Book II

"MR. WINGRAVE FROM AMERICA"

"Four years ago tonight," Aynesworth said, looking round the club smoking room thoughtfully, "we bade you farewell in this same room!"

Lovell, wan and hollow-eyed, his arm in a sling, his once burly frame gaunt and attenuated with disease, nodded.

"And I told you the story," he remarked, "of--the man who had been my friend."

"Don't let us talk of Wingrave tonight!" Aynesworth exclaimed with sudden emphasis.

"Why not?" Lovell knocked the ashes from his pipe, and commenced leisurely to refill it. "Why not, indeed? I mean to go and see him as soon as I can get about a little better."

"If your description of him," Aynesworth said, "was a faithful one, you will find him changed."

Lovell laughed a little bitterly.

"The years leave their mark," he said, "upon us all--upon all of us, that is, who step out into the open where the winds of life are blowing. Look at me! I weighed eighteen stone when I left England. I had the muscles of a prize fighter and nerves of steel. Today I turn the scale at ten stone and am afraid to be alone in the dark."

"You will be yourself again in no time," Aynesworth declared cheerfully.

"I shall be better than I am now, I hope," Lovell answered, "but I shall never be the man I was. I have seen--God grant that I may some day forget what I have seen! No wonder that my nerves have gone! I saw a Russian correspondent, a strong brutal-looking man, go off into hysterics; I saw

another run amuck through the camp, shooting right and left, and, finally, blow his own brains out. Many a night I sobbed myself to sleep. The men who live through tragedies, Aynesworth, age fast. I expect that I shall find Wingrave changed."

"I would give a good deal," Aynesworth declared, "to have known him when you did."

Lovell nodded.

"You should be able to judge of the past," he said, "by the present. Four years of--intimate companionship with any man should be enough!"

"Perhaps!" Aynesworth declared. "And yet I can assure you that I know no more of Wingrave today than when I was first attracted to him by your story and became his secretary. It is a humiliating confession, but it is the truth."

"That is why you remain with him," Lovell remarked.

"I suppose so! I have often meant to leave, but somehow, when the time comes, I stay on. His life seems to be made up of brutalities, small and large. He ruins a man with as little compunction as one could fancy him, in his younger days, pulling the legs from a fly. I have never seen him do a kindly action. And yet, all the time I find myself watching for it. A situation arises, and I say to myself: Now I am going to see something different.' I never do, and yet I always expect it. Am I boring you, Lovell?" "Not in the least!" Go on! Anything concerning Wingrave interests

me."

"It is four years ago, you know, since I went to him. My first glimpse of his character was the cold brutality with which he treated Lady Ruth when she went to see him. Then we went down to his country place in Cornwall. There was a small child there, whose father had been the organist of the village, and who had died penniless. There was no one to look after her, no one to save her from the charity schools and domestic service afterwards. The church was on Wingrave's estate, it should have been his duty to augment the ridiculous salary the dead man had received. Would you believe it, Wingrave refused to do a single thing for that child! He went down there like a vandal to sell the heirlooms and pictures which

had belonged to his family for generations. He had no time, he told me coldly, for sentiment."

"It sounds brutal enough," Lovell admitted. "What became of the child?"

"One of her father's relations turned up after all and took care of her," Aynesworth said. "Wingrave knew nothing about that, though. Then on the voyage across the Atlantic, there was a silly, pretty little woman on board who was piqued by Wingrave's indifference and tried to flirt with him. In a few days she was his slave. She was going home to her husband, and you would have thought that any decent fellow would have told her that she was a little fool, and let her go. But not Wingrave! She was landing with him at New York, but someone amongst the passengers, who guessed what was up, sent a Marconigram to her husband, and he met us at the landing stage."

"Nothing came of that, then?"

"No, but it wasn't Wingrave's fault. Then he began dealing with some shares in a mine--THE mine, you know. They were supposed to be worthless, and one boy, who was a little young to the game, sold him too many. Wingrave was bleeding these brokers for hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the boy came and asked to be let off by paying his whole fortune to escape being hammered. Wingrave refused. I believe if the boy hadn't just been married, he'd have blown his brains out!"

Lovell laughed.

"I don't envy you your job," he remarked. "Is there nothing to set down on the credit side of the ledger?"

"Not much," Aynesworth answered. "He is a fine sportsman, and he saved my life in the Rockies, which makes me feel a bit uncomfortable sometimes. He has a sense of justice, for he heard of this mine from a man in prison, and he has kept accounts showing the fellow's share down to the last halfpenny. But I have never yet known him to speak a kindly word or do a kindly deed. He seems intent upon carrying out to the letter his own principles--to make as many people as possible suffer for his own broken life. Now he is back here, a millionaire, with immense power for good or

for evil, I am almost afraid of him. I wouldn't be Lady Ruth or her husband for something."

Lovell smoked thoughtfully for a time.

"Wingrave was always a little odd," he remarked, "but I never thought that he was a bad chap."

"Go and see him now!" Aynesworth said. "Tell me if you think he wears a mask or whether he is indeed what he seems."

The hall porter entered the room and addressed Aynesworth. "Gentleman called for you, sir," he announced.

"It is Wingrave," Aynesworth declared. "Come and speak to him!"

They descended the stairs together. Outside, Wingrave was leaning back in the corner of an electric brougham, reading the paper. Aynesworth put his head in at the window.

"You remember Lovell, Mr. Wingrave?" he said. "We were just talking when your message came up. I've brought him down to shake hands with you."

Wingrave folded his paper down at the precise place where he had been reading and extended a very limp hand. His manner betrayed not the slightest interest or pleasure.

"How are you, Lovell?" he asked. "Some time since we met!" "A good many years," Lovell answered.

"Finished your campaigning?" Wingrave inquired. "Knocked you about a bit, haven't they?"

"They very nearly finished me," Lovell admitted. "I shall pick up all right over here, though."

There was a moment's silence. Lovell's thoughts had flashed backwards through the years, back to the time when he had sat within a few feet of this man in the crowded court of justice and listened through the painful stillness of that heavy atmosphere, charged with tragedy, to the slow unfolding of the drama of his life. There had been passion enough then in his voice and blazing in his eyes, emotion enough in his twitching features and restless gestures to speak of the fire below. And now, pale and cold, the man who had gripped his fingers then and held on to them like a

vise, seemed to find nothing except a slight boredom in this unexpected meeting.

"I shall see you again, I hope," Wingrave remarked at last. "By the bye, if we do meet, I should be glad if you would forget our past acquaintance. Sir Wingrave Seton does not exist any longer. I prefer to be known only as Mr. Wingrave from America."

Lovell nodded.

"As you wish, of course," he answered. "I do not think," he added, "that you need fear recognition. I myself should have passed you in the street."

Wingrave leaned back in the carriage.

"Aynesworth," he said, "if you are ready, will you get in and tell the man to drive to Cadogan Square? Good night, Mr. Lovell!"

Lovell re-entered the club with a queer little smile at his lips. The brougham glided up into the Strand, and turned westwards.

"We are going straight to the Barringtons'?" Aynesworth asked.

"Yes," Wingrave answered. "While I think of it, Aynesworth, I wish you to remember this. Both Lady Ruth and her husband seem to think it part of the game to try and make a cat's paw of you. I am not suggesting that they are likely to succeed, but I do think it possible that one of them may ask you questions concerning certain investments in which I am interested. I rely upon you to give them no information."

"I know very little about your investments--outside the mine," Aynesworth answered. "They couldn't very well approach a more ignorant person. Are you going to help Barrington to make a fortune?"

Wingrave turned his head. There was a slight contraction of the forehead, an ominous glitter in his steel grey eyes.

"I think," he said, "you know that I am not likely to do that."

The two men did not meet again till late in the evening. Lady Ruth's rooms were crowded for it was the beginning of the political season, and her parties were always popular. Nevertheless, she found time to beckon Wingrave to her before they had been in the room many minutes.

"I want to talk to you," she said a little abruptly. "You might have

come this afternoon as you promised."

Lady Ruth was a wonderful woman. A well-known statesman had just asked a friend her age.

"I don't know," was the answer, "but whatever it is, she doesn't look

it."

Tonight she was almost girlish. Her complexion was delicate and

perfectly natural, the graceful lines of her figure suggested more the immaturity of youth than any undue slimness. She wore a wonderful collar of pearls around her long, shapely neck, but very little other jewelry. The touch of her fingers upon Wingrave's coat sleeve was a carefully calculated thing. If he had thought of it, he could have felt the slight appealing pressure with which she led him towards one of the smaller rooms.

"There are two chairs there," she said. "Come and sit down. I have something to say to you."

THE SHADOW OF A FEAR

For several minutes Lady Ruth said nothing. She was leaning back in the farthest corner of her chair, her head resting slightly upon her fingers, her eyes studying with a curious intentness the outline of Wingrave's pale, hard face. He himself, either unconscious of, or indifferent to her close scrutiny, had simply the air of a man possessed of an inexhaustible fund of patience.

"Wingrave," she said quietly, "I think that the time has gone by when I was afraid of you."

He turned slightly towards her, but he did not speak.

"I am possessed," she continued, "at present, of a more womanly sentiment. I am curious."

"Ah!" he murmured, "you were always a little inclined that way."

"I am curious about you," she continued. "You are, comparatively speaking, young, well-looking enough, and strong. Your hand is firmly

planted upon the lever which moves the world. What are you going to do?"

"That," he said, "depends upon many things."

"You may be ambitious," she remarked. "If so, you conceal it admirably. You may be devoting your powers to the consummation of vengeance against those who have treated you ill. There are no signs of that, either, at present."

"We have excellent authority," he remarked, "for the statement that a considerable amount of satisfaction is derivable from the exercise of that sentiment."

"Perhaps," she answered, "but the pursuit of vengeance for wrongs of the past is the task of a fool. Now, you are not a fool. You carry your life locked up within you as a strong man should. But there are always some who may look in through the windows. I should like to be one."

"An empty cupboard," he declared. "A cupboard swept bare by time and necessity."

She shook her head.

"Your life," she said, "is molded towards a purpose. What is it?"

"I must ask myself the question," he declared, "before I can tell you the answer!"

"No," she said, "the necessity does not exist. Your reckless pursuit of wealth, your return here, the use you are making of my husband and me, are all means towards some end. Why not tell me?"

"Your imagination," he declared, "is running away with you."

"Are you our enemy?" she asked. "Is this seeming friendship of yours a cloak to hide some scheme of yours to make us suffer? Or--" She drew a little closer to him, and her eyes drooped.

"Or what?"he repeated.

"Is there a little left," she whispered, "of the old folly?"

"Why not?" he answered quietly. "I was very much in love with you." "It is dead," she murmured. "I believe that you hate me now!"

Her voice was almost a caress. She was leaning a little towards him; her eyes were seeking to draw his.

"Hate you!" How impossible!" he said calmly. "You are still a beautiful woman, you know, Ruth."

He turned and studied her critically. Lady Ruth raised her eyes once, but dropped them at once. She felt herself growing paler. A spasm of the old fear was upon her.

"Yes," he continued, "age has not touched you. You can still pour, if you will, the magic drug into the wine of fools. By the bye, I must not be selfish. Aren't you rather neglecting your guests?"

"Never mind my guests," she answered. "I have been wanting to talk to you alone for days. Why have you done this? Why are you here? What is it that you are seeking for in life?"

"A little amusement only," he declared. "I cannot find it except amongst my own kind."

"You have not the appearance of a pleasure seeker," she answered. "Mine is a passive search," he said. "I have some years to live--and of

solitude, well, I have tasted at once the joys and the depths." "You are not in love with me any longer, are you?" she asked.

"I am not bold enough to deny it," he answered, "but do not be afraid that I shall embarrass you with a declaration. To tell you the truth, I have not much feeling left of any sort."

"You mean to keep your own counsel, then?" she asked.

"It is so little to keep," he murmured, "and I have parted with so much!"

She measured the emotion of his tone, the curious yet perfectly natural indifference of his manner, and she shivered a little. Always she feared what she could not understand.

"I had hoped," she said sadly, "that we might at least have been friends."

He shook his head.

"I have no fancy," he declared, "for the cemeteries of affection. You must remember that I am beginning life anew. I do not know myself yet, or you! Let us drift into the knowledge of one another, and perhaps--"

"Well! Perhaps?"

"There may be no question of friendship!"

Lady Ruth went back to her guests, and with the effortless ease of long training, she became once more the gracious and tactful hostess. But in her heart, the fear had grown a little stronger, and a specter walked by her side. Once during the evening, her husband looked at her questioningly, and she breathed a few words to him. He laughed reassuringly.

"Oh! Wingrave's all right, I believe," he said, "it's only his manner that puts you off a bit. He's just the same with everyone! I don't think he means anything by it!"

Lady Ruth shivered, but she said nothing. Just then Aynesworth came up, and with a motion of her fan she called him to her.

"Please take me into the other room," she said "I want a glass of champagne, and on the way you can tell me all about America."

"One is always making epigrams about America," he protested, smiling. "Won't you spare me?"

"Tell me, then, how you progress with your great character study!" "Ah!" he remarked quietly, "you come now to a more interesting

subject."

"Yes?"

"Frankly, I do not progress at all." "So far as you have gone?"

"If," he said, "I were to take pen and paper and write down, at this moment, my conclusions so far as I have been able to form any, I fancy that they would make evil reading. Permit me!"

They stood for a few minutes before the long sideboard. A footman had poured champagne into their glasses, and Lady Ruth talked easily enough the jargon of the moment. But when they turned away, she moved slowly, and her voice was almost a whisper.

"Tell me this," she said, "is he really as hard and cold as he seems? You have lived with him now for four years. You should know that, at least."

"I believe that he is," Aynesworth answered. "I can tell you that much, at least, without breach of faith. So far as one who watches him can tell, he

lives for his own gratification--and his indulgence in it does not, as a rule, make for the happiness of other people."

"Then what does he want with us?" she asked almost sharply. "I ask myself that question until--I am terrified."

Aynesworth hesitated.

"It is very possible," he said, "that he is simply making use of you to re-enter the world. Curiously enough, he has never seemed to care for solitude. He makes numberless acquaintances. What pleasure he finds in it I do not know, but he seldom avoids people. He may be simply making use of you."

"What do you think yourself?"

"I cannot tell," Aynesworth answered. "Indeed I cannot tell."

She left him a little impatiently, and Aynesworth joined the outside of the circle of men who had gathered round Wingrave. He was answering their questions readily enough, if a little laconically. He was quite aware that he occupied in society the one unique place to which princes might not even aspire--there was something of divinity about his millions, something of awe in the tone of the men with whom he talked. Women pretended to be interested in him because of the romance of his suddenly acquired wealth--the men did not trouble to deceive themselves or anyone else. A break up of the group came when a certain great and much-talked- about lady sent across an imperative message by her cavalier for the moment. She desired that Mr. Wingrave should be presented to her.

They passed down the room together a few moments later, the Marchioness wonderfully dressed in a gown of strange turquoise blue, looking up at her companion, and talking with somewhat unusual animation. Everyone made remarks, of course--exchanged significant glances and unlovely smiles. It was so like the Marchioness to claim, as a matter of course, the best of everything that was going. Lady Ruth watched them with a curious sense of irritation for which she could not altogether account. It was impossible that she should be jealous, and yet it was equally certain that she was annoyed. If Wingrave resisted his present fair captor, he would enjoy a notability equal to that which his wealth

already conferred upon him. No man as yet had done it. Was it likely that Wingrave would wear two crowns? Lady Ruth beckoned Aynesworth to her.

"Tell me," she said, "what is Mr. Wingrave's general attitude towards my sex?"

"Absolute indifference," he declared promptly, "unless--" He stopped short.

"You must go on," she told him.

"Unless he is possessed of the ability to make them suffer," he answered after a moment's hesitation.

"Then Emily will never attract him," she declared almost triumphantly, "for she has no more heart that he has."

"He has yet to discover it," Aynesworth remarked. "When he does, I think you will find that he will shrug his shoulders--and say farewell."

"All the same," Lady Ruth murmured to herself, "Emily is a cat."

Lady Ruth spoke to one more man that night of Wingrave--and that man was her husband. Their guests had departed, and Lady Ruth, in a marvelous white dressing gown, was lying upon the sofa in her room.

"How do you get on with Wingrave?" she asked. "What do you think of him?"

Barrington shrugged his shoulders.

"What can one think of a man," he answered, "who goes about like an animated mummy? I have done my best; I talked to him for nearly half an hour at a stretch today when I took him to the club for lunch. He is the incarnation of indifference. He won't listen to politics; women, or tales about them, at any rate, seem to bore him to extinction; he drinks only as a matter of form, and he won't talk finance. By the bye, Ruth, I wish you could get him to give you a tip. I scarcely see how we are going to get through the season unless something turns up."

"Is it as bad as that?" she asked.

"Worse!" her husband answered gloomily. "We've been living on our capital for years. Every acre of Queen's Norton is mortgaged, and I'm shot if I can see how we're going to pay the interest."

She sighed a little wearily.

"Do you think that it would be wise?" she asked. "Let me tell you something, Lumley. I have only known what fear was once in my life. I am afraid now. I am afraid of Wingrave. I have a fancy that he does not mean any good to us."

Barrington frowned and threw his cigarette into the fire with a little jerk.

"Nonsense!" he exclaimed. "The man's not quite so bad as that. We've been useful to him. We've done exactly what he asked. The other matter's dead and buried. We don't want his money, but it is perfectly easy for him to help us make a little."

She looked up at him quietly.

"I think, Lumley, that it is dangerous!" she said.

"Then you're not the clever woman I take you for," he answered, turning to leave the room. "Just as you please. Only it will be that or the bankruptcy court before long!"

Lady Ruth lay quite still, looking into the fire. When her maid came, she moved on tiptoe for it seemed to her that her mistress slept. But Lady Ruth was wide awake though the thoughts which were flitting through her brain had, perhaps, some kinship to the land of dreams.

JULIET ASKS QUESTIONS

"Any place," the girl exclaimed as she entered, "more unlike a solicitor's office, I never saw! Flowers outside and flowers on your desk, Mr. Pengarth! Don't you have to apologize to your clients for your surroundings? There's absolutely nothing, except the brass plate outside, to show that this isn't an old-fashioned farmhouse, stuck down in the middle of a village. Fuchsias in the window sill, too!"

He placed a chair for her, and laid down the deed which he had been examining, with a little sigh of relief. It really was very hard work pretending to be busy.

"You see, Miss Juliet," he explained with twinkling eyes, "my clients are all country folk, and it makes them feel more at home to find a lawyer's office not very different from their own parlor."

She nodded.

"What would the great man say?" she inquired, pointing to the rows of black tin boxes which lined the walls.

"Sir Wingrave Seton is never likely to come here again, I am afraid," he answered. "If he did, I don't think he'd mind. To tell you the truth, I'm rather proud of my office, young lady!"

She looked around.

"They are nice," she said decidedly, "but unbusinesslike."

"You're going to put up the pony and stay to lunch, of course?" he said. "I'll ring for the boy."

She stopped him.

"Please don't!" she exclaimed. "I have come to see you--on business!" Mr. Pengarth, after his first gasp of astonishment, was a different man.

He fumbled about on the desk, and produced a pair of gold spectacles, which he adjusted with great nicety on the edge of his very short nose.

"On business, my dear!" he repeated. "Well, well! To be sure! Is it Miss Harrison who has sent you?"

Mr. Pengarth's visitor looked positively annoyed. She leaned across the table towards him so that the roses in her large hat almost brushed his forehead. Her wonderful brown eyes were filled with reproach.

"Mr. Pengarth," she said, "do you know how old I am?"

"How old, my dear? Why, let me see!" he exclaimed. "Fourteen and-- why, God bless my soul, you must be eighteen!"

"I am nineteen years old, Mr. Pengarth," the young lady announced with dignity. "Perhaps you will be kind enough to treat me now--er--with a little more respect."

"Nineteen!" he repeated vaguely. God bless my--nineteen years old?" "I consider myself," she repeated, "of age. I have come to see you

about my affairs!"

"Yes, yes!" he said. "Quite natural."

"For four years," she continued, "I seem to have been supported by some relative of my father, who has never vouchsafed to send me a single line or message except through you. I have written letters which I have given to you to forward. There has been no reply. Have you sent on those letters, Mr. Pengarth?"

"Why certainly, my dear, certainly!"

"Can you tell me how it is that I have had no answer?" Mr. Pengarth coughed. He was not at all comfortable.

"Your guardian, Miss Juliet, is somewhat eccentric," he answered, "and he is a very busy man."

"Can you tell me, Mr. Pengarth, exactly what relation he is to me?"

There was a dead silence. Mr. Pengarth found the room suddenly warm, and mopped his forehead with a large silk handkerchief.

"I have no authority," he declared, "to answer any questions."

"Then can you tell me of your own accord," she said, "why there is all this mystery? Why may I not know who he is, why may I not write to him? Am I anything to be ashamed of, that he will not trust me even with his name? I am tired of accepting so much and not being able to offer even my thanks in return. It is too much like charity! I have made up my mind that if this is to go on, I will go away and earn my own living! There, Mr. Pengarth!"

"Rubbish!" he exclaimed briskly. "What at?"

"Painting!" she declared triumphantly. "I have had this in my mind for some time, and I have been trying to see what I can do best. I have quite decided, now, to be an artist."

"Pictures," he declared sententiously, "don't sell!"

"Mine do," she answered, smiling. "I have had a check for three guineas from a shop in London for a little sea piece I did in two afternoons!"

He regarded her admiringly.

"You are a wonderful child!" he exclaimed.

"I am not a child at all," she interrupted warmly, "and you can just sit down and write to your silly client and tell him so."

"I will certainly write to him," he affirmed. "I will do so today. You will not do anything rash until I have had time to get a reply?"

"No!" she answered graciously. "I will wait for a week. After that-- well, I might do anything!"

"You wouldn't leave Tredowen, Miss Juliet!" he protested.

"It would break my heart, of course," she declared, "but I would do it and trust to time to heal it up again. Tredowen seems like home to me, but it isn't really, you know. Some day, Sir Wingrave Seton may want to come back and live there himself. Are you quite certain, Mr. Pengarth, that he won't be angry to hear that we have been living at the house all this time?" "Certain," Mr. Pengarth declared firmly. "He left everything entirely in my hands. He did not wish me to let it, but he did not care about its being altogether uninhabited. The arrangement I was able to make with your

guardian was a most satisfactory one."

"But surely he will come back himself some time?" she asked, The lawyer shook his head sorrowfully.

"I am afraid," he said, "that Sir Wingrave has no affection for the place whatever."

"No affection for Tredowen," she repeated wonderingly. "Do you know what I think, Mr. Pengarth? I think that it is the most beautiful house in the world!"

"And yet you talk of leaving it."

"I don't want to go," she answered, "but I don't want to be accepting things all my life from someone whose name even I do not know."

"Well, well," he said, "you must wait until I have written my letter. Time enough to talk about that later on. Now, if you won't stay to lunch, you must come and see Rachael and have some cake and a glass of wine."

"How sweet of you," she exclaimed. "I'm frightfully hungry. Can I do anything to stop growing, Mr. Pengarth? I'm getting taller and taller!"

She stood up. She was head and shoulders taller than the little lawyer, slim as a lath, and yet wonderfully graceful. She laughed down at him and made a little grimace.

"I'm a giraffe, am I not?" she declared; "and I'm still growing. Do

show me your garden, Mr. Pengarth. I want to see your hollyhocks. Everyone is talking about them."

They were joined in a few minutes by a prim, dignified little lady, ridiculously like Mr. Pengarth, whom he called sister, and she Miss Rachael. Juliet walked down the garden between them.

"Sister," Mr. Pengarth said, "Juliet has come today to see me on business. In effect, she has come to remind me that she is grown up."

"Grown up," Miss Rachael protested vigorously, "rubbish!" "I am nineteen years old," Juliet declared.

"And what if you are," Miss Rachael replied briskly. "In my young days we were in the nursery at nineteen."

"Quite so," Mr. Pengarth assented with relief. "You took me by storm just now, Miss Juliet. After all, you are only a child."

"I am old enough to feel and to mean all that I said to you, Mr. Pengarth," she answered gravely. "And that reminds me, too--there was something else I meant to ask you."

"Sister," Mr. Pengarth said, "have you ordered the wine and the cake?" "Bless me, no!" Miss Rachael declared. "It shall be ready in five

minutes."

She entered the house. Mr. Pengarth stooped to pick some lavender. "The only time I ever saw Sir Wingrave Seton," she said, "was on the

day before I was told that a relation of my father had been found, who was willing to take charge of me. There was a younger man with him, someone very, very different from Sir Wingrave. Do you know who he was?"

"A sort of secretary of Sir Wingrave, I believe, dear. I never met him. I was, unfortunately, away at the time they came."

"He was very nice and kind to me," the girl continued, "just as nice as Sir Wingrave was horrid. I suppose it was because they came on that day, but I have always connected him somehow with this mysterious relation of mine. Mr. Aynesworth didn't help to find him, did he?"

"Certainly not!" the lawyer answered. "The instructions I had came first from Mr. Saunders, the vicar of the parish. It was he who appeared to have made the necessary inquiries."

"Horrid old man!" she declared. "He used to make me feel that I wanted to cry every time that I saw him."

"Miss Rachael is calling us," the lawyer declared with obvious relief. "New cake!" Juliet declared, "I can smell it! Delicious!"

LADY RUTH'S LAST CARD

"There are two letters," Aynesworth announced, "which I have not opened. One, I think, is from the Marchioness of Westhampton, the other from some solicitors at Truro. They were both marked private."

Wingrave was at breakfast in his flat; Aynesworth had been in an adjoining room sorting his correspondence. He accepted the two letters, and glanced them through without remark. But whereas he bestowed scarcely a second's consideration upon the broad sheet of white paper with the small coronet and the faint perfume of violets, the second letter apparently caused him some annoyance. He read it through for a second time with a slight frown upon his forehead.

"You must cancel my engagements for two days, Aynesworth," he said. "I have to go out of town."

Aynesworth nodded.

"There's nothing very special on," he remarked. "Do you want me to go with you?"

"It is not necessary," Wingrave answered. "I am going," he added, after a moment's pause, "to Cornwall."

Aynesworth was immediately silent. The one time when Wingrave had spoken to him as an employer, was in answer to some question of his as to what had eventually become of the treasures of Tredowen. He had always since scrupulously avoided the subject.

"Be so good as to look out the trains for me," Wingrave continued. "I cannot go until the afternoon," he added after a momentary pause. "I have an engagement for luncheon. Perhaps, if you are not too busy, you will see that Morrison packs some things for me."

He moved to the writing table, and wrote a few lines to the Marchioness, regretting that his absence from town would prevent his dining with her on the following day. Then he studied the money column in several newspapers for half an hour, and telephoned to his broker. At eleven o'clock, he rode for an hour in the quietest part of the park, avoiding, so far as possible, anyone he knew, and galloping whenever he could. It was the only form of exercise in which he was known to indulge although the knowledge of English games, which he sometimes displayed, was a little puzzling to some of his acquaintances. On his return, he made a simple but correct toilet, and at half-past one he met Lady Ruth at Prince's Restaurant.

Lady Ruth's gown of dove color, with faint touches of blue, was effective, and she knew it. Nevertheless, she was a little pale, and her manner lacked that note of quiet languor which generally characterized it. She talked rather more than usual, chattering idly about the acquaintances to whom she was continually nodding and bowing. Her face hardened a little as the Marchioness, on her way through the room with a party of friends, stopped at their table.

The two women exchanged the necessary number of inanities, then the Marchioness turned to Wingrave.

"You won't forget that you are dining with me tomorrow?" Wingrave shook his head regretfully.

"I am sorry," he said, "but I have to go out of town. I have just written you."

"What a bore," she remarked. "Business, of course!"

She nodded and passed on. Her farewell to Lady Ruth was distinctly curt. Wingrave resumed his seat and his luncheon without remark.

"Hateful woman," Lady Ruth murmured.

"I thought you were friends," Wingrave remarked.

"Yes, we are," Lady Ruth assented, "the sort of friendship you men don't know much about. You see a good deal of her, don't you?"

Wingrave raised his head and looked at Lady Ruth contemplatively. "Why do you ask me that?" he asked.

"Curiosity!"

"I do," he remarked; "you should be grateful to her." "Why?"

"It may save you a similar infliction." Lady Ruth was silent for several moments.

"Perhaps," she said at last, "I do not choose to be relieved."

Wingrave bowed, his glass in his hand. His lips were curled into the semblance of a smile, but he did not say a word. Lady Ruth leaned a little across the table so that the feathers of her hat nearly brushed his forehead.

"Wingrave," she asked, "do you know what fear is? Perhaps not! You are a man, you see. No one has ever called me a coward. You wouldn't, would you?"

"No!" he said deliberately, "you are not a coward."

"There is only one sort of fear which I know," she continued, "and that is the fear of what I do not understand. And that is why, Wingrave, I am afraid of you."

He set down his glass, and his fingers trifled for a moment with its stem. His expression was inscrutable.

"Surely," he said, "you are not serious!"

"I am serious," she declared, "and you know that I am." "You are afraid of me," he repeated softly. "I wonder why." She looked him straight in the eyes.

"Because," she said, "I did you once a very grievous wrong. Because I know that you have not forgiven me. Because I am very sure that all the good that was in you lies slain."

"By whose hand?" he asked quietly. "No! You need not answer. You know. So do I. Yes, I can understand your fear. But I do not understand why you confess it to me."

"Nor I," she answered. "Nor do I understand why I am here--at your bidding, nor why I keep you always by my side whenever you choose to take your place there. Are you a vain man, Wingrave? Do you wish to pose as the friend of a woman whom the world has thought too ambitious to waste time upon such follies? There is the Marchioness! She would do you

more credit still."

"Thank you," he answered. "I like to choose the path myself when I pass into the maze of follies!"

"You have not yet explained yourself," she reminded him. "Of all people in world, you have chosen us for your presumptive friends. Why? You hate us both. You know that you do. Is it part of a scheme? Lumley is investing money on your advice, I am allowing myself to be seen about with you more than is prudent--considering all things. Do you want to rake out the ashes of our domestic hearth--to play the part of--melodramatic villain? You are ingenious enough, and powerful enough."

"You put strange ideas into my head," he told her lightly. "Why should I not play the part that you suggest? It might be amusing, and you certainly deserve all the evil which I could bring upon you."

She leaned a little across the table towards him. Her eyes were soft and bright, and they looked full into his. The color in her cheeks was natural. The air around him was faintly fragrant with the perfume of her clothes and hair.

"We couldn't leave off playing at the game--and act it, could we?" she murmured. "We couldn't really--be friends?"

Lady Ruth had played her trump card. She had touched his fingers with hers, her eyes shone with the promise of unutterable things. But if Wingrave was moved, he did not show it.

"I wish," he said, "that I could accept your offer in the spirit with which you tender it. Unfortunately, I am a maimed person. My sensibilities have gone. Friendship, in the more intimate sense of the word, I may never hope to feel again. Enmity--well, that is more comprehensible; even enmity," he continued slowly, "which might prompt a woman to disguise herself as her own lady's maid, to seek out a tool to get rid of the man she feared. Pardon me, Lady Ruth, you are eating nothing."

She pulled down her veil.

"Thank you, I have finished," she said in a low tone. He called for the bill.

"Pray, don't let my little remark distress you," he said. "I had almost

forgotten the circumstance until something you said brought it into my mind. It is you yourself, you must remember, who set the example of candor."

"I deserve everything you can say," she murmured, "everything you can do. There is nothing left, I suppose, but suffering. Will you take me out to my carriage? You can come back and have your coffee with the Marchioness! She keeps looking across at you, and it will please her to think that you got rid of me."

He glanced at his watch.

"I am afraid," he said, rising, "that I must deny myself the pleasure of seeking the Marchioness again today. I have a train to catch in half an hour. You are ready?"

"Quite!"

They made their way through the maze of tables towards the door, Lady Ruth exchanging greetings right and left with her friends, although the tall, grave-looking man who followed her was by far the greater object of interest.

"Just like Ruth to keep him in her pocket," remarked her dearest friend, looking after them; "they say that he has millions."

She sighed a little enviously.

"The Barrington menage needs a little backing up," her companion remarked. "I should say that he had come just in time. The Marchioness has her eye upon him too. There may be some fun presently."

Lady Ruth's dearest friend smiled.

"I will back Ruth," she said drily. "Emily is beautiful, but she is too obvious, and too eager! Ruth's little ways are more subtle. Besides, look at the start she has. She isn't the sort of woman men tire of."

Lady Ruth held out her hand through the window of her electric coupe. "Thank you for my luncheon," she said. "When shall we see you

again?"

"In a few days," he answered, standing bareheaded upon the pavement. "I shall call directly I return."

Lady Ruth nodded and leaned back. Wingrave smiled faintly as he

turned away. He had seen the little shudder which she had done her best to hide!

Lady Ruth found her husband at home, writing letters in his study. She sank wearily into a chair by his side.

"Been lunching out?" he inquired. She nodded.

"At Prince's, with Wingrave."

He made no remark, but he seemed far from displeased.

"If I'd only had the pluck," he remarked a little disconsolately, "I might have made thousands by following his advice this week. It was you who put me off, too!"

"It turned out all right?" she asked.

"Exactly as he said. I made five hundred! I might just as well have made five thousand."

"Can you let me have a couple of hundred?" she asked. "The people are all bothering so."

"You know that I can't," he answered irritably. "I had to send the lot to Lewis, and then it wasn't a quarter of what he is pressing for. We shall never get through the season, Ruth, unless--"

She raised her eyes. "Unless what?"

"Unless something turns up!"

There was a short, uncomfortable silence. Lady Ruth rose to her feet and stood facing the fireplace with her back to him.

"Lumley," she said, "let's face it!" He gave a little start.

"Face what?" he inquired.

"Ruin, the Bankruptcy Court, and all the rest of it!" she declared, a note of defiance creeping into her tone.

Her husband's face was white with astonishment. He stared across at her blankly.

"Are you mad, Ruth?" he exclaimed. "Do you know what you are saying?"

"Quite well," she answered. "I'm a little sick of the whole show. The tradespeople are getting impertinent. I don't even know where to get flowers for dinner tonight or where to go for my Ascot gowns. It must come sooner or later."

"You're talking like a fool," he declared harshly. "Do you know that I should have to give up my seat and my clubs?"

"We could live quietly in the country."

"Country be--hanged!" he exclaimed savagely. "What use is the country to you and me? I'd sooner put a bullet through my brain. Ruth, old lady," he added more gently, "what's gone wrong? You're generally such a well plucked'un! Have you--had a row with Wingrave?" he asked, looking at her anxiously.

"No!"

"Then what is it?"

"Nothing! I've lost my nerve, I suppose!"

"You want a change! It isn't so very long to Cowes now and, thank heavens, that'll cost us nothing. We're going on Wingrave's yacht, aren't we?"

"Yes! We did accept."

Barrington fidgeted for a moment with a paper knife.

"Ruth," he asked, "what's wrong between you and Wingrave?" "Nothing," she answered; "I'm afraid of him, that's all!" "Afraid of him! Afraid of Wingrave!" he repeated.

"Yes! I do not think that he has forgotten. I think that he means to make us suffer."

Barrington was almost dignified.

"I never heard such nonsense in my life, Ruth!" he exclaimed. "I have watched Wingrave closely, and I have seen no trace of anything of the sort. Nonsense! It is worse than nonsense! You must be getting hysterical. You must get all this rubbish out of your head. To tell you the truth--"

"Well?"

"I was thinking that you might ask Wingrave to help us a bit. I don't believe he'd hesitate for a moment."

Ruth looked her husband in the face. There was a curious expression in her eyes.

"Do you think that it would be wise of me to ask him?" she demanded. "Why not?" he answered. "You can take care of yourself. I can trust

you."

"I told you that I was afraid of Wingrave," she reminded him. "I can take care of myself as a rule--and I do--as you know. I have elected to be one of the unfashionables in that respect. But to ask Wingrave for money is more than I dare do."

"Then I shall ask him myself," Barrington declared. She picked up her gloves and turned to leave the room. "I should prefer even that," she said.

GUARDIAN AND WARD

"Up to the present, then," Wingrave remarked, "the child has no idea as to who has been responsible for the charge of her?"

"No idea at all, Sir Wingrave," the lawyer declared. "Your wishes have been strictly carried out, most strictly. She imagines that it is some unknown connection of her father. But, as I explained to you in my letter, she has recently exhibited a good deal of curiosity in the matter. She is--er-

-a young lady of considerable force of character for her years, and her present attitude--as I explained in my letter--is a trifle difficult."

Wingrave was sitting in the lawyer's own chair. Mr. Pengarth, who was a trifle nervous, preferred to stand.

"She shows, I think, a certain amount of ingratitude in forcing this journey and explanation upon me," Wingrave declared coldly. "It should have been sufficient for her that her benefactor preferred to remain anonymous."

"I regret, Sir Wingrave, that I must disagree with you," Mr. Pengarth answered boldly. "Miss Juliet, Miss Lundy I should say, is a young lady of character--and--er--some originality of disposition. She is a great favorite

with everyone around here."

Wingrave remained silent. He had the air of one not troubling to reply to what he considered folly. Through the wide open window floated in the various sounds of the little country town, the rumbling of heavy carts passing along the cobbled streets, the shrill greetings of neighbors and acquaintances meeting upon the sidewalk. And then the tinkling bell of a rubber-tired cart pulling up outside, and a clear girlish voice speaking to some one of the passers-by.

Wingrave betrayed as much surprise as it was possible for him to show when at last she stood with outstretched hand before him. He had only an imperfect recollection of an ill-clad, untidy-looking child, with pale tear- stained cheeks, and dark unhappy eyes. The march of the years had been a thing whose effects he had altogether underestimated. The girl who stood now facing him was slight, and there was something of the child left in her bright eager face, but she carried herself with all the graceful assurance of an older woman. Her soft, dark eyes were lit with pleasure and excitement, her delicately traced eyebrows and delightful smile were somehow suggestive of her foreign descent. Her clothes were country-made, but perfect as regarded fit and trimness, her beflowered hat was worn with a touch of coquettish grace, a trifle un-English, but very delightful. She had not an atom of shyness or embarrassment. Only there was a great surprise in her face as she held out her hands to Wingrave.

"I know who you are," she exclaimed. "You are Sir Wingrave Seton.

To think that I never guessed."

"You remember seeing me, then?" he remarked, and his tone sounded all the colder after the full richness of her young voice.

"I just remember it--only just," she answered. "You see you did not take much notice of me that time, did you? But I have lived amongst your ancestors too long to make any mistake. Why have you stayed away from Tredowen so long?"

"I have been abroad," Wingrave answered. "I am not fond of England." "You had trouble here, I know," she said frankly. "But that is all past and over. I think that you must forget how beautiful your home is or you

would never bear to live away from it. Now, please, may I ask you a question?"

"Any that you think necessary," Wingrave answered. "Spare me as much as possible; I am not fond of them."

"Shall I leave you two together for a little time?" Mr. Pengarth suggested, gathering up some papers.

"Certainly not," Wingrave said shortly. "There is not the slightest necessity for it."

Mr. Pengarth resumed his seat.

"Just as you please," he answered. "But you must sit down, Juliet.

There, you shall have my clients' chair."

The girl accepted it with a little laugh. There was no shadow of embarrassment about her manner, notwithstanding the cold stiffness of Wingrave's deportment. He sat where the sunlight fell across his chair, and the lines in his pale face seemed deeper than usual, the grey hairs more plentiful, the weariness in his eyes more apparent. Yet she was not in the least afraid of him.

"First of all, then, Sir Wingrave, may I ask you why you have been so extraordinarily kind to me?"

"There is nothing extraordinary about it at all," he answered. "Your father died and left you friendless in a parish of which I am Lord of the Manor. He received a starvation pittance for his labors, which it was my duty to augment, a duty which, with many others, I neglected. I simply gave orders that you should be looked after."

She laughed softly.

"Looked after! Why, I have lived at Tredowen. I have had a governess, a pony to drive. Heaven knows how many luxuries!"

"That," he interrupted hastily, "is nothing. The house is better occupied. What I have done for you is less in proportion than the sixpence you may sometimes have given to a beggar for I am a rich, a ridiculously rich man, with no possible chance of spending one-quarter of my income. You had a distinct and obvious claim upon me, and, at no cost or inconvenience to myself, I have endeavored, through others, to recognize it."

"I will accept your view of the situation," the girl said, still smiling, but with a faint note of disappointment in her tone. "I do not wish to force upon you expressions of gratitude which you would only find wearisome. But I must thank you! It is in my heart, and I must speak of it. There, it is over, you see! I shall say no more."

"You are a sensible young lady," Wingrave said, making a motion as though to rise. "I have only one request to make to you, and that is that you keep to yourself the knowledge which Mr. Pengarth informs me that you insisted upon acquiring. You are nearly enough of age now, and I will make you your own mistress. That is all, I think."

The smile died away from her lips. Her tone became very earnest.

"Sir Wingrave," she said, "for all that you have done for me, I am, as you know grateful. I would try to tell you how grateful, only I know that it would weary you. So we will speak only of the future. I cannot continue to accept--even such magnificent alms as yours."

"What do you mean, child?" he asked, frowning across at her.

"I mean," she said, "that now I am old enough to work, I cannot accept everything from one upon whom I have no claim. If you will help me a little still, I shall be more than grateful. But it must be in my own way."

"You talk about work," he said. "What can you do?"

"I can paint," she answered, "fairly well. I should like to go to London and have a few lessons. If I cannot make a living at that, I shall try something else."

"You disappoint me," Wingrave said. "There is no place for you in London. There are thousands starving there already because they can paint a little, or sing a little, or fancy they can. Do you find it dull down here?"

"Dull!" she exclaimed wonderingly. "I think that there can be no place on earth so beautiful as Tredowen."

"You are happy here?" "Perfectly!"

"Then, for heaven's sake, forget all this folly," Wingrave said hardly. "London is no place for children. Miss Harrison can take you up for a month when you choose. You can go abroad if you want to. But for the

rest--"

She rose suddenly, and sweeping across the office with one graceful movement, she leaned over Wingrave's chair. Her hands rested upon his shoulders, her eyes, soft with gathering tears, pleaded with his. Wingrave sat with all the outward immobility of a Sphinx.

"Dear Sir Wingrave," she said, "you have been so generous, so kind, and I may not even speak of my gratitude. Don't please think me unreasonable or ungracious. I can't tell you how I feel, but I must, I must, I must go away. I could not live here any longer now that I know. Fancy for a moment that I am your sister, or your daughter! Don't you believe, really, that she would feel the same? And I think you would wish her to. Don't be angry with me, please."

Wingrave's face never changed; but his fingers gripped the arms of his chair so that a signet ring he wore cut deep into his flesh. When he spoke, his tone sounded almost harsh. The girl turned away to dash the tears from her eyes.

"What do you think of this--folly, Pengarth?"

The lawyer looked his best client squarely in the face. "I do not call it folly, Sir Wingrave. I think that Miss Lundy is right."

There was a pause. Her eyes were still pleading with him.

"Against the two of you," Wingrave remarked, "I am, of course, powerless. After all, it is no concern of mine. I shall leave you, Pengarth, to make such arrangements as Miss Lundy desires!"

He rose to his feet. Juliet now was pale. She dashed the tears from her eyes and looked at him in amazement mingled with something which was almost like despair.

"You don't mean," she exclaimed, "you are going away without coming to Tredowen?"

"Why not?" he asked. "I never had any intention of going there!" "You are very angry with me," she cried in despair. "I--I--"

Her lip quivered. Wingrave interposed.

"I shall be happy to go and have a look at the place," he said carelessly, "if you will drive me back. I fancy I have almost forgotten what it is like."

She looked at him as at one who had spoken irreverently. Her eyes were full of wonder.

"I think that you must have indeed forgotten," she said, "how very beautiful it is. It is your home too! There is no one else," she added softly, "who can live there, amongst all those wonderful things, and call it really-- home!"

"I am afraid," he said, "you will find that I have outlived all sentiment; but I will certainly come to Tredowen with you!"

GHOSTS OF DEAD THINGS

"It was here," she said, as they passed through the walled garden seawards, "that I saw you first--you and the other gentleman who was so kind to me."

Wingrave nodded.

"I believe that I remember it," he said; "you were a mournful-looking object in a very soiled pinafore and most untidy hair."

"I had been out on the cliffs," she reminded him, "where I am taking you now. If you are going to make unkind remarks about my hair, I think that I had better fetch a hat."

"Pray don't leave me," he answered. "I should certainly lose my way.

Your hair in those days was, I fancy, a little more--unkempt!" She laughed.

"It used to be cut short," she said. "Hideous! There! Isn't that glorious?"

She had opened the postern gate in the wall, and through the narrow opening was framed a wonderful picture of the Cornish sea, rolling into the rock-studded bay. Its soft thunder was in their ears; salt and fragrant, the west wind swept into their faces. She closed the gate behind her, and stepped blithely forward.

"Come!" she cried. "We will climb the cliffs where we left you alone once before."

Side by side they stood looking over the ocean. Her head was thrown back, her lips a little parted. He watched her curiously.

"You must have sea blood in your veins," he remarked. "You listen as though you heard music all the time."

"And what about you?" she asked him, smiling. "You are the grandson of Admiral Sir Wingrave Seton who commanded a frigate at Trafalgar, and an ancestor of yours fought in the Armada."

"I am afraid," he said quietly, "that there is a hiatus in my life somewhere. There are no voices which call to me any more, and my family records are so much dead parchment."

Trouble passed into her glowing face and clouded her eyes.

"Ah!" she said, "I do not like to hear you talk so. Do you know that when you do, you make me afraid that something I have always hoped for will never come to pass?"

"What is it?" he asked.

"I have always hoped," she said, "that some day you would come once more to Tredowen. I suppose I am rather a fanciful person. This is a country of superstitions and fancies, you know; but sometimes when I have been alone in the picture gallery with all that long line of dark faces looking down upon me from the walls, I have felt like an interloper. Always they seem to be waiting! Tonight, after dinner, I will take you there. I will try and show you what I mean."

He shook his head.

"I shall never come back," he said, "and there are no more of my name."

She hesitated. When at last she spoke, the color was coming and going in her cheeks.

"Sir Wingrave," she said, "I am only an ignorant girl, and I have no right to talk to you like this. Please be angry with me if you want to. I deserve it. I know all about--that ten years! Couldn't you forget it, and come back? None of the country people round here, your own people, believe anything evil about you. You were struck, and you struck back again. A man would do that. You could be as lonely as you liked here, or

you could have friends if you wished for them. But this is the place where you ought to live. You would be happier here, I believe, than in exile. The love of it all would come back, you would never be lonely. It is the same sea which sang to you when you were a child, and to your fathers before you. It would bring you forgetfulness when you wanted it, or--"

Wingrave interrupted her. His tone was cold, but not unkind.

"My dear young lady," he said, "it is very good of you to be so sympathetic, but I am afraid I am not at all the sort of person you imagine me to be. What I was before those ten years--well, I have forgotten. What I am now, I unfortunately know. I am a soured, malevolent being whose only pleasure lies in the dealing out to others some portion of the unhappiness which was dealt out to me."

"I do not believe it," she declared briskly. He shrugged his shoulders.

"Nevertheless, it is true," he declared coolly. "Listen! More or less you interest me. I will tell you something which I have never yet told to a single human being. I need not go into particulars. You will probably believe a broad statement. My ten years' imprisonment was more or less an injustice!"

"Sir Wingrave!"

He checked her. There was not a tremor in his tone. The gesture with which he had repelled her was stiff and emotionless.

"I went into prison one man, I came out another. While I live, I shall never be able to think kindly again of a single one of my fellow creatures. It was not my fault. So far as our affections are concerned, we are machines, all of us. Well, my mainspring has broken."

"I don't believe it," she declared.

"It is, nevertheless, true," he affirmed calmly. "I am living in exile because I have no friends, because friends have become an impossibility to me. I shall not tell you any more of my life because you are young and you would not believe me if I did. Some day," he added grimly, "you will probably hear for yourself."

"I shall never believe anything," she declared, "which I do not choose

to believe. I shall never believe, for instance, that you are quite what you think yourself."

"We will talk of other things," he said. "Five years ago, you showed Aynesworth where the seagulls built."

"And now I will show you," she exclaimed, "if you are sure that your head is steady enough. Come along!" . . .

It was after dinner that she took him into the picture gallery. Miss Harrison, very much disturbed by the presence of the master of Tredowen, and still more so by the hint which she had already received as to coming changes, followed them at a little distance.

"I am so sorry," Juliet said, "that we have no cigars or cigarettes." "I seldom smoke," Wingrave answered.

"If only we had had the slightest idea of your coming," Miss Harrison said for the tenth time, "we would have made more adequate preparations. The wine cellar, at least, could have been opened. I allowed Mr. and Mrs. Tresfarwin to go for their holiday only yesterday, and the cellars, of course, are never touched."

"Your claret was excellent," Wingrave assured her.

"I am quite sure," Miss Harrison said, "that claret from the local grocer is not what you are accustomed to--"

"My dear madam," Wingrave protested, "I seldom touch wine. Show me which picture it is, Juliet, that you--ah!"

She had led him to the end of the gallery and stopped before what seemed to be a plain oak cupboard surrounded by a massive frame. She looked at him half fearfully.

"You want to see that picture?" he asked. "If I might."

He drew a bunch of keys from his pocket and calmly selected one. It was a little rusty, but the cupboard turned at once on its hinges. A woman's face smiled down upon them, dark and splendid, from the glowing touch of a great painter. Juliet studied it eagerly, and then stole a sidelong glance at the man by her side. He was surveying it critically and without any apparent emotion.

"Herkomer's, I think," he remarked. "Quite one of his best." "It is your mother?" she whispered.

He nodded.

"I'm not great at genealogy," he said, "but I can go as far back as that. She was by way of being a great lady, the daughter of the Duke of Warminster."

"You were an only son," she said softly. "She must have been very fond of you."

"Customary thing, I suppose," he remarked. "Lucky for her, under the circumstances, that she died young."

He closed the oaken door in front of the picture, and locked it.

"I should like to see the armory," he said; "but I really forget--let me see, it is at the end of the long gallery, isn't it?"

She led him there without a word. She was getting a little afraid of him. They inspected the library and wandered back into the picture gallery. It was she, now, who was silent. She had shown him all her favorite treasures without being able to evoke a single spark of enthusiasm.

"Once," she remarked, "we all had a terrible fright. We were told that everything was going to be sold."

He nodded.

"I did think of it," he admitted; "but there seemed to be no hurry. All these things are growing into money year by year. Some day I shall send everything to Christie's."

She looked at him in horror.

"You cannot--oh, you cannot mean it?" she cried. "Why not? They are no use to me."

"No use?" she faltered.

"Not a bit. I don't suppose I shall see them again for many years. And the money--well, one can use that."

"But I thought--that you were rich?" she faltered.

"So I am," he answered, "and yet I go on making more and more, and I shall go on. Money is the whip with which its possessor can scourge humanity. It is with money that I deal out my--forgive me, I forgot that I

was talking aloud, and to a child," he wound up suddenly.

She looked at him, dry-eyed, but with a strained look of sorrow strangely altering her girlish face.

"You must be very unhappy," she said.

"Not at all," he assured her. "I am one of those fortunate persons who have outlived happiness and unhappiness. I have nothing to do but live-- and pay off a few little debts."

He rose directly afterwards, and she walked with him out to the gardens whence a short cut led to the village.

"I have not tried again to make you change your mind," he said as they stood for a moment on the terrace. "If my wishes have any weight with you, I trust that you will do nothing without consulting Mr. Pengarth."

"And you--" she faltered, "are you--never in London? Sha'n't I see you again any time?"

"If you care to, by all means," he answered. "Tell Mr. Pengarth to let me have your address. Goodbye! Thank you for taking care of my treasures so well."

She held his cold hand in hers and suddenly raised it to her lips. Then she turned away and hurried indoors.

Wingrave stood still for a moment and gazed at his hand through the darkness as though the ghosts of dead things had flitted out from the dark laurel shrubs. Then he laughed quietly to himself.

SPREADING THE NETS

"By the bye," the Marchioness asked him, "have you a Christian name?"

"Sorry," Wingrave answered, "if I ever had, I've forgotten it."

"Then I must call you Wingrave," she remarked. "I hate calling anyone I know decently well Mr. anything."

"Charmed," Wingrave answered; "it isn't a bad name."

"It isn't," she admitted. "By the bye," she continued, looking at him

critically, "you are rather a surprising person, aren't you?"

"Glad you've found it out," Wingrave answered. "I always thought so." "One associates all sorts of terrible things with millionaires--especially African and American ones," she remarked. "Now you could pass

anywhere for the ordinary sort of decent person."

Wingrave nodded. "I was told the other day," he remarked reflectively, "that if I would only cultivate two things, I might almost pass as a member of the English aristocracy."

"What were they?" she asked rashly. "Ignorance and impertinence," he answered.

The Marchioness was silent for a moment. There was a little more color than usual in her beautiful cheeks and a dangerous glitter in her eyes.

"You can go home, Mr. Wingrave," she said.

He rose to his feet imperturbably. The Marchioness stretched out a long white hand and gently forced him back again.

"You mustn't talk like that to me," she said quietly. "I am sensitive." He bowed.

"A privilege, I believe, of your order," he remarked. "Of course, if you want to quarrel--" she began.

"I don't," he assured her.

"Then be sensible! I want to talk to you."

"Sensible, alone with you!" he murmured. "I should establish a new record."

"You certainly aren't in the least like a millionaire," she declared, smiling at him, "you are more like a--"

"Please go on," he begged.

"I daren't," she answered, shaking her head.

"Then you aren't in the least like a marchioness," he declared. "At least, not like our American ideas of one."

She laughed outright.

"Bring your chair quite close to mine," she ordered, "I really want to talk to you."

He obeyed, and affected to be absorbed in the contemplation of the

rings on the hand which a great artist had called the most beautiful in England. She withdrew it a little peevishly, after a moment's pause.

"I want to talk about the Barringtons," she said. "Do you know that they are practically ruined?"

"I heard that Barrington had been gambling on the Stock Exchange the last few days," he answered.

"He has lost a great deal of money," she answered, "and they were almost on their last legs before. Are you going to set them straight again?"

"No idea," he answered. "I haven't been asked, for one thing."

"Ruth will ask you, of course," the Marchioness said impatiently. "I expect that she is waiting at your flat by now. I want to know whether you are going to do it."

The hand was again very close to his. Again Wingrave contemplated the rings.

"I forgot that you were her friend, and are naturally anxious," he remarked.

"I am not her friend," the Marchioness answered, "and--I do not wish you to help them."

Wingrave was silent. The hand was insistent, and he held it for a moment lightly, and then let it go.

"Well, I don't know," he said doubtfully. "The Barringtons have been very hospitable to me."

"Rubbish!" the Marchioness answered. "You have done quite enough for them already. Of course, you are a man--and you must choose. I am sure that you understand me."

He rose to his feet.

"I must think this out," he said. "The Barringtons have a sort of claim on me. I will let you know which way I decide."

She stood close to him, and her hand fell upon his shoulder.

"You are not going!" she exclaimed. "I have told them that I am at home to no one, and I thought that you would stay and entertain me. Sit down again, Wingrave!"

"Sorry," he answered, "I have a lot to do this afternoon. I came directly

I had your note; but I have had to keep some other people waiting." "You are going to see Lady Ruth!"

"Not that I know of," he declared. "I have heard nothing from her. By the bye, I lost some money to you at bridge the other evening. How much was it? Do you remember?"

She looked at him for a second, and turned away. "Do you really want to know?" she asked.

"If you please. Put the amount down on a piece of paper, and then I sha'n't forget it."

She crossed the room to her desk, and returned with a folded envelope.

He stuffed it into his waistcoat pocket.

"I shall be at the opera tonight," she said. "Will you come there and tell me what--which you decide?"

"With pleasure," he answered, "if I can get away from a stupid dinner in time."

She let him go reluctantly. Afterwards she passed into her own room, and stood looking at herself in the pier glass. Artists and the society papers called her the most beautiful woman in England; fashion had placed her upon such a pinnacle that men counted it a distinction to be seen speaking to her. She dealt out her smiles and favors like Royalty itself; she had never once known a rebuff. This afternoon she felt that she had received one. Had she been too cold or too forward? Perhaps she had underestimated the man himself. She rang for her maid.

"Celeste," she said, "I shall wear my new Paquin gown tonight at the opera, and my pearls."

"Very good, your ladyship."

"And I am going to lie down for an hour or two now. Don't let me be disturbed. I want to look my best tonight. You understand?"

"Perfectly, your ladyship."

The Marchioness rested, but she did not sleep. She was thinking of Wingrave!

It was not Lady Ruth, but her husband, who was waiting to see Wingrave on his return. Aynesworth was talking to him, but at once

withdrew. Wingrave nodded with slightly upraised eyebrows. He never shook hands with Barrington.

"You wanted to see me?" he inquired, carelessly turning over a little pile of letters.

Barrington was ill at ease. He hated himself and he hated his errand. "Yes, for a moment or two--if you're not busy," he said. "May I smoke?

I'm nervous this morning."

"Help yourself," Wingrave said shortly. "Cigarettes and cigars on the sideboard. Touch the bell if you'll take anything to drink."

"Thanks--Aynesworth gave me a brandy and soda. Capital fellow, Aynesworth!"

"Have another," Wingrave said shortly.

He crossed the room to the sideboard. Wingrave glanced up from his letters, and smiled coldly as he saw the shaking fingers.

"I don't often indulge like this," Barrington said, turning away from the sideboard with a tumbler already empty in his hands. "The fact is, I've had rather a rude knock, and Ruth thought I'd better come and see you."

Wingrave remained a study of impassivity. His guest's whole demeanor, his uneasy words and nervous glances were an unspoken appeal to be helped out in what he had come to say. And Wingrave knew very well what it was. Nevertheless, he remained silent--politely questioning. Barrington sat down a little heavily. He was not so carefully dressed as usual; he looked older, his appearance lacked altogether that air of buoyant prosperity which was wont to inspire his friends and creditors with confidence.

"I've been a fool, Wingrave," he said. "You showed me how to make a little money a few weeks ago, and it seemed so easy that I couldn't resist having a try by myself, only on rather a larger scale. I lost! Then I went in again to pull myself round, and I lost again. I lost--more than I can easily raise before settlement."

"I am sorry," Wingrave said politely. "It is very unwise to meddle in things you know so little about."

For a moment the worm turned. Barrington rose to his feet, and with a

deep flush upon his cheeks moved towards the door. But his spark of genuine feeling died out almost as soon as it had been kindled. Outside that door was ruin; within, as he very well knew, lay his only chance of salvation. He set down his hat, and turned round.

"Wingrave," he said, "will you lend me some money?" Wingrave looked at him with upraised eyebrows.

"I," he remarked, "lend you money? Why should I?"

"Heaven knows," Barrington answered. "It is you who have chosen to seek us out. You have forced upon us something which has at least the semblance of friendship. There is no one else whom I could ask. It isn't only this damned Stock Exchange transaction. Everything has gone wrong with me for years. If I could have kept going till next July, I should have been all right. I have made a little success in the House, and I am promised a place in the next government. I know it seems queer that I should be asking you, but it is that--or ruin. Now you know how things are with me." "You are making," Wingrave said quietly, "a mistake. I have not

pretended or given the slightest evidence of any friendship for yourself." Barrington looked at him with slowly mounting color.

"You mean--"

"Precisely," Wingrave interrupted. "I do not know what I might or might not do for Lady Ruth. I have not considered the subject. It has not, in fact, been presented to me."

"It is the same thing," Barrington declared hoarsely. "Pardon me--it is not," Wingrave answered.

"What I ask you to do," Barrington said, "I ask on behalf of my wife." "As an ambassador," Wingrave said coldly, "you are not acceptable to

me. It is a matter which I could only discuss with Lady Ruth herself. If Lady Ruth has anything to say to me, I will hear it."

Barrington stood quite still for several moments. The veins on his forehead stood out like tightly drawn cords, his breath came with difficulty. The light in his eyes, as he looked at Wingrave, was almost murderous.

"If Lady Ruth desires to see me," Wingrave remarked slowly, "I shall be here at nine o'clock this evening. Tomorrow my movements are

uncertain. You will excuse me if I hurry you away now. I have an engagement which is already overdue."

Barrington took up his hat and left the room without a word. Wingrave remained in his chair. His eyes followed the departing figure of his visitor. When he was absolutely sure that he was alone, he covered his face with one hand. His engagement seemed to have been with his thoughts for he did not stir for nearly an hour later. Then he rang the bell for Aynesworth.

IN THE TOILS

Wingrave did not speak for several moments after Aynesworth had entered the room. He had an engagement book before him and seemed to be deep in its contents. When at last he looked up, his forehead was furrowed with thought, and he had the weary air of a man who has been indulging in unprofitable memories.

"Aynesworth," he said, "be so good as to ring up Walters and excuse me from dining with him tonight."

Aynesworth nodded.

"Any particular form of excuse?" he asked.

"No!" Say that I have an unavoidable engagement. I will see him tomorrow morning."

"Anything else?" Aynesworth asked, preparing to leave the room.

"No! You might see that I have no visitors this evening. Lady Ruth is coming here at nine o'clock."

"Lady Ruth is coming here," Aynesworth repeated in a colorless tone. "Alone?"

"Yes."

Aynesworth shrugged his shoulders, but made no remark. He turned towards the door, but Wingrave called him back.

"Your expression, Aynesworth," he said, "interests me. Am I or the lady in question responsible for it?"

"I am sorry for Lady Ruth," Aynesworth said. "I think that I am sorry,

too, for her husband."

"Why? She is coming of her own free will."

"There are different methods of compulsion," Aynesworth answered. Wingrave regarded him thoughtfully.

"That," he said, "is true. But I still do not understand why you are sorry for her."

"Because," Aynesworth said, "I know the history of a certain event, and I know you. It is, I suppose, for this end that you made use of them."

Wingrave nodded.

"Quite right," he declared. "I think that the time is not far off when that dear lady and I can cry quits. This time, too, I see nothing to impair my satisfaction at the probable finale. In various other cases, as you might remember, I have not been entirely successful."

"It depends," Aynesworth remarked drily, "upon what you term success."

Wingrave shrugged his shoulders.

"I think," he said coldly, "that you are aware of what my feelings and desired course of action have been with regard to those of my fellow creatures with whom I have happened to come into contact. It seems to me that I have been a trifle unfortunate in several instances."

"As for instance?" Aynesworth asked.

"Well, to take a few cases only," Wingrave continued, "there was the child down at Tredowen whom you were so anxious for me to befriend. Of course, I declined to do anything of the sort, and she ought, by rights, to have gone to some charitable institution, founded and supported by fools, and eventually become, perhaps, a domestic servant. Instead of which, some relation of her father turns up and provides for her lavishly. You must admit that that was unfortunate."

"It depends upon the point of view," Aynesworth remarked drily. "Personally, I considered it a most fortunate occurrence."

"Naturally," Wingrave agreed. "But then you are a sentimentalist. You like to see people happy, and you would even help to make them so if you could without any personal inconvenience. I am at the other pole. If I

could collect humanity into one sentient force, I would set my heel upon it without hesitation. I try to do what I can with the atoms, but I have not the best of fortune. There was Mrs. Travers, now! There I should have been successful beyond a doubt if some busybody hadn't sent that cable to her husband. I wonder if you were idiot enough to do that, Aynesworth?"

"If I had thought of the Marconigram," Aynesworth said, "I am sure I should have done it. But as a matter of fact, I did not."

"Just as well, so far as our relations are concerned," Wingrave said coldly. "I did manage to make poor men of a few brokers in New York, but my best coup went wrong. That boy would have blown his brains out, I believe, if some meddling idiot hadn't found him all that money at the last moment. I have had a few smaller successes, of course, and there is this affair of Lady Ruth and her estimable husband. You know that he came to borrow money of me, I suppose?"

"I guessed it," Aynesworth answered. "You should be modern in your revenge and lend it to him."

Wingrave smiled coldly.

"I fancy," he said, "that Lumley Barrington will find my revenge modern enough. I may lend the money they need--but it will be to Lady Ruth! I told her husband so a few minutes ago. I told him to send his wife to me. He has gone to tell her now!"

"I wonder," Aynesworth remarked, "that he did not thrash you--or try

to."

Again Wingrave's lips parted.

"Moral deterioration has set in already," he remarked. "When he pays

his bills with my money, he will lose the little he has left of his self- respect."

Aynesworth turned abruptly away. He was strongly tempted to say things which would have ended his connection with Wingrave, and as yet he was not ready to leave. For the sake of a digression, he took up a check book from the table.

"There are three checks," he remarked, "which I cannot trace. One for ten thousand pounds, another for five, and a third for a thousand pounds.

What account shall I put them to?"

"Private drawing account," Wingrave answered. "They represent a small speculation. By the bye, you'd better go and ring up Walters."

"Do you wish the particulars entered in your sundry investment book?" Aynesworth asked.

Wingrave smiled grimly.

"I think not," he answered. "You can put them to drawing account. If you want me again this evening, I shall dine at the Cafe Royal at eight o'clock, and shall return here at five minutes to nine."

. . . . . . . . . . .

Lady Ruth was punctual. At a few minutes past nine, Morrison announced that a lady had called to see Mr. Wingrave by appointment.

"You can show her in," Wingrave said. "See that we are not disturbed." Lady Ruth was scarcely herself. She was dressed in a high-necked muslin gown, and she wore a hat and veil, which somewhat obscured her features. The latter she raised, however, as she accepted the chair which Wingrave had placed for her. He saw then that she was pale, and her manner betrayed an altogether unfamiliar nervousness. She avoided his

eyes.

"Did you expect me?" she asked.

"Yes!" he answered, "I thought that you would come."

Her foot, long and slender, beat impatiently upon the ground. She looked up at him once, but immediately withdrew her eyes.

"Why did you bring me here?" she asked in a low tone. "My dear Lady Ruth!" he protested.

"If you want to play at being friends," she said, "for heaven's sake call me Ruth. You found it easy enough once."

"You are very kind," he answered. "Ruth, by all means."

"Now will you answer my question?" she said. "Do you mean--to help us?"

"Us--no!" he answered; "you--perhaps yes!" he added.

Then she looked at him, and found herself puzzled by the perfect impassivity of his features. Surely he would drop the mask now. He had

insisted upon her coming!

"Perhaps?" she repeated. "What then--are the conditions?"

He bent over towards her. Curiously enough, there was, mingled with many other sensations, a certain sense of triumph in the thought, it was almost a hope, that at last he was going to betray himself, that he was going to admit tacitly, or by imputation, that her power over him was not wholly dead. It was a terrible situation--in her heart she felt so, but it had its compensations. Wingrave had been her constant attendant for months. He had seen her surrounded by men, all anxious to secure a smile from her; he had seen her play the great lady in her own house, and she played it very well. She knew that she was a past mistress in the arts which fascinate his sex, she understood the quiet speeches, the moods, every trick of the gamester in emotions, from the fluttering of eyelids to the unchaining of the passions. And he had loved her. Underneath it all, he must love her now. She was determined that he should tell her so. It was genuine excitement which throbbed in her pulses, a genuine color which burned in her cheeks.

"The conditions?" he repeated. "You believe, then, that I mean to make conditions?"

She raised her eyes to his, eloquent eyes she knew, and looked at him.

The mask was still there--but he had moved a little nearer to her. "I do not know," she said softly. "You must tell me."

There was a moment's silence. She had scarcely given herself credit for such capacity for emotion. He was on his feet. Surely the mask must go now! And then--she felt that it must be a nightmare. It was incredible! He had struck a match and was calmly lighting a cigarette.

"One," he said coolly, "is that Mademoiselle Violet employs no more amateur assassins to make clumsy attempts upon my life."

She sat in her place rigid--half frozen with a cold, numbing fear. He had sent for her, then, only to mock her. She had failed! They were not even to have the money! Speech was quite impossible. Then he continued. "I will take your assent for granted," he said. "Do you know how much

you require to free yourself?"

"About eight thousand pounds!" she answered mechanically. He sat down and wrote a check, which he laid before her.

"You will have to endorse that," he remarked in a matter-of-fact tone. "Your name at the back will do instead of a receipt."

She sprang to her feet.

"Keep your money, " she cried. "I will not touch it. Please open the door for me! I am going."

"By all means--if you wish it," he answered undisturbed. "At the same time, I am curious to know why you came here at all if you did not intend to accept it."

She faced him, hot and angry.

"I did intend to accept it," she declared. "It is that or ruin. But you are too cruel! You make it--impossible."

"You surprise me," he answered. "I suppose you know best."

"For heaven's sake tell me," she cried passionately, "what has come to you, what manner of a man are you? You loved me once! Now, even, after all these years, you cannot deny it. You have gone out of your way to be with me, to be my companion wherever we are. People are beginning to smile when they see us together. I don't mind. I--for God's sake tell me, Wingrave! Why do you do it? Why do you lend me this money? What can I do for you? What do you want me to be? Are you as cold as a stone? Have you no heart--no heart even for friendship!"

"I would not seek," he answered, "to buy--your friendship with a check!"

"But it is yours already," she cried, holding out her hands. "Give me a little kindness, Wingrave! You make me feel and seem a perfect idiot. Why, I'd rather you asked me anything that treated me like this."

"I was under the impression," Wingrave remarked, "that I was behaving rather well. I wonder what would really satisfy you!"

"To have you behave as you are doing, and want to behave differently," she cried. "You are magnificent--but it is because you are indifferent. Will you kiss me, Wingrave?"

"With pleasure!" he answered.

She drew away from him quickly.

"Is it--another woman?" she asked. "The Marchioness?"

Her eagerness was almost painful. He did not answer her at once. She caught hold of his wrist and drew him towards her. Her eyes searched his face.

"The Marchioness," he said, "is a very beautiful woman. She does not, however, affect the situation as between you and me."

"If she dared!" Lady Ruth murmured. "Wingrave, won't you try and be friends with me?"

"I will try--certainly," he answered. "You would be surprised, however, if you could realize the effect of a long period of enforced seclusion upon a man of my--"

"Don't!" she shrieked; "stop!"

"My temperament, I was about to say," he concluded. "There was a time when I am afraid I might have been tempted, under such circumstances as these, to forget that you were no longer free, to forget everything that except we were alone, and that you--are as beautiful as ever you were!"

"Yes!" she murmured, moving imperceptibly a little nearer towards him.

He picked up the check and gave it to her.

"I am no actor," he said, looking at her steadily. "At present, I make no conditions. But--"

She leaned towards him. He took her face between his hands and kissed her on the lips.

"I may make them later," he said. "I reserve my right." She looked at him for a moment, and dropped her veil. "Please take me down to my carriage," she asked.

THE INDISCRETION OF THE MARCHIONESS

"I am perfectly certain," Juliet declared, "that we ought not to be here."

"That," Aynesworth remarked, fanning himself lightly with his pocket handkerchief, "may account for the extraordinary sense of pleasure which I am now experiencing. At the same time, I can't see why not."

"I only met you this afternoon--a few hours ago. And here we are, absolutely wedged together on these seats--and my chaperon is dozing half the time."

"Pardon me," Aynesworth objected, "I knew you when you were a child."

"For one day!"

"Nevertheless," Aynesworth persisted, "the fact remains. If you date our acquaintance from this afternoon, I do not. I have never forgotten the little girl in short frocks and long black hair, who showed me where the seagulls built, and told me Cornish fairy stories."

"It was a very long time ago," she remarked.

"Four years," he answered; "for you, perhaps, a long time, because you have changed from a child--into a woman. But for a man approaching middle age--as I am--nothing!"

"That is all very well, " she answered, "but I am not sure that we ought to be in the gallery at Covent Garden together, with a chaperon who will sleep!"

"She will wake up," he declared, "with the music." "And I," she murmured, "will dream. Isn't it lovely?" He smiled.

"I wonder how it really seems to you," he remarked. "We are breathing an atmosphere hot with gas, and fragrant with orange peel. We are squashed in amongst a crowd of people of a class whom I fancy that neither you nor I know much about. And I saw you last in a wilderness! We saw only the yellow sands, and the rocks, and the Atlantic. We heard only the thunder of the sea and the screaming of seagulls. This is very different."

"Wonderfully, wonderfully different," she answered. "I miss it all! Of course I do, and yet one is so much nearer to life here, the real life of men and women. Oh, one cannot compare it. Why should one try? Ah, listen!"

The curtain went up. The music of the orchestra subsided, and the music of the human voice floated through the Opera House--the human voice, vibrant with joy and passion and the knowledge which lies behind the veil. Juliet found no time to talk then, no time to think even of her companion. Her young cheeks were flushed, her eyes were bright with excitement. She leaned a little forward in her place, she passed with all the effortless facility of her ingenuous youth, into the dim world of golden fancies which the story of the opera was slowly unfolding. Beside her, Mrs. Tresfarwin dozed and blinked and dozed again--and on her left Aynesworth himself, a little affected by the music, still found time to glance continually at his companion, so radiant with life and so fervently intent upon realizing to the full this, the first of its unknown joys. So with crashing of chords and thunder of melody the act went on. And when it was over, Juliet thought no more of the Cornish sea and the lullaby of the waves. A new music was stirring in her young blood.

They were in the front row of the gallery, and presently she leaned over to gaze down at the panorama below, the women in the boxes and stalls, whose bare shoulders and skillfully coiffured hair flashed with jewels. Suddenly her hand fell upon Aynesworth's arm.

"Look!" she cried in some excitement, "do you see who that is in the box there--the one almost next to the stage?"

Aynesworth, too, uttered a little exclamation. The lights from beneath were falling full upon the still, cold face of the man who had just taken a vacant chair in one of the boxes.

"Wingrave!" he exclaimed, and glanced at once at his watch.

"Sir Wingrave Seton," she murmured. "Isn't it strange that I should see him here tonight?"

"He comes often," Aynesworth answered. "Music is one of his few weaknesses."

There was a movement in the box, and a woman's head and shoulders appeared from behind the curtain. Juliet gave a little gasp.

"Mr. Aynesworth," she exclaimed, "did you ever see such a beautiful woman? Do tell me who she is!"

"A very great lady in London society," Aynesworth answered. "That is Emily, Marchioness of Westchester."

Juliet's eyes never moved from her until the beautiful neck and shoulders were turned away. She leaned over towards her companion, and she did not again, for some few minutes, face the house.

"She is the loveliest woman I ever saw in my life," Juliet said with a little sigh. "Is she a great friend of Sir Wingrave Seton, Mr. Aynesworth?"

"He has no friends," Aynesworth answered. "I believe that they are very well acquainted."

"Poor Sir Wingrave!" Juliet murmured softly. Aynesworth looked at her in some surprise.

"It is odd that you should have recognized him from up here, " he remarked thoughtfully. "He has changed so much during the last few years."

Juliet smiled, but she did not explain. She felt that she was obeying Wingrave's wishes.

"I should have recognized him anywhere," she answered simply. "I wonder what they are talking about. She seems so interested, and he looks so bored."

Aynesworth looked at his watch. It was barely ten o'clock. "I am very glad to see him here this evening," he remarked.

"I should like so much," she said, still gazing at them earnestly, "to know that they are talking about."

. . . . . . . . . . .

"So you will not tell me," the Marchioness murmured, ceasing for a moment the graceful movements of her fan, and looking at him steadily. "You refuse me this--almost the first thing I have ever asked you?"

"It is scarcely," Wingrave objected, "a reasonable question."

"Between you and me," she murmured, "such punctiliousness is scarcely necessary--is it?"

He withstood the attack of those wonderful eyes lifted swiftly to his, and answered her gravely.

"You are Lady Ruth's friend," he remarked. "Probably, therefore, she

will tell you all about it."

The Marchioness laughed softly, yet with something less than mirth. "Friends," she exclaimed, "Lady Ruth and I? There was never a

woman in this world who was less my friend--especially now!"

He asked for no explanation of her last words, but in a moment or two she vouchsafed it. She leaned a little forward, her eyes flashed softly through the semi-darkness.

"Lady Ruth is afraid," she said quietly, "that I might take you away from her."

"My dear lady," he protested, "the slight friendship between Lady Ruth and myself is not of the nature to engender such a fear."

She shrugged her beautiful shoulders. Her hands were toying with the rope of pearls which hung from her neck. She bent over them, as though examining the color of the stones.

"How long have you known Ruth?" she asked quietly.

He looked at her steadfastly. He could not be sure whether it was his fancy, or whether indeed there was some hidden meaning in her question.

"Since I came to live in England," he answered. "Ah!"

There was a moment's silence. Then with a little wave of her hands and a brilliant smile, she figuratively dismissed the subject.

"We waste time," she remarked lightly, "and we may have callers at any moment. I will ask you no more questions save those which the conventions may permit you to answer truthfully. We can't depart from our code, can we, even for the sake of an inquisitive woman?"

"I can assure you--" he began.

"But I will have no assurances, she interrupted smilingly. "I am going to talk of other things. I am going to ask you a ridiculous question. Are you fond of music?--seriously!"

"I believe so," he answered. "Why?"

"Because," she answered, "I sometimes wonder what there is in the world that interests you! Certainly, none of the ordinary things seem to. Tonight, almost for the first time, I saw you look a little drawn out of

yourself. I was wondering whether it was the music or the people. I suppose, until one gets used to it," she added, looking a little wearily around the house, "an audience like this is worth looking at."

"It certainly is not the people," he said. "Do you make as close a study of all your acquaintances?"

"Naturally not," she answered, "and I do not class you amongst my acquaintances at all. You interest me, my friend--very much indeed!"

"I am flattered," he murmured.

"You are not--I wish that you were," she answered simply. "I can understand why you have succeeded where so many others have failed. You are strong. You have nerves of steel--and very little heart. But now-- what are you going to do with your life, now that wealth must even have lost its meaning to you? I should like to know that. Will you tell me?"

"What is there to do?" he asked. "Eat and drink, and juggle a little with the ball of fate."

"You are not ambitious?" "Not in the least."

"Pleasure, for itself, does not attract you. No! I know that it does not.

What are you going to do, then?"

"I have no idea," he answered. "Won't you direct me?" "Yes, I will," she answered, "if you will pay my price."

He looked at her more intently. He himself had been attaching no particular importance to this conversation, but he was suddenly conscious that it was not so with the woman at his side. Her eyes were shining at him, soft and full and sweet; her beautiful bosom was rising and falling quickly; there had come to her something which even he was forced to recognize, that curious and voluptuous abandonment which a woman rarely permits herself, and can never assume. He was a little bewildered. His speech lost for a moment its cold precision.

"Your price?" he repeated. "I--I am stupid. I'm afraid I don't understand."

"Marry me," she whispered in his ear, "and I will take you a little further into life than you could ever go alone You don't care for me, of

course--but you shall. You don't understand this world, Wingrave, or how to make the best of it. I do! Let me be your guide!"

Wingrave looked at her in grave astonishment. "You are not by any chance--in earnest?" he asked.

"You know very well that I am," she answered swiftly. "And yet you hesitate! What is it that you are afraid of? Don't you like to give up your liberty? We need not marry unless you choose. That is only a matter of form nowadays at any rate. I have a hundred chaperons to choose from. Society expects strange things from me. It is your companionship I want. Your money is fascinating, of course. I should like to see you spend it, to spend it with both hands. Don't be afraid that we should be talked about. I am not Lady Ruth! I am Emily, Marchioness of Westchester, and I live and choose my friends as I please; will you be chief amongst them? Hush!"

For Wingrave it was providential. The loud chorus which had heralded the upraising of the curtain died away. Melba's first few notes were floating through the house. Silence was a necessity. The low passion of the music rippled from the stage, through the senses and into the hearts of many of the listeners. But Wingrave listened silent and unmoved. He was even unconscious that the woman by his side was watching him half anxiously every now and then.

The curtain descended amidst a thunder of applause. Wingrave turned slowly towards his companion. And then there came a respite--a knock at the door.

The Marchioness frowned, but Wingrave was already holding it open. Lady Ruth, followed by an immaculate young guardsman, a relative of her husband, was standing there.

"Mr. Wingrave!" she exclaimed softly, with upraised eyebrows, "why have you contrived to render yourself invisible? We thought you were alone, Emily," she continued, "and took pity on you. And all the time you had a prize."

The Marchioness looked at Lady Ruth, and Lady Ruth looked at the Marchioness. The young guardsman was a little sorry that he had come, but Lady Ruth never turned a hair.

"You must really have your eyes seen to, dear," the Marchioness remarked in a tone of tender concern. "When you can't see such an old friend as Mr. Wingrave from a few yards away, they must be very bad indeed. How are you, Captain Kendrick? Come and tell me about the polo this afternoon. Sorry I can't offer you all chairs. This is an absurd box--it was only meant for two!"

"Come into ours," Lady Ruth said; "we have chairs for six, I think." The Marchioness shook her head.

"I wish I had a millionaire in the family," she murmured. "All the same, I hate large parties. I am old-fashioned enough to think that two is a delightful number."

Lady Ruth laid her hand upon Wingrave's arm.

"A decided hint, Mr. Wingrave," she declared. "Come and let me introduce you to my sister. Our box is only a few yards off."

"I AM MISANTHROPOS, AND HATE

MANKIND"

Wingrave had just come in from an early gallop. His pale cheeks were slightly flushed, and his eyes were bright. He had been riding hard to escape from disconcerting thoughts. He looked in at the study, and found Aynesworth with a mass of correspondence before him.

"Anything important?" he asked.

"Not yet," Aynesworth answered. "The letters marked private I have sent up to your room. By the bye, there was something I wanted to tell you."

Wingrave closed the door. "Well?" he said.

"I was up in the gallery of the Opera House last night," Aynesworth said, "with a--person who saw you only once, soon after I first came to you--before America. You were some distance away, and yet--my friend

recognized you."

Wingrave shrugged his shoulders.

"That, of course, is possible," he answered. "It really does not matter so very much unless they knew me--as Wingrave Seton!"

"My friend," Aynesworth said, "recognized you as Sir Wingrave Seton."

Wingrave frowned thoughtfully for a moment. "Who was it?" he asked.

"A most unlikely person," Aynesworth remarked smiling. "Do you remember, when we went down to Tredowen just before we left for America, a little, long-legged, black-frocked child, whom we met in the gardens--the organist's daughter, you know?"

"What of her?" Wingrave asked.

"It was she who was with me," Aynesworth remarked. "It was she who saw you in the box with the Marchioness of Westchester."

Aynesworth was puzzled by the intentness with which Wingrave was regarding him. Impenetrable though the man was, Aynesworth, who had not yet lost his early trick of studying him closely, knew that, for some reason or other, his intelligence had proved disturbing.

"Have you then--kept up your acquaintance with this child?" he demanded.

Aynesworth shook his head.

"She is not a child any longer, but a very beautiful young woman," he said. "I met her again quite by accident. She is up in London, studying art at the studio of an old friend of mine who has a class of girls. I called to see him the other afternoon, and recognized her."

"Your acquaintance," Wingrave remarked, "has progressed rapidly if she accepts your escort--to the gallery of the Opera!"

"It was scarcely like that," Aynesworth explained. "I met her and Mrs. Tresfarwin on the way there, and asked to be allowed to accompany them. Mrs. Tresfarwin was once your housekeeper, I think, at Tredowen."

"And did you solve the mystery of this relation of her father who turned up so opportunely?" Wingrave asked.

Aynesworth shook his head.

"She told me nothing about him," he answered.

Wingrave passed on to his own room. His breakfast was on the table awaiting him, and a little pile of letters and newspapers stood by his plate. His servant, his head groom, and his chauffeur were there to receive their orders for the morning. About him were all the evidences of his well- ordered life. He sent both the men away and locked the door. It was half an hour before he touched either his breakfast or his letters . . . .

He lunched at Westchester House in obedience to a somewhat imperative summons. There were other guests there, whom, however, he outstayed. As soon as they were alone, his hostess touched him on the arm and led him to her own room.

"At last!" she exclaimed, with an air of real relief. "There, sit down opposite to me, please--I want to watch your face."

She was a little paler than usual, and he noticed that she had avoided talking much to him at luncheon time. And yet he thought that he had never seen her more beautiful. Something in her face had altered. He could not tell what it was for he was not a man of much experience as regarded her sex. Yet, in a vague sort of way, he understood the change. A certain part of the almost insolent quietness, the complete self-assurance of her manner, had gone. She was a little more like an ordinary woman!

"Lady Ruth proved herself an excellent tactician last night," she remarked. "She has given me an exceedingly uncomfortable few hours. For you, well for you it was a respite, wasn't it?"

"I don't know that I should call it exactly that," he answered thoughtfully.

She looked at him steadfastly, almost wistfully.

"Well," she said, "I am not going to make excuses for myself. But the things which one says naturally enough when the emotions provoke them sound crude enough in cold blood and colder daylight. We women are creatures of mood, you know. I was feeling a little lonely and a little tired last night, and the music stole away my common sense."

"I understand," he murmured. "All that you said shall be forgotten."

"Then you do not understand," she answered, smiling at him. "What I said I do not wish to be forgotten. Only--just at that moment, it sounded natural enough--and today--I think that I am a little ashamed."

He rose from his seat. Her eyes leaped up to his expectantly, and the color streamed into her cheeks. But he only stood by her side. He did nothing to meet the half-proffered embrace. "Dear Lady Emily," he said, "all the kind things that you said were spoken to a stranger. You did not know me. I did not mean anyone to know me. It is you who have commanded the truth. You must have it. I am not the person I seem to be. I am not the person to whom words such as yours should have been spoken. Even my name is an assumed one. I should prefer to leave it at that--if you are content."

"I am not content," she answered quietly; "I must hear more." He bowed.

"I am a man," he said, "who spent ten years in prison, the ten best years of my life. A woman sent me there--a woman swore my liberty away to save her reputation. I was never of a forgiving disposition, I was never an amiably disposed person. I want you to understand this. Any of the ordinary good qualities with which the average man may be endowed, and which I may have possessed, are as dead in me as hell fire could burn them. You have spoken of me as of a man who failed to find a sufficient object in life. You were wrong. I have an object, and I do my best to live up to it. I hate the whole world of men and women who laughed their way through life whilst I suffered--tortures. I hate the woman who sent me there. I have no heart, nor any sense of pity. Now perhaps you can understand my life and the manner of it."

Her hands were clasped to the side of her head. Something of horror had stolen into the steadfast gaze with which she was still regarding him. Yet there were other things there which puzzled him.

"This--is terrible!" she murmured. "Then you are not--Mr. Wingrave at all?"

He hesitated. After all, it was scarcely worth while concealing anything now.

"I am Sir Wingrave Seton," he said. "You may remember my little affair!"

She caught hold of his hands.

"You poor, poor dear!" she cried. "How you must have suffered!"

Wingrave had a terrible moment. What he felt he would never have admitted, even to himself. Her eyes were shining with sympathy, and it was so unexpected. He had expected something in the nature of a cold withdrawal; her silence was the only thing he had counted upon. It was a fierce, but short battle. His sudden grasp of her hands was relaxed. He stood away from her.

"You are very kind," he said. "As you can doubtless imagine, it is a little too late for sympathy. The years have gone, and the better part of me, if ever there was a better part, with them."

"I am not so sure of that!" she whispered. He looked at her coldly.

"Why not?"

"If you were absolutely heartless," she said, "if you were perfectly consistent, why did you not make me suffer? You had a great chance! A little feigned affection, and then a few truths. You could have dragged me down a little way into the pit of broken hearts! Why didn't you?"

He frowned.

"One is forced to neglect a few opportunities!" She smiled at him--delightfully.

"You foolish man!" she murmured. "Some day or other, you will turn out to be a terrible impostor. Do you know, I think I am going to ask you again--what I asked you last night?"

"I scarcely think that you will be so ill-advised," he declared coldly. "Whether you believe it or not, I can assure you that I am incapable of affection."

She sighed.

"I am not so sure about that," she said with protesting eyebrows, "but you are terribly hard-hearted?"

He was entirely dissatisfied with the impression he had produced. He

considered the attitude of the Marchioness unjustifiably frivolous. He had an uneasy conviction that she was not in the least inclined to take him seriously.

"I don't think," he said, glancing at the clock, "that I need detain you any longer."

"You are really going away, then?" she asked him softly. "Yes."

"To call on Lady Ruth, perhaps?" "As it happens, no," he answered.

Suddenly her face changed--she had remembered something. "It was Lady Ruth!" she exclaimed.

"Exactly!" he interrupted.

"What a triumph of inconsistency!" she declared scornfully. "You are lending them money!"

"I am lending money to Lady Ruth," he answered slowly.

Their eyes met. She understood, at any rate, what he intended to convey. Certainly his expression was hard and merciless enough now!

"Poor Ruth," she murmured.

"Some day," he answered, "you will probably say that in earnest."

JULIET GAINS EXPERIENCE

"Of course," Juliet said, "after Tredowen it seems very small, almost poky, but it isn't, really, and Tredowen was not for me all my days. It was quite time I got used to something else."

Wingrave looked around him with expressionless face. It was a tiny room, high up on the fifth floor of a block of flats, prettily but inexpensively furnished. Juliet herself, tall and slim, with all the fire of youth and perfect health on her young face, was obviously contented.

"And your work?" he asked. She made a little grimace.

"I have a good deal to unlearn," she said, "but Mr. Pleydell is very kind

and encouraging."

"You will go down to Cornwall for the hot weather, I hope?" he said. "London is unbearable in August."

"The class are going for a sketching tour to Normandy," she said, "and Mr. Pleydell thought that I might like to join them. It is very inexpensive, and I should be able to go on with my work all the time."

He nodded thoughtfully.

"I hear," he said, "that you have met Mr. Aynesworth again."

"Wasn't it delightful?" she exclaimed. "He is quite an old friend of Mr.

Pleydell. I was so glad to see him."

"I suppose," he remarked, "you are a little lonely sometimes?" "Sometimes," she admitted. "But I sha'n't be when I get to know the

girls in the class a little better."

"I have some friends," he said thoughtfully, "women, of course, who would come and see you with pleasure. And yet," he added, "I am not sure that you would not be better off without knowing them."

"They are fashionable ladies, perhaps?" she said simply. He nodded.

"They belong to the Juggernaut here which is called society. They would probably try to draw you a little way into its meshes. I think, yes, I am sure," he added, looking at her, "that you are better off outside."

"And I am quite sure of it," she answered laughing. "I haven't the clothes or the time or the inclination for that sort of thing. Besides, I am going to be much too happy ever to be lonely."

"I myself," he said, "am not an impressionable person. But they tell me that most people, especially of your age, find London a terribly lonely place."

"I can understand that," she answered, "unless they really had something definite to do. I have felt a little of that myself. I think London frightens me a little. It is so different from the country, and there is a great deal that is difficult to understand."

"For instance?"

"The great number of poor people who find it so hard to live," she

answered. "Some of the small houses round here are awful, and Mr. Malcolm--he is the vicar of the church here, and he called yesterday--tells me that they are nothing like so bad as in some other parts of London. And then you take a bus, it is such a short distance--and the shops are full of wonderful things at such fabulous prices, and the carriages and houses are so lovely, and people seem to be showering money right and left everywhere."

"It is the same in all large cities," he answered, "more or less. There must always be rich and poor, when a great community are herded together. As a rule, the extreme poor are a worthless lot."

"There must be some of them, though," she answered, "who deserve to have a better time. Of course, I have never been outside Tredowen, where everyone was contented and happy in their way, and it seems terrible to me just at first. I can't bear to think that everyone hasn't at least a chance of happiness."

"You are too young," he said, "to bother your head about these things yet Wait until you have gathered in a little philosophy with the years. Then you will understand how helpless you are to alter by ever so little the existing state of things, and it will trouble you less."

"I," she answered, "may, of course, be helpless, but what about those people who have huge fortunes, and still do nothing?"

"Why should they?" he answered coldly. "This is a world for individual effort. No man is strong enough to carry even a single one of his fellows upon his shoulders. Charity is the most illogical and pernicious of all weaknesses."

"Now you are laughing at me," she declared. "I mean men like that Mr. Wingrave, the American who has come to England to spend all his millions. I have just been reading about him," she added, pointing to an illustrated paper on the table. "They say that his income is too vast to be put into figures which would sound reasonable; that he has estates and shooting properties, and a yacht which he has never yet even seen. And yet he will not give one penny away. He gives nothing to the hospitals, nothing to the poor. He spends his money on himself, and himself alone!"

Wingrave smiled grimly.

"I am not prepared to defend my namesake," he said; "but every man has a right to do what he likes with his own, hasn't he? And as for hospitals, Mr. Wingrave probably thinks, like a good many more, that they should be state endowed. People could make use of them, then, without loss of self respect."

She shook her head a little doubtfully.

"I can't argue about it yet," she said, "because I haven't thought about it long enough. But I know if I had all the money this man has, I couldn't be happy to spend thousands and thousands upon myself while there were people almost starving in the same city."

"You are a sentimentalist, you see," he remarked, "and you have not studied the laws on which society is based. Tell me, how does Mrs. Tresfarwin like London?"

Juliet laughed merrily.

"Isn't it amusing?" she declared. "She loves it! She grumbles at the milk, and we have the butter from Tredowen. Everything else she finds perfection. She doesn't even mind the five flights of stone steps."

"Social problems," Wingrave remarked, "do not trouble her."

"Not in the least," Juliet declared. "She spends all her pennies on beggars and omnibus rides, and she is perfectly happy."

Wingrave rose to go in a few minutes. Juliet walked with him to the door.

"I am going to be really hospitable," she declared. "I am going to walk with you to the street."

"All down those five flights?" he exclaimed. "Every one of them!"

They commenced the descent.

"There is something about a flat," she declared, "which makes one horribly curious about one's neighbors--especially if one has never had any. All these closed doors may hide no end of interesting people, and I have never seen a soul go in or out. How did you like all this climbing?"

"I'm afraid I didn't appreciate it," he admitted.

"Perhaps you won't come to see me again, then?" she asked. "I hope you will."

"I will come," he said a little stiffly, "with pleasure!"

They were on the ground floor, and Juliet opened the door. Wingrave's motor was outside, and the man touched his hat. She gave a little breathless cry.

"It isn't yours?" she exclaimed.

"Certainly," he answered. "Do you want to come and look at it?" "Rather!" she exclaimed. "I have never seen one close to in my life." He hesitated.

"I'll take you a little way, if you like," he said. Her cheeks were pink with excitement.

"If I like! And I've never been in one before! I'll fly up for my hat. I sha'n't be a moment."

She was already halfway up the first flight of stairs, with a whirl of skirts and flying feet. Wingrave lit a cigarette and stood for a moment thoughtfully upon the pavement. Then he shrugged his shoulders. His face had grown a little harder.

"She must take her chances," he muttered. "No one knows her.

Nobody is likely to find out who she is."

She was down again in less time than seemed possible. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes bright with excitement. Wingrave took the wheel himself, and she sat up by his side. They glided off almost noiselessly.

"We will go up to the Park," he said. "It is just the time to see the people."

"Anywhere!" she exclaimed. "This is too lovely!"

They passed from Battersea northwards into Piccadilly, and down into the Park. Juliet was too excited to talk; Wingrave had enough to do to drive the car. They passed plenty of people who bowed, and many who glanced with wondering admiration at the beautiful girl who sat by Wingrave's side. Lady Ruth, who drive by quickly in a barouche, almost rose from her seat; the Marchioness, whose victoria they passed, had time

to wave her hand and flash a quick, searching glance at Juliet, who returned it with her dark eyes filled with admiration. The Marchioness smiled to herself a little sadly as the car shot away ahead.

"If one asked," she murmured to herself, "he would try to persuade one that it was another victim."

NEMESIS AT WORK

Wingrave was present that evening at a reception given by the Prime Minister to some distinguished foreign guests. He had scarcely exchanged the usual courtesies with his host and hostess before Lady Ruth, leaning over from a little group, whispered in his ear.

"Please take me away. I am bored. I want to talk to you." He paused at once. Lady Ruth nodded to her friends.

"Mr. Wingrave is going to take me to hear Melba sing," she said. "See you all again, I suppose, at Hereford House!"

They made slow progress through the crowded rooms. Once or twice Wingrave fancied that his companion hung a little heavily upon his arm. She showed no desire to talk. She even answered a remark of his in a monosyllable. Only when they passed the Marchioness, on the arm of one of the foreign guests in whose honor the reception was given, she seemed to shiver a little, and her grasp upon his arm was tightened. Once, in a block, she was forced to speak to some acquaintances, and during those few seconds, Wingrave studied her curiously. She was absolutely colorless, and her strange brilliant eyes seemed to have lost all their fire. Her gown was black, and the decorations of her hair were black except for a single diamond. There was something almost spectral about her appearance. She walked stiffly--for the moment she had lost the sinuous grace of movement which had been one of her many fascinations. Her neck and shoulders alone remained, as ever, dazzlingly beautiful.

They reached a quiet corner at last. Lady Ruth sank with a little gesture of relief into an easy chair. Wingrave stood before her.

"You are tired tonight," he remarked.

"I am always tired," she answered wearily. "I begin to think that I always shall be."

He said nothing. Lady Ruth closed her eyes for a moment as though from sheer fatigue. Suddenly she opened them again and looked him full in the face.

"Who was she?" she asked.

"I do not understand," he replied.

"The child you were with--the ingenue, you know--with the pink cheeks and the wonderful eyes! Is she from one of the theaters, or a genuine article?"

"The young lady to whom you refer," he answered, "is the daughter of an old friend of mine. I am practically her guardian. She is in London studying painting."

"You are her guardian?" Lady Ruth repeated. "I am sorry for her." "You need not be," he answered. "I trust that I shall be able to fulfill

my duties in a perfectly satisfactory manner."

"Oh! I have no doubt of it," she answered. "Yet I am sorry for her." "You are certainly," he remarked, "not in an amiable mood."

"I am in rather a desperate one if that is anything," she said, looking at him with something of the old light in her tired eyes.

"You made a little error, perhaps, in those calculations?" he suggested. "It can be amended."

"Don't be a brute," she answered fiercely. He shrugged his shoulders.

"That sounds a little severe," he remarked.

"Don't take any notice of anything I say tonight," she murmured softly. "I am a little mad. I think that everything is going against me! I know that you haven't a grain of sympathy for me--that you would rather see me suffer than not, and yet you see I give myself away entirely. Why shouldn't I? Part of it is through you in a way."

"I rather fancied," he remarked, "that up to now--"

"Yes! Of course!" she interrupted, "you saved me from ruin, staved it

off at any rate. And you held over the reckoning! I--I almost wish--" She paused. Again her eyes were searching his.

"I am a little tired of it all, you see," she continued. "I don't suppose Lumley and I can ever be the same again since I brought him--that check. He avoids being alone with me--I do the same with him. One would think-

-to watch the people, that the whole transaction was in the Morning Post. They smile when they see us together, they grin when they see you with anybody else. It's getting hateful, Wingrave!"

"I am afraid," he said quietly, "that you are in a nervous, hypersensitive state. No one else can possibly know of the little transaction between us, and, so far as I am concerned, there has been nothing to interfere with your relations with your husband."

"You are right," she answered, "I am losing my nerve. I am only afraid that I am losing something else. I haven't an ounce of battle left in me. I feel that I should like to close my eyes and wake up in a new world, and start all over again."

"It is nothing but a mood," he assured her. "Those new worlds don't exist any longer. They generally consist of foreign watering places where the sheep and the goats house together now and then. I think I should play the game out, Lady Ruth, until--"

"Until what?"

"Perhaps to the end," he answered. "Who can tell? Not I! By this time tomorrow, it might be I who would be reminding you--"

"Yes?"

"That there are other worlds, and other lives to live!"

"I should like," she whispered very softly, "to hear of them. But I fancy somehow that you will never be my instructor. What of your ward?"

"Well! What of her?" he answered calmly. She shivered a little.

"You were very frank with me once, Wingrave," she said. "You are a man whose life fate has wrecked, fate and I! You have no heart left, no feeling. You can create suffering and find it amusing. I am beginning to realize that."

He nodded.

"There is some truth," he declared, "In what you say." "What of that child? Is she, too, to be a victim?"

"I trust," he answered, "that you are not going to be melodramatic." "I don't call it that. I really want to know. I should like to warn her."

"I am not at war with children," he answered. "Her life and mine are as far apart as the poles."

"I had an odd fancy when I saw you with her," Lady Ruth said slowly. "She is very good-looking--and not so absurdly young."

"The fancy was one," he remarked coldly, "which I think you had better get rid of."

"In a way," she continued thoughtfully, "I should like to get rid of it, and yet--how old are you, Wingrave? Well, I know. You are very little over forty. You are barely in the prime of life, you are strong, you have the one thing which society today counts almost divine--great, immeasurable wealth! Can't you find someone to thaw the snows?"

"I loved a woman once," he answered. "It was a long time ago, and it seems strange to me now."

Lady Ruth lifted her eyes to his, and their lambent fires were suddenly rekindled.

"Love her again," she murmured. "What is past is past, but there are the days to come! Perhaps the woman, too, is a little lonely."

"I think not," he answered calmly. "The woman is married, she has lived with her husband more or less happily for a dozen years or so! She is a little ambitious, a little fond of pleasure, but a leader of society, and, I am sure, a very reputable member of it. To love her again would be as embarrassing to her--as it would be difficult for me. You, my dear Lady Ruth, I am convinced, would be the last to approve of it."

"You mock me," she murmured, bending her head. "Is forgiveness also an impossibility?"

"I think," he said, "that any sentiment whatever between those two would be singularly misplaced. You spoke of Melba, I think! She is singing in the further room."

Lady Ruth rose up, still and pale. There was fear in her eyes when she looked at him.

"Is it to be always like this, then?" she said.

"Ah!" he answered, "I am no prophet. Who can tell what the days may bring? In the meantime..."

The Marchioness was very much in request that evening, and she found time for only a few words with Wingrave.

"What have you been doing to poor Ruth?" she asked. "I never saw her look so ill!"

"Indeed!" he answered, "I had not noticed it."

"If I didn't know her better," she remarked, "I might begin to suspect her of a conscience. Whose baby were you driving about this afternoon? I didn't know that your taste ran to ingenues to such an extent. She's sweetly pretty, but I don't think it's nice of you to flaunt her before us middle-aged people. It's enough to drive us to the rouge box. Come to lunch tomorrow!"

"I shall be delighted," he answered, and passed on.

An hour or so later, on his way out, he came upon Lady Ruth sitting a little forlornly in the hall.

"I wonder whether I dare ask you to drop me in Cadogan Square?" she asked. "Is it much out of your way? I am leaving a little earlier than I expected."

"I shall be delighted," he answered, offering his arm.

They passed out of the door and down the covered way into the street. A few stragglers were loitering on the pavement, and one, a tall, thin young man in a long ulster, bent forwards as they came down the steps. Wingrave felt his companion's grasp tighten upon his arm; a flash of light upon the pale features and staring eyes of the young man a few feet off, showed him to be in the act of intercepting them. Then, at a sharp word from Wingrave, a policeman stretched out his arm. The young man was pushed unceremoniously away. Wingrave's tall footman and the policeman formed an impassable barrier--in a moment the electric brougham was gliding down the street. Lady Ruth was leaning back amongst the cushions,

and the hand which fell suddenly upon Wingrave's was cold as ice!

RICHARDSON TRIES AGAIN

"You saw--who that was?"

Lady Ruth's voice seemed to come from a greater distance. Wingrave turned and looked at her with calm curiosity. She was leaning back in the corner of the carriage, and she seemed somehow to have shrunk into an unusual insignificance. Her eyes alone were clearly visible through the semi-darkness--and the light which shone from their depths was the light of fear.

"Yes," he answered slowly, I believe that I recognized him. It was the young man who persists in some strange hallucination as to a certain Mademoiselle Violet."

"It was no hallucination," she answered. "You know that! I was Mademoiselle Violet!"

He nodded.

"It amazes me," he said thoughtfully, "that you should have stooped to such folly. That my demise would have been a relief to you I can, of course, easily believe, but the means--they surely were not worthy of your ingenuity."

"Don't!" she cried sharply. "I must have been utterly, miserably mad!" "Even the greatest of schemers have their wild moments," he remarked

consolingly. "This was one of yours. You paid me a very poor compliment, by the bye, to imagine that an insignificant creature like that--"

"Will you--leave off?" she moaned.

"I daresay," he continued after a moment's pause, "that you find him now quite an inconvenient person to deal with."

She shuddered.

"Oh, I am paying for my folly, if that is what you mean," she declared. "He knows--who I am--that he was deceived. He follows me about-- everywhere."

Wingrave glanced out of the carriage window.

"Unless I am very much surprised," he answered, "he is following us now!"

She came a little closer to him. "You won't leave me? Promise!"

"I will see you home," he answered. "You are coming on to Hereford House."

"I think not," he answered; "I have had enough of society for one evening."

"Emily will be there later," she said quietly.

"Even Lady Emily," he answered, "will not tempt me. I will see you safely inside. Afterwards, if your persistent follower is hanging about, I will endeavor to talk him into a more reasonable frame of mind."

She was silent for a moment. Then she turned to him abruptly.

"You are more kind to me sometimes than I deserve, Wingrave," she remarked.

"It is not kindness," he answered. "I dislike absurd situations. Here we are! Permit me!"

Wingrave kept his word. He saw Lady Ruth to her front door, and then turned back towards his carriage. Standing by the side of the footman, a little breathless, haggard and disheveled-looking, was the young man who had attempted to check their progress a few minutes ago.

Wingrave took hold of his arm firmly.

"Get in there," he ordered, pointing to the carriage.

The young man tried to escape, but he was held as though in a vise. Before he well knew where he was, he was in the carriage, and Wingrave was seated by his side.

"What do you want with me?" he asked hoarsely.

"I want to know what you mean by following that lady about?" Wingrave asked.

The young man leaned forward. His hand was upon the door. "Let me get out," he said sullenly.

"With pleasure--presently," Wingrave answered. "I can assure you that

I am not anxious to detain you longer than necessary. Only you must first answer my question."

"I want to speak to her! I shall follow her about until I can!" the young man declared.

Wingrave glanced at him with a faint derisive smile. His clothes were worn and shabby, he was badly in need of a shave and a wash. He sat hunched up in a corner of the carriage, the picture of mute discomfort and misery.

"Do you know who she is?" Wingrave asked. "Mademoiselle Violet!" the young man answered.

"You are mistaken," Wingrave answered. "She is Lady Ruth Barrington, wife of Lumley Barrington and daughter of the Earl of Haselton."

The young man was unmoved.

"She is Mademoiselle Violet," he declared.

The coupe drew up before the great block of buildings in which was Wingrave's flat. The footman threw open the door.

"Come in with me," Wingrave said. "I have something more to say to you."

"I would rather not," the young man muttered, and would have slouched off, but Wingrave caught him by the arm.

"Come!" he said firmly, and the youth obeyed.

Wingrave led the way into his sitting room and dismissed his servant who was setting out a tray upon the sideboard.

"Sit down," he ordered, and his strange guest again obeyed. Wingrave looked at him critically.

"It seems to me," he said deliberately, "that you are another of those poor fools who chuck away their life and happiness and go to the dogs because a woman had chosen to make a little use of them. You're out of work, I suppose?"

"Yes!"

"Hungry?"

"I suppose so."

Wingrave brought a plate of sandwiches from the sideboard, and mixed a whisky and soda. He set them down in front of his guest, and turned away with the evening paper in his hand.

"I am going into the next room for some cigarettes," he remarked.

He was gone scarcely two minutes. When he returned, the room was in darkness. He moved suddenly towards the electric lights, but was pushed back by an unseen hand. A man's hot breath fell upon his cheek, a hoarse, rasping voice spoke to him out of the black shadows.

"Don't touch the lights! Don't touch the lights, I say!"

"What folly is this?" Wingrave asked angrily. "Are you mad?"

"Not now," came the quick answer. "I have been. It has come to me here, in the darkness. I know why she is angry, I know why she will not speak to me. It is--because I failed."

Wingrave laughed, and moved towards the lights.

"We have had enough of this tomfoolery," he said scornfully. "If you won't listen to reason--"

He never finished his sentence. He had stumbled suddenly against a soft body, he had a momentary impression of a white, vicious face, of eyes blazing with insane fury. Quick to act, he struck--but before his hand descended, he had felt the tearing of his shirt, the sharp, keen pain in his chest, the swimming of his senses. Yet even then he struck again with passionate anger, and his assailant went down amongst the chairs with a dull, sickening crash!

Then there was silence in the room. Wingrave made an effort to drag himself a yard or two towards the bell, but collapsed hopelessly. Richardson, in a few moments, staggered to his feet.

He groped his way to the side of the wall, and found the knobs of the electric lights. He turned two on and looked around him. Wingrave was lying a few yards off, with a small red stain upon his shirt front. His face was ghastly pale, and he was breathing thickly. The young man looked at him for several moments, and then made his way to the side table where the sandwiches were. One by one he took them from the dish, and ate deliberately. When he had finished, he made his way once more towards

where Wingrave lay. But before he reached the spot, he stopped short. Something on the wall had attracted his attention. He put his hand to his head and thought for a moment. It was an idea--a glorious idea.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

Lady Ruth's maid stepped back and surveyed her mistress ecstatically. "Milady," she declared, "has never, no never, appeared more charming.

The gown, it is divine--and the coiffure! Milady will have no rivals."

Lady Ruth looked at herself long and earnestly in the glass. Her face reflected none of the pleased interest with which her maid was still regarding her. The latter grew a little anxious.

"Milady thinks herself a trifle pale, perhaps--a little more color?" Lady Ruth set down the glass.

"No, thank you, Annette," she answered. "I shall do very well, I suppose. Certainly, I won't have any rouge."

"Milady knows very well what becomes her," the woman answered discreetly. "The pallor, it is the more distinguished. Milady cannot fail to have all the success she desires!"

Lady Ruth smiled a little wearily. And at that moment, there came a knock at the door. A servant entered.

"Someone wishes to speak to your ladyship on the telephone," the girl announced.

"On the telephone, at this time of night?" Lady Ruth exclaimed. "Ridiculous! They must send a message, whoever they are!"

"Parkins told them so, your ladyship," the girl answered; "but they insisted that the matter was important. They would give no name, but said that they were speaking from Mr. Wingrave's rooms."

Lady Ruth raised her eyebrows.

"It is very extraordinary," she said coldly, "but I will come to the telephone."

"IT WAS AN ACCIDENT"

Lady Ruth took up the receiver. Some instinct seemed to have prompted her to close the door of the study.

"Who is there?" she asked. "Who is it that wants me?" A thin, unfamiliar voice answered her.

"Is that Lady Ruth Barrington?" "Yes!"

"Is it--Mademoiselle Violet?"

The receiver nearly dropped from her hand.

"I don't understand you," she answered, "I am Lady Ruth Barrington!

Who are you?"

"You are Mademoiselle Violet," was the answer, "and you know who I am! Listen, I am in Mr. Wingrave's rooms."

She would have liked to have rung off and gone away, but it seemed a sheer impossibility for her to move! And all the time her knees were shaking, and the fear of evil things was in her heart.

"What are you doing there?" she asked.

"He brought me in himself," the thin voice answered. "Can you hear me? I don't want to speak any louder for fear anyone else should be listening."

"Yes, I can hear," she answered. "But how dared you ring me up? Say what you desire to quickly! I am going away."

"Wait, please," the voice answered. "I know why you have been angry with me. I know why you have kept away from me, why you have been so cruel! It was because I failed. Was it not, dear Mademoiselle Violet?" She had not the breath or the courage to answer him. In a moment or two he continued, and there was a note of suppressed exultation in his tone.

"Listen! This time--I have not failed!"

She nearly screamed. The receiver in her hand burned like a live thing. Her eyes were set in a fixed and awful stare as though she were trying to see for herself outside the walls of the little room where she stood into the

larger chamber from which the voice--that awful voice--came! Her own words were hysterical and uncertain, but she managed to falter them out at last.

"What do you mean? Where is Mr. Wingrave? Tell me at once!"

The voice, without being raised, seemed to take to itself a note of triumph.

"He is dying--on the floor--just here! Listen hard! Perhaps you can hear him groan! Now will you believe that I am not a coward?"

Her shriek drowned his words. She flung the receiver from her with a crash and rushed from the room into the hall. She brushed past her maid with a wild gesture.

"Never mind my wraps. Open the door, Parkins! Is the carriage waiting?"

"Yes, Milady! Shall--"

But she was past him and down the steps.

"No. 18, Grosvenor Mansions," she cried to the man. "Drive fast."

The man obeyed. The servants, who had come to the door, stood there a little frightened group. She ignored them and everything else completely. The carriage had scarcely stopped when she sprang out and crossed the pavement in a few hasty steps. The tall commissionaire looked in amazement at her. She wore an opera cloak--she was a bewildering vision of white satin and diamonds, and her eyes were terrible with the fear which was in her heart.

She clutched him by the arm.

"Come up with me to Mr. Wingrave's rooms," she exclaimed. "Something terrible has happened. I heard through the telephone."

The man dashed up the stairs by her side. Wingrave's suite was on the first floor, and they did not wait for the lift. The commissionaire put his finger on the bell of the outside door. She leaned forward, listening breathlessly. Inside all was silence except for the shrill clamor of the bell.

"Go on ringing," she said breathlessly. "Don't leave off!"

The man looked at her curiously. "Mr. Wingrave came in about an hour ago with a young man, madam," he said.

"Yes, yes!" she cried. "Listen! There's someone coming."

They heard a hesitating step inside. The door was cautiously opened. It was Richardson, pale, disheveled, but triumphant, who peered out.

"Mademoiselle--Mademoiselle Violet," he cried. "You have come to see for yourself. This way!"

She raised her arm and struck him across the face so that, with a little moan, he staggered back against the wall. Then she hastened forward into the room towards which he had pointed and the door of which stood open. The commissionaire followed her. The servants were beginning to appear.

The room was in darkness save for one electric light. A groan, however, directed them. She fell on her knees by Wingrave's prostrate figure and raised his head slightly. His servant, too, was hurrying forward. She looked up.

"Get me some brandy," she ordered. "Send someone for a doctor. Don't let that young man escape. The brandy, quick!"

She forced some between his lips. There was already a spot of blood upon the gown which, a few minutes ago, had seemed so immaculate. One of the ornaments fell from her hair. It lay unnoticed by her side. Suddenly Wingrave opened his eyes. She saw at once that he was conscious and that he recognized her.

"Don't move, please," she begged. "It will be better for you not to speak. The doctor will be here directly."

He nodded.

"I don't think that I am much hurt," he said slowly. "Your young friend was a born bungler!"

She shuddered, but said nothing.

"How on earth," he asked, "did you get here?" She whispered in his ear.

"The brute--telephoned. Please don't talk."

The doctor arrived. His examination was over in a few moments. "Nothing serious," he declared. "The knife was pretty blunt fortunately.

How did it happen? It seems like a case for the police." "It was an accident," Wingrave declared coolly.

The doctor shrugged his shoulders. He was busy making bandages. Lady Ruth rose to her feet. She was white and giddy. The commissionaire and Morrison were talking together at the door. The latter turned to Lady Ruth.

"Do you think that we had better send for the police, your ladyship?" he asked. "It was the young man who came in with Mr. Wingrave who must have done this! I thought he was a very wild-looking sort of person." "You heard what Mr. Wingrave said," she answered. "I don't think that

I should disobey him, if I were you. The doctor says that, after all, it is not very serious."

"He can't have got far," the hall porter remarked. "He only slipped out as we came in."

"I should let him go for the present," Lady Ruth said. "If Mr. Wingrave wishes to prosecute afterwards, it will be easy for him to do so."

She stepped back to where Wingrave lay. He was in a recumbent position now and, although a little pale, he was obviously not seriously hurt.

"If there is nothing else that I can do," she said, "I will go now!"

"By all means," Wingrave answered. "I am exceedingly obliged to you for your kindness," he added a little stiffly. "Morrison, show Lady Barrington to her carriage!"

She spoke a few conventional words of farewell and departed. Outside on the pavement she stood for a moment, looking carefully around. There was no sign of Richardson anywhere! She stepped into the carriage and leaned back in the corner.

AYNESWORTH PLANS A LOVE STORY

Wingrave disappeared suddenly from London. Aynesworth alone knew where he was gone, and he was pledged to secrecy. Two people received letters from him. Lady Ruth was one of them.

"This," she remarked quietly, handing it over to her husband, "may

interest you."

He adjusted his eye glasses and read it aloud:--

"Dear Lady Ruth,--I am leaving London today for several weeks. With the usual inconsistency of the person to whom life is by no means a valuable asset, I am obeying the orders of my physician. I regret, therefore, that I cannot have the pleasure of entertaining your husband and yourself during Cowes week. The yacht, however, is entirely at your disposal, and I have written Captain Masterton to that effect. Pray extend your cruise, if you feel inclined to.--I remain, yours sincerely, W."

Mr. Barrington looked at his wife inquiringly.

"That seems to me entirely satisfactory, Ruth," he said. "I think that he might have added a word or two of acknowledgment for what you did for him. There is no doubt that, but for your promptness, things might have gone much worse."

"Yes," Lady Ruth said slowly, "I think that he might have added a few words."

Her husband regarded her critically.

"I am afraid, dear," he said, "that all this anxiety has knocked you up a little. You are not looking well."

"I am tired," she answered calmly. "It has been a long season. I should like to do what Wingrave has done--go away somewhere and rest."

Barrington laid his hand upon hers affectionately. It seemed to him that the rings hung a little loosely upon the thin, white fingers. She was pale, too, and her eyes were weary. He did not notice that, as soon as she could, she drew her hand away.

"'Pon my word," he said, "I wish we could go off somewhere by ourselves. But with Wingrave's yacht to entertain on, we must do something for a few of the people. I don't suppose he minds whom we ask, or how many."

"No!" she answered, "I do not suppose he cares."

"It is most opportune," Barrington declared. "I wanted particularly to do something for the Hendersons. He seems very well disposed, and his influence means everything just now. Really, Ruth, I believe we are going

to pull through after all."

She smiled a little wearily. "Do you think so, Lumley?"

"I am sure of it, Ruth," he answered. "I only wish I could see you a little more cheerful. Surely you can't still--be afraid of Wingrave," he added, glancing uneasily across the table.

She looked him in the eyes.

"That is exactly what I am," she answered. "I am afraid of him. I have always been afraid. Nothing has happened to change him. He came back to have his revenge. He will have it."

Lumley Barrington, for once, felt himself superior to his clever wife.

He smiled upon her reassuringly.

"My dear Ruth," he said, "if only you would reflect for a few moments, I feel sure you would realize the absurdity of such fancies. We did Wingrave a service in introducing him to society here, and I am sure that he appreciated it. If he wished for our ruin, why did he lend us eight thousand pounds on no security? Why does he lend us his yacht to entertain our friends? Why did he give me that information which enabled me to make the only money I ever did make on the Stock Exchange?"

She smiled contemptuously.

"You do not understand a man like Wingrave," she declared. "Nothing that he has done is inconsistent with my point of view. He gave you a safe tip, knowing very well that when you had won a little, you would try again on your own account and lose--which you did. He lent us the money to become our creditor; and he lends us the yacht to give another handle to the people who are saying already that he occupies the position in our family which is more fully recognized on the other side of the Channel!"

"You are talking rubbish," he declared vehemently. "No one would dare to say such a thing of you--of my wife!"

She laughed unmercifully.

"If you were not my husband," she said cruelly, "You would have heard it before now. I have been careful all my life--more careful than most women, but I can hear the whisperings already. There are more ways

to ruin than one, Lumley."

"We will refuse the yacht," Barrington said sullenly, "and I will go to the Jews for that eight thousand pounds."

"We will do nothing of the sort," Lady Ruth answered. "I am not going to be a laughing stock for Emily and her friends if I can help it. We'll play the game through now! Only--it is best for you to know the risks . . ."

Wingrave's second letter was to Juliet. She found it on her table one afternoon when she came back from her painting class. She tore it open eagerly enough, but her face clouded over as she read.

"Dear Juliet,--I am sorry that I am unable to carry out my promise to come and see you, but I have been slightly indisposed for some days, and am leaving London, for the present, almost at once. I trust that you are still interested in your work, and will enjoy your trip to Normandy.

"I received your letter, asking for my help towards re-establishing in life a poor family in whom you are interested. I regret that I cannot accede to your request. It is wholly against my principles to give money away to people of this class. I look upon all charity as a mischievous attempt to tamper with natural laws, and I am convinced that if everyone shared my views, society would long ago have been re-established on a sounder and more logical basis. To be quite frank with you, also, I might add that the gift of sympathy has been denied to me. I am quite indifferent whether the family you allude to starve or prosper.

"So far as you yourself are concerned, however, the matter is entirely different. If it gives you pleasure to assist in pauperizing any number of your fellow creatures, pray do so. I enclose a check for L100. It is a present to you. Use it entirely as you please--only, if you use it for the purpose suggested in your letter to me, remember that the responsibility is yours, and yours alone.--I remain, sincerely yours, Wingrave Seton."

Juliet walked straight to her writing table. Her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes were wet with tears. She drew out a sheet of note paper and wrote rapidly:--

"My dear guardian,--I return you the check. I cannot accept such presents after all your goodness to me. I am sorry that you feel as you do

about giving money away. You are so much older and wiser than I am that I dare not attempt to argue with you. Only it seems to me that life would be a cruelly selfish thing if we who are so much more fortunate than many of our fellow creatures did not sometimes try to help them a little through their misery. Perhaps I feel this a little more keenly because I wonder sometimes what might not have become of me but for your goodness.

"I am sorry that you are going away without coming to see me again. You are not displeased with me, I hope, for asking you this, or for any other reason? I am foolish enough to feel a little lonely sometimes. Will you take me out again when you come back?--Your affectionate ward, Juliet."

Juliet went out and posted her letter. On the way back she met Aynesworth.

"Come and sit in the Park for a few minutes," he begged. She turned and walked by his side willingly enough. "Have you been in to see me?" she asked.

"Yes!" he answered. "I have some tickets for the Haymarket for tonight. Do you think we could persuade Mrs. Tresfarwin to come?"

"I'm sure we could," she answered, laughing. Hannah never wants any persuading. How nice of you to think of us!"

"I am afraid," he answered, "that I think of you a good deal." "Then I think that that also is very nice of you!" she declared. "You like to be thought of?"

"Who doesn't? What is the play tonight?"

"I'll tell you about it afterwards," he said. "There is something else I want to say to you first."

She nodded. She scarcely showed so much interest as he would have liked.

"It is about Berneval," he said, keeping his eyes fixed upon her face. "I saw Mr. Pleydell today, and he told me that you were all going there. He suggested that I should come too!"

"How delightful!" she exclaimed. "Can you really get off?"

"Yes. Sir Wingrave is going away, and doesn't want me. I must go

somewhere, and I thought that I might go over and take rooms near you all. Would you care to have me?

"Of course I would," she answered frankly. "Oh!" she exclaimed suddenly, her face clouding over--"I forgot!"

"Well?"

"I am not sure," she said, "that I am going."

"Not going?" he repeated incredulously. "Mr. Pleydell told me that it was all arranged."

"It was--until today," she said. "I am a little uncertain now." He looked at her perplexed.

"May I know why?" he asked. She raised her eyebrows slightly.

"You are rather an inquisitive person," she remarked. "The fact is, I may need the money I have saved for Berneval for somewhere else."

"Of course," he said slowly, "if you don't go--I don't. But you can't stay in London all through the hot weather!"

"Miss Pengarth has asked me to go down there," she said. He laid his hand suddenly upon hers.

"Juliet," he said. She shook her head.

"Miss Lundy, please!"

"Well, Miss Lundy then! May I talk to you seriously?"

"I prefer you frivolous," she murmured. "I like to be amused."

"I'll be frivolous enough later on this evening. I've been wondering if you'd think it impertinent if I asked you to tell me about your guardian."

"What do you want to know?" she asked.

"Just who he is, and why he is content to let you live with only an old woman to look after you. It isn't the best thing in the world for you, is it? I should like to know him, Juliet."

She shook her head.

"I am sorry," she said, "I cannot tell you anything."

There was a short silence. Aynesworth was disappointed, and showed

it.

"It isn't exactly ordinary curiosity," he continued. "Don't think that! Only I feel that you need someone who has the right to advise you and look after you. I should like to be your guardian, Juliet!"

She laughed merrily.

"Good!" she declared. "I like you so much better frivolous. Well, you shall have your wish. You shall be my guardian for the evening. I have one cutlet for dinner, and I am sure it will be spoilt. Will you come and share it?"

She rose to her feet and stood looking down upon him. He was struck, for the first time, by something different in her appearance. The smooth, delicate girlishness of her young face was, as yet, untroubled. Her eyes laughed frankly into his, and all the grace of natural childhood seemed still to linger about her. And yet--there was a change! Understanding was there; understanding, with sorrow in its wake. Aynesworth was suddenly anxious. Had anything happened of which he was ignorant? He rose up slowly. He was sure of himself now! Was he sure of her?

A DEED OF GIFT

Wingrave threw the paper aside with an impatient exclamation. A small notice in an obscure corner had attracted his attention; the young man, Richardson, had been fished out of the river half drowned, and in view of his tearful and abject penitence, had been allowed to go his way by a lenient magistrate. He had been ill, he pleaded, and disappointed. His former employer, in an Islington emporium, gave him a good character, and offered to take him back. So that was an end of Mr. Richardson, and the romance of his days!

A worm like that to have brought him--the strong man, low! Wingrave thought with sullen anger as he leaned back in his chair with half-closed eyes. Here was an undignified hiatus, if not a finale, to all his schemes, to the even tenor of his self-restrained, purposeful life! The west wind was rippling through the orchards which bordered the garden. The muffled roar

of the Atlantic was in his ears, a strange everlasting background to all the slighter summer sounds, the murmuring of insects, the calling of birds, the melodious swish of the whirling knives in the distant hayfield. Wingrave was alone with his thoughts, and he hated them!

Even Mr. Pengarth was welcome, Mr. Pengarth very warm from his ride, carrying his hat and a small black bag in his hand. As he drew nearer, he became hotter and was obliged to rest his bag upon the path and mop his forehead. He was more afraid of his client than of anything else in the world.

"Good afternoon, Sir Wingrave," he said. "I trust that you are feeling better today."

Wingrave eyed him coldly. He did not reply to the inquiry as to his health.

"You have brought the deed?" he asked. "Certainly, Sir Wingrave."

The lawyer produced a roll of parchment from his bag. In response to Wingrave's gesture, he seated himself on the extreme edge of an adjacent seat.

"I do not propose to read all that stuff through," Wingrave remarked. "I take it for granted that the deed is made out according to my instructions."

"Certainly, Sir Wingrave!"

"Then we will go into the house, and I will sign it." Mr. Pengarth mopped his forehead once more. It was a terrible thing to have a conscience.

"Sir Wingrave," he said, "I apologize most humbly for what I am about to say, but as the agent of your estates in this county and your--er--legal adviser with regard to them, I am forced to ask you whether you are quite determined upon this--most unexampled piece of generosity. Tredowen has been in your mother's family for a great many years, and although I must say that I have a great affection for this young lady, I have also an old fashioned dislike to seeing--er--family property pass into the hands of strangers. You might, forgive me--marry!"

Wingrave smiled very faintly, otherwise his face was inscrutable.

"I might," he admitted calmly, "but I shall not. Do you consider me, Mr. Pengarth, to be a person in possession of his usual faculties?"

"Oh, most certainly--most certainly," the lawyer declared emphatically. "Then please do not question my instructions any further. So far as regards the pecuniary part of it, I am a richer man than you have any idea of, Mr. Pengarth, and for the rest--sentiment unfortunately does not appeal to me. I choose to give the Tredowen estates away, to disappoint my next of kin. That is how you may regard the transaction. We will go into the

house and complete this deed."

Wingrave rose slowly and walked with some difficulty up the gravel path. He ignored, however, his companion's timid offer of help, and led the way to the library. In a few minutes the document was signed and witnessed.

"I have ordered tea in the garden," Wingrave said, as the two servants left the room; "that is, unless you prefer any other sort of refreshment. I don't know much about the cellars, but there is some cabinet hock, I believe--"

Mr. Pengarth interposed.

"I am very much obliged," he said, "but I will not intrude upon you further. If you will allow me, I will ring the bell for my trap."

"You will do nothing of the sort," Wingrave answered testily. "You will stay here and talk to me."

"I will stay with pleasure if you desire it," the lawyer answered. "I had an idea that you preferred solitude."

"Then you were wrong," Wingrave answered. "I hate being alone."

They moved out together towards the garden. Tea was set out in a shady corner of the lawn.

"If you will forgive my remarking it," Mr. Pengarth said, "this seems rather an extraordinary place for you to come to if you really dislike solitude."

"I come to escape from an intolerable situation, and because I was ill," Wingrave said.

"You might have brought friends," the lawyer suggested.

"I have no friends," Wingrave answered.

"Some of the people in the neighborhood would be very glad--" Mr.

Pengarth began.

"I do not wish to see them," Wingrave answered.

Mr. Pengarth took a peach, and held his tongue. Wingrave broke the silence which followed a little abruptly.

"Tell me, Mr. Pengarth," he said, "do I look like a man likely to fail in anything he sets out to accomplish?"

The lawyer shook his head vigorously. "You do not," he declared.

"Nor do I feel like one," Wingrave said, "and yet my record since I commenced, shall I call it my second life, is one of complete failure! Nothing that I planned have I been able to accomplish. I look back through the months and through the years, and I see not a single purpose carried out, not a single scheme successful.

"Not quite so bad as that, I trust, Sir Wingrave," the lawyer protested. "It is the precise truth," Wingrave affirmed drily. "I am losing

confidence in myself."

"At least," the lawyer declared, "you have been the salvation of our dear Miss Juliet, if I may call her so. But for you, her life would have been ruined."

"Precisely, " Wingrave agreed. "But I forgot! You don't understand! I have saved her from heaven knows what! I am going to give her the home she loves! Benevolence, isn't it? And yet, if I had only the pluck, I might succeed even now--so far as she is concerned."

The lawyer took off his spectacles and rubbed them with his handkerchief. He was thoroughly bewildered.

"I might succeed," Wingrave repeated, leaning back in his chair, "if only--"

His face darkened. It seemed to Mr. Pengarth as he sipped his tea under the cool cedars, drawing in all their wonderful perfume with every puff of breeze, that he saw two men in the low invalid's chair before him. He saw the breath and desire of evil things struggling with some

wonderful dream vainly seeking to realize itself.

"Some of us," the lawyer said timidly, "build our ideals too high up in the clouds, so that to reach them is very difficult. Nevertheless, the effort counts."

Wingrave laughed mockingly.

"It is not like that with me," he declared. "My plans were made down in hell." "God bless my soul!" the lawyer murmured. "But you are not serious, Sir Wingrave?"

"Ay! I'm serious enough," Wingrave answered. "Do you suppose a man, with the best pages of his life rooted out, is likely to look out upon his fellows from the point of view of a philanthropist? Do you suppose that the man, into whose soul the irons of bitterness have gnawed and eaten their way, is likely to come out with a smirk and look around him for the opportunity of doing good? Rubbish! My aim is to encourage suffering wherever I see it, to create it where I can, to make sinners and thieves of honest people."

"God bless my soul!" the lawyer gasped again. "I don't think you can be--as bad as you think you are. What about Juliet Lundy?"

Fire flashed in Wingrave's eyes. Again, at the mention of her name, he seemed almost to lose control of himself. It was several moments before he spoke. He looked Mr. Pengarth in the face, and his tone was unusually deliberate.

"Gifts," he said, "are not always given in friendship. Life may easily become a more complicated affair for that child with the Tredowen estates hanging round her neck. And anyhow, I disappoint my next of kin."

Morrison, smooth-footed and silent, appeared upon the lawn. He addressed Wingrave.

"A lady has arrived in a cab from Truro, sir," he announced. "She wishes to see you as soon as convenient."

A sudden light flashed across Wingrave's face, dying out again almost immediately.

"Who is she, Morrison?" he asked. The man glanced at Mr. Pengarth.

"She did not give her name, sir."

Mr. Pengarth and Wingrave both rose. The former at once made his adieux and took a short cut to the stables. Wingrave, who leaned heavily upon his stick, clutched Morrison by the arm.

"Who is it, Morrison?" he demanded.

"It is Lady Ruth Barrington, sir," the man answered. "Alone?"

"Quite alone, sir."

FOR PITY'S SAKE

The library at Tredowen was a room of irregular shape, full of angles and recesses lined with bookcases. It was in one of these, standing motionless before a small marble statue of some forgotten Greek poet, that Wingrave found his visitor. She wore a plain serge traveling dress, and the pallor of her face, from which she had just lifted a voluminous veil, matched almost in color the gleaming white marble upon which she was gazing. But when she saw Wingrave, leaning upon his stick, and regarding her with stern surprise, strange lights seemed to flash in her eyes. There was no longer any resemblance between the pallor of her cheeks and the pallor of the statue.

"Lady Ruth," Wingrave said quietly, "I do not understand what has procured for me the pleasure of this unexpected visit."

She swayed a little towards him. Her head was thrown back, all the silent passion of the inexpressible, the hidden secondary forces of nature, was blazing out of her eyes, pleading with him in the broken music of her tone.

"You do not understand," she repeated. "Ah, no! But can I make you understand? Will you listen to me for once as a human being? Will you remember that you are a man, and I a woman pleading for a little mercy--a little kindness?"

Wingrave moved a step further back.

"Permit me," he said, "to offer you a chair."

She sank into it--speechless for a moment. Wingrave stood over her, leaning slightly against the corner of the bookcase.

"I trust," he said, "that you will explain what all this means. If it is my help which you require--"

Her hands flashed out towards him--a gesture almost of horror. "Don't," she begged, "you know that it is not that! You know very well

that it is not. Why do you torture me?"

"I can only ask you," he said, "to explain."

She commenced talking quickly. Her sentences came in little gasps. "You wanted revenge--not in the ordinary way. You had brooded over

it too long. You understood too well. Once it was I who sought to revenge myself on you because you would not listen to me! You hurt my pride. Everything that was evil in me rebelled--"

"Is this necessary?" he interrupted coldly. "I have never reproached you. You chose the path of safety for yourself. Many another woman in your place would doubtless have done the same thing! What I desire to know is why you are here in Cornwall. What has happened to make this journey seem necessary to you?"

"Listen!" she continued. "I want you to know how thoroughly you have succeeded. Before you came, Lumley and I were living together decently enough, and, as hundreds of others live, with outside interests for our chief distraction. You came, a friend! You were very subtle, very skillful! You never spoke a word of affection to me, but you managed things so that--people talked. You encouraged Lumley to speculate--not in actual words, perhaps, but by suggestion. Then you lent me money. Lumley, my husband, let me borrow from you. Everyone knew that we were ruined; everyone knew where the money came from that set us right. So misery has been piled upon misery. Lumley has lost his self respect, he is losing his ambition, he is deteriorating every day. I--how can I do anything else but despise him? He let me, his wife, come to your rooms to borrow money from you. Do you think I can ever forget that? Do you think that he can? Don't you know that the memory of it is dragging us

apart, must keep us apart always--always?"

Wingrave leaned a little forward. His hands were clasped upon the handle of his stick.

"All that you tell me," he remarked coldly, "might equally well have been said in London! I do not wish to seem inhospitable, but I am still waiting to know why you have taken an eight hours' journey to recite a few fairly obvious truths. Your relations with your husband, frankly, do not interest me. The deductions which society may have drawn concerning our friendship need scarcely trouble you, under the circumstances."

Then again the light was blazing in her eyes.

"Under the circumstances!" she repeated. "I know what you mean. It is true that you have asked for nothing. It is true that all this time you have never spoken a single word which all the world might not hear, you have never even touched my fingers, except as a matter of formality. Once I was the woman you loved--and I--well you know! Is this part of your scheme of torture, to play with me as though we were marionettes, you and I, with sawdust in our veins, dull, lifeless puppets! Well, it is finished-

-your vengeance! You may reap the harvest when you will! Publish my letters, prove yourself an injured man. Take a whip in your hand if you like, and I will never flinch. But, for heaven's sake, remember that I am a woman! I am willing to be your slave, nurse you, wait upon you, follow you about! What more can your vengeance need? You have made me despise my husband, you have made me hate my life with him! You have forced me into a remembrance of what I have never really forgotten--and oh! Wingrave," she added, opening her arms to him with a little sob, "if you send me away, I think that I shall kill myself. Wingrave!"

There was a note of despair in her last cry. Her arms fell to her side. Wingrave was on his way to the further end of the room. He rang the bell and turned towards her.

"Listen," he said calmly, "you will return to London tonight. If ever I require you, I shall send for you--and you will come. At present I do not. You will return to your husband. Understand!"

"Yes," she gasped, "but--"

He held out his hand. Morrison was at the door.

"Morrison," he said, "you will order the motor to be round in half an hour to take Lady Ruth to Truro, She has to catch the London express. You will go with her yourself, and see that she has a reserved carriage. If, by any chance, you should miss the train, order a special."

"Very good, sir."

"And tell the cook to send in tea and wine, and some sandwiches, in ten minutes."

Once more they were alone. Lady Ruth rose slowly to her feet and, trembling in every limb, she walked down the room and fell on her knees before Wingrave.

"Wingrave," she said, "I will go away. I will do all that you tell me; I will wear my chains bravely, and hold my peace. But before I go, for heaven's sake, say a kind word, look at me kindly, kiss me, hold my hands; anything, anything, anything to prove to me that you are not a dead man. I could bear unkindness, reproaches, abuse. I can bear anything but this deadly coldness. It is becoming a horror to me! Do, Wingrave--do!"

She clasped his hand--he drew it calmly away.

"Lady Ruth," he said, "you have spoken the truth. I am a dead man. I have no affections; I care neither for you nor for any living being. All that goes to the glory and joy of life perished in that uncountable roll of days, when the sun went out, and inch by inch the wall rose which will divide me forever from you and all the world. Frankly, it was not I who once loved you. It was the man who died in prison. His flesh and bones may have survived--nothing else!"

She rose slowly to her feet. Her eyes seemed to be dilating.

"There is another woman!" she exclaimed softly. Her voice was like velvet, but the agony in her face was unmistakable.

"There is no other woman," he answered. She stood quite still.

"She is here with you now," she cried. "Who is it, Wingrave? Tell me the truth!"

"The truth is already told," he answered. "Except my cook and her

assistants, there is not a woman in the house!"

Again she listened. She gave a little hoarse cry, and Wingrave started.

Out in the hall a girl's clear laugh rang like a note of music to their ears. "You lie!" she cried fiercely. "You lie! I will know who she is."

Suddenly the door was thrown open! Juliet stood there, her hands full of roses, her face flushed and brilliant with smiles.

"How delightful to find you here!" she exclaimed, coming swiftly across to Wingrave. "I do hope you won't mind my coming. Normandy is off, and I have nowhere else to go."

She saw Lady Ruth and stopped.

"Oh! I beg your pardon!" she exclaimed. "I did not know."

"This is Lady Ruth Barrington," Wingrave said; "my ward, Miss Juliet Lundy."

"Your--ward?" Lady Ruth said, gazing at her intently. Juliet nodded.

"Sir Wingrave has been very kind to me since I was a child," she said softly. "He has let me live here with Mrs. Tresfarwin, and I am afraid I sometimes forget that it is not really my home. Am I in the way?" she asked, looking wistfully towards Wingrave.

"By no means!" he exclaimed. "Lady Ruth is just going. Will you see that she has some tea or something?"

Lady Ruth laughed quietly.

"I think," she said, "that it is I who am in the way! I should love some tea, if there is time, but whatever happens, I must not miss that train."

A DREAM OF PARADISE

It seemed to Wingrave that the days which followed formed a sort of hiatus in his life--an interlude during which some other man in his place, and in his image, played the game of life to a long-forgotten tune. He moved through the hours as a man in a maze, unrecognizable to himself, half unconscious, half heedless of the fact that the garments of his

carefully cultivated antagonism to the world and to his fellows had slipped very easily from his unresisting shoulders. The glory of a perfect English midsummer lay like a golden spell upon the land. The moors were purple with heather, touched here and there with the fire of the flaming gorse, the wind blew always from the west, the gardens were ablaze with slowly bursting rhododendrons. Every gleam of coloring, every breath of perfume, seemed to carry him unresistingly back to the days of his boyhood. He fished once more in the trout streams; he threw away his stick, and tramped or rode with Juliet across the moors. At night time she sang or played with the windows open, Wingrave himself out of sight under the cedar trees, whose perfume filled with aromatic sweetness the still night air. Piles of letters came every day, which he left unopened upon his study table. Telegrams followed, which he threw into the wastepaper basket. Juliet watched the accumulating heap with amazement.

"Whatever do people write to you so much for?" she asked one morning, watching the stream of letters flow out of the post bag.

Wingrave was silent for a moment. Her question brought a sudden and sharp sting of remembrance. Juliet knew him only as Sir Wingrave Seton. She knew nothing of Mr. Wingrave, millionaire.

"Advertisements, a good many of them," he said. "I must send for Aynesworth some day to go through them all."

"What fun!" she exclaimed. "Do send for him! He thinks that I am staying with Miss Pengarth, and I haven't written once since I got here!"

To Wingrave, it seemed that a chill had somehow stolen into the hot summer morning. His feet were very nearly upon the earth again.

"I forgot," he said, "that Aynesworth was--a friend of yours. He came and saw you often in London?"

She smiled reflectively.

"He has been very, very kind," she answered. "He was always that, from the first time I saw you both. Do you remember? It was down in the lower gardens."

"Yes!" he answered, "I remember quite well."

"He was very kind to me then," she continued, "and you--well, I was

frightened of you." She stopped for a moment and laughed. Her eyes were full of amazed reminiscence. "You were so cold and severe! I never could have dreamed that, after all, it was you who were going to be the dearest, most generous friend I could ever have had! Do you know, Walter--I mean Mr. Aynesworth--isn't very pleased with me just now?"

"Why not?"

"He cannot understand why I will not tell him my guardian's name. I think it worries him."

"You would like to tell him?" Wingrave asked. She nodded.

"I think so," she answered.

Wingrave said no more, but after breakfast he went to his study alone. Juliet found him there an hour later, sitting idly in front of his table. His great pile of correspondence was still untouched. She came and sat on the edge of the table.

"What are we going to do this morning, please?" she asked. Wingrave glanced towards his letters.

"I am afraid," he said, "that I must spend the day here!" She looked at him blankly.

"Not really!" she exclaimed. "I thought that we were going to walk to Hanging Tor?"

Wingrave took up a handful of letters and let them fall through his fingers. He had all the sensations of a man who is awakened from a dream of Paradise to face the dull tortures of a dreary and eventless life. His eyes were set in a fixed state. An undernote of despair was in his tone.

"You know we arranged it yesterday," she continued eagerly, "and if you are going to send for Mr. Aynesworth, you needn't bother about these letters yourself, need you?

He turned and regarded her deliberately. Her forehead was wrinkled a little with disappointment, her brown eyes were filled with the soft light of confident appeal. Tall and elegantly slim, there was yet something in the graceful lines of her figure which reminded him forcibly that the days of her womanhood had indeed arrived.

She wore a plain white cambric dress and a simple, but much beflowered hat; the smaller details of her toilet all indicated the correct taste and instinctive coquetry of her French descent. And she was beautiful! Wingrave regarded her critically and realized, perhaps for the first time, how beautiful. Her eyes were large and clear, and her eyebrows delicately defined. Her mouth, with its slightly humorous curl, was a little large, but wholly delightful. The sun of the last few weeks had given to her skin a faint, but most becoming, duskiness. Under his close scrutiny, a flush of color stole into her cheeks. She laughed not altogether naturally.

"You look at me," she said, "as though I were someone strange!"

"I was looking," he answered, "for the child, the little black-frocked child, you know, with the hair down her back, and the tearful eyes. I don't think I realized that she had vanished so completely."

"Not more completely," she declared gaily, "than the gloomy gentleman who frowned upon my existence and resented even my gratitude. Although," she added, leaning a little towards him, "I am very much afraid that I see some signs of a relapse today. Don't bother about those horrid letters. Let me tell Mrs. Tresfarwin to pack us up some lunch, and take me to Hanging Tor, please!"

Wingrave laughed a little unsteadily as he rose to his feet. One day more, then! Why not? The end would be soon enough! . . .

Sooner, perhaps, than even he imagined, for that night Aynesworth came, pale and travel-stained, with all the volcanic evidences of a great passion blazing in his eyes, quivering in his tone. The day had passed to Wingrave as a dream, more beautiful even than any in the roll of its predecessors. They sat together on low chairs upon the moonlit lawn, in their ears the murmur of the sea; upon their faces, gathering strength with the darkness, the night wind, salt and fragrant with all the sweetness of dying flowers. Wingrave had never realized more completely what still seemed to him this wonderful gap in his life. Behind it all, he had a subconsciousness that he was but taking a part in some mystical play; yet with an abandon which, when he stopped to think of it, astonished him, he gave himself up without effort or scruple to this most amazing interlude.

All day he had talked more than ever before; the flush on his cheeks was like the flush of wine or the sun which had fired his blood. As he had talked the more, so had she grown the more silent. She was sitting now with her hands clasped and her head thrown back, looking up at the stars with unseeing eyes.

"You do not regret Normandy, then?" he asked.

"No!" she murmured. "I have been happy here. I have been happier than I could ever have been in Normandy."

He turned and looked at her with curious intentness.

"My experience," he said thoughtfully, "of young ladies of your age is somewhat limited. But I should have thought that you would have found it--lonely."

"Perhaps I am different, then," she murmured. "I have never been lonely here--all my life!"

"Except," he reminded her, "when I knew you first."

"Ah! But that was different," she protested. "I had no home in those days, and I was afraid of being sent away."

It was in his mind then to tell her of the envelope with her name upon it in his study, but a sudden rush of confusing thoughts kept him silent. It was while he was laboring in the web of this tangled dream of wild but beautiful emotions that Aynesworth came. A pale, tragic figure in his travel-stained clothes, and face furrowed with anxiety, he stood over them almost before they were aware of his presence.

"Walter!" she cried, and sprang to her feet with extended hands. Wingrave's face darkened, and the shadow of evil crept into his suddenly altered expression. It was an abrupt awakening this, and he hated the man who had brought it about.

Aynesworth held the girl's hands for a moment, but his manner was sufficient evidence of the spirit in which he had come. He drew a little breath, and he looked from one to the other anxiously.

"Is this--your mysterious guardian, Juliet?" he asked hoarsely.

She glanced at Wingrave questioningly. His expression was ominous, and the light faded from her own face. While she hesitated, Wingrave

spoke.

"I imagine," he said, "that the fact is fairly obvious. What have you to say about it?"

"A good deal," Aynesworth answered passionately. "Juliet, please go away. I must speak to your guardian--alone!"

Again she looked at Wingrave. He pointed to the house. "I think," he said, "that you had better go."

She hesitated. Something of the impending storm was already manifest.

Aynesworth turned suddenly towards her.

"You shall not enter that house again, Juliet," he declared. "Stay in the gardens there, and presently you shall know why."

THE AWAKENING

Wingrave had risen to his feet. He was perfectly calm, but there was a look on his face which Juliet had never seen there before. Instinctively she drew a little away, and Aynesworth took his place between them.

"Are you mad, Aynesworth?" Wingrave asked coolly.

"Not now," Aynesworth answered. "I have been mad to stay with you for four years, to look on, however passively, at all the evil you have done. I've had enough of it now, and of you! I came here to tell you so."

"A letter," Wingrave answered, "would have been equally efficacious.

However, since you have told me--"

"I'll go when I'm ready," Aynesworth answered, "and I've more to say. When I first entered your service and you told me what your outlook upon life was, I never dreamed but that the years would make a man of you again, I never believed that you could be such a brute as to carry out your threats. I saw you do your best to corrupt a poor, silly little woman, who only escaped ruin by a miracle; I saw you deal out what might have been irretrievable disaster to a young man just starting in life. Since your return to London, you have done as little good, and as much harm, with your millions as any man could."

Wingrave was beginning to look bored.

"This is getting," he remarked, "a little like melodrama. I have no objection to being abused, even in my own garden, but there are limits to my patience. Come to the point, if you have one."

"Willingly," Aynesworth answered. "I want you to understand this. I have never tried to interfere in any of your malicious schemes, although I am ashamed to think I have watched them without protest. But this one is different. If you have harmed, if you should ever dare to harm this child, as sure as there is a God above us, I will kill you!"

"What is she to you?" Wingrave asked calmly.

"She--I love her," Aynesworth answered. "I mean her to be my wife." "And she?"

"She looks upon me as her greatest friend, her natural protector, and protect her I will--even against you."

Wingrave shrugged his shoulders.

"It seems to me," he said, "that the young lady is very well off as she is. She has lived in my house, and been taken care of by my servants. She has been relieved of all the material cares of life, and she has been her own mistress. I scarcely see how you, my young friend, could do better for her."

Aynesworth moved a step nearer to him. The veins on his forehead were swollen. His voice was hoarse with passion.

"Why have you done this for her?" he demanded, "secretly, too, you a man to whom a good action is a matter for a sneer, who have deliberately proclaimed yourself an evil-doer by choice and destiny? Why have you constituted yourself her guardian? Not from kindness for you don't know what it is; not from good nature for you haven't any. Why, then?"

Wingrave shrugged his shoulders.

"I admit." he remarked coolly, "that it does seem rather a problem; we all do unaccountable things at times, though."

"For your own sake," Aynesworth said fiercely, "I trust that this is one of the unaccountable things. For the rest, you shall have no other chance. I shall take her to Truro tonight."

"Are you sure that she will go?" "I shall tell her the truth."

"And if she does not believe you?"

"She will! If you interfere, I shall take her by force."

"I interfere!" Wingrave remarked. "You need not be afraid of that. The affair as it stands is far too interesting. Call her, and make your appeal."

"I shall tell her the truth," Aynesworth declared.

"By all means! I shall remain and listen to my indictment. Quite a novel sensation! Call the young lady, by all means, and don't spare me."

Aynesworth moved a few steps up the path. He called to her softly, and she came through the little iron gates from the rose gardens. She was very pale, and there was a gleam in her eyes which was like fear. Aynesworth took her by the hand and led her forward.

"You must be brave, dear," he whispered. "I am compelled to say some disagreeable things. It is for your good. It is because I care for you so much."

She looked towards Wingrave. He was sitting upon the garden seat, and his face was absolutely expressionless. He spoke to her, and his cold, precise tone betrayed not the slightest sign of any emotion.

"Aynesworth," he remarked, "is going to tell you some interesting facts about myself. Please listen attentively as afterwards you will be called upon to make a somewhat important decision."

She looked at him a little wistfully and sighed. There was no trace any longer of her companion of the last few weeks. It was the stern and gloomy stranger of her earlier recollections who sat there with folded arms.

"Is it really necessary?" she asked. "Absolutely," Aynesworth answered hurriedly. "It won't take long, but there are things which you must know."

"Very well," she answered, "I am listening."

Aynesworth inclined his head towards the place where Wingrave sat. "I will admit," he said, "that the man there, whom I have served for the

last four years and more, never deceived me as to his real character and

intentions. He had been badly treated by a woman, and he told me plainly that he entered into life again at war with his fellows. Where he could see an opportunity of doing evil, he meant to do it; where he could bring misery and suffering upon anyone with whom he came into contact, he meant to grasp the opportunity. I listened to him, but I never believed. I told myself that it would be interesting to watch his life, and to see the gradual, inevitable humanizing of the man. So I entered his service, and have remained in it until today."

He turned more directly towards Juliet. She was listening breathlessly to every word.

"Juliet," he said, "he has kept his word. I have been by his side, and I speak of the things I know. He has sought no one's friendship who has not suffered for it, there is not a man or woman living who owes him the acknowledgment of a single act of kindness. I have seen him deliberately scheme to bring about the ruin of a harmless little woman. I have seen him exact his pound of flesh, even at the cost of ruin, from a boy. I tell you, Juliet, of my own knowledge, that he has neither heart nor conscience, and that he glories in the evil that his hand finds to do. Even you must know something of his reputation--have heard something of his doings, under the name he is best known by in London--Mr. Wingrave, millionaire."

She started back as though in terror. Then she turned to Wingrave, who sat stonily silent.

"It isn't true," she cried. "You are not--that man?"

He raised his eyes and looked at her. It seemed to her that there was something almost satanic in the smile which alone disturbed the serenity of his face.

"Certainly I am," he answered; "when I returned from America, it suited me to change my identity. You must not doubt anything that Mr. Aynesworth says. I can assure you that he is a most truthful and conscientious young man. I shall be able to give him a testimonial with a perfectly clear conscience."

Juliet shuddered as she turned away. All the joy of life seemed to have gone from her face.

"You are Mr. Wingrave--the Mr. Wingrave. Oh! I can't believe it," she broke off suddenly. "No one could have been so kind, so generous, as you have been to me."

She looked from one to the other of the two men. Both were silent, but whereas Aynesworth had turned his head away, Wingrave's position and attitude were unchanged. She moved suddenly over towards him. One hand fell almost caressingly upon his shoulder. She looked eagerly into his face.

"Tell me--that it isn't all true," she begged. "Tell me that you kindness to me, at least, was real--that you did not mean it to be for my unhappiness afterwards. Please tell me that. I think if you asked me, if you cared to ask me, that I could forgive everything else."

"Every vice, save one," Wingrave murmured, "Nature has lavished upon me. I am a poor liar. It is perfectly true that my object in life has been exactly as Aynesworth has stated it. I may have been more or less successful--Aynesworth can tell you that, too. As regards yourself--"

"Yes?" she exclaimed.

"I congratulate you upon your escape," Wingrave said. "Aynesworth is right. Association of any sort with me is for your evil!"

She covered her face with her hands. Even his tone was different. She felt that this man was a stranger, and a stranger to be feared. Aynesworth came over to her side and drew her away.

"I have a cart outside," he said. "I am going to take you to Truro--"

Wingrave heard the gate close after them--he heard the rumble of the cart in the road growing fainter and fainter. He was alone now in the garden, and the darkness was closing around him. He staggered to his feet. His face was back in its old set lines. He was once more at war with the world.

REVENGE IS--BITTER

At no time during his career did Wingrave appear before the public

more prominently than during the next few months. As London began to fill up again, during the early part of October, he gave many and magnificent entertainments, his name figured in all the great social events, he bought a mansion in Park Lane which had been built for Royalty, and the account of the treasures with which he filled it read like a chapter from some modern Arabian Nights. In the city, he was more hated and dreaded than ever. His transactions, huge and carefully thought out, were for his own aggrandizement only, and left always in their wake ruin and disaster for the less fortunate and weaker speculators. He played for his own hand only, the camaraderie of finance he ignored altogether. In one other respect, too, he occupied a unique position amongst the financial magnates of the moment. All appeals on behalf of charity he steadily ignored. He gave nothing away. His name never figured amongst the hospital lists; suffering and disaster, which drew their humble contributions from the struggling poor and middle classes, left him unmoved and his check book unopened. In an age when huge gifts on behalf of charity was the fashionable road to the peerage, his attitude was all the more noticeable. He would give a thousand pounds for a piece of Sevres china which took his fancy; he would not give a thousand farthings to ease the sufferings of his fellows. Yet there were few found to criticize him. He was called original, a crank; there were even some who professed to see merit in his attitude. To both criticism and praise he was alike indifferent. With a cynicism with seemed only to become more bitter he pursued his undeviating and deliberate way.

One morning he met Lady Ruth on the pavement in Bond Street. She pointed to the vacant seat in her landau.

"Get in, please, for a few minutes," she said. "I want to talk to you. I will take you where you like."

They drove off in silence.

"You were not at the Wavertons last night," he remarked. "No!" she answered quietly. "I was not asked."

He glanced at her questioningly.

"I thought that you were so friendly," he said.

"I was," she answered. "Lady Waverton scarcely knows me now! It is

the beginning of the end, I suppose."

"You are a little enigmatical this morning," he declared.

"Oh, no! You understand me very well," she answered. "Everybody knows that it is you who keep us going. Lumley has not got quite used to taking your money. He has lost nearly all his ambition. Soon his day will have gone by. People shrug their shoulders when they speak of us. Two years ago the Wavertons were delighted to know me. Society seems big, but it isn't. There are no end of little sets, one inside the other. Two years ago, I was in the innermost, today I'm getting towards the outside edge. Look at me! Do you see any change?"

He scrutinized her mercilessly in the cold morning light.

"You look older," he said, "and you have begun to use rouge, which is a pity."

She laughed hardly.

"You think so? Well, I don't want Emily to see my hollow cheeks--or you! Are you satisfied, Wingrave?"

"I am afraid I don't understand--" he began.

"Don't lie," she interrupted curtly. "You do understand. This is your vengeance--very subtle and very crafty. Everything has turned out exactly as you planned. You have broken us, Wingrave! I thought myself a clever woman, but I might as well have tried to gamble with the angels. Why don't you finish it off now--make me run away with you?"

"It would bore us both," he answered calmly. "Besides, you wouldn't come!"

"I should, and you know that I would," she answered. "Everyone expects it of us. I think myself that it would be more decent."

He looked at her thoughtfully.

"You are a strange woman," he said. "I find it hard sometimes to understand you."

"Then you are a fool," she declared in a fierce little whisper. "You know what is underneath all my suffering, all my broken pride! You know that I was fool enough to keep the flame flickering--that I have cared always and for no one else!"

He stopped the carriage.

"You are the most original woman I ever met," he said quietly. "I neither wish to care nor be cared for by anyone. Go home to your husband, and tell him to buy Treadwells up to six."

That same afternoon Wingrave met Aynesworth and cut him dead. Something in the younger man's appearance, though, perplexed him. Aynesworth certainly had not the air of a successful man. He was pale, carelessly dressed, and apparently in ill health. Wingrave, after an amount of hesitation, which was rare with him, turned his car towards Battersea, and found himself, a few minutes later, mounting the five flights of stone steps. Juliet herself opened the door to him. She gave a little gasp when she saw who it was, and did not immediately invite him to enter.

"I am sorry," Wingrave said coldly, "to inflict this visit upon you. If you are alone, and afraid to ask me in, we can talk here."

Her cheeks became as flushed as a moment before they had been pale. She looked at him reproachfully, and, standing on one side to let him pass, closed the door behind him. Then she led the way into her sitting room.

"I am glad that you have come to see me," she said. "Won't you sit down?"

He ignored her invitation, and stood looking around him. There was a noticeable change in the little room. There were no flowers, some of the ornaments and the silver trifles from her table were missing. The place seemed to have been swept bare of everything, except the necessary furniture. Then he looked at her. She was perceptibly thinner, and there were black rings under her eyes.

"Where is Mrs. Tresfarwin?" he asked. "In Cornwall," she answered.

"Why?"

"I could not afford to keep her here any longer."

"What are you doing for a living--painting still?" She shook her head a little piteously.

"They can't sell any more of my pictures," she said. "I am trying to get a situation as governess or companion or--anything."

"When did you have anything to eat last?" he asked.

"Yesterday," she answered, and he was just in time to catch her. She had fainted.

He laid her upon the sofa, poured some water over her face, and fanned her with a newspaper. His expression of cold indifference remained unmoved. It was there in his face when she opened her eyes.

"Are you well enough to walk?" he asked.

"Quite, thank you," she answered. "I am so sorry!" "Put on your hat," he ordered.

She disappeared for a few minutes, and returned dressed for the street. He drove her to a restaurant and ordered some dinner. He made her drink some wine, and while they waited he buried himself in a newspaper. They ate their meal almost in silence. Afterwards, Wingrave asked her a question.

"Where is Aynesworth?"

"Looking for work, I think," she answered. "Why did you not stay down in Cornwall?"

"Miss Pengarth was away--and I preferred to return to London," she told him quietly.

"When are you going to marry Aynesworth?" he asked.

She looked down into her glass and was silent. He leaned a little towards her.

"Perhaps," he remarked quietly, "you are already married?"

Still she was silent. He saw the tears forced back from her eyes. He heard the sob break in her throat. Yet he said nothing. He only waited. At last she spoke.

"Nothing is settled yet," she said, still without looking at him.

"I see no reason," he said calmly, "why, until that time, you should refuse to accept your allowance from Mr. Pengarth."

"I cannot take any more of your money," she answered. "It was a mistake from the first, but I was foolish. I did not understand."

His lip curled with scorn.

"You are one of those," he said, "who, as a child, were wise, but as a

young woman with a little knowledge, become--a prig. What harm is my money likely to do you? I may be the Devil himself, but my gold is not tainted. For the rest, granted that I am at war with the world, I do not number children amongst my enemies."

She raised her eyes then, and looked him in the face.

"I am not afraid of you," she declared. "It is not that; but I have been dependent long enough. I will keep myself--or starve."

He shrugged his shoulders and paid the bill.

"My man," he said, "will take you wherever you like. I have a call to make close here."

They stood upon the pavement. She held out her hand a little timidly.

Her eyes were soft and wistful.

"Goodbye, guardian," she said. "Thank you very much for my lunch." "Ah!" he said gravely, "if you would let me always call myself that!"

She got into the car without a word. Wingrave walked straight back to his own house. Several people were waiting in the entrance hall, and the visitors' book was open upon the porter's desk. He walked through, looking neither to the right nor the left, crossed the great library, with its curved roof, its floor of cedar wood, and its wonderful stained-glass windows, and entered a smaller room beyond--his absolute and impenetrable sanctum. He rang the bell for his servant.

"Morrison," he said, "if you allow me to be disturbed by any living person, on any pretense whatever, until I ring, you lose your place. Do you understand?"

"Perfectly, sir."

Wingrave locked the door. The next hour belonged to himself alone . . . .

When at last he rang the bell, he gave Morrison a note. "This is to be delivered at once," he said.

The man bowed and withdrew. Wingrave, with his hands behind him, strolled out into the library. In a remote corner, a small spectacled person was busy writing at a table. Wingrave crossed the room and stood before him.

"Are you my librarian?" he asked. The man rose at once.

"Certainly, sir," he answered. "My name is Woodall. You may have forgotten it. I am at work now upon a new catalogue."

Wingrave nodded.

"I have a quarto Shakespeare, I think," he said, "that I marked at Sotheby's, also a manuscript Thomas a Kempis, and a first edition of Herrick. I should like to see them."

"By all means," the man answered, hurrying to the shelves. "You have, also, a wonderful rare collection of manuscripts, purchased from the Abbey St. Jouvain, and a unique Horace. If you will permit me."

Wingrave spent half an hour examining his treasures, leaving his attendant astonished.

"A millionaire who understands!" he exclaimed softly as he resumed his seat. "Miraculous!"

Wingrave passed into the hall, and summoned his major domo. "Show me the ballroom," he ordered, "and the winter garden."

The little man in quiet black clothes--Wingrave abhorred liveries--led him respectfully through rooms probably unequaled for magnificence in England. He spoke of the exquisite work of French and Italian artists; with a gesture almost of reverence he pointed out the carving in the wonderful white ballroom.

Wingrave listened and watched with immovable face. Just as they had completed their tour, Morrison approached.

"Mr. Lumley and Lady Ruth Barrington are in the library, sir," he announced.

Wingrave nodded.

"I am coming at once," he said.

THE WAY OF PEACE

They awaited his coming in varying moods. Barrington was irritable

and restless, Lady Ruth gave no signs of any emotion whatever. She had the air of a woman who had no longer fear or hope. Only her eyes were a little weary.

Barrington was walking up and down the room, his hands in his pockets, his eyes fixed upon his wife. Every now and then he glanced nervously towards her.

"Of course," he said, "if he wants a settlement--well, there's an end of all things. And I don't see why he shouldn't. He hasn't lent money out of friendship. He hates me--always has done, and sometimes I wonder whether he doesn't hate you too!"

Lady Ruth shivered a little. Her husband's words came to her with peculiar brutality. It was as though he were blaming her for not having proved more attractive to the man who held them in the hollow of his hand.

"Doesn't it strike you," she murmured, "that a discussion like this is scarcely in the best possible taste? We cannot surmise what he wants-- what he is going to do. Let us wait!"

The door opened and Wingrave entered. To Barrington, who greeted him with nervous cordiality, he presented the same cold, impenetrable appearance; Lady Ruth, with quicker perceptions, noticed at once the change. She sat up in her chair eagerly. It was what she had prayed for, this--but was it for good or evil? Her eyes sought his eagerly. So much depended upon his first few words.

Wingrave closed the door behind him. His greetings were laconic as usual. He addressed Lady Ruth.

"I find myself obliged," he said, "to take a journey which may possibly be a somewhat protracted one. I wished, before I left, to see you and your husband. I sent for you together, but I wish to speak to you separately--to your husband first. You have often expressed a desire to see over my house, Lady Ruth. My major domo is outside. Will you forgive me if I send you away for a few minutes?"

Lady Ruth rose slowly to her feet.

"How long do you wish me to keep away?" she asked calmly.

"A few minutes only," he answered. "You will find me here when Parkinson has shown you round."

He held the door open and she passed out, with a single upward and wondering glance. Wingrave closed the door, and seated himself close to where Barrington was standing.

"Barrington," he said, "twenty years ago we were friends. Since then we have been enemies. Today, so far as I am concerned, we are neither."

Barrington started a little. His lips twitched nervously. He did not quite understand.

"I am sure, Wingrave--" he began. Wingrave interrupted him ruthlessly.

"I give you credit," he continued, "for understanding that my attitude towards you since I--er--reappeared, has been inimical. I intended you to speculate, and you did speculate. I meant you to lose, and you have lost. The money I lent to your wife was meant to remain a rope around your neck. The fact that I lent it to her was intended to humiliate you, the attentions which I purposely paid to her in public were intended to convey a false impression to society--and in this, too, I fancy that I have been successful."

Barrington drew a thick breath--the dull color was mounting to his cheeks.

Wingrave continued calmly--

"I had possibly in my mind, at one time," he said, "the idea of drawing things on to a climax--of witnessing the final disappearance of yourself and your wife from the world--such as we know it. I have, however, ceased to derive amusement or satisfaction from pursuing what we may call my vengeance. Consequently, it is finished."

The light of hope leaped into Barrington's dull eyes, but he recognized Wingrave's desire for silence.

"A few feet to your left, upon my writing table," Wingrave continued, "you will find an envelope addressed to yourself. It contains a discharge, in full, for the money I have lent you. I have also ventured to place to your credit, at your own bank, a sum sufficient to give you a fresh start. When

you return to Cadogan Square, or, at least, this evening, you will receive a communication from the Prime Minister, inviting you to become one of the International Board of Arbitration on the Alaskan question. The position, as you know, is a distinguished one, and if you should be successful, your future career should be assured."

Barrington broke down. He covered his face with his hands. Great sobs shook him. Wingrave waited for a few minutes, and then rose to his feet.

"Barrington," he said, "there is one thing more! What the world may say or think counts for very little. Society reverses its own judgments and eats its own words every day. A little success will bring it to your feet like a whipped dog. It is for yourself I say this, for yourself alone. There is no reason why you should hesitate to accept any service I may be able to render you. You understand me?"

Barrington's face was like the face of a young man. All the cloud of suspicion and doubts and fears was suddenly lifted. He looked through new eyes on to a new world.

"Thank God!" he exclaimed. "Not that I ever doubted it, Wingrave, but--thank God!" . . .

Barrington left the house radiant,--Lady Ruth and Wingrave were alone. She watched him close the door and turn towards her, with a new timidity. The color came and went in her pale cheeks, her eyes were no longer tired. When he turned towards her, she leaned to him with a little seductive movement of her body. Her hands stole out towards him.

"Wingrave!" she murmured.

His first action seemed to crush all the desperate joy which was rising fast in her heart. He took one hand, and he led her to a chair.

"Ruth," he said, "I have been talking to your husband. There are only a few words I want to say to you."

"There are only three I want to hear from you," she murmured, and her eyes were pleading with him passionately all the time. "It seems to me that I have been waiting to hear them all my life. Wingrave, I am so tired--and I am losing--I want to leave it all!"

"Exactly," he answered cheerfully, "what you are going to do. You are going to America with your husband."

"What do you mean?" she asked sharply. He shrugged his shoulders.

"I am rather tired of the game," he said, "that is all. I am like the child who likes to build up again the house of bricks which he has thrown down. I have procured for your husband a seat on the Alaskan Board. It is a very distinguished position, and you will find that it will entail considerable social obligations in America. When you return, he will be able to claim a judgeship, or a place in the Government. You will find things go smoothly enough then."

"But you!" she cried; "I want you!" He looked at her gravely.

"Dear Lady Ruth," he said, "you may think so at this moment, but you are very much mistaken. What you really desire is a complete reconciliation with your husband and a place in the great world which no one shall be able to question. These things are arranged for you; also-- these."

He handed her a little packet. She dropped it idly into her lap. She was looking steadfastly away from them.

"You are free from me now," he continued. "You will find life run quite smoothly, and I do not think that you will be troubled with me when you come back from America. I have other plans."

"There was a slave," she murmured, "who grew to love her gaoler, and when they came to set her free and take her back to her own people--she prayed only to be left in her cell! Freedom for her meant a broken heart!"

"But that was fiction," he answered. "For you, freedom will mean other things. There is work for you to do, honorable work. You must fan the flame of your husband's ambition, you must see that he does justice to his great opportunities. You have your own battle to fight with society, but you have the winning cards for, before you go, you and your husband will be received as guests--well, by the one person whose decision is absolute."

She looked at him in amazement.

"My word of honor," he said quietly, "was enough for Lord Marendon.

You will find things go smoothly with you."

"You are wonderful," she gasped, "but--you--you spoke of going away."

"I am going to travel," he said quietly, "rather a long journey. I have lived three lives, I am going to try a fourth!"

"Alone?" she asked.

"Quite alone," he answered.

"Tell me where you are going?" she begged.

"I cannot do that," he answered. "It is my secret."

She rose to her feet. She was very pale. She stood in front of him, and she laid her hands upon his shoulders.

"Wingrave," she said, "I will obey. I will live the life you have shown me, and I will live it successfully. But I will know this. Who is it that has succeeded where I have failed?"

"I do not understand you," he answered.

"You do!" she declared, "and I will know. For years you have been a man with a shell upon your heart. Every good impulse, every kind thought seemed withered up. You were absolutely cold, absolutely passionless! I have worn myself out trying to call you back to your own, to set the blood flowing once more in your veins, to break for one moment the barriers which you had set up against Nature herself. Some day, I felt that it must come--and it has! Who has done it, Wingrave? It is not--Emily?"

"Emily!" he exclaimed. "I have not seen her for months. She has no interest for me--she never had."

"Then tell me who it is!"

"Nature unaided," he answered carelessly. "Human intervention was not necessary. It was the swing of the pendulum, Ruth, the eternal law which mocks our craving for content. I had no sooner succeeded in my new capacity--than the old man crept out."

"But Nature has her weapons always," she protested. "Wingrave, was it the child?"

He touched the electric bell. Taking her hands, he bent down and

kissed them.

"Dear lady," he said, "goodbye--good fortune! Conquer new worlds, and remember--white is your color, and Paquin your one modiste. Morrison, Lady Barrington's carriage.

"LOVE SHALL MAKE ALL THINGS NEW"

Mr. Pengarth was loth to depart. He felt that all pretext for lingering was gone, that he had outstayed his welcome. Yet he found himself desperately striving for some excuse to prolong an interview which was to all effects and purposes concluded.

"I will do my best, Sir Wingrave," he said, reverting to the subject of their interview, "to study Miss Lundy's interests in every way. I will also see that she has the letter you have left for her within eight days from now. But if you could see you way to leave some sort of address so that I should have a chance of communicating with you, if necessary, I should assume my responsibilities with a lighter heart."

Wingrave gave vent to a little gesture of annoyance.

"My dear sir," he said, "surely I have been explicit enough. I have told you that, within a week from now, I shall be practically dead. I shall never return to England--you will never see me again. I have given life here a fair trial, and found it a failure. I am going to make a new experiment--and it is going to be in an unexplored country. You could not reach me there through the post. You, I think, would scarcely car to follow me. Let it go at that."

Mr. Pengarth took up his bag with a sigh.

"Sir Wingrave," he said, "I am a simple man, and life with me has always been a very simple affair. I recognize the fact, of course, that I am not in a position to judge or to understand the mental attitude of one who, like yourself, has suffered and passed through great crises. But I cannot help wishing that you could find it possible to try, for a time, the quiet life of a countryman in this beautiful home of yours."

Wingrave shrugged his shoulders.

"Mr. Pengarth," he said, "no two men are born alike into this world. Some are blessed with a contented mind, some are wanderers by destiny. You will forgive me if I do not discuss the matter with you more fully. My journey, wherever and whatever it is, is inevitable."

Mr. Pengarth was braver than he had ever been in his life.

"Sir Wingrave," he said, "there is one journey which we must all take in God's good time. But the man who starts before he is called finds no welcome at the end. The greatest in life are those who are content to wait!" "I am not in the least disposed to doubt it, Mr. Pengarth," Wingrave

said calmly. "Now I must really send you away."

So Mr. Pengarth went, but Wingrave was not long destined to remain in solitude. There was a sound of voices in the hall, Morrison's protesting, another insistent. Then the door opened, and Wingrave looked up with darkening face, which did not lighten when he recognized the intruder.

"Aynesworth!" he exclaimed, "what are you doing here? What do you want with me?"

"Five minutes," Aynesworth answered, "and I mean to have it. You may as well tell your man to take his hand off my shoulder."

Wingrave nodded to Morrison.

"You can go," he said. "Come back when I ring."

They were alone! Aynesworth threw down his hat and crossed the room until he was within a few feet of Wingrave.

"Well, sir?"

Aynesworth laughed a little unnaturally.

"I had to come," he said. "It is humiliating, but the discipline is good for me! I was determined to come and see once more the man who has made an utter and complete fool of me."

Wingrave eyed him coldly.

"If you would be good enough to explain," he began.

"Oh, yes, I'll explain," Aynesworth answered. "I engaged myself to you as secretary, didn't I, and I told you the reason at the time? I wanted to make a study of you. I wanted to trace the effect of your long period of

isolation upon your subsequent actions. I entered upon my duties--how you must have smiled at me behind my back! Never was a man more completely and absolutely deceived. I lived with you, was always by your side, I was there professedly to study your actions and the method of them. And yet you found it a perfectly simple matter to hoodwink me whenever you chose!"

"In what respect?" Wingrave asked calmly.

"Every respect!" Aynesworth answered. "Let me tell you two things which happened to me yesterday. I met a young New York stockbroker, named Nesbitt, in London, and in common with all London, I suppose, by this time, I learnt the secret of all those anonymous contributions to the hospitals and other charitable causes during the last year."

"Go on," Wingrave said.

"I have come here on purpose to tell you what I think you are," Aynesworth said. "You are the greatest hypocrite unhanged. You affect to hate your fellows and to love evil-doers. You deceived the whole world, and you deceived me. I know you now for what you are. You conceived your evil plans, but when the time came for carrying them out, you funked it every time. You had that silly little woman on the steamer in your power, and you yourself, behind your own back, released her with that Marconigram to her husband, sent by yourself. You brought the boy Nesbitt face to face with ruin, and to his face you offered him no mercy. Behind his back you employ a lawyer to advance him your own money to pay your own debt. You decline to give a single penny away in charity and, as stealthily as possible, you give away in one year greater sums than any other man has ever parted with. You decline to help the poor little orphan child of the village organist, and secretly you have her brought up in your own home, and stop the sale of your pictures for the sake of the child whom you had only once contemptuously addressed. Can you deny any one of these things?"

"No!" Wingrave answered quietly, "I cannot."

"And I thought you a strong man," Aynesworth continued, aggrieved and contemptuous. "I nearly went mad with fear when I heard that it was

you who were the self-appointed guardian of Juliet Lundy. I looked upon this as one more, the most diabolical of all your schemes!"

Wingrave rose to his feet, still and grave.

"Aynesworth," he said, "this interview does not interest me. Let us bring it to an end. I admit that I have made a great failure of my life. I admit that I have failed in realizing the ambitions I once confided to you. I came out from prison with precisely those intentions, and I was conscious of nothing in myself or my nature to prevent my carrying them out. It seems that I was mistaken. I admit all this, but I do not admit your right to force yourself into my presence and taunt me with my failure. You served me well enough, but you were easily hoodwinked, and our connection is at an end. I have only one thing to say to you. I am leaving this part of the world altogether. I shall not return. That child has some foolish scruples about taking any more of my money. That arises through your confounded interference. She is poor, almost in want. If you should fail her now--"

Aynesworth interrupted with a hoarse little laugh.

"Wingrave," he said, "are you playing the simpleton? If Juliet will not take your money, why should she take mine?"

Wingrave came out from his place. He was standing now between Aynesworth and the door.

"Aynesworth," he said, "do I understand that you are not going to marry the child?"

"I? Certainly not!" Aynesworth answered.

Wingrave remained quite calm, but there was a terrible light in his eyes.

"Now, for the first time, Aynesworth," he said, "I am glad that you are here. We are going to have a complete understanding before you leave this room. Juliet Lundy, as my ward, was, I believe, contented and happy. It suited you to disturb our relations, and your excuse for doing so was that you loved her. You took her away from me, and now you say that you do not intend to marry her. Be so good as to tell me what the devil you do mean!"

Aynesworth laughed a little bitterly.

"You must excuse me," he said, "but a sense of humor was always my undoing, and this reversal of our positions is a little odd, isn't it? I am not going to marry Juliet Lundy because she happens not to care for me in that way at all. My appearance is scarcely that of a joyous lover, is it?"

Wingrave eyed him more closely. Aynesworth had certainly fallen away from the trim and carefully turned out young man of a few months back. He was paler, too, and looked older.

"I do not understand this," Wingrave said.

"I do!" Aynesworth answered bitterly. "There is someone else?" "Someone whom I do not know about?" Wingrave said, frowning

heavily. "Who is he, Aynesworth?"

Aynesworth shrugged his shoulders. He said nothing. Wingrave came a step nearer to him.

"You may as well tell me." he said quietly, "for I shall postpone my journey until I know the whole truth."

"It is not my secret," Aynesworth answered. "Ask her yourself!"

"Very well," Wingrave declared, "I will. I shall return to London tonight."

"It is not necessary," Aynesworth remarked. Wingrave started.

"You mean that she is here?" he exclaimed. Aynesworth drew him towards the window. "Come," he said, "you shall ask her now."

Wingrave hesitated for a moment. An odd nervousness seemed to have taken possession of him.

"I do not understand this, Aynesworth," he said. "Why is she here?" "Go and ask her your question," Aynesworth said. "Perhaps you will

understand then."

Wingrave went down the path which led to the walled garden and the sea. The tall hollyhocks brushed against his knees; the air, as mild as springtime, was fragrant with the perfume of late roses. Wingrave took no note of these things. Once more he seemed to see coming up the path the little black-frocked child, with the pale face and the great sad eyes; it was

she indeed who rose so swiftly from the hidden seat. Then Wingrave stopped short for he felt stirring within him all the long repressed madness of his unlived manhood. It was the weakness against which he had fought so long and so wearily, triumphant now, so that his heart beat like a boy's, and the color flamed into his cheeks. And all the time she was coming nearer, and he saw that the child had become a woman, and it seemed to him that all the joy of life was alight in her face, and the one mysterious and wonderful secret of her sex was shining softly out of her eager eyes. So that, after all, when they met, Wingrave asked her no questions. She came into his arms with all the graceful and perfect naturalness of a child who has wandered a little away from home . . . .

"I am too old for you, dear," he said presently, as they wandered about the garden, "much too old."

"Age," she answered softly, "what is that? What have we to do with the years that are past? It is the years to come only which we need consider, and to think of them makes me almost tremble with happiness. You are much too rich and too wonderful a personage for a homeless orphan like me; but," she added, tucking her arm through his with a contented little sigh, "I have you, and I shall not let you go!"