "She can jolly well think what she likes."</p> + +<p>"I don't much mind what she thinks," Peggy said; "but I'll bet she's put +some rotten idea into Ellerdine's head. Colling, I don't like +her—really I don't."</p> + +<p>Although Peggy did not notice it, the man's voice became slightly +strained. The lips assumed an appearance of somewhat exaggerated +indifference, but there was a glint of watchfulness in the eyes.</p> + +<p>"You don't like Lady Attwill?" he said.</p> + +<p>"That's it," Peggy replied. "Where does she get her money from?"</p> + +<p>Collingwood started slightly. The girl did not notice it. "I don't +know," he said a little uneasily.</p> + +<p>"Is that true, Colling?" Peggy asked, with mischief in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"By the way, has she any?" Collingwood asked.</p> + +<p>"Well, if she hasn't, how does she do it?"</p> + +<p>"By her wits, my dear."</p> + +<p>"Ellerdine doesn't go in for wits," Peggy remarked.</p> + +<p>"Poor, dear Dicky! he is the diplomatic failure of the century."</p> + +<p>"I suppose he is, but it is an ill wind that blows nobody good. The +Empire's loss is Attwill's gain."</p> + +<p>Collingwood laughed. "Well," he said, "she's the only post he has been +able to keep."</p> + +<p>"I don't know that he can afford to keep anything. Can he be in love +with her, do you think?"</p> + +<p>Collingwood puffed slowly at his cigarette.</p> + +<p>"My dear Peggy," he said, looking her up and down with a curious +meditative gaze—"my dear Peggy, if a man loves a woman he doesn't +leave a comfortable hotel to travel all night in a slow train with her. +Ellerdine is as likely to spend his money on a home for lost cats as on +the Attwill."</p> + +<p>"She's a very attractive cat," Peggy said.</p> + +<p>"He doesn't care two straws about her," Collingwood replied quite +definitely.</p> + +<p>"Then why did he come?"</p> + +<p>"To please you—for no other reason."</p> + +<p>"Anyway, I don't like her," Peggy said. "Do you? I believe you do, +Colling."</p> + +<p>Collingwood jumped up from the sofa. "Now, stop that, Peggy," he said.</p> + +<p>The glint of mischief in Peggy's eyes glowed more strongly. "She's a +very attractive woman," she said.</p> + +<p>"Well, she's not the sort of woman who attracts me," Collingwood +replied, sitting down again upon the couch and tapping impatiently with +his foot upon the carpet. He seemed disturbed, uneasy, under the +influence of some suppressed emotion.</p> + +<p>Peggy stroked her nose with one little finger, and then she leant down +towards Collingwood. "What sort of woman attracts you?" she said in a +low voice.</p> + +<p>Again the man jumped up, and a keen observer would have noticed that +tiny beads of perspiration had come out upon his forehead like seed +pearls.</p> + +<p>"Peggy," he cried, "you are a tantalising little fiend!"</p> + +<p>Peggy shook with laughter. She was absolutely happy. "I suppose I ought +not to have said that," she bubbled.</p> + +<p>"Why not?" he asked, and into his voice came something of deep yearning, +and the note of passion restrained till now, broke through all reserves +and all defences at last.</p> + +<p>"Why not?" he said. Again his voice grew in emotional force and power. +"Why not, Peggy? I love you when you are in this mood. I love you in all +your moods, dear."</p> + +<p>Peggy slid down from the end of the sofa and moved a little way towards +the door of her bedroom. "What about that cigarette?" she asked, and +there was a distinct note of nervousness in her voice.</p> + +<p>She had provoked the beginnings of passion, and, having done so, +womanlike, she was startled and afraid.</p> + +<p>"Cigarette," he said. "Oh, I haven't finished it yet. But listen! Peggy +darling, you must listen!"</p> + +<p>She was really startled now. "Not to-night, Colling; you promised," she +said. "Now, Colling, go—please go!"</p> + +<p>"I can't go, Peggy; I love you so!" he answered.</p> + +<p>"Please, Colling, don't talk like that!"</p> + +<p>Now his voice became almost dogged, though it lost nothing of its power. +"I can't help it," he said; "I love you!"</p> + +<p>The girl clutched nervously at her tea-gown and shrank back nearer yet +to the door.</p> + +<p>"Don't talk of love," she said in a low voice.</p> + +<p>He took three quick steps up to her, and again she shrank away, not this +time into the sure defence of her bedroom, but towards the window.</p> + +<p>"Don't talk of love?" he said, and his voice reverberated and rang with +feeling. "Why not? It is in the air—the very night is charged with +love. You cannot look out on a night like this and not think of love."</p> + +<p>"Don't, Colling; you frighten me," she said.</p> + +<p>"Oh, but why should my love frighten you, my Peggy? My darling, it is +brightness, tenderness, and love that you want. I know how monotonous +and dull your life must be. Good God! don't I know it? Am I not always +thinking of it? Poor little Butterfly! What a flutter you make to be +free, to warm your dainty wings in sunny places! Peggy, sweetheart, I +want to show you the sunny places."</p> + +<p>"Please go, Colling!" she said, and her flute-like voice was tremulous +with fear. "Please go, Colling! It isn't fair. I am afraid. You see, I +am so fond of you, and I am such a <i>little</i> Butterfly!"</p> + +<p>He held out his hands towards her, palms upwards, with a curious +foreign gesture which showed how greatly he was moved. "I can't +go, Peggy," he said. "I want you so badly—want you for my +own—to-night—to-morrow, all the nights and all the days. I have been +very good. I have always done what you have told me. I have come and +gone just exactly as the whim has struck you. Ah! you know how deeply, +how dearly I love you!"</p> + +<p>She moved past him with a sudden, gliding step, and placed the settee +between them.</p> + +<p>"I only know you are my friend, my very dear friend," she said.</p> + +<p>"No! no! no!" he cried, coming after her.</p> + +<p>"Yes—only that friend!"</p> + +<p>"Lover! Peggy," he said passionately. "I am a man—devoured by love of +you. I have waited for you—longed for you—and now——" With a sudden +movement he caught her in his arms, straining her to him wildly, +showering kisses upon the shining coronet of her hair. "We're alone, +Peggy," he cried, "just you and I!" and his voice rang with triumph. +"We're alone! There are no others in the world—no others! You are mine, +Peggy, mine at last!"</p> + +<p>She struggled in his arms, her face pale as linen, her voice with a note +of almost shrill alarm.</p> + +<p>"Colling, I can't bear it—you will spoil everything. Do help me, +Colling! I don't love you like that. I'm sorry if it hurts you. I'd +rather die."</p> + +<p>There was a note in her voice of such absolute sincerity, mingled with +fear, that he opened his arms and let her flutter away.</p> + +<p>The passion upon his face changed and melted into something else.</p> + +<p>"My God!" he cried. "You would rather die——"</p> + +<p>He stumbled rather than walked towards the sofa and sat down upon it, +burying his face in his long lean hands, that trembled exceedingly.</p> + +<p>"My God!" she heard him whisper to himself; "she would rather die!..."</p> + +<p>Peggy had followed him, and she stood at the end of the sofa, aghast at +what she had done. She began to speak slowly and nervously.</p> + +<p>"Colling, don't do that. I really can't bear that you should think me +unkind. I like you too well to let you do anything that would spoil our +happiness. I am not unkind—really I am not. Have not I shown how fond +of you I am? We have been such good friends!"</p> + +<p>"Friends!" he said bitterly, without looking up from his hands.</p> + +<p>His voice was so cold, so charged with misery and sudden realisation, +that it cut the girl to the heart. She went round from the back of the +sofa and knelt at his feet, stretching out her hand timidly, and +touching the sleeve of his coat.</p> + +<p>"Colling, dear, what else can we be?" she said.</p> + +<p>He looked down at her, and for a moment his voice did not soften. There +was a quiet, dogged misery in it.</p> + +<p>"We have passed the merely friendship line," he said; "and you know that +well enough, Peggy. That has been passed a long time. You would not have +left London with me if we had only been friends and nothing more. Were +we only friends when we used to sit up together night after night at +Ellerdine's house? Do 'friends' speak to each other as we have spoken? +Why, you have only to touch my hand to know that I burn with longing."</p> + +<p>"Colling, you mustn't say such things!"</p> + +<p>He jumped up roughly, leaving her kneeling upon the floor, and passed +with rapid steps to the window.</p> + +<p>"Friends!" he cried, and his voice had a razor edge to it. "Friends! +It's not true! Do friends run the risks that we have run? For God's +sake, here and now let us be honest with each other. Why, we haven't +even tried to fool society! For Heaven's sake, Peggy, don't let's try to +fool ourselves!"</p> + +<p>Peggy rose slowly to her feet, trembling all over. "Colling! oh, +Colling!" she said in a piteous voice, "surely people don't think we +are——"</p> + +<p>"People don't think! People are only too glad to think. You know well +enough what is said about others——"</p> + +<p>Her face grew paler still, her eyes were wide with fear and slowly +dawning realisation. She clasped both hands to her breast, and the light +shone upon the rubies set in the old Moorish bracelets that she was +wearing.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" she said.</p> + +<p>He came up to her again.</p> + +<p>"Peggy, you don't care, do you?"</p> + +<p>"Don't care, Colling!" she gasped. "Tell me, do people think we are——"</p> + +<p>"Think!—how can they help thinking it? Haven't we given them every +reason?"</p> + +<p>"No, no, no! Oh! I hate to think of that! We have only been very fond +friends. Why should they think otherwise?"</p> + +<p>There were tears of agony in her voice. She kept clasping and unclasping +her hands.</p> + +<p>"Oh! I suppose it is all my fault," she said brokenly—"all my fault. I +don't think ungenerous things of others. I have been too trusting—too +confiding. Why should people thing such things? I only wanted a good +friend, a companion."</p> + +<p>He still stood by her, looking at her keenly, and the bitterness in his +voice did not die away. "Friends! Oh yes, I know! You wanted someone to +pet you, to pamper you. What you wanted was someone to satisfy all your +vanities—your yearning for devotion, for adulation, for sense of power. +I know! You wanted all the joys and none of the risks. That sums up the +whole thing in a nutshell. There are lots of women like you. They drive +men mad—make drunkards, gamblers, swindlers of them. I have seen it +often enough. I have seen men fall out and lose themselves among the +army of crooks that throng the second-rate shows. But I won't let you +drive me mad."</p> + +<p>The bitterness in his voice was terrible. His words seemed to scourge +her, to lash her like a whip. She stared at him in helpless amazement +and misery. He had paused in his rapid torrent of speech, and as he saw +her distress he seemed to be a little touched.</p> + +<p>"Peggy!" he said, and once more the note of passion came into his voice, +while the anger died out of it—"Peggy! I mean you to be mine. There +will be a crash soon—that is certain. Admaston will take notice of what +everybody is saying about us. He will come out of his political shell, +wake up, do things, put an end to it at once and for ever!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, my God! What have I done!" the girl cried.</p> + +<p>"Done! What have you done to deserve your husband's neglect? Why, he +doesn't even know that you exist. His heart beats by Act of Parliament. +He'd a thousand times rather address a village meeting than spend an +hour in your company. Are you to pass your youth in the company of——"</p> + +<p>"Stop! stop!" she cried. "Say what you like about me—scold me if you +like, but say nothing against him. You do not know my husband. We are +neither of us fit to mention his name. He is a big man, and he loves +me."</p> + +<p>"But, Peggy, you won't say that you love him?" Collingwood said, with a +curious note of perplexity in his voice. The situation, tragic as it +was, got a little bit beyond him.</p> + +<p>"Love him?" she answered. "I don't know. I have had no chance to love +anyone the way you regard love."</p> + +<p>Collingwood put his hands into his pockets, swung round upon his heels +and swung back again. "I see," he said; "you mean you don't love +Admaston, and won't love anybody else?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know," Peggy replied; "but I certainly don't love anybody +else. You think I am neglected. That is absurd. It was my father's wish +that we should marry. George knew that I did not love him. He trusts me +fully. There will be no crash."</p> + +<p>He heard the note in her voice which told him that she was trying to +persuade herself that her fears were groundless, and smiled rather +grimly.</p> + +<p>"There will be," he said. "You take my word for it. No man—not even +Admaston—can stand <i>ridicule</i> for long. Remember, I mean to win you. I +shall marry no one if I don't marry you."</p> + +<p>She tried to speak lightly.</p> + +<p>"Colling, don't be so silly! You are one of the best matches in England. +You will marry a beautiful girl who will lead society and make you a +very proud and ambitious man. Don't shake your head—that's only because +you want to be gallant. Heavens! how I would do things if I were a man! +You, with all your talents and your money, ought to rise to any +position."</p> + +<p>"You are mad about position," he said impatiently.</p> + +<p>"Yes," Peggy answered. "I like men who have some big purpose in life and +who fight the world and win."</p> + +<p>"Like George Admaston!" Collingwood answered, and now for the first time +there came a glint of malicious and real ill-humour over his face. It +came and passed in a second, but it had been there.</p> + +<p>"Yes," Peggy replied; "like George Admaston! He is a fighter, Colling. I +think many women would love George. He is not the butterfly +type—but——"</p> + +<p>"But he has all the luck," Collingwood broke in fiercely. "I could do +anything if you were with me. I must have something—or someone—to +fight for. My nature must be baffled. There must be obstacles in the way +for me. I have a wicked streak in me somewhere that turns red when I +can't get what I want. Peggy, you must let Admaston get a divorce."</p> + +<p>The words seemed to strike her dumb. All colour had left her face long +since, but now almost all expression went from it also for a moment. It +was as if she had been struck some paralysing blow.</p> + +<p>He was watching her keenly, and as he noted the effect of his words a +spasm of pain went through him, though he showed nothing of it in his +face or manner. He loved her, he loved her dearly; there was no doubt +about that. He hated to give her pain, yet he felt he was being cruel +only to be kind. She must face the situation once and for all, and then +perhaps everything might be right. The situation, serious as it was, was +very largely of his own creation. Seeing no other way, he had +deliberately endeavoured to compromise Mrs. Admaston. All his plans, all +his ideas, had been directed to this end. He wanted to force her +husband's hand and to marry Peggy after the divorce. He loved her +wildly, madly, passionately. He would have been a perfect husband to +her—there can be no doubt of that.</p> + +<p>But his love was selfish. In order to win this woman for his own he was +ready to subject her to all the indignities and all the shame of a +process in the courts. In his overmastering desire, her reputation, her +honour, mattered nothing to him. It was she that he wanted, and any +means should be taken to achieve that end.</p> + +<p>Men like Roderick Collingwood have few guiding principles in life, save +only those of their own appetites. Of course, the public school and the +university have given them a certain code. They must pay their gambling +debts, they must do various other things of that sort; but as far as any +conception of the morality and decency, which have made England what it +is, is concerned, they are absolutely without it.</p> + +<p>He nodded at Peggy, driving home the words.</p> + +<p>"Divorce! Oh, you mustn't talk like that. You know how it hurts me," she +said at last, when she had recovered a little. "Really, really, you are +mistaken. I am quite satisfied with my life—only, sometimes when I am +foolish I feel just a bit lonely and neglected."</p> + +<p>He turned on her almost with a sneer. He was bitterly hurt and angry, +and there is no doubt that, from his point of view, he had reason for +complaint. She had led him on. She had flirted outrageously with him. +She had deliberately done her best to be provocative. Her intentions, +doubtless, were innocent enough as far as any dishonour to her husband +entered into the question. But her love of adulation, her vanity, her +desire of power, were all gratified by her conquest of him; while at the +same time she still had a real and genuine friendship for a man who, +with all his faults, was essentially charming, good-natured, and kind.</p> + +<p>"Then you have deceived me!" he cried.</p> + +<p>"Colling, don't say that. I never meant——"</p> + +<p>"Never meant? Good heavens! I told you six months ago that I loved you, +and ever since then you have let me go here and there with you, and I +have told you of my love again and again."</p> + +<p>"But you have always been so good. You have never been unkind to me +before to-night."</p> + +<p>"Good God! Unkind! Why, most men would have divorced their wives on far +less evidence than we have furnished. And all the while you have +accepted the position without a murmur. You don't know what you have +done."</p> + +<p>"Colling, what do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Mean?" he answered. "I mean that you have led me to believe that you +didn't care what we did—what people said about us. Mean? I mean that +the call of love is in the spring, Peggy, whispering to you and me. +Mean? I mean that I am a man and you are a woman—our souls stand bare +to one another—that I love you and that you love me."</p> + +<p>He sprang at her and caught her up in his arms once more.</p> + +<p>"I don't love you, Colling! Let me go!" she cried.</p> + +<p>"I can't let you go! It is my hour! It is your fault as well as mine! +Kiss me, Peggy! You have tortured me long enough! Kiss me!"</p> + +<p>He held her tight, tight! His face blazed. There was a fury in his +voice.</p> + +<p>At that very moment when he stopped speaking and was gazing down at her, +while she lay for a moment almost passive in his arms after her first +fight and struggle, a loud, sharp, clear sound rang out in the room. It +was the bell of the telephone upon the wall.</p> + +<p>"Ellerdine!" Peggy said.</p> + +<p>"Let him ring," Collingwood answered.</p> + +<p>They stood there for another moment clasped together, and once more the +insistent summons of the bell came.</p> + +<p>"No, no," Peggy cried; "answer him, please!"</p> + +<p>With an odd, instinctive gesture Collingwood put his arm right round +her. Before he had been straining her to him passionately. Now there was +something protective in his attitude.</p> + +<p>And again the bell whirred.</p> + +<p>At last with great reluctance Collingwood stepped up to the wall and +caught up the receiver.</p> + +<p>"Well, well!" he said. "Who is it? What! Ad——Admaston!"</p> + +<p>A voice which was robbed of all ordinary qualities shivered out into the +room.</p> + +<p>"My husband!" said Peggy.</p> + +<p>Collingwood made a warning gesture with his left hand, telling her to +keep quiet.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said; "we took the wrong train. Yes, Collingwood. Yes, it is +he speaking."</p> + +<p>"Where is he?" came hissing to the ears of the man at the telephone. +Again he motioned her to silence, giving a slight impatient tap with his +foot upon the carpet.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes. We have just finished supper. What? I can't hear you +distinctly. You want to speak to Ellerdine? Hold the line a moment; I'll +call him."</p> + +<p>He put down the receiver upon the table and ran up to Peggy, who was +shaking like a leaf in the wind.</p> + +<p>"He wants to speak to you, too, I think," Collingwood said in a low, +fierce whisper; "but perhaps you had better not."</p> + +<p>"I can't," Peggy answered, swaying this way and that as if about to +fall. He put out his arm and steadied her.</p> + +<p>"All right, darling," he said; "it is all right!"</p> + +<p>"Where is he? London?" she said.</p> + +<p>"I didn't ask," he replied. "Wait a minute!"</p> + +<p>He hurried to the telephone again. "Hello! Ellerdine has just gone out. +Hello! Where are you speaking from? Damn! We're cut off. Hello! Hello!"</p> + +<p>He listened for nearly half a minute, taut and strained as a greyhound +on the leash; then he flung the receiver angrily upon the bracket.</p> + +<p>"We're cut off," he repeated, looking at her almost stupidly, as if the +situation was beyond him.</p> + +<p>Collingwood said nothing for a little time. At last he spoke. "I didn't +think of that," he said. "Can he have had us——"</p> + +<p>"What? What?" she almost shrieked.</p> + +<p>"Followed?"</p> + +<p>He plunged his hands into the pockets of his dinner-jacket and bent his +head, thinking deeply. Then he looked up at Peggy. "Peggy," he said at +length, "rumour—he has been ridiculed into action—the crash has come."</p> + +<p>The girl held out both hands towards him as if warding off a blow. "Go, +go!" she cried; "please go! I sha'n't speak another word to you +to-night. Go at once!"</p> + +<p>"I can't leave you now, Peggy. I just worship you."</p> + +<p>"I shall ring for my maid," she said, and moved towards the bell-push.</p> + +<p>"No, don't do that. Don't be cruel, Peggy!" he said, in a voice instinct +with agonised pleading. "Don't be cruel, Peggy! No, no! Don't ring!"</p> + +<p>"I shall," she said firmly, and stretched out her hand.</p> + +<p>"Peggy, trust me. I love you better than anything in the world—better +than myself. For you I will sacrifice wealth, honour."</p> + +<p>"Honour!" she cried.</p> + +<p>"I'll do anything to win you. Everything I have done has been to win +you—to have you for my own. You know it is true. Peggy, before God, I +believed that you loved me too. Don't judge me harshly—oh, don't do +that!"</p> + +<p>Peggy put out her hand and pressed the bell-push.</p> + +<p>"I must be alone," she said in a dull, muffled voice.</p> + +<p>He saw that it was useless, that he had failed, that the plans of months +had all miscarried, that everything was over for him as far as she was +concerned. Undisciplined as his nature was, baffled and disowned as he +felt, he nevertheless showed himself rather fine in that moment. He made +an almost superhuman effort at self-control—and succeeded.</p> + +<p>"All right, Peggy dear," he said. "Don't be afraid. Everything will come +right. Good night." With one last lingering look at her he left the +room, closing the door which led into his own.</p> + +<p>Peggy sank down upon the sofa almost over-mastered by her rising +hysteria, limp and half unconscious.</p> + +<p>She lay there breathing hurriedly, and with her eyes closed, when the +corridor door opened and Pauline came rapidly into the room.</p> + +<p>"Madame!" she cried.</p> + +<p>Peggy gave one great sob of relief.</p> + +<p>"Pauline!—you have not gone to bed?"</p> + +<p>"No, madame! I was so anxious about you I could not sleep."</p> + +<p>"Oh, my head is bursting!" the girl cried; "there is a pain like the +thrust of a sword in my head."</p> + +<p>"Poor darling!" Pauline said, her voice guttural with excitement, her +trembling hands passing over the young girl's form with loving, +frightened caresses. "Poor darling! There is something altogether wrong. +Just now, when I came down, I saw a man standing at your door +listening."</p> + +<p>"At that door?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Twice I have seen him to-day. He was at Boulogne; I saw him +looking at your boxes. Then just after supper he came in—when I was +speaking to the waiter."</p> + +<p>"Then we have been followed," Peggy answered, breaking down utterly. +"Pauline, I feel that something dreadful is going to happen. Stay with +me—don't go back to your room. Soothe me, Pauline, as you used to when +I was little and afraid of the dark."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + + +<p>It was about nine o'clock the next morning. The heat of the night before +had given place to that incomparable freshness which spring mornings +have in Paris.</p> + +<p>The windows of Mrs. Admaston's sitting-room were open, and a +delightfully scented air, from the lilac blossoms and all the flowers of +the gardens in the Tuileries, flooded and floated into the room.</p> + +<p>Rooms have an aspect of this or that emotion according to the hour in +which the events of the soul have taken place within them.</p> + +<p>There are some rooms which always have the same mood. When one goes into +them one doesn't impose one's mood, one's fancy, or one's ideas upon the +place, but is dominated by one lasting personality—of furniture, of +aspect, of general <i>mise en scène</i>.</p> + +<p>It would be impossible, for example, to have a merry breakfast-party in +the hangman's ante-room to the gallows; and one has known rooms in +hotels which one enters gladly, unconscious of the pervading gloom which +seems to cling to floor and ceiling and rises up like a spectre into +the heart and brain after a few minutes' sojourn there.</p> + +<p>The sitting-room in the Hôtel des Tuileries, which had been the theatre +of such tragic emotions on the last spring midnight, was now ordinary +and comfortable enough.</p> + +<p>The chairs and settees were all in their proper places. The carpet had +been brushed, and its dull blues, greys, and brick-dust reds were all +essentially artistic.</p> + +<p>And they had brought new flowers there also. The bowls and vases were +filled with fresh purple and white lilac. The silver candlesticks had +been polished—there were no drippings of wax upon them any more. Tall +white candles, fresh, virginal, and unfired, filled all the +candlesticks.</p> + +<p>In the middle of all this freshness two people were—a man and a woman.</p> + +<p>One, Lord Ellerdine, was very tall and lean. He was dressed in a suit of +very immaculate grey flannel—not the greyish-green which the ordinary +person who wears flannels imagines to be the right thing, but the real +grey-grey which costs a good deal of money; if the tailors in Sackville +Street and Waterloo Place, from whom we suffer, are to be believed.</p> + +<p>Lord Ellerdine's hair—and he hadn't much of it—was what he himself +would have described as "the same old dust-colour." He wore a stiff +double collar with blue lines upon it, a tie of China silk, and a big +black pearl, stuck right down at the bottom, so that it only peeped out +from the opening of his waistcoat now and again.</p> + +<p>Lord Ellerdine had red eyes—that is to say, that there was a sort of +red glint in them. The brows which overhung them were straight and dark, +and contradicted with an odd grotesquerie the flickering attempt to +really be at home and happy with the world. The face itself was rather +tanned and brown, lean in contour and suggesting the explorer and the +travelled man; and all this was oddly contradicted by an engaging little +button of a mouth, which twitched and lisped and was always rather more +jolly than the occasion warranted.</p> + +<p>By the side of Lord Ellerdine—or rather standing in the middle of the +room and looking down upon him, for he had thrown himself upon the +sofa—was a tall, slim, and gracious woman, perfectly dressed in a +travelling coat and skirt of tweed. She looked round her rather +fretfully.</p> + +<p>Her face was radiant—there is no other word for it. Although she had +been travelling all night, she appeared to be as fresh as paint—and +that exactly describes her.</p> + +<p>The complexion was perfect. It had that creamy <i>morbidezza</i> one sees in +a furled magnolia bud. Two straight, decisive lips seemed like a "band +of scarlet upon a tower of ivory." Lady Attwill's eyes were +sapphire-blue and suspicious, but entirely charming. She was, in short, +a thoroughly handsome woman, and the sunlight struck curious radiances +from the little pearls she wore in the shell-like lobes of her ears.</p> + +<p>"Tell madame, will you, Pauline?" she said.</p> + +<p>"I'll tell madame that you have arrived," the maid said with a little +bow. She crossed the room, knocked, opened the door leading into Mrs. +Admaston's bedroom, and disappeared.</p> + +<p>Almost immediately Lady Attwill's face changed from its quiet calm and +became vivid.</p> + +<p>"Cheer up, Dicky!" she said to Lord Ellerdine; "you've been in many a +worse fix than this."</p> + +<p>The diplomatist looked at her for a moment, his whole silly—but somehow +distinguished—face covered with a sort of desperate cheerfulness.</p> + +<p>"Worse!" he said. "I should say so. I don't mind gettin' into a 'fix,' +as you call it."</p> + +<p>"Then what in the world are you grumbling about?" Lady Attwill asked.</p> + +<p>"Why, how am I going to get <i>out</i> of it? Any fool can get into a +fix—any time. It's gettin' out—what? That's the bally riddle, +Alice—gettin' out of it. What?"</p> + +<p>Lady Attwill went up to him and dug him confidentially in the shoulder +with one pretty gloved thumb.</p> + +<p>"Look here, Dicky," she said; "now, did I ever fail you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh no, no. You've always been pretty good."</p> + +<p>"Now, haven't I got you out of many a scrape?"</p> + +<p>Lord Ellerdine seemed to think—that is to say, call upon the resources +of a somewhat attenuated memory. "Yes," he replied; "not so confounded +many—only two; and—yes—well, of course, that other one was rather +awkward."</p> + +<p>He chuckled to himself. "But, after all, this is different," he +continued. "I am not in this one, exactly. No more are you. It's Peggy's +fix. And we don't <i>quite</i> know how she's got into it. I don't like the +look of it."</p> + +<p>Lady Attwill listened to him with an aspect of particular attention. But +if the man had been able to realise it he would have seen the flash of +contempt which came and went over her face. He did not, however, and she +replied in her ordinary tones:</p> + +<p>"Look of it! It's merely a frolic—nothing serious. Collingwood is not +the man to run risks. He believes in the simple life."</p> + +<p>"Does he, by Jove!" Lord Ellerdine said. "He's not so simple as that, +Alice."</p> + +<p>"He is not so simple as to get into a complication with Admaston," she +answered. "He's no fool—you take my word for it."</p> + +<p>Lord Ellerdine grinned his fatuous little grin.</p> + +<p>"Seems I have to take your word for everything," he said.</p> + +<p>"All right, Dicky," she answered; "just you leave all the thinking to +me."</p> + +<p>"You don't give me time to think," he answered. "I know I am deuced slow +at it. But tell me this. How did Peggy and Collingwood get to my place +last autumn before ten o'clock in the morning? Tell me that—what?"</p> + +<p>"They motored through the night, of course."</p> + +<p>"They jolly well didn't," replied his lordship.</p> + +<p>"But Colling told us he did," said Lady Attwill.</p> + +<p>"I knew he did. But they didn't."</p> + +<p>Lady Attwill had been glancing over the <i>Matin</i> of that day, which had +been laid upon the breakfast table. At these words of her companion's +she put down the paper rather hurriedly and looked up.</p> + +<p>"Dicky," she said, "I believe you know something."</p> + +<p>"I know I do."</p> + +<p>"What is it, then?"</p> + +<p>"Bad breakdown at Selby overnight. They came on to my place in a hired +motor next morning. I heard all about it from the man who drove them +down from Selby."</p> + +<p>Lady Attwill was very genuinely interested, or achieved a fair +assumption of interest. "Dicky!" she cried.</p> + +<p>Lord Ellerdine nodded his thin head vigorously. "It's a fact," he +replied triumphantly. "The fellow is now my second chauffeur. So you see +I can find out things if I have time enough. Alice, I don't like this +fix Peggy's in. Staying at Selby with Collingwood all night was bad +enough, but——"</p> + +<p>"Good gracious!" Lady Attwill answered, "can't a woman stay at the same +hotel with a man she knows without scandal?"</p> + +<p>"Scandal!" Lord Ellerdine replied. "Damn the scandal! It's what folks +think. It's who you are. Lots of women wouldn't mind staying at the same +hotel I was staying at, and nobody would dream that there was anything +wrong—you wouldn't, Alice. But Peggy and Collingwood <i>make</i> people +suspect them."</p> + +<p>Lady Attwill went up to Lord Ellerdine and pinched his arm playfully. +"You silly old Dicky," she said, "you've been listening to a lot of +stupid twaddle at your clubs."</p> + +<p>"Well," he answered, "they know pretty well what's going on."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I suppose <i>they</i> do," she said. "Talk about women and their +gossip! Why, Dicky, they're not in it with your smoke-room gang."</p> + +<p>At that moment Pauline entered from Mrs. Admaston's bedroom. There was a +hardly veiled hostility in her face as she spoke, though her manner was +civil enough. "Madame will see Lady Attwill," she said.</p> + +<p>Lady Attwill swept across the room, flashing a somewhat curious glance +at the old maidservant as she passed her, and entered the bedroom.</p> + +<p>Lord Ellerdine had strolled up to the fireplace. "Tell Peggy I am +waiting," he called out.</p> + +<p>"All right," Lady Attwill said. "You amuse yourself for a few minutes."</p> + +<p>Lord Ellerdine began to hum a little tune; then he noticed Pauline, who +was arranging some violets upon a side table. "Morning, Pauline," he +said. "How's madame?"</p> + +<p>"She has a headache," the maid replied; "just a little nervous. Is your +lordship well?"</p> + +<p>"No, I am not well, Pauline, I am sorry to say. I feel very groggy. I +have been all night in a confounded slow train."</p> + +<p>Pauline said nothing, but left the room just as the third door opened +and Collingwood came briskly into the room.</p> + +<p>He was wearing a lounge suit of dark blue. The air of poise and easy +carriage which was so marked a part of his personality was very much in +evidence now. There was a quiet spring in his step, a brisk and cheery +purpose in his movements, and he seemed singularly alert and +<i>débonnaire</i>; perfectly dressed, a very proper man to look at, but +somehow or other without a suggestion of foppishness, which Lord +Ellerdine always managed to convey. His face was calm and composed, but +a close observer would have noticed that there were dark rings under the +eyes and that the face was slightly paler than its wont.</p> + +<p>"Oh, there you are!" Lord Ellerdine said.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Ellerdine!" Collingwood replied. "Bright and early as usual?"</p> + +<p>"Early, yes," said the other; "but not so deuced bright, old chap."</p> + +<p>"When did you get here?"</p> + +<p>"About five o'clock."</p> + +<p>"Had breakfast?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Lord Ellerdine. "I had a bath, a shave, a change, and a +brandy-and-soda."</p> + +<p>Collingwood went up to the window and sat looking idly down into the Rue +de Rivoli.</p> + +<p>"Refreshing, but not very filling," he said. "Staying here?"</p> + +<p>"No," Lord Ellerdine replied; "they would not let us in. It's race-week, +you know. They are packed out. The place is full of big bookies and +racing fellows. We had to go to the St. Denis. A nice fix you've got us +all in, Collingwood!"</p> + +<p>Collingwood turned away from the window.</p> + +<p>"Fix? I've got you in? How do you mean?"</p> + +<p>Lord Ellerdine struggled to find words in which to express his meaning.</p> + +<p>"I'm blowed if I know—quite. Anyway, we're in it."</p> + +<p>"I don't understand," Collingwood answered.</p> + +<p>"Oh, come on!" replied Lord Ellerdine. "Chuck that business, Colling! I +know your beastly way of putting a fellow off, but you can't leave me +out of this."</p> + +<p>Collingwood lit a cigarette very deliberately. "Leave you out?" he said.</p> + +<p>"Wish to heavens you could!" was the rejoinder.</p> + +<p>Collingwood perched himself on the end of the sofa, swinging his legs. +"Look here, what's up?"</p> + +<p>"Are we at St. Moritz?" Lord Ellerdine asked.</p> + +<p>"No," Collingwood answered coolly.</p> + +<p>"Are we in Switzerland?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Well, where are we?"</p> + +<p>"I make a good guess," Collingwood said, "that we are in Paris."</p> + +<p>Lord Ellerdine flushed up and began to get angry.</p> + +<p>"Well, there you are!" he said. "Damn it, there you are! And you have +got the sublime cheek to ask me what's up."</p> + +<p>Collingwood smiled. "Now, don't get ratty, Dicky," he said. "It's all +right. Only a trifling contretemps. We got on the wrong train—by +mistake."</p> + +<p>Lord Ellerdine began to stroll up and down the room. He tried to be +judicial in his manner. "Now, are you telling me that for a fact or for +a joke?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Fact—absolute fact. We were kept until the last moment paying duty on +Peggy's cigarettes, and had to rush for the train——"</p> + +<p>He had been going to say something further, but Lord Ellerdine +interrupted him. "I saw you," he said.</p> + +<p>Here Collingwood cut in suddenly: "Yes, getting into the train that was +on the move."</p> + +<p>"Yes," Lord Ellerdine said, "the Paris express. You jumped Peggy on and +sprang after her, dragging her maid with you. A clever bit of work, my +friend."</p> + +<p>Collingwood shrugged his shoulders. "Well, where were you?" he replied.</p> + +<p>"In the other train—the right one. With Alice. It was a rotten thing +for you to do."</p> + +<p>"What, leave you with Alice?"</p> + +<p>Lord Ellerdine shook his head impatiently. "No, no," he said irritably; +"to leave us in the lurch like that."</p> + +<p>"But I telegraphed to you to Chalons that we had got on the wrong +train."</p> + +<p>"Yes, you wired to Chalons right enough, but that didn't make it true. I +would not have gone if Alice had not persuaded me that the train was +running in two parts, and that you would be sure to join us at Chalons."</p> + +<p>"Well, it's all right now," Collingwood replied, still preserving the +perfect <i>sang-froid</i> with which he had listened to all the other's +remarks. "It's all right now, so don't let's say any more about it."</p> + +<p>"All right now, by Jove!" Ellerdine replied. "Is it? Suppose Admaston +hears about it—what?"</p> + +<p>"Of course," Collingwood said, "if you think it is absolutely necessary, +we'll invent some yarn that will satisfy him."</p> + +<p>"I do think it necessary. But <i>you'll</i> have to do it. I never could +invent—never. No good at it. Confound you, Colling, leaving us...."</p> + +<p>Collingwood's manner changed from coolness to something more intimate. +"Now, look here, Dicky," he said persuasively. "I didn't think you'd cut +up rough about it. I thought Alice possibly might, but not you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, she doesn't mind," Ellerdine answered. "She never believes that +people get on the wrong train, or have motor accidents so that they can +have a night off."</p> + +<p>Collingwood put his feet down to the floor and threw the end of his +cigarette into the fireplace. "Now, look here," he said; "do you mean +that you think that I——" He hesitated for a moment.</p> + +<p>"No, I don't," Lord Ellerdine answered; "but what will Admaston think? +He is sure to hear of it. I'll bet you a fiver it's known in London +to-night. There is always someone on the spot to notice things that go +wrong, and this is so suspicious—so damned suspicious, mind you. Why, +<i>I</i> don't like the look of it—mind, the look of it—myself."</p> + +<p>"Then we must set your conscience at rest, that's all," Collingwood +replied.</p> + +<p>"How?"</p> + +<p>"Well, we must all have a proper, coherent, connected yarn to tell. +That's quite simple."</p> + +<p>Ellerdine shook his head thoughtfully. "I don't think it will work," he +said. "You can't get four people to tell the same yarn without +variation. There's sure to be one let it down just where it ought to be +kept up."</p> + +<p>"If it were a long, complicated yarn, perhaps," said Collingwood; "but I +don't mean that at all. Just a plain, unvarnished tale."</p> + +<p>"Unvarnished!" the peer replied. "Well, it'll take a deuce of a lot of +paint to make this one look all right."</p> + +<p>"Not a bit of it," Collingwood replied. "Easy as anything."</p> + +<p>Lord Ellerdine went to the fireplace once more and stood with his back +to the flames. "Right ho," he said; "go ahead."</p> + +<p>"Here you are, then," Collingwood began. "We all got on the wrong +train."</p> + +<p>"But we didn't."</p> + +<p>"Damn it!" Collingwood said, "of course we didn't; but we'll say we +did."</p> + +<p>Lord Ellerdine began to check the points upon the fingers of one hand, +as if anxious to commit them to memory even at this early stage. "Am I +to say we did?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"We will all say we did," Collingwood replied.</p> + +<p>"I shall never be able to," Lord Ellerdine remarked hopelessly.</p> + +<p>"Confound it, Dicky! Are you the George Washington of the lot?"</p> + +<p>The peer shook his head more vigorously. That imputation, at anyrate, he +was anxious to avoid. "No, no," he said quickly; "it's not the truth +that bothers me. It's getting the blooming fib to sound all right."</p> + +<p>Collingwood repeated his instruction as if he were teaching a lesson to +a child, speaking slowly and impressively. "'We all got on the wrong +train.' There's nothing difficult about saying that."</p> + +<p>Lord Ellerdine repeated the sentence in exactly the same voice.</p> + +<p>"'We all got on the wrong train.'"</p> + +<p>"Bravo, Dicky!" said Collingwood. "Now then, don't relax your attention, +old chap. The next is that we all stayed the night at this hotel."</p> + +<p>The index finger of Lord Ellerdine's right hand moved from the thumb to +the first finger of his left. He appeared to have got it all right, when +suddenly a doubt seemed to enter the vacant spaces of his mind.</p> + +<p>"What, here?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes, here; at this hotel."</p> + +<p>"Oh! Come, old chap! Doesn't that look like a bally lie? Now think it +over for yourself. Listen. 'We all stayed the night at this hotel.'"</p> + +<p>Collingwood was a patient man, and he listened without any betrayal of +what he really felt in dealing with this pleasant fool.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "what's wrong with it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! it lacks something," was the reply; and though the speaker did not +amplify his statement, his voice was full of doubt and hesitation.</p> + +<p>"Oh, rot!" Collingwood answered. "It's only wrong because we didn't stay +here. If you can say, 'We all got on the wrong train,' surely to +goodness you can say that we all stayed the night at this hotel?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," Ellerdine answered slowly. "I suppose it ought to be easy +enough."</p> + +<p>"No wonder you chucked diplomacy," Collingwood said.</p> + +<p>"Oh! I didn't mind a fib or two for international reasons."</p> + +<p>"I see," Collingwood rejoined. "Your conscience begins to prick you only +when fibs are told for domestic purposes."</p> + +<p>"Well, you see, you run much greater risks of being found out. It's +awful to be found out in an <i>ordinary</i> lie—people make such a <i>fuss</i> of +other people's lies."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to tell me that national lies are never found out?"</p> + +<p>"Well, you see," Ellerdine replied—the discussion was getting a little +bit beyond him, and again he struggled to find words,—"you see, +national lies are not about persons." Then he shook his head. "I'm +damned bad at it, Collingwood," he said in a final sort of voice. "I +can't rely on my memory. I suppose there's no other way out of it?"</p> + +<p>"My dear chap, none whatever," Collingwood said.</p> + +<p>"'We all got on the wrong train,'" Ellerdine repeated to himself slowly +in a sing-song voice; and then, looking up brightly, "Does seem easy, +doesn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Top hole," said Collingwood.</p> + +<p>Thus encouraged, Lord Ellerdine began to repeat the second half of his +lesson. "'We all stayed the night at this hotel.' There's something +wrong with that."</p> + +<p>"It's only your sense of the scrupulous," Collingwood replied. "Only say +it often enough. Say it thirty or forty times; then it will sound all +right."</p> + +<p>At this moment the door opened and Lady Attwill came in. She looked +quickly at Collingwood and he at her.</p> + +<p>"Good morning," he said. "Well, how is Peggy?"</p> + +<p>"She has a bad headache," Lady Attwill replied. "She's coming in in a +minute or two. I have had a warm quarter of an hour, I can tell you, +though I am sure I don't know what <i>I</i> have done...."</p> + +<p>If the woman was acting she was acting supremely, for there seemed +genuine disgust in her voice.</p> + +<p>"Is she much cut up?" Lord Ellerdine asked.</p> + +<p>"I should think she is! She's dreadfully cut up! I don't know what we +are to do," Lady Attwill said.</p> + +<p>Lord Ellerdine suddenly became important; his little mouth smiled +brightly. He was the bearer of good news. "Oh, that's all settled," he +said, rubbing his hands briskly together. "I and Collingwood have +arranged it all."</p> + +<p>"Arranged what?" Lady Attwill asked.</p> + +<p>"Well, do you see, we all——"</p> + +<p>The bright expression faded from the ex-diplomatist's face. "Tell her, +Collingwood," he said. "My head won't work. I've forgotten everything +already."</p> + +<p>"You've never given Dicky anything to think about?" Lady Attwill said in +mock alarm.</p> + +<p>"Not much," Collingwood answered.</p> + +<p>Ellerdine flushed up angrily. "Not much!" he cried. "He gets on the +wrong train. He leaves us standing at the post like a couple of sublime +martyrs. Goes off to Paris and leaves us kicking our confounded heels at +Chalons. We come here after them—find the hotel full of bookies—travel +all night in a beastly slow train—no sleep, no food, no Switzerland. +Not much to think about! I shall have an attack of brain fever after +this affair."</p> + +<p>Lady Attwill went up to the enraged gentleman. "Poor Dicky!" she said +soothingly. "He's had a bad night. Dicky is no good unless he gets his +proper sleep. Now sit down, there's a good boy, and let's talk it over +properly."</p> + +<p>She led him to a chair with a radiant smile, and then turned to +Collingwood. "Now tell me, what is it that you have arranged?" As she +said this she felt in the side pocket of his coat and drew out his +cigarette case. Opening it, she gave him one and took one for herself, +struck a match and lit it.</p> + +<p>"Well," Collingwood answered, leaning over the back of the sofa on which +his friend had seated herself. "A short, straight tale—simple, to the +point, and easy to tell."</p> + +<p>"The truth?" Lady Attwill asked.</p> + +<p>"The truth! Never! Who's going to tell Admaston the truth?" Lord +Ellerdine burst out.</p> + +<p>"How's <i>he</i> to know?" Lady Attwill said.</p> + +<p>"Know!" Ellerdine retorted. "I'll bet Collingwood a fiver all <i>London</i> +knows to-night."</p> + +<p>He looked anxiously at the other man, unable to understand how he could +take things so easily, absolutely unconscious of anything underlying +this unfortunate occurrence, absolutely unsuspicious of the sinister +forces at work around him.</p> + +<p>"Oh, bosh!" Collingwood answered. "Anyway, we can say we all got on the +wrong train."</p> + +<p>"'That we all got on the wrong train,'" came with parrot-like precision +from the diplomatist.</p> + +<p>"But we didn't," Lady Attwill said, looking from one to the other.</p> + +<p>Lord Ellerdine jumped up from his chair, his face radiant with triumph. +"There you are!" he said to Collingwood. "Just what I told you!"</p> + +<p>Lady Attwill became alive to the situation. "Oh, I see," she said; +"that is the short, straight, simple tale. I see. 'We all got on the +wrong train.'"</p> + +<p>"You see, Dicky!" Collingwood said with a smile. "See how quickly Alice +picks it up."</p> + +<p>"Oh, she's used to it," said Ellerdine. "She picks up things very +quickly. But tell her the sequel—that's the water-jump for me."</p> + +<p>"Come on; let's have a look at it," said Lady Attwill.</p> + +<p>Collingwood seemed vastly amused. He assumed the air of a comedian. His +hands fluttered before him in pantomime. His handsome face became droll +and merry.</p> + +<p>"'We all stayed the night at this hotel,'" he said.</p> + +<p>Lord Ellerdine nodded with an anxious look in his eyes towards Lady +Attwill. "Now try that," he said.</p> + +<p>"'We all stayed the night at this hotel,'" said Lady Attwill with +perfect naturalness and ease.</p> + +<p>"There you are!" said Collingwood.</p> + +<p>The middle-aged fool in the arm-chair was quite interested and pleased. +He saw nothing of the grimness which underlay this gay, light-hearted +chatter, in this gay and brilliant room. The other two, man and woman, +were playing their parts most skilfully—not so much to deceive +Ellerdine, but to trick themselves into the belief that they were not +engaged in a very dirty, ugly business.</p> + +<p>It's an extraordinary thing, but nevertheless perfectly true, that +people who are able to infuse a sinister and tragic moment with mocking +gaiety certainly provide for themselves an anodyne to the pain and fear +it would otherwise bring them.</p> + +<p>No doubt that is why the devil is generally represented as smirking or +leering.</p> + +<p>The door opened and the Scotch-French waiter with a large tray entered, +followed by another also carrying a tray, but whose swarthy features and +thick purple lips proclaimed him no hybrid, but a true son of the Côte +d'Azur.</p> + +<p>Lord Ellerdine jumped up. "Food!" he said. "I am starving."</p> + +<p>Lady Attwill rose also. "Poor Dicky must always have his food," she +said. "I always think he never seems quite human till he has had his +breakfast. When we were down at his place together——"</p> + +<p>Collingwood nudged her with a warning look. "Piano!" he said.</p> + +<p>"What about?" she whispered, with a rather sardonic grin. "I don't want +to play."</p> + +<p>"The waiter, I mean," Collingwood replied.</p> + +<p>"Bien!" she answered, seating herself in front of the cafetière and +pouring out the hot brown coffee.</p> + +<p>Lord Ellerdine had also sat down. He looked at his as yet empty plate +and drummed with his fingers upon the table-cloth. "'We all stayed the +night at this hotel,'" he said in a perfectly audible voice.</p> + +<p>"Oui, monsieur," said Jacques of Ecclefechan suddenly.</p> + +<p>Ellerdine started and looked up, his face expressing great surprise. +"Get away," he said. "I wasn't speaking to you."</p> + +<p>Collingwood frowned. His nerves, now, didn't seem quite under the same +control as they had been before. "Laissez les autres choses, garçon. +Nous nous servirons."</p> + +<p>"Bien, monsieur," said the waiter, with an ugly and furtive smile upon +his face, which nobody noticed, as he left the room.</p> + +<p>"Come on, Alice. Where's my coffee?" said Lord Ellerdine.</p> + +<p>"There you are," she answered. "Coffee, Colling?"</p> + +<p>Collingwood nodded. "What is there?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Lady Attwill lifted the covers. "Omelette, bacon, sole, mushrooms."</p> + +<p>"Sole for me."</p> + +<p>"Bacon and mushrooms, Alice," Ellerdine remarked, quite himself again at +the thought of breakfast.</p> + +<p>"You have no idea how I buck up after a cup of coffee," he continued; +"but, upon my soul, I feel like a fried flounder this morning. I don't +think I shall ever be in a hotter place than that confounded train from +Chalons."</p> + +<p>"Yes, you will, Dicky," Lady Attwill remarked, taking a piece of toast +from the rack.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, you will, Dicky," Collingwood echoed; "don't make any mistake +about that."</p> + +<p>"After all," Lady Attwill went on, "it wasn't so bad. You worried; that +was what made you hot."</p> + +<p>"You don't know anything about it. You slept like a log all the way," +Ellerdine said.</p> + +<p>"Easy conscience," answered the lady, beginning her breakfast with great +satisfaction.</p> + +<p>"You didn't get on the wrong train," said Ellerdine meaningly.</p> + +<p>Collingwood put down his fish-fork. The long strain to which his nerves +had been subjected, the irritation which he had so well suppressed until +now, had its way with him and burst out.</p> + +<p>"Oh, damn it!" he said, "you two make me tired. Do shut up about the +wrong train. Let's have our breakfast in peace."</p> + +<p>Lord Ellerdine busied himself with his mushrooms. "I wish I had a hide +as thick as yours, Colling, old man," he said. "You do take things +smoothly. Look at him, Alice—eating away as if he was on his +honeymoon!"</p> + +<p>Collingwood glared at his <i>vis-à-vis</i>. "Honeymoon!" he said.</p> + +<p>"He doesn't care a fig about getting us into this mess. What excellent +bacon they have here!" Lord Ellerdine went on.</p> + +<p>Again Collingwood got the better of his rising temper. "Oh, you'll be +all right, Dicky," he said, "when we get to St. Moritz to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"We're not going," Lady Attwill said shortly.</p> + +<p>Collingwood started. "We are," he said.</p> + +<p>"Wrong, my boy," said Lady Attwill again. "Peggy is going back."</p> + +<p>"Back! Back where?"</p> + +<p>"To London."</p> + +<p>"She doesn't mean it?" Collingwood said, putting down his fork and +looking straight at Lady Attwill.</p> + +<p>She nodded at him, and he knew that what she said was true.</p> + +<p>"There you are!" piped out in Lord Ellerdine's voice. "I knew it; I felt +it in my bones all the time I was in that beastly train. Peggy's got the +hump. You have spoilt the whole show, Colling. I can't eat any more."</p> + +<p>He pushed his chair away from the table with a perplexed and angry face, +and began to walk up and down the room.</p> + +<p>"Hang it!" Collingwood said, "is this the first time that anyone got on +the wrong train?"</p> + +<p>"No, it is not," Ellerdine answered shortly. "But it is the first time +it has happened to <i>Peggy</i>. Anybody but <i>Peggy</i>."</p> + +<p>"It seems to me," Collingwood said, "that we are making a lot of +unnecessary fuss."</p> + +<p>"Yes; let's drop it," came from Lady Attwill.</p> + +<p>"Alice," Lord Ellerdine persisted, "don't you agree with me?"</p> + +<p>She sighed, but it was necessary to preserve appearances. "Well, Dicky," +she said, "Peggy has not shown a tenacious desire to observe the strict +letter of every propriety. I know that there has been nothing wrong. +Absolutely nothing but little frisks and frolics now and then—quite all +right actually—looking perhaps worse than they were—nothing else. But, +after all, it is not what you do; the trouble of it is what other folks +say you do."</p> + +<p>The persistent moralist was not to be put off. "The married woman," he +said, in a voice as near to a pulpit manner as he could get, "cannot +afford to have anyone say a word. Look at Alice. Before Attwill kicked +the bucket she lived in a glass case. Didn't you, Alice?"</p> + +<p>Collingwood chuckled: not merrily at all, but with a rather nasty +cynicism—a snigger, in fact.</p> + +<p>"Look here, Dicky," he said, "if you don't stop your sickening habit of +preaching left-handed morality at me I'll give you up. I can't stand it. +I am <i>not</i> moral—don't know the first thing about it—never met anybody +who did. Man is not moral; environment makes it impossible. You're not +moral, Dicky, although you may think you are. And as for society, it is +absolutely unmoral."</p> + +<p>"I say! I say! I say! Listen to our future Home Secretary!" said Lord +Ellerdine.</p> + +<p>"No fear," Collingwood answered. "I leave that field to Admaston and the +other cackling crew of humbugs."</p> + +<p>Lady Attwill laughed amusedly, and Ellerdine was about to say something +else, when the door opened and Peggy entered.</p> + +<p>She was very simply but very expensively dressed in an exquisite +walking-dress of a colour which was neither grey nor amethyst, but a +cunning blend of both. At her breast she wore a little sprig of white +lilac. There was a sudden silence as she entered, a silence almost as if +the three people were conspirators.</p> + +<p>Peggy walked briskly up to the table, nodding and smiling. "Well, you're +a nice lot," she said. "Why didn't you tell me breakfast was ready? I +have been dying for a cup of coffee. Anything good in the food line? +Something smells good. What is it? Mushrooms—just the very thing! I +like mushrooms. Remind one of early risings and misty mornings. How are +you, Dicky? Alice, give me some coffee, there's a dear. Hello, Colling! +any news?"</p> + +<p>Her chatter was more general than addressed to any particular person, +and she didn't seem to require any answer to her questions. At anyrate, +nobody made any answer, and there was an uncomfortable silence as Peggy +began her breakfast.</p> + +<p>"You're a jolly lot," she said after a minute or so. "What's up with you +all? These mushrooms are nice. Dicky, pass the toast. What? I thought +you said something, Alice."</p> + +<p>Lady Attwill shook her head. "No," she answered in a rather strained +voice.</p> + +<p>There was another silence. Suddenly Peggy put down her knife and fork +with a little clatter and rose from her chair. "This room is horribly +stuffy," she said, going to the window. "There, that's better. Oh! what +a lovely morning! Dear old Paris! how I do love it!"</p> + +<p>She seemed restless and unable to remain long in one position, and soon +she had fluttered back to the breakfast-table.</p> + +<p>"Alice," she said, "please pour me out another cup of coffee.—Well, +Dicky, I put my foot into it nicely last night, didn't I?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, you jolly well did," Lord Ellerdine answered shortly.</p> + +<p>"I knew what you wanted to talk about, Dicky," she said.</p> + +<p>Collingwood interposed. "Peggy, don't go on like that. I have explained +it to Dicky."</p> + +<p>"Were you quite the one to explain?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Well," Collingwood replied, "it was my fault I rushed you into the +train."</p> + +<p>Lord Ellerdine started. Something already beginning to be familiar had +penetrated his consciousness. "We all got on the wrong train," he said.</p> + +<p>"Oh! All?" Peggy asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said the diplomatist—"yes—no—that's what we're going to say."</p> + +<p>"To whom?" asked Peggy.</p> + +<p>"Well—well—to—well, to anyone who wants to know."</p> + +<p>"Who should want to know?" Peggy asked.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no one, Peggy," said Lady Attwill; "but it's best to be prepared, +you know."</p> + +<p>"But I don't know. Why should I know? Be prepared for what?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing, dear, absolutely nothing. Only, some chatty fool might ask."</p> + +<p>"Ask what?"</p> + +<p>"Well—awkward questions."</p> + +<p>"About getting on the wrong train?"</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus2" id="illus2"></a> +<img src="images/illus2.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>"We all got on the wrong train and we all stayed the +night at this hotel"</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>"Yes—and——"</p> + +<p>Peggy pressed home her questions. She would not understand. "What else?" +she said.</p> + +<p>"We all stayed the night at this hotel," Lord Ellerdine remarked.</p> + +<p>"Did we?" Peggy asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said—"no! Oh! But it is best to be prepared."</p> + +<p>"I see," Peggy said at last. "What a dull creature I am! Dear me! how +stupid I didn't see it before! You have all made it up to put me right. +You and Alice didn't go to Switzerland—you came on to Paris. You and +Alice didn't get to Chalons and come on here by the slow train—you +stayed here <i>all</i> night. I see. Now, that's so kind and thoughtful of +you all! But for whom is this delightful story?"</p> + +<p>"Dicky's scruples," Collingwood said hurriedly.</p> + +<p>"I see. Dicky wanted it, did he?" Peggy replied. "Well, Dicky, I hope +your moral sensibilities are quite satisfied. We all got on the wrong +train and we all stayed the night at this hotel."</p> + +<p>"Quite so," Ellerdine said quickly; "just a short, straight, simple +tale, ready for any emergency."</p> + +<p>"And what emergency do you <i>expect</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Dearest Peggy, none at all," Lady Attwill said, with a note of anxious +affection in her voice.</p> + +<p>"I see. I understand. But don't you think the tale will need a lot of +corroboration?"</p> + +<p>"But only if someone questions it."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" Peggy said, and there was a world of meaning in the exclamation.</p> + +<p>"You see," Lord Ellerdine went on anxiously—"you see, it's all right, +Peggy. We have left nothing to chance."</p> + +<p>Lady Attwill nodded. "Nothing at all," she said, echoing her friend.</p> + +<p>Peggy looked at them each in turn. Her sweet and youthful face bore +little trace of what she had gone through the night before; and though +her head was throbbing and her nerves were all jangling and raw, her +freshness and purity of countenance remained absolutely unimpaired. +Beside her Alice Attwill suddenly seemed to have grown old.</p> + +<p>She looked at them each in turn with grave contemplation—lastly at +Collingwood. "And what do you think about it, Colling?" she asked at +length. "Don't you think that we are a precious set of fools? No—that's +unkind of me. Not you, Alice. Not you, Dicky. I am the precious fool. +Fool! Why, I should have been in cap and bells! A thing to make the +whole world laugh. For only the fool will ask for an explanation—the +wise, if they ask, will look on the explanation as the better part of +the joke. But tell me, Dicky, why is the explanation necessary?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! Come, Peggy, come. Confound it!" Lord Ellerdine blundered out. "It +<i>looks</i> so deuced bad."</p> + +<p>Peggy made a grimace at him. "Candid!" she said. "Now that was frank. +'It <i>looks</i> so deuced bad.' That's it. Looks! But only <i>looks</i>. What do +you think, Colling? Can't we tell the truth? Is there anything to hide?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing," Collingwood said.</p> + +<p>"There," Peggy went on; "there's nothing to hide."</p> + +<p>"Oh, we all know that," Lord Ellerdine said hastily.</p> + +<p>Peggy's rising temper almost got the better of her. "Then why the +explanation—the 'short, straight, simple tale'? Why not the truth?"</p> + +<p>She clenched her hands, and an angry light burned in her eyes. "Oh! I'll +leave you for a moment. I must go out. This place is stifling! We ought +all to be out in the air. We'll grow mouldy in here—plotting. Alice, +I'll put on my hat. Colling, you must invent another tale to satisfy +Dicky's scruples. Think it over."</p> + +<p>She tore out of the room into her own and shut the door with a rather +vicious slam.</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm jiggered!" Lord Ellerdine said.</p> + +<p>Lady Attwill nodded with a slight tightening of the lips. "I told you +she was upset," she answered.</p> + +<p>Collingwood rose from the table and went towards his own room.</p> + +<p>"Well, Dicky," he said, "I have done the best I can to satisfy you. I'll +get my hat and take Peggy for a walk and talk it over." And he also left +the room.</p> + +<p>"Well," Ellerdine remarked, "this comes of thinking of your friends." He +went to the fireplace and gazed rather gloomily at the glowing logs. +"May the devil take me if I ever care a damn again what folks think of +'em," he went on.</p> + +<p>Alice Attwill went up to the window. "Dicky, it is very strange," she +said. "I have never seen Peggy in that nasty mood before."</p> + +<p>"I've a jolly good mind to think the worst has happened," the man +remarked.</p> + +<p>She shrugged her shoulders. "Well, anyway, Colling is not in Peggy's +good books," she said, and, pulling one of the large windows open, she +stepped out upon the balcony.</p> + +<p>Lord Ellerdine was left alone. His face was grave and perplexed; but +seeing the <i>Matin</i> lying on the sofa, where Lady Attwill had dropped it +before breakfast, he went up, sat down, and was soon immersed in the +news of the day.</p> + +<p>There came a light tap upon the door leading into the corridor, which +was flung open immediately afterwards. Jacques stood there holding the +door open.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Admaston," he said in a loud, clear voice.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + + +<p>A Thunderbolt crashing through the roof of the hotel could not have +startled Lord Ellerdine more than the waiter's announcement:</p> + +<p>"Mr. Admaston."</p> + +<p>He dropped the paper, sprang to his feet as if someone had struck him, +while his face grew absolutely white and the little mouth became a round +"O" of consternation and alarm.</p> + +<p>George Admaston walked slowly into the room.</p> + +<p>He was a big man of about forty years of age, very quiet in manner, and +with a strong, resolute face. The eyes were grey and steadfast, and wore +that look which some people mistake for abstraction, but which is +anything but that. They had the expression of one who thinks often and +much. The finely chiselled mouth was set somewhat grimly, and there was +great force and assertiveness about the slightly forward thrust of the +massive chin. He was dressed in quiet grey tweeds, carried a bowler hat +in his hand and a light coat over his arm.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Ellerdine!" he said. "What are you doing here?"</p> + +<p>The voice was deep and mellow, informed with weight and gravity, though +pleasantly musical.</p> + +<p>Lord Ellerdine looked hurriedly round the room. It might have been +thought he was seeking an avenue of escape.</p> + +<p>There was no one to help him, however, and he began to stutter horribly, +while his eyes wore the look of a startled hare. "Here?" he gasped out. +"Oh!" His eyes fell upon the breakfast-table, and an inspiration came to +him. "Oh," he stuttered, "just had breakfast, don't you know."</p> + +<p>"Early for you, isn't it?" said the big man, looking the wretched object +before him full in the face.</p> + +<p>"It is rather early," Lord Ellerdine replied. "Been travelling all——"</p> + +<p>"All what?" Admaston asked quickly.</p> + +<p>The other was in despair. He realised what he had done. He looked +hopelessly round the room for Alice Attwill.</p> + +<p>"Where's Lady Attwill gone?" he gasped.</p> + +<p>Never relaxing his gaze for a single instant, and standing in the middle +of the room without advancing further, Admaston continued: "Is she +here?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes," replied Lord Ellerdine. "She's here. In fact, we're all here."</p> + +<p>"Where's my wife?"</p> + +<p>"In her room. Changing her gown. She's going for a walk."</p> + +<p>"But I thought you went to Switzerland," Admaston went on.</p> + +<p>"Did you really?" Ellerdine answered, with a ghastly assumption of +ingratiating affability, though his hands were shaking, his mouth +worked, and beads of perspiration were plainly rolling down his face.</p> + +<p>Again came the grave, persistent voice: "Yes. That was the plan, wasn't +it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! Yes—of course. But we all got on the wrong train."</p> + +<p>"What?" Admaston said sharply, and a new note in his voice made the +ex-diplomatist jump from the floor.</p> + +<p>"We all got on the wrong train," he repeated.</p> + +<p>"Who are we?"</p> + +<p>"Collingwood and Peggy——"</p> + +<p>"And what train did you and Lady Attwill get on?"</p> + +<p>"The wrong one. Stupid mistake, wasn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Very," Admaston answered.</p> + +<p>Lord Ellerdine brightened a little. He thought he was carrying things +very well now. "Yes," he said, "and so we all stayed the night at this +hotel."</p> + +<p>"Indeed!" Admaston replied.</p> + +<p>The other put his shaking hands into his trousers pockets. "Oh yes! +all," he said. "The proprieties were most carefully observed, +Admaston."</p> + +<p>"Now, that is very interesting," Admaston remarked; and if the other had +been a member of the Lower House instead of the Upper, which he never +entered, he would have known what that bland suavity of voice portended +when the Cabinet Minister rose to speak.</p> + +<p>Lord Ellerdine nodded. "Yes," he said. "But what the deuce are you doing +here in Paris?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! a whim."</p> + +<p>"Didn't expect to find us here," the wretched fool continued—"did you?"</p> + +<p>"There's something on?" Admaston answered, going towards the window and +talking as he went. "Racing or something, isn't there?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," Lord Ellerdine said. "Auteuil. Going out?"</p> + +<p>Lady Attwill appeared at the window. "Oh! Alice," Admaston said.</p> + +<p>She smiled brightly, extending her little manicured hand, upon which +diamonds and sapphires flashed and sparkled in the brilliant light of +the sun. "How do you do, George?" she said. "Who ever expected to see +you here?"</p> + +<p>"I don't run over often," Admaston answered, just taking her hand and no +more. "But I thought you were at St. Moritz?"</p> + +<p>"St. Moritz? Oh!—no. We changed our minds and came on to Paris."</p> + +<p>"Then <i>you</i> didn't get on the wrong train?" Admaston said with grim +politeness.</p> + +<p>The wretched Ellerdine, who had retreated to the breakfast-table and +sank down upon a chair, heard this, and was about to lay his head in the +bacon dish with alarm, when Lady Attwill's next words did a little to +reassure him.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes," she said easily, going into the centre of the room; "we all +got on the wrong train, but we changed our minds when we discovered our +mistake."</p> + +<p>"Good thing you did it before it was too late."</p> + +<p>"Did what?" she asked in a flat voice.</p> + +<p>"Why, changed your minds before you could change on to the right train."</p> + +<p>"Wasn't it!" she replied. "And, by the way, I saw an old friend of yours +on the train, George."</p> + +<p>"And who was that?" Admaston asked.</p> + +<p>"Sir Peter Stoke," she answered.</p> + +<p>"Really! But he must have been on the right train. He was going to the +Conference at Geneva."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" she replied, "I met him at Boulogne."</p> + +<p>There was a pause, and when he spoke again Admaston's voice grew colder +and colder with every sentence.</p> + +<p>"Strange," he said, nodding his head with an appearance of +thoughtfulness. "He wrote to me from Amiens, where he has been staying +for the past week, that he was joining the train there; and Amiens is +the first stop on the Swiss express, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>Lady Attwill almost whispered her assent.</p> + +<p>"And the Paris express doesn't stop at Amiens?"</p> + +<p>It suddenly occurred to Lord Ellerdine that he was being left out of the +conversation.</p> + +<p>"No," he said brightly.</p> + +<p>Admaston turned round to him.</p> + +<p>"Funny that, being already at Amiens, where the Swiss express does stop, +he should have gone to Boulogne to catch it!"</p> + +<p>Even the diplomatist, who had imagined that things were going better, +began to realise the game was almost up.</p> + +<p>"Yes, damned funny of him, wasn't it?" he said feebly.</p> + +<p>For a few moments there was an absolute silence in the room. Outside, +the roar of the morning traffic, the tooting of motor horns, and all the +gay welter of things which marks a Parisian morning in fine weather, +only accentuated the silence in the richly furnished salon.</p> + +<p>Admaston turned and walked twice up and down the room. Lord Ellerdine +was still sitting, guilty and miserable of aspect, in his chair at the +breakfast table. Lady Attwill stood quite still where she was, near the +window. They were both waiting to hear what should come next. Suddenly +Admaston spoke.</p> + +<p>"You found Paris very full?" he said in his icy voice.</p> + +<p>"Very," Alice Attwill replied; "so we were lucky to get <i>in</i> here."</p> + +<p>"Here?" the big man asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes; we all stayed the night at this hotel."</p> + +<p>"You used to have a very fine old parrot," Admaston said.</p> + +<p>There was spirit in the woman. She gave a little toss of her head. +"Er—I have her still," she replied.</p> + +<p>"Not stuffed, I hope," he said.</p> + +<p>"No, indeed. Alive and kicking."</p> + +<p>There was a rattle of a handle, and the door of Collingwood's room +opened and he came into the room.</p> + +<p>He gave one slight start, no more, and his manner immediately became +easy and natural. "Hallo!" he said. "Admaston!"</p> + +<p>The big man regarded him gravely, showing no emotion whatever.</p> + +<p>"Well, Collingwood," he said very slowly and distinctly, "I thought I +would just run over and see——" Then he stopped speaking.</p> + +<p>"How did you know that we were here?" Collingwood said.</p> + +<p>"From a friend," Admaston answered.</p> + +<p>The fool had to have his say. "That's very funny, Admaston," he said. +"We didn't know ourselves."</p> + +<p>"You surprise me. Didn't you know you were going to St. Moritz?"</p> + +<p>"Of course we didn't know," Lady Attwill said quickly.</p> + +<p>"Then how on earth could your friend know?" Lord Ellerdine asked.</p> + +<p>There was a complete pause. Nobody said a word, but Admaston was the +centre and focus of the place. All eyes went to him, and then back and +round to each other's. He stood there, however, calm and imperturbable, +radiating, as it were, not only quiet strength and absolute +determination, but also sending out rays of fear, of uneasiness and +disturbance.</p> + +<p>Lord Ellerdine broke the silence with his plaintive bleat, repeating his +former sentence: "Then how on earth could your friend know?"</p> + +<p>"That's what I want to know," said Admaston. "But why on earth are you +all up so early?"</p> + +<p>Collingwood's face had been growing sharp and hostile, his nostrils +twitched a little; he seemed now to be definitely on the defensive, +ready for the attack. What he said was this: "Mrs. Admaston wanted to go +out early to see the people <i>en route</i> to Auteuil."</p> + +<p>Admaston raised one firm, shapely hand and brought it down upon the back +of the other with a slow movement that ended in a little "click" of +noise. "Mrs.?" he said. "Why Mrs. Admaston? Why are you so ceremonious, +Colling? Why not Peggy?"</p> + +<p>Collingwood looked dangerous, sulky and dangerous.</p> + +<p>"Don't know," he said shortly. "I thought perhaps you were offended."</p> + +<p>"Offended?" the relentless voice continued—so cold, relentless, and +full of purpose that it chilled them all as it echoed out into the room. +"Is there any reason why I should be offended?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly not," said Lord Ellerdine in a staccato bleat.</p> + +<p>"Good gracious! What an idea!" Alice Attwill chimed in.</p> + +<p>Admaston turned to the ex-diplomatist. "Ellerdine," he said, "you ought +not to sit up so late. You look very shaky this morning, and your voice +has a peculiarly uncertain sound."</p> + +<p>"Do I look shaky, old man? That damned journey——"</p> + +<p>"To Paris," Admaston said quickly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, to Paris."</p> + +<p>Admaston went up to him, gazing down at him with calm, reflective eyes +as a mastiff regards some terrified small dog. "Late suppers don't +agree with you," he said.</p> + +<p>"With me?" asked the fool, perplexed.</p> + +<p>"With Dicky? Late suppers?" Lady Attwill interrupted.</p> + +<p>There was again a momentary pause.</p> + +<p>The thing was closing in. The conspirators knew well enough that they +were being played with, with the cold ferocity of a cat with a mouse. +They were brave still. They preserved their pitiful pretences, but to +the heart of each of them a little icicle had come.</p> + +<p>"It was after midnight before he had finished his supper?" Admaston +said.</p> + +<p>"When?" Ellerdine inquired.</p> + +<p>"Last night," Admaston rapped out.</p> + +<p>"Dicky?" Lady Attwill said. "Why, he didn't have <i>any</i> supper last +night."</p> + +<p>"Not a bally mouthful," said Lord Ellerdine, shaking his head +mournfully.</p> + +<p>"Collingwood told me," Admaston remarked, "that you had just finished +supper, well after midnight."</p> + +<p>"Well, that was a whopper," said Lady Attwill.</p> + +<p>"He didn't know," Ellerdine spluttered in.</p> + +<p>"Oh! I thought not," Admaston said. "But you all stayed here last +night."</p> + +<p>At that moment the sun, which had been filling the room with radiance, +had become obscured by a floating cloud. The place was informed by a +momentary greyness. It was only early spring, after all, and summer with +its perpetual radiance, its perpetual heat, its <i>air</i> of summer, which +will always make a room cheerful even when a thunderstorm approaches, +had not yet arrived.</p> + +<p>The room became as grey as the faces of the people who were in it, as +grey and cold as the accusing voice which could not be silenced, which +continued remorselessly. "But you all stayed here last night," Admaston +repeated slowly, clearly, and with a definite, staccato voice.</p> + +<p>Then there was an odd chiming of tone. The anxious musical contralto of +Lady Attwill mingled with the more anxious, and definitely tremulous, +bleat of the diplomatist.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes. We were all here," they said together.</p> + +<p>"But no supper?"</p> + +<p>"No supper, George," Ellerdine said in a faint voice....</p> + +<p>The door opened and Jacques of Ecclefechan entered.</p> + +<p>He looked towards Lord Ellerdine. "Your man, my lord, to see you," he +said in excellent Scotch-English.</p> + +<p>A little wizened, elderly man with grey hair closely cropped to his +head, and dressed in a decorous lounge suit of black, came drooping +into the room.</p> + +<p>His face was anxious, and at the same time pleased.</p> + +<p>"I telephoned to Chalons, my lord," he said.</p> + +<p>Lord Ellerdine jumped up as if he had suddenly sat down upon a pin.</p> + +<p>"What?" he said.</p> + +<p>"The railway people are sure they put your dispatch-box on the 2.43 with +you and Lady Attwill."</p> + +<p>Lord Ellerdine's face became the colour of brick. If his mouth had been +larger it would have foamed at the corners. "Get out!" he spluttered.</p> + +<p>The little man started back a step, his arms shot out in amazement, his +face a mere mask of one.</p> + +<p>"My lord!" he said.</p> + +<p>"Get out!"</p> + +<p>The poor fellow realised that there was obviously something very wrong. +It was a situation he could only deal with in one way, and that was by +being thoroughly polite.</p> + +<p>"Yes, my lord," he said, in a voice from which he vainly tried to +eliminate the amazement he felt.</p> + +<p>Admaston turned sharply to the peer.</p> + +<p>"What, Ellerdine?" he said. "Has your dispatch-box got on the wrong +train, too? What a chapter of accidents!"</p> + +<p>Again there was a horrible silence in the place.</p> + +<p>It was broken by a sudden, loud cry.</p> + +<p>Peggy had entered from her room, and had seen them all standing +there—like figures in a tableau in the big hall at Madame Tussaud's.</p> + +<p>"George!" she cried.</p> + +<p>At that moment there was a singular change of poise among the tense, +strained people who were there.</p> + +<p>Lady Attwill, radiant and beautiful, strolled up to the piano.</p> + +<p>Admaston remained where he was. Collingwood bent forward, almost in the +attitude of a man about to spring.</p> + +<p>"Well, Peggy. Going out?" Admaston asked.</p> + +<p>"I was," Peggy answered; and if ever guilty fear was manifested in a +human voice, the people in that room heard it now. It must be remembered +that to people who have been upon the brink of crime or +misbehaviour—even though they may have escaped it—the suspicion, when +they are confronted with it, has much the same effect upon their +attitude as if the thing had already been done. The nerves of the +innocent have often proclaimed them guilty to the most indulgent eyes.</p> + +<p>"I was going out," Peggy faltered.</p> + +<p>"Wait a moment," Admaston said.</p> + +<p>Peggy almost drooped together.</p> + +<p>She was like an early lily of the valley suddenly withered by a sharp, +cold wind—and all gardeners will tell one how sudden and complete that +withering and collapse can be.</p> + +<p>"Very well," the girl answered.</p> + +<p>Admaston raised his right hand a little, while he was looking at her, +grave and straight. Then his arm dropped to his side.</p> + +<p>"Ellerdine tells me that you all got on the wrong train at Boulogne."</p> + +<p>"Yes," Peggy answered. She looked anxiously, and indeed piteously, at +the others, wondering what they had been saying, longing to be adequate, +conscious of her own innocence, but dreadfully conscious of the +appearance of her guilt.</p> + +<p>Admaston—and nothing escaped him—saw the way her look flickered round +the salon.</p> + +<p>"You did?" he said in a voice of doom.</p> + +<p>She did the fatal thing; she answered "Yes."</p> + +<p>"Ellerdine also says," Admaston continued, "that he and Lady Attwill +stayed here last night?"</p> + +<p>The ex-diplomatist, who, though he was a perfect fool, was also a +thorough gentleman, flushed up and spoke in a voice from which all the +fear and bleating noise had gone.</p> + +<p>"Of course we did, Admaston," he barked. "Why the devil—don't you +believe us?"</p> + +<p>But it was of no use; the resolute, ice-cold voice went on.</p> + +<p>"And were you all at supper at midnight?"</p> + +<p>Peggy broke in. "Why do you ask?" she said—and if ever there was pain +and yearning in a human voice it was in hers at that moment.</p> + +<p>"Because Collingwood told me that you were," Admaston answered, "and +Ellerdine says he didn't have any supper. Lady Attwill corroborates +Ellerdine's statement."</p> + +<p>"Then why ask me? Don't you believe Colling?" Peggy said with a wail of +despair.</p> + +<p>"No, I don't," Admaston said shortly.</p> + +<p>Collingwood drummed upon the carpet with his left foot.</p> + +<p>"Admaston!" he said.</p> + +<p>Admaston turned round to him, and his face became, for the first time, +suffused with blood.</p> + +<p>The quiet grey eyes blazed with anger; the big, capable face was +transformed into a single accusation. The voice, at last, was directly +accusing. It was wonderful in its pain, its suppressed horror, its +certain purpose.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe a single word I have heard since I have come into this +room," he said.</p> + +<p>Lord Ellerdine took a step towards the Minister. "By God! Admaston," he +said.</p> + +<p>Lady Attwill ran up to Lord Ellerdine and caught him by the arm.</p> + +<p>"Dicky, keep quiet," she said in a frightened but very decisive voice.</p> + +<p>"You have lied—you lied to me on the telephone last night."</p> + +<p>Collingwood glared at him.</p> + +<p>"Telephone!" Lord Ellerdine said, also turning to Collingwood. "Did +Admaston speak to you last night—on the telephone?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," Collingwood answered.</p> + +<p>The diplomatist was genuinely distressed. "My dear fellow," he said, +"why <i>didn't</i> you tell us?"</p> + +<p>"Would that have saved you from saying that you all got on to the wrong +train? Collingwood lied to me. You have lied to me. Lady +Attwill—well—I beg your pardon...."</p> + +<p>Collingwood took two steps towards Peggy.</p> + +<p>"Why should you come catechising us?" he said to Admaston, and then he +stepped up to him.</p> + +<p>The two men stood in front of each other. Admaston, with a white fire of +enragement in his face, still preserved his absolute calm of poise. His +hands were clasped behind his back, his whole forceful personality +seemed whetted for the aggression of the other.</p> + +<p>Collingwood, on the other hand, was panther-like and alert. He almost +crouched to spring at the other. He was a little younger, infinitely +more <i>débonnaire</i>—probably not really so physically powerful, but at +least lithe, brave, and ready for anything.</p> + +<p>The two men stood there for a moment, when Peggy ran between them. "Oh! +don't!" she cried, spreading out her arms—in front of Collingwood. She +seemed to fear her husband's heavy and certain onslaught.</p> + +<p>She protected Collingwood, not George Admaston. Doubtless her action +showed her knowledge of the stronger man, her wish to protect the weaker +from his attack. But it was certainly most unfortunate.</p> + +<p>"Go!" she cried. "Please go!" And then, turning rapidly to Lord +Ellerdine, "Dicky, take Alice away."</p> + +<p>Lord Ellerdine was trembling exceedingly. He was not trembling from any +physical fear. He would have joined in the row with perfect happiness. +It would have suited him very well. He knew that he had cut a sorry +figure on this occasion—and he was not accustomed to cutting sorry +figures. He was not a clever man; nobody knew it better than himself. +But he had always considered himself to be an honourable one.</p> + +<p>Lady Attwill seemed perfectly composed. Her face did not alter in +expression at all, but she caught hold of her friend by the arm and led +him out of the room.</p> + +<p>The last thing that was heard as the two departed was the plaintive +voice of the ex-diplomatist: "I knew it—I knew it."</p> + +<p>Admaston waited until the door was closed, and then he turned to +Collingwood. "Why don't you go?" he said.</p> + +<p>"What are you going to do?" Collingwood asked, facing him.</p> + +<p>The two men were white with passion. "What the devil has that got to do +with you?" Admaston said.</p> + +<p>"A great deal. If you loved your wife as I love her you would understand +what it has to do with me."</p> + +<p>"I loved her—and trusted her implicitly," Admaston answered, and even +in his passion his wife could detect a note of sorrow.</p> + +<p>"Your presence here looks like it," Collingwood said quickly. "Why, how +did you know she was here unless you had her watched? Loved and trusted +her! Good God! man, you never knew she existed until another man wanted +her!"</p> + +<p>"You admit that you wanted her!" Admaston snarled out.</p> + +<p>"Yes," the other answered, standing well up; "and much good may the +admission do you. I wanted her, and I fought with all the weapons I +dared employ, and I have failed. What fight have you made for her? It +was her own purity that kept her sweet. It was that purity that I +wanted, but I have lost her." He made a passionate gesture with his +hands which showed how deeply he was moved—a gesture quite unlike the +ordinary English habit.</p> + +<p>"If you have any instincts of a gentleman, you have won," Admaston +answered.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>Peggy, who stood there trembling, gave a wail of despair.</p> + +<p>"George, you cannot mean——"</p> + +<p>Admaston took no notice of her.</p> + +<p>"Your methods have not been over nice," he said with biting scorn: "to +betray your friend—to seduce his wife."</p> + +<p>"That's a lie! I don't defend myself—but don't you dare to say a word +against her. We were great friends. I loved her, and thought she loved +me. But she doesn't; she loves you."</p> + +<p>"Pretty love!" the big man said. "I have finished with it and with her."</p> + +<p>Again there came a wild cry from the trembling woman. "George, for God's +sake!"</p> + +<p>Now for the first time a look of fear came into Collingwood's eyes. "You +mean to cast her off?" he said—"to break her spirit? No—no—you dare +not do it. You don't know what you are saying—you have no right...."</p> + +<p>"That's for the court to decide," Admaston answered.</p> + +<p>Peggy tried to step up to him, but he motioned her not to advance +further.</p> + +<p>"Court!" she wailed. "No, George, not that! I have done nothing, George, +to forfeit your love!"</p> + +<p>"Stop! You don't realise how much I know. I saw a letter at the house +yesterday before four o'clock. It told me everything you intended to +do—everything you have done. That letter brought me over after you. I +sent a detective to Boulogne to meet you."</p> + +<p>Peggy shook with fear. "That man?" she whispered to herself, with a +light of horror in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Yes," Admaston said. "I sent him. He followed you to this hotel. He was +here last night. He is in the hotel now. He has given me this report, +and it leaves no doubt as to your guilt."</p> + +<p>"My guilt! It is not true, George—I swear to you it is not true. I +don't care what you have done, or what letters or reports you have +received. I am your wife. I didn't love you at first—you knew that—I +was honest, I told you all—but now...."</p> + +<p>"You blind fool!" Collingwood snarled out in a fury of indignation, +"don't you see what you are doing? You are playing my game, not your +own. I have tried to win, I have treated her pretty badly, but I don't +want to win her now. Don't you see, man, if you call in the court to +break her wings you'll only drive her to me?"</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus3" id="illus3"></a> +<img src="images/illus3.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>"Don't you see, man, if you call in the court to break +her wings, you'll only drive her to me!"</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>"Yes," Admaston answered with a bitter sneer, "I see—and you don't seem +very anxious to go through with it."</p> + +<p>Collingwood looked at him for a moment, trembling with the desire to fly +at his throat. He restrained himself, however, with a tremendous effort, +and with an inarticulate growl of rage turned and left the room.</p> + +<p>Peggy came timidly towards her husband. "George, you are not going to +send me away?" she said.</p> + +<p>Admaston covered his face with his hands. "My God! Peggy, you lied to +me," he said in a broken voice. "A lie—a lie on your lips! Oh, Peggy, +Peggy, what have I done to you?"</p> + +<p>"George, I did lie," she wailed—"yes, I did; but only that, only that! +I am your wife! Believe me! believe me!"</p> + +<p>"My wife! No—no! How am I to believe you? How am I to tell whether +that's a lie or not?"</p> + +<p>"It's the truth!" she reiterated, her voice shrill with pain. "I swear +it! I am as much your wife as I was the day you married me."</p> + +<p>Unable to stand longer, she sank down upon the sofa, sobbing terribly.</p> + +<p>"You have broken me," the man said—"crushed me. Oh! I was mad to let +you do it! I was a fool to leave you alone! But I trusted you. I laughed +at the gossip. The ridicule only made my trust in you the greater. I +worshipped you, adored you! My whole life was a prayer to you, my +ambition to make you proud of me. My whole aim in life was to win you, +by doing big things—for you. And now it is all turned to +desecration—to be the mock of the crowd!"</p> + +<p>"Forgive me, George," she sobbed, "forgive me! I'll come to you. I am +humble, not you. I am struck down, crushed. But I'll be your slave. I am +still your wife. I am still——"</p> + +<p>He gazed at her searchingly. "You love Collingwood," he said in a +hollow, empty voice.</p> + +<p>"No, no! There was a time when I thought I did."</p> + +<p>"You thought you did! When did you think it? Last night?"</p> + +<p>"No, George, no! I love you! I knew that last night, if I never knew it +before. I love you, George!"</p> + +<p>"I don't believe you," he answered coldly. "You and he were together +alone when I telephoned."</p> + +<p>He spoke very deliberately now. "Was he," he asked—"was he with you +when I telephoned at one o'clock?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," Peggy answered, knowing well what the admission must convey. +"Yes—but...."</p> + +<p>"Alone together from ten o'clock?..."</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said, still more faintly; "but...."</p> + +<p>"Alone together from the time I telephoned?"</p> + +<p>"No, no, George!—not after that; I swear it!"</p> + +<p>"I know far too much to believe a word you say," he replied, and there +was a note of absolute finality in his voice.</p> + +<p>She saw that he had made up his mind—that she was doomed.</p> + +<p>"I know too much to believe a word you say," he repeated. "You were +alone with him. My God! Alone with him!"</p> + +<p>In a moment or two Peggy looked up through a mist of tears. The room was +empty.</p> + +<p>Peggy was left alone.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + + +<p>One morning upon a dull day in the late summer of the same year in which +Mrs. Admaston had stayed at the Hôtel des Tuileries in Paris, Colonel +Adams came down to breakfast at the Cocoa Tree Club. He ordered his +grilled kidneys in the quaint, old-fashioned dining-room, with its rare +sporting prints and air of sober comfort, and took up his morning paper. +His eyes fell upon the cause list of the Royal Courts of Justice, and he +sighed.</p> + +<p>A few minutes afterwards Henry Passhe, whose leave from India had been +extended for reasons of health, and who was also a member of the famous +club in St. James's Street, entered and sat down by his friend.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "do you still hold to your resolution, Adams?"</p> + +<p>The colonel sighed, and put down his knife and fork. "I don't know, old +chap," he said doubtfully. "It's different for you. You see, you don't +know Mrs. Admaston. I know her quite well, and I really doubt whether it +is the chivalrous thing to do, to go and stare at her, as if she was a +sort of show. She'll be undergoing tortures all day, poor little +thing!"</p> + +<p>"Just as you like," Passhe answered. "I confess to great curiosity +myself, and of course everyone who can possibly get in will be going, +whether they are friends of Mrs. Admaston or of her husband. It's great +good luck, my getting two seats like this; but don't come unless you +like. I can easily find someone else who will be only too glad to drop +in for an hour or two. That's all I want to do—just to see what's going +on. You see it is the case of the century almost. I am not up in the +statistics of this sort of thing, but I doubt if a Cabinet Minister, who +is also one of the wealthiest men in England, has ever brought an action +for divorce against his wife, who is not only as rich as he in her own +right, but also is co-partner in one of the biggest financial houses in +Europe. That's the way I look at it."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll come," the colonel said suddenly. "It can't do any harm, +after all; and I am sure all my sympathies are with Mrs. Admaston, +though of course...."</p> + +<p>Passhe nodded. "But there is absolutely no doubt about it," he said, "of +course. But naturally, old chap, the fact of our both being in the hotel +in Paris at the very time it all happened gives the thing a special +interest for us. When I go back to India everybody will be wanting to +know all about it; and as I have got a chance to be present at part of +the trial, I really can't forego it."</p> + +<p>"That's settled, then," Adams replied, as the two men strolled into the +big smoke-room, where the brown-cased Cocoa Tree is put with all its old +associations of the past. They fidgeted about a little, smoked a +cigarette, while they looked down into the busy St. James's Street from +the great Georgian windows, looked at their watches, and then hailed a +taxi-cab and were driven to the Law Courts.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Court II. in the Probate, Divorce, and Admiralty Division of the High +Court of Justice was crowded almost to suffocation as the two men +entered and found, with some difficulty, the seats which had been +allotted to them. They settled themselves quietly in their places in the +well of the court.</p> + +<p>The President was writing something in the book before him, and seated +below the judge was the associate, while the usher stood a few yards +away.</p> + +<p>Lots of people—and these the most fortunate—have never had occasion to +visit a law court. It was so with Colonel Adams. This was the first time +he had ever entered the great building at the junction of Fleet Street +and the Strand, and he gazed round him with great interest.</p> + +<p>He saw many faces that he knew. Immediately around him were the +privileged of society sitting behind the solicitors; Admaston, Roderick +Collingwood, the maid Pauline, and Lord Ellerdine.</p> + +<p>In the second row the leading counsel sat.</p> + +<p>Mr. Menzies, hawk-faced and saturnine of aspect, the horse-hair wig +which framed his face only accentuating the hatchet-like alertness of +his countenance. Sir Robert Fyffe, huge-framed, and with a face like the +risen moon. Mr. M'Arthur, a youthful-looking man, handsome and +<i>débonnaire</i>, but with something rather dangerous and threatening in his +face.</p> + +<p>Behind the leaders sat a row of junior counsel; and then Lady Attwill, +other members of society, and the two friends who had driven from the +Cocoa Tree Club.</p> + +<p>The gallery at the back of the court was packed with people, and there +was a curious hush and stillness over everything.</p> + +<p>All eyes were directed to one point—to the witness-box, where Mrs. +Admaston was standing.</p> + +<p>At the moment when the two men entered both Mr. M'Arthur and Sir Robert +Fyffe were standing up.</p> + +<p>"I have noted your question, Mr. M'Arthur, and do not think it is +admissible at this stage," the President was saying. "No doubt, if Sir +Robert's cross-examination follows a certain line, you can return to +the matter when you re-examine your witness."</p> + +<p>Sir Robert Fyffe sat down.</p> + +<p>"If your lordship pleases," he said</p> + +<p>Mr. M'Arthur turned over the leaves of a notebook. He was Mrs. +Admaston's leading counsel, and his examination continued:</p> + +<p>"Now, Mrs. Admaston, let me be quite sure that you clearly understand +the charges you have to meet. It is alleged that you arranged to miss +the train at Boulogne in order to spend the evening in Paris with the +co-respondent."</p> + +<p>"That is not true," pierced through the dull, blanket-like silence of +the court.</p> + +<p>Few people enough have any experience of a court. They read long and +large accounts of what goes on in the daily papers. Well-known +descriptive writers endeavour to present a true picture of what they +themselves have witnessed. And in the result almost every one whose +experience of trials is taken almost entirely from the newspapers +imagines that the scene of justice is some vast hall. It is all +magnified and splendid in their thoughts. The reality is quite +different.</p> + +<p>A quite small room, panelled, badly lighted, thronged with people—this +is the real theatre where the dramas of society are played in London +town....</p> + +<p>"It is alleged," Mr. M'Arthur, Peggy's own counsel, continued, "that, +having reached Paris, you permitted Mr. Collingwood to engage +rooms—connected the one with the other."</p> + +<p>"I did not know that Mr. Collingwood's room opened out of mine," Mrs. +Admaston said. "It seems the hotel was full."</p> + +<p>Everyone in the court—one person only excepted—was looking at the slim +young woman in the witness-box. She was very simply dressed. Her face +was perfectly pale, but her self-possession was marvellous.</p> + +<p>From their seats behind the junior counsel, Colonel Adams and Henry +Passhe looked on with sympathetic interest.</p> + +<p>Passhe—who was somewhat of a psychologist—remarked upon the extreme +simplicity of Mrs. Admaston's dress to his friend. "I call it +ostentatious," he said, "or something of a trick. When a woman has an +income of eighty thousand pounds a year quite apart from her husband, it +seems to me exaggerated humility to appear in the clothes that any +little milliner might wear."</p> + +<p>Colonel Adams shrugged his shoulders. He didn't in the least understand +his friend's point of view....</p> + +<p>"After you went to bed"—the handsome young-elderly Mr. M'Arthur +continued,—"it is said that you permitted Mr. Collingwood to enter your +room—you being at the time undressed—and to stay there a considerable +time."</p> + +<p>Peggy's little white-gloved hands rested upon the rail of the +witness-box.</p> + +<p>"I don't know about permitting," she said in a clear voice. "He came in +because he heard the telephone. I think he thought that I had gone to +bed, and that the call might be from our friends."</p> + +<p>"At anyrate, he came in, and you permitted him to stay?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I suppose I did. I asked him to go, but we were great friends, +and—well—I let him stay and smoke a cigarette."</p> + +<p>The court was dead silent now; the keen face of the President regarded +counsel and witness with an intent scrutiny.</p> + +<p>The society people who were there looked at each other and held their +breath. The junior counsel leant forward from their benches, keenly +attentive to the efforts of the respondent's friend.</p> + +<p>"It is alleged," Mr. M'Arthur continued, "that while you were alone +together you were unfaithful to your husband."</p> + +<p>"That is a lie." The voice was so poignant, so ringing, so instinct with +indignation, that even the President looked up and watched the witness +keenly. Mr. M'Arthur nodded to himself as if very pleased with the +response he had elicited. He put his hands together and made a motion as +though he was congratulating himself.</p> + +<p>When he looked up again his face was perfectly bright and cheerful.</p> + +<p>"I will put this generally," he said. "Have you ever, Mrs. +Admaston—ever, on any occasion or in any place—been unfaithful to your +husband?"</p> + +<p>"Never—never—never!" Peggy replied....</p> + +<p>She seemed no more the young and frivolous person she had been. Tense +and strung up, her personality had become arresting and real—her voice +seemed to carry conviction.</p> + +<p>Mr. M'Arthur looked round the court—with a half glance at the +President—and sat down.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, he had the very gravest doubt as to the possible +success of his case. That sleuth-hound, Sir Robert Fyffe, was against +him, and the case itself was a thoroughly weak one. He, accomplished +barrister, actor, and man of the world as he was, sat down with a +quietly suggested air of triumph that impressed every one.</p> + +<p>Sir Robert Fyffe rose.</p> + +<p>Sir Robert Fyffe was the absolute leader in his own particular line. +There was something so red-faced and jolly about him—such a suggestion +of friendliness even when he was most deadly,—that the eminence he +enjoyed was very well deserved. His voice was mellow; indeed, it was +more than that, and had a suggestion of treacle.</p> + +<p>He looked at Mrs. Admaston with a bland smile.</p> + +<p>"You will, I am sure, admit, Mrs. Admaston, that the events of the 23rd +March give ground for very grave suspicion."</p> + +<p>Peggy Admaston did not seem at all distressed by this question. Her +voice showed the pain that she was enduring, but all her answers to +counsel were delivered clearly and openly. They had either a frank +innocence about them, or else she was certainly one of the most +accomplished actresses and liars of her time.</p> + +<p>"Some persons are more suspicious than others," Peggy answered.</p> + +<p>"And one would be more justly suspicious of some persons than of +others?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, perhaps so."</p> + +<p>"And may I take it that you class yourself among those persons upon whom +suspicion should not readily fall?"</p> + +<p>Peggy nodded vigorously. "I think so," she said.</p> + +<p>The great, round, red face of Sir Robert beamed upon her in the +kindliest way. His voice—which carried right through the court—was +still ingratiating and honey-sweet.</p> + +<p>"You say," he said, "that your husband ought not to have allowed even +these circumstances to make him suspect you?"</p> + +<p>"He had always trusted me implicitly," she replied.</p> + +<p>The accomplished counsel made a remark <i>sotto voce</i>. "Perhaps too +implicitly," he said.</p> + +<p>Mr. M'Arthur jumped up in a second and looked at the judge.</p> + +<p>"My learned friend has no right to say that," he said.</p> + +<p>The President, with his air of taking very little interest at all in the +proceedings, raised his eyelids.</p> + +<p>"I did not hear what he said," he remarked blandly.</p> + +<p>"Never mind, Mr. M'Arthur; <i>I</i> don't mind Sir Robert," Peggy said from +the witness-box very sweetly.</p> + +<p>"I am sure we shall get on very well," Sir Robert replied. "Now, Mrs. +Admaston, I suppose you were very annoyed at finding you were in the +wrong train?"</p> + +<p>"I was annoyed, I suppose," Peggy answered; "but not very seriously. You +see, it really didn't matter very much."</p> + +<p>Sir Robert nodded his great bewigged head. "I suppose not," he said. +"Was it your fault?"</p> + +<p>The girl's clear accents rang out into the court. "I don't think it was +anybody's fault, except the fussy customs officer's."</p> + +<p>"This fussiness could have been avoided by registering the luggage +through—yes?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose so," Peggy answered Sir Robert.</p> + +<p>The big man leant forward with the most ingratiating face. "Can you," he +asked, "suggest any reason why the luggage was not registered?"</p> + +<p>"I believe it was the mistake of a porter at Charing Cross."</p> + +<p>"The mistake of a porter, the fussiness of a custom-house officer—quite +a chapter of accidents!" Sir Robert continued blandly.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Admaston seemed to find something consoling in the voice of the +great K.C.</p> + +<p>"Wasn't it!" she said brightly.</p> + +<p>There was no response in the manner or in the voice of Mr. Admaston's +counsel.</p> + +<p>"Was your luggage with Mr. Collingwood's at Charing Cross?" he +asked—blandly still, but with a threatening hint of what was to come in +his voice.</p> + +<p>"All the luggage was together when I saw it."</p> + +<p>"All? The luggage of the whole party?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," Peggy replied.</p> + +<p>"Was it labelled, Mrs. Admaston? I mean, apart from the railway labels?"</p> + +<p>"Mine wasn't."</p> + +<p>"Don't you generally label your luggage when you go abroad?" Sir Robert +continued.</p> + +<p>"I always do."</p> + +<p>"Well, Mrs. Admaston, why did you not do so this time?"</p> + +<p>"Well, you see," Peggy answered, "Mr. Collingwood, who is a great +traveller, chaffed me about being such an old maid. He said it was quite +unnecessary."</p> + +<p>The big moon-faced counsel almost jumped—experienced as he was—at this +remark.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" he said, "Mr. Collingwood said <i>that</i>, did he?"</p> + +<p>"It was lucky," Peggy replied; "wasn't it?"</p> + +<p>Suddenly the President looked up. His kindly but austere face became +surprised.</p> + +<p>"Lucky?" he said.</p> + +<p>Peggy turned towards the judge. "Yes, my lord," she said; "otherwise I +should have reached Paris without any clothes."</p> + +<p>The President nodded gravely. "Yes, I see," he said. "The boxes +fortunately made the same mistake as you did."</p> + +<p>Peggy laughed. "Yes, Sir John," she said, and as she did it there was a +little ripple of amusement round the crowded court.</p> + +<p>Of course, everybody knew that the judge who was trying this case had +met the Admastons over and over again.</p> + +<p>Every one there, with the exception of the people in the gallery, was a +member of what is called society. Peggy, in her innocent simplicity, +could not quite differentiate between Sir John Burroughes, who was +trying the case of her innocence or guilt, and Mr. M'Arthur or Sir +Robert Fyffe, K.C., M.P. She was bewildered. She had met all these men +at dinner-parties or receptions. She still thought that this was all a +kind of weird game. She did not realise that Sir Robert Fyffe was about +to hunt her to the death of her reputation, or that Sir John +Burroughes—the President—would give his judgment without fear or +favour.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, there was a little ripple of laughter right through +the court when she addressed the President as "Sir John."</p> + +<p>Sir Robert Fyffe continued his examination. "Very lucky, Mrs. Admaston," +he said grimly. "And did Mr. Collingwood's luggage make the same mistake +as yours?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," Peggy answered.</p> + +<p>"And the luggage belonging to Lord Ellerdine and Lady Attwill had the +intelligence to go straight to Chalons?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," Peggy answered again.</p> + +<p>"Didn't it strike you as rather odd that your luggage should not have +been registered?"</p> + +<p>Peggy tried to recollect. "No, it didn't," she said. "It struck my maid +as odd, I remember."</p> + +<p>A keen note came into Sir Robert Fyffe's voice. The blandness and +suavity seemed to have left it.</p> + +<p>"It struck your maid as odd?" he said sharply.</p> + +<p>"Maids who are devoted to us are often more suspicious than we are," +Peggy answered. "Don't you think so, Sir Robert?"</p> + +<p>The big red face turned full upon her for a moment. People who watched +it carefully might have discerned a slight expression of compunction. He +had known this little butterfly in private life, but now professional +considerations overbore everything. He was Sir Robert Fyffe because he +did his job—had always done his job.</p> + +<p>"I am afraid I am not here to say what I think," he answered quickly.</p> + +<p>Peggy realised the situation in a moment. She was fighting desperately, +but nothing gave an index to the fact.</p> + +<p>"Oh, we all know that, Sir Robert!" she said, and there was a slight +murmur and ripple of laughter through the court.</p> + +<p>The President raised his eyes above his glasses and stared gravely +round.</p> + +<p>Silence was restored.</p> + +<p>"Your maid's luggage," said Sir Robert, "had the good fortune to reach +Paris too?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Did Mr. Collingwood attend to the luggage at Charing Cross—the luggage +of the whole party, I mean?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I think he did."</p> + +<p>"Do you think, Mrs. Admaston, that you would remember the porter who +made the mistake?"</p> + +<p>Peggy seemed to be trying to remember something. "No," she said +doubtfully. "I don't think I could."</p> + +<p>"Do you remember having a conversation with him?" Sir Robert continued, +his face as bland and confidential as any face could be.</p> + +<p>"No, I don't remember."</p> + +<p>"Your name was on your boxes in full, wasn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Well, Mrs. Admaston, don't you remember having a talk with him about +your husband?"</p> + +<p>Peggy looked up brightly. Something seemed to have struck her.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes," she said quickly. "Wasn't he a constituent?"</p> + +<p>Sir Robert bowed sweetly. "I think he was," he said. "At anyrate, a +great admirer." Then he turned round. "Will Mr. Stevens please stand +up?"</p> + +<p>Just behind the barristers and the seats in which the society people +were sitting, a broad, short, and sturdy man rose from the pit of the +court.</p> + +<p>"Now," Sir Robert said to Mrs. Admaston, "do you recognise him?"</p> + +<p>Peggy leant over the rail of the box with real interest—if it was not +affectation.</p> + +<p>"No," she said doubtfully; "I could not say for certain."</p> + +<p>"But if Mr. Stevens can swear that he is the man with whom you had the +conversation?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! then he must be right, Sir Robert," Peggy answered.</p> + +<p>Mr. Menzies rose in his place. "My client, Mr. Collingwood, recognises +the man, m'lud—there is no doubt about it."</p> + +<p>"Very well," the President answered quietly. "We shall have that later."</p> + +<p>"So that is the porter who made the mistake," Sir Robert resumed in a +voice full of meaning. "You can sit down, Mr. Stevens. Would you be +surprised to hear that your luggage and Mr. Collingwood's was not +registered, upon the express instructions of Mr. Collingwood, and that +Lord Ellerdine's and Lady Attwill's luggage was registered through, also +upon his instructions?"</p> + +<p>Mr. M'Arthur rose. "My lord," he said, "this cannot be evidence against +my client. Even if Mr. Collingwood was acting as her agent, such +instructions were clearly outside his authority."</p> + +<p>Sir Robert glanced round quickly. "One moment, Mr. M'Arthur," he said, +in a voice full of meaning. "If it should turn out, Mrs. Admaston, that +Mr. Collingwood gave express instructions that your luggage should not +be registered—that, you say, was not according to your instructions?"</p> + +<p>"It is incredible that he <i>should</i> have given such instructions," Peggy +said.</p> + +<p>"Incredible!" said Sir Robert Fyffe.</p> + +<p>"Unless——" Peggy replied, then stopped short and bit her lip.</p> + +<p>Every one in the court noticed that the judge had lifted his head and +was looking keenly at her.</p> + +<p>"Well? Unless what, Mrs. Admaston?" Sir Robert Fyffe asked quickly.</p> + +<p>Peggy did not answer at all.</p> + +<p>"Shall I finish it for you?" Sir Robert continued, with his famous +little menacing gesture of the right hand. "Unless he had intended to +give his friends the slip at Boulogne, and stay the night in Paris with +you. Is that what you were going to say?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, it was, for a moment," the girl answered, "until it struck me how +absurd it was."</p> + +<p>"It strikes you as absurd, does it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, it does rather," she replied.</p> + +<p>"I suppose it would strike you as equally absurd that Mr. Collingwood +had already engaged rooms at the Hôtel des Tuileries for himself and a +lady, two days before you left London? Or do you think the rooms were +engaged for some other lady?"</p> + +<p>"I don't believe they were engaged at all before we arrived," came the +answer quickly.</p> + +<p>Sir Robert nodded his big head. "We shall hear, no doubt, from Mr. +Collingwood. Am I to take it, then, that you had no knowledge of the +fact that your luggage was not registered, and that you had no knowledge +of the fact that Mr. Collingwood had already taken rooms for himself and +a lady before you left London?"</p> + +<p>"I had no knowledge whatever—none at all," Peggy replied with great +emphasis.</p> + +<p>"And I think you told my learned friend in examination-in-chief that you +had no knowledge of the fact that both your bedroom and Mr. +Collingwood's opened out of the same sitting-room?"</p> + +<p>"That is so, Sir Robert."</p> + +<p>"I think you telegraphed to Chalons when you got to Paris to tell Lord +Ellerdine of your mistake?"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Collingwood did so for me."</p> + +<p>"And to your husband?"</p> + +<p>"No; that was not necessary."</p> + +<p>In some subtle, but very real fashion, the atmosphere of the court was +becoming more and more charged with excitement. Everybody was sitting +perfectly still. All eyes were directed to the slim figure of the girl +in the witness-box. The hush was not broken by any sounds, save only +that of the great counsel's voice with its deadly innuendo, its +remorseless logic of fact, and the replies of the sweet-voiced girl.</p> + +<p>"Why not?" Sir Robert asked, with a deep note of suggestion.</p> + +<p>"I did not want to worry him with our silly mistakes," was the answer; +and even as she gave it Peggy's heart sank like lead within her, +realising how inadequate and feeble it sounded.</p> + +<p>"Did you think that it would annoy your husband to think that you and +Mr. Collingwood were alone in Paris?"</p> + +<p>"Not a bit," she replied.</p> + +<p>"Then why didn't you tell him? You had nothing to hide?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing whatever."</p> + +<p>There was a pause. Sir Robert's face still wore an expectant look. He +was obviously waiting for a reply.</p> + +<p>It came at length, and every person in the court as they heard it +smiled, frowned, or sighed according to their several temperaments.</p> + +<p>"I really don't know why I didn't tell him."</p> + +<p>"Let me suggest a reason. You didn't tell because you didn't want him to +know?"</p> + +<p>"I don't think that is true," Peggy answered.</p> + +<p>"Come, Mrs. Admaston; you heard the evidence of the detective?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I did."</p> + +<p>"He has told the jury that when the telephone message came through from +your husband you were in the room; that you stayed by and heard the +co-respondent tell your husband that Lord Ellerdine was staying at the +hotel—a deliberate lie; and that you refused to speak to your husband. +Is that true?"</p> + +<p>The answer, the miserable answer, came in the faintest of voices from +the box:</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>And now there was every sign of what the newspapers call a "sensation" +in court. Colonel Adams and Henry Passhe looked at each other +significantly. "That's done for her," Passhe whispered to his friend. +Ladies nudged each other. The reporters wrote furiously. The judge +leaned forward a little more over his desk.</p> + +<p>"Why did you connive at this lie?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. Really, I don't know."</p> + +<p>"Why did you refuse to speak to your husband?"</p> + +<p>Peggy was silently gazing downwards.</p> + +<p>"You have told us that it would not have annoyed your husband to think +that you and Mr. Collingwood were alone in Paris."</p> + +<p>"Why should it have annoyed him," Peggy answered, "if it were an +accident?"</p> + +<p>"Exactly!" Sir Robert continued—"if it were an accident. I put it to +you that the only fact which made you afraid to speak to your husband +was because you knew it was not an accident, and that he had just cause +for resentment."</p> + +<p>"That is not true," Peggy said, with a little flicker of the spirit she +had shown at first.</p> + +<p>"I don't wish to be unfair," said Sir Robert Fyffe—and no man at the +Bar was fairer than the famous counsel in his cross-examinations.</p> + +<p>"You are not unfair, Sir Robert," Peggy said; "but, oh! it is all +unfair."</p> + +<p>Sir Robert gave a little sigh, which may or may not have been a genuine +expression of feeling, but was probably sincere enough. His duty lay +before him, however, and, like some sworn torturer of the Middle Ages, +he must pursue it to the end.</p> + +<p>"I must press you upon this point," he said. "What made you afraid to +tell your husband that you were alone in Paris? What made you agree with +Mr. Collingwood, Lord Ellerdine, and Lady Attwill to say that you had +not been alone with Mr. Collingwood in Paris?"</p> + +<p>"I cannot tell you," Peggy answered. "I was very upset, and really not +quite myself."</p> + +<p>"Not quite yourself?" followed upon the heels of her answer with +lightning rapidity. "Very upset? What had happened to upset you?"</p> + +<p>Peggy made a motion—an instinctive motion—as if to free herself from +something, something that was slowly but surely tightening round her. +Every one noticed it, every one understood it.</p> + +<p>"Nothing," she said at length.</p> + +<p>At this there was a ripple of laughter through the court, and cutting in +upon it, before it had quite died away, the accusing voice was heard: +"Nothing? If that is so, can you give any reason why Lord Ellerdine and +Lady Attwill should have connived at this deception?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose they thought they were shielding me."</p> + +<p>"Shielding you!" Sir Robert cried in mock surprise. "From what? Tell me, +Mrs. Admaston," he continued, as Peggy looked round the court +helplessly—"tell me, do you think that Lord Ellerdine—he is an old +friend?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, a dear old friend," Peggy said, glad to be able to say something +for a moment which did not tell against her.</p> + +<p>"Do you think that Lord Ellerdine and Lady Attwill believed that you +were in Paris, by accident?"</p> + +<p>"How can I tell?" Peggy replied, not in the least seeing to what this +was leading.</p> + +<p>"Have you any doubt? Why do you think that Lord Ellerdine returned to +Paris by the night train instead of letting you join them at Chalons, +except that he thought something was very seriously wrong?"</p> + +<p>"I have told you," Peggy replied, "that he thought he was shielding me."</p> + +<p>"But you have not told me from what he thought he was shielding you. +What was he to shield you from?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing," Peggy said once more. And again there was a ripple of +laughter throughout the court.</p> + +<p>At this Sir Robert Fyffe allowed himself his first look at the jury, and +a most significant one it was. Then he turned quickly to the +witness-box. "Nothing!" he cried. "Then why did you invent—or connive +at the invention of—this story?"</p> + +<p>"Why did I?" the girl said helplessly. "I don't know. I thought it +foolish. I saw that they had told a lying story to my husband, thinking +to serve me, and I didn't want to give them away."</p> + +<p>"You lied to your husband because you didn't wish to give your +good-natured friends away. Is that really your reason, Mrs. Admaston?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she answered, "and I loathed myself for it."</p> + +<p>"It was perhaps the first time that you had deceived your husband?" Sir +Robert said blandly.</p> + +<p>"Yes," came the answer with a pause, and very faintly given.</p> + +<p>"You arrived at the hotel under the impression that your presence in +Paris was due to a mistake?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"You supped in your room with Mr. Collingwood?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And what time did you sup?"</p> + +<p>"About 10 or 10.15."</p> + +<p>"What did you do after supper? I suppose you finished about 11?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose so," Peggy replied.</p> + +<p>"Well—what did you do? The table, I think, was not cleared before you +retired to bed—that is so, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"How did you spend the time between 11 and 12.30?"</p> + +<p>"We were talking."</p> + +<p>"No doubt you told the waiter not to clear away so that you should not +be disturbed?"</p> + +<p>"I really forget," Peggy said.</p> + +<p>"At anyrate, you were not disturbed?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"And spent a charming evening?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Unspoilt by any idea that your presence there was due to a deliberate +and successful device to give your companions the slip?"</p> + +<p>Helpless as she was in those skilled, remorseless hands, Peggy +nevertheless flared up at this.</p> + +<p>"To have had such an idea," she said, with a dignity which was strangely +piteous under the circumstances, "would have been an insult to Mr. +Collingwood."</p> + +<p>"Always assuming," said Sir Robert, "that Mr. Collingwood made his plans +without your knowledge."</p> + +<p>"I don't believe that Mr. Collingwood made the plans you suggest."</p> + +<p>"And nothing will shake your faith in Mr. Collingwood?" said Sir Robert +with great suavity.</p> + +<p>"My faith in him is not likely to be shaken by the hired evidence of +detectives, railway porters, or hotel servants."</p> + +<p>"You mustn't talk like that, Mrs. Admaston," the judge said gravely.</p> + +<p>"When did it first seem to you that your presence in Paris was not due +to a mistake?" Sir Robert went on.</p> + +<p>"My maid hinted it to me while she was doing my hair before I went to +bed."</p> + +<p>"Your maid is an old and privileged servant?"</p> + +<p>"She is far more than a servant. She is a devoted friend."</p> + +<p>"You are sure of that?"</p> + +<p>"Absolutely."</p> + +<p>Sir Robert nodded to himself, and his nod sent a shiver of apprehension +through the girl in the witness-box.</p> + +<p>"The subject admits of no discussion?" he asked, and there was a +suppressed eagerness in his voice.</p> + +<p>"None," Peggy answered.</p> + +<p>Sir Robert nodded again. "Very well," he said <i>sotto voce</i>. "You have +told me that you were annoyed, but not seriously, at missing the train, +and I suppose, Mrs. Admaston, I may add at finding yourself in Paris?"</p> + +<p>The examination seemed to have fallen a little from its strained note.</p> + +<p>"That is so," Peggy replied, slightly relieved.</p> + +<p>"Did Mr. Collingwood seem much distressed at the turn of events?" asked +Sir Robert.</p> + +<p>And then—it might have been rising hysteria, or it might have been a +totally innocent misapprehension of what was going on, but Peggy +laughed.</p> + +<p>Her laugh went rippling out into the court.</p> + +<p>"He did not seem inconsolable," she said.</p> + +<p>Her laughter was echoed by that of every one in the court; even Sir +Robert's red and genial face relaxed into a smile.</p> + +<p>"And I daresay," he said in quite a kindly voice,—"I daresay you would +as soon be stranded in Paris with Mr. Collingwood as with any one?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, much sooner," Peggy said. "He is a very charming companion."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," Sir Robert Fyffe answered, "I may allow myself to say the +same of his companion?"</p> + +<p>Peggy smiled brightly. "Well," she said, "it would not be the first time +you had said so, Sir Robert."</p> + +<p>"Nor will it be the last, Mrs. Admaston," the K.C. replied with a +courtly bow, and a really charming smile upon his face.</p> + +<p>Then suddenly he stood a little more upright, shifted the gown upon his +shoulders, touched his wig, and looked at Peggy keenly. He was once more +the keen advocate doing his duty, whatever it might cost him in personal +emotion.</p> + +<p>"But we must pass on," he said. "Very well. You finished supper at last, +and about 12.30 you went to bed. Your maid joined you and you got +undressed." Here Sir Robert put his pince-nez upon his nose, and leant +over to see the ground-plan of the rooms of the Hôtel des Tuileries, +which the solicitor on the bench before him held up for his inspection.</p> + +<p>Sir Robert looked at the coloured plan for a moment with intense +scrutiny. Then, having refreshed his memory, he turned his face once +more to the witness-box.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Collingwood," he continued, "had left you by the door leading into +the passage, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," Peggy replied.</p> + +<p>"You had no idea that he was occupying the room communicating with +yours?"</p> + +<p>"None."</p> + +<p>"You then sent your maid to bed?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And it was shortly after that that the telephone bell rang—the call +from Chalons?"</p> + +<p>"Very shortly after," Peggy replied.</p> + +<p>She seemed to be extremely interested in this conversation between +herself and Sir Robert Fyffe—interested in it as if she were playing +some game of which the issue would not matter. At this period of the +famous cross-examination she seemed to be perfectly bright and +unconcerned.</p> + +<p>"And you went to answer it?" Sir Robert went on.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said.</p> + +<p>Sir Robert clutched the bands of his gown and looked at her with the +very keenest scrutiny.</p> + +<p>"And will you tell my lord and the jury what happened?" he said.</p> + +<p>"While I was speaking—I had my back to the door—I suddenly heard Mr. +Collingwood's voice behind me."</p> + +<p>Sir Robert started. "You were surprised—startled?" he said in an eager +voice.</p> + +<p>"I was," Peggy answered—"very."</p> + +<p>The K.C.'s head was bent forward and was swaying slightly from side to +side, as the head of a snake sways before it strikes. He was quite +unconscious of the marked hostility of his attitude, but the game, the +big, exciting game which he was playing, which he was paid so highly to +play, and which had become the chief excitement of his life, had caught +hold of him in all his nerves.</p> + +<p>"Had he knocked?" he said.</p> + +<p>"I didn't hear him," Peggy replied, "or of course I should not have let +him come in."</p> + +<p>"I see," Sir Robert replied. "You were hardly dressed to receive +gentlemen visitors?"</p> + +<p>"Well, hardly."</p> + +<p>"You were angry, Mrs. Admaston?"</p> + +<p>"I <i>was</i> angry," Peggy replied.</p> + +<p>"Now! how did you show your anger?"</p> + +<p>"By telling him to go back to his room."</p> + +<p>"Did he go?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>And now laughter, loud and almost inextinguishable, filled the court. +Every one was enjoying himself or herself enormously. There was a sort +of atmosphere of French farce about the sombre court. Every one had, by +now, forgotten that they had lunched and dined at the hospitable tables +of Mr. and Mrs. Admaston. They were there for a show—they were out for +blood—it was a bull-fight to these pleasant ladies and gentlemen.</p> + +<p>Mr. Henry Passhe was obviously enjoying himself. He laughed as loudly as +any one, until the warning "Hush!" of the usher suppressed the +merriment. He looked towards his friend, but he saw that Colonel Adams's +lean brown face was drawn and wrinkled up with pain. Then he +himself—for he was a decent-minded man enough—felt a little ashamed of +his jocularity, and he turned once more to an intent watching of this +tragic spectacle.</p> + +<p>"No doubt," Sir Robert said, "that made you more angry—yes?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Admaston did not answer, but Sir Robert persisted.</p> + +<p>"<i>Didn't</i> it make you more angry?" he said.</p> + +<p>Suddenly Peggy looked up, and her voice rippled with laughter—she was a +butterfly, a thing of sunshine and shadow, but shadow never distressed +her for very long.</p> + +<p>"I never remain angry very long," she said.</p> + +<p>Sir Robert took no notice of the way in which she answered. His big +voice went on, tolling quietly like a distant bell.</p> + +<p>"But you were angry?"</p> + +<p>"I wanted him to go," Peggy replied impatiently.</p> + +<p>"Quite so," said Sir Robert. "But you allowed him to stay?"</p> + +<p>She heard once more that inexorable persistence, that bland, +passionless, but remorseless voice.</p> + +<p>The little flicker of gaiety and of respite was over. She braced herself +once more to stand up against this relentless onslaught, and clutched +the rail of the witness-box before her.</p> + +<p>"We are very old friends, Sir Robert," she answered. "I saw no +particular harm in it."</p> + +<p>"If you saw no particular harm in it, why did you not care to speak to +your husband when he rang up?"</p> + +<p>"One may do perfectly harmless things," she replied, "and yet not care +to tell every one about them."</p> + +<p>"And this was one of those perfectly harmless things which you didn't +care to tell every one, or even your husband, about?"</p> + +<p>"There was no harm in it," Peggy replied, and her voice rang out with a +dreadful sense of suppressed irritation and pain.</p> + +<p>"So little that you permitted Mr. Collingwood to stay with you—for +quite a long time?"</p> + +<p>"Not very long," she answered.</p> + +<p>"Until the telephone call from your husband?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose so."</p> + +<p>Sir Robert Fyffe began to seem very pleased with himself. There was no +bitterness in his voice—only an extreme politeness. But by now he kept +glancing carefully at the jury, watching them with lightning glances, +and gathering all the information he possibly could from the expressions +on their faces—their immobility or movements of interest.</p> + +<p>"Up to that time," Sir Robert remarked—and his question had really the +note of a casual inquiry—"up to that time had he shown any sign of +going?"</p> + +<p>"I don't think so."</p> + +<p>The next query startled the whole court, not so much from its +directness—though that was patent enough,—but by reason of the way in +which it was rapped out.</p> + +<p>It was said in a hard, threatening, staccato voice: "What were you both +doing?"</p> + +<p>The answer was rather reflective than otherwise. It showed no +apprehension of the intention of the examiner.</p> + +<p>"Sitting on the sofa—he was smoking, I think," Peggy said.</p> + +<p>"Should I be right in saying that during most of this time he was making +passionate love to you?"</p> + +<p>All the reporters looked up, their pencils poised, their eyes avid of +sensation.</p> + +<p>"He was very fond of me," Mrs. Admaston replied.</p> + +<p>"Passionately in love with you?"</p> + +<p>There was a perceptible hesitation. "I think he was very fond of me."</p> + +<p>Sir Robert's words came from him like the blows of a hammer upon a +nail: "Have you any doubt that he was passionately in love with you?"</p> + +<p>"He told me so."</p> + +<p>"I put it to you that you knew it, and had known it for months?"</p> + +<p>It was an odd contrast between the triumphant note which had crept into +the great barrister's voice and the diminuendo of Peggy's.</p> + +<p>There was no gaiety now. The forces were joined. The battle, which had +been an affair of skirmishes before, was now in full cry.</p> + +<p>"I only knew what he told me." The voice was quite desperate now.</p> + +<p>"And when did he first tell you? The night you were in Paris? Is that +when you say?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," the answer came, and the President leant forward to be sure that +he heard the admission aright.</p> + +<p>The big, round, red face of Sir Robert Fyffe was now redder than ever. +His eyes blinked as if the lids could hardly veil the silent fire which +peered out from them.</p> + +<p>"Do you swear that? Please be careful...."</p> + +<p>"I think that was the first time."</p> + +<p>"I suggest to you," said Sir Robert, turning towards the jury, the +President, and then to Peggy—"I suggest to you, Mrs. Admaston, that he +had been making passionate love to you for months."</p> + +<p>There was an intense silence in the court.</p> + +<p>The members of the jury were obviously excited. Different members showed +it in different ways. There were men who struggled to give no indication +of their feelings, and made effort at an entire lack of expression. +Others showed evident and lively interest.</p> + +<p>"I knew for some months that he was very fond of me."</p> + +<p>"And did your husband know?" echoed out into the court.</p> + +<p>"I suppose so," was the faint answer.</p> + +<p>"Do you suggest that your husband would ever have permitted you to go +away, even in the company of friends, with a man who had been abusing +his friendship by making passionate love to his wife?"</p> + +<p>There was no answer to that. No sound came from the witness-box—the +whole court waited for the response.</p> + +<p>Sir Robert was leaning forward now, his head shaking from side to side, +his blood-hound face, his extremely vivid eyes, fixed upon Peggy's face. +"Do you really ask the jury to believe that?" he said.</p> + +<p>Still Peggy was silent. She seemed to have drooped into something like a +faded flower. She said nothing. There was nothing for her to say.</p> + +<p>And in the silence the calm, judicial voice of the President, +full of commiseration—without prejudice one way or the other, +nevertheless,—made its demand. "You must answer, Mrs. Admaston," said +the judge.</p> + +<p>"I don't think my husband knew <i>how</i> fond of me he was," Peggy said.</p> + +<p>"If he had known," Sir Robert said, very gently now, and with a little +quiver in his voice—"if he had known, don't you think, Mrs. Admaston, +he would have been very angry to know how you were situated in Paris?"</p> + +<p>Sentence after sentence was wrung from her by torture.</p> + +<p>"I think perhaps he might not have liked it," she said in a fainting +voice.</p> + +<p>The bully came out in Sir Robert's voice. All along the line he was +being tremendously successful....</p> + +<p>"Perhaps! Would <i>any</i> man like it? Do you think, madam, that you were +treating your husband fairly in encouraging this very charming +gentleman's attentions?"</p> + +<p>Very faint, very slow, very hesitating, and extremely weary, "I did not +encourage them," the answer came.</p> + +<p>"We shall see. Didn't it make you feel very embarrassed to find yourself +sitting up in a strange hotel into the small hours of the morning, with +this man making passionate love to you?"</p> + +<p>There was a dead silence in the court. Once more the person on the rack +had nothing to say.</p> + +<p>"Or had this <i>liaison</i> gone too far by this time for you to feel +embarrassed?"</p> + +<p>Mr. M'Arthur jumped up.</p> + +<p>His face blazed with simulated fury. "My lord," he barked, "I protest +against these insulting suggestions."</p> + +<p>The excited voice of the counsel rather failed of its effect as the +judge looked down upon him. "Sir Robert is within his rights, Mr. +M'Arthur," he said. "He would not ask these questions without good +reason."</p> + +<p>Sir Robert Fyffe saw his chance at once. He glanced at the jury; he made +a little deprecating motion of his head to the President. "Too good +reason, my lord! My duty is not a pleasant one.... Was this the first +time, Mrs. Admaston, that you had received Mr. Collingwood in this state +of undress—when the rest of the household was asleep?"</p> + +<p>Peggy had clasped her hands. She threw them apart with a wild gesture +and clutched the rail of the witness-box. "My lord!" she said, "I assure +you that nothing has ever taken place between us."</p> + +<p>The President gazed at her with calm compassion.</p> + +<p>He had heard appeals like this one too often. He was not there to be +influenced by emotions, or to be prejudiced by his natural kindness of +heart.</p> + +<p>He was there to judge.</p> + +<p>"You must answer Sir Robert, Mrs. Admaston," he said quietly.</p> + +<p>"We used to sit up late sometimes at Lord Ellerdine's and talk," Peggy +admitted.</p> + +<p>There were murmurs all over the court. Society was interested.</p> + +<p>Sir Robert Fyffe leant forward to the solicitor in front of him, said +something in an undertone, and then looked up.</p> + +<p>"Was that at Lord Ellerdine's place in Yorkshire?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"When were you last there?"</p> + +<p>"About a year ago," Peggy replied.</p> + +<p>"Indeed! About a year ago——"</p> + +<p>"Hardly a year."</p> + +<p>"At anyrate, several months before the Paris trip Mr. Collingwood was +sitting up in your room into the small hours of the morning making +passionate love to you?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Admaston said nothing at all.</p> + +<p>"Is not that so?" the insistent voice inquired.</p> + +<p>"There was no harm, Sir Robert," was the hesitating answer.</p> + +<p>"No harm! Did Lord Ellerdine know?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Did your husband know?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>And now into the voice of the great counsel began to creep a note of +contempt, which was doubtless perfectly genuine. He had met the woman he +was cross-examining in society. He had liked her. But, as every one +knew, Sir Robert's own domestic life was one of singular happiness and +accord.</p> + +<p>It is pretty certain that—having known Admaston and his wife—he was +becoming genuinely indignant at what he thought the treachery of the +girl.</p> + +<p>"Was this another of those perfectly harmless things which you didn't +care to tell your husband about?" he said.</p> + +<p>"I saw no harm in it," Peggy replied, and in answer to the colder note +in Sir Robert's voice her own became stubborn.</p> + +<p>"But you would not have liked him to know? Well! You have now admitted +that Mr. Collingwood had been making passionate love to you for months +before the trip to Paris. We are getting at the truth gradually. I +suppose that he made these declarations of love several times at Lord +Ellerdine's?"</p> + +<p>"I think he spoke to me on two or three occasions," Peggy almost +murmured.</p> + +<p>"And was this really the first time he declared his love for you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, the first time."</p> + +<p>"You are sure?"</p> + +<p>"Quite sure."</p> + +<p>"And you still went about everywhere with him—but you were careful not +to tell your husband the truth?"</p> + +<p>"My husband trusted me. I never abused his trust."</p> + +<p>As Peggy said this, the foreman of the jury, a plump, shortish, +clean-shaved gentleman who in private life was a chemist, looked up with +a puzzled expression upon his face.</p> + +<p>He thought he detected a ring of real sincerity in the witness's voice +which the facts did not seem to justify.</p> + +<p>"Was not this an abuse of his trust?" Sir Robert said—perhaps more +gravely than he had spoken yet.</p> + +<p>"Oh! we can't all be perfect! I don't deny that I flirted," Peggy +answered.</p> + +<p>Her affectation of lightness went very ill with the weighty, measured +accusations of Sir Robert Fyffe.</p> + +<p>It struck a jarring note in the court. It did her harm.</p> + +<p>"You do not deny that you flirted," Sir Robert said, with a little nod +of his head—"and encouraged this man, this very charming companion, to +flirt with you?"</p> + +<p>"And if I did," she replied, still defiant, "my husband trusted me, and +knew that there was nothing in it."</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Admaston, if that is true, why were you afraid to talk to him upon +the night of the 23rd March, and why did you connive at a deliberate lie +on the following day?"</p> + +<p>There was a cold and deliberate disgust in Sir Robert's voice, and +almost every person there gave a little sympathetic shudder.</p> + +<p>But Peggy, brave to the last, still fought on. "I was a fool," she said, +with a little shrug of the shoulders, as if the question was of no great +moment. "I was a fool. The others thought the thing much worse than it +was, and that frightened me. I have told you already that I loathed +myself for lying as I did."</p> + +<p>Sir Robert knitted his brows for a moment, and then decided on his +course of action.</p> + +<p>That brilliant brain was never at a loss. Again, after a second's +hesitation, the deadly thrust was delivered. It was delivered with such +apparent suavity and innocence, with such a relaxation of the hard, +accusing note, that the girl in the witness-box was utterly deceived.</p> + +<p>"You mean," said Sir Robert, "that though you did not tell your husband +everything about your harmless flirtations—your peccadilloes—you never +before deliberately lied to shield yourself?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," Peggy replied eagerly; "that is what I mean."</p> + +<p>"Does it not strike you, Mrs. Admaston, that any one who knew of your +previous adventures with Mr. Collingwood, the pleasure you obviously +find in his society, and the methods you have adopted to blind your +husband to the progress of this innocent friendship, would have good +ground for supposing that the accident which brought about the last of +this series of innocent and pleasant reunions was in reality not +accident, but deliberate design?"</p> + +<p>"I see what you mean," she answered; "but whatever any one thought, it +<i>was</i> an accident!"</p> + +<p>"An accident! Oh, just consider this chapter of accidents! By +<i>accident</i>, you and Mr. Collingwood got on to the wrong train at +Boulogne; by <i>accident</i>, although the luggage of the whole party was +together at Charing Cross Station and Mr. Collingwood was instructed to +register it all through to St. Moritz, your luggage and Mr. +Collingwood's was not registered—an <i>accident</i> which enabled you to +take it on with you upon the Paris train, which you only entered by +<i>accident</i>. By <i>accident</i>, Mr. Collingwood seems to have taken for +himself and a lady rooms at an hotel in Paris which, but for the +<i>accident</i> which took you and him to Paris, could have been of no +possible use to him. Do you still ask the jury to believe that your +visit to Paris was an accident?"</p> + +<p>Sir Robert had a little over-emphasised himself—that is, as far as the +witness was concerned,—though his accentuated speech had its effect +upon the jury. Peggy herself recognised artifice. When there <i>had</i> been +a real note of sincerity in the counsel's voice it had frightened her +far more than any rhetoric could.</p> + +<p>"Certainly I do," she answered with spirit.</p> + +<p>The barrister recognised in a moment that, while he had made an effect +upon the court, he had at the same time given new courage to the +witness. He was, as all great counsel are, a psychologist of the first +order. He responded instantly, and in this duel of two minds—his and +Mrs. Admaston's—his keener and more trained intelligence realised +exactly what was passing in her thoughts.</p> + +<p>"I suggest to you, Mrs. Admaston," he said very briskly, "that you and +Mr. Collingwood had planned this trip to Paris—that he took the rooms +with your knowledge—that you both missed the train deliberately, and +reached Paris in accordance with your preconceived design?"</p> + +<p>"And I tell you," Peggy replied, "that all these suggestions are +absolutely false."</p> + +<p>"Absolutely false?"</p> + +<p>Her voice rang out into the court shrill with the long torture of her +examination, but passionate with her own certainty of her innocence. +"There's not a rag of truth in any of them. You may think you can make +black white, and white black, you may hire spies, tamper with railway +servants and waiters...."</p> + +<p>An instant reproof came from the judge—two words: "Mrs. Admaston!" he +said.</p> + +<p>She looked up, but hardly heard him.</p> + +<p>"... And do all the rest of the degrading work which seems inseparable +from this court."</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Admaston," the President said again, "you must not speak like +that."</p> + +<p>All men, even judges, are influenced by circumstance. It is probable +that the President would have been far more severe at such an outburst +as this, if Mrs. Admaston had not been a millionairess in her own right +and the wife of a prominent Cabinet Minister. And it is sure also that, +under such circumstances as these, an ordinary woman, without the +unconscious consciousness of her financial and social position, would +not have dared to do as Peggy did.</p> + +<p>Despite the President's admonition, a torrent of half hysterical, wholly +indignant words poured from the witness-box.</p> + +<p>"And what right have they to treat me like this?" Peggy cried. "Am I to +be treated as guilty, merely because I have foolishly courted +temptation? I don't know what I have said, I don't know what I shall say +before this torture is completed; but I am sensible enough to know that +I have no chance in all this farrago of horrible insinuation which +twists every little piece of harmless and girlish folly into some +vicious and debasing form. I cannot keep quiet under it. I tell you it +is all—all—lies—nothing but lies!"</p> + +<p>"Now, Mrs. Admaston," Sir Robert said, apparently unmoved by this +tirade, "I must ask you to give me your very close attention."</p> + +<p>"You must try to be more composed," the President said kindly to Peggy, +"if you wish to do yourself justice."</p> + +<p>Peggy's white, set face looked straight out before her. She summoned up +all her courage to bear the remainder of her torture.</p> + +<p>"You still persist," said Sir Robert, "in saying that your trip to Paris +resulted from an accident?"</p> + +<p>"Emphatically I do," she answered.</p> + +<p>Sir Robert looked towards the judge.</p> + +<p>"Has your lordship got that document," he said, "which Mr. Admaston +identified when he was in the witness-box?"</p> + +<p>The President nodded. "That was the anonymous letter received by Miss +Admaston—Mr. Admaston's aunt,—was it not, and produced by her on +subpœna yesterday? Yes. I have it here in the envelope."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps your lordship will allow the witness to look at the envelope."</p> + +<p>Mr. M'Arthur jumped up. "My lord," he said, "I submit again that nothing +can make this letter evidence."</p> + +<p>"And you are quite right, Mr. M'Arthur," the judge answered. "But at +present Sir Robert is not suggesting that it is evidence—Usher," he +continued, "please hand this to the witness."</p> + +<p>"Look at that envelope," Sir Robert continued. "You will see that it is +dated March 23rd, and the postmark shows that it was collected at 10.30 +a.m. Now, you persist in saying that at the time that letter was posted +nothing was further from your mind than that you would be staying the +night in Paris."</p> + +<p>"I have already said so," Peggy answered.</p> + +<p>"And do you say so still?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I do," she answered tartly.</p> + +<p>"We shall see," Sir Robert Fyffe rapped out. "The letter is addressed to +Miss Admaston—is it not? And Mr. Admaston has sworn that she brought it +to him to the House of Commons just after three o'clock on the same +day. Is Miss Admaston a friend of yours?"</p> + +<p>"I don't think she altogether approves of me," Peggy answered.</p> + +<p>"You know that Mr. Admaston has sworn that it was the information +contained in that letter which determined him to have you watched in +Boulogne and in Paris?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know."</p> + +<p>"And at the time that letter was written, no one could possibly have +known that you were going to spend the night in Paris or miss the train +at Boulogne?"</p> + +<p>"Of course they couldn't."</p> + +<p>"May I take it, therefore," Sir Robert continued, "that you believed +your husband when he says that that letter was in his hands soon after +three o'clock—long before you even reach Folkestone?"</p> + +<p>"I believe my husband implicitly," Peggy said, and there was a little +quaver in her voice.</p> + +<p>"Do you recognise the handwriting?" Sir Robert asked.</p> + +<p>"I have never seen it before," she answered.</p> + +<p>The judge looked intently at the K.C. "I don't want to interrupt you, +Sir Robert," he said; "but do you know whose handwriting it is?"</p> + +<p>"No, my lord," Sir Robert replied. "I am really asking for +information."</p> + +<p>"It is very curious," said the judge.</p> + +<p>"It is, my lord," said Sir Robert. "My learned friend, Mr. Carteret, who +is watching the case on behalf of Miss Admaston, informs me that he has +had it submitted to every well-known handwriting expert in the United +Kingdom, and indeed in Europe."</p> + +<p>"And compared with the writing of every person however remotely +connected with the parties concerned in this case?"</p> + +<p>"He has even had it compared with Mrs. Admaston's, my lord."</p> + +<p>"And no doubt with Mr. Collingwood's?" the judge continued.</p> + +<p>"Yes," Sir Robert said, "and with Mr. Collingwood's too, my +lord—though, I regret to say, with no result."</p> + +<p>He turned from the judge to Peggy. "And can't you help us, Mrs. +Admaston?" he concluded.</p> + +<p>"No, not from the envelope," Peggy answered.</p> + +<p>"It is a most peculiar handwriting," the judge observed, leaning back in +his seat.</p> + +<p>Sir Robert continued his cross-examination. "Now, Mrs. Admaston," he +said, "remember that that letter was in the hands of your husband just +after three o'clock on 23rd March. Now, will you be so good as to read +it?"</p> + +<p>"Out loud?"</p> + +<p>"Oh no. Read it to yourself."</p> + +<p>There was dead silence in the court as with trembling hands the girl +took the letter from the envelope and began to read it. All the +spectators, those engaged in the case, and several members of the jury +knew that the dramatic moment of all had arrived. There had been many +dramatic moments, but this was to be the culminating one.</p> + +<p>The excitement was intense, and, when Peggy suddenly gave a little cry, +there was a low murmur of sound. She cried out loudly, sharply, as if in +pain, while the judge and jury regarded her intently. Then she bent +forward over the letter again and appeared to re-read it.</p> + +<p>Suddenly she lifted her head and turned desperately to the President. +"Oh! my lord, this is infamous!" she cried.</p> + +<p>Without any hesitation at all Sir Robert made his point.</p> + +<p>"Do you still persist, Mrs. Admaston, in your statement that your trip +to Paris was the result of an accident?"</p> + +<p>Peggy was desperate. "My lord—this letter—it is a trap—it must be—a +trap——" she wailed.</p> + +<p>"Come, Mrs. Admaston," Sir Robert said very sternly; "can you still keep +up this farce, this hypocritical farce?"</p> + +<p>Suddenly Collingwood jumped up from his place. "My lord, I protest!" he +said, in a voice which trembled with indignation.</p> + +<p>The judge gave him a keen look as he subsided, muttering to himself.</p> + +<p>"You will have an opportunity to-morrow," the judge said, "of showing +your sympathy."</p> + +<p>"Now, madam, having read that letter——" Sir Robert resumed.</p> + +<p>The foreman of the jury rose. "My lord," he said, "the jury would like +to see that letter."</p> + +<p>"What do you say, Mr. M'Arthur and Mr. Menzies?" asked the judge.</p> + +<p>"I can see no purpose in keeping it out any longer, my lord," Mr. +M'Arthur answered, while Mr. Menzies said that any mischief which it +might do had been done already.</p> + +<p>The President seemed to approve. "I think you are right," he said. +"Usher, give me the letter."</p> + +<p>The letter was handed up again to the bench, and, adjusting his +pince-nez, the judge proceeded to read it.</p> + +<p>"Listen, gentlemen," he said, "and I will read it to you. The importance +of this letter, gentlemen, which, as you have seen, has so terribly +upset this poor lady, is that it was clearly written before 10.30 on the +morning of the 23rd March, and was in the hands of Mr. Admaston long +before Mrs. Admaston and her friends reached Folkestone—let alone +Boulogne. The letter is dated March 23rd, and it is unsigned. Now, +gentlemen, an anonymous letter is open to grave suspicion, but in the +peculiar circumstances of this case the fact of its being anonymous +makes no difference. If any one, other than the respondent and +co-respondent, knew that they were going to stay in Paris on the night +of the 23rd, and knew that before they started, it is difficult to +exaggerate the importance of the fact. I will now read the letter:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>"'Mrs. Admaston will be staying at Paris to-night alone with +Mr. Collingwood. They have arranged to get separated from Lord +Ellerdine and Lady Attwill at Boulogne and to stay the night +together at the Hôtel des Tuileries. If Mr. Admaston does not +believe this, let him telephone the hotel to-night.'</p></blockquote> + +<p>Mr. Carteret," the judge concluded, "were any other letters in this +strange handwriting received by Miss Admaston?"</p> + +<p>"One other, my lord, three days ago," said Mr. Carteret.</p> + +<p>"I should like to see it," said the President.</p> + +<p>The second letter was handed up to him, and he read it through +carefully.</p> + +<p>"It is all very mysterious," he said, shaking his head. "I think, +gentlemen, that you had better hear it. It is as follows:—</p> + +<blockquote><p>"'Please destroy the other letter and this, and save an old +servant who honours the family from the anger of Mrs. +Admaston.'"</p></blockquote> + +<p>The judge paused, carefully scrutinising the letter; then he took up an +ivory reading-glass and looked at the letter through the magnifying +lens.</p> + +<p>"Am I right, Mr. Carteret," he said, "in my view that this letter has +been blotted and not allowed to dry?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Carteret leant over and had a hurried conversation with his +handwriting expert. "I am instructed that there is no doubt as to that, +my lord," he said, looking up.</p> + +<p>"I should much like to see that blotting-paper," the President remarked.</p> + +<p>"Blotting-paper!" said Sir Robert Fyffe. "So should we all, my lord." +Then he rose to his feet. "Now, Mrs. Admaston, having read this letter, +do you still dare to repeat that until you had the misfortune to miss +the train at Boulogne you had no intention of spending the night in +Paris with Mr. Collingwood?"</p> + +<p>Peggy did not answer.</p> + +<p>She stared at the letter upon the judge's desk as if fascinated by it.</p> + +<p>"My lord and the jury are waiting for an answer," Sir Robert repeated. +"Come, madam."</p> + +<p>"And what answer can I give?" the tortured girl said faintly.</p> + +<p>Sir Robert was showing her no mercy now. "The truth, madam, if you can," +he said.</p> + +<p>"The truth!" she answered. "What is the truth to you? It's not the truth +you want. It's me—my very soul—that's what you want! Not to wring the +truth out of me, but just so much of it as will serve your ends!"</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Admaston," the President said compassionately, but with emphasis, +"these outbursts do not assist your case."</p> + +<p>"My case!" Peggy cried helplessly. "My lord, who will believe me in the +face of this lying letter? It is a trap—a trap, I say! I have been +hunted and hounded into it. I am not surprised now that innocent women +in hundreds let their cases go by default rather than face the +humiliation and torture of this awful place."</p> + +<p>"Madam, I must insist upon an answer," Sir Robert said relentlessly.</p> + +<p>"What am I to answer?" she cried again, wringing her hands with a +terribly piteous gesture.</p> + +<p>"If you ask me, Mrs. Admaston, let me advise you to answer the truth."</p> + +<p>"The truth?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, the truth—that this trip to Paris was all arranged between you +and your lover"—his voice sank and became deeply impressive; "that at +the very moment in which your husband was trying to reach you upon the +telephone you were in that lover's arms?"</p> + +<p>"It is a lie!" she said despairingly.</p> + +<p>"The telephone bell rang several times before it was answered, did it +not?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, but——"</p> + +<p>Sir Robert cut her short. "I suggest to you that even then you were in +your lover's arms?" he said with bitter scorn.</p> + +<p>"It is a lie!" Peggy answered once more.</p> + +<p>"Then, Mrs. Admaston, and for the last time, I press for an answer. Do +you still insist that you and your lover——"</p> + +<p>She didn't allow him to finish his sentence. Desperate as she was, the +hot words poured from her in a cataract of sound.</p> + +<p>"How dare you suggest that he is my lover!" she cried. "I tell you that +I have never loved him!—never—never—never—never! If I had loved him +do you think that I would be here now? For months and months he has +begged and entreated me to let my husband divorce me so that I could +marry him. If I had loved him, do you think that I would have faced this +horrible place? I have never loved him. I have been foolish—I have +played with fire—I have loved his admiration. I did not know that the +law—man's law—made no difference between the opportunity to do wrong +and the wrong itself. I know now. Some day men who know women will make +other laws—some of us must have our lives broken first. In the face of +that letter and the evidence, no man would ever believe me, whatever I +say; but I swear before God that it was all an accident—our being in +Paris. I swear that I meant no harm by all my little lies. I swear I +have done nothing wrong—nothing; but no one will believe me now—no +one." Her voice sank and dropped, and she ended her outburst with a deep +moan of pain.</p> + +<p>"I think we will adjourn now," said the President, and there was pain in +his voice also.</p> + +<p>He gathered up the papers before him on his desk and rose. The court +rose also.</p> + +<p>There was an immediate hum and bustle, which broke out into the loud +murmurs of subdued conversation as the judge left his seat and +disappeared through the door at the back.</p> + +<p>Peggy Admaston, wringing her hands, her face a white wedge of anguish, +the pallor dreadfully accentuated by the burnished masses of her dark +hair, almost stumbled down the steps of the witness-box. Mr. M'Arthur +and her solicitor—a little confused knot of people, indeed—hastened up +to her, and with a grim face Sir Robert Fyffe, not looking in the +girl's direction, arranged his papers and spoke earnestly to his junior.</p> + +<p>The scene was one of indescribable excitement.</p> + +<p>It was as though a thunderbolt had fallen, and people looked at each +other with pale, questioning faces.</p> + +<p>The hum died down for an instant, as the weeping woman was led gently +from the court.</p> + +<p>Then it recommenced louder than ever, mingled with the shuffling of +innumerable feet.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + + +<p>Directly the President had risen, Society streamed out into the great +hall of the Law Courts.</p> + +<p>Innumerable motor broughams and private carriages were waiting in Fleet +Street, and despite the dullness of the afternoon the eager +photographers of the illustrated papers were waiting to get snap-shots +of celebrated people as they passed from the sordid theatre of Court No. +II. <i>en route</i> for afternoon tea and scandal.</p> + +<p>Henry Passhe had an engagement, and, saying good-bye to Colonel Adams, +hurried away. The other remained in the big central hall for a moment or +two looking round to see if he could find an acquaintance.</p> + +<p>To him, as he stood there, came Lord Ellerdine and struck him on the +shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Hullo, Adams!" he said, in a voice which was very subdued. "Thought I +saw you in court. Been watching this dreadful business?"</p> + +<p>Colonel Adams nodded. "Yes, Ellerdine," he said. "Henry Passhe brought +me. He much wanted to come. I hesitated whether I should go or not, and +now I am very sorry I did. To see a charming little woman like Mrs. +Admaston tortured—that isn't very pleasant."</p> + +<p>The other thrust his arm into the colonel's. "Damned dreadful, isn't +it?" he said in an agitated voice. "Well, look here, let's get out of +this. What are you going to do?"</p> + +<p>"I have nothing particular to do at present; but why do you ask, +Ellerdine?"</p> + +<p>"Look here," Lord Ellerdine replied—"we can't talk here, but I have got +an idea." His voice glowed with pride as he said it. "I haven't +mentioned it to a soul, and I don't want to mention it to any one +concerned in the case. Upon my soul, Adams, it is a godsend to have met +you. I want to hear what you think. Are you game to listen?"</p> + +<p>Adams nodded. He liked Lord Ellerdine, as everybody did, though he had +no higher opinion of that gentleman's intelligence than the rest of the +world.</p> + +<p>"Quite at your service, Ellerdine," he answered; "and if your idea is +one that may possibly help Mrs. Admaston, I shall be more pleased +still."</p> + +<p>"Of course it is," Lord Ellerdine answered. "Well, let's go and talk it +over. It is impossible in this infernal rush."</p> + +<p>"All right," Colonel Adams replied, "Come to the Cocoa Tree, or, if you +like, I will come with you to White's."</p> + +<p>Lord Ellerdine shook his head. "We will have some tea," he said. "But I +don't want to go west now until I have talked this idea of mine over +with you. If you agree that there is anything in it, then we should only +have to come back to this part of the world again. Can't we get a cup of +tea somewhere about here?"</p> + +<p>By this time the two men had walked outside the Law Courts and were +standing among the motley crowd which was pouring out of the great +central doorway and also the side approaches to the public galleries and +courts.</p> + +<p>They looked around them. Both of them were absolutely at sea in this +part of London.</p> + +<p>"Tell you what," Ellerdine said suddenly: "I have got another idea. +Let's go to an A.B.C.—what?"</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" Adams replied.</p> + +<p>"Why," Lord Ellerdine answered, "the A.B.C. you know, where clerks and +people have tea. There are always lots of them in every street, I +believe."</p> + +<p>They turned eastwards and began to walk slowly down Fleet Street.</p> + +<p>"Ellerdine," Colonel Adams exclaimed bitterly, "look at this!"</p> + +<p>The pavements were lined with news-venders displaying great contents +bills of the evening papers:</p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">Mrs. Admaston on the Rack</span>"; "<span class="smcap">Society Lady's Admissions</span>"; and in a +violently Radical sheet, "<span class="smcap">Society Butterfly Examined</span>."</p> + +<p>Lord Ellerdine saw the placards also. "Sickening, isn't it?" he said, +with a real note of pain in his voice. "Poor little Peggy! Poor little +girl! I would have done anything to stop it, Adams; and in half an +hour—these newspaper fellows are so damned clever—in half an hour +there'll be all about the last scene, the letter and all that. By the +time we get back to town"—Lord Ellerdine didn't imagine that he was +really in London at the moment,—"by the time we get back to town it +will be in all the clubs just as it has come over the tape machines for +the last two hours, only with further details—how Peggy looked and all +that. Sickening!"</p> + +<p>Colonel Adams agreed. He did not in the least know what his rather +fatuous friend was about to propose or had in his mind; but he was, at +anyrate, glad of his companionship, weary and unhappy as he felt at the +terrible spectacle which he had found almost impossible to endure.</p> + +<p>"I could kill that man Robert Fyffe," he said savagely as they walked +slowly eastwards. "Great, big, damned bully, I call him."</p> + +<p>"Well, I know him," Ellerdine replied; "and really, Adams, he is quite +a decent chap in private life. It is his job, you know, and he has got +to do it as well as he can. I believe he gets about a hundred a day or +more for a case like this."</p> + +<p>"Filthy cruelty, I call it," Adams answered, "whether he is a decent +chap or not. To be paid—to earn your living, by Gad!—to torture men +and women like that seems to me a low way of earning your +bread-and-butter."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it is," the other replied. "At the same time, Adams, it might +be said of your job too. That Afghan business, when there was no +quarter, that you were in: there were a whole lot of sentimentalists in +the Radical press that howled and held you up to execration as a sort of +Pontius Pilate with a flavour of Nero, at home. You were out there doing +the work. I was home and read the papers—you didn't. Bally monster, +they called you—what?"</p> + +<p>"Damn all newspaper writers!" the old white-haired colonel growled. "But +I say, Ellerdine, what about this cup of tea?"</p> + +<p>Lord Ellerdine looked round anxiously, and then his face lighted up. +"Here's an A.B.C.," he said, pointing to some adjacent windows covered +with letters in white enamel and displaying buns and pastry.</p> + +<p>"How will this do, old chap?"</p> + +<p>The soldier nodded, and together the two men entered the shop.</p> + +<p>"What do we do now?" Ellerdine said, looking round him with some +perplexity. "By Jove! there's a pretty girl."</p> + +<p>One of the waitresses, realising suddenly that the two gentlemen who had +just entered were quite unaccustomed to the ways of the establishment, +and having one of her tables vacant, hurried up to them.</p> + +<p>"Tea?" she said engagingly.</p> + +<p>"That's just it, my dear," said Lord Ellerdine, with a pleased smile. +"Now, you show us all the ropes, will you?"</p> + +<p>"Come this way," said the pretty waitress, with an engaging little toss +of her head and a consciousness of something pleasantly unusual. She led +them to a little round-topped marble table where two cheap cane chairs +were waiting, upon which Lord Ellerdine and Colonel Adams seated +themselves.</p> + +<p>"Tea, I think you said?" said the waitress to Lord Ellerdine, whom she +obviously found the most sympathetic of the pair.</p> + +<p>The ex-diplomatist nodded. "But we must have something to eat—what? +Well, my dear, we will leave it to you. <i>Carte blanche</i>—what?"</p> + +<p>"Now look here, Adams," Lord Ellerdine said, "what I want to tell you is +this. Of course, I am tremendously interested in this case. I am mixed +up in it considerably, and also I am a great friend of Peggy's—one of +her oldest friends. You know her too, though not as well as I do, and +you know what a charming little woman she is. I would do anything to +save her if I could, and I have got an idea! Now, some time ago," Lord +Ellerdine continued, "a silly Johnny—a secretary it was—forged my +name. It was on a cheque. There was considerable difficulty in finding +out who was the actual culprit, as owing to the circumstances there were +several people who might have done it. My solicitors told me that the +only way to really find out was to go to a handwriting expert. I didn't +know what that was until they explained, but it seems there are Johnnies +who make a regular profession of studying people's writing."</p> + +<p>"Are there, by Jove!" said the colonel, much interested.</p> + +<p>"Yes; and just at that time—it was some two years ago—the king and +skipper of the whole lot had come over from America and established a +branch in London. His name is William Q. Devereux."</p> + +<p>"Is it, by Jove!" said the colonel again.</p> + +<p>Ellerdine nodded. "Odd," he said, "but true, <i>parole d'honneur</i>. He +started an office in London to help all the commercial Johnnies in the +city, and so I went to him with my papers; and I am damned if the chap +didn't find out who forged my name in about an hour, and we had him +nailed that same evening. Cost me a tenner, that's all."</p> + +<p>Colonel Adams nodded, looking with some trepidation at the pile of +rather too luscious-looking pastry which had by now been set upon the +table.</p> + +<p>"I don't think I will venture," he said to himself; and then to +Ellerdine, "Well, go on, Ellerdine."</p> + +<p>"Now, in my pocket," Lord Ellerdine continued, "I have got exact +photographs and tracings of the letters which have made such a fuss this +afternoon. My idea, Adams, is that you and I—if you have time, that +is—should go down into the City and see this expert chap and see if he +can throw some light on the situation. They have tried all the experts +in London on Peggy's case, but they don't seem to know about my American +friend. I believe in him. He is one of the most astute people going. +What do you say to trying him—for poor little Peggy's sake?"</p> + +<p>"Excellent idea, by Jove!" the other answered. "You've got his address, +of course?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes," Lord Ellerdine replied; "it's in Coleman Street, E.C. Now, I +wonder if you would mind going down with me and seeing what he has got +to say?"</p> + +<p>"Not in the least," Colonel Adams answered. "In fact, I shall be +tremendously interested. I'd do a good deal more than that, my dear +Ellerdine, if I could, to help Mrs. Admaston in any way."</p> + +<p>"Very well, then," said the peer. "We'll just finish our tea, and pay +that pretty-looking girl and take a taxi at once."</p> + +<p>In five minutes they had dismissed the cab and were being carried in a +lift to the third floor of a big block of buildings in Coleman Street.</p> + +<p>The door of Mr. Devereux's office was marked "Enter," and the newcomers +found themselves in a small but comfortably furnished room. At a round +polished table, on which there was a typewriting machine, sat a young +lady, who was reading a novel of Miss Marie Corelli's.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Devereux is in," she said in answer to their queries, "but he is +just about to leave. However, I will take your name and see if he can +see you."</p> + +<p>Some people would have been annoyed at this fashion of greeting, but to +the two simple gentlemen in question it seemed quite right and proper +that such a rare bird as an American handwriting expert should be fenced +round with a certain ritual.</p> + +<p>"Tell Mr. Devereux," said Lord Ellerdine, "that Lord Ellerdine is here. +Mr. Devereux knows me."</p> + +<p>Unlike the young person in the café, the young lady in the office did +not seem at all impressed, but languidly sauntered through the door +which led to the inner room. She came back much more quickly than she +had entered. "Mr. Devereux begs that you will step in," she said, and +once more fell to her enthralling romance as the door closed behind the +visitors.</p> + +<p>Mr. Devereux was a well-dressed, trim young American with a hard, +clean-shaved face. His manner was brisk, business-like, and deferential, +and his whole appearance suggested energy and capability.</p> + +<p>Upon his large leather-covered writing-table were various appliances +used in his business.</p> + +<p>One saw a microscope of some peculiar construction. There were a variety +of small lenses and reading-glasses, together with various instruments +of shining steel for measuring, with extreme accuracy, the length of a +letter or a line.</p> + +<p>There was also an enlarging camera upon a shelf by the window, and a +door in one corner of the place was marked "Dark room."</p> + +<p>"Glad to see you again, my lord," said Mr. Devereux. "Not a forgery case +this time, I hope?"</p> + +<p>"Not a bit of it," Lord Ellerdine replied, shaking hands with the +expert. "Glad to see you, Mr. Devereux. No; it is something far more +important than a cheque for fifty pounds. It is to do with the Admaston +divorce case."</p> + +<p>Mr. Devereux started. His face became almost ferret-like in its +intentness, while he said nasally, but with suppressed eagerness in his +voice, "I guess this is a bit of luck. I have just seen this evening's +paper, and of course I have followed the case with great interest from +first to last. I know without any possibility of doubt that all my +brother experts in London have been consulted. And from the first it has +rather hurt me that nobody had come to me, because I do claim——"</p> + +<p>Lord Ellerdine interrupted him. "I know, I know," he said; "there is no +one that can touch you, Mr. Devereux. But probably, you see——" He +hesitated in his effort to soothe the somewhat wounded feelings of the +expert.</p> + +<p>Colonel Adams came to the rescue. "Well, Mr. Devereux," he said, "here +we are, and we have got something very important on which to ask your +opinion."</p> + +<p>The expert became all attention once more. "What is it?" he said +briefly.</p> + +<p>Lord Ellerdine put his hand in the breast-pocket of his coat and +withdrew a long envelope full of papers.</p> + +<p>"I have here," he said, "exact photographs and tracings—everything that +you will probably find needful, in fact—of the two letters which you +have just been reading about in the evening paper, and which have caused +such a tremendous sensation this afternoon. It seems at the moment that +Mrs. Admaston has absolutely lost her case. To all outward appearances +these letters have ruined her. At the same time, I am certain that she +knew nothing about them, and that Mr. Collingwood knew nothing about +them either. You follow me?"</p> + +<p>Lord Ellerdine had never been so concise and explanatory before, but the +occasion had come, and he had risen to it.</p> + +<p>"I follow you perfectly," said the expert.</p> + +<p>"Very well, then," Lord Ellerdine said; "here are the letters, and I +want you to tell me what you think about them."</p> + +<p>He gave the envelope to the expert, who withdrew the papers it contained +and spread them upon the table.</p> + +<p>He began to study them with grave attention. The two men sat in the +comfortable chairs he had indicated to them.</p> + +<p>"My lord," said the expert, looking up suddenly, "I guess you won't +realise the necessity of it, but I should very much like to be left +alone for say twenty minutes. I can think better when I am alone, and I +gather you want an immediate opinion?"</p> + +<p>"We do," Lord Ellerdine replied. "All right; we will go, and come back +in half an hour or so."</p> + +<p>The two gentlemen re-entered the waiting-room.</p> + +<p>"Well, my dear," said Lord Ellerdine briskly to the young lady, "we are +put out here while Mr. Devereux examines some papers I have brought in; +and he tells us that we are to talk to you—what?"</p> + +<p>The young lady put down her volume. "Frightfully cold," she said, "isn't +it?" And for the next half-hour Lord Ellerdine and Colonel Adams and +this very superior young lady conversed with a studied propriety which +certainly did not obtain in the drawing-rooms where the two gentlemen +were accustomed to visit.</p> + +<p>At the end of that time the door opened and the keen-faced American came +out.</p> + +<p>He was rubbing his hands briskly as though pleased with himself. "Guess +I have got something for you, at anyrate," he said, "if you will come in +here."</p> + +<p>They re-entered the inner room, and Devereux began. "I can tell you one +thing," he said, "and one thing only."</p> + +<p>Lord Ellerdine was trembling with excitement. "What is it?" he said +breathlessly. "Will it help?"</p> + +<p>"It may," the expert replied; "but at anyrate it is this. Those two +letters were written by some one who can write with the left hand as +well as with the right. There is not the slightest doubt about it, and I +don't care what any of your darned English experts may say."</p> + +<p>Lord Ellerdine's face fell. "With the left hand?" he asked vaguely.</p> + +<p>The expert nodded. "I will explain to you," he said, pulling a large +book of manuscripts towards him; and illustrating his theory with swift, +decisive movements upon a blank sheet of paper, he showed the two men +exactly the reasons for his diagnosis.</p> + +<p>"Now, my lord," he said, when he had finished and made certain that both +of them thoroughly understood—"now, my lord, all you have to do is to +find the person who writes with his or her left hand and could have +possibly been sufficiently acquainted with the facts to produce those +two letters. When that is done you will have the person."</p> + +<p>Lord Ellerdine was considerably disappointed. He had imagined that by +some occult means the expert would have been immediately able to name +the writer of the letters. He strove to conceal what he felt, however; +and after paying Mr. Devereux's fee the two men left the building.</p> + +<p>"It isn't much," Lord Ellerdine said, as they got into a cab and drove +rapidly towards the West End. "It isn't much, but it is something. I +will drop you at your club—Cocoa Tree, isn't it?—and then drive +straight to Collingwood's solicitors to find out where he is. It is not +much, but it is something," he repeated rather vaguely to himself; and +then both men became occupied with their own thoughts and were silent.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + + +<p>The drawing-room of Mrs. Admaston's house in St. James's was thought by +many people to be one of the most delightful rooms in town.</p> + +<p>The Morris and æsthetic conventions were entirely ignored in it. There +were no soft greys or greens, no patterns of pomegranates, no brown and +pleasing sombreness. The room expressed Peggy herself, and was designed +entirely by her.</p> + +<p>It was large, panelled entirely in white with sparse gilding, and the +ceiling was white also, though slightly different in tone. The very few +pictures which hung upon the walls were all of the gay Watteau school, +and there were some fans painted on silk and framed by Charles Conder.</p> + +<p>The furniture was not obtrusive. It was in the light style of the Second +Empire, fragile and delicate in appearance, but strong and comfortable +enough in experience.</p> + +<p>The room was essentially a summer room, and yet one could see that even +in winter time it would strike a note of warmth, hospitality, and +comfort.</p> + +<p>For, with great wisdom, Peggy had made concessions. While the +drawing-room still preserved its gay French air, there was, +nevertheless, a huge open hearth on which, in winter, logs and coal +glowed redly. Now, it was filled with great bunches of the simple pink +foxglove.</p> + +<p>Standing out from the fireplace, at right angles to the wall, was a +large sofa of blue linen; and there was also a big writing-table with a +pleasant furniture of chased silver upon it.</p> + +<p>This room in the luxurious house was called the "drawing-room," but it +was not really that. It was, in fact, Mrs. Admaston's own particular +room—she hated the word boudoir. The big reception-rooms had no such +intimate and pleasant aspect—splendid as they were—as this.</p> + +<p>The flowers bloomed on the hearth, the long dull-green curtains had not +yet veiled the warm outside evening, when a footman entered and flung +open the two big doors which led into this delightful place.</p> + +<p>The man stood waiting with one arm stretched out upon one leaf of the +door.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Admaston and Lady Attwill entered, and Pauline followed them.</p> + +<p>"Bring some tea at once," Pauline said in a low voice to the footman.</p> + +<p>Then she turned to Peggy. "Madame," she said in a voice full of pain, +"do compose yourself. You will be very ill if you go on like this."</p> + +<p>Peggy's face was dangerously flushed. Her eyes glittered, her hands +clasped and unclasped themselves.</p> + +<p>"That letter!" she cried. "That fiendish letter! Who could have sent it? +What <i>devil</i> planned that trap?"</p> + +<p>Lady Attwill shrugged her shoulders. "Anonymous—take no notice," she +said.</p> + +<p>Peggy turned on her like a whirlwind. "Don't be absurd, Alice!" she +cried. "It was sent before we left London. Who knew we should go to +Paris? Who knew that we should stay at the Tuileries?"</p> + +<p>Pauline was hovering round her mistress with a face that was all +anxiety, with hands that trembled to touch and soothe. "Remember, +madame," she said, "it was sent to your aunt. Very funny that! She has +never liked you, that grim old lady!"</p> + +<p>"Why did she dislike me?" Peggy said petulantly.</p> + +<p>"Madame, you were gay, happy—like sunbeams. Your old aunt lived in the +shadows. She is a dour old maid."</p> + +<p>"I don't see what she has to do with it," Peggy answered. "The letter +was written by some one who knew that we were going to stay in Paris, +and even where we were going to stay."</p> + +<p>Lady Attwill went up to the fireplace and sank down upon the sofa of +blue linen.</p> + +<p>In her smart afternoon costume of grey silk, and a large straw hat upon +which the flowers were amethyst and purple, she made a perfect +colour-harmony as she sat.</p> + +<p>"Why was it sent to her?" Lady Attwill asked.</p> + +<p>Peggy sighed. "I don't know, except that she was the one to poison +George's mind. Without her he would probably have ignored it. But who +was it who <i>knew</i> that we should be in Paris that night? No one imagines +that I knew or—Pauline. Then there's Dicky—that's absurd."</p> + +<p>Peggy's face seemed to have grown older. The terrible ordeal that she +had undergone had left vivid traces upon it. It was not a frightened +face—it was the face of one who had been agonised, but it was also a +face of great perplexity.</p> + +<p>Pauline interposed. "Madame," she said, "if you did not know that you +would be staying at Paris that night, the writer of that letter must be +some one who did know, and who planned this trick to compromise you. +There are only two who could have known. Madame—I do not like...."</p> + +<p>In the maid's voice the old, harsh Breton determination had flashed out. +She turned towards Lady Attwill, and her whole voice and bearing were a +challenge.</p> + +<p>Her head was pushed a little forward, moving from side to side like a +snake about to strike; unconsciously her arms were set akimbo.</p> + +<p>Lady Attwill looked languidly at the angry woman. "You need have no +delicacy, Pauline," she said. "Ca fait rien, expliquez-vous. Tiens! What +you want to say is that the letter was written by Mr. Collingwood or by +myself—or by somebody or other procured by us to do it. C'est votre +idée, n'est-ce pas?"</p> + +<p>The woman, in her way—in her languid way—was defiant as the old Breton +bonne herself.</p> + +<p>Peggy rose and began to walk up and down the room. She had been sitting +almost opposite Lady Attwill, but now there seemed to be hesitation and +perplexity, not only in her voice, but in her whole attitude.</p> + +<p>"But you could not have done it, Alice," she said. "The luggage, don't +you know—it was Colling who saw that it was not registered."</p> + +<p>"That is only what the porter says," Alice Attwill answered grimly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear," Peggy replied, "it is only too obviously true. Pauline +saw through it the same night. Didn't you think it was very funny?"</p> + +<p>Lady Attwill fell immediately into the suggestion.</p> + +<p>"Well, dear," she said, "Dicky and I were a little bit suspicious, +since you put it to me; but I hardly liked to suggest——"</p> + +<p>Peggy turned from both of them and went up to the piano, standing by it +and drumming upon it with her gloved fingers. "Colling!" she muttered. +"It's impossible! And yet just now when I left the court I could not +think how else it could have been done."</p> + +<p>She wheeled round. "Alice," she said, "do you think it <i>could</i> have been +Colling? Do you? What reason could he have had?"</p> + +<p>Alice Attwill's hands were clasped upon her knee. She was bending +forward, nodding her head slightly from time to time, and had an almost +judicial pose.</p> + +<p>She appeared to be thinking. "My dear Peggy," she said at length, "I can +see plenty of reasons. After all, we know that Colling won't be sorry if +Admaston gets his divorce."</p> + +<p>"I beg miladi's pardon," Pauline broke in, "but I do not think that is +so."</p> + +<p>"C'est bien possible," Lady Attwill replied to the maid. And then, +looking at Peggy, "I am sure I can't imagine Mr. Collingwood doing such +a thing. I am the last person to make mischief."</p> + +<p>She rose as she spoke and walked towards the door. "Come along, Peggy," +she said; "you must get your things off—you've had such a horrible +day."</p> + +<p>Peggy looked at her wildly. She hardly seemed to hear what she was +saying.</p> + +<p>"No—no—let me think—I must think!" she cried, and there was a rising +note of hysteria in her voice.</p> + +<p>"Well," Lady Attwill said calmly, "I must get out of my things, at +anyrate." Then she spoke with something which sounded like affection in +her voice.</p> + +<p>"Peggy," she said, "you really must lie down and rest—I shall be down +in a few minutes."</p> + +<p>With a bright smile she took her parasol and left the room.</p> + +<p>Then Peggy let herself go.</p> + +<p>"Oh! How cruel it is!" she cried, raging up and down the drawing-room. +"They have taken all the joy out of my life! I feel as if they had burnt +the damning letter in scarlet upon my breast—branded by law, +divorce-court law! Oh, the ignominy, the shame of it all—the shame! It +is barbarous! To hold a woman up and torture her before a pruriently +minded crowd whether she is guilty or not! Am I guilty because I can't +prove that I am innocent?"</p> + +<p>The old maid ran up to Peggy and caught her firmly by the arms, pressing +her down into a chair.</p> + +<p>"Rest! rest!" she said, with the tears rolling down her cheeks. "Mignon, +you will break my heart if you go on like this. You are innocent; I +stake my soul on that. Wait—wait till to-morrow when I am witness. I +will tell them!"</p> + +<p>Peggy's arms went round the old maid's neck and she drew the gnarled +face to hers. "Pauline," she said, "dear Pauline! They will torture you +as they did me. It is useless. Sir Robert Fyffe will make you say just +what he wants. It is not justice that triumphs in the end—it is +intellect that damns. Pauline, do you think that Mr. Collingwood knew +that we should be in Paris that night, and that he wrote the letter?"</p> + +<p>Pauline kissed her. "I think, madame," she said, "that M. Collingwood +knew that we should be in Paris. But I am certain he did not write that +letter. M. Collingwood might have done a very foolish thing, thinking +that you loved him—but he is a gentleman."</p> + +<p>"But if he did not write it—then you think that Lady Attwill?..."</p> + +<p>"Comme vous voulez? If it is not M. Collingwood, madame, it must be Lady +Attwill."</p> + +<p>"But why should she have done such a fiendish thing?"</p> + +<p>"She has never forgiven you for marrying Mr. Admaston. Did I not tell +you, madame? Did I not say that to you in Paris?"</p> + +<p>Peggy nodded. "Yes, Pauline," she replied; "but I can't believe you. +She has seen my misery. No, Pauline, it is impossible!"</p> + +<p>"Madame, it is not impossible. She can only conquer by your misery."</p> + +<p>Peggy jumped up from the sofa, her whole body shaking, her face aflame +with righteous anger. "Pauline!" she said in a shrill voice, "I <i>must</i> +find out who wrote that letter."</p> + +<p>"Yes, madame," the old maid replied, with a despairing gesture of her +hands; "but how will you do it?"</p> + +<p>"I shall employ the same weapons to find out that as they have brought +against me. The law, the officers, the craft and cunning of the whole +machine. I am very rich, Pauline, quite apart from my husband—as you +know very well; but, if it cost me every penny I had, I would spend it +all, if necessary, to find out who wrote that letter."</p> + +<p>The door opened and two footmen came in with the tea equipage. Peggy +looked up at them, annoyed at the interruption; then her eye fell upon +the windows at the end of the room which led upon a long, secluded +terrace outside the drawing-room. It was called the "terrace lounge."</p> + +<p>"Not here," she said impatiently; "on the terrace."</p> + +<p>The men took the table through the windows, pulling aside the curtains +which half veiled the view beyond.</p> + +<p>"I'll rest and think, Pauline," Peggy said. "I can always think in that +old Sheraton chair on the terrace."</p> + +<p>"But if M. Collingwood calls?" Pauline asked.</p> + +<p>"Why should he call?" Peggy said. "I see no reason."</p> + +<p>"He telephoned asking if you would see him," the maid replied.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" Peggy said, with a sudden note of resolve.</p> + +<p>It frightened the faithful Breton maid. "Don't see him, madame!" she +cried. "Rest!"</p> + +<p>"No rest for us yet, Pauline.... I will see him. I <i>must</i> see him. Let +him be shown in here. Tell me as soon as he comes."</p> + +<p>She turned and went through one of the windows just as the two +men-servants came out of the other, having arranged the things for tea.</p> + +<p>"When M. Collingwood comes," Pauline said, "show him in here."</p> + +<p>The first footman bowed. Pauline's word was law in this house; and, +though it was bitterly resented below-stairs that she, a servant +herself, should have such authority, no one ventured to dispute it.</p> + +<p>At the far end of the drawing-room—not the end where the curtained +windows led out on to the terrace lounge—there was a tall screen of +carved teakwood from Benares. Behind it upon a little table stood a +telephone. The Admastons—husband and wife—had always made a great +point of using the telephone. Peggy herself, with her impulsive moods, +found it most convenient, and insisted upon having one in any room that +she habitually used.</p> + +<p>Pauline, her face wrinkled in thought, strolled mechanically to this +corner of the room and gazed down upon the glittering little machine of +ebony and silver with a frown of dislike. She was thinking of +Collingwood and his message, and a dull resentment glowed in her brain +at these mechanical facilities of life.</p> + +<p>There were no telephones in Pont-Aven when she was a girl in the ancient +Breton town, and these things seemed to her part and parcel of the hot, +feverish, and hurried life in which her beloved mistress was suffering +so greatly.</p> + +<p>The old bonne's face, kindly and sweet enough when it wore its ordinary +expression, was now mocking and malevolent as she stared at the table. +Suddenly she stiffened, raised her head, and listened intently.</p> + +<p>She had heard the door of the drawing-room open and close quietly, and +there came a rustle of silk skirts.</p> + +<p>Lady Attwill had glided quietly into the room and stepped up to the big +writing-table at which Peggy conducted most of her correspondence.</p> + +<p>The maid stepped out from behind the screen, her eyes shining curiously. +"Can I do anything for madame?" she asked. "Miladi a oublié quelque +chose, n'est-ce pas?"</p> + +<p>The tall, slim woman seemed strangely confused. Her face was a little +flushed, her glance at Pauline distinctly uneasy.</p> + +<p>She made an exclamation in French, paused to think, and then answered +Pauline in English.</p> + +<p>"I thought I left my bag down here," she said lamely.</p> + +<p>Without troubling to disguise the suspicion and hostility in her voice, +and with a slightly sneering note of triumph in it, as if she was +pleased at Alice Attwill's confusion, Pauline made a little mocking bow.</p> + +<p>"Madame had her bag in her hand when she went upstairs. But I will ring +and ask." She went towards the nearest bell-push.</p> + +<p>"No! no!" Lady Attwill answered; "please don't trouble. I must be +mistaken."</p> + +<p>Without a backward glance she almost hurried from the room.</p> + +<p>Pauline's face was now extraordinarily watchful and alert. All the +peasant cunning flashed out upon it. Any one who has seen the wives and +daughters of the small Breton farmers selling a cow or a pony on +market-day in some old-world town has seen this cautious, watchful look. +One can see it even on the face and in the eyes of a pointer when birds +are near: it is of the soil, primeval, part of the eternal hidden +warfare of life.</p> + +<p>"Yes, perhaps madame <i>is</i> mistaken," the woman said to herself with an +ugly grin.</p> + +<p>She walked up to the writing-table and looked down upon it thoughtfully.</p> + +<p>Suddenly something seemed to strike her and she stretched out her hand +to open the great blotter of Nile-green leather, bordered with silver, +when the telephone bell rang sharply out into the drawing-room.</p> + +<p>She hurried to the telephone. "Who is it?" she said. "What? Yes, this is +Admaston House—yes. She is in. Who is it? Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>Still holding the receiver in her hand, the woman staggered back from +the mouthpiece. She began to tremble violently. Her face became crimson +with excitement.</p> + +<p>"Oh, sir! she is...."</p> + +<p>And now Pauline burst out crying. The tears ran down her cheeks, her old +mouth trembled, she seemed upon the point of a breakdown.</p> + +<p>"Oh, sir!" she cried again, "she has gone out upon the terrace, and is +resting. Monsieur, I can hardly speak to you! Your wife is nearly mad, +monsieur! Monsieur, she is innocent—on my soul!"</p> + +<p>Her face became intensely eager. "Yes," she sobbed, "come. Yes, by the +gate leading from the Park. You have the key. No. Yes, come; I will +promise."</p> + +<p>With hands that shook terribly, Pauline replaced the receiver on the +bracket and came round from behind the Indian screen, walking towards +the door. She had not got within three paces of it when it was flung +open and the footman announced "Mr. Collingwood."</p> + +<p>Roderick Collingwood entered, spruce, <i>débonnaire</i> as ever, but showing +in his face traces of the ordeal he was passing through.</p> + +<p>"Hullo, Pauline; where is madame?" he said.</p> + +<p>"Madame is resting," the maid said, with distinct hostility.</p> + +<p>"Out upon the terrace?" he answered, moving towards the windows.</p> + +<p>Pauline made a swift movement and placed herself between him and the +curtains.</p> + +<p>"No; I think she is in her room, monsieur. Please wait here."</p> + +<p>Collingwood looked at Pauline in some surprise. He seemed hurt. "What is +the matter, Pauline?" he said.</p> + +<p>"Nothing is the matter, sir. Would you like to see the news?"</p> + +<p>She handed him the evening paper from the writing-table. "I will tell +madame," she said, and hurried from the room—well knowing that there +was another door from the hall by which the terrace could be reached.</p> + +<p>Collingwood picked up the paper, opened it, and eagerly scanned the +report of the day's proceedings. Then he flung it down with an oath just +as a footman entered the room. "Lord Ellerdine wishes to speak to you, +sir," said the footman.</p> + +<p>"Is he here?" Collingwood replied.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"Show him up at once."</p> + +<p>In a moment or two more Lord Ellerdine, looking flurried and hot, +entered the drawing-room.</p> + +<p>His hat was in his hand, and he was wearing a light grey overcoat.</p> + +<p>"My dear Dicky," Collingwood said, "what on earth brings you here?"</p> + +<p>Collingwood had risen and strolled over to the big settee of blue linen. +He sat down upon it calmly.</p> + +<p>"I wanted to ask you something," Lord Ellerdine said in a rather +unsteady voice; "so I went round to your solicitors' office, and they +told me that I should find you here."</p> + +<p>"Well, what is it?" Collingwood asked imperturbably.</p> + +<p>"I say, Colling—do you write with your left hand?"</p> + +<p>The other made a movement of impatience. "My dear Dicky," he said +irritably, "what the devil?..."</p> + +<p>"But do you?" Ellerdine insisted.</p> + +<p>"Of course I don't," Collingwood answered shortly.</p> + +<p>"I thought as much," said Lord Ellerdine, with a sigh of relief.</p> + +<p>"You did, did you?" Collingwood replied, with a slight smile. "What is +the game, Dicky?"</p> + +<p>"It's not a game, Colling; it's dead serious," said the ex-diplomatist.</p> + +<p>"Why, Dicky, what's up?"</p> + +<p>"You remember some time ago when some silly ass forged my name on a +cheque?" Lord Ellerdine asked, still flurried and ill at ease.</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I got to know a handwriting expert—an American—a devilish smart +fellow. When we left the court just now, and Peggy was thinking pretty +rotten things about you, I thought I would go and have a word with him."</p> + +<p>Collingwood's languid manner entirely disappeared. He bent forward with +a keen, searching look at his friend. "You found him?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Ellerdine nodded.</p> + +<p>"Well, what does he say?"</p> + +<p>"I showed him the photos of the letters," Lord Ellerdine continued, "and +then the originals, and he says that they are written by some one who +writes easily and fluently with his left hand."</p> + +<p>"Left hand! Great Scott! Is he sure?"</p> + +<p>"As sure as an American expert can be of anything," the peer returned.</p> + +<p>"That's sure enough," Collingwood replied, shrugging his shoulders and +rising up from the sofa.</p> + +<p>He began to walk up and down the room. "That clears me, at anyrate," he +said. "But what the devil can it all mean, Ellerdine?"</p> + +<p>Lord Ellerdine had been looking at his friend, pathetically waiting for +a word of praise. Now he ventured upon a little fishing remark:</p> + +<p>"Mighty good thing I thought of that American chap—don't you think so, +Colling?"</p> + +<p>Collingwood hardly seemed to hear him. His head was bent forward and he +was deep in thought.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Dicky, yes. Left hand, eh?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," Lord Ellerdine answered, with a plaintive note in his voice. "I +think, Colling, I've handled this business with some skill—what?"</p> + +<p>"Left hand," the other repeated, in a brown study.</p> + +<p>"With some skill, Colling—what? Skill—what?" Lord Ellerdine bleated.</p> + +<p>Collingwood looked up at this note in the other's voice. He suddenly +realised that the poor gentleman was pining for praise, and began to +administer it in the heartiest possible fashion.</p> + +<p>He smacked him on the shoulder and his voice became absolutely jovial. +"Skill!" he said. "My dear Dicky, it's splendid! Really, you missed your +vocation. Diplomacy! Never! You're a detective, Dicky! A sleuth-hound! A +regular Sherlock Holmes, don't you know!"</p> + +<p>Lord Ellerdine was the happiest man in the three kingdoms at that +moment. His little mouth twitched with pleasure. His face beamed like +the rising sun. "I say, Colling, do you think so—do you really think +so, Colling?"</p> + +<p>"Think so!" Collingwood answered, laughing. "I'm sure of it, old chap"; +and then, with a sudden, swift transition of manner, "Dicky, look +here—have you told Admaston?"</p> + +<p>"Not yet," Lord Ellerdine replied. "George Admaston is hard hit, +devilish hard hit. He doesn't believe Peggy's guilty—he'd chuck the +case if it wasn't for Fyffe."</p> + +<p>"Chuck the case!" Collingwood said eagerly.</p> + +<p>"I honestly believe he would," Lord Ellerdine answered. "It's the letter +which sticks with Fyffe, and I don't understand it—we come against the +beastly thing all the time."</p> + +<p>Collingwood nodded. "Yes," he said; "that letter's hell."</p> + +<p>He suddenly raised his head. "Look here, Dicky," he said, "I think I +hear Peggy coming; so off you go, please. Get your American expert to +dine with us to-night at your place, at eight o'clock. Run along."</p> + +<p>Ellerdine went to the door. "All right, old chap," he said; "that is +what I'll do. Eight o'clock. I'm so glad it wasn't you, old chap—such a +dirty business!"</p> + +<p>He went out of the room, not noticing that he had left his hat and +gloves upon the writing-table.</p> + +<p>A moment afterwards Peggy entered, pulling aside the curtains of the +terrace window. She started violently when she saw Collingwood. "You +here!" she said, and there was an ugly note of apprehension and even of +anger in her voice. "You——"</p> + +<p>Collingwood went up to her. "Peggy!" he said.</p> + +<p>"Wasn't that Dicky I heard?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>Collingwood had hardly said it, and the two were looking at each other +strangely enough, when the door leading into the hall opened and Lord +Ellerdine came back. "Forgot my hat, old chap," he said, going up to +the table. Then he saw Peggy.</p> + +<p>"Peggy!" he cried, going up to her and taking one of her hands in both +of his. "Buck up, little woman! It'll be all right—we'll pull you +through!"</p> + +<p>Then he began to hesitate and stammer, while his cheeks flushed and he +showed every possible sign of embarrassment.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he continued, "we'll pull you through. Won't we, Colling?"</p> + +<p>He hesitated, at a loss for words; and then his eye fell upon the table. +"Ah!" he said. "My hat—yes—good-bye. Buck up, little woman! And, +Colling, don't forget eight o'clock to-night."</p> + +<p>Red and shy as a schoolgirl, Lord Ellerdine somehow got himself out of +the room.</p> + +<p>"Poor, dear old Dicky!" Peggy said with a sigh, more to herself than to +her companion; and then, turning, "Colling, why have you come?"</p> + +<p>Collingwood held out both his hands. "Peggy—dear little Peggy!" he +said. "My heart bleeds for you!"</p> + +<p>Peggy stepped back. "Don't let's talk about that," she said swiftly.</p> + +<p>"But, Peggy——"</p> + +<p>"It is rather late," the girl returned in the same cold voice; "the time +for sympathy is long past. Why did you ask to see me?"</p> + +<p>There was a deep note of passion in Collingwood's voice as he answered. +"I could not let you think what I could see you were thinking," he said.</p> + +<p>Peggy did not appear moved in any way. "You promised," she said, +"neither to come nor to ask to see me."</p> + +<p>"I could not stay away any longer," he answered; and if ever a man had +tears in his voice, Collingwood had then.</p> + +<p>"Have you come to tell me that the man Stevens is telling a lie, and +that our trip to Paris was only accident?"</p> + +<p>"No," the man replied. "Peggy dear, can you ever——"</p> + +<p>"Colling! Colling! why did you do it?" she wailed.</p> + +<p>His body went back suddenly as if he had received an actual blow in the +chest.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Peggy—for God's sake!..."</p> + +<p>"You have thought neither of God nor me," she answered bitterly.</p> + +<p>"Of you," he cried—"always of you, Peggy!"</p> + +<p>She shook her head. "No," she said. "Thought of me would have made you +think of all I have had to suffer. Did you think of <i>me</i> when you +planned to go to Paris? When did you ever think of me—my being—my +life—my soul? What excuse can you offer?"</p> + +<p>His arms fell to his side, his face was pale and passionate. "Only my +love," he answered—"my fierce, burning love. The mad desire to have you +for my own. I have thought of nothing else since I met you."</p> + +<p>She bent forward and threw out her arm. The little ivory-white hand was +palm upwards, and it shook in dreadful accusation.</p> + +<p>"Thought of me?" she cried. "Was it thought of me that drove me under +the lash of that man's scourge to-day? Was it thought of me that placed +me like a criminal in that court to-day? How could you have thought of +me and not foreseen the shame, the misery, and the torture to which I +have been subjected? Where was your love for me when you were conscious +of the mass of evidence these creatures were piling up against me? Did +your love of me foresee newsboys rushing about the streets with placards +blazing out like letters of fire, '<span class="smcap">Mrs. Admaston on the Rack</span>'? Rack, +Colling!"</p> + +<p>He shook his head with a terrible gesture of sadness.</p> + +<p>"No. I did not foresee it," he said, "because you made me believe that +you were in earnest—that you loved me. If you had loved me you wouldn't +have cared."</p> + +<p>"I liked you, Colling, I liked you," she said; and now all the fire had +gone from her voice.</p> + +<p>"Liked me! Was it mere liking that made you take all those risks? You +knew my intention. I told you again and again I wanted him to divorce +you."</p> + +<p>"I never realised——" the girl said hopelessly.</p> + +<p>His voice as he answered her was very soft and tender.</p> + +<p>"No, dear; you played with me. I am not blaming you, but don't be too +harsh in judging me. I know the torture you are suffering now, Peggy, +and I would give my right hand to save you from it. But don't you ever +think of the torture you have given me? All the pain, the longing of +months and months—is it all to be forgotten? Oh, I know it is no excuse +to the others; but you, dear, will know in your heart that I did it +because I loved you, thinking to make you happy."</p> + +<p>"I think I understand, Colling," Peggy said; "but the letter——"</p> + +<p>Collingwood appeared dazed. "The letter!" he murmured.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Colling," she answered, "I'll forgive you anything you have done +because you loved me; but the letter—you will own up, Colling?"</p> + +<p>"Own up?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear," Peggy said; "my life depends on it. You are a man. You can +begin again. Don't see me go under. There is no hope for a woman. Don't +stand there and watch me struggle while there is a chance to save me. +I'll forgive everything—yes, everything—but the letter."</p> + +<p>Collingwood seemed genuinely surprised. His face, which at first +appeared perplexed, now showed nothing but astonishment as he realised +what she meant. "Peggy—little Peggy," he said, "surely you don't judge +me as harshly as that, do you? No, dear; I have done much that I am +sorry for—that I shall never be able to forgive myself for as long as I +live, but not that. The letter is the work of some one else. I never +wrote it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Colling," she replied, "I am so glad—so very glad! But the +letter—the letter is everything after all. It means everything to me. +Then, if you didn't write it—there is only one other person who could +possibly have done so."</p> + +<p>"Exactly," Collingwood answered. "Lady Attwill and I were the only two +people who knew anything about the Paris trip, who could know anything +about it. But the question is, how on earth are we going to prove that +she wrote that letter? I do not see any possible way in which it can be +done, and I am sure you don't."</p> + +<p>"If we prove it," Peggy answered, "do you think it will satisfy George, +Colling?"</p> + +<p>"Satisfy?" Collingwood replied, seating himself on the edge of the +writing-table. "I should think so—he is satisfied already. But still, +you know, Peggy, the letter sticks. Why, even Lady Attwill knew that +there was nothing between us. It was only the appearance of guilt which +she schemed for, and that letter gives it."</p> + +<p>"And if we can't prove it, and the worst happens, she hopes to marry +George," Peggy said despairingly.</p> + +<p>The bitterness of the thought was terrible. It seemed as she sat there +that such treachery and black-heartedness were almost incredible. Could +the woman who had been her constant friend, who had stayed with her for +months at a time, on whom she had lavished innumerable favours, be so +base and despicable of soul as this?</p> + +<p>Collingwood saw what was passing in her mind, and nodded.</p> + +<p>"That is her game without a doubt, Peggy," he said earnestly.</p> + +<p>"Then why has she stood by me all these months? Why? Why? That is what I +want to know," Peggy said.</p> + +<p>Collingwood smiled bitterly. "Why, don't you see?" he said. "Because her +devotion to you will touch George, who still loves you."</p> + +<p>Peggy's face changed in a moment. "Oh, Colling!" she said, and her voice +was inexpressibly pathetic—"oh, Colling, do you think George does love +me still?"</p> + +<p>"I know he does, and that you love him. My dear, if I could have won you +I should not have stayed away all these months; but I owed you that—and +I tried to play the game."</p> + +<p>"Colling," she answered, in a burst of warmth and kindliness, "I never +liked you so much as I do now, Colling. I think it is because I feel I +can lean upon you and trust you——"</p> + +<p>"Poor little Butterfly!" he answered; and there were tears in the eyes +of this hardened man of fashion, tears which sprang to his eyes in spite +of himself and showed the deep tenderness beneath.</p> + +<p>"But, Colling," Peggy went on anxiously, "have we any chance at all of +proving it against her? She has been awfully clever about it all, hasn't +she?"</p> + +<p>Collingwood shook his head rather hopelessly. "I doubt if we have any +chance at all," he said. "But there is just one thing—I have just +remembered it. I have a sort of clue, and that is one which Dicky has +just given me when he was here a few minutes ago."</p> + +<p>"Oh! Dicky!" Peggy said, with a wan little smile.</p> + +<p>"Well," Collingwood resumed, "of course no one would call Dicky +intellectual and that, but I really think there is something in what he +said this time. I'll tell you. He has consulted an American handwriting +expert about the letters, and he says that they are the work of some one +who can write with the left hand. I know that I can't write with my left +hand. But what about Alice?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," Peggy answered slowly; "I have never heard of her doing +so."</p> + +<p>"Or using it more than the ordinary?" Collingwood continued.</p> + +<p>"Yes—stay," Peggy replied eagerly. "She is ever so good with it at +billiards."</p> + +<p>Collingwood laughed.</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't laugh, Colling!" she continued—"please don't laugh at +me—but I remember she did tell me—yes—that she broke her right arm +sleighing when she was a girl, and that she is almost ambidextrous. It +has only just come back to me. She told me many years ago."</p> + +<p>Collingwood jumped up from the table alert and excited.</p> + +<p>"That is something—by Jove! it is," he cried. "Tell me, where is she?"</p> + +<p>"She has only gone upstairs for a moment," Peggy said. "I am expecting +her down every moment."</p> + +<p>"By the way, Peggy," Collingwood asked, "where does she write her +letters and things when she is here with you?"</p> + +<p>"She always writes there," Peggy answered, pointing to the table, "where +you have been sitting."</p> + +<p>"Look here," Collingwood said decisively, "when she comes, leave her +alone with me. I'll do what I can. I'll tackle her. You had better not +be here at all."</p> + +<p>"But, Colling, can't I help?" Peggy asked. "I think I might be of use, +though of course it will be dreadfully unpleasant. But, for my own sake, +I must stick at nothing now."</p> + +<p>"No, Peggy," he replied firmly. "I feel I can manage this much better +myself. Look here—you go out upon the terrace again. I will just come +with you and settle you in your chair—how tired you look!—and then a +<i>mauvais quart d'heure</i> for Alice, if she ever had one in her life."</p> + +<p>"But it may not be true after all," Peggy said, as they walked together +towards the long windows.</p> + +<p>He shook his head at that. "It must be true," he said; "no one else +could have done it; and what you have just told me, and what Dicky said, +make it conclusive to my mind."</p> + +<p>They passed behind the curtains together, and there was the sound of a +chair being moved over the tessellated floor.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_LAST_CHAPTER" id="THE_LAST_CHAPTER"></a>THE LAST CHAPTER</h2> + + +<p>Lady Attwill was upstairs in her bedroom.</p> + +<p>It was very large, and luxuriously furnished, with Chippendale chairs +and Adams ceiling, while the walls were covered with a paper of white +upon which, here and there, tiny apple blossoms of pink and grass-green +were indicated.</p> + +<p>Despite its size, the room felt close, and Alice Attwill had thrown open +all the windows to the summer afternoon.</p> + +<p>The cooler air, scented with flowers, poured into the place, but she +seemed to notice nothing of it.</p> + +<p>She walked up and down the room with her feline grace—for this was +natural to her, and no careful pose or cultivated mannerism. Her lovely +head was bent a little forward as she walked, and the hands which were +clasped behind her slim waist folded and unfolded themselves nervously.</p> + +<p>The face itself was very white, the eyes glistened, the lips twitched +nervously, and there was about her an atmosphere of terror.</p> + +<p>She made it herself, this beautiful woman walking up and down a +beautiful room; but fear there was in that quiet place, and it did not +come in there from the open windows, but radiated out from a guilty mind +and a wildly pulsating heart. Every now and again, as she walked up and +down, Alice Attwill moistened her lips with her tongue and glanced at +the travelling-clock covered with red leather which stood upon the +mantlepiece.</p> + +<p>At last she stopped with one thoughtful glance at the clock.</p> + +<p>"It'll be all right now," she said to herself. "I am sure they must be +beginning to suspect me. Fool that I was! Why, every novel and almost +every play has this question of the blotting-book in it. It is such a +simple device, and yet in real life how often it <i>does</i> happen! Here am +I confronted with the worst crisis in my whole life, simply because I +forgot the blotting-book."</p> + +<p>Clenching her teeth she quietly left the room, descended the wide +Georgian stairs into the hall, and opened the door of the drawing-room.</p> + +<p>She peered cautiously into the room, now lit up by clusters of electric +lights.</p> + +<p>Satisfied that no one was there, she closed the door very quietly, and +with silent, cat-like steps walked up to the writing-table.</p> + +<p>Again, as her hand fell upon the blotting-book, she looked round in an +agony of apprehension. Then, opening it hurriedly, she searched among +the leaves with a puzzled brow.</p> + +<p>Some of the leaves were heavily blotted and no writing upon them was +wholly distinguishable, while others only bore a few well-defined +imprints.</p> + +<p>Her slender, trembling fingers turned over the leaves in an agony of +anxiety, but—either she was too agitated or too inexperienced—she was +unable to find what she sought.</p> + +<p>Suddenly a thought came to her.</p> + +<p>The mirror!—yes, that was the thing. By the aid of the mirror she would +be able to identify the sheet she wanted at once. She hurried up to the +fireplace.</p> + +<p>Above it was an oval mirror framed in wood which had been painted white, +and, shaking exceedingly, hardly knowing what she did, she held up the +heavy blotter with the paper facing the mirror, and slowly turned over +the thick white sheets.</p> + +<p>While she was doing this, with a perfectly livid face, she heard the +faint sound of an advancing footstep.</p> + +<p>It was at the very moment when she thought she had discovered what she +wanted, and with twitching fingers was about to tear it out from the +book.</p> + +<p>The sound of the step came from behind the curtains which hung over the +windows leading to the terrace.</p> + +<p>Lady Attwill almost bounded back to the writing-table and put down the +blotter upon it.</p> + +<p>She had hardly done so, and was actually closing the book, when the +curtains parted with a soft swish and Collingwood came into the room.</p> + +<p>He came in jauntily and easily enough, but there was something in his +face which made Alice Attwill give a little startled gasp of alarm and +despair.</p> + +<p>"Writing letters, Alice?" Collingwood said easily, though there was a +chill in his voice which sounded like the note of doom in the miserable +woman's ears.</p> + +<p>"I have finished writing," she said, stammering—"just finished."</p> + +<p>Collingwood came up to her without removing his eyes from hers. He came +slowly up, with a steady, persistent stare, magnetic, horrible.</p> + +<p>"Just got up from writing, eh? That's lucky!" he said. "I want to have a +talk with you, Alice—by the way, let me post your letters."</p> + +<p>"Please don't trouble," she faltered.</p> + +<p>"No trouble, I assure you," he answered, his voice becoming more cold, +dangerous, and menacing than ever. "I assure you it is no trouble, +Alice. There can't even be a great weight of letters for me to take to +the post—because, you see, Peggy and I were here until about two +minutes ago."</p> + +<p>There was a revolving chair of green leather in front of the +writing-table. Lady Attwill sank into it. She felt as if the whole +room, with all its contents, was spinning round her with horrible +rapidity. She sank into the chair, unable to stand longer; but, even as +she did so, one last despairing gleam of hope prompted her to make an +effort to show that she was still unconcerned and sitting down in a +natural way.</p> + +<p>"I hardly expected to see you here," she said in a rather high, staccato +voice, the words coming from her one by one as if each separate word was +produced with great difficulty.</p> + +<p>"Indeed?" Collingwood asked. "And why not?"</p> + +<p>The fact that she was sitting down, that she had the arms of the chair +to hold, that she was <i>somewhere</i>, seemed to give Alice Attwill more +courage.</p> + +<p>In a voice which was still tremulous, but in which an ugly note of +temper was beginning to displace the abject indications of fear, she +answered him.</p> + +<p>She pushed her head a little forward, and her eyes shone with malice.</p> + +<p>"I should have thought that the revelations of this afternoon would +have——"</p> + +<p>Collingwood recognised the change of attitude in a moment.</p> + +<p>"Closed these doors to those who planned the trip to Paris—yes?"</p> + +<p>"I was not thinking of the trip to Paris," she said.</p> + +<p>Collingwood shrugged his shoulders. "Because we were partners in that, +of course," he replied.</p> + +<p>"Partners!" she cried shrilly. "I knew nothing about it. It was you who +gave the orders to the porter and booked the rooms—I don't come in +anywhere!"</p> + +<p>Collingwood folded his arms and stood with his feet somewhat apart, +looking down upon her with a face which, in its contempt and strength, +once more drove her into an extremity of fear.</p> + +<p>When he spoke again his voice had lost its bitterness and contempt, but +it had become harsh and imperative. It was the voice of a bullying +counsel in the courts—the voice in which a low man speaks to a servant.</p> + +<p>"That is your game, is it?" he said. "You never knew of the trip to +Paris?"</p> + +<p>The woman was spurred up to answer. She met his voice with one precisely +in the same key; it was a voice a succession of unfortunate lady's-maids +knew very well.</p> + +<p>"Absolutely nothing," she said; "where as you—your guilt, my friend, is +clear, transparently clear."</p> + +<p>She nodded two or three times to emphasise her assertion, and by this +time her composure had returned to her and she was ready for anything.</p> + +<p>Collingwood, who had been watching her with the most intense scrutiny, +had followed with perfect clearness the changes in her voice and +attitude. He now knew where he was. The bluff was over, he was about to +play his hand.</p> + +<p>More particularly than anything else his mind, intensely alert and +active at this supreme moment, noticed that Alice Attwill had wheeled +round upon her chair and seemed in a most marked way to be interposing +herself between him and the writing-table.</p> + +<p>It was as though some precious possession lay there of which she feared +she would be robbed.</p> + +<p>Feeling certain now of the woman's guilt, he said: "Perhaps you are also +going to suggest that I wrote that dastardly letter?"</p> + +<p>Lady Attwill sneered. "One of us obviously must have written it," she +said, "and your motive—well, it is pretty clear, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"And yours," he said—"and isn't yours clear also?"</p> + +<p>"Do you think so?" she asked, with a toss of her head.</p> + +<p>He bent forward, gazing at her with an almost deadly look of hate.</p> + +<p>"Look here," he said: "don't you hope to marry Admaston if Peggy loses +this case?"</p> + +<p>She was frightened—obviously very frightened; but she did her best to +throw it off.</p> + +<p>"My dear Colling," she said in a light and airy manner, "you are so +imbued with the remarkable excellence of Sir Robert Fyffe's methods +that you are imitating him. But you are doing it so badly, Colling—so +extremely badly!"</p> + +<p>His face did not change in the slightest. It remained as set and firm as +before, absolutely uninfluenced by what she was saying.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it true that you hope to marry George Admaston?" he repeated in +exactly the same tone.</p> + +<p>She lifted her pretty left hand in the air and snapped her fingers in a +gesture full of mingled insolence and provocation.</p> + +<p>"Why should I satisfy your curiosity?" she said.</p> + +<p>Again the man, intent upon one great purpose, absolutely not to be +deterred from it or to be influenced in any way by what she was saying, +repeated his query.</p> + +<p>"How can you explain that letter?" he said, in the insistent tone of a +judge. "Who else could have written it except you or me?"</p> + +<p>Her eyelids fluttered. She looked up at him quickly. "I don't attempt to +explain it," she said; "but I certainly agree with you that one of us +must have written it—any fool can see that; but which of us?"</p> + +<p>She paused for a moment, and then looked him straightly in the face, +defiant and at bay at last.</p> + +<p>"But which of us?" she repeated. "That's the point upon which we shall +differ, Colling."</p> + +<p>"I see," he said. "You mean that you will endeavour to father this +cowardly trick upon me?"</p> + +<p>Alice Attwill smiled bitterly. "The public will judge," she said. "Ever +since that night have I not been in constant attendance here, her +devoted and trusted friend?—while you—I thought you had been forbidden +the house."</p> + +<p>"That's a lie," Collingwood said sharply.</p> + +<p>"It is quite unnecessary to become abusive," she went on, her voice +gaining confidence for a moment and her manner becoming infinitely more +assured. "You are in a very tight corner, and the sooner you recognise +the fact the better it will be for you."</p> + +<p>"You think you can threaten me?" Collingwood asked quietly.</p> + +<p>"I know my cards," she replied, "and what I can do with them. You +needn't try to bluff me, Colling, for I know your cards too. Even if I +did write that letter—how can you ever prove it? You can assert it, but +who will believe you—you who stand convicted of decoying your friend's +wife to Paris to attempt her seduction?..."</p> + +<p>He winced at that. Even in his present mood of penitence and help, it +was a palpable hit.</p> + +<p>"With your assistance," he said, and that was all.</p> + +<p>She pressed her momentary triumph. "So you will assert," she said.... +"But I shall deny it—and there is nothing but your word. It will be +suggested to you—by Peggy's counsel, if not by Admaston's—that you +wrote the letter which has caused all the bother. You will try to put it +on to me——"</p> + +<p>He interrupted her quickly. "You will never dare to deny it," he said in +a voice of conviction.</p> + +<p>"My dear, simple friend," she answered, "why not? I loved George +Admaston, as you have said. Do you think I shall sacrifice myself and +save you? You can make your mind easy on that score. No, my dear +Colling, there is only one way out. To-morrow your counsel will have to +say that in the face of the evidence to-day he can contest the case no +further. Then you will not go into the witness-box."</p> + +<p>"Not go into the witness-box?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Admaston will get his divorce," she went on in a final voice, but one +in which a note of conciliation had crept. "You will marry Peggy—I +shall marry Admaston—and no one will know about the letters. But if you +dare to fight, you will leave the court dishonoured. Peggy will never +look at you. You take my advice, Colling, and marry the girl you love, +and don't try to interfere with my plans, just when victory is assured."</p> + +<p>The note of conciliation in her voice stung every fibre of decency, +every sense of honour in him. He raised his eyebrows in extreme contempt +and surprise. "You must have a pretty poor opinion of me," he said.</p> + +<p>"The highest, my dear Colling," she replied; "but the situation is just +a little too big for you."</p> + +<p>"We shall see," he answered. "You have been very frank with me. I gather +that you don't deny your authorship of that infamous letter."</p> + +<p>Her face, and indeed her whole manner, had by now become almost +indifferent. "I am not called upon to deny anything that cannot be +proved," she said. "You have heard this afternoon that the experts have +entirely failed to identify the writing. How did you manage to deceive +them, Colling? Still, I suppose it is not very difficult to trick a +handwriting expert."</p> + +<p>"Don't be too disrespectful to experts yet, my lady. I have a notion +that a report I have just received from an American expert may give you +food for thought. After all, if you hadn't been afraid of these experts +you wouldn't have written that second letter three days ago."</p> + +<p>She glared at him. "Well, what does your Yankee say?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"He has proved conclusively that I could not have written the letter."</p> + +<p>At that she jumped up from her seat, still keeping herself between the +writing-table and him. "What do you mean?" she said.</p> + +<p>Collingwood dealt his trump card. "I mean," he said, "that since you +have finished writing your own letters, you will have no objection to my +writing there for a moment."</p> + +<p>His voice was so pregnant with meaning, so fraught with decision, that +Alice Attwill slunk away from the table, trembling, as Collingwood +seated himself in the writing-chair.</p> + +<p>"Writing what?" she asked almost in a whisper.</p> + +<p>"A confession——" he said.</p> + +<p>"A confession?"</p> + +<p>"—Which you will sign. I intend before I leave this room to have from +you a signed confession that you wrote that letter."</p> + +<p>"You are proposing to make a long stay," she said, slowly and +venomously.</p> + +<p>Collingwood did not answer her at all. He took a sheet of paper and +wrote a few sentences upon it in a firm, bold handwriting.</p> + +<p>When he had finished he held it up to her. "Will you read it through?" +he said.</p> + +<p>With the utmost carelessness she bent forward over the writing-table. +Her manner was that of one who was reading some casual note.</p> + +<p>"I have done so," she said at length.</p> + +<p>Collingwood fell into her mood. "Now," he said, "if I had your signature +to that, <i>par exemple</i>, there would be an end of Admaston <i>versus</i> +Admaston and Collingwood, wouldn't there?"</p> + +<p>Alice Attwill smiled. "That is obvious enough," she said.</p> + +<p>Collingwood took the paper and opened the blotting-book, while Lady +Attwill walked towards the fireplace.</p> + +<p>She walked away with the same assumed air of indifference, but, when she +heard the heavy leather-and-silver cover fall upon the table, she looked +round and watched the man intently.</p> + +<p>She saw him blot the confession upon a blank sheet at the beginning of +the book, and then with the utmost care and deliberation turn over each +separate leaf, scrutinising it like a man who looks at something through +a microscope.</p> + +<p>Suddenly one page seemed to strike his attention. He smoothed it out, +pulled the blotter closer towards him, and took from his pocket +photographs of the famous letters in the case.</p> + +<p>He put one of the photographs upon a leaf of the blotter and compared +them carefully. Then he took a small glass from his pocket and examined +the photograph and the page of the blotter with that.</p> + +<p>When he had, apparently, satisfied himself, he looked round with a +white, stern face to where the defiant but trembling woman was standing +by the fireplace.</p> + +<p>There was a silence for a moment. It was broken by Lady Attwill saying, +"Can I do anything for you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," Collingwood replied; "you can bring me that looking-glass from +that small table there."</p> + +<p>She looked at him without saying a word.</p> + +<p>"You don't seem very eager," he said. "But there is an excellent mirror +over the fireplace."</p> + +<p>At that, as if hypnotised, she went up to the little table by the piano +and took up a small Italian mirror framed in ivory and silver.</p> + +<p>She gave it to him. "Well," she asked, "have you solved the mystery?"</p> + +<p>"Wait!" he replied. He took the mirror in one hand, propping up the +blotter with its back towards him, and looking intently into the glass.</p> + +<p>After a moment or two he looked up. "You should be more careful where +you blot your letters," he said simply. "You will notice that the +impression upon the blotting-paper is not complete—though they +obviously tally."</p> + +<p>Speechless with terror, she made a sudden snatch at the sheet in the +blotter which she had already begun to tear out when his entrance +disturbed her.</p> + +<p>He caught her by the wrist. "No," he said, very quietly and sternly. "I +thought you would do that. I saw you trying to do it when I came in just +now. Now, look here—look at the photograph and at the representation +of your writing in the mirror. Have you any doubt that the impression +upon the blotting-paper is the impression made by the blotting of that +letter?"</p> + +<p>"And if it is," she said, in one last faint effort, "what does that +prove? Why should not you have written it and blotted it?"</p> + +<p>"Because, my dear Alice," he replied, "I have not been in this house +until this afternoon for six months. Listen! To-day the judge dropped a +remark about the importance of finding the paper on which this letter +was blotted. You alone knew where it was. Very well, in the sequence of +events, Pauline found you here—the first moment the room was +empty—with a cock-and-bull story about your bag. A few minutes later I, +having heard this from Pauline, find you in the act of destroying this +damning evidence—see, it's half torn out already. Come, the game's up."</p> + +<p>Aristocrat as she was, something low, vulgar, and malignantly mocking +came out upon Lady Attwill's face as Collingwood said this.</p> + +<p>"Is it?" she said. "Do you think I am afraid of you and your game of +bluff? You have forgotten the important link in your chain. How do you +explain the discrepancy in the writing? That writing is not mine."</p> + +<p>"Isn't it?" he asked quietly.</p> + +<p>"No!" she almost shouted. "A pretty conspiracy!—to damn me and save +Peggy Admaston. Why shouldn't Pauline have written it?"</p> + +<p>Up to this he had listened to her with some patience. Now his face +blazed at her for a moment. He sat down in the writing-chair, pulling it +up to the table as he did so. "I'll show you," he said. "Sit down +there."</p> + +<p>She looked at him defiantly.</p> + +<p>"Sit down there," he said again, and she did so. "Now take the pen and +write what I dictate," he went on.</p> + +<p>He began to dictate, "'Please destroy the other letter....'"</p> + +<p>He leant over the table, tapping gently upon it with his knuckles.</p> + +<p>"No! the other hand, please," he said.</p> + +<p>The woman almost fell over the table.</p> + +<p>"With my left hand?" she gasped. "What on earth do you mean? I can't +write with my left hand."</p> + +<p>"My expert thinks you can," he said sternly. "Come—write; or would you +prefer to write to-morrow in court?"</p> + +<p>She jumped up, and hysteria mastered her.</p> + +<p>"I won't write!" she cried, in a voice which was hardly human. "Neither +here nor in court! You can't make me ... the judge can't make me!"</p> + +<p>Collingwood punctuated her shrill remarks with gentle taps of his firm +hand upon the table. "You shall write to-morrow with all London looking +on; they'll know I could not have done it—this book shows that. They'll +hear how you tried to tear out the page."</p> + +<p>"They won't believe you!" she gasped.</p> + +<p>"They'll believe the evidence of Pauline," he went on calmly. "They'll +hear from Peggy how you broke your arm and learnt to use your left hand. +Every newspaper in England will be full of it. <i>This</i> is not the first +time you've written with your left hand; there'll be other specimens +somewhere—some other witness will be forthcoming. You have been very +clever, but the cleverest of people like you bungle in the end. You've +got to do it, Alice!"</p> + +<p>Once more she sank down in the chair.</p> + +<p>Her face was ghastly. "No!" was all that she could say.</p> + +<p>"Believe me," he went on more calmly and more kindly—"believe me, you +had better write now! Society may never know—Admaston may be generous. +Come! Write! And do it quickly."</p> + +<p>Absolutely broken and submissive, Lady Attwill took up the pen in her +left hand and began to write to Collingwood's dictation.</p> + +<p>"'Please destroy the other letter....'" he began.</p> + +<p>She wrote the first word, and then looked up at him with a face which +was a white wedge of hate.</p> + +<p>"Quickly, please," he said, tapping his foot upon the carpet. "Now, or +to-morrow with all London."</p> + +<p>The wretched woman bent down once more to her shameful task.</p> + +<p>"'... and this,'" he went on, "'and save an old servant who honours the +family....'"</p> + +<p>Again she looked up at him.</p> + +<p>"Quickly!" he said imperatively, rapping his knuckles upon the table. +"Quickly!—or——"</p> + +<p>Cowed and subdued, she wrote again. "'... from the anger of Mrs. +Admaston,'" came the cool, dictating voice.</p> + +<p>She finished, and as she did so her head fell upon her arms and she +burst into a fit of hysterical sobs—shaking, convulsed, in a terrible +downfall of remorse and shame.</p> + +<p>Suddenly—as Collingwood held the precious paper in his hand and looked +with a certain compassion at his old friend and companion of so many +years, whom he had tortured so dreadfully—a high, joyous voice burst +into the room.</p> + +<p>It was Peggy calling.</p> + +<p>The curtains which led to the terrace were pulled aside and she ran into +the drawing-room.</p> + +<p>Her face was radiant.</p> + +<p>"Colling! Colling!" she cried. "George is here!" She hurried up to +Collingwood, looking for a moment rather strangely at Alice Attwill.</p> + +<p>George Admaston, big, burly, and with all the weariness of the past +weeks sponged and smoothed from his face, followed her into the +drawing-room.</p> + +<p>"Hullo, Colling," he said rather shyly, but with real geniality in his +voice.</p> + +<p>Collingwood ignored the outstretched hand. "Wait first, please," he +said. "Lady Attwill has written you another copy of the letter she wrote +three days ago." He handed the confession to Admaston.</p> + +<p>There was a dead silence in the room as Admaston scrutinised the +confession.</p> + +<p>Then he went up to Lady Attwill, crouching over the table as she was, +and put his hand not unkindly on her shoulder. "Good God!" he said. +"Alice—why did you?"</p> + +<p>A lovely tear-stained face looked up into the room.</p> + +<p>A broken and unhappy voice sobbed out into the silence, "Let me go; let +me go, I say!"</p> + +<p>Admaston gently removed his hand. There was a swish of skirts, one deep +sob, and then the door closed behind Alice Attwill.</p> + +<p>Peggy went up to her husband and clung lovingly to his arm.</p> + +<p>She looked at Collingwood. "Colling," she said, "how on earth did you +find out?"</p> + +<p>Collingwood pointed to the blotter. "Look there," he said.</p> + +<p>Peggy and Admaston, still clinging together, went up to the +writing-table and stared as if fascinated at the fatal and decisive +page.</p> + +<p>"Poor Alice!" Collingwood said. "I suppose it is because I have been a +bit of a blackguard myself that I can't help feeling sorry for her. +Perhaps, Admaston, you will find it in your heart, when the great case +is withdrawn to-morrow, to let her down as lightly as possible."</p> + +<p>He hesitated for a moment, and then he said in a quiet voice, "I think +in her heart she really loved you, don't you know."</p> + +<p>Admaston nodded.</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes; I see," he said. "I will do what I can."</p> + +<p>Collingwood, realising that he had been emotional, pulled himself +together with immense aplomb. "It must be a comforting and flattering +reflection that, but for the fit of nerves which caused Alice to write +that second letter three days ago, there is probably not a judge nor +jury in the world which would have refused to make you miserable for +life, Admaston."</p> + +<p>"You are right, Colling," he said; "but at the moment when no judge nor +jury would have doubted her guilt—then, for the first time, I knew in +my heart she was innocent."</p> + +<p>Collingwood had listened to this, but had also been moving slowly +towards the door of the drawing-room.</p> + +<p>"But you, Colling——" Peggy said.</p> + +<p>Collingwood's hand was upon the door. "Never mind about me," he said. +"Peggy, I did a rotten thing because I cared for you, but I've tried to +play the game since for the same reason; and if George can really +forgive me for just the same reason——"</p> + +<p>He stopped, looking with a wan, pathetic, but very tender face at the +two who stood there clinging to each other.</p> + +<p>Peggy looked up into her husband's face. "George!" she said quietly.</p> + +<p>"—I think I'll go on playing it," Collingwood ended.</p> + +<p>Admaston did not look at Collingwood, but he looked down at his wife. +Then he lifted his head and smiled with a sort of grave kindness at the +man by the door.</p> + +<p>"I think I can forgive you anything to-day, Colling," he said.</p> + +<p>Collingwood half turned the handle. "Good-bye, then, little Butterfly," +he said, and there was a dreadful pain in his voice.</p> + +<p>Peggy looked up into her husband's face.</p> + +<p>What she saw there satisfied her.</p> + +<p>She left him and walked shyly towards Collingwood and held out her hand.</p> + + +<p>He took it, bowed over it as if to kiss it, refrained, and then opened +the door.</p> + +<p>"Your wings are not really broken—not really," he said in a voice which +was absolutely broken.</p> + +<p>There was a sound of the soft closing of a door—a little click as it +fell into place.</p> + +<p>Peggy ran back to her husband and put her hands upon his shoulders.</p> + +<p>"My husband!" she said.</p> + +<p>He caught her in his arms—in his strong arms.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a name="illus4" id="illus4"></a> +<img src="images/illus4.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<h3>"He caught her in his arms—in his strong arms."</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>"Little Peggy!" he answered.</p> + +<p>"George!" she said. "I have wanted you so!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>But both Mr. Roderick Collingwood and Lady Alice Attwill dined alone +with their thoughts that night.</p> + + +<h3>THE END</h3> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Butterfly on the Wheel, by +Cyril Arthur Edward Ranger Gull + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BUTTERFLY ON THE WHEEL *** + +***** This file should be named 36467-h.htm or 36467-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/4/6/36467/ + +Produced by Mark C. Orton, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive) + + +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. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +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 + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + +</pre> + +</body> +</html> diff --git a/36467-h/images/cover.jpg b/36467-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..84cd3ac --- /dev/null +++ b/36467-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/36467-h/images/illus1.jpg b/36467-h/images/illus1.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e16b84b --- /dev/null +++ b/36467-h/images/illus1.jpg diff --git a/36467-h/images/illus2.jpg b/36467-h/images/illus2.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..592b742 --- /dev/null +++ b/36467-h/images/illus2.jpg diff --git a/36467-h/images/illus3.jpg b/36467-h/images/illus3.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..863fcb8 --- /dev/null +++ b/36467-h/images/illus3.jpg diff --git a/36467-h/images/illus4.jpg b/36467-h/images/illus4.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..53db80f --- /dev/null +++ b/36467-h/images/illus4.jpg diff --git a/36467.txt b/36467.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e5f14a6 --- /dev/null +++ b/36467.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7498 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Butterfly on the Wheel, by +Cyril Arthur Edward Ranger Gull + +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: A Butterfly on the Wheel + +Author: Cyril Arthur Edward Ranger Gull + +Release Date: June 19, 2011 [EBook #36467] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BUTTERFLY ON THE WHEEL *** + + + + +Produced by Mark C. Orton, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive) + + + + + + + + + + + + A BUTTERFLY ON THE WHEEL + + _A Novel_ + + By C. RANGER GULL + + _Author of "A Woman in the Case," etc._ + + Founded on the successful play by E. G. Hemmerde, K. C., + M. P., and Francis Neilson, M. P. + + _WITH PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE PLAY_ + + NEW YORK + + WILLIAM RICKEY & COMPANY + + 1912 + + Copyrighted 1912, by + WILLIAM RICKEY & COMPANY + + PRESS OF WILLIAM G. HEWITT, 61-67 NAVY ST., BROOKLYN, N. Y. + + + + +[Illustration: "Forgive me, George," she sobbed, "forgive me."] + + + + +ORIGINAL PROGRAM OF A BUTTERFLY ON THE WHEEL + +Produced at the 39th Street Theatre, beginning Tuesday Evening, January +9th, 1912 + + MR. LEWIS WALLER + Has the Honor to Submit + A Butterfly on the Wheel + By Edward G. Hemmerde, K. C., and Francis Neilson, M. P. + Produced under the personal supervision of Lewis Waller + + The Rt. Hon. George Admaston, M. P. Eille Norwood + Roderick Collingwood Charles Quartermaine + Lord Ellerdine Evelyn Beerbohm + Sir John Burroughes, President of the + Divorce Court, Herbert Budd + Sir Robert Fyffe, K. C., M. P., Admaston's + leading counsel, Sidney Valentine + Gervaise McArthur, K. C., Collingwood's + leading counsel, Lewis Broughton + Stuart Menzies, K. C., Collingwood's + leading counsel, Denis Cleugh + Jacques, waiter at the Hotel des Tuileries Walter Cluxton + Jean DuBois, detective John Wilmer + Foreman of the jury James Stuart + Footman Frank Dossert + Lady Attwill Olive Temple + Pauline, Miss Admaston's maid Loretta Wells + Peggy, George Admaston's wife Madge Titheradge + + General Manager Victor Lewis + Business Manager John Wilmer + Stage Manager Lewis Broughton + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + +"Forgive me, George," she sobbed, "forgive me" + +"We all got on the wrong train and we all stayed the night at this +hotel" + +"Don't you see, man, if you call in the court to break her wings, you'll +only drive her to me!" + +"He caught her in his arms--in his strong arms" + + + + +PREFACE + + +Of all the English plays that have come to this country none has created +more of a sensation than "A BUTTERFLY ON THE WHEEL," and without +question will be received the same by the public over the entire country +as it has been received in New York. The play opened at the Thirty-ninth +Street Theatre on Tuesday evening, January 9th, and has played to +"standing room only" at every performance since. + +The story in book form has been done by C. Ranger Gull (pen name), a +writer who has already gained a big reputation as an author both in +America and England, and the success of "A BUTTERFLY ON THE WHEEL" goes +without saying. + +THE PUBLISHER. + + + + +A BUTTERFLY ON THE WHEEL + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +It was shortly after midnight in the great Hotel des Tuileries at Paris. + +Beyond the facade of the hotel the gardens of the Tuileries were +sleeping in the warm night. To the left the Louvre etched itself in +solid black against the sky, and all up and down the Rue de Rivoli +carriages and automobiles were still moving. + +But in the great thoroughfare the tide of vehicles and foot passengers +was perceptibly thinning. Paris is a midnight city, it is true, and at +this hour the heights of Montmartre were thronged with pleasure-seekers, +dancing and supping till the pale dawn should come with its message of +purity and reproach. + +But down in the Rue de Rivoli even the great hotels were beginning to +prepare for sleep. + +One enters the Hotel des Tuileries, as every one knows, through the +revolving doors, passes into the entresol, and then into the huge +glass-domed lounge with its comfortable fauteuils, its big settee, its +little tables covered with beaten copper, and its great palms, which +seem as if they had been cunningly enamelled jade-green by some +jeweller. + +The lounge was now almost empty of people, though the shaded electric +light threw a topaz-coloured radiance over everything. + +In one corner--just where the big marble stair-case springs upwards to +the gilded gallery--two men in evening dress were sitting together. + +They were obviously English, tall, thin, bronzed men, as obviously in +the service. As a matter of fact, one was Colonel Adams, attached to the +Viceroy's staff in India, the other a civilian's secretary--Henry +Passhe. + +They were both smoking briar pipes--delighted that the lateness of the +hour allowed them to do so in the lounge; and before each man was a long +glass full of crushed ice and some effervescing water innocent of +whisky. + +A man in black clothes, obviously a valet, came up to Colonel Adams. + +"I've put everything ready in your room, sir," he said. "Is there +anything else?" + +"No, there is nothing else, Snell," the soldier answered. "You can go to +bed now." + +The man was moving away when Adams called him back. + +"Oh, by the way, Snell, did you find out what I asked you? It is Mrs. +Admaston who is staying here, isn't it?" + +"Yes, sir, she is here with her maid, and----" + +"Well?" + +The man seemed to hesitate slightly, but at length he spoke: "Mr. +Roderick Collingwood is here too, sir." + +"Is he, by Jove!" Adams said, more to his friend than to his servant. +"Very well, Snell. Good night." + +The valet withdrew, and Colonel Adams puffed vigorously at his pipe for +a minute or two. + +"_The_--the Mrs. Admaston?" the civilian asked. + +Colonel Adams nodded. "The great, little Peggy herself," he said; "none +other. Surely you've met her, Passhe?" + +"I was introduced to her some months ago at a Foreign Office reception," +the younger man answered; "but I really can't say that I know her. I've +never been to any of the Admastons' parties. In fact, my dear Adams, I +am a little bit out of things in town now. Ask me anything about any of +the Indian set and I can tell you, but as far as society goes in London +I am a back number. I won't say, though, that I haven't heard this and +that about the Admastons. One can't go anywhere without hearing their +names. However, I know nothing of the rights or wrongs of the story--if +story there is at all. But certainly every one has heard this man +Collingwood's name mentioned in connection with that of Mrs. Admaston. +Who was she, any way? You know everything about everybody. Tell me all +about them." + +Colonel Adams sipped his Perrier quietly, and his brown, lean face +became unusually meditative. + +"Aren't you sleepy?" he said. + +"Can't sleep, confound it!" Passhe replied. "Liver. Have lunch, take an +afternoon nap, and then can't get to sleep at night for the Lord knows +how long." + +"I know," Adams said sympathetically. "Liver is the very devil. That's +the worst of India. Now, there is nothing, my dear chap, that I should +enjoy more at this moment than a two-finger peg of whisky. Can I take +it? Damn it, no! I should have heartburn for hours--that's India! But +since you are not sleepy, and I am sure I'm not, I will tell you about +the Admastons." + +The colonel's pipe had gone out. He relit it, pressed down the ashes +with the head of a little silver pencil-case which he took from his +waistcoat pocket, sent out a cloud of fragrant blue-grey smoke, leant +back in his arm-chair, and began. + +"Admaston," Colonel Adams began, "is one of the most hard-working +Johnnies of the day. He's as rich as what-d'you-call-him, of course, but +he hasn't used his wealth to make his position in Parliament or to get +him his place in the Cabinet. He's done it by sheer ability, by Jove! +He's of an old family, but there haven't been any members of it in big +political positions to help him over the heads of those who have to +shift for themselves. + +"He was at Harrow with me, though considerably my junior, and I remember +he played cricket with an energy that deserved a much higher batting +average than he got. He wasn't a studious youth by any means, though he +learnt enough to know his way about. He was still at school and I had +just passed into Sandhurst when his father died and left him a huge +fortune. Then he went to Oxford--New College it may have been, or +possibly the House. I don't think he did anything much at Oxford. I'm +told by men who were up with him that the sense of the enormous +responsibility which fell on him after his father's death, and the +anxieties of having to manage a great estate and a huge business, spoilt +him for the schools and rather put him off cricket. He might have got +into the Eleven, but he didn't care enough about it to try hard." + +"A bit phlegmatic in temperament?" Passhe asked. + +"That's it," replied Colonel Adams. "Nothing seemed to move him much. If +ever a man was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, George Admaston +was the chap. But I don't believe he cared particularly whether his +spoon was silver or pewter, by Jove! Just a plain fellow of frugal +habits. I am told that when he met the deputation from the Northern +Division of Lancashire, which went up to town to ask him to contest that +constituency, after the interview one of the local Johnnies said, 'Mr. +Admaston was so nice that he might be nobody.' At anyrate, George has +found his _metier_ in politics. Three years in opposition gave him a +great reputation as a quick and ready debater. He is a great asset to +his party now, and at by-elections he's the night-before-the-poll man." + +"But what about his wife?" said the civilian. + +"I'm coming to that, Henry," Adams answered. "And if I am a bit +long-winded you've jolly well brought it on yourself. It's like this. +George's father was the head of Admaston, Grainger & Co., the big City +financiers. Old Grainger had a daughter, much younger than George +Admaston. Peggy Grainger was only a tiny little girl when Admaston's +father died. I'm told that the old men when they were together would +chaff each other about their children. Old Grainger used to say that +they must certainly marry--keep the firm together, and so on, don't you +know. In fact, the last letter that George ever got from his father +referred to old Grainger's notion that George should marry Peggy. Now, +Peggy's mother was a Frenchwoman, a Mlle. Guillou, and the girl was +educated in France. George hadn't been long in the Cabinet when old +Grainger brought Peggy to London. She was about nineteen then, and the +prettiest, most flirtatious, whimsical little butterfly of a thing that +you could possibly imagine. Well, her father established Peggy in a big +house in St. James's--huge retinue of servants and so forth. All London +began to talk about the rich Miss Grainger. The girl spent just what she +liked--her father encouraged her to do it; there was really nothing else +to be done with the money. But whenever George came to the house--and he +saw a lot of the Graingers the first year when Peggy came to London--the +old boy was always hinting to him that he ought to marry Peggy. + +"One evening Admaston was called off the Treasury Bench in the House to +speak at the telephone. He thought it was Peggy, but it wasn't. It was +her old maid, Pauline, who is here with her in this hotel to-night, and +who has looked after her all her life nearly. Pauline said that old +Grainger had just passed in his cheques, by Jove! He was a big fleshy +fellow--always did himself top hole. He'd made a big dinner, laughed at +a joke like anything with his daughter, had a stroke, and was cooling +by ten o'clock." + +"And then?" Henry Passhe asked. + +"Well, of course, Peggy was left quite alone. There were no relatives. +In fact, there was nobody except this old nurse, Pauline, a woman of +about forty. Mrs. Grainger had been a chronic invalid, and she had left +the girl in charge of the 'bonne.' Old Grainger often used to say that +Pauline was more of a mother to Peggy than even his wife had been, and +after his death Peggy relied upon the woman for almost everything. She's +been with her ever since, and is more like a mother to her still than a +servant. Pauline, in fact, took charge of the household, looked after +the servants in every way, and controlled everything. It was a curious +_menage_. + +"One day Peggy and Admaston met at a country house for a week-end party. +Nobody knows exactly how it happened, but at anyrate George proposed and +Peggy accepted him. I remember the fuss they made about it in the +society papers--fulsome, sickenin' sort of hog-wash they wrote. 'Love at +first sight,' and all that sort of thing. 'Little Peggy was to be the +wife of a Prime Minister'--'they adored each other,' etc. But I'll eat +my hand if they did anything of the kind. They simply remembered the +wishes of their fathers and saw it was best to consolidate their huge +commercial interests. I daresay Peggy felt very lonely and George felt +very sorry for her. At anyrate, the engagement was announced. + +"George had an aunt--has her still, I suppose--the rich Miss Admaston, a +damned old cat who gives thousands to foreign missions. I've met some of +the missionaries of her particular gospel-shop in India, and a nice lot +of touts they are too. Well, the old cat was fearfully cut up by the +news of the engagement. She thought Peggy was far too French and +frivolous for George, and, of course, Peggy has always been rather +go-ahead. For my part, I don't care what they are saying now, I don't +think there is an ounce of vice in the girl. + +"It's gettin' rather late, Henry, and I'm afraid I'm boring you?" + +"Not a bit; go on, do," the secretary answered. + +"Very well. George's engagement to Peggy seriously affected the lives of +two people who are deucedly well known in society. One of them was Lady +Attwill, widow of 'Clipper' Attwill, who scuppered his yacht and himself +too somewhere in the Mediterranean--a thorough bad hat, Clipper was. +Lady Attwill had been setting her cap at George for a long time. Every +one knew it but George. It was a regular joke of one season. She +couldn't get hold of him, though, despite everything she could do. +George hadn't an idea of what the woman wanted. He was really fond of +her. He looked on her as a very dear friend, and he took all her +kindnesses and so forth just in that light, with a calm complacency that +must have sent her raving at times. Of course, all Lady Attwill's +friends did their very best to bring the two together upon every +possible occasion; and when George steered clear and proposed to Peggy, +every one said the poor, dear chap was one of the craftiest politicians +on the Front Bench. And all the time, Henry, I'll lay you what you like +that Admaston was as innocent as a canary. + +"There were two people, I said, who were seriously affected by George's +engagement. Well, the other was Roderick Collingwood, who's staying in +the hotel now, as Snell has just told us. + +"Colling--everybody calls him Colling--knew Peggy's governor. He's a +bally millionaire also, and he used to have a good many dealings with +the firm. Collingwood travels about a great deal--always has done,--and +he first met Peggy when she was a flapper of fifteen at old Grainger's +place near Chantilly--old Grainger used to run horses a lot in France. + +"Collingwood has always been an extraordinary sort of chap; he was then, +it appears. Like any other young man of great wealth, he found +everything done for him, anything he liked ready to his hand, and +simply let himself go. When Peggy's father died, Colling was going it +hell-for-leather--just about as fast as they're made. Of course, Peggy +knew nothing of the real facts. But she heard gossip and hints, and one +night she taxed him with the way he was living, referring specially to +one or two of his more recent escapades. He admitted there was some +truth in what she said, and, if what they say is true, made her some +sort of a promise of reformation. At anyrate, he pulled up; there's no +doubt of that. + +"Afterwards the two met fairly regularly, and I was staying at Lord +Ellerdine's place in Yorkshire when I believe Collingwood told Peggy of +the good influence she had been, and showed himself as a reformed rake, +by Jove! I think there's no doubt at all that he would have proposed to +the girl if George Admaston had not forestalled him. They say +Collingwood was frightfully cut up. At anyrate, he wasn't in England +when the marriage took place. + +"It was a great wedding. Everybody who was anybody was there, only +excepting Collingwood and Lady Attwill. In their case, I remember that +people said they were falling back on their own reserves; but that was +pure scandal, of course. When Collingwood was in Spain, Lady Attwill +was in Switzerland. As a matter of fact, they were both great friends; +and no doubt when Clipper went down in his yacht and left Lady Attwill +very badly off, Collingwood was quite generous to her. + +"Well, to cut a long story short--I see it's nearly one +o'clock,--Admaston and his wife spent their honeymoon in Italy--Rome, I +think it was, or Florence. Shortly after their return George introduced +his long and complicated bill on National Roads. It had over a hundred +clauses. Ill-natured people said that he married in order to have an +excuse to get a holiday in which to draft his measure. At anyrate, after +the introduction of the bill George became the absolute centre of the +political strife of the day. He worked harder than ever. His party had +been in office for three years, and their declining favour urged him on +to rouse his followers in the House and in the country to tackle some +necessary reforms before the ensuing General Election. In fact, for +months after his marriage Admaston seemed to live for his Department and +the Front Bench. He was hardly ever seen with Peggy. + +"On her part, Peggy went everywhere, and soon the gossips had it that +Admaston was disappointed, while his wife lived a really butterfly life. + +"Mrs. Admaston's conduct certainly puzzled the gossips. No one could say +with any sort of certainty that she did anything wrong. Even her best +friends--generally the first persons to give one away--only laughed when +they were questioned, and said, 'It's only Peggy.' She and Roderick +Collingwood met again and again, renewing their old friendship. After +the marriage it was said that Collingwood had a very bad time. There was +a broad wicked streak in him, and everybody assumed that he had gone +back to his old fast living. Well, at anyrate, Peggy took him up again. +She was the kind that either had to be mothered or have someone she +could mother herself. George, apparently, wasn't very much about, and so +she started once more in the effort to exert a benign influence over an +erratic chap like Collingwood. Of course, people said on all sides that +it was a very dangerous game to play. + +"Old-fashioned people shook their heads and fore-told all sorts of +trouble for the little butterfly that fluttered so near to the flame +which every one supposed was burning perpetually in Collingwood's heart. + +"About this time Lady Attwill returned to England and sought out George +Admaston. What she did quite upset the calculations of the people who +talk. She became very attentive to George, and yet, at the same time, +managed to get about a good bit with Peggy. In fact, she seemed in a +sort of way to console Admaston and to be encouraging his wife. Society +has been perplexed by the whole business for a considerable time. No one +knows what to make of the position. They all met, for instance, at +Ellerdine's for the shooting. Admaston ran down for a week-end only. +Then during the late winter, after a long autumn session, rumours flew +thick and fast, and everybody seemed to be waiting for the storm to +break. Why there should be a storm nobody really seemed to know. +Collingwood and Peggy have been talked about to the exclusion of almost +every other subject. They're talked about now. London and the Faubourg +Saint Honore is buzzing with them. And here, my dear Passhe, you and I +away up at the Tuileries for a merry week of theatres in Paris, and we +find Peggy staying here and Collingwood, too, by Jove!--what! what! Damn +it, Passhe, you're asleep!" + +A long-drawn and not entirely unmelodious snore proclaimed that Colonel +Adams's long recital had somewhat wearied the civilian, who was not "in +society." + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +Mrs. Admaston's sitting-room at the Hotel des Tuileries was a large and +beautiful apartment, one of the best in the hotel. Save for the long +French windows, which were now, at midnight, covered with curtains of +green tussore silk, there was nothing distinctively foreign about the +room. The best French hotels nowadays have all adopted English and +American standards of comfort. The stove, the uncarpeted and slippery +parquet floor, the impossible chairs, and a ceiling painted to resemble +a nightmare of a fruiterer's shop, are all things of the past. + +Electric lights in softly shaded globes threw a pleasant yellow radiance +over everything. A fire of cedarwood logs glowed on the tiled hearth, +and a great bunch of lilac stood in a copper bowl upon a small mahogany +table which was placed between two doors which faced the one leading to +Mrs. Admaston's bedroom. + +Some tall silver candlesticks stood upon the Broadwood piano; and there +were others, in which the candles were not lit, upon brackets on either +side of the telephone. + +It was just upon midnight when the door of Mrs. Admaston's bedroom +opened and her confidential maid and companion came into the room. +Pauline Toche was a woman of some forty years of age. Her black hair +streaked with grey was drawn tightly back from her forehead. The face, a +little hard and watchful perhaps, nevertheless showed signs of marked +intelligence. The eyes had something of the ferocity but also the +fidelity of a well-trained watch-dog. She was dressed unassumingly +enough in black, and she wore an apron also of some black material. + +Such a face and figure may be seen a dozen times in any Breton village, +and more than once her friends had said to Mrs. Admaston that Pauline +seemed to require the coif of her country--the snowy white and goffered +_col_ which is worn over the shoulders; a pair of sabots even! + +The maid was a Breton woman, a daughter of one of the millers of +Pont-Aven, and preserved still all the characteristics of that hardy +Celtic race. + +As the maid entered the sitting-room there was a knock at the door, and +in response to her "Entrez" a waiter came into the room. He was an +odd-looking person with brilliant red hair--rather a rare thing in +France, but cropped close to his head in the French manner, so that it +seemed to be almost squirting out of his scalp. The man, with his +napkin over his arm, his short Eton jacket, and boots soled with list, +was dressed just like any other waiter in the hotel, but somehow or +other there was something unusual in his aspect. + +He carried a tray, and went up to a small round table, gleaming with +cut-glass and silver, on which supper had been laid. + +"Are you quite sure there is no train from Chalons before morning?" +Pauline asked the man in French. + +"No train before five o'clock, mademoiselle," the man replied. "The last +fast train reaches Paris at eight-forty." + +The Breton woman nodded. + +"Thank you," she said, gazing at him rather keenly; and then +suddenly--"You're not French, are you?" + +With great precision, almost as if he was practising something learnt by +rote and not entirely natural to him, the waiter clicked his heels +together, spread out the palms of his hands, and bowed. + +"Mais oui, mademoiselle," he said. + +Pauline shook her head slightly. + +"You do not deceive me," she said. "There is something about you--you +_are_ a Frenchman?" + +The waiter had been piling plates up on a tray. He put the tray down on +the table, smiled with a total change of manner, and answered her. + +"No," he said with a grin. + +"I knew it," Pauline said. "Is it then that you are Irish, M. Jacques?" + +"Most certainly not," replied the waiter. + +"I figure to myself that you are English?" + +Jacques came up still closer to the maid, his voice dropped, and his +manner became confidential. "Not even quite English, mademoiselle," he +said. "I'm a Scotsman. I was born at Ecclefechan." + +"Mon Dieu!" said Pauline; "Eccle----! What a name of barbarity! I did +not know that there were such names. La! la! But your name, monsieur, +your name--Jacques?" + +"Mademoiselle speaks English?" + +"Quite well," Pauline replied. + +"Well, you see, miss, I've been here a long time, and I am a great +favourite with the English visitors. It would never do to tell them that +I'm a Scotsman, and that my real name is Jock. You see, they like to +practise their French on me. The management always send me to wait upon +English visitors. Of course, I can understand what they mean, and it +flatters them to think that they're really speaking French. I heard an +old lady the other day talking to her daughter. 'My dear,' she said, +'those extra French lessons at the High School have not been wasted. +That nice, attentive French waiter understands you perfectly'; and so I +did of course, miss, though when she wanted the mussels she said, +'Esker voos avvy des moulins?' And when she wanted the pastry she +called it 'tapisserie' instead of 'patisserie.' So you see my French +name is one of my great assets, though you, mademoiselle, saw through me +very easily." Here the waiter once more relapsed into his best French +manner and made a flourishing little bow. "Do you stay long in Paris, +mademoiselle?" he asked, going back to the table and beginning to remove +the dishes. + +"I can't say," Pauline replied. "As a matter of fact, we are here quite +by accident. We are really going to Switzerland." + +"The wrong train?" inquired the waiter. + +"Yes, that was it," Pauline answered. "We took the wrong train, and our +party got divided somewhere." + +"What bad luck!" Jacques answered. Then he gave a rather searching +glance at Pauline. "But surely M. Collingwood knows the Continent?" he +asked. + +The maid gave an almost imperceptible start, and went up to the +fireplace, where she began to pull about the flowers in one of the +vases. "Oh yes, I think so," she answered, in a voice which strove to +appear quite indifferent to the question. + +"Well, I can tell you," the waiter went on--"I can tell you that M. +Collingwood knows the Continent as well as a Cook's agent. He's always +travelling about. You can see his name in the Riviera lists, in the +Paris _Daily Mail_ or the _New York Herald_. He's at Nice for the races. +He's at Monte Carlo for the pigeon-shooting. He's at Marienbad for a +cure, or climbing mountains in the Bernese Oberland. He is everywhere, +is M. Collingwood. He was staying here last year, for instance." + +The maid turned slowly from the fire and looked towards the +supper-table. + +"Yes, yes?" she said with some eagerness. "He is here often? At this +hotel?" + +"I can remember him being here three times," the man replied. And there +was something rather furtive in his look, something which seemed to +speak of a suppressed curiosity and watchfulness. Many waiters in smart +hotels, both in London and in Paris, have this look--the veritable +expression of Paul Pry. "Have you been long with Mr. and Mrs. Admaston?" + +"I've been many years with madame," Pauline replied. And then, speaking +rather suddenly, "You seem to have a very good memory, Mr. Jock +Jacques." + +"It is necessary," the man answered, with all the dryness of a Scotsman. + +"And yet sometimes," Pauline replied, "it is necessary not to have a +good memory." + +"Perhaps," the waiter answered. "Certainly sometimes discretion is the +better part of recollection," giving her a look of great slyness as he +spoke. + +Pauline shrugged her shoulders. There was a note of veiled contempt in +her voice. "To forget easily is sometimes very convenient, n'est-ce +pas?" she said. + +"When it is worth more than a good memory," he answered. + +"Doubtless you are very well off, Mr. Jock," Pauline continued, and this +time the sneer in her voice was hardly veiled. + +At this the waiter began brushing the crumbs from the table very +vigorously. "I'm only a poor waiter," he said. + +"Then surely that must be your own fault? There ought to be many +opportunities in a hotel of this sort of making a good use of a +convenient memory?" + +"Well, yes, you're right there," came from the man, with a rather +ill-favoured leer. "But, you see, I am too sentimental for that." + +Pauline laughed in answer, and not very pleasantly. "Don't tell me," she +said. "I've been in Scotland for the shooting of the grouse. There is no +Scotsman too sentimental to make money. What part of Scotland did you +say you came from? La! la! la! And at your age, too!" + +"On the contrary, the older I grow the more sentimental I become." + +Pauline shook her head. "Mon Dieu!" she said; "every one knows that +sentiment ends at forty." + +The waiter, a quick-witted rogue enough, seemed to be thoroughly +enjoying this midnight conversation. He stood with one arm akimbo, the +other resting on the table, and grinned like a vulgar Mephistopheles. +"If sentiment ends at forty," he said, "you, mademoiselle, will suffer +from it for a long time to come." + +"Ma foi, no! No suffering for me," Pauline replied. "I'm a very +practical person. It would take a great deal to make me sentimental." + +"I wonder how much?" the man answered. "A nice little hotel with a good +trade, say?" + +Pauline shrugged her shoulders. "No, that would mean work. I am used to +seeing a life of sentiment without work." + +The waiter once more began to clear the table. "It is a pity we see so +much of what we cannot have," he answered, rattling the coffee-cups and +silver. + +Pauline made no reply to this, but stood by the fireplace in silence +watching the waiter, and showing plainly by her manner that the +conversation was over and that she was waiting for him to go. + +Suddenly she started violently, as Jacques did also. + +The heavy mahogany door leading to the corridor outside was flung open, +and a short, thick-set, bearded Frenchman came briskly into the room. +There was nothing particularly remarkable about him. He might have been +an ordinary commercial traveller, save for a pair of singularly alert +eyes, which glanced rapidly hither and thither and took in the whole +room in one comprehensive sweep. This was done with lightning-like +rapidity, and then the fellow's face assumed an expression of great +surprise--a little bit overdone and too forced to seem real. + +"A thousand pardons!" he said, with a bow. "The wrong room! My mistake! +I am very sorry. Accept my apologies." + +With that he once more glanced round the room and left it, though with +not quite the alacrity of his entrance, closing the door quietly behind +him. + +But into the quiet room something strangely disturbing had come. + +It was no longer a confidential maid gossiping with the casual waiter of +a smart hotel. The air, which had before been charged with little +suspicions, toy fencings, as it were, between people of no great +importance, was now informed with something more pressing, more +imminent, more real. + +Pauline herself positively staggered back from the fireplace towards the +table, and nearer to the waiter. Her brown face became grey, she seemed +for a moment to lose control of herself, while the ferret eyes of the +waiter watched her with an excited glitter in them. + +"That man!" ... The exclamation came from Pauline almost like a cry. +"That man!" + +Jacques was all bent to attention. He hurried up to the woman. "Yes, +yes?" he said. + +"Do you know who he is?" Pauline asked. "Have you seen him before, M. +Jacques?" + +The man watched her keenly. "I don't know, mademoiselle," he answered in +a guarded voice. + +"That man, I say--have you seen him before?... I remember." + +The waiter hastened to agree, obviously wishing to discover the reason +of Pauline's agitation. + +"Yes," he said. "Now you mention it, mademoiselle, I remember too. He +was outside--there--in the corridor--just after I had shown M. +Collingwood and you and madame to your rooms." + +"Was that when we arrived?" Pauline asked. Her brown hands were +trembling, her eyes were informed with anxiety. + +Jacques bent his head forward. The two were _vis-a-vis_--he watched her +intently. + +"Yes," he answered. + +Then Pauline seemed to lose all her caution. She threw up her hands and +her face became wrinkled with excitement. + +"La! la!" she cried, "but he was looking at madame's boxes at +Boulogne...." + +With quiet but hurried steps she went up to the door leading to the +corridor, turned the handle gently, flung it open and gazed out. + +There was obviously nobody there, for in a moment she returned, closed +the door, and once more confronted the waiter with a grey and troubled +face. + +"Que diable fait-il?" she said in a frightened voice. "But M. Jacques, +what _can_ it mean?" + +Again the ugly leer came over the _garcon's_ face. "Sentiment," he said. + +The middle-aged Breton woman pressed both hands to her heart with one of +those wild and expressive Celtic gestures which seem so exaggerated to +English folk, but which are, nevertheless, so truly expressive of +emotion. + +"Madame!" she cried. + +"I was not thinking of madame," Jacques answered quickly. + +As if clutching at a hope, Pauline made a tremendous effort to get in +key with her tormentor. + +"No, no!" she said with an affectation of brightness. "What? Is it that +you were thinking of me? Merci!--that would be funny!" + +"Sans doute. That's what they say in England when they advertise 'No +followers.'" + +The woman caught the last word. Her face had been strained in anxious +thought. + +"Followers!" she said. "Even the English do not expect followers from +London to Paris." + +By this time Jacques had filled his tray, had folded up the shining +white table-cloth and placed it over his pyramid of plates. + +"Mademoiselle is too modest," he said, moving towards the door, but +still watching Pauline intently. + +The creature's ears seemed literally to twitch with greed of news as he +crossed the great quiet room. + +Pauline was speaking to herself. "It's queer," she said. "I do not like +that. Everything has gone wrong to-day. First we nearly missed the +train. Then on the boat we were all seasick. Then the douanier was a +suspicious fool. Then at Boulogne we got on the wrong train and lost +Lord Ellerdine and Lady Attwill----" + +A little hard chuckle of amusement came from the retiring waiter, and as +Pauline turned to him in indignation a distant voice called her name: + +"Pauline!" + +"Madame!" + +"Good night, mademoiselle," the waiter said, one hand supporting the +heavy tray, the other upon the handle of the door. "Good night, +mademoiselle. Remember that Jock from Ecclefechan has a good memory." + +Pauline was trembling, but she turned to the fellow. "Good night, Jock +from----" She spluttered in her throat, laughed artificially, shut the +door after the man, and then turned eagerly towards the door which led +to Mrs. Admaston's bedroom. + +There was a note of tremendous relief in her voice as she cried out +"Madame!" once more. + +The door from the bedroom opened and Mrs. Admaston entered. + +She was a slim, girlish-looking woman, with a cascade of long dark hair +falling over her shoulders. + +The face was small, the complexion of it rose-brown, the eyes dark wells +of laughing light, the lips twin rosebuds with a sense of humour. + +She was wearing a long wrap, half tea-gown, half dressing-gown, of +topaz-coloured silk, and round her slender waist was a cord of +light-blue and gold threads ending in two large tassels of gold. + +Now there was something half tired, half petulant, and wholly puzzled +about her face as she swept into the room. + +"It's no use," she said in a rippling musical voice; "it isn't a bit of +use, Pauline! I can't go to sleep. In fact, I'm not in the least +sleepy." + +She looked round the room and sighed. + +"What a barn of a place this is!" she said. "I hate those green +curtains. They're so horribly conscious of the colour scheme. And then +the topaz-shaded lights over the lamps--it's all so dreadfully wearing. +And in my room, too, Pauline, it's simply horrid. It reminds me of a +sarcophagus, or a mausoleum, or some appalling place like that. And the +bed is too low! I don't think much of this room, but after all it's +nicer in here." + +She sank down with a sigh into an arm-chair. + +"Yes," she said once more, "it really is much nicer in here. Make me +cosy, Pauline, and do my hair." + +She had brought two ivory brushes into the room, and placed them on the +table. Now she pointed to them with a little hand as sweetly, faintly +pink as the inside of a sea-shell. The light caught the broad wedding +ring of dull gold as she did so. + +Pauline took up the brushes and went up to her mistress. "I thought you +wouldn't like the bed," she said, with the brusque familiarity of an old +servant and friend. "In fact, I knew you wouldn't like it directly we +arrived. You always wanted to sleep up in the air." + +"Tiens, Pauline! I don't want to sleep anywhere to-night. Soothe me, +make me comfortable. Be a good Pauline!" + +The elder woman took up the brushes and stroked the shining hair with +tender, loving hand. "It's been an upsetting day," she said. + +Mrs. Admaston gave a sigh of relief as the kind hands busied themselves +about her hair. + +"Upsetting!" she cried; "that's it--just the word. I am upset. +Everything has been upset. Lord Ellerdine will be fearfully upset. Oh, +Pauline, just fancy our getting into the wrong train!" + +The maid did not answer anything, but went on with her work. + +"It was all owing to that fool of a Customs officer," the girl continued +in a less strained voice. "And turning my things upside down! The way he +upset my clothes was perfectly disgraceful. And before Mr. Collingwood, +too! And all for half a dozen boxes of cigarettes! Keeping us there, +paying their beastly tariff, until the last moment!" + +Pauline put the brushes down upon the table and came round to the front +of the chair. She looked critically at her mistress's hair. "Yes," she +said; "but, after all, it was very lucky the porters put the boxes in +the Paris train." + +"Wasn't it?" + +"Yes, madame." + +"What a bit of luck!" + +Pauline left her mistress for a moment and went into the bedroom. She +returned with a bottle of eau-de-cologne and a handkerchief. Sprinkling +some of the spirit upon it, she held it to Mrs. Admaston's forehead. + +"There!" she said. "You seem tired, my dear; that will do you good. It +was very clever of Mr. Collingwood not to have your boxes registered at +Charing Cross." + +For a moment or two Peggy Admaston leant back in the arm-chair with +closed eyes. "Yes, wasn't it?" she said drowsily. There was a pause for +a moment or two, and then suddenly the girl twisted round in her chair, +caught hold of the elder woman's arm and looked at her searchingly. + +"Pauline! what did you mean then?" she said. + +"What did I mean, madame?" Pauline asked. + +Peggy nodded. "Do you think--well, I suppose he forgot?" + +Pauline raised her eyebrows. "Eh, bien," she said, "they do not as a +rule let you forget to register at Charing Cross." + +Peggy rose from the chair and began to walk up and down the +sitting-room. Her little bronze bedroom slippers peeped in and out from +her trailing draperies of topaz-coloured silk. One slender wrist was +clasped by an old Moorish bracelet of dull silver, the intricate +filigree work studded here and there with Balas rubies. With her long +hair coiled loosely in a shining coronet upon her head, her whole +expression--an atmosphere she exhaled--of sprightly innocence, she +seemed indeed a fragile little butterfly. Something of the sort crossed +the mind of the faithful Breton woman. She sighed, and unperceived her +hand went up to her bodice, where she wore a little silver cross. + +Suddenly Peggy stopped and turned towards the maid. + +"Pauline," she said, "you naughty old thing! I do believe you suspect +something." + +"No, madame," Pauline answered quickly, and there was something almost +sulky in her tone. + +Peggy went up to her and put her bare white arm upon her shoulder, +leaning upon her caressingly. + +"You do," she said. "Oh, but I know you do! When you say 'No, madame,' +like that, I always know that there's something wrong." + +"I only think of you, cherie," Pauline said, holding the little hand, +which was like a thing of carved ivory. + +Peggy gave a half-sigh and once more began to walk up and down the room. + +"You old silly, I know well that you only think of me," she said; "but +tell me, what is it?" + +"What is what?" + +Peggy smiled mischievously. "There again!" she said. "That's just the +way you do when you want me to coax you. Pauline, be nice to me! Now, +what is it? Tell me what you suspect. What about the boxes?" + +"Well, I do not like Lady Attwill," Pauline replied slowly. + +"Oh, but Pauline!" she said. + +"It is no use, madame; I cannot be two-faced with you. I am not able to +conceal anything. I must speak straight out. I never could hide anything +from you, and now it is no use trying. I really can't do it." + +Her voice had risen towards that high and almost whining note of +excitement and protest which is so peculiarly characteristic of the +Bretons. + +"Good gracious! what an outburst for you! What has Lady Attwill done? +What on earth has she to do with the boxes?" + +Pauline made a gesture with her hands. "But what an innocent!" she said, +in half-humorous despair. "You never see things. You are just as +confiding--I mean ignorant of people--as you were when you were twelve +years old. Madame, Lady Attwill is no friend of yours." + +"But that is absurd, Pauline," Peggy answered. "Lady Attwill is devoted +to me. I am certain of it." + +The maid wrinkled up her face, pushed out her lips, and nodded her head +to emphasise her words. "Indeed! indeed, madame! Well, tell me this. +Would she have kept dodging Lord Ellerdine out of the way at Charing +Cross and afterwards at Boulogne if she was your friend?" + +Peggy pouted. "I suppose she wanted to be alone with Lord Ellerdine," +she said. + +"Jamais! she can be alone with him at her flat--she need not wait to be +alone with him at a public railway station." + +Peggy laughed mischievously. "I suppose, Pauline, you think that's one +to you," she said. + +"Tais-toi!" said the old woman, both voice and manner growing more +serious every moment. + +"Well, go on," Peggy replied petulantly. + +Pauline's voice became as impressive as she knew how to make it. + +"I am sure Lady Attwill knew that Mr. Collingwood did not want Lord +Ellerdine in the way. At Boulogne it was just the same. Lady Attwill's +things were examined quickly, and then off she went with Lord Ellerdine +in the Swiss express, and we didn't see them again. She went out of +sight. Now, tell me, was not that strange?" + +"Heavens! how hot it is!" Peggy said. "Shall I have a cigarette? Yes, I +really think I will. Fetch me my cigarette-case, Pauline. It is on the +dressing-table in my bedroom." + +In a moment the Breton woman returned with a dainty little case of gold +with a monogram of sapphires in one corner. Peggy took a cigarette, lit +it, and inhaled a breath of the fragrant smoke with great satisfaction. +Then she began her noiseless walk up and down the room again. + +"Certainly," she said suddenly, "Lady Attwill is not a person to go out +of sight for nothing." + +Pauline sneered. "Oh, miladi is a convenience," she said. "M. +Collingwood has only to raise his little finger and she will do +anything." + +"You mean that she is fond of him?" + +"Of his money, rather." + +"Pauline, that is really perfectly awful of you." + +Again Pauline sneered. "She's a poor widow, madame. Lord Attwill left +her nothing. Oh, I know! I always find out. She has a flat at three +hundred pounds, an electric brougham, a box at the opera, and a little +place at Henley. Lord Ellerdine is not so rich as that. M. Collingwood +is very rich--very--very--very." + +Peggy stopped in her walk now and faced Pauline, who had been sitting +upon the settee. "You mean she gets money from Mr. Collingwood?" she +asked. + +The maid rose and came up to her mistress, touching her arm imploringly. +"Oh, madame," she said with deep feeling, "do be careful. I think only +of you. Don't trust Lady Attwill. She is no friend of yours. She has +never forgiven you for marrying M. Admaston, and she would bring +mischief between you both if she could." + +"Pauline, you mustn't say that," Peggy replied gently. + +"But, madame, it is true. She wanted to marry monsieur herself, and she +is mad because you came in her way. And if she can get you out of her +way she will." + +"Pauline, you are terrible," Peggy said, still in the same light voice, +and with a half-pitying, half-humorous smile such as one gives to an +importunate child. + +The maid took no notice. "Remember, madame," she went on, "it was Lady +Attwill who planned this trip to the Engadine. It was her idea to go +with Lord Ellerdine and M. Collingwood. And now where are we? I ask you, +where are we? In Paris, and she and Lord Ellerdine in the express near +Switzerland by now. Madame, listen to me! Let us go home to-morrow; make +some excuse to M. Collingwood--any will do." + +At last the Butterfly seemed a little impressed. There was such real +earnestness, so much underlying meaning, in Pauline's voice that she +paused and her eyes became thoughtful. + +"It does seem strange," she said. + +Pauline nodded. "N'est-ce pas? I feel as if you were in a trap." + +The girl shivered, and her voice became pleading. "Oh, Pauline, do +watch me! Look after me! I have no one now but you!" + +The old bonne kissed the delicate, shrinking little figure. "La! la!" +she said. "With my last breath I will shield you! Nevertheless, you are +a mischief and make some men mad. Oh, the things they say about you! But +it is only play." + +"Only play?" + +"That is all, cherie; I am sure of it." + +Peggy went up to the fireplace. "Sometimes," she said, "I think it is +very foolish play. I only hope that it won't end in tears." She looked +down at the logs--smouldering now and with no more flame of rose-pink +and amethyst. + +"Tears? For you? Never!" + +Peggy turned half round. "Pauline--I am going to be sensible. I shall +turn over a new leaf. I shall become a _grande dame_, give great +entertainments, hold court at Admaston House in Hampshire, and at Castle +Netherby--then I shall not have time to make men mad!" + +Pauline clapped her hands. "That will be splendid!" she said. "That will +make him so happy!" + +"Who, my husband?" + +"Exactement. Monsieur adores you." + +"I wonder?" Peggy said slowly, more to herself than to Pauline. + +The maid nodded. "Madame," she went on, "he is a great big dog. You can +do anything with him. He will never bite nor snarl, nor show even a +little bit of his teeth." + +"Perhaps it would be better if he would," Peggy replied in a rather +broken voice. "I am so lonely, Pauline. Sometimes I think that his +politics don't leave even a little corner for me." + +"Bien!" said Pauline with a chuckle. "You would not feel lonely, madame, +unless you loved him." + +Peggy went up to the piano, which was open, and struck two or three +resonant chords. "Certainly there is something in that," she said +musingly. + +"Yes, madame," Pauline replied, "he is a man, and you are proud of him. +He is so different from all the others." + +Peggy's idle fingers rattled out a little trilling catch from the +Chanson Florian. Suddenly she stopped and turned her head swiftly. "You +do not like Mr. Collingwood?" she asked, watching Pauline's face +intently. + +"Ma Doue!" Pauline answered in her native Breton, "but I like M. +Collingwood well enough. All the women that there are like M. +Collingwood. He is a terrible flirt, but he is not wicked. But madame +must be careful, that is all. He loves madame not as he loves the +others." + +Peggy closed the lid of the piano with a bang. "Now, Pauline," she +said, "don't be silly. Off you go to bed. I feel ever so much better +now." + +The maid gathered up the brushes and the bottle of eau-de-cologne from +the table and took them into Mrs. Admaston's room. Then she returned. +"Good night, madame," she said. "If you want me, that little bell there +rings in my room. Boone nuit. Dormez bien, cherie." + +She kissed her mistress and left the room. + +Peggy remained alone. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +Mrs. Admaston pulled aside the long curtains of green silk. She turned +the oblong handle which released two of the windows, pulled it towards +her, and drank in the fresh night air. + +How fragrant and stimulating it was. How pure, and how different from +the horrid, scented air of the sitting-room! + +"'From the cool cisterns of the midnight air my spirit drinks repose,'" +Peggy quoted to herself; and she did, indeed, seem to be bathed by a +sweet and delicate refreshment, a cleansing, reviving air, which washed +all hot and feverish thoughts away and made her one with the stainless +spirit of the night. + +The black masses--the black, blotted masses--of the trees in the +Tuileries gardens cut into the sky-line. But even now, late as it was, +innumerable lights twinkled over Paris, and a big honey-coloured moon, +which shamed the firefly lights below, and seemed almost like a harvest +moon, had risen and was staring down upon the City of Pleasure. + +In front of the window was a balcony, and, lightly clad as she was, the +girl went out upon it and with an impulsive gesture stretched out her +arms to where the Lamp of the night, depended from a little drift of +fleecy-white and amber-coloured clouds, swung over Paris. + +"O moon," she said, "dear, round, red moon, I am going to be good! I +really, really am. I am going to turn over a new leaf; I am going...." + +There was a sharp whirr, hard, metallic, and insistent, from the room +behind. + +The telephone bell was ringing. + +Peggy started--the world called her back. In her mind, as it were, she +put down her good resolutions on the balcony and hurried in to see who +had rung her up. + +She fluttered up to the telephone, caught the receiver to her ear, and +spoke breathlessly: + +"Well, who is it? What? Yes. Who is it? Oh! Where are you? Chalons! You +have arrived, then? What?" + +A voice, not over the telephone wire, but behind her and in the room, +came to Peggy's disengaged ear. + +She started violently and turned round as if upon a pivot. + +She saw standing before her a slim, tall, clean-shaved man, anywhere +between thirty and forty. He was in evening clothes--that is to say, he +wore a dinner jacket and black tie. His hair was dark and curly and +grew low upon his forehead; his eyebrows were beautifully pencilled; and +below them two shrewd, mocking, and yet somehow simple and merry eyes of +a brilliant grey looked out upon Mrs. Admaston. The nose was aquiline; +the lips, a trifle full, were nevertheless beautifully shaped. They were +parted now in a smile. + +"Who is it? Let me speak, Peggy?" Collingwood said. + +Peggy looked at him. "Oh, how you startled me!" she cried, with a little +shriek of alarm and embarrassment. Then without a further word she +fluttered towards the door of her bedroom, dropping the receiver of the +telephone, which hung by its twisted cord and swung this way and that. + +Roderick Collingwood took a couple of quick, decisive steps to the wall. +He caught up the receiver. + +"Hello! That you, Ellerdine? Yes, just finished supper. What? What? 2.34 +to-night--I mean this morning? What time do you reach Paris? What?--five +o'clock?" + +He turned round to Peggy, who was standing by her bedroom door. "They +are coming on here," he said. + +"Now?" the girl asked. + +"Yes! they get here at five." He caught up the receiver again and +pressed it to his ear, leaning forward to the mouthpiece. + +"I say, Ellerdine--I say, why not wait for us at Chalons? What? You have +decided not to go on? Very well. We will wait for you." + +He placed the receiver of the telephone back upon its rest, and turned +the handle to ring off. Then he looked at Peggy, walking slowly towards +her as he spoke. + +"Ellerdine is vexed," he said. + +Peggy's face was the most alluring pink, her eyes looked angry. + +"Please leave the room," she said. + +Collingwood stopped. "I am sorry," he said. "I heard the telephone ring, +and before I knew where I was...." + +Peggy cut him short, pointing to the door on the left-hand side of the +room, the door not far from that which led into the corridor. "Is that +your room?" taking a couple of steps towards him. + +"Yes," the dark man answered; "the hotel was full--it was the only room +left. Don't be vexed, Peggy." + +The girl's face had a sort of hard impatience in it, though mingled with +something else also--something very difficult to define. "Wait," she +said. "That door was locked when I tried it before you came in to +supper. Did you unlock it?" + +Mr. Collingwood laughed a pleasant, musical laugh, which seemed to +resolve the somewhat tragic note of Mrs. Admaston's voice into +nothing--to make it seem rather unnecessary and absurd. It was a +thoroughly boyish laugh. + +"Why, Peggy," he said, "what a very serious mood you are in! Unlock it? +Of course I unlocked it, when I heard you at the telephone. I thought +you would not mind. Besides, I wanted to know what Ellerdine was up to. +Come, come, Peggy; this is not the first time we have been together so +late." + +Peggy looked at him with wide eyes. "Oh, but it is different," she said; +"we are in a strange hotel--by accident. Colling, it was by accident, +wasn't it?" + +He started, bent forward a little, and answered her with great +eagerness. + +"Of course, of course; surely you did not think----" + +"Oh, I don't know what I thought; but I feel so funny, so nervous." + +Collingwood laughed again--really, it was the most reassuring and +musical laugh. "Peggy nervous?" + +"Well, it is rather alarming," Peggy replied. + +Collingwood laughed once more, and stepped up towards her. "But rather +nice--isn't it rather nice?--what, Peggy?" + +There was something so irresistibly amusing in his voice and smile that +Mrs. Admaston began to bubble over with laughter. + +"Isn't it rather nice?" he went on, crossing over to the little +switch-board and putting out the big central light which depended from +the roof. "Isn't it rather nice?" + +Peggy had entrenched herself behind the little table on which supper had +been laid. She was obviously tremendously amused, but she made a great +effort to be serious. "Colling!" she said, "it is mad. Supposing anybody +knew!" + +Collingwood was quite calm. He treated the whole thing as if it were the +most ordinary occasion. He strolled lazily over to the fireplace, took a +cigarette-case from his pocket, a cigarette from it, and struck a light. + +"How can anyone know?" he asked. + +Peggy seemed alarmed once more. + +"No! Colling, please don't light a cigarette. It is too late. I must go +to bed." + +Collingwood's only answer was to blow out a cloud of smoke, to cross +over to the sofa and throw himself upon it. + +"Not yet," he said. "Don't be unkind, Peggy. Just one cigarette. Just +one, in front of the fire--which, by the way, is out,--and then +bye-byes." + +"Well, one cigarette, but only one," Peggy said. + +Collingwood sat up. "Good little Peggy," he said in a low, quiet voice; +and then, raising his head, he looked at her intently with his brilliant +grey eyes. + +Peggy looked him straight in the face also, and then the spirit of +mischief, the excitement of this odd meeting, got the better of her +prudence. She came to the back of the sofa and leant over it. "Isn't +Peggy going to have one?" she said. + +The man took his cigarette-case from his waistcoat pocket, opened it, +and gave her a cigarette. Her face was tantalisingly close to his, and +she noticed, well enough, that his hand was trembling as he did so. She +kept her face close to his just half a moment longer than the situation +required. + +Collingwood's voice began to shake also. "Now, Peggy, you little devil," +he said. + +"Why is Peggy a little devil?" + +With a slim brown hand, which, despite all the man's _sang-froid_, still +shook like a leaf in the wind, he lit the cigarette for the girl, +looking up into her face as he did so. + + "Either I mistake your shape and making quite, + Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite + Called Robin Goodfellow." + +There came a little bubble of laughter from Peggy, which seemed to +remove all diffidence from Collingwood. "How are you, my friend Puck?" +he said. + +Peggy perched herself upon the head of the sofa. "Oh, Puck was an imp of +mischief," she said. + +"Well?" he asked. + +The girl puffed her cigarette contentedly for a few seconds; then she +bent towards him, swinging her little brown-shoed foot. "Tell me, +Colling," she asked: "why weren't my boxes registered?" + +"Well--of all the suspicious little demons I ever came across! +Registered?" + +"Yes, registered." + +"Well, I suppose that fool of a porter at Charing Cross forgot to do +it," Collingwood replied. + +"It was a bit of luck, wasn't it?" Peggy said. + +Collingwood seemed to be thinking of something else. He was gazing at +the end of his cigarette and not looking at her at all. "Yes," he said +in an absent-minded voice. + +"I wonder----" Peggy went on; and then suddenly she stopped, and +Collingwood looked up with a start. + +"I wonder," Peggy continued, "what the Attwill will think?" + +"Think?" he answered. "She can jolly well think what she likes." + +"I don't much mind what she thinks," Peggy said; "but I'll bet she's put +some rotten idea into Ellerdine's head. Colling, I don't like +her--really I don't." + +Although Peggy did not notice it, the man's voice became slightly +strained. The lips assumed an appearance of somewhat exaggerated +indifference, but there was a glint of watchfulness in the eyes. + +"You don't like Lady Attwill?" he said. + +"That's it," Peggy replied. "Where does she get her money from?" + +Collingwood started slightly. The girl did not notice it. "I don't +know," he said a little uneasily. + +"Is that true, Colling?" Peggy asked, with mischief in her eyes. + +"By the way, has she any?" Collingwood asked. + +"Well, if she hasn't, how does she do it?" + +"By her wits, my dear." + +"Ellerdine doesn't go in for wits," Peggy remarked. + +"Poor, dear Dicky! he is the diplomatic failure of the century." + +"I suppose he is, but it is an ill wind that blows nobody good. The +Empire's loss is Attwill's gain." + +Collingwood laughed. "Well," he said, "she's the only post he has been +able to keep." + +"I don't know that he can afford to keep anything. Can he be in love +with her, do you think?" + +Collingwood puffed slowly at his cigarette. + +"My dear Peggy," he said, looking her up and down with a curious +meditative gaze--"my dear Peggy, if a man loves a woman he doesn't +leave a comfortable hotel to travel all night in a slow train with her. +Ellerdine is as likely to spend his money on a home for lost cats as on +the Attwill." + +"She's a very attractive cat," Peggy said. + +"He doesn't care two straws about her," Collingwood replied quite +definitely. + +"Then why did he come?" + +"To please you--for no other reason." + +"Anyway, I don't like her," Peggy said. "Do you? I believe you do, +Colling." + +Collingwood jumped up from the sofa. "Now, stop that, Peggy," he said. + +The glint of mischief in Peggy's eyes glowed more strongly. "She's a +very attractive woman," she said. + +"Well, she's not the sort of woman who attracts me," Collingwood +replied, sitting down again upon the couch and tapping impatiently with +his foot upon the carpet. He seemed disturbed, uneasy, under the +influence of some suppressed emotion. + +Peggy stroked her nose with one little finger, and then she leant down +towards Collingwood. "What sort of woman attracts you?" she said in a +low voice. + +Again the man jumped up, and a keen observer would have noticed that +tiny beads of perspiration had come out upon his forehead like seed +pearls. + +"Peggy," he cried, "you are a tantalising little fiend!" + +Peggy shook with laughter. She was absolutely happy. "I suppose I ought +not to have said that," she bubbled. + +"Why not?" he asked, and into his voice came something of deep yearning, +and the note of passion restrained till now, broke through all reserves +and all defences at last. + +"Why not?" he said. Again his voice grew in emotional force and power. +"Why not, Peggy? I love you when you are in this mood. I love you in all +your moods, dear." + +Peggy slid down from the end of the sofa and moved a little way towards +the door of her bedroom. "What about that cigarette?" she asked, and +there was a distinct note of nervousness in her voice. + +She had provoked the beginnings of passion, and, having done so, +womanlike, she was startled and afraid. + +"Cigarette," he said. "Oh, I haven't finished it yet. But listen! Peggy +darling, you must listen!" + +She was really startled now. "Not to-night, Colling; you promised," she +said. "Now, Colling, go--please go!" + +"I can't go, Peggy; I love you so!" he answered. + +"Please, Colling, don't talk like that!" + +Now his voice became almost dogged, though it lost nothing of its power. +"I can't help it," he said; "I love you!" + +The girl clutched nervously at her tea-gown and shrank back nearer yet +to the door. + +"Don't talk of love," she said in a low voice. + +He took three quick steps up to her, and again she shrank away, not this +time into the sure defence of her bedroom, but towards the window. + +"Don't talk of love?" he said, and his voice reverberated and rang with +feeling. "Why not? It is in the air--the very night is charged with +love. You cannot look out on a night like this and not think of love." + +"Don't, Colling; you frighten me," she said. + +"Oh, but why should my love frighten you, my Peggy? My darling, it is +brightness, tenderness, and love that you want. I know how monotonous +and dull your life must be. Good God! don't I know it? Am I not always +thinking of it? Poor little Butterfly! What a flutter you make to be +free, to warm your dainty wings in sunny places! Peggy, sweetheart, I +want to show you the sunny places." + +"Please go, Colling!" she said, and her flute-like voice was tremulous +with fear. "Please go, Colling! It isn't fair. I am afraid. You see, I +am so fond of you, and I am such a _little_ Butterfly!" + +He held out his hands towards her, palms upwards, with a curious +foreign gesture which showed how greatly he was moved. "I can't +go, Peggy," he said. "I want you so badly--want you for my +own--to-night--to-morrow, all the nights and all the days. I have been +very good. I have always done what you have told me. I have come and +gone just exactly as the whim has struck you. Ah! you know how deeply, +how dearly I love you!" + +She moved past him with a sudden, gliding step, and placed the settee +between them. + +"I only know you are my friend, my very dear friend," she said. + +"No! no! no!" he cried, coming after her. + +"Yes--only that friend!" + +"Lover! Peggy," he said passionately. "I am a man--devoured by love of +you. I have waited for you--longed for you--and now----" With a sudden +movement he caught her in his arms, straining her to him wildly, +showering kisses upon the shining coronet of her hair. "We're alone, +Peggy," he cried, "just you and I!" and his voice rang with triumph. +"We're alone! There are no others in the world--no others! You are mine, +Peggy, mine at last!" + +She struggled in his arms, her face pale as linen, her voice with a note +of almost shrill alarm. + +"Colling, I can't bear it--you will spoil everything. Do help me, +Colling! I don't love you like that. I'm sorry if it hurts you. I'd +rather die." + +There was a note in her voice of such absolute sincerity, mingled with +fear, that he opened his arms and let her flutter away. + +The passion upon his face changed and melted into something else. + +"My God!" he cried. "You would rather die----" + +He stumbled rather than walked towards the sofa and sat down upon it, +burying his face in his long lean hands, that trembled exceedingly. + +"My God!" she heard him whisper to himself; "she would rather die!..." + +Peggy had followed him, and she stood at the end of the sofa, aghast at +what she had done. She began to speak slowly and nervously. + +"Colling, don't do that. I really can't bear that you should think me +unkind. I like you too well to let you do anything that would spoil our +happiness. I am not unkind--really I am not. Have not I shown how fond +of you I am? We have been such good friends!" + +"Friends!" he said bitterly, without looking up from his hands. + +His voice was so cold, so charged with misery and sudden realisation, +that it cut the girl to the heart. She went round from the back of the +sofa and knelt at his feet, stretching out her hand timidly, and +touching the sleeve of his coat. + +"Colling, dear, what else can we be?" she said. + +He looked down at her, and for a moment his voice did not soften. There +was a quiet, dogged misery in it. + +"We have passed the merely friendship line," he said; "and you know that +well enough, Peggy. That has been passed a long time. You would not have +left London with me if we had only been friends and nothing more. Were +we only friends when we used to sit up together night after night at +Ellerdine's house? Do 'friends' speak to each other as we have spoken? +Why, you have only to touch my hand to know that I burn with longing." + +"Colling, you mustn't say such things!" + +He jumped up roughly, leaving her kneeling upon the floor, and passed +with rapid steps to the window. + +"Friends!" he cried, and his voice had a razor edge to it. "Friends! +It's not true! Do friends run the risks that we have run? For God's +sake, here and now let us be honest with each other. Why, we haven't +even tried to fool society! For Heaven's sake, Peggy, don't let's try to +fool ourselves!" + +Peggy rose slowly to her feet, trembling all over. "Colling! oh, +Colling!" she said in a piteous voice, "surely people don't think we +are----" + +"People don't think! People are only too glad to think. You know well +enough what is said about others----" + +Her face grew paler still, her eyes were wide with fear and slowly +dawning realisation. She clasped both hands to her breast, and the light +shone upon the rubies set in the old Moorish bracelets that she was +wearing. + +"Oh!" she said. + +He came up to her again. + +"Peggy, you don't care, do you?" + +"Don't care, Colling!" she gasped. "Tell me, do people think we are----" + +"Think!--how can they help thinking it? Haven't we given them every +reason?" + +"No, no, no! Oh! I hate to think of that! We have only been very fond +friends. Why should they think otherwise?" + +There were tears of agony in her voice. She kept clasping and unclasping +her hands. + +"Oh! I suppose it is all my fault," she said brokenly--"all my fault. I +don't think ungenerous things of others. I have been too trusting--too +confiding. Why should people thing such things? I only wanted a good +friend, a companion." + +He still stood by her, looking at her keenly, and the bitterness in his +voice did not die away. "Friends! Oh yes, I know! You wanted someone to +pet you, to pamper you. What you wanted was someone to satisfy all your +vanities--your yearning for devotion, for adulation, for sense of power. +I know! You wanted all the joys and none of the risks. That sums up the +whole thing in a nutshell. There are lots of women like you. They drive +men mad--make drunkards, gamblers, swindlers of them. I have seen it +often enough. I have seen men fall out and lose themselves among the +army of crooks that throng the second-rate shows. But I won't let you +drive me mad." + +The bitterness in his voice was terrible. His words seemed to scourge +her, to lash her like a whip. She stared at him in helpless amazement +and misery. He had paused in his rapid torrent of speech, and as he saw +her distress he seemed to be a little touched. + +"Peggy!" he said, and once more the note of passion came into his voice, +while the anger died out of it--"Peggy! I mean you to be mine. There +will be a crash soon--that is certain. Admaston will take notice of what +everybody is saying about us. He will come out of his political shell, +wake up, do things, put an end to it at once and for ever!" + +"Oh, my God! What have I done!" the girl cried. + +"Done! What have you done to deserve your husband's neglect? Why, he +doesn't even know that you exist. His heart beats by Act of Parliament. +He'd a thousand times rather address a village meeting than spend an +hour in your company. Are you to pass your youth in the company of----" + +"Stop! stop!" she cried. "Say what you like about me--scold me if you +like, but say nothing against him. You do not know my husband. We are +neither of us fit to mention his name. He is a big man, and he loves +me." + +"But, Peggy, you won't say that you love him?" Collingwood said, with a +curious note of perplexity in his voice. The situation, tragic as it +was, got a little bit beyond him. + +"Love him?" she answered. "I don't know. I have had no chance to love +anyone the way you regard love." + +Collingwood put his hands into his pockets, swung round upon his heels +and swung back again. "I see," he said; "you mean you don't love +Admaston, and won't love anybody else?" + +"Oh, I don't know," Peggy replied; "but I certainly don't love anybody +else. You think I am neglected. That is absurd. It was my father's wish +that we should marry. George knew that I did not love him. He trusts me +fully. There will be no crash." + +He heard the note in her voice which told him that she was trying to +persuade herself that her fears were groundless, and smiled rather +grimly. + +"There will be," he said. "You take my word for it. No man--not even +Admaston--can stand _ridicule_ for long. Remember, I mean to win you. I +shall marry no one if I don't marry you." + +She tried to speak lightly. + +"Colling, don't be so silly! You are one of the best matches in England. +You will marry a beautiful girl who will lead society and make you a +very proud and ambitious man. Don't shake your head--that's only because +you want to be gallant. Heavens! how I would do things if I were a man! +You, with all your talents and your money, ought to rise to any +position." + +"You are mad about position," he said impatiently. + +"Yes," Peggy answered. "I like men who have some big purpose in life and +who fight the world and win." + +"Like George Admaston!" Collingwood answered, and now for the first time +there came a glint of malicious and real ill-humour over his face. It +came and passed in a second, but it had been there. + +"Yes," Peggy replied; "like George Admaston! He is a fighter, Colling. I +think many women would love George. He is not the butterfly +type--but----" + +"But he has all the luck," Collingwood broke in fiercely. "I could do +anything if you were with me. I must have something--or someone--to +fight for. My nature must be baffled. There must be obstacles in the way +for me. I have a wicked streak in me somewhere that turns red when I +can't get what I want. Peggy, you must let Admaston get a divorce." + +The words seemed to strike her dumb. All colour had left her face long +since, but now almost all expression went from it also for a moment. It +was as if she had been struck some paralysing blow. + +He was watching her keenly, and as he noted the effect of his words a +spasm of pain went through him, though he showed nothing of it in his +face or manner. He loved her, he loved her dearly; there was no doubt +about that. He hated to give her pain, yet he felt he was being cruel +only to be kind. She must face the situation once and for all, and then +perhaps everything might be right. The situation, serious as it was, was +very largely of his own creation. Seeing no other way, he had +deliberately endeavoured to compromise Mrs. Admaston. All his plans, all +his ideas, had been directed to this end. He wanted to force her +husband's hand and to marry Peggy after the divorce. He loved her +wildly, madly, passionately. He would have been a perfect husband to +her--there can be no doubt of that. + +But his love was selfish. In order to win this woman for his own he was +ready to subject her to all the indignities and all the shame of a +process in the courts. In his overmastering desire, her reputation, her +honour, mattered nothing to him. It was she that he wanted, and any +means should be taken to achieve that end. + +Men like Roderick Collingwood have few guiding principles in life, save +only those of their own appetites. Of course, the public school and the +university have given them a certain code. They must pay their gambling +debts, they must do various other things of that sort; but as far as any +conception of the morality and decency, which have made England what it +is, is concerned, they are absolutely without it. + +He nodded at Peggy, driving home the words. + +"Divorce! Oh, you mustn't talk like that. You know how it hurts me," she +said at last, when she had recovered a little. "Really, really, you are +mistaken. I am quite satisfied with my life--only, sometimes when I am +foolish I feel just a bit lonely and neglected." + +He turned on her almost with a sneer. He was bitterly hurt and angry, +and there is no doubt that, from his point of view, he had reason for +complaint. She had led him on. She had flirted outrageously with him. +She had deliberately done her best to be provocative. Her intentions, +doubtless, were innocent enough as far as any dishonour to her husband +entered into the question. But her love of adulation, her vanity, her +desire of power, were all gratified by her conquest of him; while at the +same time she still had a real and genuine friendship for a man who, +with all his faults, was essentially charming, good-natured, and kind. + +"Then you have deceived me!" he cried. + +"Colling, don't say that. I never meant----" + +"Never meant? Good heavens! I told you six months ago that I loved you, +and ever since then you have let me go here and there with you, and I +have told you of my love again and again." + +"But you have always been so good. You have never been unkind to me +before to-night." + +"Good God! Unkind! Why, most men would have divorced their wives on far +less evidence than we have furnished. And all the while you have +accepted the position without a murmur. You don't know what you have +done." + +"Colling, what do you mean?" + +"Mean?" he answered. "I mean that you have led me to believe that you +didn't care what we did--what people said about us. Mean? I mean that +the call of love is in the spring, Peggy, whispering to you and me. +Mean? I mean that I am a man and you are a woman--our souls stand bare +to one another--that I love you and that you love me." + +He sprang at her and caught her up in his arms once more. + +"I don't love you, Colling! Let me go!" she cried. + +"I can't let you go! It is my hour! It is your fault as well as mine! +Kiss me, Peggy! You have tortured me long enough! Kiss me!" + +He held her tight, tight! His face blazed. There was a fury in his +voice. + +At that very moment when he stopped speaking and was gazing down at her, +while she lay for a moment almost passive in his arms after her first +fight and struggle, a loud, sharp, clear sound rang out in the room. It +was the bell of the telephone upon the wall. + +"Ellerdine!" Peggy said. + +"Let him ring," Collingwood answered. + +They stood there for another moment clasped together, and once more the +insistent summons of the bell came. + +"No, no," Peggy cried; "answer him, please!" + +With an odd, instinctive gesture Collingwood put his arm right round +her. Before he had been straining her to him passionately. Now there was +something protective in his attitude. + +And again the bell whirred. + +At last with great reluctance Collingwood stepped up to the wall and +caught up the receiver. + +"Well, well!" he said. "Who is it? What! Ad----Admaston!" + +A voice which was robbed of all ordinary qualities shivered out into the +room. + +"My husband!" said Peggy. + +Collingwood made a warning gesture with his left hand, telling her to +keep quiet. + +"Yes," he said; "we took the wrong train. Yes, Collingwood. Yes, it is +he speaking." + +"Where is he?" came hissing to the ears of the man at the telephone. +Again he motioned her to silence, giving a slight impatient tap with his +foot upon the carpet. + +"Oh yes. We have just finished supper. What? I can't hear you +distinctly. You want to speak to Ellerdine? Hold the line a moment; I'll +call him." + +He put down the receiver upon the table and ran up to Peggy, who was +shaking like a leaf in the wind. + +"He wants to speak to you, too, I think," Collingwood said in a low, +fierce whisper; "but perhaps you had better not." + +"I can't," Peggy answered, swaying this way and that as if about to +fall. He put out his arm and steadied her. + +"All right, darling," he said; "it is all right!" + +"Where is he? London?" she said. + +"I didn't ask," he replied. "Wait a minute!" + +He hurried to the telephone again. "Hello! Ellerdine has just gone out. +Hello! Where are you speaking from? Damn! We're cut off. Hello! Hello!" + +He listened for nearly half a minute, taut and strained as a greyhound +on the leash; then he flung the receiver angrily upon the bracket. + +"We're cut off," he repeated, looking at her almost stupidly, as if the +situation was beyond him. + +Collingwood said nothing for a little time. At last he spoke. "I didn't +think of that," he said. "Can he have had us----" + +"What? What?" she almost shrieked. + +"Followed?" + +He plunged his hands into the pockets of his dinner-jacket and bent his +head, thinking deeply. Then he looked up at Peggy. "Peggy," he said at +length, "rumour--he has been ridiculed into action--the crash has come." + +The girl held out both hands towards him as if warding off a blow. "Go, +go!" she cried; "please go! I sha'n't speak another word to you +to-night. Go at once!" + +"I can't leave you now, Peggy. I just worship you." + +"I shall ring for my maid," she said, and moved towards the bell-push. + +"No, don't do that. Don't be cruel, Peggy!" he said, in a voice instinct +with agonised pleading. "Don't be cruel, Peggy! No, no! Don't ring!" + +"I shall," she said firmly, and stretched out her hand. + +"Peggy, trust me. I love you better than anything in the world--better +than myself. For you I will sacrifice wealth, honour." + +"Honour!" she cried. + +"I'll do anything to win you. Everything I have done has been to win +you--to have you for my own. You know it is true. Peggy, before God, I +believed that you loved me too. Don't judge me harshly--oh, don't do +that!" + +Peggy put out her hand and pressed the bell-push. + +"I must be alone," she said in a dull, muffled voice. + +He saw that it was useless, that he had failed, that the plans of months +had all miscarried, that everything was over for him as far as she was +concerned. Undisciplined as his nature was, baffled and disowned as he +felt, he nevertheless showed himself rather fine in that moment. He made +an almost superhuman effort at self-control--and succeeded. + +"All right, Peggy dear," he said. "Don't be afraid. Everything will come +right. Good night." With one last lingering look at her he left the +room, closing the door which led into his own. + +Peggy sank down upon the sofa almost over-mastered by her rising +hysteria, limp and half unconscious. + +She lay there breathing hurriedly, and with her eyes closed, when the +corridor door opened and Pauline came rapidly into the room. + +"Madame!" she cried. + +Peggy gave one great sob of relief. + +"Pauline!--you have not gone to bed?" + +"No, madame! I was so anxious about you I could not sleep." + +"Oh, my head is bursting!" the girl cried; "there is a pain like the +thrust of a sword in my head." + +"Poor darling!" Pauline said, her voice guttural with excitement, her +trembling hands passing over the young girl's form with loving, +frightened caresses. "Poor darling! There is something altogether wrong. +Just now, when I came down, I saw a man standing at your door +listening." + +"At that door?" + +"Yes. Twice I have seen him to-day. He was at Boulogne; I saw him +looking at your boxes. Then just after supper he came in--when I was +speaking to the waiter." + +"Then we have been followed," Peggy answered, breaking down utterly. +"Pauline, I feel that something dreadful is going to happen. Stay with +me--don't go back to your room. Soothe me, Pauline, as you used to when +I was little and afraid of the dark." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +It was about nine o'clock the next morning. The heat of the night before +had given place to that incomparable freshness which spring mornings +have in Paris. + +The windows of Mrs. Admaston's sitting-room were open, and a +delightfully scented air, from the lilac blossoms and all the flowers of +the gardens in the Tuileries, flooded and floated into the room. + +Rooms have an aspect of this or that emotion according to the hour in +which the events of the soul have taken place within them. + +There are some rooms which always have the same mood. When one goes into +them one doesn't impose one's mood, one's fancy, or one's ideas upon the +place, but is dominated by one lasting personality--of furniture, of +aspect, of general _mise en scene_. + +It would be impossible, for example, to have a merry breakfast-party in +the hangman's ante-room to the gallows; and one has known rooms in +hotels which one enters gladly, unconscious of the pervading gloom which +seems to cling to floor and ceiling and rises up like a spectre into +the heart and brain after a few minutes' sojourn there. + +The sitting-room in the Hotel des Tuileries, which had been the theatre +of such tragic emotions on the last spring midnight, was now ordinary +and comfortable enough. + +The chairs and settees were all in their proper places. The carpet had +been brushed, and its dull blues, greys, and brick-dust reds were all +essentially artistic. + +And they had brought new flowers there also. The bowls and vases were +filled with fresh purple and white lilac. The silver candlesticks had +been polished--there were no drippings of wax upon them any more. Tall +white candles, fresh, virginal, and unfired, filled all the +candlesticks. + +In the middle of all this freshness two people were--a man and a woman. + +One, Lord Ellerdine, was very tall and lean. He was dressed in a suit of +very immaculate grey flannel--not the greyish-green which the ordinary +person who wears flannels imagines to be the right thing, but the real +grey-grey which costs a good deal of money; if the tailors in Sackville +Street and Waterloo Place, from whom we suffer, are to be believed. + +Lord Ellerdine's hair--and he hadn't much of it--was what he himself +would have described as "the same old dust-colour." He wore a stiff +double collar with blue lines upon it, a tie of China silk, and a big +black pearl, stuck right down at the bottom, so that it only peeped out +from the opening of his waistcoat now and again. + +Lord Ellerdine had red eyes--that is to say, that there was a sort of +red glint in them. The brows which overhung them were straight and dark, +and contradicted with an odd grotesquerie the flickering attempt to +really be at home and happy with the world. The face itself was rather +tanned and brown, lean in contour and suggesting the explorer and the +travelled man; and all this was oddly contradicted by an engaging little +button of a mouth, which twitched and lisped and was always rather more +jolly than the occasion warranted. + +By the side of Lord Ellerdine--or rather standing in the middle of the +room and looking down upon him, for he had thrown himself upon the +sofa--was a tall, slim, and gracious woman, perfectly dressed in a +travelling coat and skirt of tweed. She looked round her rather +fretfully. + +Her face was radiant--there is no other word for it. Although she had +been travelling all night, she appeared to be as fresh as paint--and +that exactly describes her. + +The complexion was perfect. It had that creamy _morbidezza_ one sees in +a furled magnolia bud. Two straight, decisive lips seemed like a "band +of scarlet upon a tower of ivory." Lady Attwill's eyes were +sapphire-blue and suspicious, but entirely charming. She was, in short, +a thoroughly handsome woman, and the sunlight struck curious radiances +from the little pearls she wore in the shell-like lobes of her ears. + +"Tell madame, will you, Pauline?" she said. + +"I'll tell madame that you have arrived," the maid said with a little +bow. She crossed the room, knocked, opened the door leading into Mrs. +Admaston's bedroom, and disappeared. + +Almost immediately Lady Attwill's face changed from its quiet calm and +became vivid. + +"Cheer up, Dicky!" she said to Lord Ellerdine; "you've been in many a +worse fix than this." + +The diplomatist looked at her for a moment, his whole silly--but somehow +distinguished--face covered with a sort of desperate cheerfulness. + +"Worse!" he said. "I should say so. I don't mind gettin' into a 'fix,' +as you call it." + +"Then what in the world are you grumbling about?" Lady Attwill asked. + +"Why, how am I going to get _out_ of it? Any fool can get into a +fix--any time. It's gettin' out--what? That's the bally riddle, +Alice--gettin' out of it. What?" + +Lady Attwill went up to him and dug him confidentially in the shoulder +with one pretty gloved thumb. + +"Look here, Dicky," she said; "now, did I ever fail you?" + +"Oh no, no. You've always been pretty good." + +"Now, haven't I got you out of many a scrape?" + +Lord Ellerdine seemed to think--that is to say, call upon the resources +of a somewhat attenuated memory. "Yes," he replied; "not so confounded +many--only two; and--yes--well, of course, that other one was rather +awkward." + +He chuckled to himself. "But, after all, this is different," he +continued. "I am not in this one, exactly. No more are you. It's Peggy's +fix. And we don't _quite_ know how she's got into it. I don't like the +look of it." + +Lady Attwill listened to him with an aspect of particular attention. But +if the man had been able to realise it he would have seen the flash of +contempt which came and went over her face. He did not, however, and she +replied in her ordinary tones: + +"Look of it! It's merely a frolic--nothing serious. Collingwood is not +the man to run risks. He believes in the simple life." + +"Does he, by Jove!" Lord Ellerdine said. "He's not so simple as that, +Alice." + +"He is not so simple as to get into a complication with Admaston," she +answered. "He's no fool--you take my word for it." + +Lord Ellerdine grinned his fatuous little grin. + +"Seems I have to take your word for everything," he said. + +"All right, Dicky," she answered; "just you leave all the thinking to +me." + +"You don't give me time to think," he answered. "I know I am deuced slow +at it. But tell me this. How did Peggy and Collingwood get to my place +last autumn before ten o'clock in the morning? Tell me that--what?" + +"They motored through the night, of course." + +"They jolly well didn't," replied his lordship. + +"But Colling told us he did," said Lady Attwill. + +"I knew he did. But they didn't." + +Lady Attwill had been glancing over the _Matin_ of that day, which had +been laid upon the breakfast table. At these words of her companion's +she put down the paper rather hurriedly and looked up. + +"Dicky," she said, "I believe you know something." + +"I know I do." + +"What is it, then?" + +"Bad breakdown at Selby overnight. They came on to my place in a hired +motor next morning. I heard all about it from the man who drove them +down from Selby." + +Lady Attwill was very genuinely interested, or achieved a fair +assumption of interest. "Dicky!" she cried. + +Lord Ellerdine nodded his thin head vigorously. "It's a fact," he +replied triumphantly. "The fellow is now my second chauffeur. So you see +I can find out things if I have time enough. Alice, I don't like this +fix Peggy's in. Staying at Selby with Collingwood all night was bad +enough, but----" + +"Good gracious!" Lady Attwill answered, "can't a woman stay at the same +hotel with a man she knows without scandal?" + +"Scandal!" Lord Ellerdine replied. "Damn the scandal! It's what folks +think. It's who you are. Lots of women wouldn't mind staying at the same +hotel I was staying at, and nobody would dream that there was anything +wrong--you wouldn't, Alice. But Peggy and Collingwood _make_ people +suspect them." + +Lady Attwill went up to Lord Ellerdine and pinched his arm playfully. +"You silly old Dicky," she said, "you've been listening to a lot of +stupid twaddle at your clubs." + +"Well," he answered, "they know pretty well what's going on." + +"Yes, I suppose _they_ do," she said. "Talk about women and their +gossip! Why, Dicky, they're not in it with your smoke-room gang." + +At that moment Pauline entered from Mrs. Admaston's bedroom. There was a +hardly veiled hostility in her face as she spoke, though her manner was +civil enough. "Madame will see Lady Attwill," she said. + +Lady Attwill swept across the room, flashing a somewhat curious glance +at the old maidservant as she passed her, and entered the bedroom. + +Lord Ellerdine had strolled up to the fireplace. "Tell Peggy I am +waiting," he called out. + +"All right," Lady Attwill said. "You amuse yourself for a few minutes." + +Lord Ellerdine began to hum a little tune; then he noticed Pauline, who +was arranging some violets upon a side table. "Morning, Pauline," he +said. "How's madame?" + +"She has a headache," the maid replied; "just a little nervous. Is your +lordship well?" + +"No, I am not well, Pauline, I am sorry to say. I feel very groggy. I +have been all night in a confounded slow train." + +Pauline said nothing, but left the room just as the third door opened +and Collingwood came briskly into the room. + +He was wearing a lounge suit of dark blue. The air of poise and easy +carriage which was so marked a part of his personality was very much in +evidence now. There was a quiet spring in his step, a brisk and cheery +purpose in his movements, and he seemed singularly alert and +_debonnaire_; perfectly dressed, a very proper man to look at, but +somehow or other without a suggestion of foppishness, which Lord +Ellerdine always managed to convey. His face was calm and composed, but +a close observer would have noticed that there were dark rings under the +eyes and that the face was slightly paler than its wont. + +"Oh, there you are!" Lord Ellerdine said. + +"Hello, Ellerdine!" Collingwood replied. "Bright and early as usual?" + +"Early, yes," said the other; "but not so deuced bright, old chap." + +"When did you get here?" + +"About five o'clock." + +"Had breakfast?" + +"No," said Lord Ellerdine. "I had a bath, a shave, a change, and a +brandy-and-soda." + +Collingwood went up to the window and sat looking idly down into the Rue +de Rivoli. + +"Refreshing, but not very filling," he said. "Staying here?" + +"No," Lord Ellerdine replied; "they would not let us in. It's race-week, +you know. They are packed out. The place is full of big bookies and +racing fellows. We had to go to the St. Denis. A nice fix you've got us +all in, Collingwood!" + +Collingwood turned away from the window. + +"Fix? I've got you in? How do you mean?" + +Lord Ellerdine struggled to find words in which to express his meaning. + +"I'm blowed if I know--quite. Anyway, we're in it." + +"I don't understand," Collingwood answered. + +"Oh, come on!" replied Lord Ellerdine. "Chuck that business, Colling! I +know your beastly way of putting a fellow off, but you can't leave me +out of this." + +Collingwood lit a cigarette very deliberately. "Leave you out?" he said. + +"Wish to heavens you could!" was the rejoinder. + +Collingwood perched himself on the end of the sofa, swinging his legs. +"Look here, what's up?" + +"Are we at St. Moritz?" Lord Ellerdine asked. + +"No," Collingwood answered coolly. + +"Are we in Switzerland?" + +"No." + +"Well, where are we?" + +"I make a good guess," Collingwood said, "that we are in Paris." + +Lord Ellerdine flushed up and began to get angry. + +"Well, there you are!" he said. "Damn it, there you are! And you have +got the sublime cheek to ask me what's up." + +Collingwood smiled. "Now, don't get ratty, Dicky," he said. "It's all +right. Only a trifling contretemps. We got on the wrong train--by +mistake." + +Lord Ellerdine began to stroll up and down the room. He tried to be +judicial in his manner. "Now, are you telling me that for a fact or for +a joke?" he asked. + +"Fact--absolute fact. We were kept until the last moment paying duty on +Peggy's cigarettes, and had to rush for the train----" + +He had been going to say something further, but Lord Ellerdine +interrupted him. "I saw you," he said. + +Here Collingwood cut in suddenly: "Yes, getting into the train that was +on the move." + +"Yes," Lord Ellerdine said, "the Paris express. You jumped Peggy on and +sprang after her, dragging her maid with you. A clever bit of work, my +friend." + +Collingwood shrugged his shoulders. "Well, where were you?" he replied. + +"In the other train--the right one. With Alice. It was a rotten thing +for you to do." + +"What, leave you with Alice?" + +Lord Ellerdine shook his head impatiently. "No, no," he said irritably; +"to leave us in the lurch like that." + +"But I telegraphed to you to Chalons that we had got on the wrong +train." + +"Yes, you wired to Chalons right enough, but that didn't make it true. I +would not have gone if Alice had not persuaded me that the train was +running in two parts, and that you would be sure to join us at Chalons." + +"Well, it's all right now," Collingwood replied, still preserving the +perfect _sang-froid_ with which he had listened to all the other's +remarks. "It's all right now, so don't let's say any more about it." + +"All right now, by Jove!" Ellerdine replied. "Is it? Suppose Admaston +hears about it--what?" + +"Of course," Collingwood said, "if you think it is absolutely necessary, +we'll invent some yarn that will satisfy him." + +"I do think it necessary. But _you'll_ have to do it. I never could +invent--never. No good at it. Confound you, Colling, leaving us...." + +Collingwood's manner changed from coolness to something more intimate. +"Now, look here, Dicky," he said persuasively. "I didn't think you'd cut +up rough about it. I thought Alice possibly might, but not you." + +"Oh, she doesn't mind," Ellerdine answered. "She never believes that +people get on the wrong train, or have motor accidents so that they can +have a night off." + +Collingwood put his feet down to the floor and threw the end of his +cigarette into the fireplace. "Now, look here," he said; "do you mean +that you think that I----" He hesitated for a moment. + +"No, I don't," Lord Ellerdine answered; "but what will Admaston think? +He is sure to hear of it. I'll bet you a fiver it's known in London +to-night. There is always someone on the spot to notice things that go +wrong, and this is so suspicious--so damned suspicious, mind you. Why, +_I_ don't like the look of it--mind, the look of it--myself." + +"Then we must set your conscience at rest, that's all," Collingwood +replied. + +"How?" + +"Well, we must all have a proper, coherent, connected yarn to tell. +That's quite simple." + +Ellerdine shook his head thoughtfully. "I don't think it will work," he +said. "You can't get four people to tell the same yarn without +variation. There's sure to be one let it down just where it ought to be +kept up." + +"If it were a long, complicated yarn, perhaps," said Collingwood; "but I +don't mean that at all. Just a plain, unvarnished tale." + +"Unvarnished!" the peer replied. "Well, it'll take a deuce of a lot of +paint to make this one look all right." + +"Not a bit of it," Collingwood replied. "Easy as anything." + +Lord Ellerdine went to the fireplace once more and stood with his back +to the flames. "Right ho," he said; "go ahead." + +"Here you are, then," Collingwood began. "We all got on the wrong +train." + +"But we didn't." + +"Damn it!" Collingwood said, "of course we didn't; but we'll say we +did." + +Lord Ellerdine began to check the points upon the fingers of one hand, +as if anxious to commit them to memory even at this early stage. "Am I +to say we did?" he asked. + +"We will all say we did," Collingwood replied. + +"I shall never be able to," Lord Ellerdine remarked hopelessly. + +"Confound it, Dicky! Are you the George Washington of the lot?" + +The peer shook his head more vigorously. That imputation, at anyrate, he +was anxious to avoid. "No, no," he said quickly; "it's not the truth +that bothers me. It's getting the blooming fib to sound all right." + +Collingwood repeated his instruction as if he were teaching a lesson to +a child, speaking slowly and impressively. "'We all got on the wrong +train.' There's nothing difficult about saying that." + +Lord Ellerdine repeated the sentence in exactly the same voice. + +"'We all got on the wrong train.'" + +"Bravo, Dicky!" said Collingwood. "Now then, don't relax your attention, +old chap. The next is that we all stayed the night at this hotel." + +The index finger of Lord Ellerdine's right hand moved from the thumb to +the first finger of his left. He appeared to have got it all right, when +suddenly a doubt seemed to enter the vacant spaces of his mind. + +"What, here?" he asked. + +"Yes, here; at this hotel." + +"Oh! Come, old chap! Doesn't that look like a bally lie? Now think it +over for yourself. Listen. 'We all stayed the night at this hotel.'" + +Collingwood was a patient man, and he listened without any betrayal of +what he really felt in dealing with this pleasant fool. + +"Well," he said, "what's wrong with it?" + +"Oh! it lacks something," was the reply; and though the speaker did not +amplify his statement, his voice was full of doubt and hesitation. + +"Oh, rot!" Collingwood answered. "It's only wrong because we didn't stay +here. If you can say, 'We all got on the wrong train,' surely to +goodness you can say that we all stayed the night at this hotel?" + +"Yes," Ellerdine answered slowly. "I suppose it ought to be easy +enough." + +"No wonder you chucked diplomacy," Collingwood said. + +"Oh! I didn't mind a fib or two for international reasons." + +"I see," Collingwood rejoined. "Your conscience begins to prick you only +when fibs are told for domestic purposes." + +"Well, you see, you run much greater risks of being found out. It's +awful to be found out in an _ordinary_ lie--people make such a _fuss_ of +other people's lies." + +"Do you mean to tell me that national lies are never found out?" + +"Well, you see," Ellerdine replied--the discussion was getting a little +bit beyond him, and again he struggled to find words,--"you see, +national lies are not about persons." Then he shook his head. "I'm +damned bad at it, Collingwood," he said in a final sort of voice. "I +can't rely on my memory. I suppose there's no other way out of it?" + +"My dear chap, none whatever," Collingwood said. + +"'We all got on the wrong train,'" Ellerdine repeated to himself slowly +in a sing-song voice; and then, looking up brightly, "Does seem easy, +doesn't it?" + +"Top hole," said Collingwood. + +Thus encouraged, Lord Ellerdine began to repeat the second half of his +lesson. "'We all stayed the night at this hotel.' There's something +wrong with that." + +"It's only your sense of the scrupulous," Collingwood replied. "Only say +it often enough. Say it thirty or forty times; then it will sound all +right." + +At this moment the door opened and Lady Attwill came in. She looked +quickly at Collingwood and he at her. + +"Good morning," he said. "Well, how is Peggy?" + +"She has a bad headache," Lady Attwill replied. "She's coming in in a +minute or two. I have had a warm quarter of an hour, I can tell you, +though I am sure I don't know what _I_ have done...." + +If the woman was acting she was acting supremely, for there seemed +genuine disgust in her voice. + +"Is she much cut up?" Lord Ellerdine asked. + +"I should think she is! She's dreadfully cut up! I don't know what we +are to do," Lady Attwill said. + +Lord Ellerdine suddenly became important; his little mouth smiled +brightly. He was the bearer of good news. "Oh, that's all settled," he +said, rubbing his hands briskly together. "I and Collingwood have +arranged it all." + +"Arranged what?" Lady Attwill asked. + +"Well, do you see, we all----" + +The bright expression faded from the ex-diplomatist's face. "Tell her, +Collingwood," he said. "My head won't work. I've forgotten everything +already." + +"You've never given Dicky anything to think about?" Lady Attwill said in +mock alarm. + +"Not much," Collingwood answered. + +Ellerdine flushed up angrily. "Not much!" he cried. "He gets on the +wrong train. He leaves us standing at the post like a couple of sublime +martyrs. Goes off to Paris and leaves us kicking our confounded heels at +Chalons. We come here after them--find the hotel full of bookies--travel +all night in a beastly slow train--no sleep, no food, no Switzerland. +Not much to think about! I shall have an attack of brain fever after +this affair." + +Lady Attwill went up to the enraged gentleman. "Poor Dicky!" she said +soothingly. "He's had a bad night. Dicky is no good unless he gets his +proper sleep. Now sit down, there's a good boy, and let's talk it over +properly." + +She led him to a chair with a radiant smile, and then turned to +Collingwood. "Now tell me, what is it that you have arranged?" As she +said this she felt in the side pocket of his coat and drew out his +cigarette case. Opening it, she gave him one and took one for herself, +struck a match and lit it. + +"Well," Collingwood answered, leaning over the back of the sofa on which +his friend had seated herself. "A short, straight tale--simple, to the +point, and easy to tell." + +"The truth?" Lady Attwill asked. + +"The truth! Never! Who's going to tell Admaston the truth?" Lord +Ellerdine burst out. + +"How's _he_ to know?" Lady Attwill said. + +"Know!" Ellerdine retorted. "I'll bet Collingwood a fiver all _London_ +knows to-night." + +He looked anxiously at the other man, unable to understand how he could +take things so easily, absolutely unconscious of anything underlying +this unfortunate occurrence, absolutely unsuspicious of the sinister +forces at work around him. + +"Oh, bosh!" Collingwood answered. "Anyway, we can say we all got on the +wrong train." + +"'That we all got on the wrong train,'" came with parrot-like precision +from the diplomatist. + +"But we didn't," Lady Attwill said, looking from one to the other. + +Lord Ellerdine jumped up from his chair, his face radiant with triumph. +"There you are!" he said to Collingwood. "Just what I told you!" + +Lady Attwill became alive to the situation. "Oh, I see," she said; +"that is the short, straight, simple tale. I see. 'We all got on the +wrong train.'" + +"You see, Dicky!" Collingwood said with a smile. "See how quickly Alice +picks it up." + +"Oh, she's used to it," said Ellerdine. "She picks up things very +quickly. But tell her the sequel--that's the water-jump for me." + +"Come on; let's have a look at it," said Lady Attwill. + +Collingwood seemed vastly amused. He assumed the air of a comedian. His +hands fluttered before him in pantomime. His handsome face became droll +and merry. + +"'We all stayed the night at this hotel,'" he said. + +Lord Ellerdine nodded with an anxious look in his eyes towards Lady +Attwill. "Now try that," he said. + +"'We all stayed the night at this hotel,'" said Lady Attwill with +perfect naturalness and ease. + +"There you are!" said Collingwood. + +The middle-aged fool in the arm-chair was quite interested and pleased. +He saw nothing of the grimness which underlay this gay, light-hearted +chatter, in this gay and brilliant room. The other two, man and woman, +were playing their parts most skilfully--not so much to deceive +Ellerdine, but to trick themselves into the belief that they were not +engaged in a very dirty, ugly business. + +It's an extraordinary thing, but nevertheless perfectly true, that +people who are able to infuse a sinister and tragic moment with mocking +gaiety certainly provide for themselves an anodyne to the pain and fear +it would otherwise bring them. + +No doubt that is why the devil is generally represented as smirking or +leering. + +The door opened and the Scotch-French waiter with a large tray entered, +followed by another also carrying a tray, but whose swarthy features and +thick purple lips proclaimed him no hybrid, but a true son of the Cote +d'Azur. + +Lord Ellerdine jumped up. "Food!" he said. "I am starving." + +Lady Attwill rose also. "Poor Dicky must always have his food," she +said. "I always think he never seems quite human till he has had his +breakfast. When we were down at his place together----" + +Collingwood nudged her with a warning look. "Piano!" he said. + +"What about?" she whispered, with a rather sardonic grin. "I don't want +to play." + +"The waiter, I mean," Collingwood replied. + +"Bien!" she answered, seating herself in front of the cafetiere and +pouring out the hot brown coffee. + +Lord Ellerdine had also sat down. He looked at his as yet empty plate +and drummed with his fingers upon the table-cloth. "'We all stayed the +night at this hotel,'" he said in a perfectly audible voice. + +"Oui, monsieur," said Jacques of Ecclefechan suddenly. + +Ellerdine started and looked up, his face expressing great surprise. +"Get away," he said. "I wasn't speaking to you." + +Collingwood frowned. His nerves, now, didn't seem quite under the same +control as they had been before. "Laissez les autres choses, garcon. +Nous nous servirons." + +"Bien, monsieur," said the waiter, with an ugly and furtive smile upon +his face, which nobody noticed, as he left the room. + +"Come on, Alice. Where's my coffee?" said Lord Ellerdine. + +"There you are," she answered. "Coffee, Colling?" + +Collingwood nodded. "What is there?" he asked. + +Lady Attwill lifted the covers. "Omelette, bacon, sole, mushrooms." + +"Sole for me." + +"Bacon and mushrooms, Alice," Ellerdine remarked, quite himself again at +the thought of breakfast. + +"You have no idea how I buck up after a cup of coffee," he continued; +"but, upon my soul, I feel like a fried flounder this morning. I don't +think I shall ever be in a hotter place than that confounded train from +Chalons." + +"Yes, you will, Dicky," Lady Attwill remarked, taking a piece of toast +from the rack. + +"Oh yes, you will, Dicky," Collingwood echoed; "don't make any mistake +about that." + +"After all," Lady Attwill went on, "it wasn't so bad. You worried; that +was what made you hot." + +"You don't know anything about it. You slept like a log all the way," +Ellerdine said. + +"Easy conscience," answered the lady, beginning her breakfast with great +satisfaction. + +"You didn't get on the wrong train," said Ellerdine meaningly. + +Collingwood put down his fish-fork. The long strain to which his nerves +had been subjected, the irritation which he had so well suppressed until +now, had its way with him and burst out. + +"Oh, damn it!" he said, "you two make me tired. Do shut up about the +wrong train. Let's have our breakfast in peace." + +Lord Ellerdine busied himself with his mushrooms. "I wish I had a hide +as thick as yours, Colling, old man," he said. "You do take things +smoothly. Look at him, Alice--eating away as if he was on his +honeymoon!" + +Collingwood glared at his _vis-a-vis_. "Honeymoon!" he said. + +"He doesn't care a fig about getting us into this mess. What excellent +bacon they have here!" Lord Ellerdine went on. + +Again Collingwood got the better of his rising temper. "Oh, you'll be +all right, Dicky," he said, "when we get to St. Moritz to-morrow." + +"We're not going," Lady Attwill said shortly. + +Collingwood started. "We are," he said. + +"Wrong, my boy," said Lady Attwill again. "Peggy is going back." + +"Back! Back where?" + +"To London." + +"She doesn't mean it?" Collingwood said, putting down his fork and +looking straight at Lady Attwill. + +She nodded at him, and he knew that what she said was true. + +"There you are!" piped out in Lord Ellerdine's voice. "I knew it; I felt +it in my bones all the time I was in that beastly train. Peggy's got the +hump. You have spoilt the whole show, Colling. I can't eat any more." + +He pushed his chair away from the table with a perplexed and angry face, +and began to walk up and down the room. + +"Hang it!" Collingwood said, "is this the first time that anyone got on +the wrong train?" + +"No, it is not," Ellerdine answered shortly. "But it is the first time +it has happened to _Peggy_. Anybody but _Peggy_." + +"It seems to me," Collingwood said, "that we are making a lot of +unnecessary fuss." + +"Yes; let's drop it," came from Lady Attwill. + +"Alice," Lord Ellerdine persisted, "don't you agree with me?" + +She sighed, but it was necessary to preserve appearances. "Well, Dicky," +she said, "Peggy has not shown a tenacious desire to observe the strict +letter of every propriety. I know that there has been nothing wrong. +Absolutely nothing but little frisks and frolics now and then--quite all +right actually--looking perhaps worse than they were--nothing else. But, +after all, it is not what you do; the trouble of it is what other folks +say you do." + +The persistent moralist was not to be put off. "The married woman," he +said, in a voice as near to a pulpit manner as he could get, "cannot +afford to have anyone say a word. Look at Alice. Before Attwill kicked +the bucket she lived in a glass case. Didn't you, Alice?" + +Collingwood chuckled: not merrily at all, but with a rather nasty +cynicism--a snigger, in fact. + +"Look here, Dicky," he said, "if you don't stop your sickening habit of +preaching left-handed morality at me I'll give you up. I can't stand it. +I am _not_ moral--don't know the first thing about it--never met anybody +who did. Man is not moral; environment makes it impossible. You're not +moral, Dicky, although you may think you are. And as for society, it is +absolutely unmoral." + +"I say! I say! I say! Listen to our future Home Secretary!" said Lord +Ellerdine. + +"No fear," Collingwood answered. "I leave that field to Admaston and the +other cackling crew of humbugs." + +Lady Attwill laughed amusedly, and Ellerdine was about to say something +else, when the door opened and Peggy entered. + +She was very simply but very expensively dressed in an exquisite +walking-dress of a colour which was neither grey nor amethyst, but a +cunning blend of both. At her breast she wore a little sprig of white +lilac. There was a sudden silence as she entered, a silence almost as if +the three people were conspirators. + +Peggy walked briskly up to the table, nodding and smiling. "Well, you're +a nice lot," she said. "Why didn't you tell me breakfast was ready? I +have been dying for a cup of coffee. Anything good in the food line? +Something smells good. What is it? Mushrooms--just the very thing! I +like mushrooms. Remind one of early risings and misty mornings. How are +you, Dicky? Alice, give me some coffee, there's a dear. Hello, Colling! +any news?" + +Her chatter was more general than addressed to any particular person, +and she didn't seem to require any answer to her questions. At anyrate, +nobody made any answer, and there was an uncomfortable silence as Peggy +began her breakfast. + +"You're a jolly lot," she said after a minute or so. "What's up with you +all? These mushrooms are nice. Dicky, pass the toast. What? I thought +you said something, Alice." + +Lady Attwill shook her head. "No," she answered in a rather strained +voice. + +There was another silence. Suddenly Peggy put down her knife and fork +with a little clatter and rose from her chair. "This room is horribly +stuffy," she said, going to the window. "There, that's better. Oh! what +a lovely morning! Dear old Paris! how I do love it!" + +She seemed restless and unable to remain long in one position, and soon +she had fluttered back to the breakfast-table. + +"Alice," she said, "please pour me out another cup of coffee.--Well, +Dicky, I put my foot into it nicely last night, didn't I?" + +"Yes, you jolly well did," Lord Ellerdine answered shortly. + +"I knew what you wanted to talk about, Dicky," she said. + +Collingwood interposed. "Peggy, don't go on like that. I have explained +it to Dicky." + +"Were you quite the one to explain?" she asked. + +"Well," Collingwood replied, "it was my fault I rushed you into the +train." + +Lord Ellerdine started. Something already beginning to be familiar had +penetrated his consciousness. "We all got on the wrong train," he said. + +"Oh! All?" Peggy asked. + +"Yes," said the diplomatist--"yes--no--that's what we're going to say." + +"To whom?" asked Peggy. + +"Well--well--to--well, to anyone who wants to know." + +"Who should want to know?" Peggy asked. + +"Oh, no one, Peggy," said Lady Attwill; "but it's best to be prepared, +you know." + +"But I don't know. Why should I know? Be prepared for what?" + +"Nothing, dear, absolutely nothing. Only, some chatty fool might ask." + +"Ask what?" + +"Well--awkward questions." + +"About getting on the wrong train?" + +[Illustration: "We all got on the wrong train and we all stayed the +night at this hotel"] + +"Yes--and----" + +Peggy pressed home her questions. She would not understand. "What else?" +she said. + +"We all stayed the night at this hotel," Lord Ellerdine remarked. + +"Did we?" Peggy asked. + +"Yes," he said--"no! Oh! But it is best to be prepared." + +"I see," Peggy said at last. "What a dull creature I am! Dear me! how +stupid I didn't see it before! You have all made it up to put me right. +You and Alice didn't go to Switzerland--you came on to Paris. You and +Alice didn't get to Chalons and come on here by the slow train--you +stayed here _all_ night. I see. Now, that's so kind and thoughtful of +you all! But for whom is this delightful story?" + +"Dicky's scruples," Collingwood said hurriedly. + +"I see. Dicky wanted it, did he?" Peggy replied. "Well, Dicky, I hope +your moral sensibilities are quite satisfied. We all got on the wrong +train and we all stayed the night at this hotel." + +"Quite so," Ellerdine said quickly; "just a short, straight, simple +tale, ready for any emergency." + +"And what emergency do you _expect_?" + +"Dearest Peggy, none at all," Lady Attwill said, with a note of anxious +affection in her voice. + +"I see. I understand. But don't you think the tale will need a lot of +corroboration?" + +"But only if someone questions it." + +"Oh!" Peggy said, and there was a world of meaning in the exclamation. + +"You see," Lord Ellerdine went on anxiously--"you see, it's all right, +Peggy. We have left nothing to chance." + +Lady Attwill nodded. "Nothing at all," she said, echoing her friend. + +Peggy looked at them each in turn. Her sweet and youthful face bore +little trace of what she had gone through the night before; and though +her head was throbbing and her nerves were all jangling and raw, her +freshness and purity of countenance remained absolutely unimpaired. +Beside her Alice Attwill suddenly seemed to have grown old. + +She looked at them each in turn with grave contemplation--lastly at +Collingwood. "And what do you think about it, Colling?" she asked at +length. "Don't you think that we are a precious set of fools? No--that's +unkind of me. Not you, Alice. Not you, Dicky. I am the precious fool. +Fool! Why, I should have been in cap and bells! A thing to make the +whole world laugh. For only the fool will ask for an explanation--the +wise, if they ask, will look on the explanation as the better part of +the joke. But tell me, Dicky, why is the explanation necessary?" + +"Oh! Come, Peggy, come. Confound it!" Lord Ellerdine blundered out. "It +_looks_ so deuced bad." + +Peggy made a grimace at him. "Candid!" she said. "Now that was frank. +'It _looks_ so deuced bad.' That's it. Looks! But only _looks_. What do +you think, Colling? Can't we tell the truth? Is there anything to hide?" + +"Nothing," Collingwood said. + +"There," Peggy went on; "there's nothing to hide." + +"Oh, we all know that," Lord Ellerdine said hastily. + +Peggy's rising temper almost got the better of her. "Then why the +explanation--the 'short, straight, simple tale'? Why not the truth?" + +She clenched her hands, and an angry light burned in her eyes. "Oh! I'll +leave you for a moment. I must go out. This place is stifling! We ought +all to be out in the air. We'll grow mouldy in here--plotting. Alice, +I'll put on my hat. Colling, you must invent another tale to satisfy +Dicky's scruples. Think it over." + +She tore out of the room into her own and shut the door with a rather +vicious slam. + +"Well, I'm jiggered!" Lord Ellerdine said. + +Lady Attwill nodded with a slight tightening of the lips. "I told you +she was upset," she answered. + +Collingwood rose from the table and went towards his own room. + +"Well, Dicky," he said, "I have done the best I can to satisfy you. I'll +get my hat and take Peggy for a walk and talk it over." And he also left +the room. + +"Well," Ellerdine remarked, "this comes of thinking of your friends." He +went to the fireplace and gazed rather gloomily at the glowing logs. +"May the devil take me if I ever care a damn again what folks think of +'em," he went on. + +Alice Attwill went up to the window. "Dicky, it is very strange," she +said. "I have never seen Peggy in that nasty mood before." + +"I've a jolly good mind to think the worst has happened," the man +remarked. + +She shrugged her shoulders. "Well, anyway, Colling is not in Peggy's +good books," she said, and, pulling one of the large windows open, she +stepped out upon the balcony. + +Lord Ellerdine was left alone. His face was grave and perplexed; but +seeing the _Matin_ lying on the sofa, where Lady Attwill had dropped it +before breakfast, he went up, sat down, and was soon immersed in the +news of the day. + +There came a light tap upon the door leading into the corridor, which +was flung open immediately afterwards. Jacques stood there holding the +door open. + +"Mr. Admaston," he said in a loud, clear voice. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +A Thunderbolt crashing through the roof of the hotel could not have +startled Lord Ellerdine more than the waiter's announcement: + +"Mr. Admaston." + +He dropped the paper, sprang to his feet as if someone had struck him, +while his face grew absolutely white and the little mouth became a round +"O" of consternation and alarm. + +George Admaston walked slowly into the room. + +He was a big man of about forty years of age, very quiet in manner, and +with a strong, resolute face. The eyes were grey and steadfast, and wore +that look which some people mistake for abstraction, but which is +anything but that. They had the expression of one who thinks often and +much. The finely chiselled mouth was set somewhat grimly, and there was +great force and assertiveness about the slightly forward thrust of the +massive chin. He was dressed in quiet grey tweeds, carried a bowler hat +in his hand and a light coat over his arm. + +"Hello, Ellerdine!" he said. "What are you doing here?" + +The voice was deep and mellow, informed with weight and gravity, though +pleasantly musical. + +Lord Ellerdine looked hurriedly round the room. It might have been +thought he was seeking an avenue of escape. + +There was no one to help him, however, and he began to stutter horribly, +while his eyes wore the look of a startled hare. "Here?" he gasped out. +"Oh!" His eyes fell upon the breakfast-table, and an inspiration came to +him. "Oh," he stuttered, "just had breakfast, don't you know." + +"Early for you, isn't it?" said the big man, looking the wretched object +before him full in the face. + +"It is rather early," Lord Ellerdine replied. "Been travelling all----" + +"All what?" Admaston asked quickly. + +The other was in despair. He realised what he had done. He looked +hopelessly round the room for Alice Attwill. + +"Where's Lady Attwill gone?" he gasped. + +Never relaxing his gaze for a single instant, and standing in the middle +of the room without advancing further, Admaston continued: "Is she +here?" + +"Oh yes," replied Lord Ellerdine. "She's here. In fact, we're all here." + +"Where's my wife?" + +"In her room. Changing her gown. She's going for a walk." + +"But I thought you went to Switzerland," Admaston went on. + +"Did you really?" Ellerdine answered, with a ghastly assumption of +ingratiating affability, though his hands were shaking, his mouth +worked, and beads of perspiration were plainly rolling down his face. + +Again came the grave, persistent voice: "Yes. That was the plan, wasn't +it?" + +"Oh! Yes--of course. But we all got on the wrong train." + +"What?" Admaston said sharply, and a new note in his voice made the +ex-diplomatist jump from the floor. + +"We all got on the wrong train," he repeated. + +"Who are we?" + +"Collingwood and Peggy----" + +"And what train did you and Lady Attwill get on?" + +"The wrong one. Stupid mistake, wasn't it?" + +"Very," Admaston answered. + +Lord Ellerdine brightened a little. He thought he was carrying things +very well now. "Yes," he said, "and so we all stayed the night at this +hotel." + +"Indeed!" Admaston replied. + +The other put his shaking hands into his trousers pockets. "Oh yes! +all," he said. "The proprieties were most carefully observed, +Admaston." + +"Now, that is very interesting," Admaston remarked; and if the other had +been a member of the Lower House instead of the Upper, which he never +entered, he would have known what that bland suavity of voice portended +when the Cabinet Minister rose to speak. + +Lord Ellerdine nodded. "Yes," he said. "But what the deuce are you doing +here in Paris?" + +"Oh! a whim." + +"Didn't expect to find us here," the wretched fool continued--"did you?" + +"There's something on?" Admaston answered, going towards the window and +talking as he went. "Racing or something, isn't there?" + +"Yes," Lord Ellerdine said. "Auteuil. Going out?" + +Lady Attwill appeared at the window. "Oh! Alice," Admaston said. + +She smiled brightly, extending her little manicured hand, upon which +diamonds and sapphires flashed and sparkled in the brilliant light of +the sun. "How do you do, George?" she said. "Who ever expected to see +you here?" + +"I don't run over often," Admaston answered, just taking her hand and no +more. "But I thought you were at St. Moritz?" + +"St. Moritz? Oh!--no. We changed our minds and came on to Paris." + +"Then _you_ didn't get on the wrong train?" Admaston said with grim +politeness. + +The wretched Ellerdine, who had retreated to the breakfast-table and +sank down upon a chair, heard this, and was about to lay his head in the +bacon dish with alarm, when Lady Attwill's next words did a little to +reassure him. + +"Oh yes," she said easily, going into the centre of the room; "we all +got on the wrong train, but we changed our minds when we discovered our +mistake." + +"Good thing you did it before it was too late." + +"Did what?" she asked in a flat voice. + +"Why, changed your minds before you could change on to the right train." + +"Wasn't it!" she replied. "And, by the way, I saw an old friend of yours +on the train, George." + +"And who was that?" Admaston asked. + +"Sir Peter Stoke," she answered. + +"Really! But he must have been on the right train. He was going to the +Conference at Geneva." + +"Oh!" she replied, "I met him at Boulogne." + +There was a pause, and when he spoke again Admaston's voice grew colder +and colder with every sentence. + +"Strange," he said, nodding his head with an appearance of +thoughtfulness. "He wrote to me from Amiens, where he has been staying +for the past week, that he was joining the train there; and Amiens is +the first stop on the Swiss express, isn't it?" + +Lady Attwill almost whispered her assent. + +"And the Paris express doesn't stop at Amiens?" + +It suddenly occurred to Lord Ellerdine that he was being left out of the +conversation. + +"No," he said brightly. + +Admaston turned round to him. + +"Funny that, being already at Amiens, where the Swiss express does stop, +he should have gone to Boulogne to catch it!" + +Even the diplomatist, who had imagined that things were going better, +began to realise the game was almost up. + +"Yes, damned funny of him, wasn't it?" he said feebly. + +For a few moments there was an absolute silence in the room. Outside, +the roar of the morning traffic, the tooting of motor horns, and all the +gay welter of things which marks a Parisian morning in fine weather, +only accentuated the silence in the richly furnished salon. + +Admaston turned and walked twice up and down the room. Lord Ellerdine +was still sitting, guilty and miserable of aspect, in his chair at the +breakfast table. Lady Attwill stood quite still where she was, near the +window. They were both waiting to hear what should come next. Suddenly +Admaston spoke. + +"You found Paris very full?" he said in his icy voice. + +"Very," Alice Attwill replied; "so we were lucky to get _in_ here." + +"Here?" the big man asked. + +"Yes; we all stayed the night at this hotel." + +"You used to have a very fine old parrot," Admaston said. + +There was spirit in the woman. She gave a little toss of her head. +"Er--I have her still," she replied. + +"Not stuffed, I hope," he said. + +"No, indeed. Alive and kicking." + +There was a rattle of a handle, and the door of Collingwood's room +opened and he came into the room. + +He gave one slight start, no more, and his manner immediately became +easy and natural. "Hallo!" he said. "Admaston!" + +The big man regarded him gravely, showing no emotion whatever. + +"Well, Collingwood," he said very slowly and distinctly, "I thought I +would just run over and see----" Then he stopped speaking. + +"How did you know that we were here?" Collingwood said. + +"From a friend," Admaston answered. + +The fool had to have his say. "That's very funny, Admaston," he said. +"We didn't know ourselves." + +"You surprise me. Didn't you know you were going to St. Moritz?" + +"Of course we didn't know," Lady Attwill said quickly. + +"Then how on earth could your friend know?" Lord Ellerdine asked. + +There was a complete pause. Nobody said a word, but Admaston was the +centre and focus of the place. All eyes went to him, and then back and +round to each other's. He stood there, however, calm and imperturbable, +radiating, as it were, not only quiet strength and absolute +determination, but also sending out rays of fear, of uneasiness and +disturbance. + +Lord Ellerdine broke the silence with his plaintive bleat, repeating his +former sentence: "Then how on earth could your friend know?" + +"That's what I want to know," said Admaston. "But why on earth are you +all up so early?" + +Collingwood's face had been growing sharp and hostile, his nostrils +twitched a little; he seemed now to be definitely on the defensive, +ready for the attack. What he said was this: "Mrs. Admaston wanted to go +out early to see the people _en route_ to Auteuil." + +Admaston raised one firm, shapely hand and brought it down upon the back +of the other with a slow movement that ended in a little "click" of +noise. "Mrs.?" he said. "Why Mrs. Admaston? Why are you so ceremonious, +Colling? Why not Peggy?" + +Collingwood looked dangerous, sulky and dangerous. + +"Don't know," he said shortly. "I thought perhaps you were offended." + +"Offended?" the relentless voice continued--so cold, relentless, and +full of purpose that it chilled them all as it echoed out into the room. +"Is there any reason why I should be offended?" + +"Certainly not," said Lord Ellerdine in a staccato bleat. + +"Good gracious! What an idea!" Alice Attwill chimed in. + +Admaston turned to the ex-diplomatist. "Ellerdine," he said, "you ought +not to sit up so late. You look very shaky this morning, and your voice +has a peculiarly uncertain sound." + +"Do I look shaky, old man? That damned journey----" + +"To Paris," Admaston said quickly. + +"Yes, yes, to Paris." + +Admaston went up to him, gazing down at him with calm, reflective eyes +as a mastiff regards some terrified small dog. "Late suppers don't +agree with you," he said. + +"With me?" asked the fool, perplexed. + +"With Dicky? Late suppers?" Lady Attwill interrupted. + +There was again a momentary pause. + +The thing was closing in. The conspirators knew well enough that they +were being played with, with the cold ferocity of a cat with a mouse. +They were brave still. They preserved their pitiful pretences, but to +the heart of each of them a little icicle had come. + +"It was after midnight before he had finished his supper?" Admaston +said. + +"When?" Ellerdine inquired. + +"Last night," Admaston rapped out. + +"Dicky?" Lady Attwill said. "Why, he didn't have _any_ supper last +night." + +"Not a bally mouthful," said Lord Ellerdine, shaking his head +mournfully. + +"Collingwood told me," Admaston remarked, "that you had just finished +supper, well after midnight." + +"Well, that was a whopper," said Lady Attwill. + +"He didn't know," Ellerdine spluttered in. + +"Oh! I thought not," Admaston said. "But you all stayed here last +night." + +At that moment the sun, which had been filling the room with radiance, +had become obscured by a floating cloud. The place was informed by a +momentary greyness. It was only early spring, after all, and summer with +its perpetual radiance, its perpetual heat, its _air_ of summer, which +will always make a room cheerful even when a thunderstorm approaches, +had not yet arrived. + +The room became as grey as the faces of the people who were in it, as +grey and cold as the accusing voice which could not be silenced, which +continued remorselessly. "But you all stayed here last night," Admaston +repeated slowly, clearly, and with a definite, staccato voice. + +Then there was an odd chiming of tone. The anxious musical contralto of +Lady Attwill mingled with the more anxious, and definitely tremulous, +bleat of the diplomatist. + +"Oh yes. We were all here," they said together. + +"But no supper?" + +"No supper, George," Ellerdine said in a faint voice.... + +The door opened and Jacques of Ecclefechan entered. + +He looked towards Lord Ellerdine. "Your man, my lord, to see you," he +said in excellent Scotch-English. + +A little wizened, elderly man with grey hair closely cropped to his +head, and dressed in a decorous lounge suit of black, came drooping +into the room. + +His face was anxious, and at the same time pleased. + +"I telephoned to Chalons, my lord," he said. + +Lord Ellerdine jumped up as if he had suddenly sat down upon a pin. + +"What?" he said. + +"The railway people are sure they put your dispatch-box on the 2.43 with +you and Lady Attwill." + +Lord Ellerdine's face became the colour of brick. If his mouth had been +larger it would have foamed at the corners. "Get out!" he spluttered. + +The little man started back a step, his arms shot out in amazement, his +face a mere mask of one. + +"My lord!" he said. + +"Get out!" + +The poor fellow realised that there was obviously something very wrong. +It was a situation he could only deal with in one way, and that was by +being thoroughly polite. + +"Yes, my lord," he said, in a voice from which he vainly tried to +eliminate the amazement he felt. + +Admaston turned sharply to the peer. + +"What, Ellerdine?" he said. "Has your dispatch-box got on the wrong +train, too? What a chapter of accidents!" + +Again there was a horrible silence in the place. + +It was broken by a sudden, loud cry. + +Peggy had entered from her room, and had seen them all standing +there--like figures in a tableau in the big hall at Madame Tussaud's. + +"George!" she cried. + +At that moment there was a singular change of poise among the tense, +strained people who were there. + +Lady Attwill, radiant and beautiful, strolled up to the piano. + +Admaston remained where he was. Collingwood bent forward, almost in the +attitude of a man about to spring. + +"Well, Peggy. Going out?" Admaston asked. + +"I was," Peggy answered; and if ever guilty fear was manifested in a +human voice, the people in that room heard it now. It must be remembered +that to people who have been upon the brink of crime or +misbehaviour--even though they may have escaped it--the suspicion, when +they are confronted with it, has much the same effect upon their +attitude as if the thing had already been done. The nerves of the +innocent have often proclaimed them guilty to the most indulgent eyes. + +"I was going out," Peggy faltered. + +"Wait a moment," Admaston said. + +Peggy almost drooped together. + +She was like an early lily of the valley suddenly withered by a sharp, +cold wind--and all gardeners will tell one how sudden and complete that +withering and collapse can be. + +"Very well," the girl answered. + +Admaston raised his right hand a little, while he was looking at her, +grave and straight. Then his arm dropped to his side. + +"Ellerdine tells me that you all got on the wrong train at Boulogne." + +"Yes," Peggy answered. She looked anxiously, and indeed piteously, at +the others, wondering what they had been saying, longing to be adequate, +conscious of her own innocence, but dreadfully conscious of the +appearance of her guilt. + +Admaston--and nothing escaped him--saw the way her look flickered round +the salon. + +"You did?" he said in a voice of doom. + +She did the fatal thing; she answered "Yes." + +"Ellerdine also says," Admaston continued, "that he and Lady Attwill +stayed here last night?" + +The ex-diplomatist, who, though he was a perfect fool, was also a +thorough gentleman, flushed up and spoke in a voice from which all the +fear and bleating noise had gone. + +"Of course we did, Admaston," he barked. "Why the devil--don't you +believe us?" + +But it was of no use; the resolute, ice-cold voice went on. + +"And were you all at supper at midnight?" + +Peggy broke in. "Why do you ask?" she said--and if ever there was pain +and yearning in a human voice it was in hers at that moment. + +"Because Collingwood told me that you were," Admaston answered, "and +Ellerdine says he didn't have any supper. Lady Attwill corroborates +Ellerdine's statement." + +"Then why ask me? Don't you believe Colling?" Peggy said with a wail of +despair. + +"No, I don't," Admaston said shortly. + +Collingwood drummed upon the carpet with his left foot. + +"Admaston!" he said. + +Admaston turned round to him, and his face became, for the first time, +suffused with blood. + +The quiet grey eyes blazed with anger; the big, capable face was +transformed into a single accusation. The voice, at last, was directly +accusing. It was wonderful in its pain, its suppressed horror, its +certain purpose. + +"I don't believe a single word I have heard since I have come into this +room," he said. + +Lord Ellerdine took a step towards the Minister. "By God! Admaston," he +said. + +Lady Attwill ran up to Lord Ellerdine and caught him by the arm. + +"Dicky, keep quiet," she said in a frightened but very decisive voice. + +"You have lied--you lied to me on the telephone last night." + +Collingwood glared at him. + +"Telephone!" Lord Ellerdine said, also turning to Collingwood. "Did +Admaston speak to you last night--on the telephone?" + +"Yes," Collingwood answered. + +The diplomatist was genuinely distressed. "My dear fellow," he said, +"why _didn't_ you tell us?" + +"Would that have saved you from saying that you all got on to the wrong +train? Collingwood lied to me. You have lied to me. Lady +Attwill--well--I beg your pardon...." + +Collingwood took two steps towards Peggy. + +"Why should you come catechising us?" he said to Admaston, and then he +stepped up to him. + +The two men stood in front of each other. Admaston, with a white fire of +enragement in his face, still preserved his absolute calm of poise. His +hands were clasped behind his back, his whole forceful personality +seemed whetted for the aggression of the other. + +Collingwood, on the other hand, was panther-like and alert. He almost +crouched to spring at the other. He was a little younger, infinitely +more _debonnaire_--probably not really so physically powerful, but at +least lithe, brave, and ready for anything. + +The two men stood there for a moment, when Peggy ran between them. "Oh! +don't!" she cried, spreading out her arms--in front of Collingwood. She +seemed to fear her husband's heavy and certain onslaught. + +She protected Collingwood, not George Admaston. Doubtless her action +showed her knowledge of the stronger man, her wish to protect the weaker +from his attack. But it was certainly most unfortunate. + +"Go!" she cried. "Please go!" And then, turning rapidly to Lord +Ellerdine, "Dicky, take Alice away." + +Lord Ellerdine was trembling exceedingly. He was not trembling from any +physical fear. He would have joined in the row with perfect happiness. +It would have suited him very well. He knew that he had cut a sorry +figure on this occasion--and he was not accustomed to cutting sorry +figures. He was not a clever man; nobody knew it better than himself. +But he had always considered himself to be an honourable one. + +Lady Attwill seemed perfectly composed. Her face did not alter in +expression at all, but she caught hold of her friend by the arm and led +him out of the room. + +The last thing that was heard as the two departed was the plaintive +voice of the ex-diplomatist: "I knew it--I knew it." + +Admaston waited until the door was closed, and then he turned to +Collingwood. "Why don't you go?" he said. + +"What are you going to do?" Collingwood asked, facing him. + +The two men were white with passion. "What the devil has that got to do +with you?" Admaston said. + +"A great deal. If you loved your wife as I love her you would understand +what it has to do with me." + +"I loved her--and trusted her implicitly," Admaston answered, and even +in his passion his wife could detect a note of sorrow. + +"Your presence here looks like it," Collingwood said quickly. "Why, how +did you know she was here unless you had her watched? Loved and trusted +her! Good God! man, you never knew she existed until another man wanted +her!" + +"You admit that you wanted her!" Admaston snarled out. + +"Yes," the other answered, standing well up; "and much good may the +admission do you. I wanted her, and I fought with all the weapons I +dared employ, and I have failed. What fight have you made for her? It +was her own purity that kept her sweet. It was that purity that I +wanted, but I have lost her." He made a passionate gesture with his +hands which showed how deeply he was moved--a gesture quite unlike the +ordinary English habit. + +"If you have any instincts of a gentleman, you have won," Admaston +answered. + +"What do you mean?" + +Peggy, who stood there trembling, gave a wail of despair. + +"George, you cannot mean----" + +Admaston took no notice of her. + +"Your methods have not been over nice," he said with biting scorn: "to +betray your friend--to seduce his wife." + +"That's a lie! I don't defend myself--but don't you dare to say a word +against her. We were great friends. I loved her, and thought she loved +me. But she doesn't; she loves you." + +"Pretty love!" the big man said. "I have finished with it and with her." + +Again there came a wild cry from the trembling woman. "George, for God's +sake!" + +Now for the first time a look of fear came into Collingwood's eyes. "You +mean to cast her off?" he said--"to break her spirit? No--no--you dare +not do it. You don't know what you are saying--you have no right...." + +"That's for the court to decide," Admaston answered. + +Peggy tried to step up to him, but he motioned her not to advance +further. + +"Court!" she wailed. "No, George, not that! I have done nothing, George, +to forfeit your love!" + +"Stop! You don't realise how much I know. I saw a letter at the house +yesterday before four o'clock. It told me everything you intended to +do--everything you have done. That letter brought me over after you. I +sent a detective to Boulogne to meet you." + +Peggy shook with fear. "That man?" she whispered to herself, with a +light of horror in her eyes. + +"Yes," Admaston said. "I sent him. He followed you to this hotel. He was +here last night. He is in the hotel now. He has given me this report, +and it leaves no doubt as to your guilt." + +"My guilt! It is not true, George--I swear to you it is not true. I +don't care what you have done, or what letters or reports you have +received. I am your wife. I didn't love you at first--you knew that--I +was honest, I told you all--but now...." + +"You blind fool!" Collingwood snarled out in a fury of indignation, +"don't you see what you are doing? You are playing my game, not your +own. I have tried to win, I have treated her pretty badly, but I don't +want to win her now. Don't you see, man, if you call in the court to +break her wings you'll only drive her to me?" + +[Illustration: "Don't you see, man, if you call in the court to break +her wings, you'll only drive her to me!"] + +"Yes," Admaston answered with a bitter sneer, "I see--and you don't seem +very anxious to go through with it." + +Collingwood looked at him for a moment, trembling with the desire to fly +at his throat. He restrained himself, however, with a tremendous effort, +and with an inarticulate growl of rage turned and left the room. + +Peggy came timidly towards her husband. "George, you are not going to +send me away?" she said. + +Admaston covered his face with his hands. "My God! Peggy, you lied to +me," he said in a broken voice. "A lie--a lie on your lips! Oh, Peggy, +Peggy, what have I done to you?" + +"George, I did lie," she wailed--"yes, I did; but only that, only that! +I am your wife! Believe me! believe me!" + +"My wife! No--no! How am I to believe you? How am I to tell whether +that's a lie or not?" + +"It's the truth!" she reiterated, her voice shrill with pain. "I swear +it! I am as much your wife as I was the day you married me." + +Unable to stand longer, she sank down upon the sofa, sobbing terribly. + +"You have broken me," the man said--"crushed me. Oh! I was mad to let +you do it! I was a fool to leave you alone! But I trusted you. I laughed +at the gossip. The ridicule only made my trust in you the greater. I +worshipped you, adored you! My whole life was a prayer to you, my +ambition to make you proud of me. My whole aim in life was to win you, +by doing big things--for you. And now it is all turned to +desecration--to be the mock of the crowd!" + +"Forgive me, George," she sobbed, "forgive me! I'll come to you. I am +humble, not you. I am struck down, crushed. But I'll be your slave. I am +still your wife. I am still----" + +He gazed at her searchingly. "You love Collingwood," he said in a +hollow, empty voice. + +"No, no! There was a time when I thought I did." + +"You thought you did! When did you think it? Last night?" + +"No, George, no! I love you! I knew that last night, if I never knew it +before. I love you, George!" + +"I don't believe you," he answered coldly. "You and he were together +alone when I telephoned." + +He spoke very deliberately now. "Was he," he asked--"was he with you +when I telephoned at one o'clock?" + +"Yes," Peggy answered, knowing well what the admission must convey. +"Yes--but...." + +"Alone together from ten o'clock?..." + +"Yes," she said, still more faintly; "but...." + +"Alone together from the time I telephoned?" + +"No, no, George!--not after that; I swear it!" + +"I know far too much to believe a word you say," he replied, and there +was a note of absolute finality in his voice. + +She saw that he had made up his mind--that she was doomed. + +"I know too much to believe a word you say," he repeated. "You were +alone with him. My God! Alone with him!" + +In a moment or two Peggy looked up through a mist of tears. The room was +empty. + +Peggy was left alone. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +One morning upon a dull day in the late summer of the same year in which +Mrs. Admaston had stayed at the Hotel des Tuileries in Paris, Colonel +Adams came down to breakfast at the Cocoa Tree Club. He ordered his +grilled kidneys in the quaint, old-fashioned dining-room, with its rare +sporting prints and air of sober comfort, and took up his morning paper. +His eyes fell upon the cause list of the Royal Courts of Justice, and he +sighed. + +A few minutes afterwards Henry Passhe, whose leave from India had been +extended for reasons of health, and who was also a member of the famous +club in St. James's Street, entered and sat down by his friend. + +"Well," he said, "do you still hold to your resolution, Adams?" + +The colonel sighed, and put down his knife and fork. "I don't know, old +chap," he said doubtfully. "It's different for you. You see, you don't +know Mrs. Admaston. I know her quite well, and I really doubt whether it +is the chivalrous thing to do, to go and stare at her, as if she was a +sort of show. She'll be undergoing tortures all day, poor little +thing!" + +"Just as you like," Passhe answered. "I confess to great curiosity +myself, and of course everyone who can possibly get in will be going, +whether they are friends of Mrs. Admaston or of her husband. It's great +good luck, my getting two seats like this; but don't come unless you +like. I can easily find someone else who will be only too glad to drop +in for an hour or two. That's all I want to do--just to see what's going +on. You see it is the case of the century almost. I am not up in the +statistics of this sort of thing, but I doubt if a Cabinet Minister, who +is also one of the wealthiest men in England, has ever brought an action +for divorce against his wife, who is not only as rich as he in her own +right, but also is co-partner in one of the biggest financial houses in +Europe. That's the way I look at it." + +"Well, I'll come," the colonel said suddenly. "It can't do any harm, +after all; and I am sure all my sympathies are with Mrs. Admaston, +though of course...." + +Passhe nodded. "But there is absolutely no doubt about it," he said, "of +course. But naturally, old chap, the fact of our both being in the hotel +in Paris at the very time it all happened gives the thing a special +interest for us. When I go back to India everybody will be wanting to +know all about it; and as I have got a chance to be present at part of +the trial, I really can't forego it." + +"That's settled, then," Adams replied, as the two men strolled into the +big smoke-room, where the brown-cased Cocoa Tree is put with all its old +associations of the past. They fidgeted about a little, smoked a +cigarette, while they looked down into the busy St. James's Street from +the great Georgian windows, looked at their watches, and then hailed a +taxi-cab and were driven to the Law Courts. + + * * * * * + +Court II. in the Probate, Divorce, and Admiralty Division of the High +Court of Justice was crowded almost to suffocation as the two men +entered and found, with some difficulty, the seats which had been +allotted to them. They settled themselves quietly in their places in the +well of the court. + +The President was writing something in the book before him, and seated +below the judge was the associate, while the usher stood a few yards +away. + +Lots of people--and these the most fortunate--have never had occasion to +visit a law court. It was so with Colonel Adams. This was the first time +he had ever entered the great building at the junction of Fleet Street +and the Strand, and he gazed round him with great interest. + +He saw many faces that he knew. Immediately around him were the +privileged of society sitting behind the solicitors; Admaston, Roderick +Collingwood, the maid Pauline, and Lord Ellerdine. + +In the second row the leading counsel sat. + +Mr. Menzies, hawk-faced and saturnine of aspect, the horse-hair wig +which framed his face only accentuating the hatchet-like alertness of +his countenance. Sir Robert Fyffe, huge-framed, and with a face like the +risen moon. Mr. M'Arthur, a youthful-looking man, handsome and +_debonnaire_, but with something rather dangerous and threatening in his +face. + +Behind the leaders sat a row of junior counsel; and then Lady Attwill, +other members of society, and the two friends who had driven from the +Cocoa Tree Club. + +The gallery at the back of the court was packed with people, and there +was a curious hush and stillness over everything. + +All eyes were directed to one point--to the witness-box, where Mrs. +Admaston was standing. + +At the moment when the two men entered both Mr. M'Arthur and Sir Robert +Fyffe were standing up. + +"I have noted your question, Mr. M'Arthur, and do not think it is +admissible at this stage," the President was saying. "No doubt, if Sir +Robert's cross-examination follows a certain line, you can return to +the matter when you re-examine your witness." + +Sir Robert Fyffe sat down. + +"If your lordship pleases," he said + +Mr. M'Arthur turned over the leaves of a notebook. He was Mrs. +Admaston's leading counsel, and his examination continued: + +"Now, Mrs. Admaston, let me be quite sure that you clearly understand +the charges you have to meet. It is alleged that you arranged to miss +the train at Boulogne in order to spend the evening in Paris with the +co-respondent." + +"That is not true," pierced through the dull, blanket-like silence of +the court. + +Few people enough have any experience of a court. They read long and +large accounts of what goes on in the daily papers. Well-known +descriptive writers endeavour to present a true picture of what they +themselves have witnessed. And in the result almost every one whose +experience of trials is taken almost entirely from the newspapers +imagines that the scene of justice is some vast hall. It is all +magnified and splendid in their thoughts. The reality is quite +different. + +A quite small room, panelled, badly lighted, thronged with people--this +is the real theatre where the dramas of society are played in London +town.... + +"It is alleged," Mr. M'Arthur, Peggy's own counsel, continued, "that, +having reached Paris, you permitted Mr. Collingwood to engage +rooms--connected the one with the other." + +"I did not know that Mr. Collingwood's room opened out of mine," Mrs. +Admaston said. "It seems the hotel was full." + +Everyone in the court--one person only excepted--was looking at the slim +young woman in the witness-box. She was very simply dressed. Her face +was perfectly pale, but her self-possession was marvellous. + +From their seats behind the junior counsel, Colonel Adams and Henry +Passhe looked on with sympathetic interest. + +Passhe--who was somewhat of a psychologist--remarked upon the extreme +simplicity of Mrs. Admaston's dress to his friend. "I call it +ostentatious," he said, "or something of a trick. When a woman has an +income of eighty thousand pounds a year quite apart from her husband, it +seems to me exaggerated humility to appear in the clothes that any +little milliner might wear." + +Colonel Adams shrugged his shoulders. He didn't in the least understand +his friend's point of view.... + +"After you went to bed"--the handsome young-elderly Mr. M'Arthur +continued,--"it is said that you permitted Mr. Collingwood to enter your +room--you being at the time undressed--and to stay there a considerable +time." + +Peggy's little white-gloved hands rested upon the rail of the +witness-box. + +"I don't know about permitting," she said in a clear voice. "He came in +because he heard the telephone. I think he thought that I had gone to +bed, and that the call might be from our friends." + +"At anyrate, he came in, and you permitted him to stay?" + +"Yes, I suppose I did. I asked him to go, but we were great friends, +and--well--I let him stay and smoke a cigarette." + +The court was dead silent now; the keen face of the President regarded +counsel and witness with an intent scrutiny. + +The society people who were there looked at each other and held their +breath. The junior counsel leant forward from their benches, keenly +attentive to the efforts of the respondent's friend. + +"It is alleged," Mr. M'Arthur continued, "that while you were alone +together you were unfaithful to your husband." + +"That is a lie." The voice was so poignant, so ringing, so instinct with +indignation, that even the President looked up and watched the witness +keenly. Mr. M'Arthur nodded to himself as if very pleased with the +response he had elicited. He put his hands together and made a motion as +though he was congratulating himself. + +When he looked up again his face was perfectly bright and cheerful. + +"I will put this generally," he said. "Have you ever, Mrs. +Admaston--ever, on any occasion or in any place--been unfaithful to your +husband?" + +"Never--never--never!" Peggy replied.... + +She seemed no more the young and frivolous person she had been. Tense +and strung up, her personality had become arresting and real--her voice +seemed to carry conviction. + +Mr. M'Arthur looked round the court--with a half glance at the +President--and sat down. + +As a matter of fact, he had the very gravest doubt as to the possible +success of his case. That sleuth-hound, Sir Robert Fyffe, was against +him, and the case itself was a thoroughly weak one. He, accomplished +barrister, actor, and man of the world as he was, sat down with a +quietly suggested air of triumph that impressed every one. + +Sir Robert Fyffe rose. + +Sir Robert Fyffe was the absolute leader in his own particular line. +There was something so red-faced and jolly about him--such a suggestion +of friendliness even when he was most deadly,--that the eminence he +enjoyed was very well deserved. His voice was mellow; indeed, it was +more than that, and had a suggestion of treacle. + +He looked at Mrs. Admaston with a bland smile. + +"You will, I am sure, admit, Mrs. Admaston, that the events of the 23rd +March give ground for very grave suspicion." + +Peggy Admaston did not seem at all distressed by this question. Her +voice showed the pain that she was enduring, but all her answers to +counsel were delivered clearly and openly. They had either a frank +innocence about them, or else she was certainly one of the most +accomplished actresses and liars of her time. + +"Some persons are more suspicious than others," Peggy answered. + +"And one would be more justly suspicious of some persons than of +others?" + +"Yes, perhaps so." + +"And may I take it that you class yourself among those persons upon whom +suspicion should not readily fall?" + +Peggy nodded vigorously. "I think so," she said. + +The great, round, red face of Sir Robert beamed upon her in the +kindliest way. His voice--which carried right through the court--was +still ingratiating and honey-sweet. + +"You say," he said, "that your husband ought not to have allowed even +these circumstances to make him suspect you?" + +"He had always trusted me implicitly," she replied. + +The accomplished counsel made a remark _sotto voce_. "Perhaps too +implicitly," he said. + +Mr. M'Arthur jumped up in a second and looked at the judge. + +"My learned friend has no right to say that," he said. + +The President, with his air of taking very little interest at all in the +proceedings, raised his eyelids. + +"I did not hear what he said," he remarked blandly. + +"Never mind, Mr. M'Arthur; _I_ don't mind Sir Robert," Peggy said from +the witness-box very sweetly. + +"I am sure we shall get on very well," Sir Robert replied. "Now, Mrs. +Admaston, I suppose you were very annoyed at finding you were in the +wrong train?" + +"I was annoyed, I suppose," Peggy answered; "but not very seriously. You +see, it really didn't matter very much." + +Sir Robert nodded his great bewigged head. "I suppose not," he said. +"Was it your fault?" + +The girl's clear accents rang out into the court. "I don't think it was +anybody's fault, except the fussy customs officer's." + +"This fussiness could have been avoided by registering the luggage +through--yes?" + +"I suppose so," Peggy answered Sir Robert. + +The big man leant forward with the most ingratiating face. "Can you," he +asked, "suggest any reason why the luggage was not registered?" + +"I believe it was the mistake of a porter at Charing Cross." + +"The mistake of a porter, the fussiness of a custom-house officer--quite +a chapter of accidents!" Sir Robert continued blandly. + +Mrs. Admaston seemed to find something consoling in the voice of the +great K.C. + +"Wasn't it!" she said brightly. + +There was no response in the manner or in the voice of Mr. Admaston's +counsel. + +"Was your luggage with Mr. Collingwood's at Charing Cross?" he +asked--blandly still, but with a threatening hint of what was to come in +his voice. + +"All the luggage was together when I saw it." + +"All? The luggage of the whole party?" + +"Yes," Peggy replied. + +"Was it labelled, Mrs. Admaston? I mean, apart from the railway labels?" + +"Mine wasn't." + +"Don't you generally label your luggage when you go abroad?" Sir Robert +continued. + +"I always do." + +"Well, Mrs. Admaston, why did you not do so this time?" + +"Well, you see," Peggy answered, "Mr. Collingwood, who is a great +traveller, chaffed me about being such an old maid. He said it was quite +unnecessary." + +The big moon-faced counsel almost jumped--experienced as he was--at this +remark. + +"Oh!" he said, "Mr. Collingwood said _that_, did he?" + +"It was lucky," Peggy replied; "wasn't it?" + +Suddenly the President looked up. His kindly but austere face became +surprised. + +"Lucky?" he said. + +Peggy turned towards the judge. "Yes, my lord," she said; "otherwise I +should have reached Paris without any clothes." + +The President nodded gravely. "Yes, I see," he said. "The boxes +fortunately made the same mistake as you did." + +Peggy laughed. "Yes, Sir John," she said, and as she did it there was a +little ripple of amusement round the crowded court. + +Of course, everybody knew that the judge who was trying this case had +met the Admastons over and over again. + +Every one there, with the exception of the people in the gallery, was a +member of what is called society. Peggy, in her innocent simplicity, +could not quite differentiate between Sir John Burroughes, who was +trying the case of her innocence or guilt, and Mr. M'Arthur or Sir +Robert Fyffe, K.C., M.P. She was bewildered. She had met all these men +at dinner-parties or receptions. She still thought that this was all a +kind of weird game. She did not realise that Sir Robert Fyffe was about +to hunt her to the death of her reputation, or that Sir John +Burroughes--the President--would give his judgment without fear or +favour. + +As a matter of fact, there was a little ripple of laughter right through +the court when she addressed the President as "Sir John." + +Sir Robert Fyffe continued his examination. "Very lucky, Mrs. Admaston," +he said grimly. "And did Mr. Collingwood's luggage make the same mistake +as yours?" + +"Yes," Peggy answered. + +"And the luggage belonging to Lord Ellerdine and Lady Attwill had the +intelligence to go straight to Chalons?" + +"Yes," Peggy answered again. + +"Didn't it strike you as rather odd that your luggage should not have +been registered?" + +Peggy tried to recollect. "No, it didn't," she said. "It struck my maid +as odd, I remember." + +A keen note came into Sir Robert Fyffe's voice. The blandness and +suavity seemed to have left it. + +"It struck your maid as odd?" he said sharply. + +"Maids who are devoted to us are often more suspicious than we are," +Peggy answered. "Don't you think so, Sir Robert?" + +The big red face turned full upon her for a moment. People who watched +it carefully might have discerned a slight expression of compunction. He +had known this little butterfly in private life, but now professional +considerations overbore everything. He was Sir Robert Fyffe because he +did his job--had always done his job. + +"I am afraid I am not here to say what I think," he answered quickly. + +Peggy realised the situation in a moment. She was fighting desperately, +but nothing gave an index to the fact. + +"Oh, we all know that, Sir Robert!" she said, and there was a slight +murmur and ripple of laughter through the court. + +The President raised his eyes above his glasses and stared gravely +round. + +Silence was restored. + +"Your maid's luggage," said Sir Robert, "had the good fortune to reach +Paris too?" + +"Yes." + +"Did Mr. Collingwood attend to the luggage at Charing Cross--the luggage +of the whole party, I mean?" + +"Yes, I think he did." + +"Do you think, Mrs. Admaston, that you would remember the porter who +made the mistake?" + +Peggy seemed to be trying to remember something. "No," she said +doubtfully. "I don't think I could." + +"Do you remember having a conversation with him?" Sir Robert continued, +his face as bland and confidential as any face could be. + +"No, I don't remember." + +"Your name was on your boxes in full, wasn't it?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, Mrs. Admaston, don't you remember having a talk with him about +your husband?" + +Peggy looked up brightly. Something seemed to have struck her. + +"Oh yes," she said quickly. "Wasn't he a constituent?" + +Sir Robert bowed sweetly. "I think he was," he said. "At anyrate, a +great admirer." Then he turned round. "Will Mr. Stevens please stand +up?" + +Just behind the barristers and the seats in which the society people +were sitting, a broad, short, and sturdy man rose from the pit of the +court. + +"Now," Sir Robert said to Mrs. Admaston, "do you recognise him?" + +Peggy leant over the rail of the box with real interest--if it was not +affectation. + +"No," she said doubtfully; "I could not say for certain." + +"But if Mr. Stevens can swear that he is the man with whom you had the +conversation?" + +"Oh! then he must be right, Sir Robert," Peggy answered. + +Mr. Menzies rose in his place. "My client, Mr. Collingwood, recognises +the man, m'lud--there is no doubt about it." + +"Very well," the President answered quietly. "We shall have that later." + +"So that is the porter who made the mistake," Sir Robert resumed in a +voice full of meaning. "You can sit down, Mr. Stevens. Would you be +surprised to hear that your luggage and Mr. Collingwood's was not +registered, upon the express instructions of Mr. Collingwood, and that +Lord Ellerdine's and Lady Attwill's luggage was registered through, also +upon his instructions?" + +Mr. M'Arthur rose. "My lord," he said, "this cannot be evidence against +my client. Even if Mr. Collingwood was acting as her agent, such +instructions were clearly outside his authority." + +Sir Robert glanced round quickly. "One moment, Mr. M'Arthur," he said, +in a voice full of meaning. "If it should turn out, Mrs. Admaston, that +Mr. Collingwood gave express instructions that your luggage should not +be registered--that, you say, was not according to your instructions?" + +"It is incredible that he _should_ have given such instructions," Peggy +said. + +"Incredible!" said Sir Robert Fyffe. + +"Unless----" Peggy replied, then stopped short and bit her lip. + +Every one in the court noticed that the judge had lifted his head and +was looking keenly at her. + +"Well? Unless what, Mrs. Admaston?" Sir Robert Fyffe asked quickly. + +Peggy did not answer at all. + +"Shall I finish it for you?" Sir Robert continued, with his famous +little menacing gesture of the right hand. "Unless he had intended to +give his friends the slip at Boulogne, and stay the night in Paris with +you. Is that what you were going to say?" + +"Yes, it was, for a moment," the girl answered, "until it struck me how +absurd it was." + +"It strikes you as absurd, does it?" + +"Yes, it does rather," she replied. + +"I suppose it would strike you as equally absurd that Mr. Collingwood +had already engaged rooms at the Hotel des Tuileries for himself and a +lady, two days before you left London? Or do you think the rooms were +engaged for some other lady?" + +"I don't believe they were engaged at all before we arrived," came the +answer quickly. + +Sir Robert nodded his big head. "We shall hear, no doubt, from Mr. +Collingwood. Am I to take it, then, that you had no knowledge of the +fact that your luggage was not registered, and that you had no knowledge +of the fact that Mr. Collingwood had already taken rooms for himself and +a lady before you left London?" + +"I had no knowledge whatever--none at all," Peggy replied with great +emphasis. + +"And I think you told my learned friend in examination-in-chief that you +had no knowledge of the fact that both your bedroom and Mr. +Collingwood's opened out of the same sitting-room?" + +"That is so, Sir Robert." + +"I think you telegraphed to Chalons when you got to Paris to tell Lord +Ellerdine of your mistake?" + +"Mr. Collingwood did so for me." + +"And to your husband?" + +"No; that was not necessary." + +In some subtle, but very real fashion, the atmosphere of the court was +becoming more and more charged with excitement. Everybody was sitting +perfectly still. All eyes were directed to the slim figure of the girl +in the witness-box. The hush was not broken by any sounds, save only +that of the great counsel's voice with its deadly innuendo, its +remorseless logic of fact, and the replies of the sweet-voiced girl. + +"Why not?" Sir Robert asked, with a deep note of suggestion. + +"I did not want to worry him with our silly mistakes," was the answer; +and even as she gave it Peggy's heart sank like lead within her, +realising how inadequate and feeble it sounded. + +"Did you think that it would annoy your husband to think that you and +Mr. Collingwood were alone in Paris?" + +"Not a bit," she replied. + +"Then why didn't you tell him? You had nothing to hide?" + +"Nothing whatever." + +There was a pause. Sir Robert's face still wore an expectant look. He +was obviously waiting for a reply. + +It came at length, and every person in the court as they heard it +smiled, frowned, or sighed according to their several temperaments. + +"I really don't know why I didn't tell him." + +"Let me suggest a reason. You didn't tell because you didn't want him to +know?" + +"I don't think that is true," Peggy answered. + +"Come, Mrs. Admaston; you heard the evidence of the detective?" + +"Yes, I did." + +"He has told the jury that when the telephone message came through from +your husband you were in the room; that you stayed by and heard the +co-respondent tell your husband that Lord Ellerdine was staying at the +hotel--a deliberate lie; and that you refused to speak to your husband. +Is that true?" + +The answer, the miserable answer, came in the faintest of voices from +the box: + +"Yes." + +And now there was every sign of what the newspapers call a "sensation" +in court. Colonel Adams and Henry Passhe looked at each other +significantly. "That's done for her," Passhe whispered to his friend. +Ladies nudged each other. The reporters wrote furiously. The judge +leaned forward a little more over his desk. + +"Why did you connive at this lie?" + +"I don't know. Really, I don't know." + +"Why did you refuse to speak to your husband?" + +Peggy was silently gazing downwards. + +"You have told us that it would not have annoyed your husband to think +that you and Mr. Collingwood were alone in Paris." + +"Why should it have annoyed him," Peggy answered, "if it were an +accident?" + +"Exactly!" Sir Robert continued--"if it were an accident. I put it to +you that the only fact which made you afraid to speak to your husband +was because you knew it was not an accident, and that he had just cause +for resentment." + +"That is not true," Peggy said, with a little flicker of the spirit she +had shown at first. + +"I don't wish to be unfair," said Sir Robert Fyffe--and no man at the +Bar was fairer than the famous counsel in his cross-examinations. + +"You are not unfair, Sir Robert," Peggy said; "but, oh! it is all +unfair." + +Sir Robert gave a little sigh, which may or may not have been a genuine +expression of feeling, but was probably sincere enough. His duty lay +before him, however, and, like some sworn torturer of the Middle Ages, +he must pursue it to the end. + +"I must press you upon this point," he said. "What made you afraid to +tell your husband that you were alone in Paris? What made you agree with +Mr. Collingwood, Lord Ellerdine, and Lady Attwill to say that you had +not been alone with Mr. Collingwood in Paris?" + +"I cannot tell you," Peggy answered. "I was very upset, and really not +quite myself." + +"Not quite yourself?" followed upon the heels of her answer with +lightning rapidity. "Very upset? What had happened to upset you?" + +Peggy made a motion--an instinctive motion--as if to free herself from +something, something that was slowly but surely tightening round her. +Every one noticed it, every one understood it. + +"Nothing," she said at length. + +At this there was a ripple of laughter through the court, and cutting in +upon it, before it had quite died away, the accusing voice was heard: +"Nothing? If that is so, can you give any reason why Lord Ellerdine and +Lady Attwill should have connived at this deception?" + +"I suppose they thought they were shielding me." + +"Shielding you!" Sir Robert cried in mock surprise. "From what? Tell me, +Mrs. Admaston," he continued, as Peggy looked round the court +helplessly--"tell me, do you think that Lord Ellerdine--he is an old +friend?" + +"Yes, a dear old friend," Peggy said, glad to be able to say something +for a moment which did not tell against her. + +"Do you think that Lord Ellerdine and Lady Attwill believed that you +were in Paris, by accident?" + +"How can I tell?" Peggy replied, not in the least seeing to what this +was leading. + +"Have you any doubt? Why do you think that Lord Ellerdine returned to +Paris by the night train instead of letting you join them at Chalons, +except that he thought something was very seriously wrong?" + +"I have told you," Peggy replied, "that he thought he was shielding me." + +"But you have not told me from what he thought he was shielding you. +What was he to shield you from?" + +"Nothing," Peggy said once more. And again there was a ripple of +laughter throughout the court. + +At this Sir Robert Fyffe allowed himself his first look at the jury, and +a most significant one it was. Then he turned quickly to the +witness-box. "Nothing!" he cried. "Then why did you invent--or connive +at the invention of--this story?" + +"Why did I?" the girl said helplessly. "I don't know. I thought it +foolish. I saw that they had told a lying story to my husband, thinking +to serve me, and I didn't want to give them away." + +"You lied to your husband because you didn't wish to give your +good-natured friends away. Is that really your reason, Mrs. Admaston?" + +"Yes," she answered, "and I loathed myself for it." + +"It was perhaps the first time that you had deceived your husband?" Sir +Robert said blandly. + +"Yes," came the answer with a pause, and very faintly given. + +"You arrived at the hotel under the impression that your presence in +Paris was due to a mistake?" + +"Yes." + +"You supped in your room with Mr. Collingwood?" + +"Yes." + +"And what time did you sup?" + +"About 10 or 10.15." + +"What did you do after supper? I suppose you finished about 11?" + +"I suppose so," Peggy replied. + +"Well--what did you do? The table, I think, was not cleared before you +retired to bed--that is so, isn't it?" + +"Yes." + +"How did you spend the time between 11 and 12.30?" + +"We were talking." + +"No doubt you told the waiter not to clear away so that you should not +be disturbed?" + +"I really forget," Peggy said. + +"At anyrate, you were not disturbed?" + +"No." + +"And spent a charming evening?" + +"Yes." + +"Unspoilt by any idea that your presence there was due to a deliberate +and successful device to give your companions the slip?" + +Helpless as she was in those skilled, remorseless hands, Peggy +nevertheless flared up at this. + +"To have had such an idea," she said, with a dignity which was strangely +piteous under the circumstances, "would have been an insult to Mr. +Collingwood." + +"Always assuming," said Sir Robert, "that Mr. Collingwood made his plans +without your knowledge." + +"I don't believe that Mr. Collingwood made the plans you suggest." + +"And nothing will shake your faith in Mr. Collingwood?" said Sir Robert +with great suavity. + +"My faith in him is not likely to be shaken by the hired evidence of +detectives, railway porters, or hotel servants." + +"You mustn't talk like that, Mrs. Admaston," the judge said gravely. + +"When did it first seem to you that your presence in Paris was not due +to a mistake?" Sir Robert went on. + +"My maid hinted it to me while she was doing my hair before I went to +bed." + +"Your maid is an old and privileged servant?" + +"She is far more than a servant. She is a devoted friend." + +"You are sure of that?" + +"Absolutely." + +Sir Robert nodded to himself, and his nod sent a shiver of apprehension +through the girl in the witness-box. + +"The subject admits of no discussion?" he asked, and there was a +suppressed eagerness in his voice. + +"None," Peggy answered. + +Sir Robert nodded again. "Very well," he said _sotto voce_. "You have +told me that you were annoyed, but not seriously, at missing the train, +and I suppose, Mrs. Admaston, I may add at finding yourself in Paris?" + +The examination seemed to have fallen a little from its strained note. + +"That is so," Peggy replied, slightly relieved. + +"Did Mr. Collingwood seem much distressed at the turn of events?" asked +Sir Robert. + +And then--it might have been rising hysteria, or it might have been a +totally innocent misapprehension of what was going on, but Peggy +laughed. + +Her laugh went rippling out into the court. + +"He did not seem inconsolable," she said. + +Her laughter was echoed by that of every one in the court; even Sir +Robert's red and genial face relaxed into a smile. + +"And I daresay," he said in quite a kindly voice,--"I daresay you would +as soon be stranded in Paris with Mr. Collingwood as with any one?" + +"Oh, much sooner," Peggy said. "He is a very charming companion." + +"Perhaps," Sir Robert Fyffe answered, "I may allow myself to say the +same of his companion?" + +Peggy smiled brightly. "Well," she said, "it would not be the first time +you had said so, Sir Robert." + +"Nor will it be the last, Mrs. Admaston," the K.C. replied with a +courtly bow, and a really charming smile upon his face. + +Then suddenly he stood a little more upright, shifted the gown upon his +shoulders, touched his wig, and looked at Peggy keenly. He was once more +the keen advocate doing his duty, whatever it might cost him in personal +emotion. + +"But we must pass on," he said. "Very well. You finished supper at last, +and about 12.30 you went to bed. Your maid joined you and you got +undressed." Here Sir Robert put his pince-nez upon his nose, and leant +over to see the ground-plan of the rooms of the Hotel des Tuileries, +which the solicitor on the bench before him held up for his inspection. + +Sir Robert looked at the coloured plan for a moment with intense +scrutiny. Then, having refreshed his memory, he turned his face once +more to the witness-box. + +"Mr. Collingwood," he continued, "had left you by the door leading into +the passage, I suppose?" + +"Yes," Peggy replied. + +"You had no idea that he was occupying the room communicating with +yours?" + +"None." + +"You then sent your maid to bed?" + +"Yes." + +"And it was shortly after that that the telephone bell rang--the call +from Chalons?" + +"Very shortly after," Peggy replied. + +She seemed to be extremely interested in this conversation between +herself and Sir Robert Fyffe--interested in it as if she were playing +some game of which the issue would not matter. At this period of the +famous cross-examination she seemed to be perfectly bright and +unconcerned. + +"And you went to answer it?" Sir Robert went on. + +"Yes," she said. + +Sir Robert clutched the bands of his gown and looked at her with the +very keenest scrutiny. + +"And will you tell my lord and the jury what happened?" he said. + +"While I was speaking--I had my back to the door--I suddenly heard Mr. +Collingwood's voice behind me." + +Sir Robert started. "You were surprised--startled?" he said in an eager +voice. + +"I was," Peggy answered--"very." + +The K.C.'s head was bent forward and was swaying slightly from side to +side, as the head of a snake sways before it strikes. He was quite +unconscious of the marked hostility of his attitude, but the game, the +big, exciting game which he was playing, which he was paid so highly to +play, and which had become the chief excitement of his life, had caught +hold of him in all his nerves. + +"Had he knocked?" he said. + +"I didn't hear him," Peggy replied, "or of course I should not have let +him come in." + +"I see," Sir Robert replied. "You were hardly dressed to receive +gentlemen visitors?" + +"Well, hardly." + +"You were angry, Mrs. Admaston?" + +"I _was_ angry," Peggy replied. + +"Now! how did you show your anger?" + +"By telling him to go back to his room." + +"Did he go?" + +"No." + +And now laughter, loud and almost inextinguishable, filled the court. +Every one was enjoying himself or herself enormously. There was a sort +of atmosphere of French farce about the sombre court. Every one had, by +now, forgotten that they had lunched and dined at the hospitable tables +of Mr. and Mrs. Admaston. They were there for a show--they were out for +blood--it was a bull-fight to these pleasant ladies and gentlemen. + +Mr. Henry Passhe was obviously enjoying himself. He laughed as loudly as +any one, until the warning "Hush!" of the usher suppressed the +merriment. He looked towards his friend, but he saw that Colonel Adams's +lean brown face was drawn and wrinkled up with pain. Then he +himself--for he was a decent-minded man enough--felt a little ashamed of +his jocularity, and he turned once more to an intent watching of this +tragic spectacle. + +"No doubt," Sir Robert said, "that made you more angry--yes?" + +Mrs. Admaston did not answer, but Sir Robert persisted. + +"_Didn't_ it make you more angry?" he said. + +Suddenly Peggy looked up, and her voice rippled with laughter--she was a +butterfly, a thing of sunshine and shadow, but shadow never distressed +her for very long. + +"I never remain angry very long," she said. + +Sir Robert took no notice of the way in which she answered. His big +voice went on, tolling quietly like a distant bell. + +"But you were angry?" + +"I wanted him to go," Peggy replied impatiently. + +"Quite so," said Sir Robert. "But you allowed him to stay?" + +She heard once more that inexorable persistence, that bland, +passionless, but remorseless voice. + +The little flicker of gaiety and of respite was over. She braced herself +once more to stand up against this relentless onslaught, and clutched +the rail of the witness-box before her. + +"We are very old friends, Sir Robert," she answered. "I saw no +particular harm in it." + +"If you saw no particular harm in it, why did you not care to speak to +your husband when he rang up?" + +"One may do perfectly harmless things," she replied, "and yet not care +to tell every one about them." + +"And this was one of those perfectly harmless things which you didn't +care to tell every one, or even your husband, about?" + +"There was no harm in it," Peggy replied, and her voice rang out with a +dreadful sense of suppressed irritation and pain. + +"So little that you permitted Mr. Collingwood to stay with you--for +quite a long time?" + +"Not very long," she answered. + +"Until the telephone call from your husband?" + +"I suppose so." + +Sir Robert Fyffe began to seem very pleased with himself. There was no +bitterness in his voice--only an extreme politeness. But by now he kept +glancing carefully at the jury, watching them with lightning glances, +and gathering all the information he possibly could from the expressions +on their faces--their immobility or movements of interest. + +"Up to that time," Sir Robert remarked--and his question had really the +note of a casual inquiry--"up to that time had he shown any sign of +going?" + +"I don't think so." + +The next query startled the whole court, not so much from its +directness--though that was patent enough,--but by reason of the way in +which it was rapped out. + +It was said in a hard, threatening, staccato voice: "What were you both +doing?" + +The answer was rather reflective than otherwise. It showed no +apprehension of the intention of the examiner. + +"Sitting on the sofa--he was smoking, I think," Peggy said. + +"Should I be right in saying that during most of this time he was making +passionate love to you?" + +All the reporters looked up, their pencils poised, their eyes avid of +sensation. + +"He was very fond of me," Mrs. Admaston replied. + +"Passionately in love with you?" + +There was a perceptible hesitation. "I think he was very fond of me." + +Sir Robert's words came from him like the blows of a hammer upon a +nail: "Have you any doubt that he was passionately in love with you?" + +"He told me so." + +"I put it to you that you knew it, and had known it for months?" + +It was an odd contrast between the triumphant note which had crept into +the great barrister's voice and the diminuendo of Peggy's. + +There was no gaiety now. The forces were joined. The battle, which had +been an affair of skirmishes before, was now in full cry. + +"I only knew what he told me." The voice was quite desperate now. + +"And when did he first tell you? The night you were in Paris? Is that +when you say?" + +"Yes," the answer came, and the President leant forward to be sure that +he heard the admission aright. + +The big, round, red face of Sir Robert Fyffe was now redder than ever. +His eyes blinked as if the lids could hardly veil the silent fire which +peered out from them. + +"Do you swear that? Please be careful...." + +"I think that was the first time." + +"I suggest to you," said Sir Robert, turning towards the jury, the +President, and then to Peggy--"I suggest to you, Mrs. Admaston, that he +had been making passionate love to you for months." + +There was an intense silence in the court. + +The members of the jury were obviously excited. Different members showed +it in different ways. There were men who struggled to give no indication +of their feelings, and made effort at an entire lack of expression. +Others showed evident and lively interest. + +"I knew for some months that he was very fond of me." + +"And did your husband know?" echoed out into the court. + +"I suppose so," was the faint answer. + +"Do you suggest that your husband would ever have permitted you to go +away, even in the company of friends, with a man who had been abusing +his friendship by making passionate love to his wife?" + +There was no answer to that. No sound came from the witness-box--the +whole court waited for the response. + +Sir Robert was leaning forward now, his head shaking from side to side, +his blood-hound face, his extremely vivid eyes, fixed upon Peggy's face. +"Do you really ask the jury to believe that?" he said. + +Still Peggy was silent. She seemed to have drooped into something like a +faded flower. She said nothing. There was nothing for her to say. + +And in the silence the calm, judicial voice of the President, +full of commiseration--without prejudice one way or the other, +nevertheless,--made its demand. "You must answer, Mrs. Admaston," said +the judge. + +"I don't think my husband knew _how_ fond of me he was," Peggy said. + +"If he had known," Sir Robert said, very gently now, and with a little +quiver in his voice--"if he had known, don't you think, Mrs. Admaston, +he would have been very angry to know how you were situated in Paris?" + +Sentence after sentence was wrung from her by torture. + +"I think perhaps he might not have liked it," she said in a fainting +voice. + +The bully came out in Sir Robert's voice. All along the line he was +being tremendously successful.... + +"Perhaps! Would _any_ man like it? Do you think, madam, that you were +treating your husband fairly in encouraging this very charming +gentleman's attentions?" + +Very faint, very slow, very hesitating, and extremely weary, "I did not +encourage them," the answer came. + +"We shall see. Didn't it make you feel very embarrassed to find yourself +sitting up in a strange hotel into the small hours of the morning, with +this man making passionate love to you?" + +There was a dead silence in the court. Once more the person on the rack +had nothing to say. + +"Or had this _liaison_ gone too far by this time for you to feel +embarrassed?" + +Mr. M'Arthur jumped up. + +His face blazed with simulated fury. "My lord," he barked, "I protest +against these insulting suggestions." + +The excited voice of the counsel rather failed of its effect as the +judge looked down upon him. "Sir Robert is within his rights, Mr. +M'Arthur," he said. "He would not ask these questions without good +reason." + +Sir Robert Fyffe saw his chance at once. He glanced at the jury; he made +a little deprecating motion of his head to the President. "Too good +reason, my lord! My duty is not a pleasant one.... Was this the first +time, Mrs. Admaston, that you had received Mr. Collingwood in this state +of undress--when the rest of the household was asleep?" + +Peggy had clasped her hands. She threw them apart with a wild gesture +and clutched the rail of the witness-box. "My lord!" she said, "I assure +you that nothing has ever taken place between us." + +The President gazed at her with calm compassion. + +He had heard appeals like this one too often. He was not there to be +influenced by emotions, or to be prejudiced by his natural kindness of +heart. + +He was there to judge. + +"You must answer Sir Robert, Mrs. Admaston," he said quietly. + +"We used to sit up late sometimes at Lord Ellerdine's and talk," Peggy +admitted. + +There were murmurs all over the court. Society was interested. + +Sir Robert Fyffe leant forward to the solicitor in front of him, said +something in an undertone, and then looked up. + +"Was that at Lord Ellerdine's place in Yorkshire?" + +"Yes." + +"When were you last there?" + +"About a year ago," Peggy replied. + +"Indeed! About a year ago----" + +"Hardly a year." + +"At anyrate, several months before the Paris trip Mr. Collingwood was +sitting up in your room into the small hours of the morning making +passionate love to you?" + +Mrs. Admaston said nothing at all. + +"Is not that so?" the insistent voice inquired. + +"There was no harm, Sir Robert," was the hesitating answer. + +"No harm! Did Lord Ellerdine know?" + +"No." + +"Did your husband know?" + +"No." + +And now into the voice of the great counsel began to creep a note of +contempt, which was doubtless perfectly genuine. He had met the woman he +was cross-examining in society. He had liked her. But, as every one +knew, Sir Robert's own domestic life was one of singular happiness and +accord. + +It is pretty certain that--having known Admaston and his wife--he was +becoming genuinely indignant at what he thought the treachery of the +girl. + +"Was this another of those perfectly harmless things which you didn't +care to tell your husband about?" he said. + +"I saw no harm in it," Peggy replied, and in answer to the colder note +in Sir Robert's voice her own became stubborn. + +"But you would not have liked him to know? Well! You have now admitted +that Mr. Collingwood had been making passionate love to you for months +before the trip to Paris. We are getting at the truth gradually. I +suppose that he made these declarations of love several times at Lord +Ellerdine's?" + +"I think he spoke to me on two or three occasions," Peggy almost +murmured. + +"And was this really the first time he declared his love for you?" + +"Yes, the first time." + +"You are sure?" + +"Quite sure." + +"And you still went about everywhere with him--but you were careful not +to tell your husband the truth?" + +"My husband trusted me. I never abused his trust." + +As Peggy said this, the foreman of the jury, a plump, shortish, +clean-shaved gentleman who in private life was a chemist, looked up with +a puzzled expression upon his face. + +He thought he detected a ring of real sincerity in the witness's voice +which the facts did not seem to justify. + +"Was not this an abuse of his trust?" Sir Robert said--perhaps more +gravely than he had spoken yet. + +"Oh! we can't all be perfect! I don't deny that I flirted," Peggy +answered. + +Her affectation of lightness went very ill with the weighty, measured +accusations of Sir Robert Fyffe. + +It struck a jarring note in the court. It did her harm. + +"You do not deny that you flirted," Sir Robert said, with a little nod +of his head--"and encouraged this man, this very charming companion, to +flirt with you?" + +"And if I did," she replied, still defiant, "my husband trusted me, and +knew that there was nothing in it." + +"Mrs. Admaston, if that is true, why were you afraid to talk to him upon +the night of the 23rd March, and why did you connive at a deliberate lie +on the following day?" + +There was a cold and deliberate disgust in Sir Robert's voice, and +almost every person there gave a little sympathetic shudder. + +But Peggy, brave to the last, still fought on. "I was a fool," she said, +with a little shrug of the shoulders, as if the question was of no great +moment. "I was a fool. The others thought the thing much worse than it +was, and that frightened me. I have told you already that I loathed +myself for lying as I did." + +Sir Robert knitted his brows for a moment, and then decided on his +course of action. + +That brilliant brain was never at a loss. Again, after a second's +hesitation, the deadly thrust was delivered. It was delivered with such +apparent suavity and innocence, with such a relaxation of the hard, +accusing note, that the girl in the witness-box was utterly deceived. + +"You mean," said Sir Robert, "that though you did not tell your husband +everything about your harmless flirtations--your peccadilloes--you never +before deliberately lied to shield yourself?" + +"Yes," Peggy replied eagerly; "that is what I mean." + +"Does it not strike you, Mrs. Admaston, that any one who knew of your +previous adventures with Mr. Collingwood, the pleasure you obviously +find in his society, and the methods you have adopted to blind your +husband to the progress of this innocent friendship, would have good +ground for supposing that the accident which brought about the last of +this series of innocent and pleasant reunions was in reality not +accident, but deliberate design?" + +"I see what you mean," she answered; "but whatever any one thought, it +_was_ an accident!" + +"An accident! Oh, just consider this chapter of accidents! By +_accident_, you and Mr. Collingwood got on to the wrong train at +Boulogne; by _accident_, although the luggage of the whole party was +together at Charing Cross Station and Mr. Collingwood was instructed to +register it all through to St. Moritz, your luggage and Mr. +Collingwood's was not registered--an _accident_ which enabled you to +take it on with you upon the Paris train, which you only entered by +_accident_. By _accident_, Mr. Collingwood seems to have taken for +himself and a lady rooms at an hotel in Paris which, but for the +_accident_ which took you and him to Paris, could have been of no +possible use to him. Do you still ask the jury to believe that your +visit to Paris was an accident?" + +Sir Robert had a little over-emphasised himself--that is, as far as the +witness was concerned,--though his accentuated speech had its effect +upon the jury. Peggy herself recognised artifice. When there _had_ been +a real note of sincerity in the counsel's voice it had frightened her +far more than any rhetoric could. + +"Certainly I do," she answered with spirit. + +The barrister recognised in a moment that, while he had made an effect +upon the court, he had at the same time given new courage to the +witness. He was, as all great counsel are, a psychologist of the first +order. He responded instantly, and in this duel of two minds--his and +Mrs. Admaston's--his keener and more trained intelligence realised +exactly what was passing in her thoughts. + +"I suggest to you, Mrs. Admaston," he said very briskly, "that you and +Mr. Collingwood had planned this trip to Paris--that he took the rooms +with your knowledge--that you both missed the train deliberately, and +reached Paris in accordance with your preconceived design?" + +"And I tell you," Peggy replied, "that all these suggestions are +absolutely false." + +"Absolutely false?" + +Her voice rang out into the court shrill with the long torture of her +examination, but passionate with her own certainty of her innocence. +"There's not a rag of truth in any of them. You may think you can make +black white, and white black, you may hire spies, tamper with railway +servants and waiters...." + +An instant reproof came from the judge--two words: "Mrs. Admaston!" he +said. + +She looked up, but hardly heard him. + +"... And do all the rest of the degrading work which seems inseparable +from this court." + +"Mrs. Admaston," the President said again, "you must not speak like +that." + +All men, even judges, are influenced by circumstance. It is probable +that the President would have been far more severe at such an outburst +as this, if Mrs. Admaston had not been a millionairess in her own right +and the wife of a prominent Cabinet Minister. And it is sure also that, +under such circumstances as these, an ordinary woman, without the +unconscious consciousness of her financial and social position, would +not have dared to do as Peggy did. + +Despite the President's admonition, a torrent of half hysterical, wholly +indignant words poured from the witness-box. + +"And what right have they to treat me like this?" Peggy cried. "Am I to +be treated as guilty, merely because I have foolishly courted +temptation? I don't know what I have said, I don't know what I shall say +before this torture is completed; but I am sensible enough to know that +I have no chance in all this farrago of horrible insinuation which +twists every little piece of harmless and girlish folly into some +vicious and debasing form. I cannot keep quiet under it. I tell you it +is all--all--lies--nothing but lies!" + +"Now, Mrs. Admaston," Sir Robert said, apparently unmoved by this +tirade, "I must ask you to give me your very close attention." + +"You must try to be more composed," the President said kindly to Peggy, +"if you wish to do yourself justice." + +Peggy's white, set face looked straight out before her. She summoned up +all her courage to bear the remainder of her torture. + +"You still persist," said Sir Robert, "in saying that your trip to Paris +resulted from an accident?" + +"Emphatically I do," she answered. + +Sir Robert looked towards the judge. + +"Has your lordship got that document," he said, "which Mr. Admaston +identified when he was in the witness-box?" + +The President nodded. "That was the anonymous letter received by Miss +Admaston--Mr. Admaston's aunt,--was it not, and produced by her on +subpoena yesterday? Yes. I have it here in the envelope." + +"Perhaps your lordship will allow the witness to look at the envelope." + +Mr. M'Arthur jumped up. "My lord," he said, "I submit again that nothing +can make this letter evidence." + +"And you are quite right, Mr. M'Arthur," the judge answered. "But at +present Sir Robert is not suggesting that it is evidence--Usher," he +continued, "please hand this to the witness." + +"Look at that envelope," Sir Robert continued. "You will see that it is +dated March 23rd, and the postmark shows that it was collected at 10.30 +a.m. Now, you persist in saying that at the time that letter was posted +nothing was further from your mind than that you would be staying the +night in Paris." + +"I have already said so," Peggy answered. + +"And do you say so still?" + +"Of course I do," she answered tartly. + +"We shall see," Sir Robert Fyffe rapped out. "The letter is addressed to +Miss Admaston--is it not? And Mr. Admaston has sworn that she brought it +to him to the House of Commons just after three o'clock on the same +day. Is Miss Admaston a friend of yours?" + +"I don't think she altogether approves of me," Peggy answered. + +"You know that Mr. Admaston has sworn that it was the information +contained in that letter which determined him to have you watched in +Boulogne and in Paris?" + +"Yes, I know." + +"And at the time that letter was written, no one could possibly have +known that you were going to spend the night in Paris or miss the train +at Boulogne?" + +"Of course they couldn't." + +"May I take it, therefore," Sir Robert continued, "that you believed +your husband when he says that that letter was in his hands soon after +three o'clock--long before you even reach Folkestone?" + +"I believe my husband implicitly," Peggy said, and there was a little +quaver in her voice. + +"Do you recognise the handwriting?" Sir Robert asked. + +"I have never seen it before," she answered. + +The judge looked intently at the K.C. "I don't want to interrupt you, +Sir Robert," he said; "but do you know whose handwriting it is?" + +"No, my lord," Sir Robert replied. "I am really asking for +information." + +"It is very curious," said the judge. + +"It is, my lord," said Sir Robert. "My learned friend, Mr. Carteret, who +is watching the case on behalf of Miss Admaston, informs me that he has +had it submitted to every well-known handwriting expert in the United +Kingdom, and indeed in Europe." + +"And compared with the writing of every person however remotely +connected with the parties concerned in this case?" + +"He has even had it compared with Mrs. Admaston's, my lord." + +"And no doubt with Mr. Collingwood's?" the judge continued. + +"Yes," Sir Robert said, "and with Mr. Collingwood's too, my +lord--though, I regret to say, with no result." + +He turned from the judge to Peggy. "And can't you help us, Mrs. +Admaston?" he concluded. + +"No, not from the envelope," Peggy answered. + +"It is a most peculiar handwriting," the judge observed, leaning back in +his seat. + +Sir Robert continued his cross-examination. "Now, Mrs. Admaston," he +said, "remember that that letter was in the hands of your husband just +after three o'clock on 23rd March. Now, will you be so good as to read +it?" + +"Out loud?" + +"Oh no. Read it to yourself." + +There was dead silence in the court as with trembling hands the girl +took the letter from the envelope and began to read it. All the +spectators, those engaged in the case, and several members of the jury +knew that the dramatic moment of all had arrived. There had been many +dramatic moments, but this was to be the culminating one. + +The excitement was intense, and, when Peggy suddenly gave a little cry, +there was a low murmur of sound. She cried out loudly, sharply, as if in +pain, while the judge and jury regarded her intently. Then she bent +forward over the letter again and appeared to re-read it. + +Suddenly she lifted her head and turned desperately to the President. +"Oh! my lord, this is infamous!" she cried. + +Without any hesitation at all Sir Robert made his point. + +"Do you still persist, Mrs. Admaston, in your statement that your trip +to Paris was the result of an accident?" + +Peggy was desperate. "My lord--this letter--it is a trap--it must be--a +trap----" she wailed. + +"Come, Mrs. Admaston," Sir Robert said very sternly; "can you still keep +up this farce, this hypocritical farce?" + +Suddenly Collingwood jumped up from his place. "My lord, I protest!" he +said, in a voice which trembled with indignation. + +The judge gave him a keen look as he subsided, muttering to himself. + +"You will have an opportunity to-morrow," the judge said, "of showing +your sympathy." + +"Now, madam, having read that letter----" Sir Robert resumed. + +The foreman of the jury rose. "My lord," he said, "the jury would like +to see that letter." + +"What do you say, Mr. M'Arthur and Mr. Menzies?" asked the judge. + +"I can see no purpose in keeping it out any longer, my lord," Mr. +M'Arthur answered, while Mr. Menzies said that any mischief which it +might do had been done already. + +The President seemed to approve. "I think you are right," he said. +"Usher, give me the letter." + +The letter was handed up again to the bench, and, adjusting his +pince-nez, the judge proceeded to read it. + +"Listen, gentlemen," he said, "and I will read it to you. The importance +of this letter, gentlemen, which, as you have seen, has so terribly +upset this poor lady, is that it was clearly written before 10.30 on the +morning of the 23rd March, and was in the hands of Mr. Admaston long +before Mrs. Admaston and her friends reached Folkestone--let alone +Boulogne. The letter is dated March 23rd, and it is unsigned. Now, +gentlemen, an anonymous letter is open to grave suspicion, but in the +peculiar circumstances of this case the fact of its being anonymous +makes no difference. If any one, other than the respondent and +co-respondent, knew that they were going to stay in Paris on the night +of the 23rd, and knew that before they started, it is difficult to +exaggerate the importance of the fact. I will now read the letter:-- + + "'Mrs. Admaston will be staying at Paris to-night alone with + Mr. Collingwood. They have arranged to get separated from Lord + Ellerdine and Lady Attwill at Boulogne and to stay the night + together at the Hotel des Tuileries. If Mr. Admaston does not + believe this, let him telephone the hotel to-night.' + +Mr. Carteret," the judge concluded, "were any other letters in this +strange handwriting received by Miss Admaston?" + +"One other, my lord, three days ago," said Mr. Carteret. + +"I should like to see it," said the President. + +The second letter was handed up to him, and he read it through +carefully. + +"It is all very mysterious," he said, shaking his head. "I think, +gentlemen, that you had better hear it. It is as follows:-- + + "'Please destroy the other letter and this, and save an old + servant who honours the family from the anger of Mrs. + Admaston.'" + +The judge paused, carefully scrutinising the letter; then he took up an +ivory reading-glass and looked at the letter through the magnifying +lens. + +"Am I right, Mr. Carteret," he said, "in my view that this letter has +been blotted and not allowed to dry?" + +Mr. Carteret leant over and had a hurried conversation with his +handwriting expert. "I am instructed that there is no doubt as to that, +my lord," he said, looking up. + +"I should much like to see that blotting-paper," the President remarked. + +"Blotting-paper!" said Sir Robert Fyffe. "So should we all, my lord." +Then he rose to his feet. "Now, Mrs. Admaston, having read this letter, +do you still dare to repeat that until you had the misfortune to miss +the train at Boulogne you had no intention of spending the night in +Paris with Mr. Collingwood?" + +Peggy did not answer. + +She stared at the letter upon the judge's desk as if fascinated by it. + +"My lord and the jury are waiting for an answer," Sir Robert repeated. +"Come, madam." + +"And what answer can I give?" the tortured girl said faintly. + +Sir Robert was showing her no mercy now. "The truth, madam, if you can," +he said. + +"The truth!" she answered. "What is the truth to you? It's not the truth +you want. It's me--my very soul--that's what you want! Not to wring the +truth out of me, but just so much of it as will serve your ends!" + +"Mrs. Admaston," the President said compassionately, but with emphasis, +"these outbursts do not assist your case." + +"My case!" Peggy cried helplessly. "My lord, who will believe me in the +face of this lying letter? It is a trap--a trap, I say! I have been +hunted and hounded into it. I am not surprised now that innocent women +in hundreds let their cases go by default rather than face the +humiliation and torture of this awful place." + +"Madam, I must insist upon an answer," Sir Robert said relentlessly. + +"What am I to answer?" she cried again, wringing her hands with a +terribly piteous gesture. + +"If you ask me, Mrs. Admaston, let me advise you to answer the truth." + +"The truth?" + +"Yes, the truth--that this trip to Paris was all arranged between you +and your lover"--his voice sank and became deeply impressive; "that at +the very moment in which your husband was trying to reach you upon the +telephone you were in that lover's arms?" + +"It is a lie!" she said despairingly. + +"The telephone bell rang several times before it was answered, did it +not?" + +"Yes, but----" + +Sir Robert cut her short. "I suggest to you that even then you were in +your lover's arms?" he said with bitter scorn. + +"It is a lie!" Peggy answered once more. + +"Then, Mrs. Admaston, and for the last time, I press for an answer. Do +you still insist that you and your lover----" + +She didn't allow him to finish his sentence. Desperate as she was, the +hot words poured from her in a cataract of sound. + +"How dare you suggest that he is my lover!" she cried. "I tell you that +I have never loved him!--never--never--never--never! If I had loved him +do you think that I would be here now? For months and months he has +begged and entreated me to let my husband divorce me so that I could +marry him. If I had loved him, do you think that I would have faced this +horrible place? I have never loved him. I have been foolish--I have +played with fire--I have loved his admiration. I did not know that the +law--man's law--made no difference between the opportunity to do wrong +and the wrong itself. I know now. Some day men who know women will make +other laws--some of us must have our lives broken first. In the face of +that letter and the evidence, no man would ever believe me, whatever I +say; but I swear before God that it was all an accident--our being in +Paris. I swear that I meant no harm by all my little lies. I swear I +have done nothing wrong--nothing; but no one will believe me now--no +one." Her voice sank and dropped, and she ended her outburst with a deep +moan of pain. + +"I think we will adjourn now," said the President, and there was pain in +his voice also. + +He gathered up the papers before him on his desk and rose. The court +rose also. + +There was an immediate hum and bustle, which broke out into the loud +murmurs of subdued conversation as the judge left his seat and +disappeared through the door at the back. + +Peggy Admaston, wringing her hands, her face a white wedge of anguish, +the pallor dreadfully accentuated by the burnished masses of her dark +hair, almost stumbled down the steps of the witness-box. Mr. M'Arthur +and her solicitor--a little confused knot of people, indeed--hastened up +to her, and with a grim face Sir Robert Fyffe, not looking in the +girl's direction, arranged his papers and spoke earnestly to his junior. + +The scene was one of indescribable excitement. + +It was as though a thunderbolt had fallen, and people looked at each +other with pale, questioning faces. + +The hum died down for an instant, as the weeping woman was led gently +from the court. + +Then it recommenced louder than ever, mingled with the shuffling of +innumerable feet. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +Directly the President had risen, Society streamed out into the great +hall of the Law Courts. + +Innumerable motor broughams and private carriages were waiting in Fleet +Street, and despite the dullness of the afternoon the eager +photographers of the illustrated papers were waiting to get snap-shots +of celebrated people as they passed from the sordid theatre of Court No. +II. _en route_ for afternoon tea and scandal. + +Henry Passhe had an engagement, and, saying good-bye to Colonel Adams, +hurried away. The other remained in the big central hall for a moment or +two looking round to see if he could find an acquaintance. + +To him, as he stood there, came Lord Ellerdine and struck him on the +shoulder. + +"Hullo, Adams!" he said, in a voice which was very subdued. "Thought I +saw you in court. Been watching this dreadful business?" + +Colonel Adams nodded. "Yes, Ellerdine," he said. "Henry Passhe brought +me. He much wanted to come. I hesitated whether I should go or not, and +now I am very sorry I did. To see a charming little woman like Mrs. +Admaston tortured--that isn't very pleasant." + +The other thrust his arm into the colonel's. "Damned dreadful, isn't +it?" he said in an agitated voice. "Well, look here, let's get out of +this. What are you going to do?" + +"I have nothing particular to do at present; but why do you ask, +Ellerdine?" + +"Look here," Lord Ellerdine replied--"we can't talk here, but I have got +an idea." His voice glowed with pride as he said it. "I haven't +mentioned it to a soul, and I don't want to mention it to any one +concerned in the case. Upon my soul, Adams, it is a godsend to have met +you. I want to hear what you think. Are you game to listen?" + +Adams nodded. He liked Lord Ellerdine, as everybody did, though he had +no higher opinion of that gentleman's intelligence than the rest of the +world. + +"Quite at your service, Ellerdine," he answered; "and if your idea is +one that may possibly help Mrs. Admaston, I shall be more pleased +still." + +"Of course it is," Lord Ellerdine answered. "Well, let's go and talk it +over. It is impossible in this infernal rush." + +"All right," Colonel Adams replied, "Come to the Cocoa Tree, or, if you +like, I will come with you to White's." + +Lord Ellerdine shook his head. "We will have some tea," he said. "But I +don't want to go west now until I have talked this idea of mine over +with you. If you agree that there is anything in it, then we should only +have to come back to this part of the world again. Can't we get a cup of +tea somewhere about here?" + +By this time the two men had walked outside the Law Courts and were +standing among the motley crowd which was pouring out of the great +central doorway and also the side approaches to the public galleries and +courts. + +They looked around them. Both of them were absolutely at sea in this +part of London. + +"Tell you what," Ellerdine said suddenly: "I have got another idea. +Let's go to an A.B.C.--what?" + +"What do you mean?" Adams replied. + +"Why," Lord Ellerdine answered, "the A.B.C. you know, where clerks and +people have tea. There are always lots of them in every street, I +believe." + +They turned eastwards and began to walk slowly down Fleet Street. + +"Ellerdine," Colonel Adams exclaimed bitterly, "look at this!" + +The pavements were lined with news-venders displaying great contents +bills of the evening papers: + +"MRS. ADMASTON ON THE RACk"; "SOCIETY LADY'S ADMISSIONS"; and in a +violently Radical sheet, "SOCIETY BUTTERFLY EXAMINED." + +Lord Ellerdine saw the placards also. "Sickening, isn't it?" he said, +with a real note of pain in his voice. "Poor little Peggy! Poor little +girl! I would have done anything to stop it, Adams; and in half an +hour--these newspaper fellows are so damned clever--in half an hour +there'll be all about the last scene, the letter and all that. By the +time we get back to town"--Lord Ellerdine didn't imagine that he was +really in London at the moment,--"by the time we get back to town it +will be in all the clubs just as it has come over the tape machines for +the last two hours, only with further details--how Peggy looked and all +that. Sickening!" + +Colonel Adams agreed. He did not in the least know what his rather +fatuous friend was about to propose or had in his mind; but he was, at +anyrate, glad of his companionship, weary and unhappy as he felt at the +terrible spectacle which he had found almost impossible to endure. + +"I could kill that man Robert Fyffe," he said savagely as they walked +slowly eastwards. "Great, big, damned bully, I call him." + +"Well, I know him," Ellerdine replied; "and really, Adams, he is quite +a decent chap in private life. It is his job, you know, and he has got +to do it as well as he can. I believe he gets about a hundred a day or +more for a case like this." + +"Filthy cruelty, I call it," Adams answered, "whether he is a decent +chap or not. To be paid--to earn your living, by Gad!--to torture men +and women like that seems to me a low way of earning your +bread-and-butter." + +"Perhaps it is," the other replied. "At the same time, Adams, it might +be said of your job too. That Afghan business, when there was no +quarter, that you were in: there were a whole lot of sentimentalists in +the Radical press that howled and held you up to execration as a sort of +Pontius Pilate with a flavour of Nero, at home. You were out there doing +the work. I was home and read the papers--you didn't. Bally monster, +they called you--what?" + +"Damn all newspaper writers!" the old white-haired colonel growled. "But +I say, Ellerdine, what about this cup of tea?" + +Lord Ellerdine looked round anxiously, and then his face lighted up. +"Here's an A.B.C.," he said, pointing to some adjacent windows covered +with letters in white enamel and displaying buns and pastry. + +"How will this do, old chap?" + +The soldier nodded, and together the two men entered the shop. + +"What do we do now?" Ellerdine said, looking round him with some +perplexity. "By Jove! there's a pretty girl." + +One of the waitresses, realising suddenly that the two gentlemen who had +just entered were quite unaccustomed to the ways of the establishment, +and having one of her tables vacant, hurried up to them. + +"Tea?" she said engagingly. + +"That's just it, my dear," said Lord Ellerdine, with a pleased smile. +"Now, you show us all the ropes, will you?" + +"Come this way," said the pretty waitress, with an engaging little toss +of her head and a consciousness of something pleasantly unusual. She led +them to a little round-topped marble table where two cheap cane chairs +were waiting, upon which Lord Ellerdine and Colonel Adams seated +themselves. + +"Tea, I think you said?" said the waitress to Lord Ellerdine, whom she +obviously found the most sympathetic of the pair. + +The ex-diplomatist nodded. "But we must have something to eat--what? +Well, my dear, we will leave it to you. _Carte blanche_--what?" + +"Now look here, Adams," Lord Ellerdine said, "what I want to tell you is +this. Of course, I am tremendously interested in this case. I am mixed +up in it considerably, and also I am a great friend of Peggy's--one of +her oldest friends. You know her too, though not as well as I do, and +you know what a charming little woman she is. I would do anything to +save her if I could, and I have got an idea! Now, some time ago," Lord +Ellerdine continued, "a silly Johnny--a secretary it was--forged my +name. It was on a cheque. There was considerable difficulty in finding +out who was the actual culprit, as owing to the circumstances there were +several people who might have done it. My solicitors told me that the +only way to really find out was to go to a handwriting expert. I didn't +know what that was until they explained, but it seems there are Johnnies +who make a regular profession of studying people's writing." + +"Are there, by Jove!" said the colonel, much interested. + +"Yes; and just at that time--it was some two years ago--the king and +skipper of the whole lot had come over from America and established a +branch in London. His name is William Q. Devereux." + +"Is it, by Jove!" said the colonel again. + +Ellerdine nodded. "Odd," he said, "but true, _parole d'honneur_. He +started an office in London to help all the commercial Johnnies in the +city, and so I went to him with my papers; and I am damned if the chap +didn't find out who forged my name in about an hour, and we had him +nailed that same evening. Cost me a tenner, that's all." + +Colonel Adams nodded, looking with some trepidation at the pile of +rather too luscious-looking pastry which had by now been set upon the +table. + +"I don't think I will venture," he said to himself; and then to +Ellerdine, "Well, go on, Ellerdine." + +"Now, in my pocket," Lord Ellerdine continued, "I have got exact +photographs and tracings of the letters which have made such a fuss this +afternoon. My idea, Adams, is that you and I--if you have time, that +is--should go down into the City and see this expert chap and see if he +can throw some light on the situation. They have tried all the experts +in London on Peggy's case, but they don't seem to know about my American +friend. I believe in him. He is one of the most astute people going. +What do you say to trying him--for poor little Peggy's sake?" + +"Excellent idea, by Jove!" the other answered. "You've got his address, +of course?" + +"Oh yes," Lord Ellerdine replied; "it's in Coleman Street, E.C. Now, I +wonder if you would mind going down with me and seeing what he has got +to say?" + +"Not in the least," Colonel Adams answered. "In fact, I shall be +tremendously interested. I'd do a good deal more than that, my dear +Ellerdine, if I could, to help Mrs. Admaston in any way." + +"Very well, then," said the peer. "We'll just finish our tea, and pay +that pretty-looking girl and take a taxi at once." + +In five minutes they had dismissed the cab and were being carried in a +lift to the third floor of a big block of buildings in Coleman Street. + +The door of Mr. Devereux's office was marked "Enter," and the newcomers +found themselves in a small but comfortably furnished room. At a round +polished table, on which there was a typewriting machine, sat a young +lady, who was reading a novel of Miss Marie Corelli's. + +"Mr. Devereux is in," she said in answer to their queries, "but he is +just about to leave. However, I will take your name and see if he can +see you." + +Some people would have been annoyed at this fashion of greeting, but to +the two simple gentlemen in question it seemed quite right and proper +that such a rare bird as an American handwriting expert should be fenced +round with a certain ritual. + +"Tell Mr. Devereux," said Lord Ellerdine, "that Lord Ellerdine is here. +Mr. Devereux knows me." + +Unlike the young person in the cafe, the young lady in the office did +not seem at all impressed, but languidly sauntered through the door +which led to the inner room. She came back much more quickly than she +had entered. "Mr. Devereux begs that you will step in," she said, and +once more fell to her enthralling romance as the door closed behind the +visitors. + +Mr. Devereux was a well-dressed, trim young American with a hard, +clean-shaved face. His manner was brisk, business-like, and deferential, +and his whole appearance suggested energy and capability. + +Upon his large leather-covered writing-table were various appliances +used in his business. + +One saw a microscope of some peculiar construction. There were a variety +of small lenses and reading-glasses, together with various instruments +of shining steel for measuring, with extreme accuracy, the length of a +letter or a line. + +There was also an enlarging camera upon a shelf by the window, and a +door in one corner of the place was marked "Dark room." + +"Glad to see you again, my lord," said Mr. Devereux. "Not a forgery case +this time, I hope?" + +"Not a bit of it," Lord Ellerdine replied, shaking hands with the +expert. "Glad to see you, Mr. Devereux. No; it is something far more +important than a cheque for fifty pounds. It is to do with the Admaston +divorce case." + +Mr. Devereux started. His face became almost ferret-like in its +intentness, while he said nasally, but with suppressed eagerness in his +voice, "I guess this is a bit of luck. I have just seen this evening's +paper, and of course I have followed the case with great interest from +first to last. I know without any possibility of doubt that all my +brother experts in London have been consulted. And from the first it has +rather hurt me that nobody had come to me, because I do claim----" + +Lord Ellerdine interrupted him. "I know, I know," he said; "there is no +one that can touch you, Mr. Devereux. But probably, you see----" He +hesitated in his effort to soothe the somewhat wounded feelings of the +expert. + +Colonel Adams came to the rescue. "Well, Mr. Devereux," he said, "here +we are, and we have got something very important on which to ask your +opinion." + +The expert became all attention once more. "What is it?" he said +briefly. + +Lord Ellerdine put his hand in the breast-pocket of his coat and +withdrew a long envelope full of papers. + +"I have here," he said, "exact photographs and tracings--everything that +you will probably find needful, in fact--of the two letters which you +have just been reading about in the evening paper, and which have caused +such a tremendous sensation this afternoon. It seems at the moment that +Mrs. Admaston has absolutely lost her case. To all outward appearances +these letters have ruined her. At the same time, I am certain that she +knew nothing about them, and that Mr. Collingwood knew nothing about +them either. You follow me?" + +Lord Ellerdine had never been so concise and explanatory before, but the +occasion had come, and he had risen to it. + +"I follow you perfectly," said the expert. + +"Very well, then," Lord Ellerdine said; "here are the letters, and I +want you to tell me what you think about them." + +He gave the envelope to the expert, who withdrew the papers it contained +and spread them upon the table. + +He began to study them with grave attention. The two men sat in the +comfortable chairs he had indicated to them. + +"My lord," said the expert, looking up suddenly, "I guess you won't +realise the necessity of it, but I should very much like to be left +alone for say twenty minutes. I can think better when I am alone, and I +gather you want an immediate opinion?" + +"We do," Lord Ellerdine replied. "All right; we will go, and come back +in half an hour or so." + +The two gentlemen re-entered the waiting-room. + +"Well, my dear," said Lord Ellerdine briskly to the young lady, "we are +put out here while Mr. Devereux examines some papers I have brought in; +and he tells us that we are to talk to you--what?" + +The young lady put down her volume. "Frightfully cold," she said, "isn't +it?" And for the next half-hour Lord Ellerdine and Colonel Adams and +this very superior young lady conversed with a studied propriety which +certainly did not obtain in the drawing-rooms where the two gentlemen +were accustomed to visit. + +At the end of that time the door opened and the keen-faced American came +out. + +He was rubbing his hands briskly as though pleased with himself. "Guess +I have got something for you, at anyrate," he said, "if you will come in +here." + +They re-entered the inner room, and Devereux began. "I can tell you one +thing," he said, "and one thing only." + +Lord Ellerdine was trembling with excitement. "What is it?" he said +breathlessly. "Will it help?" + +"It may," the expert replied; "but at anyrate it is this. Those two +letters were written by some one who can write with the left hand as +well as with the right. There is not the slightest doubt about it, and I +don't care what any of your darned English experts may say." + +Lord Ellerdine's face fell. "With the left hand?" he asked vaguely. + +The expert nodded. "I will explain to you," he said, pulling a large +book of manuscripts towards him; and illustrating his theory with swift, +decisive movements upon a blank sheet of paper, he showed the two men +exactly the reasons for his diagnosis. + +"Now, my lord," he said, when he had finished and made certain that both +of them thoroughly understood--"now, my lord, all you have to do is to +find the person who writes with his or her left hand and could have +possibly been sufficiently acquainted with the facts to produce those +two letters. When that is done you will have the person." + +Lord Ellerdine was considerably disappointed. He had imagined that by +some occult means the expert would have been immediately able to name +the writer of the letters. He strove to conceal what he felt, however; +and after paying Mr. Devereux's fee the two men left the building. + +"It isn't much," Lord Ellerdine said, as they got into a cab and drove +rapidly towards the West End. "It isn't much, but it is something. I +will drop you at your club--Cocoa Tree, isn't it?--and then drive +straight to Collingwood's solicitors to find out where he is. It is not +much, but it is something," he repeated rather vaguely to himself; and +then both men became occupied with their own thoughts and were silent. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +The drawing-room of Mrs. Admaston's house in St. James's was thought by +many people to be one of the most delightful rooms in town. + +The Morris and aesthetic conventions were entirely ignored in it. There +were no soft greys or greens, no patterns of pomegranates, no brown and +pleasing sombreness. The room expressed Peggy herself, and was designed +entirely by her. + +It was large, panelled entirely in white with sparse gilding, and the +ceiling was white also, though slightly different in tone. The very few +pictures which hung upon the walls were all of the gay Watteau school, +and there were some fans painted on silk and framed by Charles Conder. + +The furniture was not obtrusive. It was in the light style of the Second +Empire, fragile and delicate in appearance, but strong and comfortable +enough in experience. + +The room was essentially a summer room, and yet one could see that even +in winter time it would strike a note of warmth, hospitality, and +comfort. + +For, with great wisdom, Peggy had made concessions. While the +drawing-room still preserved its gay French air, there was, +nevertheless, a huge open hearth on which, in winter, logs and coal +glowed redly. Now, it was filled with great bunches of the simple pink +foxglove. + +Standing out from the fireplace, at right angles to the wall, was a +large sofa of blue linen; and there was also a big writing-table with a +pleasant furniture of chased silver upon it. + +This room in the luxurious house was called the "drawing-room," but it +was not really that. It was, in fact, Mrs. Admaston's own particular +room--she hated the word boudoir. The big reception-rooms had no such +intimate and pleasant aspect--splendid as they were--as this. + +The flowers bloomed on the hearth, the long dull-green curtains had not +yet veiled the warm outside evening, when a footman entered and flung +open the two big doors which led into this delightful place. + +The man stood waiting with one arm stretched out upon one leaf of the +door. + +Mrs. Admaston and Lady Attwill entered, and Pauline followed them. + +"Bring some tea at once," Pauline said in a low voice to the footman. + +Then she turned to Peggy. "Madame," she said in a voice full of pain, +"do compose yourself. You will be very ill if you go on like this." + +Peggy's face was dangerously flushed. Her eyes glittered, her hands +clasped and unclasped themselves. + +"That letter!" she cried. "That fiendish letter! Who could have sent it? +What _devil_ planned that trap?" + +Lady Attwill shrugged her shoulders. "Anonymous--take no notice," she +said. + +Peggy turned on her like a whirlwind. "Don't be absurd, Alice!" she +cried. "It was sent before we left London. Who knew we should go to +Paris? Who knew that we should stay at the Tuileries?" + +Pauline was hovering round her mistress with a face that was all +anxiety, with hands that trembled to touch and soothe. "Remember, +madame," she said, "it was sent to your aunt. Very funny that! She has +never liked you, that grim old lady!" + +"Why did she dislike me?" Peggy said petulantly. + +"Madame, you were gay, happy--like sunbeams. Your old aunt lived in the +shadows. She is a dour old maid." + +"I don't see what she has to do with it," Peggy answered. "The letter +was written by some one who knew that we were going to stay in Paris, +and even where we were going to stay." + +Lady Attwill went up to the fireplace and sank down upon the sofa of +blue linen. + +In her smart afternoon costume of grey silk, and a large straw hat upon +which the flowers were amethyst and purple, she made a perfect +colour-harmony as she sat. + +"Why was it sent to her?" Lady Attwill asked. + +Peggy sighed. "I don't know, except that she was the one to poison +George's mind. Without her he would probably have ignored it. But who +was it who _knew_ that we should be in Paris that night? No one imagines +that I knew or--Pauline. Then there's Dicky--that's absurd." + +Peggy's face seemed to have grown older. The terrible ordeal that she +had undergone had left vivid traces upon it. It was not a frightened +face--it was the face of one who had been agonised, but it was also a +face of great perplexity. + +Pauline interposed. "Madame," she said, "if you did not know that you +would be staying at Paris that night, the writer of that letter must be +some one who did know, and who planned this trick to compromise you. +There are only two who could have known. Madame--I do not like...." + +In the maid's voice the old, harsh Breton determination had flashed out. +She turned towards Lady Attwill, and her whole voice and bearing were a +challenge. + +Her head was pushed a little forward, moving from side to side like a +snake about to strike; unconsciously her arms were set akimbo. + +Lady Attwill looked languidly at the angry woman. "You need have no +delicacy, Pauline," she said. "Ca fait rien, expliquez-vous. Tiens! What +you want to say is that the letter was written by Mr. Collingwood or by +myself--or by somebody or other procured by us to do it. C'est votre +idee, n'est-ce pas?" + +The woman, in her way--in her languid way--was defiant as the old Breton +bonne herself. + +Peggy rose and began to walk up and down the room. She had been sitting +almost opposite Lady Attwill, but now there seemed to be hesitation and +perplexity, not only in her voice, but in her whole attitude. + +"But you could not have done it, Alice," she said. "The luggage, don't +you know--it was Colling who saw that it was not registered." + +"That is only what the porter says," Alice Attwill answered grimly. + +"Oh, my dear," Peggy replied, "it is only too obviously true. Pauline +saw through it the same night. Didn't you think it was very funny?" + +Lady Attwill fell immediately into the suggestion. + +"Well, dear," she said, "Dicky and I were a little bit suspicious, +since you put it to me; but I hardly liked to suggest----" + +Peggy turned from both of them and went up to the piano, standing by it +and drumming upon it with her gloved fingers. "Colling!" she muttered. +"It's impossible! And yet just now when I left the court I could not +think how else it could have been done." + +She wheeled round. "Alice," she said, "do you think it _could_ have been +Colling? Do you? What reason could he have had?" + +Alice Attwill's hands were clasped upon her knee. She was bending +forward, nodding her head slightly from time to time, and had an almost +judicial pose. + +She appeared to be thinking. "My dear Peggy," she said at length, "I can +see plenty of reasons. After all, we know that Colling won't be sorry if +Admaston gets his divorce." + +"I beg miladi's pardon," Pauline broke in, "but I do not think that is +so." + +"C'est bien possible," Lady Attwill replied to the maid. And then, +looking at Peggy, "I am sure I can't imagine Mr. Collingwood doing such +a thing. I am the last person to make mischief." + +She rose as she spoke and walked towards the door. "Come along, Peggy," +she said; "you must get your things off--you've had such a horrible +day." + +Peggy looked at her wildly. She hardly seemed to hear what she was +saying. + +"No--no--let me think--I must think!" she cried, and there was a rising +note of hysteria in her voice. + +"Well," Lady Attwill said calmly, "I must get out of my things, at +anyrate." Then she spoke with something which sounded like affection in +her voice. + +"Peggy," she said, "you really must lie down and rest--I shall be down +in a few minutes." + +With a bright smile she took her parasol and left the room. + +Then Peggy let herself go. + +"Oh! How cruel it is!" she cried, raging up and down the drawing-room. +"They have taken all the joy out of my life! I feel as if they had burnt +the damning letter in scarlet upon my breast--branded by law, +divorce-court law! Oh, the ignominy, the shame of it all--the shame! It +is barbarous! To hold a woman up and torture her before a pruriently +minded crowd whether she is guilty or not! Am I guilty because I can't +prove that I am innocent?" + +The old maid ran up to Peggy and caught her firmly by the arms, pressing +her down into a chair. + +"Rest! rest!" she said, with the tears rolling down her cheeks. "Mignon, +you will break my heart if you go on like this. You are innocent; I +stake my soul on that. Wait--wait till to-morrow when I am witness. I +will tell them!" + +Peggy's arms went round the old maid's neck and she drew the gnarled +face to hers. "Pauline," she said, "dear Pauline! They will torture you +as they did me. It is useless. Sir Robert Fyffe will make you say just +what he wants. It is not justice that triumphs in the end--it is +intellect that damns. Pauline, do you think that Mr. Collingwood knew +that we should be in Paris that night, and that he wrote the letter?" + +Pauline kissed her. "I think, madame," she said, "that M. Collingwood +knew that we should be in Paris. But I am certain he did not write that +letter. M. Collingwood might have done a very foolish thing, thinking +that you loved him--but he is a gentleman." + +"But if he did not write it--then you think that Lady Attwill?..." + +"Comme vous voulez? If it is not M. Collingwood, madame, it must be Lady +Attwill." + +"But why should she have done such a fiendish thing?" + +"She has never forgiven you for marrying Mr. Admaston. Did I not tell +you, madame? Did I not say that to you in Paris?" + +Peggy nodded. "Yes, Pauline," she replied; "but I can't believe you. +She has seen my misery. No, Pauline, it is impossible!" + +"Madame, it is not impossible. She can only conquer by your misery." + +Peggy jumped up from the sofa, her whole body shaking, her face aflame +with righteous anger. "Pauline!" she said in a shrill voice, "I _must_ +find out who wrote that letter." + +"Yes, madame," the old maid replied, with a despairing gesture of her +hands; "but how will you do it?" + +"I shall employ the same weapons to find out that as they have brought +against me. The law, the officers, the craft and cunning of the whole +machine. I am very rich, Pauline, quite apart from my husband--as you +know very well; but, if it cost me every penny I had, I would spend it +all, if necessary, to find out who wrote that letter." + +The door opened and two footmen came in with the tea equipage. Peggy +looked up at them, annoyed at the interruption; then her eye fell upon +the windows at the end of the room which led upon a long, secluded +terrace outside the drawing-room. It was called the "terrace lounge." + +"Not here," she said impatiently; "on the terrace." + +The men took the table through the windows, pulling aside the curtains +which half veiled the view beyond. + +"I'll rest and think, Pauline," Peggy said. "I can always think in that +old Sheraton chair on the terrace." + +"But if M. Collingwood calls?" Pauline asked. + +"Why should he call?" Peggy said. "I see no reason." + +"He telephoned asking if you would see him," the maid replied. + +"Ah!" Peggy said, with a sudden note of resolve. + +It frightened the faithful Breton maid. "Don't see him, madame!" she +cried. "Rest!" + +"No rest for us yet, Pauline.... I will see him. I _must_ see him. Let +him be shown in here. Tell me as soon as he comes." + +She turned and went through one of the windows just as the two +men-servants came out of the other, having arranged the things for tea. + +"When M. Collingwood comes," Pauline said, "show him in here." + +The first footman bowed. Pauline's word was law in this house; and, +though it was bitterly resented below-stairs that she, a servant +herself, should have such authority, no one ventured to dispute it. + +At the far end of the drawing-room--not the end where the curtained +windows led out on to the terrace lounge--there was a tall screen of +carved teakwood from Benares. Behind it upon a little table stood a +telephone. The Admastons--husband and wife--had always made a great +point of using the telephone. Peggy herself, with her impulsive moods, +found it most convenient, and insisted upon having one in any room that +she habitually used. + +Pauline, her face wrinkled in thought, strolled mechanically to this +corner of the room and gazed down upon the glittering little machine of +ebony and silver with a frown of dislike. She was thinking of +Collingwood and his message, and a dull resentment glowed in her brain +at these mechanical facilities of life. + +There were no telephones in Pont-Aven when she was a girl in the ancient +Breton town, and these things seemed to her part and parcel of the hot, +feverish, and hurried life in which her beloved mistress was suffering +so greatly. + +The old bonne's face, kindly and sweet enough when it wore its ordinary +expression, was now mocking and malevolent as she stared at the table. +Suddenly she stiffened, raised her head, and listened intently. + +She had heard the door of the drawing-room open and close quietly, and +there came a rustle of silk skirts. + +Lady Attwill had glided quietly into the room and stepped up to the big +writing-table at which Peggy conducted most of her correspondence. + +The maid stepped out from behind the screen, her eyes shining curiously. +"Can I do anything for madame?" she asked. "Miladi a oublie quelque +chose, n'est-ce pas?" + +The tall, slim woman seemed strangely confused. Her face was a little +flushed, her glance at Pauline distinctly uneasy. + +She made an exclamation in French, paused to think, and then answered +Pauline in English. + +"I thought I left my bag down here," she said lamely. + +Without troubling to disguise the suspicion and hostility in her voice, +and with a slightly sneering note of triumph in it, as if she was +pleased at Alice Attwill's confusion, Pauline made a little mocking bow. + +"Madame had her bag in her hand when she went upstairs. But I will ring +and ask." She went towards the nearest bell-push. + +"No! no!" Lady Attwill answered; "please don't trouble. I must be +mistaken." + +Without a backward glance she almost hurried from the room. + +Pauline's face was now extraordinarily watchful and alert. All the +peasant cunning flashed out upon it. Any one who has seen the wives and +daughters of the small Breton farmers selling a cow or a pony on +market-day in some old-world town has seen this cautious, watchful look. +One can see it even on the face and in the eyes of a pointer when birds +are near: it is of the soil, primeval, part of the eternal hidden +warfare of life. + +"Yes, perhaps madame _is_ mistaken," the woman said to herself with an +ugly grin. + +She walked up to the writing-table and looked down upon it thoughtfully. + +Suddenly something seemed to strike her and she stretched out her hand +to open the great blotter of Nile-green leather, bordered with silver, +when the telephone bell rang sharply out into the drawing-room. + +She hurried to the telephone. "Who is it?" she said. "What? Yes, this is +Admaston House--yes. She is in. Who is it? Yes, sir." + +Still holding the receiver in her hand, the woman staggered back from +the mouthpiece. She began to tremble violently. Her face became crimson +with excitement. + +"Oh, sir! she is...." + +And now Pauline burst out crying. The tears ran down her cheeks, her old +mouth trembled, she seemed upon the point of a breakdown. + +"Oh, sir!" she cried again, "she has gone out upon the terrace, and is +resting. Monsieur, I can hardly speak to you! Your wife is nearly mad, +monsieur! Monsieur, she is innocent--on my soul!" + +Her face became intensely eager. "Yes," she sobbed, "come. Yes, by the +gate leading from the Park. You have the key. No. Yes, come; I will +promise." + +With hands that shook terribly, Pauline replaced the receiver on the +bracket and came round from behind the Indian screen, walking towards +the door. She had not got within three paces of it when it was flung +open and the footman announced "Mr. Collingwood." + +Roderick Collingwood entered, spruce, _debonnaire_ as ever, but showing +in his face traces of the ordeal he was passing through. + +"Hullo, Pauline; where is madame?" he said. + +"Madame is resting," the maid said, with distinct hostility. + +"Out upon the terrace?" he answered, moving towards the windows. + +Pauline made a swift movement and placed herself between him and the +curtains. + +"No; I think she is in her room, monsieur. Please wait here." + +Collingwood looked at Pauline in some surprise. He seemed hurt. "What is +the matter, Pauline?" he said. + +"Nothing is the matter, sir. Would you like to see the news?" + +She handed him the evening paper from the writing-table. "I will tell +madame," she said, and hurried from the room--well knowing that there +was another door from the hall by which the terrace could be reached. + +Collingwood picked up the paper, opened it, and eagerly scanned the +report of the day's proceedings. Then he flung it down with an oath just +as a footman entered the room. "Lord Ellerdine wishes to speak to you, +sir," said the footman. + +"Is he here?" Collingwood replied. + +"Yes, sir." + +"Show him up at once." + +In a moment or two more Lord Ellerdine, looking flurried and hot, +entered the drawing-room. + +His hat was in his hand, and he was wearing a light grey overcoat. + +"My dear Dicky," Collingwood said, "what on earth brings you here?" + +Collingwood had risen and strolled over to the big settee of blue linen. +He sat down upon it calmly. + +"I wanted to ask you something," Lord Ellerdine said in a rather +unsteady voice; "so I went round to your solicitors' office, and they +told me that I should find you here." + +"Well, what is it?" Collingwood asked imperturbably. + +"I say, Colling--do you write with your left hand?" + +The other made a movement of impatience. "My dear Dicky," he said +irritably, "what the devil?..." + +"But do you?" Ellerdine insisted. + +"Of course I don't," Collingwood answered shortly. + +"I thought as much," said Lord Ellerdine, with a sigh of relief. + +"You did, did you?" Collingwood replied, with a slight smile. "What is +the game, Dicky?" + +"It's not a game, Colling; it's dead serious," said the ex-diplomatist. + +"Why, Dicky, what's up?" + +"You remember some time ago when some silly ass forged my name on a +cheque?" Lord Ellerdine asked, still flurried and ill at ease. + +"Well?" + +"Well, I got to know a handwriting expert--an American--a devilish smart +fellow. When we left the court just now, and Peggy was thinking pretty +rotten things about you, I thought I would go and have a word with him." + +Collingwood's languid manner entirely disappeared. He bent forward with +a keen, searching look at his friend. "You found him?" he asked. + +Ellerdine nodded. + +"Well, what does he say?" + +"I showed him the photos of the letters," Lord Ellerdine continued, "and +then the originals, and he says that they are written by some one who +writes easily and fluently with his left hand." + +"Left hand! Great Scott! Is he sure?" + +"As sure as an American expert can be of anything," the peer returned. + +"That's sure enough," Collingwood replied, shrugging his shoulders and +rising up from the sofa. + +He began to walk up and down the room. "That clears me, at anyrate," he +said. "But what the devil can it all mean, Ellerdine?" + +Lord Ellerdine had been looking at his friend, pathetically waiting for +a word of praise. Now he ventured upon a little fishing remark: + +"Mighty good thing I thought of that American chap--don't you think so, +Colling?" + +Collingwood hardly seemed to hear him. His head was bent forward and he +was deep in thought. + +"Yes, Dicky, yes. Left hand, eh?" + +"Yes," Lord Ellerdine answered, with a plaintive note in his voice. "I +think, Colling, I've handled this business with some skill--what?" + +"Left hand," the other repeated, in a brown study. + +"With some skill, Colling--what? Skill--what?" Lord Ellerdine bleated. + +Collingwood looked up at this note in the other's voice. He suddenly +realised that the poor gentleman was pining for praise, and began to +administer it in the heartiest possible fashion. + +He smacked him on the shoulder and his voice became absolutely jovial. +"Skill!" he said. "My dear Dicky, it's splendid! Really, you missed your +vocation. Diplomacy! Never! You're a detective, Dicky! A sleuth-hound! A +regular Sherlock Holmes, don't you know!" + +Lord Ellerdine was the happiest man in the three kingdoms at that +moment. His little mouth twitched with pleasure. His face beamed like +the rising sun. "I say, Colling, do you think so--do you really think +so, Colling?" + +"Think so!" Collingwood answered, laughing. "I'm sure of it, old chap"; +and then, with a sudden, swift transition of manner, "Dicky, look +here--have you told Admaston?" + +"Not yet," Lord Ellerdine replied. "George Admaston is hard hit, +devilish hard hit. He doesn't believe Peggy's guilty--he'd chuck the +case if it wasn't for Fyffe." + +"Chuck the case!" Collingwood said eagerly. + +"I honestly believe he would," Lord Ellerdine answered. "It's the letter +which sticks with Fyffe, and I don't understand it--we come against the +beastly thing all the time." + +Collingwood nodded. "Yes," he said; "that letter's hell." + +He suddenly raised his head. "Look here, Dicky," he said, "I think I +hear Peggy coming; so off you go, please. Get your American expert to +dine with us to-night at your place, at eight o'clock. Run along." + +Ellerdine went to the door. "All right, old chap," he said; "that is +what I'll do. Eight o'clock. I'm so glad it wasn't you, old chap--such a +dirty business!" + +He went out of the room, not noticing that he had left his hat and +gloves upon the writing-table. + +A moment afterwards Peggy entered, pulling aside the curtains of the +terrace window. She started violently when she saw Collingwood. "You +here!" she said, and there was an ugly note of apprehension and even of +anger in her voice. "You----" + +Collingwood went up to her. "Peggy!" he said. + +"Wasn't that Dicky I heard?" + +"Yes." + +Collingwood had hardly said it, and the two were looking at each other +strangely enough, when the door leading into the hall opened and Lord +Ellerdine came back. "Forgot my hat, old chap," he said, going up to +the table. Then he saw Peggy. + +"Peggy!" he cried, going up to her and taking one of her hands in both +of his. "Buck up, little woman! It'll be all right--we'll pull you +through!" + +Then he began to hesitate and stammer, while his cheeks flushed and he +showed every possible sign of embarrassment. + +"Yes," he continued, "we'll pull you through. Won't we, Colling?" + +He hesitated, at a loss for words; and then his eye fell upon the table. +"Ah!" he said. "My hat--yes--good-bye. Buck up, little woman! And, +Colling, don't forget eight o'clock to-night." + +Red and shy as a schoolgirl, Lord Ellerdine somehow got himself out of +the room. + +"Poor, dear old Dicky!" Peggy said with a sigh, more to herself than to +her companion; and then, turning, "Colling, why have you come?" + +Collingwood held out both his hands. "Peggy--dear little Peggy!" he +said. "My heart bleeds for you!" + +Peggy stepped back. "Don't let's talk about that," she said swiftly. + +"But, Peggy----" + +"It is rather late," the girl returned in the same cold voice; "the time +for sympathy is long past. Why did you ask to see me?" + +There was a deep note of passion in Collingwood's voice as he answered. +"I could not let you think what I could see you were thinking," he said. + +Peggy did not appear moved in any way. "You promised," she said, +"neither to come nor to ask to see me." + +"I could not stay away any longer," he answered; and if ever a man had +tears in his voice, Collingwood had then. + +"Have you come to tell me that the man Stevens is telling a lie, and +that our trip to Paris was only accident?" + +"No," the man replied. "Peggy dear, can you ever----" + +"Colling! Colling! why did you do it?" she wailed. + +His body went back suddenly as if he had received an actual blow in the +chest. + +"Oh, Peggy--for God's sake!..." + +"You have thought neither of God nor me," she answered bitterly. + +"Of you," he cried--"always of you, Peggy!" + +She shook her head. "No," she said. "Thought of me would have made you +think of all I have had to suffer. Did you think of _me_ when you +planned to go to Paris? When did you ever think of me--my being--my +life--my soul? What excuse can you offer?" + +His arms fell to his side, his face was pale and passionate. "Only my +love," he answered--"my fierce, burning love. The mad desire to have you +for my own. I have thought of nothing else since I met you." + +She bent forward and threw out her arm. The little ivory-white hand was +palm upwards, and it shook in dreadful accusation. + +"Thought of me?" she cried. "Was it thought of me that drove me under +the lash of that man's scourge to-day? Was it thought of me that placed +me like a criminal in that court to-day? How could you have thought of +me and not foreseen the shame, the misery, and the torture to which I +have been subjected? Where was your love for me when you were conscious +of the mass of evidence these creatures were piling up against me? Did +your love of me foresee newsboys rushing about the streets with placards +blazing out like letters of fire, 'MRS. ADMASTON ON THE RACK'? Rack, +Colling!" + +He shook his head with a terrible gesture of sadness. + +"No. I did not foresee it," he said, "because you made me believe that +you were in earnest--that you loved me. If you had loved me you wouldn't +have cared." + +"I liked you, Colling, I liked you," she said; and now all the fire had +gone from her voice. + +"Liked me! Was it mere liking that made you take all those risks? You +knew my intention. I told you again and again I wanted him to divorce +you." + +"I never realised----" the girl said hopelessly. + +His voice as he answered her was very soft and tender. + +"No, dear; you played with me. I am not blaming you, but don't be too +harsh in judging me. I know the torture you are suffering now, Peggy, +and I would give my right hand to save you from it. But don't you ever +think of the torture you have given me? All the pain, the longing of +months and months--is it all to be forgotten? Oh, I know it is no excuse +to the others; but you, dear, will know in your heart that I did it +because I loved you, thinking to make you happy." + +"I think I understand, Colling," Peggy said; "but the letter----" + +Collingwood appeared dazed. "The letter!" he murmured. + +"Oh, Colling," she answered, "I'll forgive you anything you have done +because you loved me; but the letter--you will own up, Colling?" + +"Own up?" + +"Yes, dear," Peggy said; "my life depends on it. You are a man. You can +begin again. Don't see me go under. There is no hope for a woman. Don't +stand there and watch me struggle while there is a chance to save me. +I'll forgive everything--yes, everything--but the letter." + +Collingwood seemed genuinely surprised. His face, which at first +appeared perplexed, now showed nothing but astonishment as he realised +what she meant. "Peggy--little Peggy," he said, "surely you don't judge +me as harshly as that, do you? No, dear; I have done much that I am +sorry for--that I shall never be able to forgive myself for as long as I +live, but not that. The letter is the work of some one else. I never +wrote it." + +"Oh, Colling," she replied, "I am so glad--so very glad! But the +letter--the letter is everything after all. It means everything to me. +Then, if you didn't write it--there is only one other person who could +possibly have done so." + +"Exactly," Collingwood answered. "Lady Attwill and I were the only two +people who knew anything about the Paris trip, who could know anything +about it. But the question is, how on earth are we going to prove that +she wrote that letter? I do not see any possible way in which it can be +done, and I am sure you don't." + +"If we prove it," Peggy answered, "do you think it will satisfy George, +Colling?" + +"Satisfy?" Collingwood replied, seating himself on the edge of the +writing-table. "I should think so--he is satisfied already. But still, +you know, Peggy, the letter sticks. Why, even Lady Attwill knew that +there was nothing between us. It was only the appearance of guilt which +she schemed for, and that letter gives it." + +"And if we can't prove it, and the worst happens, she hopes to marry +George," Peggy said despairingly. + +The bitterness of the thought was terrible. It seemed as she sat there +that such treachery and black-heartedness were almost incredible. Could +the woman who had been her constant friend, who had stayed with her for +months at a time, on whom she had lavished innumerable favours, be so +base and despicable of soul as this? + +Collingwood saw what was passing in her mind, and nodded. + +"That is her game without a doubt, Peggy," he said earnestly. + +"Then why has she stood by me all these months? Why? Why? That is what I +want to know," Peggy said. + +Collingwood smiled bitterly. "Why, don't you see?" he said. "Because her +devotion to you will touch George, who still loves you." + +Peggy's face changed in a moment. "Oh, Colling!" she said, and her voice +was inexpressibly pathetic--"oh, Colling, do you think George does love +me still?" + +"I know he does, and that you love him. My dear, if I could have won you +I should not have stayed away all these months; but I owed you that--and +I tried to play the game." + +"Colling," she answered, in a burst of warmth and kindliness, "I never +liked you so much as I do now, Colling. I think it is because I feel I +can lean upon you and trust you----" + +"Poor little Butterfly!" he answered; and there were tears in the eyes +of this hardened man of fashion, tears which sprang to his eyes in spite +of himself and showed the deep tenderness beneath. + +"But, Colling," Peggy went on anxiously, "have we any chance at all of +proving it against her? She has been awfully clever about it all, hasn't +she?" + +Collingwood shook his head rather hopelessly. "I doubt if we have any +chance at all," he said. "But there is just one thing--I have just +remembered it. I have a sort of clue, and that is one which Dicky has +just given me when he was here a few minutes ago." + +"Oh! Dicky!" Peggy said, with a wan little smile. + +"Well," Collingwood resumed, "of course no one would call Dicky +intellectual and that, but I really think there is something in what he +said this time. I'll tell you. He has consulted an American handwriting +expert about the letters, and he says that they are the work of some one +who can write with the left hand. I know that I can't write with my left +hand. But what about Alice?" + +"I don't know," Peggy answered slowly; "I have never heard of her doing +so." + +"Or using it more than the ordinary?" Collingwood continued. + +"Yes--stay," Peggy replied eagerly. "She is ever so good with it at +billiards." + +Collingwood laughed. + +"Oh, don't laugh, Colling!" she continued--"please don't laugh at +me--but I remember she did tell me--yes--that she broke her right arm +sleighing when she was a girl, and that she is almost ambidextrous. It +has only just come back to me. She told me many years ago." + +Collingwood jumped up from the table alert and excited. + +"That is something--by Jove! it is," he cried. "Tell me, where is she?" + +"She has only gone upstairs for a moment," Peggy said. "I am expecting +her down every moment." + +"By the way, Peggy," Collingwood asked, "where does she write her +letters and things when she is here with you?" + +"She always writes there," Peggy answered, pointing to the table, "where +you have been sitting." + +"Look here," Collingwood said decisively, "when she comes, leave her +alone with me. I'll do what I can. I'll tackle her. You had better not +be here at all." + +"But, Colling, can't I help?" Peggy asked. "I think I might be of use, +though of course it will be dreadfully unpleasant. But, for my own sake, +I must stick at nothing now." + +"No, Peggy," he replied firmly. "I feel I can manage this much better +myself. Look here--you go out upon the terrace again. I will just come +with you and settle you in your chair--how tired you look!--and then a +_mauvais quart d'heure_ for Alice, if she ever had one in her life." + +"But it may not be true after all," Peggy said, as they walked together +towards the long windows. + +He shook his head at that. "It must be true," he said; "no one else +could have done it; and what you have just told me, and what Dicky said, +make it conclusive to my mind." + +They passed behind the curtains together, and there was the sound of a +chair being moved over the tessellated floor. + + + + +THE LAST CHAPTER + + +Lady Attwill was upstairs in her bedroom. + +It was very large, and luxuriously furnished, with Chippendale chairs +and Adams ceiling, while the walls were covered with a paper of white +upon which, here and there, tiny apple blossoms of pink and grass-green +were indicated. + +Despite its size, the room felt close, and Alice Attwill had thrown open +all the windows to the summer afternoon. + +The cooler air, scented with flowers, poured into the place, but she +seemed to notice nothing of it. + +She walked up and down the room with her feline grace--for this was +natural to her, and no careful pose or cultivated mannerism. Her lovely +head was bent a little forward as she walked, and the hands which were +clasped behind her slim waist folded and unfolded themselves nervously. + +The face itself was very white, the eyes glistened, the lips twitched +nervously, and there was about her an atmosphere of terror. + +She made it herself, this beautiful woman walking up and down a +beautiful room; but fear there was in that quiet place, and it did not +come in there from the open windows, but radiated out from a guilty mind +and a wildly pulsating heart. Every now and again, as she walked up and +down, Alice Attwill moistened her lips with her tongue and glanced at +the travelling-clock covered with red leather which stood upon the +mantlepiece. + +At last she stopped with one thoughtful glance at the clock. + +"It'll be all right now," she said to herself. "I am sure they must be +beginning to suspect me. Fool that I was! Why, every novel and almost +every play has this question of the blotting-book in it. It is such a +simple device, and yet in real life how often it _does_ happen! Here am +I confronted with the worst crisis in my whole life, simply because I +forgot the blotting-book." + +Clenching her teeth she quietly left the room, descended the wide +Georgian stairs into the hall, and opened the door of the drawing-room. + +She peered cautiously into the room, now lit up by clusters of electric +lights. + +Satisfied that no one was there, she closed the door very quietly, and +with silent, cat-like steps walked up to the writing-table. + +Again, as her hand fell upon the blotting-book, she looked round in an +agony of apprehension. Then, opening it hurriedly, she searched among +the leaves with a puzzled brow. + +Some of the leaves were heavily blotted and no writing upon them was +wholly distinguishable, while others only bore a few well-defined +imprints. + +Her slender, trembling fingers turned over the leaves in an agony of +anxiety, but--either she was too agitated or too inexperienced--she was +unable to find what she sought. + +Suddenly a thought came to her. + +The mirror!--yes, that was the thing. By the aid of the mirror she would +be able to identify the sheet she wanted at once. She hurried up to the +fireplace. + +Above it was an oval mirror framed in wood which had been painted white, +and, shaking exceedingly, hardly knowing what she did, she held up the +heavy blotter with the paper facing the mirror, and slowly turned over +the thick white sheets. + +While she was doing this, with a perfectly livid face, she heard the +faint sound of an advancing footstep. + +It was at the very moment when she thought she had discovered what she +wanted, and with twitching fingers was about to tear it out from the +book. + +The sound of the step came from behind the curtains which hung over the +windows leading to the terrace. + +Lady Attwill almost bounded back to the writing-table and put down the +blotter upon it. + +She had hardly done so, and was actually closing the book, when the +curtains parted with a soft swish and Collingwood came into the room. + +He came in jauntily and easily enough, but there was something in his +face which made Alice Attwill give a little startled gasp of alarm and +despair. + +"Writing letters, Alice?" Collingwood said easily, though there was a +chill in his voice which sounded like the note of doom in the miserable +woman's ears. + +"I have finished writing," she said, stammering--"just finished." + +Collingwood came up to her without removing his eyes from hers. He came +slowly up, with a steady, persistent stare, magnetic, horrible. + +"Just got up from writing, eh? That's lucky!" he said. "I want to have a +talk with you, Alice--by the way, let me post your letters." + +"Please don't trouble," she faltered. + +"No trouble, I assure you," he answered, his voice becoming more cold, +dangerous, and menacing than ever. "I assure you it is no trouble, +Alice. There can't even be a great weight of letters for me to take to +the post--because, you see, Peggy and I were here until about two +minutes ago." + +There was a revolving chair of green leather in front of the +writing-table. Lady Attwill sank into it. She felt as if the whole +room, with all its contents, was spinning round her with horrible +rapidity. She sank into the chair, unable to stand longer; but, even as +she did so, one last despairing gleam of hope prompted her to make an +effort to show that she was still unconcerned and sitting down in a +natural way. + +"I hardly expected to see you here," she said in a rather high, staccato +voice, the words coming from her one by one as if each separate word was +produced with great difficulty. + +"Indeed?" Collingwood asked. "And why not?" + +The fact that she was sitting down, that she had the arms of the chair +to hold, that she was _somewhere_, seemed to give Alice Attwill more +courage. + +In a voice which was still tremulous, but in which an ugly note of +temper was beginning to displace the abject indications of fear, she +answered him. + +She pushed her head a little forward, and her eyes shone with malice. + +"I should have thought that the revelations of this afternoon would +have----" + +Collingwood recognised the change of attitude in a moment. + +"Closed these doors to those who planned the trip to Paris--yes?" + +"I was not thinking of the trip to Paris," she said. + +Collingwood shrugged his shoulders. "Because we were partners in that, +of course," he replied. + +"Partners!" she cried shrilly. "I knew nothing about it. It was you who +gave the orders to the porter and booked the rooms--I don't come in +anywhere!" + +Collingwood folded his arms and stood with his feet somewhat apart, +looking down upon her with a face which, in its contempt and strength, +once more drove her into an extremity of fear. + +When he spoke again his voice had lost its bitterness and contempt, but +it had become harsh and imperative. It was the voice of a bullying +counsel in the courts--the voice in which a low man speaks to a servant. + +"That is your game, is it?" he said. "You never knew of the trip to +Paris?" + +The woman was spurred up to answer. She met his voice with one precisely +in the same key; it was a voice a succession of unfortunate lady's-maids +knew very well. + +"Absolutely nothing," she said; "where as you--your guilt, my friend, is +clear, transparently clear." + +She nodded two or three times to emphasise her assertion, and by this +time her composure had returned to her and she was ready for anything. + +Collingwood, who had been watching her with the most intense scrutiny, +had followed with perfect clearness the changes in her voice and +attitude. He now knew where he was. The bluff was over, he was about to +play his hand. + +More particularly than anything else his mind, intensely alert and +active at this supreme moment, noticed that Alice Attwill had wheeled +round upon her chair and seemed in a most marked way to be interposing +herself between him and the writing-table. + +It was as though some precious possession lay there of which she feared +she would be robbed. + +Feeling certain now of the woman's guilt, he said: "Perhaps you are also +going to suggest that I wrote that dastardly letter?" + +Lady Attwill sneered. "One of us obviously must have written it," she +said, "and your motive--well, it is pretty clear, isn't it?" + +"And yours," he said--"and isn't yours clear also?" + +"Do you think so?" she asked, with a toss of her head. + +He bent forward, gazing at her with an almost deadly look of hate. + +"Look here," he said: "don't you hope to marry Admaston if Peggy loses +this case?" + +She was frightened--obviously very frightened; but she did her best to +throw it off. + +"My dear Colling," she said in a light and airy manner, "you are so +imbued with the remarkable excellence of Sir Robert Fyffe's methods +that you are imitating him. But you are doing it so badly, Colling--so +extremely badly!" + +His face did not change in the slightest. It remained as set and firm as +before, absolutely uninfluenced by what she was saying. + +"Isn't it true that you hope to marry George Admaston?" he repeated in +exactly the same tone. + +She lifted her pretty left hand in the air and snapped her fingers in a +gesture full of mingled insolence and provocation. + +"Why should I satisfy your curiosity?" she said. + +Again the man, intent upon one great purpose, absolutely not to be +deterred from it or to be influenced in any way by what she was saying, +repeated his query. + +"How can you explain that letter?" he said, in the insistent tone of a +judge. "Who else could have written it except you or me?" + +Her eyelids fluttered. She looked up at him quickly. "I don't attempt to +explain it," she said; "but I certainly agree with you that one of us +must have written it--any fool can see that; but which of us?" + +She paused for a moment, and then looked him straightly in the face, +defiant and at bay at last. + +"But which of us?" she repeated. "That's the point upon which we shall +differ, Colling." + +"I see," he said. "You mean that you will endeavour to father this +cowardly trick upon me?" + +Alice Attwill smiled bitterly. "The public will judge," she said. "Ever +since that night have I not been in constant attendance here, her +devoted and trusted friend?--while you--I thought you had been forbidden +the house." + +"That's a lie," Collingwood said sharply. + +"It is quite unnecessary to become abusive," she went on, her voice +gaining confidence for a moment and her manner becoming infinitely more +assured. "You are in a very tight corner, and the sooner you recognise +the fact the better it will be for you." + +"You think you can threaten me?" Collingwood asked quietly. + +"I know my cards," she replied, "and what I can do with them. You +needn't try to bluff me, Colling, for I know your cards too. Even if I +did write that letter--how can you ever prove it? You can assert it, but +who will believe you--you who stand convicted of decoying your friend's +wife to Paris to attempt her seduction?..." + +He winced at that. Even in his present mood of penitence and help, it +was a palpable hit. + +"With your assistance," he said, and that was all. + +She pressed her momentary triumph. "So you will assert," she said.... +"But I shall deny it--and there is nothing but your word. It will be +suggested to you--by Peggy's counsel, if not by Admaston's--that you +wrote the letter which has caused all the bother. You will try to put it +on to me----" + +He interrupted her quickly. "You will never dare to deny it," he said in +a voice of conviction. + +"My dear, simple friend," she answered, "why not? I loved George +Admaston, as you have said. Do you think I shall sacrifice myself and +save you? You can make your mind easy on that score. No, my dear +Colling, there is only one way out. To-morrow your counsel will have to +say that in the face of the evidence to-day he can contest the case no +further. Then you will not go into the witness-box." + +"Not go into the witness-box?" he asked. + +"Admaston will get his divorce," she went on in a final voice, but one +in which a note of conciliation had crept. "You will marry Peggy--I +shall marry Admaston--and no one will know about the letters. But if you +dare to fight, you will leave the court dishonoured. Peggy will never +look at you. You take my advice, Colling, and marry the girl you love, +and don't try to interfere with my plans, just when victory is assured." + +The note of conciliation in her voice stung every fibre of decency, +every sense of honour in him. He raised his eyebrows in extreme contempt +and surprise. "You must have a pretty poor opinion of me," he said. + +"The highest, my dear Colling," she replied; "but the situation is just +a little too big for you." + +"We shall see," he answered. "You have been very frank with me. I gather +that you don't deny your authorship of that infamous letter." + +Her face, and indeed her whole manner, had by now become almost +indifferent. "I am not called upon to deny anything that cannot be +proved," she said. "You have heard this afternoon that the experts have +entirely failed to identify the writing. How did you manage to deceive +them, Colling? Still, I suppose it is not very difficult to trick a +handwriting expert." + +"Don't be too disrespectful to experts yet, my lady. I have a notion +that a report I have just received from an American expert may give you +food for thought. After all, if you hadn't been afraid of these experts +you wouldn't have written that second letter three days ago." + +She glared at him. "Well, what does your Yankee say?" she asked. + +"He has proved conclusively that I could not have written the letter." + +At that she jumped up from her seat, still keeping herself between the +writing-table and him. "What do you mean?" she said. + +Collingwood dealt his trump card. "I mean," he said, "that since you +have finished writing your own letters, you will have no objection to my +writing there for a moment." + +His voice was so pregnant with meaning, so fraught with decision, that +Alice Attwill slunk away from the table, trembling, as Collingwood +seated himself in the writing-chair. + +"Writing what?" she asked almost in a whisper. + +"A confession----" he said. + +"A confession?" + +"--Which you will sign. I intend before I leave this room to have from +you a signed confession that you wrote that letter." + +"You are proposing to make a long stay," she said, slowly and +venomously. + +Collingwood did not answer her at all. He took a sheet of paper and +wrote a few sentences upon it in a firm, bold handwriting. + +When he had finished he held it up to her. "Will you read it through?" +he said. + +With the utmost carelessness she bent forward over the writing-table. +Her manner was that of one who was reading some casual note. + +"I have done so," she said at length. + +Collingwood fell into her mood. "Now," he said, "if I had your signature +to that, _par exemple_, there would be an end of Admaston _versus_ +Admaston and Collingwood, wouldn't there?" + +Alice Attwill smiled. "That is obvious enough," she said. + +Collingwood took the paper and opened the blotting-book, while Lady +Attwill walked towards the fireplace. + +She walked away with the same assumed air of indifference, but, when she +heard the heavy leather-and-silver cover fall upon the table, she looked +round and watched the man intently. + +She saw him blot the confession upon a blank sheet at the beginning of +the book, and then with the utmost care and deliberation turn over each +separate leaf, scrutinising it like a man who looks at something through +a microscope. + +Suddenly one page seemed to strike his attention. He smoothed it out, +pulled the blotter closer towards him, and took from his pocket +photographs of the famous letters in the case. + +He put one of the photographs upon a leaf of the blotter and compared +them carefully. Then he took a small glass from his pocket and examined +the photograph and the page of the blotter with that. + +When he had, apparently, satisfied himself, he looked round with a +white, stern face to where the defiant but trembling woman was standing +by the fireplace. + +There was a silence for a moment. It was broken by Lady Attwill saying, +"Can I do anything for you?" + +"Yes," Collingwood replied; "you can bring me that looking-glass from +that small table there." + +She looked at him without saying a word. + +"You don't seem very eager," he said. "But there is an excellent mirror +over the fireplace." + +At that, as if hypnotised, she went up to the little table by the piano +and took up a small Italian mirror framed in ivory and silver. + +She gave it to him. "Well," she asked, "have you solved the mystery?" + +"Wait!" he replied. He took the mirror in one hand, propping up the +blotter with its back towards him, and looking intently into the glass. + +After a moment or two he looked up. "You should be more careful where +you blot your letters," he said simply. "You will notice that the +impression upon the blotting-paper is not complete--though they +obviously tally." + +Speechless with terror, she made a sudden snatch at the sheet in the +blotter which she had already begun to tear out when his entrance +disturbed her. + +He caught her by the wrist. "No," he said, very quietly and sternly. "I +thought you would do that. I saw you trying to do it when I came in just +now. Now, look here--look at the photograph and at the representation +of your writing in the mirror. Have you any doubt that the impression +upon the blotting-paper is the impression made by the blotting of that +letter?" + +"And if it is," she said, in one last faint effort, "what does that +prove? Why should not you have written it and blotted it?" + +"Because, my dear Alice," he replied, "I have not been in this house +until this afternoon for six months. Listen! To-day the judge dropped a +remark about the importance of finding the paper on which this letter +was blotted. You alone knew where it was. Very well, in the sequence of +events, Pauline found you here--the first moment the room was +empty--with a cock-and-bull story about your bag. A few minutes later I, +having heard this from Pauline, find you in the act of destroying this +damning evidence--see, it's half torn out already. Come, the game's up." + +Aristocrat as she was, something low, vulgar, and malignantly mocking +came out upon Lady Attwill's face as Collingwood said this. + +"Is it?" she said. "Do you think I am afraid of you and your game of +bluff? You have forgotten the important link in your chain. How do you +explain the discrepancy in the writing? That writing is not mine." + +"Isn't it?" he asked quietly. + +"No!" she almost shouted. "A pretty conspiracy!--to damn me and save +Peggy Admaston. Why shouldn't Pauline have written it?" + +Up to this he had listened to her with some patience. Now his face +blazed at her for a moment. He sat down in the writing-chair, pulling it +up to the table as he did so. "I'll show you," he said. "Sit down +there." + +She looked at him defiantly. + +"Sit down there," he said again, and she did so. "Now take the pen and +write what I dictate," he went on. + +He began to dictate, "'Please destroy the other letter....'" + +He leant over the table, tapping gently upon it with his knuckles. + +"No! the other hand, please," he said. + +The woman almost fell over the table. + +"With my left hand?" she gasped. "What on earth do you mean? I can't +write with my left hand." + +"My expert thinks you can," he said sternly. "Come--write; or would you +prefer to write to-morrow in court?" + +She jumped up, and hysteria mastered her. + +"I won't write!" she cried, in a voice which was hardly human. "Neither +here nor in court! You can't make me ... the judge can't make me!" + +Collingwood punctuated her shrill remarks with gentle taps of his firm +hand upon the table. "You shall write to-morrow with all London looking +on; they'll know I could not have done it--this book shows that. They'll +hear how you tried to tear out the page." + +"They won't believe you!" she gasped. + +"They'll believe the evidence of Pauline," he went on calmly. "They'll +hear from Peggy how you broke your arm and learnt to use your left hand. +Every newspaper in England will be full of it. _This_ is not the first +time you've written with your left hand; there'll be other specimens +somewhere--some other witness will be forthcoming. You have been very +clever, but the cleverest of people like you bungle in the end. You've +got to do it, Alice!" + +Once more she sank down in the chair. + +Her face was ghastly. "No!" was all that she could say. + +"Believe me," he went on more calmly and more kindly--"believe me, you +had better write now! Society may never know--Admaston may be generous. +Come! Write! And do it quickly." + +Absolutely broken and submissive, Lady Attwill took up the pen in her +left hand and began to write to Collingwood's dictation. + +"'Please destroy the other letter....'" he began. + +She wrote the first word, and then looked up at him with a face which +was a white wedge of hate. + +"Quickly, please," he said, tapping his foot upon the carpet. "Now, or +to-morrow with all London." + +The wretched woman bent down once more to her shameful task. + +"'... and this,'" he went on, "'and save an old servant who honours the +family....'" + +Again she looked up at him. + +"Quickly!" he said imperatively, rapping his knuckles upon the table. +"Quickly!--or----" + +Cowed and subdued, she wrote again. "'... from the anger of Mrs. +Admaston,'" came the cool, dictating voice. + +She finished, and as she did so her head fell upon her arms and she +burst into a fit of hysterical sobs--shaking, convulsed, in a terrible +downfall of remorse and shame. + +Suddenly--as Collingwood held the precious paper in his hand and looked +with a certain compassion at his old friend and companion of so many +years, whom he had tortured so dreadfully--a high, joyous voice burst +into the room. + +It was Peggy calling. + +The curtains which led to the terrace were pulled aside and she ran into +the drawing-room. + +Her face was radiant. + +"Colling! Colling!" she cried. "George is here!" She hurried up to +Collingwood, looking for a moment rather strangely at Alice Attwill. + +George Admaston, big, burly, and with all the weariness of the past +weeks sponged and smoothed from his face, followed her into the +drawing-room. + +"Hullo, Colling," he said rather shyly, but with real geniality in his +voice. + +Collingwood ignored the outstretched hand. "Wait first, please," he +said. "Lady Attwill has written you another copy of the letter she wrote +three days ago." He handed the confession to Admaston. + +There was a dead silence in the room as Admaston scrutinised the +confession. + +Then he went up to Lady Attwill, crouching over the table as she was, +and put his hand not unkindly on her shoulder. "Good God!" he said. +"Alice--why did you?" + +A lovely tear-stained face looked up into the room. + +A broken and unhappy voice sobbed out into the silence, "Let me go; let +me go, I say!" + +Admaston gently removed his hand. There was a swish of skirts, one deep +sob, and then the door closed behind Alice Attwill. + +Peggy went up to her husband and clung lovingly to his arm. + +She looked at Collingwood. "Colling," she said, "how on earth did you +find out?" + +Collingwood pointed to the blotter. "Look there," he said. + +Peggy and Admaston, still clinging together, went up to the +writing-table and stared as if fascinated at the fatal and decisive +page. + +"Poor Alice!" Collingwood said. "I suppose it is because I have been a +bit of a blackguard myself that I can't help feeling sorry for her. +Perhaps, Admaston, you will find it in your heart, when the great case +is withdrawn to-morrow, to let her down as lightly as possible." + +He hesitated for a moment, and then he said in a quiet voice, "I think +in her heart she really loved you, don't you know." + +Admaston nodded. + +"Yes, yes; I see," he said. "I will do what I can." + +Collingwood, realising that he had been emotional, pulled himself +together with immense aplomb. "It must be a comforting and flattering +reflection that, but for the fit of nerves which caused Alice to write +that second letter three days ago, there is probably not a judge nor +jury in the world which would have refused to make you miserable for +life, Admaston." + +"You are right, Colling," he said; "but at the moment when no judge nor +jury would have doubted her guilt--then, for the first time, I knew in +my heart she was innocent." + +Collingwood had listened to this, but had also been moving slowly +towards the door of the drawing-room. + +"But you, Colling----" Peggy said. + +Collingwood's hand was upon the door. "Never mind about me," he said. +"Peggy, I did a rotten thing because I cared for you, but I've tried to +play the game since for the same reason; and if George can really +forgive me for just the same reason----" + +He stopped, looking with a wan, pathetic, but very tender face at the +two who stood there clinging to each other. + +Peggy looked up into her husband's face. "George!" she said quietly. + +"--I think I'll go on playing it," Collingwood ended. + +Admaston did not look at Collingwood, but he looked down at his wife. +Then he lifted his head and smiled with a sort of grave kindness at the +man by the door. + +"I think I can forgive you anything to-day, Colling," he said. + +Collingwood half turned the handle. "Good-bye, then, little Butterfly," +he said, and there was a dreadful pain in his voice. + +Peggy looked up into her husband's face. + +What she saw there satisfied her. + +She left him and walked shyly towards Collingwood and held out her hand. + + +He took it, bowed over it as if to kiss it, refrained, and then opened +the door. + +"Your wings are not really broken--not really," he said in a voice which +was absolutely broken. + +There was a sound of the soft closing of a door--a little click as it +fell into place. + +Peggy ran back to her husband and put her hands upon his shoulders. + +"My husband!" she said. + +He caught her in his arms--in his strong arms. + +[Illustration: "He caught her in his arms--in his strong arms."] + +"Little Peggy!" he answered. + +"George!" she said. "I have wanted you so!" + + * * * * * + +But both Mr. Roderick Collingwood and Lady Alice Attwill dined alone +with their thoughts that night. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Butterfly on the Wheel, by +Cyril Arthur Edward Ranger Gull + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BUTTERFLY ON THE WHEEL *** + +***** This file should be named 36467.txt or 36467.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/4/6/36467/ + +Produced by Mark C. Orton, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive) + + +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. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +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 + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/36467.zip b/36467.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6aa82e2 --- /dev/null +++ b/36467.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..31053a8 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #36467 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36467) |
