Title: The Red House Mystery - The Piccadilly Novels
Author: Hungerford, Margaret Hamilton
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.


*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Red House Mystery - The Piccadilly Novels" ***


THE RED HOUSE MYSTERY

MRS. HUNGERFORD

The Piccadilly Novels

BOOTS PURE DRUG CO., LTD.
NOTTINGHAM & LONDON



CHAPTER I


It stood on the top of a high hill--bleak, solitary. In winter
all the winds of heaven raved round it; in summer the happy
sunshine rarely touched it. It was, indeed, hemmed in from
brightness of any kind, by a dense row of cypresses that grew
before the hall-door, and by a barren rock that rose
perpendicularly at the back.

On clear days one could get from this cold house a grand view of
the valley below, nestling in its warmth, and from the road that
ran under it people would sometimes look up and wonder at the
curious colour of the Red House--such a dark red, sombre, like
blood.

It was a bleak house at all times, but to-day it showed itself
singularly dull. A light rain was falling--light, but persistent,
and the usual charming gaiety of an early May morning was drowned
in tears. The house looked drearier than ever, in spite of the
grand proportions. But no amount of walls can make up for a
dearth of nature's _bijouteries_--her shrubs, her trees, her
flowers.

The Red House had no flowering parterres anywhere, no terraces,
no charming idyllic toys of any sort, no gracing gardens full of
lovely sweets, wherewith to charm the eye. Nothing, save one huge
elm upon the barren lawn, and the dark, gloomy row of
cypresses--those gloomiest of all dear Nature's gifts, standing
in funeral procession before the hall door. They had been there
when Dr. Darkham took the place ten years ago. He had thought of
removing them, but on second thoughts had let them alone.
Somehow, he told himself, they suited his _ménage_.

Indoors, the day was, if possible, more depressing than outside.
May should be a lovely month, but months do not always fulfil
their obligations. This May day, as I have said, was full of
grief. Rain in the morning, rain in the afternoon, and rain now
and again when the evening is descending.

In the morning-room, lounging over a low fire, sat Mrs. Darkham,
the doctor's wife, a big, coarse, heavy-looking woman--heavy in
mind as in body. Her hair, a dull brown, streaked liberally with
gray, was untidily arranged, stray locks of it falling about her
ears. She was leaning forward, staring with stupid, small, but
somewhat vindictive blue eyes into the sorry glow of the fire,
and her mouth looked as though she were dwelling on thoughts
unkindly. It was a loose mouth, and vulgar. The woman, indeed,
was plebeian in every feature and movement.

The room was well furnished--that is, comfortably, even
expensively--but it lacked all signs of taste or culture. It
was not unclean, but it was filled with that odious air that
bespeaks carelessness, and a want of refinement. The tables had
been dusted, but there were few ornaments on them--a copy of
Wordsworth was so closely leaved as to suggest the idea that it
had never been opened; another of Shakespeare in the same
condition; some sea-shells, and no flowers.

On the hearthrug--squatting--foolishly playing with the
cinders in the grate, sat a boy--a terrible creature--deaf
and dumb and idiotic. It was the woman's son. The son of Dr.
Darkham, that clever man, that learned scientist!

He sat there, crouching, mouthing; his head protruded between his
knees, playing with the cinders, making passes at the fire with
his long fingers. He was sixteen, but his face was the face of a
child of seven. His mind had stood still; his body, however, had
developed. He was short, clumsy, hideous; but there was strength
--enormous strength--in the muscular arms and legs. The face
vacant, without thought of any kind, was in some remarkable way
beautiful. He had inherited his father's dark eyes--all his
father's best points, indeed--and etherealised them. If his
soul had grown with his body, he would have been one of Nature's
greatest products; but his soul lay stagnant, and the glorious
dark eyes held nothing.

His figure was terrible--short and broad. His hair had never
grown, and the body had ceased to form upwards at twelve. He had
now the appearance of a boy of that age, but the strength of his
real years.

The mother sat in the lounging chair looking into the fire; the
boy sat on the rug. Neither of them was doing anything besides.
Suddenly the door opened.

The woman started and looked round. The poor creature on the rug
still played with the cinders.

"Oh, you!" said Mrs. Darkham. Her husband had just come in.

"Yes. I am going out; I want a stamp."

"You'll find them in the table drawer, then," said his wife
sullenly. Her voice was guttural, vulgar.

"So you're goin' out again," said she, taking up the poker and
stirring the fire into a blaze. As she did so, a hot coal fell on
the idiot's finger, and he threw himself backwards with a hideous
howl.

"What is it, my darling, my lamb?"

The woman went on her knees, and caught the unwieldy mass of
humanity to her with long arms. It had been but a slight burn,
and after awhile the turmoil subsided. Mrs. Darkham rose from her
knees, and the idiot went back to his play amongst the cinders.

"I believe you'd see him burnt alive with joy," said she, turning
to her husband, a great animosity within her eyes.

"Your beliefs are so numerous, and are always so complimentary,
that it is hard to reply," said Dr. Darkham, with a slow smile.

If her glance had betrayed animosity, his, to her, betrayed a
most deadly hatred.

"Oh, there, you're at your sneers again!" said she shrugging her
ample shoulders. "So you're going out this wet day. Where?"

"To"--slowly--"visit the sick."

"Same old answer," said she, trying to laugh contemptuously.

"What you mean is--only you haven't the courage to say it--that
you're going to Rickton Villa."

"I dare say"--with admirable composure, though his heart is
beginning to beat--"that I shall call in there on my way home
to see Mrs. Greatorex."

"Mrs. Greatorex!"

She leans forward, resting her elbows on her knees, and peers at
him insolently. In this position the detestable order of her gown
becomes more apparent.

"Mrs. Greatorex, or her niece, eh?"

"I am not aware that Miss Nesbitt requires the services of any
doctor. Where are these stamps?"

"No! Doesn't she? You seem as blind about her as you are about
the finding of them stamps. And so it is Mrs. Greatorex you go to
see three times a week? She pays you, I suppose?"

"Not now. Feeling herself better a little time ago, she told me
to discontinue my visits. But I dislike leaving a cure half
finished. So I told her I should still call occasionally. She is
not very well off, as you are aware."

He said all this with the dry, business-like air of one who felt
he was bound to speak, but then would do it as concisely as
possible.

"She is well enough off to treat me as a nobody. Me--the wife
of a man whose visits she accep's for nothing! She a pauper, and
me who can ride in my carriage! Why, she wouldn't raise her eyes
to mine if she could 'elp it. Can't see me sometimes, she can't.
And so she's taking your time and your advice for nothing! and
you give them, knowing how she treats your wife!"

The word "wife," so incessantly insisted on, seemed to grind his
very soul. Yes, there she was, sodden, hideous, irredeemable, and
--his wife!

"She is not well off, as I have told you; but she has a certain
standing in the neighbourhood. And it is not well for a doctor to
quarrel with those around him."

"Hypocrite!" said the woman, in a dull but furious way. The very
stolidity of her often made the outburst the more remarkable.

"Don't you think I see into you? Don't you think I know you?--
that I haven't known for the past six months the reason of your
visits to the Villa?"

"Put an end to this," said the doctor, in a slow, cold voice.

"Are you mad?" His dark eyes glowed.

He was a tall, singularly gaunt man, and handsome. The deeply-set
eyes were brilliant, and dark as night. As night too,
unfathomable. The mouth was fixed, cold, determined, and
suggestive of cruelty. The brow was broad and grand. He was about
forty-five, and in manner was suave, low-voiced, and agreeable.
Education and resolution had lifted him up from his first
surroundings to a plane that made him level with those with whom
he now desired to mix. But all his quality could not conceal the
fact that he would be a bad man to fight with--that he possessed
an indomitable will that would drive all things before it, till
it gained the object of its desire.

"Mad? Don't think you'll make me that. I tell you again and again
that I know very well why you visit at---"

He turned upon her, and by an impressive gesture stopped her.

"How dare you speak so of---"

"Miss Nesbitt?" She laughed aloud as she interrupted him.

"No. _Of me!_ Of course I know what you mean. But am I to give up
all my patients to satisfy your detestable jealousy?"

"My jealousy! Do you think I am jealous of you?" said his wife,
with a contemptuous smile.

"'Pon me word, you must think a lot of yourself! Why, who the
deuce are you, any way? Tell me that. You married me for my
money, and glad enough you were to get it."

She poured out the terrible torrent of invective in a slow,
heavy, rumbling way; whilst he stood silent, motionless,
listening. It was so true! And her hideous vulgarity--that was
true too. It would never alter. She would be there always,
clogging him, dragging him down to her own level. She was now as
uneducated and idealess as when, at the age of twenty-two, he
married her for the sake of her money; and now besides all that,
she was hideous and old--older than himself in appearance.
Quite an old woman!

And then the child!



CHAPTER II


Dr. Darkham's eyes turned to the hearthrug, and then turned away
again hastily. He loathed to look upon this, his first-born and
only child. He shrank with horror whenever he saw him. Physical
deformity was an abomination in his eyes, beauty a thing to
worship. Thus his only child was a living torture to him.

To the mother the unfortunate idiot was something to love--he
was the first of her womb, and an object of love--but to the
father he was loathsome.

The child had been born beautiful, but time had proved him deaf
and dumb, and, worse than all, devoid of intellect; without a
single idea, save, indeed, an overpowering adoration for his
mother, a clinging, unreasoning love that knew no bounds.

For his father, the unhappy mute felt nothing but a settled, and
often openly shown, aversion.

His wife had recovered her breath, and was still hurling
accusations and sneers at him. He had grown accustomed to let her
rave, but now something she said caught his ear, and made him
turn to her sharply.

"You are getting yourself pretty well talked of, I can tell you."

"Talked of? What"--sternly--"do you mean?"

"Right well you know. They are talking about your attentions to
that minx at the Villa--that Miss Nesbitt."

Darkham's eyes suddenly blazed.

"Who has dared to talk of Miss Nesbitt with disrespect?" asked
he.

"Oh, law! You needn't make  such a fuss about it, even if she is
your dearie-o. But I can tell you this Darkham, that people are
talking about you and her, all the same. And why shouldn't they?
Why, you never take your eyes off her."

"Be silent, woman!" said he savagely, coarsely; now and again his
own birth betrayed him. "Who are you that you should speak to me
like that?"

"I am your wife, any way," said she.

"Ay. My wife!"

The look that accompanied his tone should have frozen her, but
she only laughed.

"I know, I know," she said, wagging her hideous fat head at him.

"You would undo it all  if you could. You would cast me out, like
Rebecca, and marry your Sarah instead; but"--with slovenly
triumph--"you can't. You can't, you know. I"--with a hideous
leer at him--"am here, you see, and here I'll stick! You wish
me dead, I know that; but I'll not die to please you."

(If she had only known!)

She looked up at her husband out of her small, obstinate eyes---
looked at the tall, handsome, well-dressed man whose name she
bore, yet who was so different to her in all ways. And he looked
back at her.

A strange smile curled his lips.

"Wishes don't kill," said he, slowly. Now his voice was soft,
refined, brutal.

"Good for me," returned she, with a hoarse chuckle, "or I
wouldn't be long above ground. I know you! And as for that girl
down there"--she  paused, then went on with malicious intonation:
"you may as well cease your funning in that quarter.  I hear
she's as good as engaged to that young fellow who took up Dr.
Fulham's practice three months ago--Dr. Dillwyn."

"A very suitable match for her," said Darkham, after a second's
pause that contained a thousand seconds of acute agony. He spoke
coldly, evenly.

"Yes." She looked disappointed; her spleen had desired a larger
fulfilment of its desire. "Suitable indeed, for both are paupers.
But, for all you're so quiet, I don't believe you like it, eh?
Dr. Dillwyn, you know, and you---"

"I wish sometimes you would forget me," said he.

"Ha, ha, ha!" She flung herself back in her chair, and laughed
aloud, her hideous vulgar laugh. "For once in our lives we are
agreed. I wish that, too. But I can't, you see--I can't. You're
always there, and I'm always there!"

"You! you!" Darkham took a step towards her; his face was
convulsed. "You," he muttered, "always you!" His voice, his
gesture, were menacing.

The idiot on the hearthrug, as though gathering into his poor
brain something of what was going on between his father and his
mother, here writhing round upon the rug, threw himself upon the
latter. He embraced her knees with a close, soft clasp. He clung
to her. Every now and then he glanced behind him at his father,
his dull eyes angry, menacing. His whole air was one of
protection; short barking cries came from him, hideous to hear.

Mrs Darkham bent down to him, and caught the beautiful soulless
face to her bosom, wreathing upon it sweet reassuring words. The
idiot, mouthing, slaps her quietly, incessantly, on the shoulder.
Darkham watches them--the mother's heavy, coarse endearments,
the boy's vacant affection, with his mouth open--and from them
presently Darkham turned away with an oath. A shudder of disgust
ran through him. "Great heavens! what a home!"

His wife had looked up for a moment, and had seen the disgust. It
was fuel to an already very hot fire.

"Go!" she cried violently. She had the boy's head pressed to her
breast, keeping his eyes against her that he might not see her
face, perhaps, which now was frightful. "Go! leave us! Go where
you are welcome! Leave us! Leave your home!"

"My home!" he paused, but always with his eyes on hers. "My home
is a hell!" said he.

He went out then, closing the door softly behind him.

But when he had stepped into his brougham he gave himself full
sway. As the wheels rolled over the gravel his thoughts surged
and raged within him.

That dull, illiterate creature, why had he ever married her? What
cruel fate had driven him to such a marriage? And for ever that
marriage would endure--trampling him down, destroying him,
clogging his career.

Some men got rid of their wives. But that was when kindly
Providence stepped in and Death took them away. But this woman,
without feeling, sentiment or beauty, even Death would not deign
to touch her.

Death--death! If he were only free!

All at once the face of a young girl rose before him. It stood
out clear and tranquil from a detestable background--not like a
dream, a thought, but sweetly, definitely. The eyes, the hair,
the lovely mouth, all were there. They seemed to sit there before
him, embodied in the brougham.

Darkham flings himself back and covers his eyes with his hand, as
if to blot out the too, too lovely apparition. But it would not
go. It stayed. The sweet eyes always smiling, the lips a little
parted.

What was it that woman, that human devil, had said about her?
That she was thinking of--that she was in love with that young
Dillwyn? Pshaw!

Here the brougham stopped at the gate of a small if pretty
entrance, beyond which a gravel path led to a small but perfectly
appointed house. Dr. Darkham stepped out of his carriage, and,
entering the hall, followed the servant into the drawing-room
beyond, and into the presence of the gentle spectre who had
possessed his thoughts during his short drive.

She stood at the end of the room, bending over some flowers she
was arranging, and after a slight inclination of her small and
charming head, took no further notice of him.

He passed up the room quickly to his quasi-patient, Mrs.
Greatorex, an elderly but still pretty woman who sat lounging in
a cosy chair.

The room was warm and sweet with flowers. It was exquisitely
arranged, if not richly furnished. It spoke of refinement, though
not of wealth, and was very charming and womanly.  A few Persian
rugs lay here and there, and jars full of early flowering
branches were placed in the corners of the windows and against
the tall screens that stood at the end of the room. All the place
was sweet with little bowls full of honeysuckle and primroses.

Mrs. Greatorex held out her hand to him.

"How good of you to come!" said she, in her low, cultivated
voice. "And after your hard day's work, too."

"I like work. How do you feel this evening--you are better? You
look better. You will be out of my hands altogether soon, and I
shall be left desolate."

His eyes wandered to the figure bending over the primroses, but
she seemed engrossed with her pretty flowers.

She was tall, slender, graceful, with dark hair, and a mouth
beautiful in its strength and purity. Her eyes were her chief
feature, and shone like stars. They were a clear gray--soft and
kind by day, dark and even kinder by night; and so full of
expression, love and laughter, grief and quick delight,
tenderness and anger: all things those perfect eyes could declare
in their right season.

Just now they were lowered, so it was hard to see what lay within
their shining depths; but a little line across her forehead
showed that her thoughts were not altogether pleasant. She bent
even more assiduously over the flowers, and showed no disposition
to go forward and add to the pleasant reception her aunt was
giving Dr. Darkham.

The latter had been going through the usual formula with Mrs.
Greatorex, feeling her pulse, asking about her appetite, etc.,
and then had drifted into a light gossip. This pleased his
patient, and gave him leisure to gaze on the lovely figure in the
window. He hardly cared that she did not speak to him.

After a time he rose, and bid Mrs. Greatorex good-bye. Then he
turned deliberately to the girl.

"If you can spare me one moment, Miss Nesbitt, there is just a
word or two I would say to you about our patient here," with a
smile and bow towards Mrs. Greatorex. "She has been making a
little too free, I am afraid, and if you will let me write a
prescription in the next room---"

"Certainly," said Agatha, courteously but coldly. She let her
flowers fall, and led the way to the little anteroom beyond,
hidden by a falling curtain, where a tiny writing-room had been
made up.

She stood silent, whilst he told her to keep her aunt a little
warmer, or something as trivial, and then scribbled a line or two
on a sheet of paper for the chemist. The he went. But he had
gained his end. He had held her small cool hand in his. She had
not been able to refuse it when he held out his.



CHAPTER III


Agatha came back to the drawing-room, and went straight to her
flowers. She did not look at her aunt.

"Well," asked the latter inquisitively. She loved discussing her
own ailments.

"Well, there is nothing new. He evidently thinks you immensely
better. So much better that I wonder he comes here at all."

"It is very kind of him to come," said Mrs. Greatorex calmly.

"It is too kind. And--for nothing."

"My dear Agatha, I'm afraid it cannot be for nothing. I expect he
will see little symptoms of---"

"I don't mean that. What"--impatiently--"I want to say is,
that he gains nothing by coming here."

"Nothing in a pecuniary sense, certainly," said Mrs. Greatorex;
"but he likes good society---"

Agatha made a sudden movement.

"I wonder how you can do it," said she.

"Do what?" asked Mrs. Greatorex, letting the pretty little pale
pink silk sock she was knitting lie upon her lap for a moment.

"Accept his services gratuitously?"

Mrs. Greatorex laughed.

"What have you got into your head now?" asked she. "He has
attended me for the past year. Last month I sent him a cheque
with a little hint to the effect that as I felt so much better I
need not trouble him again. He came the next day. I then told him
plainly I could afford no more fees out of my slender income. He
said--very gracefully, as I thought--that he could never bear
to resign a case until a perfect cure had been accomplished--or
something to that effect. Well, why should I not allow him to be
happy in his own way?"

"And I am a burden to you," said the girl in a low voice.

"My good child, never give yourself over to nonsense!" said Mrs.
Greatorex, with a shrug. "You know very well I am delighted to
have you."

She took up her little sock again and turned the heel.

The needles clicked on, and Agatha thought. _Was_ her aunt
delighted to have her? Sometimes things pointed that way. But
certainly she was a burden to her, as Mrs. Greatorex's income was
not only a small one, but she herself was a of a decidedly
miserly disposition. The girl had certainly a miserable twenty
pounds a year of her own, but that was too little. She made it
suffice for her dress, but it sufficed very badly. It was all,
however, her father, Colonel Nesbitt, had been able to leave her.
Sometimes the girl felt that she loved her, worldly as she was.
When she was sixteen, the colonel died.  At sixteen she had found
herself an orphan, without a friend, and almost penniless, and
but that Mrs. Greatorex had then come forward, the poor child
would hardly have known what to do or where to go. Fortune
favours the brave, they say; sometimes, however, it favours the
beautiful.

Agatha Nesbitt was beautiful, and suddenly fortune came to her in
the shape of Mrs. Greatorex. It was not a great fortune, truly,
but it lifted the girl for the moment out of her Slough of
Despond.

But now another terror threatened her. This detestable Dr.
Darkham, whose visits to her aunt for the past few months had
been so regular--whose visits, now that her aunt had declared
herself off his hands, were still so regular--troubled here
more than she cared to think.

What there was in his manner to distress her she hardly knew---
hardly understood; but she had learned to regard his coming with
fear and loathing--to dread those _tête-à-têtes,_ when, in the
little ante-room, he wrote out his prescriptions and gave her his
instructions.

Not that a word had ever been spoken that all the world might not
hear--not a look; and, after all, what was there in the
lengthened regard of his dark, unfathomable eyes to alarm her?
She could not tell. Not--not love, certainly. He--a married man!

She had remonstrated with her aunt very often. To accept his
visits without payment! Mrs. Greatorex, whose pride in her birth
was excessive, but who would have gone any lengths to save her
pocket, had pooh-poohed the girl's expostulations, and had
continued to accept Dr. Darkham's visits without protest.

. . . . . . .

Agatha roused herself from her thoughts.

"I know how good you have been to me always," said she with
warmth. "You are my one friend. It is because I love you that I
can't bear you to have this Dr. Darkham coming here like this.
He---"

"My dear, he comes only because he likes to get away from the
atmosphere of his sordid home. That pays him. He likes nice
people, you know. Why do you dislike the poor man so much?"

"Dislike him?"

"Yes, you do. Like all girls, you are full of nonsensical fads,
and"--slowly--"it is my opinion that you think he is in love
with you."

"I can't congratulate you, then, on the girls you have known!"
said Agatha coldly.

"No?" Mrs. Greatorex laughed the little irritating laugh that
belonged to her. "A poor compliment to yourself! Still, I have
been studying you a little of late, and I feel sure I am right.
Get this latest fad of all out of your head, my dear girl, and as
soon as possible."

"You should remember he has a wife," said Agatha coldly.

"Why, so I should." Again that irritating little cackle grated on
the girl's ears. "But really, it is very hard to remember. He
himself forgets it so persistently. Poor man! who can blame him?
Bad as he is, and, of course, we know he rose from the rankest of
the ranks, still she--- What a woman! A perfect annoyance to the
neighbourhood."

"I can't see how she annoys anybody. One never sees her."

"You'll see her to-morrow night at the Firs-Robinsons', anyway.
Mrs. Poynter told me this morning that she was going."

"What?" said Agatha. She paused. She even forgot the argument in
question in the thought of seeing Mrs. Darkham at the dance
to-morrow night. How strange! "Are you sure she is going?"

"Quite sure."

"As a rule, she refuses all invitations."

"There's where she shows her one grain of sense."

"There's where Dr. Darkham shows his tyranny," said Agatha "I
believe he doesn't allow her to go anywhere."

Mrs. Greatorex shrugged her thin, ladylike shoulders.

"I suppose you know by this time that 'people are mostly fools.'
And even if such light talk be true, and Mrs. Darkham is such a
nonentity as to be controlled in the way you declare, her husband
is quite wise to exercise his power."

"It is not wisdom in this case, it is cowardice. He is afraid of
her vulgarity."

"No wonder. She was a tradesman's daughter, wasn't she?"

"Well," with some fire, "wasn't he a tradesman's son?"

"Still consider!"

"Oh, _you_ to consider!" the girl interrupted her vehemently---
"you who lay so much stress on 'family'; you who will hardly
acknowledge the Firs-Robinsons because they cannot swear to a
grandfather."

"What I was going to say was that Dr. Darkham must be pitied
about his marriage, to a certain degree. He has risen out of the
mire of his birth and his original surroundings. She has sunk
deeper into hers. I think," said Mrs. Greatorex, who had a fond
fancy that she was a sympathetic soul, "that, of all harrowing
afflictions, the worst must be that of a man tied for life to an
uncongenial companion."

"I think it must be infinitely worse for a woman to be tied for
life to a thoroughly bad husband."

"My dear Agatha! You will end by representing Dr. Darkham as a
modern Bluebeard. As for me, I pity him. And there are so many
cases just like his. A young man of his parentage--nobody at
all, in facts--starts in life, very naturally, by marrying
somebody in his own class. Some dreadful person! Then he, being
clever--a man--rises. She stands rootedly still. She is a
millstone round his neck, weighing him down, keeping him back
from the goal to which he would attain--the goal of equality
with his superiors which he feels ought to be his, because of the
intellect that ennobles him. Now we all know Mrs. Darkham. No
wonder he hates her."

"For all that, if a man marries a woman of his own free-will he
should deal fairly by her," said Agatha thoughtfully.

"Of course. But there are always exceptional cases. And surely
Mrs. Darkham is one of them."

"I don't think so. She is very vulgar, and very fat, and
unutterably dull; but one must remember that she was all that
when he married her. What, then, does he look for now?"

"Perhaps for the 'h's' she is always dropping," said Mrs.
Greatorex, with a laugh. "You say she never goes anywhere, that
he keeps her in durance vile; but she is going to this dance
to-morrow night at the Firs-Robinsons', and I saw her yesterday
at the Poynters'. What is it about her that jars so dreadfully?
She started the subject of that idiot son of hers, and wore it to
tatters, whilst we all sat aghast, and wished ourselves dead. I
was quite thankful Dr. Darkham wasn't there. I really think if he
had been, he would have been quite justified in murdering her."

"Oh no!" The words seemed to fall from Agatha unconsciously.
There was horror in them--she shuddered. "Aunt Hilda, how
dreadful! To murder her!"

Mrs. Greatorex laid down her knitting.

"It wasn't so much that she was vulgar--had bad taste--but
that she was so--so oppressive. And rude, too--very rude."

"I could fancy," said the girl slowly, "that she is very unhappy.
I have often thought it."

"You are prejudiced. _I_ could fancy that she is very nearly as
much out of her mind as that terrible son of hers."

"Poor Edwy! I met him yesterday in the wood. He came crash
through it like a young Samson. Poor, poor boy! To be deaf and
dumb and idiotic seems--well, a cruel sentence."

"Strange how people like that live on! Useless--mere burdens---
creatures one shrinks from. Why, he must be almost grown up now."

"He is sixteen; but he looks a mere child. His body has grown,
but his face has not; it is so young--pathetically young--and
at times almost beautiful."

"Not when he is excited."

"No, no! And not when he laughs. What a frightful sound it is!
You know, I suppose, that he can say one word. At least, not a
word, but a noise that has a meaning."

"Mr. Blount told me about it. _'Sho'_ is the sound, is it not?"

"Yes; and it always means his mother. He calls to her in that
way. It is very remarkable. You know he adores her. After all, I
think she can't be without some good quality, when that poor
stricken boy loves her so much."

"Like to like," said Mrs. Greatorex carelessly. "Really she is
nearly as dull as he is. Let us forget her. What of to-morrow
night? Did you hear who was likely to be there?"

"At the Firs-Robinsons'? Everybody, as far as I can see."

"Quite right, too. They are 'nobody,' if you like."

"I think Elfrida is charming," said Agatha quietly.

"Elfrida!" Mrs. Greatorex sniffed. "Elfrida, with Robinson at the
end of it! Firs-Robinson because of the society craze for double
names. Well, and so every one is to be there. What do they mean
by every one?"

"Why"--laughing--"I suppose _every one_. And I hear Lord
Stilton and his party, and Lord Ambert."

"Ambert!" Mrs. Greatorex let the sock fall to the floor this
time. "Can it be true that he wants to marry that girl? I can't
imagine Miss Robinson--a countess! But he is very hard up, and
she has a great deal of money. Money is everything nowadays!"
Then suddenly, leaning forward, and letting her brilliant eyes
rest upon her niece's face, as if indignant with her, "Why
haven't _you_ money?" said she.

The uncontrollable ambition that ruled her whole life betrayed
itself in these words. If Agatha had been an heiress she might
have married Lord Ambert.



CHAPTER IV


"Late as usual, and all your partners in hysterics!" said a quick
voice--a voice a little sharp, perhaps, and decided, but clear
as a bell. Agatha, who had just entered the dancing-room with her
chaperon, turned quickly round and smiled at Miss Firs-Robinson.

"I couldn't help it. Aunt Hilda was afraid to come out, and so
Mrs. Poynter has kindly brought me."

"Oh, if it is Mrs. Poynter, thank Heaven you are here at all!
Her wild determination to be 'fashionable,' as she calls it,
makes her slow in many ways. But here you are, anyway."

"What a charming gown!" said Agatha, looking at her friend.

Certainly the gown was not more charming than its wearer. Miss
Firs-Robinson was looking her very best to-night--small,
fairy-like, refined, in spite of her parentage, which, indeed,
was not all it might have been. Her grandfather had been a store
boy in America, had got on, and become the head of a store
himself.

Anyway, Miss Firs-Robinson was as delicately formed as though the
blood of all the Howards had run through her veins. A little
thing--small--vivacious. Her father, the moment he felt
himself above the whims of Fortune's vilest efforts, came to
England and died.

That was five years ago. Elfrida, who had been sent home at an
early age for educational purposes, and who remembered but
slightly her American experiences, had lived all these years with
her father's sister, the elder Miss Firs-Robinson. She was a most
estimable woman, and full of prejudices.

Elfrida was as lovely as the dawning day. Her pretty fair hair
covered in tiny curls a head as patrician in shape as though its
owner had been the daughter of a hundred earls. And in this head
to-night some diamond stars were glittering, sparkling gaily as
its owner moved and spoke. Her mouth was small, but not too
small. And her nose was not Greek. It was pretty and very
lovable, for all that. Her eyes were blue, and so easy to read,
said the tyro; so difficult, said the expert.

"If you hadn't come," said Miss Firs-Robinson, "there would have
been murder presently. Dr.---"

Agatha's face changed and whitened; she made an impulsive
movement.

"Dr. Dillwyn has been wandering round aimlessly for the last
hour, seeking whom he may devour, I suppose. Certainly he has not
been seeking a partner. Now you have come---"

"Well? Now I have come?" Agatha repeated her words. "How can you
be so stupid!" said she.

"Stupid! Stupid! I like that. Well I have news for you. Who do
you think is---"

"Our dance, I believe," said some one to Elfrida at that moment.
It was Elfrida's shadow during the past two months--Lord
Ambert. He bowed to Agatha over Miss Firs-Robinson's head.

"Is it? Yes, of course," said Elfrida, glancing at her card. "But
I have just one word to say to Miss Nesbitt." She smiled again at
Ambert, very prettily.

"Do you know who has come to-night to stay with us for a month?
Dicky--Dicky Browne. He met auntie and me last season in town.
And auntie asked him to run down to us for a bit. He's a
nuisance, certainly," shrugging her shoulders. "We all know that,
in spite of everything; but I do love Dicky more than any one
else, I think."

"I wish I could believe that," said Agatha, in a low tone. Lord
Ambert was standing near, waiting for Elfrida. "Better love him
than---"

"Pouf! What a suggestion! Why should I love any one?" Elfrida's
piquant face was now alight with mischief. "Do you think I am
such a one as thyself? I tell you, Agatha, that I, for one, have
no heart! I can't afford one."

"I should think you could afford anything," said Agatha. "You
could, at all events, afford to marry the man who loved you."

"And where does he live?" asked Elfrida, laughing.

"You know," said Agatha slowly, earnestly.

"You're lovely; you're a perfect delight!" said Miss
Firs-Robinson, her amusement now growing more apparent; "but
really I don't. I know only that I--want to be---"

"Happy?" said Agatha, answering.

"No; a countess," said the pretty little fairy, with a gay
grimace. She looked over Agatha's shoulder and beckoned to Lord
Ambert, who was still "in waiting," to come to her.

He came. A middle-sized, well-set-up man of about forty, with a
rather supercilious mouth and small eyes. He looked quite a
gentleman, however; which a great many earls do not, and, of
course, there he scored. He was a poor man for his rank in life,
and was desirous of impounding the numerous thousands in which
Miss Firs-Robinson lay, as it were, enwrapped. He never forgot
his dignity, however, when with her. He gave her quite to
understand that she was by birth many degrees below zero, and
that he was a star in her firmament.

In the meantime Elfrida, who had a very acute mind of her own,
saw straight through him. In a sense he amused her, and, after
all, she knew very well who would be mistress and master after
her marriage with him. Not Ambert, anyway. Her money should be
securely settled on herself; she was quite decided about that.
She was quite decided also about her marriage with him. She had
lived some little time in America, as has been said, and had
learned the value of our English lords; so she had arranged with
herself very early in life never to die until she could have a
title carved upon her tombstone. Ambert had come in quite handy.
He was the only unmarried earl within a radius of a tremendous
number of miles, so, of course, he would have to do. It was a
pity he was so old--that he was a little bald--that his
expression was so unpleasant. But he was an earl. She would be
Lady Ambert; and if he thought he would have it all his own way
afterwards--why, she would show him. She hadn't the least doubt
about his proposing to her. She gave herself no trouble on that
head; and, indeed, she used to know great mirth sometimes, when
he had been specially laborious over his efforts to prove to her
that he had twenty or forty heiresses in his eye, who would all
be ready at a moment's notice to accept his title, his debts, and
his bald head.

For all that, she was determined to marry him. This, however, did
not prevent her indulging in small flirtations here and there.
There were several young officers in the barracks in the next
town who were literally at her feet, and there was the curate,
Tom Blount, who every one knew was a very slave to her every
caprice.

"Ah, Mr. Blount," said she, as she passed him now on her way to
the conservatory. "Here? And you haven't asked me for a single
dance."

"I don't dance," said Tom Blount. "The bishop doesn't like it,
you know, and to ask you to sit out a dance with me would be more
than I dare venture."

He smiled at her out of two honest blue eyes. And she smiled back
at him out of two very dishonest ones, though all four were much
of the same colour.

"'If thy heart fail thee,'" quoted she daringly.

"Well, I shan't let it fail me," said the curate suddenly. His
smile was somewhat forced, however. "Will you sit out one with
me?"

"You don't deserve it," said she. "But---"

Here Lord Ambert bent and whispered something into her ear. He
was evidently urging her to refuse the insolent request of this
nobody, this curate of a small country parish. But his words took
no effect. Elfrida listened to them, nodded and smiled as if
acquiescing, and then---

"The fourteenth is a quadrille, for the sake of appeasing old
Lady Saunders, I believe," said she, looking at the curate. "Will
you have that dance--to sit it out with me?"

"Won't I!" said the curate enthusiastically, who had not long
left Oxford, and who was wonderfully young in many ways.

"You promised that quadrille to me," said Ambert, frowning.

"Yes, I know. But as I never dance quadrilles---" She paused and
looked up at Ambert. "You see?"

"No, I don't," said he.

"Well I am sure Mr. Blount does," said Elfrida audaciously. "Now,
remember, Mr. Blount, the fourteenth is ours."

Lord Ambert looked at him.

Really the audacity of this contemptible curate passed
comprehension. To speak so to her, his--Ambert's--future wife.
He frowned and bit his lip. That was the worst of marrying into
the middle classes; they never know how to keep those beneath
them in order.

Lord Ambert, holding her hand during her descent from the steps
to the garden beneath, ventured a cold remonstrance.

"Is it wise of you--you will pardon, I hope, my interference--
but is it wise of you to be so kind to a person of that sort?"

"A person? Is he a person?" asked Miss Firs-Robinson with much
airy astonishment. "I quite understood he was a man of good
family. Whereas a 'person' must be of no family whatever."

"If without money," put in Lord Ambert quickly, "quite so. There
are, of course, grades."

"Grades?"

"Yes. A man of no birth with money is not the same as a man of no
birth without it. For money educates, refines, elevates." This he
pointed with little emphases, as a small hint to her.

"And a man of birth without money?"

"Sinks." Here Lord Ambert's voice took even a lower tone. "Sinks
until he meets the _extreme_--that is, the lowest of all
classes--with which he unites. I am afraid that young man you
have just been talking to will come to that end. His people, I
believe, were in a decent set at one time; but there is no money
there now, and probably he will marry his landlady's daughter, or
the young woman who manages the school in the village, and--
repent it soon after."

"Repentance is good for the soul," said Elfrida; she laughed.

"But as you show it, money is everything. Even the 'person' can
be raised by it."

"It is sad of course, but I am afraid that is really the case. In
these days money is of great importance--of nearly as great
importance as birth or position. It lifts the 'person,' as you
call it---"

"Has it, then, lifted me?"

"Dear Miss Firs-Robinson! What a question! Surely you do not
consider yourself part of this discussion?"

He, however, _had_ considered her so, and had taken pleasure in
the argument that had laid her low. This was part of what he
called his "_training_" of her!

"You--who are a thing apart, a thing most precious---"

"I don't want to be a 'thing,' however precious," said Miss
Firs-Robinson, with decision. "I should much rather be a
'person,' for choice, however criminal it sounds. It only wants
'age' put to it to be magnificent. And so you call Mr. Blount 'a
person'?"

"Perhaps I was wrong," said Ambert contemptuously; "a 'beggar'
would be nearer the mark."



CHAPTER V


Meanwhile Agatha was left standing near the doorway, whilst her
chaperon was explaining the reason of her late arrival to old
Miss Firs-Robinson, Elfrida's aunt.

The girl's eyes were directed towards the dancers, and so
absorbed was her gaze that she started visibly when a voice
sounded at her elbow--that hated voice!

"May I have the pleasure of this waltz, Miss Nesbitt?"

Agatha looked up. Dr. Darkham, tall, handsome, almost young, was
standing beside her.

"I am sorry--but the dance is promised," said Agatha, gently
but coldly.

"I am unfortunate." He looked keenly at her, with open question
in his eyes. He had educated himself very carefully on the lines
of social etiquette; but education of that sort, unless it comes
by nature, is often defective and sometimes he forgot. It did not
now suggest itself to him that to question Agatha's word, whether
that word were true or false, was a _bêtise_.  Some men had come
up to ask, Agatha for a dance, and when they were gone he spoke.

"It is promised, then?" he said. "And yet you have only just
come?"

Agatha looked at him for a moment as if surprised.

"It is promised," she said again.

She made no attempt to explain herself. Her manner, however, was
very quiet, although her face was set and her tone frozen.

Suddenly, however, her expression changed. It lit up with a happy
fervour, and her eyes shone. They were looking past Dr. Darkham's
towards something beyond, and the latter, as though unable to
control his longing to learn the cause of this sweet change in
the lovely face before him, turned to follow her glance, and saw
over there, making anxious efforts to reach her, a young man
rather above middle height, with a face that, if not strictly
handsome, was at all events extremely good to look at.

It was Dillwyn, the young doctor who had lately come into the
neighbourhood, and who was beginning to do pretty well with a
certain class of patients. Not the better classes; those belonged
almost exclusively to Darkham.

Dillwyn was still a long way off, hemmed in by a crowd of skirts
that now, being a little stiffened at the tail, took up a
considerable amount of room and were not easily passed. There was
still a moment or two before he could reach Agatha. Darkham
caught his opportunity and turned hurriedly to her.

"I hope you will give me a dance later on?" he said, with a
dogged sort of determination. He saw that she did not wish to
dance with him, but the knowledge only served to strengthen his
desire to dance with her; yet he did not ask her for the next
dance. An almost mad longing to waltz with her, to hold her in
his arms for even a few minutes, to feel her hand in his, took
possession of him. He would risk it.

"If the first supper dance is not engaged, may I hope for that?"
he said, his voice quite even, his heart beating wildly.

"I am afraid I have promised that, too," said Agatha, who had
_not_ promised it, but she felt driven to desperation. Her voice
was low and tremulous. What was it about him that repelled her
so? She could not, she _would_ not dance with him, whatever came
of it.

Darkham bowed and drew back, leaning against the wall just behind
her. She felt miserable, and yet thankful, that she could no
longer see him. Yet she knew he was behind her, watching her; and
she had been rude--certainly, very rude.

At that moment Mrs. Poynter joined her.

"Not a partner yet? I suppose you must wait for this dance to be
over?  Ah! here I see Dr. Dillwyn coming towards us. You know,
Agatha dearest, that he is a cousin of mine, and quite good
family and all that."

Agatha laughed.

"Yes, yes; you ought to take it that way. It really should not be
serious," said Mrs. Poynter, who was a young woman and fond of
Agatha, and thought the girl with her charming face ought to make
a good match. "I am so glad you are not going to be serious over
it, because, really, it would be a terrible throwing away of
yourself."

"But Mrs. Poynter---"

"Yes, of course. He hasn't proposed, you mean; but--I really
wish he had not been placed here through the influence of old
Mrs. Greatorex, Reginald Greatorex. The old gentleman might just
as well have sent him anywhere else, and he _does_ run after you
a good deal, Agatha, doesn't he now?"

"I never saw him run in my life," said Agatha demurely.

"Ah, there! I see you are evading the subject. And here he comes.
Now Agatha, be careful; you know---"

"Yes; I know, I know," said Agatha, smiling at her. Yet she
hardly heard her; her eyes and thoughts were for the young man
who was standing before her.

Neither of them saw the face behind them--the face of the man
leaning against the wall!



CHAPTER VI


"At last!" said John Dillwyn. "You have not given it away? You
have remembered?"

"The dance?"

"Yes. You know you said you would give me the first on your
arrival."

"But this! I am so late! I could not have expected you to
wait---"

"I have waited, however. And it is mine?"
He was now looking at her anxiously. What did her manner, her
hesitation, mean?

"Yes, of course, but have you no partner?"

"I have, indeed"--laughing. "One I would not readily change. I
have you."

"But," looking up at him a little shyly after this plain speech,
"how did you arrange it?"

"Very simply. This will be _my_ first waltz as well a yours."

"Oh, that is too bad of you," said the girl, colouring softly.
She meant to be angry with him, perhaps; but if so, the effort
was a dead failure. The corners of her lips were smiling, and a
happy light had crept into her eyes. "To wait so long, and---"

"It was long. I admit that," interrupted he, smiling. "I thought
you would never come."

"It was all Mrs. Poynter's fault," said Agatha. "And really, but
for me I am sure she would not be here even now."

"Well, come on, now; let us get even a turn or two," said
Dillwyn. "By the bye, the next--is that free?"

"Yes," said Agatha. She felt a little frightened. She hoped he
would not know she had kept it free purposely. Four or five men
had asked her for dances whilst she stood near the door on her
arrival with Mrs. Poynter, and when giving them a dance here and
there she had steadily refused to part with the next one.
She did not tell herself why at the moment, but she knew all the
same.

"May I have it?" asked Dillwyn, with such a delightful anxiety
that all at once her mind was set at rest.

He suspected nothing, thought of nothing but his fear that the
dance might have been given away before he could ask her for it.
Oh, how dear he was! Was there ever any one so good, so perfect?

He passed his arm round her waist, and together they joined the
dancers.

Agatha waltzed delightfully. Her lovely _svelte_ figure swayed
and sympathised with the music, just as though it had caught her
and was moving with her. Dillwyn waltzed well too.

The dance was too soon at an end.

"The night is lovely," said he, "will you come out?" He felt that
he wanted to be more alone with her; the presence of the people
round checked him, destroyed the keenness of the joy he always
knew when with her.

"I should like it," said she.

They went towards the conservatory, from which there were steps
to the garden outside. The door of the conservatory opened off
the dancing-room, and was close to where Agatha had been standing
on her entrance. Darkham was still there.

He had not stirred since Agatha had floated away with Dillwyn's
arm around her. He had watched her persistently. He watched her
now as she went through the conservatory door down to the
gardens, that glad, sweet light upon her face. Were his wife's
words true then, after all? Was there something between her and
that fellow--that interloper, who had come from no one knew
where, to dispute his right in all the parish ailments? His eyes
followed them as though they could not tear themselves away, as
Dillwyn and Agatha, happy, laughing, went out of the door beyond
into the mild and starlit night.

A laugh roused him; it was his wife's. A terrible vision in
scarlet satin, trimmed with black velvet bows, met his gaze as he
turned. Mrs. Darkham was distinctly _en fête_ to-night.

"Well, what d'ye think now? That's her young man. What did I say?
Don't you wish you were young, eh? Why, she looks upon you as a
Methusaler!"

Darkham drew his breath sharply. He looked quickly round him. Had
any one heard? The woman's hideous vulgarity made him sick. Try
as he would, how could he raise himself with this incubus hanging
round his neck?

He moved away, tired at heart, half mad with misery.

Agatha and Dillwyn had reached the garden by this time--a
garden lit by heaven's own lamps, and sweet with the breath of
sleeping flowers.

A few other couples were strolling up and down the paths--but
over there was a garden-chair untenanted. They moved towards it
in a leisurely fashion. Whether they stood or walked or sat, they
were together--that was the principal thing.

"The next is mine, too," said he, in  a glad voice, as if
dwelling on some joy that nothing could spoil.

"Yes. We must take care not to lose it."

"And yet it is so lovely out here. Are you sure you are warm
enough? And, at all events, it is a good thing to know we need
not hurry--that there is no other partner waiting for either of
us."

He seemed to dwell upon the "we" and "us" as if they conveyed
great sweetness to him. His heart seemed full. All at once it
seemed to him as though he _must_ speak to her--must tell her
of the love that filled his heart. The hour, the loneliness, the
silence, all tempted him, and yet he feared!

She had known him so short a time--and what was there in her
manner to him that should give him courage? Could he dare to put
it to the touch to win--or _lose_ it all? To lose! That was
what held him back.

Agatha was speaking.

"I am so sorry you waited for me," said she, lying unconsciously.
Had not her heart beaten with delight because he had waited? "And
you, too, who are so fond of dancing."

"Ah! fond! That is a strong expression. I am not a slave to it,
you know."

"No." She paused. She seemed to study him for a moment. His face,
young, strong, with a sort of defiance in it, as though he could
and would conquer his world, fascinated her. It had always
fascinated her from the first moment she saw it, now three months
ago. It was not so much the kindliness of it as its strength that
attracted her. She, too, could be strong. She felt in harmony
with him from the very first. He was, as has been said, not
strictly handsome, but his eyes were dark and expressive, and his
mouth firm. The pose of his head was charming and his figure
well-built and athletic. He was always in splendid spirits, and
the milk of human kindness ran swiftly within his veins. Already
the poor in his district began to adore him, for kind were his
words and encouraging his smiles, and these counted with the
sickly ones even more than the shillings that so often came out
of a pocket where but few shilling lay. He had begun his fight
with life unaided, save by the influence of old Reginald
Greatorex, who had property in Rickton, and had got him appointed
there, but he felt no fears. A natural buoyancy upheld him.

"Well," said he, smiling at her. He was wondering at the depth of
her regard.

"I was thinking," said she, starting slightly, "that you could
never be a slave to anything."

Dillwyn looked at her now.

"There you wrong me," said he. "I could be--I am--a slave!"

"It is difficult to believe," said she calmly.

"Why should it be difficult?"

"I don't know. But you don't lend yourself readily to the idea.
You look as if you could never be easily swayed or governed."

"Not easily, perhaps. But---" He put out his hand as if to clasp
hers.

At this moment a sudden movement in the bushes behind her struck
upon Agatha's ears. She sprang to her feet.



CHAPTER VII


A sense of faintness crept over her. By some strange prescience,
she knew who stood behind there in the darkness, concealed,
listening. A great horror took possession of her. Why should he
haunt her so? What was she to him? He who had a living wife!

She turned to Dillwyn, who had risen too.

"Come back to the house," said she. Her voice was nervous, but
very low. She moved away from the seat, on which she had been
resting, with a haste that was almost feverish. Dillwyn followed
her, his mind disturbed. Had she fathomed his determination to
speak to her, and had she purposely prevented his speaking? He
went at once to the point, as he always did when uncertain or
perplexed.

"Have I offended you?" asked he.

"No! Oh, no! You must not think that. How could you have offended
me? But I thought I heard some one--there--behind the shrubs."

"But even so, there are people all over the place to-night."

"Yes, I know." Her tone now was almost heartbroken. She stopped
suddenly and held out her hand to him. "You are still my friend?"
said she.

"I shall be your friend to the last day of my life," said
Dillwyn. But his tone was heavy; the elasticity that always
distinguished it had gone out of it for the first time.

In silence they reached the house. Not another word was said
about the dance impending. Agatha seeing a couch surrounded by
fragrant shrubs, went towards it.

"The dance has begun," said Dillwyn, but so coldly that she
shrank from him.

"I am tired," she said.

"Then you had better rest here. Shall I bring you an ice?"

"Thank you."

He went away. Agatha dropped on to the lounge and gave her misery
full play. She had put an end to it all--all that might have
made her dull life a very spring of joy. And yet to tell the man
who loved her that another man--a married man--pursued her
with his hateful attentions was more than she could do.

Now, left alone, her spirit failed her, and her eyes filled with
tears. She would have given all she possessed to be at home, in
her own room, alone, so that her grief might have full sway. She
almost hoped  he would not come back with the ice. She dreaded
the coldness of his regard more than his absence. She---

"Can I do anything for you, Miss Nesbitt?"

Dr. Darkham stood beside her. It was to Agatha as though he had
risen from the dead. She had supposed him still outside in the
garden. But he had followed her apparently.

"No, thank you," she said, in a voice well kept in order.

"You are not dancing, then?"

"Not for the moment."

"Your partner is Dr. Dillwyn?"

"Yes."

"He was your partner for the last two, I think?"

Agatha roused herself. She looked full at him; there was a smile
upon her beautiful lips.

"Ah, Dr. Darkham, I have already a chaperon!" said she.

"A most inefficient one," said Darkham steadily. "Why should you
be allowed to listen to the solicitations of a mere beggar? Were
your aunt to hear of this---"

"My aunt!"

Agatha looked up at him, but after that one swift glance drew
back. What was there in his eyes? Oh, horrible! Surely, surely
now she knew that she was not wrong when lately she told herself
in shrinking whispers that this man was in love with her. There
had been something so strange in the expression of his eyes when
looking at her--something so _empressé_ in his manner--
something so downright hateful in the inflection of his voice.

"My aunt is quite capable of looking after me without the
interference of any one," said Agatha slowly.  "You have been
very kind to Mrs. Greatorex, but you must not extend your
kindness to me. I want no other guardian but my aunt." She rose
and looked him straight in the face. "Pray do not trouble
yourself about my welfare for the future."

She passed him and went on; she saw Dillwyn coming towards her
with the ice; she had believed she would rather not have seen him
return, but now she went to him gladly.

Darkham fell slowly into the chair she had just left. That girl
--her face, her form--they haunted him. And side by side with
hers always grew another face, another form--that of his wife!
What vile fiend had arranged his marriage? A mere mockery of
marriage, where hatred alone was the link that bound the two.

Gold that had given a false brilliancy to the faded yellow of her
hair, and thrown a gleaming into her light, lustreless eyes. Had
he but waited, had he but relied upon himself and given his
undoubted genius a chance, he might have risen, unaided, to the
highest point, and been now free to marry the woman he loved.

With wild, increasing exultation he remembered how she had risen
to-night out there in the shrubberies as Dillwyn was on the point
of proposing to her. She had cast him off in a sense. Gently,
though. She was always kind and gentle. But she certainly put him
off; she did not care for him, then.

Darkham's face glowed as he sat there in the conservatory.

If this woman to whom he was tied was gone--_dead!_ Then his
chance might come. If she did not care for Dillwyn--why, she
might care for _him_. At present how _could_ she?

"Why don't you come out and look at her?" said the coarse voice
he dreaded at his ear; "she's dancing with Dillwyn. She dances
lovely--'specially with Dillwyn."



CHAPTER VIII


Mrs. Greatorex was, in a ladylike sort of way, a confirmed
gossip. To have told her so personally would have been to make
her your enemy for life. The way she looked at it was far more
Christian--she said "she took a kindly interest in her
neighbours."

To-day her interest was particularly strong, if not very kindly;
and she was now, from the depths of her low lounging chair,
catechising Agatha about the dance last night. She was always
very keen about any news that concerned the Firs-Robinsons, who
were really nobodies, whilst she---

Her grandfather had been an earl--out-at-elbows, it was true,
but yet an earl. She laid great store by this, and periodically
reminded her acquaintances of it. Her mother, Lady Winifred, had
married (badly from a moneyed point of view) a young and reckless
guardsman, who died three years after her marriage, leaving her
all his debts and an infant daughter. But then he was one of the
Engletons of Derbyshire, and would have come into a baronetcy if
three uncles and five cousins had been removed.

Unfortunately, her husband predeceased his father! And when the
old man (who detested her) followed him to the family vault three
months later, it was found that she was not as much as mentioned
in his will.

There had been no settlements. As there were no children, all the
property went to the second son, Reginald Greatorex.

The sorest subject with Agatha's aunt was this brother-in-law.
She had treated him very cavalierly during her short reign at
Medlands, as wife of the elder son; and when Reginald came in for
the property he remembered it. He portioned her off with as small
a dowry as decency would allow.

He was testy, self-contained old bachelor--and the last of his
race--though with a good point here and there. He had a been
good, at all events, to John Dillwyn, whose father was the rector
of his parish, and whose mother, some said, had been the one love
of old Reginald's life. Both father and mother were dead now, and
the young man, after a fierce struggle for existence in town, had
passed all his exams, and was free to kill or cure, anywhere. It
was when he stood triumphant, but friendless, that Mr. Greatorex
had come forward, and got him his post at Rickton, where the
former had a good deal of property, though Medlands itself lay in
an adjoining county.

Mrs. Greatorex had received the young man coldly. Any one
connected with Reginald must be distasteful to her. To do her
justice, she had never truckled to her brother-in-law in any way,
and had contented herself with undisguised hatred of him. Agatha
had nothing to do with him, she thanked Heaven--otherwise she
could not have supported existence with her. She came from _her_
side of the house, where people had been officers and---

"Mrs Darkham looked frightful," said Agatha. "She really did,
poor woman! Fancy, such a gown--red satin and black velvet--
and her face---"

"As red as the satin, no doubt. But is it possible, Agatha, what
you tell me--that Richard Browne is staying with those people?"


"Those people" were always the Firs-Robinsons with Mrs.
Greatorex. The fact that they could have bought her up a thousand
times over at any moment rankled in her mind. She could not
forgive them that.

Still in some queer way she hankered after the Robinsons--
desiring to know this and that about them, and being, as has been
hinted, of a parsimonious turn of mind, did not refrain from
accepting from them fruits and flowers and vegetables. Indeed,
face to face with them she was delightful. She justified herself
over this hypocritical turn, and explained herself to Agatha, by
quoting St. Paul. "All things to all men" was a motto of his.

"Richard?" questioned Agatha, as if surprised. Indeed, Mrs.
Greatorex was perhaps the only person of his acquaintance who
called Mr. Browne "Richard." "Dicky, you mean?"

"Yes, of course. He was christened Richard, Agatha. That ought to
count. His father's name is Richard."

"It is so funny to think of Dicky's having a father," said
Agatha, laughing. "What kind is he, auntie?"

"A mummy! A modern mummy," said Mrs. Greatorex, laying down her
sock. "A dandified mummy. All paint and wig and teeth---"

"But a mummy! It wouldn't have---"

"Yes, I know. But there's nothing in him! Nothing that is his
own. He is padded and stuffed and perfumed! He"--indignantly--
"ought to have died ten years ago, and yet now he goes about the
world rejuvenated yearly. Only last month I had a letter from a
friend of mine, saying Richard's father had come back from the
German spas describing himself as 'a giant refreshed.' Just fancy
that, at seventy-eight!"

"I always feel I could love old Mr. Browne," said Agatha,
laughing still.

"You must have precious little to love," said her aunt, knitting
vigorously. She had known old Mr. Browne in her youth.

Agatha's laughter came to a sudden end. She sprang to her feet.

"Here is Edwy Darkham," said Agatha, moving to the window--"and
looking so wild! Aunt Hilda, do come here! Oh!"--anxiously--
"surely there is something wrong with him."

Across the lawn, running uncouthly, hideously--rolling from
side to side--yet with astonishing speed, the idiot came. His
huge head was thrown up, and the beauty that was in his face when
it was in repose was now all gone. He was mouthing horribly, and
inarticulate cries seemed to be bursting from his lips.

Agatha struck by the great terror that so evidently possessed
him, conquered all fear, and springing out of the low French
window, ran to meet him.

At times she shrank from him--not always. Deep pity for him lay
within her heart, because he was so docile, and because he clung
to her so, poor thing! and seemed to find such comfort in her
presence. She had been specially kind in her manner to his mother
often because of him, and perhaps that kindness to her--the
mother--whom the poor, handsome, ill-shapen idiot adored, had
been the first cause of his affection for Agatha. She had always
been good to Edwy, in spite of her detestation of his father, and
now, when the unhappy creature was in such evident trouble--a
trouble that rendered him a thousand times more repulsive than
usual--she lost her fear of him, and ran down the balcony steps
to meet him.

He was unhappy--this poor boy, whose soul was but an empty
shell! What ailed him? All her young, strong, gentle heart went
out to him.

"Edwy! Edwy!" cried she, as eloquently as though he could hear
her.

He rushed to her, and caught her arm, and sank on his knees
before her.

"Sho! Sho! Sho!" he yelled.

It was his one word. To him it meant "mother."

Agatha understood him. She pressed his poor head against her arm.

"What is it? What is it, Edwy?" asked she. There was quick
anxiety in her tone.

Her voice was unheard by him, but his eyes followed hers and the
movement of her lips. Some thread in his weak brain caught at the
meaning of her words. His fingers clutched her and closed upon
both her arms. The pain was excessive, almost beyond bearing, and
Agatha tried to shake herself free. But after a first effort she
checked herself. The agony in the poor boy's face, usually so
expressionless, moved her so powerfully that she stood still,
bearing the pain courageously.

She managed to lay her hand, however, on the large bony one (so
singularly muscular) that was grasping her right arm, and after a
moment or two Edwy relaxed his hold.

"Aunt Hilda," cried Agatha, turning to the window. "What _can_ be
the matter?" But Mrs. Greatorex, who had carefully taken refuge
behind the window curtains, from which safety point she could see
without being seen, declined to leave her shelter to solve the
problem offered her.

"Send him away! send him away!" she screamed dramatically, safe
in the knowledge that the idiot could not hear her. "He is going
mad. I can see it in his eyes. He'll murder you if you encourage
him any further. Get rid of him, Agatha, I implore you, before he
does any mischief."

"Oh no, it isn't that. It is only that he is in terrible distress
about something."

At this moment Edwy rose to his feet, and, approaching her, began
to gesticulate violently and make loud guttural sounds. In vain
Agatha tried to understand him. Finally, as if dimly aware that
his cries and gestures conveyed no meaning to her, the idiot
seized her by both arms and turned her in the direction from
which he had just come. Then he waited a moment, but seeing her
immovable, an access of fury seemed to take hold of him, and
catching her by her arm and shoulder, he began to drag her
forcibly along with him, so forcibly that Agatha felt she had no
power to battle with him, and that it would be useless to resist.

She did resist, however, with all her might, useless as it was.
She herself was young, strong, and lithe, but this squat, broad
creature, over whose head she could look, held her powerless in
his grasp.

With fierce impatience he hurried her forward, in spite of her
now almost frantic struggles to free herself from the clasp of
his long arms.

His eyes were always staring straight before him as though he
were looking at something that affrighted him. His strength was
superhuman, and he had now dragged Agatha with him half across
the lawn. She could not reason with him, as he could not hear,
and she felt her strength grow less every moment. Where was he
going? Where was he taking her?

She looked down at the stunted figure beside her, at the rough,
unkempt head. She felt the long, sinewy arms tighten round her,
and suddenly a sensation of faintness overcame her. What was it
her aunt had said? That he was mad! That he would murder
somebody! Was he going to murder _her_?

By this time Mrs. Greatorex's terrified shrieks were resounding
across the lawn. But the servants, two small maidens, were
evidently too frightened to attempt a rescue. They hung back, and
clung to each other, and whimpered sympathetically.

In the meantime Agatha had been dragged to the borders of the
wood. Another minute would take her out of the view of those
watching from the windows.



CHAPTER IX


At this moment a young man pushed his way vigorously through a
thick hedge of laurel, and, springing forward, intercepted the
idiot. He stood before him in an authoritative manner, and made a
strange little gesture. Evidently Edwy understood it. He came to
a sudden standstill.

The new-comer was Dr. Dillwyn. He went up to the poor boy, and
laid his hand upon his shoulder and made a sign or two to him
with his fingers. Edwy let Agatha go, and the girl, sick and
faint with the terror, fell back against a tree behind her.

The idiot caught Dillwyn by the shoulder, looking at him and
mouthing beseechingly.

"Sho! Sho! Sho!" moaned he.

He had now, however, grown calmer, and presently his face
regained its usual placid look. Dillwyn's appearance had had some
extraordinary effect upon him. The terror disappeared from his
eyes, and they were now fixed on the young doctor with the steady
gaze of a dumb animal.

The poor idiot had learned in some blind way to like and believe
in Dillwyn. In the same strange unreasoning fashion he had grown
to like Agatha. These two he clung to of all those that
surrounded him in his silent life. There was another, and that
was "Sho," his mother. To him, however, she was light and life
and all things. And she loved him. And now "Sho" was in danger--
was lying there at home in a darkened room silent, without a
look, a word for him, for the first time in all his blighted
existence. It was to that darkened room he would have carried
Agatha, some unformed thought of help for his mother stirring
him.

Again Dillwyn made some signs, pointing towards the direction
from which the unfortunate lad had come, and after a minute or
two the idiot turned and shuffled rapidly away towards his home.

Dillwyn went towards Agatha. His face was as white as death. He
caught her hand.

She felt that he was trembling even more than she was. He let her
hand go, and it occurred to the girl that he made a step towards
her with his arms a little outheld, as though he would have
clasped her to his heart. Her late danger had perhaps made him
bolder--for the moment. He could dare the strong idiot, but
what man could dare his love?

"Don't be frightened," said he in a low tone. "He meant nothing.
Nothing, really. But I thank God I arrived in time. You must have
had a great shock."

"Yes, yes," said Agatha, who was trembling still. The tears rose
to her eyes. "I am not really a coward," said she very bravely,
"and at first I didn't mind. I bore it quite well; but he was so
strong, and I didn't know where he was going, and"--with a
shudder--"it was so horrid being rushed along like that." Here
she covered her eyes with her hands and burst into tears. "Oh!
now you will think me a coward," sobbed she like any child.

"I know what I think you, long ago," said Dillwyn.

"Let me tell you how it all was," said he; "and sit down while I
tell you. You are quite unstrung, and no wonder. You are, in my
opinion, the bravest girl I ever met."

"Oh no!" said she.

"The bravest girl I ever met," repeated he firmly. "Poor Edwy!
Who would not be horrified by him in his excited moments? But the
fact is, his mother has met with an accident, and is, I fear, at
death's door."

"Mrs. Darkham!" Agatha roused herself from her nervous agitation
and looked at him.

"Yes. She went out early this morning shopping in the town, and
coming down that hilly part of the High Street she slipped on an
orange-peel, and came with fearful force upon the flags. You know
what a heavy woman she is?"

"Yes, yes. Poor thing!"

"She was taken home quite insensible. Darkham was out, but was
sent for, and it appears it was some time before he returned. In
the meantime poor Edwy had crept into the room where she was
lying, and the servants told me the sight of the blood--she had
cut the back of her head slightly--affected Edwy horribly.
First he flew to her and then recoiled. They said he did not know
her lying there so still.

"He went away, but came back again and flung himself upon her,
and great, difficult tears fell from his eyes. I was there then,
and so was the father. It was pitiful beyond words. I raised him
and tried to calm him.

"He got up suddenly and ran round the bed to me. He took my arm
and pointed to the door. I believe now he was trying to tell me
that he was going to bring you to the succour of his mother."

"Poor, poor boy!" Agatha sighed quickly. "It is not hopeless, at
all events?" questioned she.

"Who can say? Darkham thinks it is, and I--well, I have seen
cases as bad recover. But that is nothing. It is undoubtedly a
very bad case. She is a heavy woman, you know, and a fall like
that--and concussion--I am going up there again this evening
in consultation with Dr. Bland."

"Ah!" said Agatha quickly. There was relief in her tone. She
could not have explained it to herself, but she was glad that so
respectable a man as Dr. Bland had been called in for
consultation.

Dillwyn looked at her questioningly.

"You thought it would be some other man?"

"Yes. But I am glad it is Dr. Bland. He---"

"Is not so old as most of the old figure-heads in the county,"
said Dillwyn with a smile, who had suffered a good deal from the
medical fossils in the surrounding neighbourhood since he came to
Rickton. "Darkham sent for me first. I was the nearest, you
know."

"Yes," said Agatha. "And the cleverest," she would have added had
she dared to give her heart _carte blanche_.

"It was all very sad, and the poor boy so helpless. I am sure I
am reading the riddle correctly when I say he ran to you to get
you to come to his mother in her extremity---"

"I wish I had gone," Agatha said quickly. She half rose. "Oh,
perhaps I ought to go. Has she no woman with her?"

"She has two," said Dillwyn quietly. "You would be in the way if
you went there now. Two nurses engaged by Darkham are in constant
attendance on her. Don't distress yourself about that--and will
you think of yourself a little now? If you won't, I shall think
_for_ you. You must go back to the house, and to your room, and
try to sleep, if possible, for the next two or three hours."

"As for that!" said she--a faint laugh broke from her.

"You won't do what I tell you, then?" said he. He had taken her
hand as if to draw it within his arm, but he held it now in his
own whilst questioning her.

"To do what you tell me?" She reddened vividly.

"Yes; why not?" His tone was calm, but the hand clasping hers
tightened its grasp. It was as though he could not let her go.

There was a pause. Agatha made an effort to draw her hand from
his, but he held it manfully.

"Why shouldn't you do what is good for you?" asked he at last.

"And what is the good of a doctor if he can't suggest useful
remedies? I am a doctor, and, therefore, why shouldn't you do
what I tell you?"

"Oh, if you put it that way," said she.

"Then you are going to obey me?"

She gave him a little glance.

At this they both laughed. Agatha still a little nervously. She
did not, however, resist him any further, and presently he had
taken her back across the lawn and on to the balcony, where Mrs.
Greatorex met them.

She had seen Dillwyn spring though the laurels, and had known
Agatha was safe. She met him now with extended hand.

"Thank you a thousand times, Dr. Dillwyn," said she, "for your
happy appearance on the scene a moment ago. I warned Agatha about
that repulsive boy, but she would not listen to me. However, I am
sure there was nothing really serious about it."

Her manner was kind, but reserved. She had noticed his attentions
to Agatha, and was not yet sure whether they ought to be
encouraged or rejected.

He was poor, and though Reginald Greatorex had, in a sense,
placed him here, still, she knew that "old skinflint"--I regret
that that was the name she applied to her brother-in-law in her
private hours--was certainly not to be depended upon. This
rather presumptuous young doctor would never get a penny out of
Reginald Greatorex if he hoped for a thousand years. Had _she_
not hoped?

And yet, though she assured herself Dillwyn had no chance of old
Reginald's money, still, the very fact that he _might_ have a
chance rendered the young man distasteful in her eyes. A protege
of Reginald's would always be a blur upon the landscape of her
life.

"No, I think not," said Dillwyn; "yet your niece has certainly
been subjected to a severe shock. That unfortunate boy was
greatly disturbed in mind, and, as it appears, ran to Miss
Nesbitt at once for comfort. He meant nothing beyond a desire to
gain help for his mother, who is very ill."

"Mrs Darkham is ill?"

"Yes, seriously so."

"Good heavens! Nothing infectious, I hope? Oh, Agatha! And you
have been with her son just now! My dear"--drawing herself back
hurriedly--"had you not better go in and get disinfected?
Sulphur is very good, and---"

"I don't think you need be alarmed in this instance," said
Dillwyn coldly; "concussion of the brain is not catching."

At this moment the sound of footsteps on the gravel outside could
be heard, and a laugh--gay, sweet.



CHAPTER X


Round the corner now came the elder Miss Firs-Robinson, with
Elfrida in her train, and Mr. Blount, the curate, in Elfrida's.
And after them a young man--rather short and stout, with
clothes that suggested London, and an unfathomable air. It was
Mr. Browne, who, when anything was on, could never keep his
finger out of the pie.

Mrs. Greatorex turned quickly to Agatha.

"Not a word about that wretched idiot," she said in a low tone.

"And stay for awhile; the servants will be sure to talk, and I
should like these people, who"--with a contemptuous shrug--
"are inveterate gossips, to see that nothing really has
happened."

"But your niece---" protested Dillwyn, seeing Agatha's exhausted
air.

"My aunt is right," said Agatha quickly, fearing a collision
between the two--the young doctor's eyes, indeed, were burning
fiercely. She moved forward at once to meet the coming guests,
greeted old Miss Firs-Robinson with calm courtesy, and kissed
Elfrida--Elfrida, who looked back at her keenly for a moment,
then pressed her into a seat beside her, and pulled up a cushion
behind her back. It occurred to Dillwyn that he rather liked
Elfrida. He bade good-bye to Mrs. Greatorex, who seemed delighted
to say good-bye to him. And another good-bye to Agatha, holding
her hand until he met her eyes.

As he went another guest came--Lord Ambert.

Mrs. Greatorex received him with effusion, and gave him a chair
near herself.

"A frightful thing, dear Mrs. Greatorex!" said Miss
Firs-Robinson. She sank into a wicker seat upon the balcony with
tremendous effect. Every one thought the balcony was going down.
Providentially, it rebounded from the shock, and was itself
again.

"A frightful thing, indeed!" said Mr. Browne, who had subsided
near Agatha and Elfrida. "It has been a most merciful
deliverance. I thought we were all going to the lower regions,
didn't you?"

"After all, it wouldn't be far!" said Agatha, thinking of the
depth of the small balcony--one so near the ground.

"My dear girl, consider! Even the very doughtiest scientists have
failed to find the number of descending acres that divide our
comparatively pleasant home from---"

"From what?"

"Well," said Mr. Browne, "really I hardly like to name it in a
select assembly like this. But I believe nasty people call it--
hell!"

"Oh, Dicky!" said Agatha.
He was an old friend of hers. He was an old friend of a lot of
people. One had only to know Dicky Browne for ten days to be
quite a century-old friend of his. At this moment Lord Ambert
strolled towards them and up to Elfrida.

"I knew it would startle you, but you insisted," said Dicky
Browne reproachfully.

"What nonsense!" said Elfrida. "You know auntie was talking of
this sad affair about Mrs. Darkham."

"Yes," said the curate gravely. "She is dying, I hear, poor
soul!"

"Oh no!" from all, which did not mean a contradiction.

"I am sorry to say it is true. I heard this morning there was no
hope."

"After all, she is no great loss," said Elfrida, with a sort of
determination in her tone.

"She _is_ a loss," said the curate, defying her valiantly,
openly, and to her face. "She will be a loss to that poor son of
hers, whom Heaven, in a wisdom unknown to us, has afflicted."

"Oh, _you_ know everything," said Elfrida, with a shrug of her
dainty shoulders. She almost turned her back on him. Lord Ambert
came forward and whispered a word or two in her ear.  She
laughed. The curate fell back. Dicky, laying a hand upon his arm,
drew him away from the group and into the shadow of some large
tubs filled with shrubs.

Miss Firs-Robinson had been gaining a loose rein to her
sympathetic tendencies. And to Mrs. Greatorex!

"A shocking affair! Poor dear creature! Rather--er--
behindhand in some little ways; but such an end! Of course, Dr.
Dillwyn has told you all the facts of the case, but the details,
they are so interesting; but no doubt you've heard 'em."

Mrs. Greatorex, who would have given worlds to say she had, was
so carried away by her desire to learn the smallest minutiae of
the tragedy upon the _spot_ that she gave way, and confessed that
she knew little or nothing of the terrible affair. She made the
handsome admission with quite an air, however. She did it
admirably, but she played rather above the head of her companion,
who did not understand her in the least.

"Law, my dear, how out of the world you are!" said that worthy,
with a patronising smile that filled the soul of Mrs. Greatorex
with wrath. "Well, I keep my eyes open and my ears too, and now
I'll tell you."

Mrs. Greatorex made a movement as if to crush her with a
well-applied word or two, but she checked herself. If she
offended old Miss Firs-Robinson, she would learn nothing about
Mrs. Darkham's accident. If she endured her in silence, all the
gossip of the neighbourhood would be hers in five minutes. And
five minutes was not long to endure any one. Dr. Dillwyn had been
vague, and too much taken up with Agatha (she would have to put
an end to that presently) to tell her anything worth hearing, and
so she had heard nothing beyond the mere fact of the fall.

"Yes?" said she carefully.

Tea had been brought out by one of the small maids, who had now
ceased from her trembling, and Mrs. Greatorex stood up to pour it
out.

"She's dying," said Miss Firs-Robinson; "not a doubt of it! She's
heavy, you know; and her head came with an awful thud on the
ground. Concussion, that's what it is. They say the boy--that
unfortunate creature, you know--was in a frightful state; but
they do say that the husband bore it wonderfully."

"Scandalous gossip!" said Mrs. Greatorex, drawing back and
letting the tea overflow in the cup.

"Why?" asked Miss Firs-Robinson, who, if a gossip, was, at all
events, not a hypocrite. "I should think he'd be glad enough to
get rid of her--decently, you know--decently."

"Dear Miss Firs-Robinson, surely you don't quite mean what you
say!"

"Indeed I do, my dear. If people are tied together, and don't
like each other, they had better be separated."

"Good heavens, this is heresy!" said Mr. Browne. "You'll get
taken up, Miss Robinson, if you don't look out."

"Not me!" said the old maid, with her loud, hearty laugh. "No
such luck. Nobody ever wanted me in all my born days, except
'Frida. And I stick to what I say. It's my opinion that poor Mrs.
Darkham didn't have altogether a good time with her husband."

"Ah, you are evidently prejudiced!" said Mrs. Greatorex sweetly.

"And prejudiced people, you know, have no opinions."

"I don't agree with you there."

"It is true, nevertheless. They merely adopt the thoughts of
those who think as they do, and suit their opinions to their
likes and dislikes. Unbiased judgement is beyond them."

"Then I'm not prejudiced," said old Miss Firs-Robinson, with
another laugh. "Your words prove it, because I beg you to
understand I have as sound an opinion as any one I know on most
matters. And I don't suit it to my likes or dislikes either,
because I never could bear Mrs. Darkham; yet I think there is
some good in her."

"Who is Mrs. Darkham?" asked Mr. Browne. "That big red woman with
the voice of a costermonger I met here last year?"

"Yes. She slipped on an orange-peel yesterday, and is now hardly
expected to recover."

"After all, there is something in orange-peel," said Mr. Browne
thoughtfully.

"You think her death will be welcomed by some people?" asked Miss
Firs-Robinson, pushing up her pince-nez into better position for
battle. She had always suspected Mrs. Darkham's relations with
her husband; though, evidently, Mrs. Greatorex had not.

"By herself! Herself!" said Mr. Browne severely. "Just think of
the burden she has had to carry about with her for all these past
years."

"There, you see!" cried Miss Firs-Robinson triumphantly to Mrs.
Greatorex. "Dicky has noticed it too."

It was delightful for her to know that somebody besides herself
had seen that the poor woman now lying low had not been
altogether kindly treated by her husband.

"I don't know what he has noticed," said Mrs. Greatorex coldly.

"And I think, Richard," casting a chilly glance at Mr. Browne,
who took it and apparently was lost in wonder over it, "it would
be wiser if you abstained from open condemnation of things of
which you know absolutely nothing!"

"I'm in it, as usual," said Mr. Browne, with an air of tender
resignation. "But why these cold glances? I've seen her, you
know, and seeing is believing. Surely, I must know something--
some little thing!"

"Of course," said Miss Firs-Robinson triumphantly. "To see her
was enough, poor creature! So dull--so sat upon!"

"Did he do that?" asked Mr. Browne, with perhaps too lively an
interest. "Dared he sit upon her? Well, she'd tempt one that way,
you know."

"I agree with you, Richard," said Mrs. Greatorex, with a friendly
inclination towards him.

"Dicky does not mean that," said Miss Firs-Robinson angrily. "He
knows, because I've told him, that her husband made her life a
burden to her."

"Oh, but, really, it was her flesh I alluded to, you know, not
her husband--not her husband, you know!" said Mr. Browne, with
a reproachful glance at the irate dames on his left, and a sharp
attack on the sponge-cake on his right. The tea-table is fatally
near him. "Her--eh--well, it must be a burden to her, you
know, and no doubt, poor creature! she'll be glad to lay it
down."

He has now got a considerable portion of the sponge-cake in his
possession, and is waxing quite Christian in his air and smile.
The smile, indeed, is seraphic.

"I believe you've been taking us in all the time," said Miss
Firs-Robinson at last. She was broad-minded, and could laugh at
her own small defects at times. Mrs. Greatorex could not,
however, and had turned away, and was talking to Lord Ambert, who
was giving her rather curt replies, as he wanted to make the
running with the small heiress as strong as possible, and grudged
a moment taken from his stride. The small heiress, who was
flirting assiduously with the unfortunate curate, was well aware
of his impatience with Mrs. Greatorex, and laughed in her dainty
lace sleeves about it.

"I am afraid auntie is not orthodox," said she, looking at Tom
Blount, who was still hovering round her, out of two very
unorthodox blue eyes. She was alluding to her aunt's late
openly-expressed opinion that married people unsuited to each
other were better apart. "Are you, auntie?"

Auntie drew near at this challenge; when would she not draw near
when that pretty voice summoned her?

"I don't know what I am," said that stout lady, with a beneficent
smile. "But, 'on my, if it came to living with Dr. Darkham all my
life, I'd cry 'No, thank  you!'"

"Oh, auntie, now you are giving yourself away indeed! You are
uncharitable, and Mr. Blount will put you down as incorrigible,"
said her niece, retreating behind the fan she held, as if
horrified.

Evidently, she was ashamed of herself, thought her aunt. Blount,
however, was filled with unhappy certainty that she was laughing.

"Don't mind her, Mr. Blount," said old Miss Robinson very kindly.

"I know you won't do anything of the kind."

"Ah, Lord Ambert--going?"

"Yes--aw--just dropped in for a moment, you know. Good-bye,"
to Elfrida, who smiled at him.

"See you at the Stackfords' on Tuesday?"

"I think not." She still smiled at him, her lovely little face a
picture. "This sudden illness of Mrs. Darkham's--it casts a
sort of gloom, you see."

"Yes; it would be inhuman," said the curate suddenly, "to go to a
tennis-party, or a party of any kind, when that poor woman is
lying at death's door."

"A merely plebeian idea, I assure you, Miss Robinson," said
Ambert, taking Elfrida's hand and pressing it in a tender
fashion. "I trust you will not let yourself be influenced by it,
and that I shall see you on Tuesday." He paused. "I shall see you
to-morrow, at all events!"

He pressed her hand again, bowed to Agatha--he had already made
his adieux to Mrs. Greatorex--gave a nod to Dicky Browne, who
seemed delighted with him in some strange way, and without so
much as a glance at the curate, though, certainly, courtesy
demanded as much as that, he went his way.



CHAPTER XI


It was quite true: Mrs. Darkham was at the very portals of death.
Whether those great gates were to be opened for her, or she could
be dragged back from them, was the question that troubled the
physicians who attended her.

Perhaps it troubled her husband more than them. He was sitting
now in his library, in the big chair, with his arms hanging
listlessly over the arms of it, and his head pushed somewhat
forward. He was thinking.

The doctors had come and gone, and both were agreed. It was
almost an impossibility, but not quite; she might, if such and
such a change occurred, live. If not, death lay before her--a
death into which she would enter without revisiting, even in
thought, this world again. Dr. Bland, an elderly man, and one of
great and deserved reputation, gave it as his opinion that if
death did not ensue in a very few hours, hope might be
entertained. Dillwyn had nodded an assent, and had said a few
words too--to the effect that such grave cases _had_ been known
to recover even after hope seemed at an end. He had kept his eyes
carefully averted from the husband of the injured woman whilst
saying this. He had looked at him when he first entered the room,
but he could not trust himself to look again. There was something
terrible in Darkham's face, something hungry, ravenous. An animal
stalking its prey might have looked like that.

And now Darkham sat alone in his library thinking--thinking.
They had given it as their opinion that she would die--those
two who left--that she _would die!_ Would leave him free--
free of her accursed company!

A sort of fierce joy rose up and seized upon him. It caught and
shook him. Free! free! After all these years! Free! She was
dying. Surely, certainly! In a few hours her breath would cease,
and no more would her odious, vulgar words and accents make him
shrink and shudder. She would be gone to the Great Unknown, and
he---

And it would be none of his doing--none! Here the great
passionate joy that thrilled him seemed to culminate. He would be
rid of her, without a single effort of his own. Had he even
dreamed of making an effort?.... He would be quit of her in an
hour or two--a day at latest. Surely the stars in their courses
were fighting for him!

What was it they had said, those two? that if--if--he pressed
his hands, both of them, to his head--that if she lasted until
morning she might recover! Fools! She would not recover. Death
was on her face when last he saw her. Pshaw! he was a better
judge than either of them. Bland--an old man, too old; and
Dillwyn--a young idiot, who followed his leader naturally! But
he--he knew!--he who was in the prime of life, and had studied
death--and life--in all their varied ways.

Yes, he knew! Siva, the Destroyer, lay hovering above the woman
--whom the law called his wife--with outspread wings, awaiting
the moment to descend and clutch his prey. Soon--soon--let it
be!

Oh, to be delivered from her! From this creature who made life a
torture; who had dragged him with a chain all these interminable
years--the years of a marriage that had damned him! When he
could have risen, that chain had nailed him to the earth, had
clipped his soaring wings, had withered every moment of his life.
Truly a young man starting in life should look well to the way he
is going, and should choose a wife meet for him. Marriage is not
for an hour, but for all eternity--sometimes!

This one, however! It will not last so long. This marriage will
end soon, thank---

He broke off abruptly. Who was he thanking?

He rose suddenly and went to the door. He would go upstairs and
see how things were going on. He shook a little as he put his
foot upon the first step of the stairs, and looked back as if he
would willingly  change his mind and return to the library. But
he overcame himself, and went steadily upstairs.

So he went, and entered the room, and beckoned to the nurse in
charge that she need not stay. She rose at his bidding, and
slipped through the farther door, glad enough to get away for and
hour or so. Her employer was a doctor and the husband of the sick
woman under her charge, and so she felt safe in leaving her.
Besides which, it was a hopeless case. The nurse had seen many
such in the London hospitals, and though some as bad had pulled
through, still, the percentage lay the other way.

Darkham went up to where the silent figure lay, and ruthlessly
pulled back one of the curtains at the end of the old-fashioned
bedstead.

The light from the dying day streamed in through the window, and
lay on the dull, yellow face that rested on the pillow. It lit it
up and showed it in all its ugliness.

Darkham bent over it--lower--lower still, and looked--and
looked again. Was there a change? _was_ there?

Already the face looked like that of a corpse. The lips were a
little parted, as if the strength to close them was gone, and the
upper teeth showed through them in a ghastly fashion.

And yet it seemed to the husband bending over her that there was
some slight return of strength, of consciousness, in the face
beneath him. It was so slight as to be all but unseen by any,
save one passionately interested either in her recovery or her
death. If, after all---

He bent still lower, and then raised himself with a frown and a
quick sigh. No, he had been mistaken. Death would be her portion
this night. The two men who had just left had said it. Well, they
were right. She would die to-night.

He sat down in a distant arm-chair that still gave him a full
view of the bed, and gazed with uncompromising sternness at the
form thereon.

He fell a-musing again. How death-like she looked! How close to
the last breath! Just a step one way or the other--this way to
life, that way to the grave. A touch, a single movement, and she
would be beyond the line that divides the darkness from the
light.

Great heavens! how, even in the helplessness of her, her face
retains its old expression! The vulgar sneer still dominates it,
the drawn lips are still replete with venom. What a life he has
had with her! A life? Nay, a death.

The night was descending, but out of the misty darkness of the
room a girl's face stood--calm, cold, lovely. There from the
end of the room it looked at him, the eyes shining clear as day
and full of truth.

He turned uneasily, and rose and began to pace the room
stealthily, silently, yet with a sort of cruel spring in every
step. It was as though he could hardly keep himself in; as if
some vitality within him was at work, and urged him forward--
forward--always forward.

Why had the accident been so slow a thing? Death--instantaneous
death--how much more merciful it would have been to her, to
him! A heavier fall, by half an inch or so, and all would have
been at an end. There would have been no more room left for
doubt, for fear, or for joy. He did not mince matters to himself
as he walked there to and fro like a caged lion. He was strong
enough to tell himself the truth.

He stopped himself in his strange hurrying up and down, and once
more approached the bed. He bent over her and lifted her hand
that lay so miserably helpless within his, and then let it fall
again.

It sank upon the coverlet with a little dull thud, scarce
audible, save to him whose ears were strained to hear, whose
senses were so preternaturally on the alert. Why had her head
been so hard, or else those flags so soft! A less thing had
killed a score of fools before this.

Something in her face again arrested him. Surely there was a
change. He placed his ear close to her mouth and listened. When
he uplifted himself presently his face had taken a grayish tinge.
Her breath was certainly stronger and steadier.

He went back to the arm-chair and seated himself slowly in it.

He rose, as though he found it impossible to be still, and laid
his hand upon the mantelpiece. His grasp was so hard that his
knuckles stood out white against the black marble. That devil,
Dillwyn, had said she might recover. No doubt his hope was father
to his opinion. He would do him, Darkham, a bad turn wherever he
could. There had been occasions lately in the neighbourhood when
this young fool thought--strove--to wrestle with him in
professional matters. There was that affair of General
Montgomery's the day before last when Dillwyn had been called in
to the Cedars. The general was an important person in the place,
and though scarcely _en rapport_ with Darkham, had generally
employed him up to this. He thought of Dillwyn, of Agatha's face
as he had seen it at Miss Firs-Robinson's dance--looking into
Dillwyn's--of the preference shown to the latter by General
Montgomery and a few other unimportant people, but people who
always mean the thin end of the wedge in such affairs, and his
clasp upon the arms of the chair grew tighter.

He broke off and glanced again at the bed, this time hurriedly,
shortly. He saw her there, motionless, torpid, her sullen breaths
coming with strange trouble from her breast. When would they
cease! That was the one thought. When they ceased he would be
free.

Presently he crept towards her again, and again bent over her and
listened. He had _not_ been mistaken, then! Yes, the breath was
stronger; he even imagined now that her hand stirred a little. He
stood up. A minute passed in which he hardly breathed.

In that minute he knew what he was going to do.



CHAPTER XII


He went back to his chair again, however, and fought it out with
himself. Pah! what was it, after all, but to bring to a quicker
end a life that the doctors had all but declared gone? What _was_
it they had said? So deep was the intensity of his desire to go
back to that consultation of the two doctors and their verdict
that he hardly heard a faint movement in the room, a slow
stirring of the curtains that half hid the bed.

At last he remembered. If she were to live for a certain number
of hours there might be hope--a vague hope truly, said Dr.
Bland, and not to be depended on, but a hope. If not, she must
die. She had lived for many hours now, almost to the time
mentioned, and _still_ she breathed.

The nurse came to the door and opened it. He recollected himself
in a moment, but hardly dared turn his face to hers. He told her
by a motion of his hand, a softly muttered word, to go away; that
the patient was still doing well, that he had hopes, that he
wished to stay there. And the woman withdrew, praising him in her
heart as a husband full of love and grief and anguish.

It was a slight interruption, but it half maddened him for the
moment, although his iron nerve carried him through it.

He rose. The day was now at an end, and he lit a night-lamp with
a careful hand--a hand that never trembled; and then he went
again, and stared down at her. If she woke again to life there
would be no longer life for him. It was to be either he or she.

The face was lying helpless, looking up at him, as it were,
showing ghastly in the dim light. He had had no actual design in
his mind until his eyes rested on those lips, but then all at
once the means to the end became quite clear. His mind grew
bright as day. He saw it all! It would not take long, and it was
sure--and safe.

He went swiftly but noiselessly to a chest of drawers at the
farther end of the room, and drew out the top shelf--always
with a marvellous noiselessness. This drawer that usually--even
in the broad daylight--creaked loudly when opened, now beneath
the velvet fingers gave no sound whatever. He stooped forward,
peering into the drawer, moving a thing here and there, and
finally brought out something--a soft linen substance--a
handkerchief, apparently, and moved with it to the basin-stand
near him.

A squalid basin-stand of common deal. Certainly the poor,
detested creature now lying prone upon the bed, utterly at his
mercy, had not cost him much--had at least one virtue, that of
prudence. Of course, if she had cost him more, if she had brought
him by her extravagance to his last penny, she would have been of
some importance in his eyes; he might even have learned to see
something in her, in spite of her huge defects; but she had done
nothing beyond being ugly--_that_, it must be allowed, she had
done quite handsomely--and stupid, and vulgar, and all the rest
of it.

He raised the water-jug. It made a little sound, and he looked
behind him. No--no one had heard. That no one could see he was
sure. Who was there in the room save he--and--and that unsightly
object on the bed? He looked sharply, however, round the room,
peering here and there, as people will who _feel_ a presence yet
cannot see it; but he saw nothing.

He abandoned his first thought of pouring water into the basin,
and put back the jug very slowly into its original place. How
foolish that first thought was!

With another half-unconscious glance round him he lowered the
handkerchief into the jug--slowly, delicately--until the
water surrounded his hand and it. How cool the water was--how
refreshing! He would have a bath presently--_afterwards_. Cold
water was the best of all pick-me-ups.

He lifted the handkerchief, cautiously, yet a little drip fell
from it. One-two-three! They sounded like a knell from hell!
They terrified him--for a moment.

He glanced suddenly over his shoulder, once again to the bed
where that silent form lay. Had she heard? Had she known? He
thought he saw a movement of the curtains, but a second later he
dismissed the fancy with a deep indrawn breath.

He was in that state of mind now that even if she _had_ known--
if she had been capable of rising and denouncing him--he would
still have caught her by the throat and pressed her back upon her
pillows and deliberately strangled the life out of her. It was
decided. Fate had sent her so far upon her road, but now her
travelling was over, and the end of her was to be bitter and
ignominious and unknown.

The handkerchief was saturated. He went towards the bed and bent
down. The terrible open mouth, with the hideousness of it, seemed
to give him a demoniac courage. He folded the cloth and laid it
softly over it and the faintly breathing nostrils. He pressed the
damp covering down--down--moulding it to the nose and mouth
as one might who was taking a cast of some one dead and unknown
to him, and with quite as strong a calm and carefulness.

A moment--a frightful moment--and then she stirred, the big
head swayed from side to side. Darkham--white, rigid--watched
her as she moved in her terrible impotence, but still held the
cloth. It was but a momentary struggle, after all; suddenly it
ceased. She lay now, rigid, white--the cloth still upon her
face; her eyes had opened in the dying struggle and looked up at
him, pale, horrible. But her breath--her breath was gone. She
was dead!

A moment--a frightful moment--and then she stirred. It was
but a momentary struggle after all; suddenly it ceased. She was
dead!

He stood for a long time watching her. At least it seemed a long
time. He had released his hold of the death-cloth, but it still
lay on her face, covering the lips and nose, and leaving only
those frightfully glaring eyes to be seen. They were wide open,
and seemed fixed on him. He laid his hand upon her lids, and with
a brutal haste forced back the lids upon the dying eyes.

He drew in his breath sharply, and leaning against one of the
four posts, compelled himself to listen--to watch.

Not a sound in the house. And not a sound here, either. The
breathing had ceased--was still. All was over. Those men had
been right, then. There was so little life left in her that
recovery was impossible. If he had only waited, nature would have
done its own work unaided.

Once again that mad rush of exultation ran within her veins. Once
again he sat in the room with Agatha Nesbitt--saw her, listened
to her charming voice. He stooped over the woman in the bed, and
in a wild ecstasy tore the murderous cloth from off her face. A
smothered yell of triumph broke from him. She was dead--dead--
dead!



CHAPTER XIII


It was over--done! He was free! He reeled against the bedpost
and tried to collect himself--to check the terrible laughter
that rose to his lips. He was free at last.

His curious excitement came to an end at last, and he roused
himself. He looked at the clock, and found that it was quite an
hour since--since that. He turned his eyes then on his wife's
face and saw it was quite calm. There was nothing to wonder at--
no sign of a struggle. There had been very little struggle
indeed, life was so low within her. He assured himself that she
looked natural enough, and touched the bedclothes here and there.
Then he rang the bell violently, thrusting the wet handkerchief
into the inside pocket of his coat as he did so; and presently
the nurses came to the door, stepping softly, delicately, yet
with fear on their faces. To them he told the sad news. He feared
he had been a little drowsy, and she--his voice broke--must
have passed away in her sleep. His manner was perfect, and they
were all impressed by it, especially the nurse whom he had
dismissed some hours ago, telling her he would sit up with the
patient. She said afterwards that he looked heart-broken, but so
calm--the calmness of despair, no doubt.

They went with him to the bed, and bent over the silent form.
There was no breath coming now from the parted lips; the features
looked rigid. The face was placid, stern, with that Sphinx-like
expression on it that the dead so often wear.

Darkham himself lifted the arms--oh, so tenderly!--and
crossed them on her breast. Tears rose to the nurses' eyes. How
he had loved her!


"Go!" he said to them in  a broken voice. "I shall watch here."

They heard him lock the door after them, and felt sad with pity
at the thought of the lonely vigil the broken-hearted husband was
about to keep in the dim death-chamber.

He listened intently to the sound of their departing footsteps,
then cautiously opened a second door that led into an adjoining
room. It was a sort of dressing-room, that had been used by his
wife as a place for lumber of all sorts. It was untidy, but it
was large, and sitting at the far end of it one might feel far
away from the bedroom outside. He struck a match with a cautious
hand--a hand that it gave him a sensation of admiration to see
did not tremble, and lit a candle. This he placed on the floor
behind a brass-bound trunk of gigantic size that effectually hid
its rays from any one who might be outside the windows to-night.

He sat down, prepared to watch for the dawn. Well, it came early,
anyway. He seated himself on a box, and began to arrange his
plans. There was nothing to condemn him anywhere. She had been so
far gone already that the slight stoppage of her breath that he
had occasioned had made no effect upon her. Her face was quite
calm and placid; and he could quote the words of Bland and
Dillwyn at any moment. Besides, why should he be suspected? Who
was there to suspect him?

As for himself--his manner--he could rely upon that. He held
up his hand before him, and noticed boastingly that it was firm,
and strong, and steady. After all, what had he done? Merely
hastened the departure of a life--not taken it. Why, if he had
taken it years ago, who could blame him? That devil, thwarting
his every movement, destroying his life, killing him soul and
body--of what use was she to the world? A mere clod, swelling
the list of those who dam the flow of the tide that leads to all
light and progress. Why, it was a righteous deed!

His head was resting against a wardrobe. His eyes closed. His
thoughts were brilliant to-night; they flew here and there. The
candle was burning dimly, and before he knew it he had lost
consciousness--he was asleep.

He slept, and dreamt he was in hell! He struggled madly, and the
struggle with an over-whelming mass of fiends, who were dragging
him towards a caldron full of pitch, roused him. The madness,
indeed, lasted only a few minutes, and left him wide awake. He
woke with a violent start, and looked hurriedly around him. All
was still.

He sat up. A sensation of damp upon his chest troubled him. He
thrust his hand into his inner pocket, and drew out--the
handkerchief!

With a curse he flung it from him--far as he could throw it--
gazing at it with  wide, fascinated eyes. For the moment he was
afraid of it; then sense returned to him, and all his old
strength, and he was himself again. He picked up the handkerchief
deliberately, and placed it once more in his pocket. A grim smile
at his own folly lit his dark features.

Even as he so sat smiling at his past weakness, a strange sound
smote upon his ear. It was the sound of some heavy body falling
on the ground. Seemingly it came from the next room--from the
room where the dead body lay. He rose and went quietly to the
door of it, and stood there listening. And as he listened a low
crooning smote upon his ear. How well he knew it!

The boy! How had _he_ come there, with all the doors locked? He
now went quickly forward, through the door and into the room
beyond. There he stood still, as if frozen into stone. An awful
sight awaited him!

 ....

The bed he had left so decorously arranged was now in frightful
disorder. The clothes were flung here and there, and on the
floor, half out of the bed and half in it, lay--his wife.

Her arms were flung out, and her head was lying on one arm, the
scanty gray locks parted, and showing bald patches in this place
and that. The face was almost hidden, but he could see the nose
and a little blood coming from it.

As he stood gazing at it, a movement on his right attracted him.
It came from behind the curtains--a squat, unwieldy form, with
working mouth and eyes on fire. He knew it. It was his--son!

The poor creature drew closer and closer by degrees to the form
upon the floor, as if frightened, and not understanding. When had
he ever before seen his mother like this? But as he came up to
her he touched her, and, getting no response, he touched her
again, and again, and finally, as if some light had dawned upon
his darkened mind, he caught her, and lifted her head upon his
knees, and began to lavish on her a whole world of endearments.
Standing behind the bed-curtains, as he had stood for hours, in a
dull, faithful determination to be near her, he had seen her fall
out of bed, and then surprise and horror had produced that
crooning noise that Darkham had heard. He now bent his face to
hers, and with uncouth gestures tried to wipe away the blood that
was already congealing round the nostrils.

She had probably come to life again for some brief moments, and
fought and gasped for breath, and then by a last mighty effort
had flung herself on the side of the bed.

With so much strength _she must have recovered_ had he not
hastened her death with that wet rag! He faced that thought with
the strong callousness he had shown all through.

But the boy? He looked upon the wretched object crouched upon the
floor, and advanced towards him. Taking him by the shoulder, he
shook him sharply. The boy looked up with vacant eyes, and
Darkham motioned him imperiously to move aside. At any moment
some one might come to the door, and though it was locked, still,
to refuse admission---

Edwy, trained to fear him, rose sullenly, and once more retreated
into the shadow of the curtains, and, squatting down upon the
ground, sat gibbering, his eyes always on the corpse.

Darkham, stooping, lifted his wife. With some fear he gazed upon
her. But she was now dead indeed. He laid her back upon the bed
and felt her heart. It was still. Once again he closed the eyes,
sponged the slight bloodstains from her face, and rearranged the
bed-clothes. Again he folded the arms across her breast in the
exact position in which they had been when the nurses saw her
last. The minutest detail he thought of and followed out.

The slight distortion of the features, now visible, would not be
noticed or treated seriously. And an hour or two, besides, would
probably do away with it. An hour after death makes the dead face
so different, even when death has been hard.

It was all finished now, and the boy only remained to be got rid
of; he could not stay here.

Much as Darkham disliked being left alone in this terrible room,
still he disliked more the companionship of this loathsome idiot.
There was always the thought, too, that he _knew_--had _seen!_
For the first time he felt thankful that his only child had been
born deaf and dumb, and a fool. If only he had been born blind as
well!

He unlocked the door softly, and motioned to his son to go. The
idiot shook his head. He understood what his father meant, but,
though accustomed to obey him, he now felt as if to leave the
room that held his mother--a mother so strange, so changed, but
still his mother--was impossible to him. She might wake and
want him.

Darkham imperiously, by a second gesture, ordered him to leave
the room, and, seeing he did not move, went toward him.

As he advanced, the idiot rose. A low howl broke from him.
Suddenly, as if with a mad desire for vengeance, he flung himself
upon his father and tore and wrestled with him savagely. It was
the anger of an enraged brute; the boy's nails seemed to tear
into Darkham's flesh.

The struggle, however, lasted only for a minute or two. With a
mighty effort, Darkham wrenched himself free, and the idiot, his
hands working convulsively, dashed from the room.



CHAPTER XIV


"Isn't it frightful!" said old Miss Firs-Robinson, exclaiming as
much with her hands as with her tongue. "Such a death!"

"A terrible death, indeed," returned Mrs. Poynter--a pretty,
fashionable-looking young woman--with deep commiseration. "So
sudden!"

It was the next day, and the news of Mrs. Darkham's death had
spread and was now known far and wide. All the people in Rickton
had "a day," and this one belonged to Miss Firs-Robinson. A most
blessed thing, as everyone wanted to meet every one else and
discuss with them the tragedy. It was the rector's wife who had
been the first to use the word "tragedy," and it had caught on at
once. "She is so clever, you know. Always the right word on every
occasion. Really quite talented! The rector could never get on
without her; she has been the making of him. That last sermon of
his about regeneration, surely--_well!_ And she does write, you
know, for some of the papers. At all events, she has been known
to answer a charade most successfully. You _must_ remember. It
began with "My first was an ass.""

Lord Ambert and Elfrida were playing tennis in the courts below
against Captain Poynter and a rather pretty girl who was staying
with the Poynters.

Mr. Blount was standing on the terrace close to the nearest point
from which the tennis-court could be seen. He was supposed to be
making himself agreeable to the companion Fate had accorded him
for the moment, but in reality he was watching Elfrida with a sad
but absorbed gaze. Agatha Nesbitt, sitting at the end of the
terrace, seemed to read his thoughts, and beckoned him to come to
her. She herself was sitting where whoever came to the hall-door
could be readily seen.

"And I hear," said Mrs. Poynter, arching her brows and putting on
a look of perfect misery, "that Dr. Darkham is absolutely
inconsolable."

"Oh my dear, do you think so? Well, I don't know, I'm sure." Miss
Firs-Robinson as she spoke turned purple. "He is--well, you know,
I don't like him. But dissolute--one should be charitable, my
dear. I confess I have thought him a little queer at times in his
ways, but nothing so far gone as that. No, no."

"You mistake me," said Mrs. Poynter, flushing delicately, yet
with a glance round her. She wanted to laugh, but it is so
impossible to laugh alone. She caught Dicky Browne's eye at this
moment, however, and was happy.

"I'm sure I do, my dear," said old  Miss Firs-Robinson heartily,
who was really a good soul. "Poor man! I'm talking of Dr.
Darkham, Dicky; he's gone all to pieces, they tell me, over this
business."

"I hope sincerely nobody will put him together again," returned
Mr. Browne piously.

"Such a feeling man!" said Mrs. Greatorex, dropping into a chair
near them. "No wonder he is in such a terrible state. I fear this
sad occurrence will place the neighbourhood in grief for some
time."

"I suppose so. And yet"--Mrs. Poynter turned to her next
neighbour--"You see, she was such a stranger to us, poor woman!
_Such_ a stranger!" She lifted her pale-gray gloves here, and did
something to her veil. "Did _you_" said she gently, looking at
Mrs. Greatorex, "see much or her?"

Mrs. Poynter's voice was wonderful. It was a perfect coo, like a
dove's. And she was very good-natured, too, in her own way, but
it _had_ to be her own way. She detested anything unpleasant,
anything that interfered with her, anything that rubbed her up
the wrong way, and she certainly detested Dr. Darkham. But she
had a little way with her that precluded the idea of her
detesting anybody.

"Oh yes, very, very often," said Mrs. Greatorex sweetly. "I
always tried to do what I could for her, poor creature!"

"And you?" said Mrs. Poynter, turning to Miss Firs-Robinson, who
was looking grim. The old lady had been studying Mrs. Greatorex.

"Did you see much of her?"

"Well, as little as I could help," said the spinster with all the
candour that adorned her, and a trifle of anger besides. "Because
a more odious, a more unpleasant person I never met in my life."

"Oh, dear Miss Firs-Robinson!" cried the rector's wife, a little
sallow woman. "You should remember, you should indeed. She is
dead, you know."

"Yes, I do know," said the old lady in a loud voice, "but how
does that alter matters? If the dead want to be praised, they
ought to behave themselves properly whilst they are alive, and
_she_ didn't. I am sorry the poor woman died like that, without
returning to consciousness even for a little while."

"It was quite hopeless from the very first," said Mrs. Poynter.

"Dr. Bland and Dr. Dillwyn were both quite agreed about that."

"Oh no!" Agatha spoke as if involuntarily. "Not quite agreed. Dr.
Dillwyn told me she might recover."

"Told you?" questioned Mrs. Greatorex quite gently. Then with a
little smile: "But when, dear Agatha?"

The girl looked at her and paused. She seemed to struggle with a
certain confusion.

Mrs. Greatorex, who would have made a splendid diplomatist, at
once regretted her question, and stepped into the breach. She had
made up her mind that her niece was to settle herself in life
well, and to have her even "mentioned" with so deplorable  a
detrimental as Dillwyn--a young doctor just making his first
breach through the wall of life--would be destruction. She
therefore came to Agatha's rescue, and accepted the question as
answered.

"He seems to have had two minds on the subject," she said
slightingly, "which only shows how ridiculous it would be to
place any confidence in his opinion. Young men of his age are not
to be relied upon."

"I wonder if the party at Ambert Towers will be put off?" said
the rector's wife, lowering her voice and speaking
confidentially. "It was to be on Thursday next."
"I should think not. Lord Ambert is not the sort of man to---"

"No, he is not, indeed."

"He seems to me more reserved than unsympathetic," said Mrs.
Greatorex, who always supported him on principle. Were they not
of the same class? "Are you going?" asked she, addressing Mrs.
Poynter.

"We've been asked," said that pretty woman, with downcast lids.

"But do you think one should go--with this death so very
recent? Are"--she paused prettily--"are _you_ going?"

"Not as to a party"--with much _empressement_. "It will, I feel
sure, be a quiet affair, on account of poor Dr. Darkham's
bereavement."

"Oh, bereavement!" Mrs. Poynter permitted herself first a smile,
and then gave way to a subdued laugh. "I say, mustn't he be
glad?" said she.

"My dear Mrs. Poynter, hush! If any one should hear you! And,
really, you take quite a wrong view of it. You are worse than Mr.
Browne, who says quite dreadful things. I admire Dr. Darkham, you
know--I do indeed. I think him an ideal man. Fancy his devotion
to that dreadful being all these years!" She lifted her hands.

"Such a handsome man, my dear Mrs. Poynter; he is one in a
thousand."

"So glad," said Mrs. Poynter, rather frivolously. "Two of him in
a thousand would be more than one could endure. To me he always
seems--don't you know--well, so out of it."

"Out of it?"

"Well, not _in_ it, don't you know. A--a little on one side--
eh? A little--well, vulgar is a horrid word, isn't it? Oh, how
d'ye do, Lord Ambert? Been winning as usual?"

"Not as usual. I've been winning to-day because Miss
Firs-Robinson has been my partner!"

"Oh, I like that," said Elfrida, who was with him. "As if I was
the least use to you! You could have won the game quite as well
without me--better, I dare say. I don't believe I made five
good strokes all day. My ball went _into_ the net, instead of
over it, every time. I'm a perfect fraud!" She looked up at
Blount suddenly, brilliantly, intentionally. "Now am I not, Mr.
Blount?"

Blount hesitated and coloured, and Lord Ambert stared at him
superciliously. Blount shook his head.

"You must let me contradict you," said he shyly, boyishly.

"Shall I get you some tea?" asked Ambert, who was frowning.

"No, thank you. There is claret-cup somewhere, if one could only
find it. Mr. Blount, will you come with me on a voyage of
discovery?"

Poor Blount! His eyes lit up. He went quickly to her, and she led
him a fool's dance for the next ten minutes.

Ambert strolled leisurely away in an opposite direction, his face
set and angry.

"What a pity it is that she _will_ encourage that poor boy!" said
Mrs. Poynter to Agatha. "And when her mind is so entirely made up
to marry Lord Ambert!"

"Then you think---"

"I am afraid she is a terrible flirt," said Agatha. Whereon they
both laughed.

"Here comes John Dillwyn," said Mrs. Poynter presently. "And
straight to us. _You_ are not a flirt, I know, Agatha--which
makes me all the more afraid for you. You know he hasn't a penny.
Well, John," taking a sympathetic note at once, "so that poor
woman has slipped through your fingers. We are all so shocked
about it. There was no hope from the beginning, I suppose?"

"I don't think that. I fully believed there was a chance for her,
but it was a bare one. Still---"--he knitted his brows as if
perplexed--"I believed in it."

"You mustn't say that now, John," said Mrs. Poynter, patting her
cousin's arm; "you have your fortune to make, you know, and
mistakes are fatal. Ah, you'll get on, John; you have the courage
to confess your faults," said his cousin, smiling; "but don't
confess them before unappreciative people. Dr. Darkham is, of
course, very---"

"I saw him only for a moment this morning. He looked like death
himself. I had no idea he--er--cared for her so much. His
face looked quite changed."

"Agatha, I think we must go now," said a cold voice. Mrs.
Greatorex laid her hand on Agatha's shoulder. "How d'ye do, Dr.
Dillywn? I hope you have seen poor Dr. Darkham, and that he is
bearing up?"

"He seems greatly cut up," said Dillwyn.

"Ah, as I said. So sympathetic, so tender-hearted! I should so
like to tell him how I feel for him."

"I am afraid you will have no chance of doing that except by
letter. He is leaving home directly after the funeral for some
months."

"And are you to look after his patients?" asked Mrs. Greatorex,
turning to Dillwyn.

"Oh no"--smiling. "I am not big enough for that. Bland is to
see to them."

Once settled in the fly, that on all occasions was borrowed from
the inn to convey them to such distances as Mrs. Greatorex could
not walk, the latter turned to her niece.

"When did Dr. Dillwyn tell you Mrs. Darkham might recover?" asked
she very quietly.

"Last evening. I was standing at the gate, and he happened to be
passing by. I asked him about Mrs. Darkham's condition, and he
told me he thought she _might_ recover, but it was very
doubtful."

"I should think," said Mrs. Greatorex presently, "between you and
me, that Dr. Darkham is feeling profoundly relieved at this
present moment."

"You mean---"

"That that woman was the curse of his existence for the past
twenty years."

"She was dreadful, certainly. But Dr.--Dr. Dillwyn said he
looked so sorry."

"It was a shock, of course, but he will recover from that in no
time. And he is a handsome man, and rich and clever."

"Yes." Agatha looked at her as if wondering. There had been some
meaning in her tone that the girl felt but did not understand.

"Yes. Don't you see? There is a chance for you now," said Mrs.
Greatorex playfully, but with deadly meaning.  The girl, after a
swift glance at her, turned away. She felt cold and sick. Was
this woman human, to pretend--to jest so--on the very threshold
of death? And was it all jesting? She drew a long breath, as if
suffocating.

"How can you talk like that?" she said.



CHAPTER XV


"Nothing is more pleasant to the eye," said Lord Bacon, "than
green grass nicely shorn." And truly his quaint Lordship would
have been pleased had he been able to look upon Mrs. Poynter's
grass to-day. It was shorn and shaven as close as the priest of
old who was so unkind as to marry the pretty maid forlorn to that
dreadfully tattered old man we have all known in our story books.
For summer was gone to sleep, and lay prone upon the earth
covered with her dead rose-leaves--only to wake again hereafter.

And now Autumn reigned. The dahlias in the long borders were
shining like coloured stars, and the asters and sunflowers still
upheld their heads. In the smaller beds the good begonias, who
never crave for rest until dread frost compels them, shed great
splendour where they lay. But they are frail things, and drop
from their stems in a night when harsh winds assail them.

June, July, August, all have gone. And with them every thought of
the poor woman who had been done to death so strangely, only
three months ago! One never talked of Mrs. Darkham now, though
every one said a good deal about, Dr. Darkham, who had come back
three weeks ago from that sad trip he had taken to shake off his
grief.

His grief appeared excellently well shaken off, they all said. He
seemed quite to ignore it, indeed, when he returned, looking pale
and thin certainly, but more interested in social surroundings.
He was more full of life than he had ever been before.

Mr. Sparks, a young man staying with the Poynters, who during the
last year had contracted an unfortunate passion for photographing
his friends, was now standing out on the lawn, with his
instrument of torture before him, and his head buried in a dirty
velveteen cloth. He "meant well," as they say, but he never did
it. He was abnormally tall and thin, and his hair fell over his
forehead; the atrocities that he had committed no doubt preyed
upon his conscience. To add to his other misfortunes, he was a
friend of Dicky Browne, who to-day was taking great joy out of
him.

"We'll be taken in a group," decided Mr. Browne, after a long
discussion; "we can be taken separately afterwards, if we have
the courage."

He looked at Mrs. Poynter, who had been most eager to get a
sitting all to herself. She was pretty, and she knew it, and why
shouldn't others know it? She was unaware of Mr. Sparks's
peculiar talent, certainly, or perhaps she would not have been so
desirous of seeing herself or her children--two lovely little
beings of six and eight--once again on paper.

"Now I'm ready, if you are!" roared Mr. Sparks from the centre of
the lawn.

"One minute!" shouted back Dicky Browne.

He was settling everybody, and pulling out their skirts. This
made all the women mad.

"Are you ready?" roared out Sparks again, who was suffocating
from his incessant visits beneath the velveteen cloth. It was a
very warm day.

"One moment." Dr. Dillwyn had just come in, and where was he to
be placed? He made straight for Agatha, and Dicky could not fail
to see the significance of the smile with which she greeted him.

"Is there room for me here?" That was his whisper.

"Yes, yes," she said softly, gently. So he laid his hand on the
arm of her chair, and stood erect.

There was a moment of awful tension. All were putting on their
worst smiles and the most fatally imbecile expression, and Mr.
Sparks was about to withdraw the cap, when a lively crash was
heard and a smothered shriek.

They all sprang to their feet, and the tableau was spoiled. It
was Dicky, of course. As usual, he had chosen the frailest seat
in the place as a support for his rather stout frame--this time
a milking-stool of delicate proportions; and one of the legs had
come off, and now Dicky and it were floundering together on the
floor of the veranda, buried in one common ruin.

The party in the veranda broke up and went here and there through
the gardens, or else back to the tennis-courts. Tea was going on
in a large tent on the lawn, and presently Elfrida, who had
seated herself in a garden-chair outside the tent, and had sent
Lord Ambert for some coffee, saw Mr. Blount standing near her.
Elfrida looked up at him. She was quite alone--a singular
occurrence so far as she was concerned--and for the first time,
therefore, she was able to look at Blount with a critical eye. It
struck her first that he was the youngest-looking man she had
ever seen, and then, for she was fond of analysis, she told
herself she regarded him like that simply because Lord Ambert was
so very far from young.

Presently Blount looked round and saw her, and such a light of
gladness grew upon his face as could not be mistaken.

"Can't I do something for you?" asked he.

"You can indeed; you can sit here beside me and amuse me, and
tell me things."

"Tell you things?" He laughed at this; he was feeling
extraordinarily happy. "What can I tell you that could interest
you?"

"Well, one thing," said this finished coquette, "your Christian
name. When one likes a person, one always wants to know how those
who love him call him."

She smiled at him divinely, bending here pretty head towards him.
She looked very lovely in her exquisite gown--a delicate petunia
shade, clouded with lace--and the curate, looking at her, lost
his head a little. He looked back at her, with all the passionate
and very real love he felt for her showing now openly within his
honest young eyes.

Blount woke from his mad dream, and to a most unpleasant reality.
The Rev. Thomas Blount was a name that could be seen very often
on cards for soirees, or placards for temperance meetings, or
invitations to tea for girls' friendly societies. It hurt him in
some strange way that she had never noticed those cards and
placards. If she had even liked him, she would have felt some
such small interest in him.

"I'll tell you, of course," said he. Yet he hesitated. _Thomas!_
How could he tell her his name was Thomas? It was, indeed, one of
his greatest griefs that he had to sign himself so when he came
to this parish. Thomas was such a respectable name!

"Ah, I know now!" cried Elfrida, as he hesitated. "It is Thomas.
I saw it in a---"

"Oh, really, you know, it is _not_ my name," said Blount. "I'm
always called Tom by my friends."

"Yes?" Elfrida turned and gave him a wonderful little look from
under her hat--a charming hat all covered with violets. "Am _I_
your friend?" asked she.

"My friend?" he stammered, and then stopped. Something in her
face, her eyes, that were looking over her shoulder at some one
approaching, checked another word. He, too, looked hastily
backwards, to see Ambert coming out of the tent and approaching
them, a cup in his hand and a scowl upon his brow. Mrs. Greatorex
and Miss Firs-Robinson were behind him.



CHAPTER XVI


He turned to Elfrida, his face pale and miserable. He hardly knew
what he was saying.

"He is coming--Ambert, I mean. He will ask you to go and see
the houses with him."

"Is that all?" Elfrida looked amused.

"He is going to ask you to marry him."

"Is _that_ all!" She laughed now, merrily. Her lovely little
face, that was so infantile, yet so strong and so determined
beneath all its youth and sweetness, seemed now slightly mocking.

"Don't go with him," entreated Blount passionately. All in a
moment the youth of his own face seemed to die from it. He looked
strong and earnest. His eyes were lit with a fire she had not
thought them capable of. She looked at him strangely for awhile.
Then she smiled.

"Why should I not?" she asked gaily. She had quite recovered
herself. Ambert was very close now, and she turned and smiled at
him--a smile of encouragement.

He came up and gave her the cup she had asked for, not noticing
Blount even by a bare nod. He made a point of being rude to
Blount. She drank the coffee, and then consented to go with him
to the vineries. She rose, her small, graceful figure, slender as
an elf's, looking even more fragile than usual in her pale gown,
and moved a step or two forward with Ambert at her side.

Blount rose too. The very bitterness of death seemed on him now.
She was going--going from him for ever.

At that moment Elfrida turned her graceful neck, and stopped and
held out her hand to him. The little trifler was true to her
calling.

"Won't you come too, Mr. Blount? Do."

There was actual entreaty in her eyes. Blount would have refused
her request but for that look. As a fact, Elfrida felt the
proposal from Ambert was imminent, and though she desired it, she
wilfully determined to put it off, as women sometimes will.
Blount rose, and, regardless of Ambert's insolent air went with
her towards the houses.

Miss Firs-Robinson laughed; she was having a right royal revenge.

"Elfrida's good to the poor, too; in fact, she's good to every
one--except perhaps"--thoughtfully--"young men."

"To me," said Mrs. Greatorex spitefully, "she appears the very
kindest girl I ever knew to young men, and, indeed, to old men,
and _all_ men. She seems to have no other thought than for them."

"Just so. I said she was a flirt; but when she's married to
Ambert she'll be cured of that."

"When she _is_," said Mrs. Greatorex with emphasis and a peculiar
smile.

Miss Firs-Robinson might have gone on again, adding more fuel to
the fire, but a little rush of people out of the tent near them
distracted her attention. Dicky Browne was leading, but was hard
pressed by Agatha and Mrs. Poynter and a few others.

"What is it, Agatha?" asked Mrs. Greatorex, as the girl reached
her.

"Sparks!" gasped Mr. Browne. "He says he wants to take us again."

"So we're flying--flying for our lives," said Dicky. "Stop us
at your peril." He looked back. "Oh lawks, here he is!" said he;
whereupon they all took to their heels again and disappeared into
a bit of wood close to them.

Agatha was last; she turned aside, and, separating herself from
the others, ran lightly up a little path that led towards a
tangle of ferns and young trees--mere saplings. She knew the
place well, and knew it to be solitary. No one would go there
to-day, and she wanted to be alone to think. Half an hour ago
Dillwyn had been called away to see a poor child in the village
whose little hand had been badly scalded. He had passed Agatha
when going, and had told her he would be back again in an hour or
less. Without him the day seemed dull, and the thought of
escaping from every one, of sitting alone in that small retreat
until his return, was good to her. She wouldn't confess to
herself that the idea of her getting away  from Dr. Darkham had
its charm too. She clung to the other thought. She could see the
road by which Jack--she had grown to think of him as Jack--
would return. Indeed, his shortest way would be straight through
here. She told herself she was going to sit here and watch for
his coming; and out of such telling no shame came to her heart.
She loved him, and he loved her. And though he had not spoken,
she believed he was waiting for her, until his prospects were
brighter, surer. She laughed to herself over that. As if she
cared about his prospects! She cared for nothing on earth but him
himself--his dear, _dear_ self.

She had gained her shelter now, and stood looking towards the
road. Two of the young saplings were quite big boys now, and very
tall for their age. They towered over _her,_ at all events. They
stood both together, and she stood between them, always with her
beautiful face looking towards the road; and she twined her arms
round these younglings, and so supported herself. All her
thoughts were given to Dillwyn. So engrossed were they, indeed,
that she heard no footstep behind her--knew of no approach,
until the voice she hated above all others sounded on her ear.

 ....

She felt she was as pale as death as she turned to confront him.



CHAPTER XVII


"Dr. Darkham! _You!_" Her tone was cold, almost haughty.

"Yes. I followed you!" He looked at her, his eyes resting on her.
Such strange eyes, they seemed on fire! And his tone--it was
one she had never heard before.

As for Darkham, he stood there looking at her, gloating on her
beauty--the beauty for which he had sold his soul. How sweet
she was--a thing born of the gods! So tall, so slender, so
defiant, so divine!

But in all his dreams of her, had she ever been as beautiful as
now? She had still her arms round the young trees--she was,
indeed, clinging to them now, as if demanding support of them--
and her small shapely head and slender figure showed through them
as though they formed a living panel.

Something other than the longing to be always with her had urged
him towards this interview. The fear of losing her altogether! He
had seen the way she went, and had followed her, and had rightly
judged that she was waiting here to see Dillwyn return.

He knew Mrs. Greatorex. Money was a god to her, and she would
strongly urge Agatha to act as he desired. She would condone the
haste of his proposal. He could explain away all that by saying
he feared to lose her--by a judicious hint about Dillwyn's
attentions. He knew how that would annoy her. And she was an
obstinate and determined woman, who would go all lengths to gain
her own ends. He could see her to-night--a note would manage
it.

"You followed me!" Her soft eyes flashed. "Why should you follow
me?"

"You know," said Darkham. He advanced a step nearer to her. "You
_must_ know."

His voice now was shaken with passion, and his face was deadly
white. He was alone with her, far from every one, and he was
going to tell her that he loved her. To him it was the moment of
his life.

"I know nothing. I desire to know nothing."

The girl had stepped out now from between the trees, and was
standing before him, quite calm, but with a little droop of the
lids he was not slow to interpret. It meant disdain. But he cared
for nothing now, save his one mad longing to tell her.

"You do know," said he in a strange voice. "I dare you to say
otherwise. You know that I love you." It was out. It was said.
The very air was ringing with it. He repeated it. To himself it
seemed that he was shouting the great news, but in reality his
voice was low--intense. "I love you. I have loved you always--
_always_. Even whilst that woman lived. You know that, too. I
have seen it in your eyes so often. No, not a word! Let me
speak.... I have been silent so long."

"To be silent for ever would be better," said Agatha. She was
very pale, but she had a certain courage of her own, and it stood
to her, so far, most valiantly. "You must see what folly this is.
Why do you speak? What good will it do you?"

"It means life!" said Darkham. "What nights, what days have been
filled with my vain longing for such an hour as this! To _say_ it
--to tell you how unutterably dear you are to me--has been my
consuming passion since first we met. Often, often, when
attending your aunt, a craving to speak to you--to lay bare my
heart--to take you in my arms---"

He moved towards her, and she shrank back affrightedly. After
all, a girl's best courage does not amount to much.

"What!" said he, "do you think I would touch you? No, no!"

"You must be mad," said she. She was trembling now. "How can you
talk to me like this?--to me, who---"

"Well?" said he--his voice was a question--"well?"

"Why go into it?" said the girl gently, touched by the horrible
anguish in his face. "Is it not enough for you to---"

"To what?"--violently, as she hesitated to finish her sentence.

"Your words are enigmas; I would hear from your own lips the
answers to them."

"As you insist," said Agatha calmly, "I shall finish it. To you,
who"--slowly, defiantly--"are _abhorrent to me!_"

"You think to marry that young fool!" said he. "And I tell you
you never shall. I shall not allow it. Your aunt will not allow
it."

"Mrs. Greatorex is not my aunt," said Agatha. "But am I to
understand, then, that you are going to bring _her_ into this
hateful matter?"

"I shall certainly tell her how things are," returned he
doggedly.

"You would coerce me--you would compel me to accept you!" cried
she miserably, a vision of Mrs. Greatorex's anger rising before
her.

"I compel you in no wise! I would only have careful consideration
where your best interests are concerned. I can supply you with
all that makes life bearable. I can surround you with luxuries--
and Dillwyn, what can he do?"

"I don't want him to do anything," said Agatha slowly. She said
nothing more for a moment and the meaning of her words sank into
Darkham's heart. No, Dillwyn need do nothing. She loved him--
love was sufficient! What more was wanting? Agatha's voice broke
through his wretched thoughts. "I do not understand your
allusions to Dr. Dillwyn. He is merely a friend, an acquaintance
of mine. No more."

"No more!" He mimicked her tone, and burst into queer laughter.

"Would you swear to that? Ay! I suppose--and die for it--just
because he has not said to you what I have said to-day. But you
will never marry him. Mark that! You will marry me!"

"You mean that you will make Mrs. Greatorex my  enemy abut this,"
said the girl scornfully. "You will turn her against me."

"As for that," said he, "you are not the down-trodden slave you
would describe. The law of to-day"--bitterly--"leaves most
people very free. You are thoroughly protected."

"So far, yes; but you also know that my only home is with Mrs.
Greatorex. If she were to turn against me---"

"Then I should take you in."

"Never!" said she strongly. "I would rather die on the roadside
than have anything to do with you!"

"You think that now, but time changes most things, and poverty is
hard to bear. You will listen to your aunt at last; and I--I
who have loved you--I who have looked forward to such an hour
as this--have looked to you as my salvation---"

"Dr. Darkham!"--she turned upon him passionately--"do not
look at me at all. It is useless, believe me. Nothing under
heaven could change my determination on this point. I have told
you I would rather die than marry you. Look elsewhere and forget
me, I entreat you."

She turned away from him and glanced once more up the road. Would
he _never_ come?

"Not in sight yet?" said Darkham, with a contemptuous laugh. "To
keep you waiting so! What a dilatory lover!"

"I wish you would go away," said she quietly.

"That you may see him alone? A most reasonable request." He
laughed again harshly, with forced merriment; then suddenly he
fell on his knees before her, and caught hold of her gown.

"Agatha, for the sake of the heaven I have lost, hear me! You
_must_ hear me! See--I am at you very feet! Give me a word--a
word--only _one!_ Just one word of   hope. Oh, my soul, if you
only knew how I feel towards you--what I have _done_ for you!
Agatha, have pity!" He seemed hardly to know what he was saying.
He caught the hem of her gown, and pressed it to his lips. The
girl, distressed, horrified, laid her hand upon his head to press
it back, away from her. To him the pressure of that soft, hasty
hand seemed like a benediction.

He rose slowly, staggering a little, and looked up at her; she
had moved away towards an opening in the hedge that led to the
road, and was holding up her hand as if to attract somebody. Her
face was white, terrified; even in this strange moment he felt a
sensation of gladness in the thought that he could move her some
way, even to fear.

In another minute Dillwyn had sprung over the stile and was
beside her. He looked quietly from her to Darkham.

"I saw you," said the girl, laughing a little hurriedly. "And
this was your nearest way back, you know, and---"

"And as I am due to see a patient now," said Dr. Darkham, drawing
out his watch and examining it closely, "I am glad you have come
in time to see Miss Nesbitt back to the grounds."



CHAPTER XVIII


"Why don't you like him?"

It was the next morning, and Mrs. Greatorex, lounging on a sofa
in her bedroom, was regarding Agatha with a rather stern air.

Dr. Darkham, true to the promise he had made to himself, had gone
to Rickton Villa the previous night, had sought a private
interview with her, and told her all: of his admiration for her
niece, of his fear of losing her unless he spoke at once, of his
belief that Dillwyn was in love with her also, and of the
settlements he was prepared to make.

These last were very handsome. For the past twenty years of his
successful life, he had saved far more  than he had spent--
refusing to go much into society or to entertain, because of his
wife's deficiencies, though by his marriage with that wife he had
been made a rich man. There had been no settlements on his
marriage with her, and all her fortune was now within his grasp.
It was with that, indeed, he intended to buy Agatha.

Mrs. Greatorex's ambitious heart rose to the bait. The sum he
proposed to settle on Agatha was considerably more than she had
even hoped for, and during the past week or two she had been led
by Darkham to understand that he loved her "niece," as she always
called Agatha.

Darkham, watching her, half smiled to himself--she was so
easily read, and so sordid, and so mean, with all her absurd
aristocratic airs and hints at the greatness of her family that
did not know her.

He went on carefully. He fought his way with ease. He even
ventured to tell her in a subdued whisper that he had never
really cared for his first wife--it was a boyish infatuation,
and she was older than he was--and--well, the same old vulgar
story that we all know by heart and despise and don't believe in.

Mrs. Greatorex chose to believe it, however. At the last she gave
him to understand that she would urge her niece by every means in
her power to accept his offer. Her refusal of him that afternoon
was probably mere girlish embarrassment, she said. As for that
suggestion about Dr. Dillwyn, she was quite positive there was
nothing in it.

She was looking now at the "dearest girl"--who was looking back
at with anxious eyes. She did not appear "shy," however--only
very anxious and unhappy.

She did not answer, so Mrs. Greatorex went on,---

"He told me he had spoken to you yesterday, and that you had
refused him. You must have been out of your senses when you did
that. He is prepared to make splendid settlements---"

"I shouldn't object to settlements if--if I didn't object to--
him," said Agatha in a low voice.

"To him! To Dr. Darkham? What can you see to object to in him? He
is handsome--clever---"

"He is old," said Agatha, trifling with the question as if to
gain time.

"_That_ is the last epithet to apply to him. My dear Agatha,
consider. He is clever, as I say, and learned, and so kind and
thoughtful. I'm sure his goodness to me during my illness--- Now,
what further objection can you make?"

"I can't bear him," said Agatha, suddenly, which, indeed, was the
conclusion of the whole matter.

"My dear! At your age! I _beg,_ Agatha, that you will cease to
consider yourself a baby. Such a speech as that, if you _were_ a
baby, might pass muster, but for a girl who has seen her
twentieth year it sounds simply foolish. Why, when I was your age
I had had six proposals. And you--have you had a single
proposal, save this most fortunate one?"

She paused. Agatha did not answer. Meantime, Mrs. Greatorex
waited relentlessly.

"Well?" she said.

"No." The answer was very faint, and it awoke in Mrs. Greatorex's
mind a suspicion.  Was the girl deceiving her? Was there an
actual engagement between her and Dr. Dillwyn?

"No? Are you sure, Agatha? It seemed to me that you hesitated. I
hope there is nothing in a certain absurd report I have heard
about you and Dr. Dillwyn."

"There is nothing to say," said she in a low, anguished voice.
Oh, that there _had_ been!

"I am at liberty, then," said her tormentor, "to tell Dr. Darkham
that you are absolutely _free_--that you care for nobody---
that your heart is still your own to dispose of? I may tell him
that you have never felt so much as a passing fancy for this
young man, Dr. Dillwyn, who has been sent here through a whim of
Reginald Greatorex--to starve, as far as I can see; for Dr.
Darkham, as you know, has all the paying practice, and Reginald
Greatorex"--bitterly--"as you also know, is a false friend,
and a man that would rather die than part with a penny. I may
tell Dr. Darkham that?"

Agatha, pale as death, lifted up her eyes and looked at her.

"Not that," she said; "do not tell him that. I---" she grew
whiter and whiter, but she was true to herself and her own heart
to the last--"I love Dr. Dillwyn."

"Agatha!" Mrs. Greatorex rose, and stood before her, filled with
wrathful horror. To tell the truth, she was genuinely shocked.
Her narrow prejudices could not conceive such a thing as this.

"When he has never spoken to you--never---"

"I know. It is--it _sounds_ dreadful," said the girl wildly.

"But"--folding her hands upon her breast--"he will speak. He
_will_."

There was silence.

"I trust not. I believe not," said Mrs. Greatorex at last. Here
tone was cold, and  there was a certain element of disgust in it
that hurt the girl to her very soul. Why--_why_ had she spoken?
And yet to deny him! She would suffer for it, but hers was the
nobler part, and in the end she would be placed above shame. But
if he _never_ spoke! A cold wind seemed to creep over her,
chilling her through and through. It was her one doubt of him,
and it died at birth, but she always repented herself for it. "In
the meantime, Agatha, you must permit me to say that I am
horrified beyond words at your confession."

"I shall never marry Dr. Darkham," said the girl slowly,
miserably, but with great courage. "Let me leave you, Aunt Hilda.
Let me go out in the world as a governess. I could make my own
way, perhaps--and---"

"Don't talk to me like that, Agatha. You--my niece! Do you
think I am going to have you spoken of by the people here as a
_paid person?_ No, you shall stay here." She rose to her feet and
pointed imperiously to the door. "You shall stay here and marry
Dr. Darkham, and thank God for your good fortune. Now go; leave
me." She pointed again to the door, and Agatha, sad and sick at
heart, went out of the room.

When she was gone, Mrs. Greatorex tried to rest again upon her
lounge, but failed. That slip of a girl to refuse such an offer
as this! A girl who was literally penniless! She stormed and
raged as she walked up and down her small room. As a fact, she
had grown honestly fond of Agatha--as fond as she could be of
anything outside herself; but she was fonder still of her
ambition--and to see Agatha married to a man without position
or money....



CHAPTER XIX


Agatha went slowly downstairs, and ate no breakfast. She went
into the garden after breakfast, and tried to do wonders with a
small bed of asters; but her heart was in nothing, and when she
came indoors about half-past one and changed her morning frock,
and made herself very pretty for luncheon, it was with a
shrinking heart, as she thought of meeting Aunt Hilda again.

But Aunt Hilda refused to appear--which perhaps frightened
Agatha more than all that had gone before. For Mrs. Greatorex to
miss her luncheon meant that she was really offended. Agatha got
through the sad little meal as quickly as possible, and then,
snatching her hat from the stand, told herself she would go for a
long, long afternoon upon the bank of the river. The Rickton
river was about half a mile from the town, and there were
charming little bits about it, good enough to satisfy the souls
of most.

As she reached the hall door, however, the maid threw it open,
and the Rev. Thomas Blount stepped in. Agatha could have hated
almost anybody else for his intrusion at this moment, but Blount,
somehow, always had a kindly boyish air about him that put an end
to criticism.

"Oh, you, Mr. Blount!" said she, as if greatly pleased, and she
took him into the small drawing-room, and sat down to entertain
him right royally. Poor thing! With her heart as heavy as lead.

She was delightful to him for five minutes, and then she felt the
strain was very great. It suddenly occurred to her that there
were some engravings hung in the little antechamber, where she
had so often--she shuddered now at the remembrance of it--so
often had to stand _tête à tête_ with Dr. Darkham whilst he gave
her instructions about her aunt's treatment.

Would Mr. Blount like to see these old prints? She had heard they
were valuable. Mr. Blount said he would like to see them very
much, and she led him into the little chamber. He and she were
standing on the threshold of it, however, when the opening of the
drawing-room door beyond caught Agatha's ear.

"Some visitors, I am afraid, Mr. Blount," she said gently.

"Forgive me for a moment. You can see the pictures there"--
pointing to them--"for yourself."

"Pray don't think of me," said Blount. "I shall give my whole
attention to these."

But did he? Agatha had gone back to the drawing-room to find
Elfrida rushing towards her.

"Isn't it beautiful?" cried  that small person, precipitating
herself upon Agatha's neck. "Isn't it all it ought to be?" She
surrendered Agatha's neck here, and stood back from her, looking
at her in, evidently, brilliant spirits, and the latest Parisian
gown.  "I'm going to be a bona-fide countess! A real live one,
too. You may put anything you like on that. Lively shall be the
word for me. If he thinks he's going to keep me down, and--Oh,
Mr. Blount! You here!"

Blount did not answer her; words, indeed, were beyond him. So it
was all over!

"I think I'll come and see your engravings some other day, Miss
Nesbitt," said he, as calmly as possible, though it went to
Agatha's heart to see the expression in his kind young eyes. "You
and Miss Firs-Robinson must have a good deal to say to each
other."

He turned to Elfrida. "You see I heard," said he gravely.

"Yes." Elfrida held out her hand to him in farewell. Agatha had
not made even an attempt at detaining him, the situation seemed
so full of briers. "And won't you---"

"No, I do not congratulate you," said he steadily.

When he had gone, Agatha said quickly, "It is not true!"

"It is, indeed. He proposed to me yesterday just before he left,
and I accepted him."

Agatha turned away from her.

"I thought better of you," she said.

"Now, that is always what puzzles me," said Elfrida, not in the
least offended by Agatha's ungracious reception of her news, but
with the air of one prepared to argue the question calmly, even
to the death. "Why should people always think better of me? I
don't see how I _can_ be better. What's the matter with me?"

Agatha looked at her sadly. Her own dull, miserable story was
before her.

How could a girl willingly sell herself for title, or money, or
position, or anything? And Elfrida, who was rich, who could defy
the world, _she_ to sell herself to that detestable man, for the
sake of hearing herself called Lady Ambert! In her present mood
it seemed hateful--unnatural--to Agatha. Oh, how gladly would
she _give_ herself for love--love only!

"There is nothing the matter with you," said she--- "nothing. I
won't believe there is. I won't believe, either, that you will
marry Lord Ambert."

"I expect I shall, however. And why not? Auntie is quite
delighted about it. Just fancy, she will be Ambert's 'auntie'
very shortly!"

"Your aunt is naturally ambitious for you," Agatha said; "but you
--you---"

"Well, I--- I"--mimicking her gaily--"what of me? Do you think
I can't see the glitter of diamonds as well as any one else?--
and I hear the Ambert diamonds are beyond praise."

"What are diamonds to you, who have so much money? Why, you could
buy them for yourself."

"Well, that's what I'm doing. I _am_ buying them. Now, don't tell
me I am not following your advice, after all." She spoke
mockingly.

"If you took my advice, you would see very little glitter in Lord
Ambert's diamonds."

"See here!" said Elfrida steadily; "it's no use your taking it
like that. I know exactly how you feel about it, but, then, I am
not you."

"But surely your father never intended---"

"Yes, he did; and I admire him for it. He said to himself, "What
is the good of my girl having all that money if she doesn't gain
something by it?" Remember how hard my grandfather had worked for
it, and they had their ambition, you see--it was to make me a
lady! I'm afraid they've failed there," said Elfrida, with a
sudden laugh. "But, at all events, I shall be a lady in another
sense. I shall be Lady Ambert!"

"I don't know how you can look at it like that. The throwing
away of your whole life's happiness---"

"Don't you? Ah! but you see, you have not been educated as I was.
Why, only look at the name! They evidently gave it to me at my
baptism with a view of my living up to it. Elfrida! quite early
English! It speaks of centuries of dead and gone ancestors of
illustrious origin, who, I hope, didn't sell soap."

"I don't believe you care," said Agatha reproachfully, who,
however, was now laughing in spite of herself. "To make a jest of
everything as you do---"

"Argues that I have no heart; and a good thing, too. Auntie
sometimes calls me Frid, an extra petting of my pet name Frida.
But really it should be Friv. I don't seem to care about
anything, and I seldom think. I don't allow myself. It brings
wrinkles--as I read the other day in one of those ladies'
papers. Well, I must be going. You are the first person I have
told of my engagement, but you needn't flatter yourself you are
the only person who knows it by this."

"Your aunt will, I suppose, publish it abroad!" said Agatha
sadly.

"No. Lord Ambert will. He seemed very flatteringly anxious to
clinch the nail. I expect he has more debts than he knows what to
do with."

"But, Frida"--anxiously--"I hope you will take care that he
does not make away with all your money."

"You bet!" said Elfrida, who really, perhaps, ought to have been
behind that counter; "_that's_ all right. I shall help him to
clear the mortgages, of course, by degrees, but without touching
a penny of my principal."

She seemed "all there."

"Oh, there's one thing," said she, trifling with the handle of
the door: "I am sorry I told you of my engagement before Mr.
Blount."

"_I_ am not," said Agatha bluntly, a little sternly indeed. "I am
glad he knows. You would never have told him until the last
moment if you had had your own way." If she had thought to
overwhelm Elfrida by this harsh judgement, or reduce her to a
sense of shame, she found herself mistaken.

"You're a witch!" said that naughty little person, with a gay
grimace. "I think I seldom met so nice a--a friend as Mr.
Blount. What a pity I must lose him now!"

"You have Lord Ambert instead," said Agatha coldly. In her heart
she loved Elfrida, but she was angry with her now.

"Ah, true, true!" cried the culprit gaily. She ran down the steps
to where her ponies were waiting for her. Agatha, though angry,
followed her. It hurt her to be offended with the pretty
charming, lovable little creature, who was so wilfully making hay
of her life; she even went down the steps and, without looking at
Elfrida tucked the light rug round her.

Elfrida smiled, picked up the reins, and took the whip out of it
socket. The ponies sprang forward. Suddenly she checked them.

"Agatha!" she called. Agatha looked up. "After all, I was
wrong.... I _have_ a heart.... if only for _you_!"

The little fair, merry face was pale now, and tears lay heavily
within her blue eyes. Agatha, startled, gazed at her, but there
was no time for more. The ponies where trotting up the tiny
avenue, and Elfrida did not look back.



CHAPTER XX


On each side of her rose banks, filled with glorious colourings.
Autumn, always so rich in variety, was painting everything with a
lavish hand--all the tints were gorgeous, splendid, ripe. She
stopped for a moment to gather some berries from the blackberry
bushes, that were now laden with ebony fruit, and whose luscious
darkness was well thrown out by the pale green clumps of the
hart's-tongue ferns that grew beneath them.

Presently she turned the corner and came within sight of the
river. It was running very swiftly to-day, being swollen by all
the rain that fell last night; and leaves from the trees, yellow
and red and green, were swirling down it, in the rays of a mad,
hot sun.

She found her own nook at last, and sat down beneath a huge
beech-tree, through the branches of which the light played
merrily. She flung off her hat, as though glad to feel the air
upon her forehead. One could hardly believe summer was gone and
autumn well advanced. Far away in the wood on the other side the
solitary figure of an old woman picking sticks, with a scarlet
kerchief bound around her head, made a spot in the picture.

Agatha sat down and let her head fall into her hands. She knew
now--now that she was at last alone--how badly she had been
wanting to cry all these long, _long_ hours. The tears ran down
her cheeks and through her clasped fingers. She was so alone--
so utterly alone!

A gentle hand was laid upon her shoulder. She started violently
and looked up, to find Dillwyn looking down at her.

"What is it?" asked he softly.

"Oh, nothing--nothing!" cried she hurriedly. "Nothing, really."
She rose quickly to her feet and tried to smile.

"_Tell_ me," said he.

"Well, I have told you," said she, trying to be brave. "It is
nothing. Only--sometimes---" She broke down ignominiously, and
covered her face with her hands. "Oh, I am unhappy--_unhappy!_"
she said bitterly.

"My darling!" said the young man. He did not try to take her
hands from her face, but he drew her to him, and encircled her
with his arms, and pressed her head down on his shoulder, with
silent but fervent passion. He held her to him. "Agatha, you know
I love you. I told myself I would not speak until I was sure that
you loved me, and until I had something to offer you; but now,
seeing you like this--if I can help you---" He stopped and
pressed his lips to her head. "You _do_ love me, Agatha?"

Agatha raised herself, and, laying both her hands upon his
breast, looked at him. Two tears still lay upon her cheeks, but
she was not crying any more. Her face was transfigured--a most
heavenly light was in her eyes. Dillwyn looked back at her,
wondering--he had not know she was so beautiful. He caught her
to him.

"Is it true," said he. "You really love me?"

"And you?"

"What a question! It doesn't deserve an answer. But you shall
have it. Yes, I love you with all my heart and soul."

"Ah!" said Agatha. A cloud crept over her face. She looked at
him.

"_Why_ didn't you tell me so before?" she said.

He questioned her, and then all the truth came out--Dr.
Darkham's proposal, her aunt's acquiescence in it, her horror and
fear. Her hand was in his as she told him, and the nervous little
fingers tightened on his in the telling. It was such a hateful
story, and she had suffered so. But now---

"The infernal scoundrel!" said Dillwyn at last. She was only half
through her story then. "Why, his wife isn't three months dead."
After that he heard her patiently to the end.

"I have been so frightened, so miserable," said Agatha. Something
of the effect of this speech would have been taken away if a mere
outsider had been addressed, as now there was not a touch of
misery about her anywhere, but Dillwyn understood her, and
drawing her hand to his lips, kissed it warmly.

"You shall never be miserable again if I can help it," said he.

"After all, Agatha, I haven't told you about the stroke of luck
that has fallen to me to-day. I'm afraid I  should hardly have
had the pluck to speak to you at all if it hadn't been for that."

"Oh, Jack!" said she reproachfully.

"Well, I wasn't sure how it was. I could see your aunt was
against me, and I don't blame her of course, and---."

"Then I think you ought. Fancy her wanting to marry me to Dr.
Darkham!"

"A man like that! Well, that's bad, certainly."

"Yet you say you cannot blame her."

"How could I blame her? Do you imagine that any aunt would like
to marry a girl like you to me?"

"I should; any aunt would be glad to marry _any_ girl to a man
like you."

This was delightful from all points, and a good deal of business
was done on the head of it.

"But look here," said Dillwyn presently; "I haven't told you
about the luck. Old General Montgomery has called me in."

"No!"

"Yes, last night. Attack of the gout. It appears they had known
my mother, and had heard that  I was enormously clever. I was
sorry for him _then,_ poor old man!"

"Nonsense. He heard the truth."

"And it appears he was dissatisfied with Darkham who was with him
a week ago. There was evidently something queer about his last
visit. The General wouldn't say much--he's a touchy old fellow,
you know; but plainly he was offended. Of course, I shall patch
it up with him and Darkham. I hate other people's shoes, but for
all that it will give me a rise in the neighbourhood--the fact
of having been called in, I mean."

Women are seldom magnanimous where a lover is concerned. Agatha
now raised a quick protest.

"Why should you do that? If he doesn't like Dr. Darkham--and
who could?--why should not you take his place?"

"It is only a momentary row, I expect. Darkham has been his
doctor for a long time. But what I want you to know is that it
will probably give me a fillip here; and"--he drew her to him
--"that will enable me to make a home for you the sooner."

"A home!" said she. The very word was music.

"_Our_ home!" He looked at her and she at him, and their lips
met. "For how long have I desired this hour!" said he. "For
years!"

"Weeks--only weeks. But---"

"Very _long_ weeks."

At this they both laughed, and then he went on a little
shamefacedly, perhaps--true lovers are always a little shamed
at heart before their loved ones,--

"Will you marry me, now, as I am, Agatha? Will you take the
risk?"

"What risk?" said she delightfully. "I won't let you talk of
risks."

"It's a cottage," said Dillwyn--"a mere cottage."

"I love cottages," said she.

"There are only  five rooms altogether."

"What can one want with more?"

"And I'm afraid the kitchen chimney smokes."

"All kitchen chimneys smoke."

"And I don't believe that girl can cook a bit."

"Then here's a girl who can teach her!" She laid her hands
lightly on her bosom.

But they didn't stay very long there. Now Dillwyn had her in his
arms.

"Do you mean that you are not afraid--that you will come to me
--that you are mine really--really?"

Suddenly he put her from him.

"Look here, it's a shame!" said he. "You are sacrificing your
life. You had better give me up!" He caught hold of her hands,
however, as he said that, and drew her to him and held her fast.

"You had indeed. But if you do, Agatha, there's an end of me."

"Oh, Jack!" said she. She was laughing, but the tears were in her
eyes. Quickly she released her hands from his, and then threw
them round his neck. "_I_ shan't make an end of you," she said.

 ....


"Well, that's settled, I suppose," said he. "But I shall always
feel I have been selfish towards you. But, however, it's done
now. And, Agatha, I wish you could see the house. It's a cottage,
you know."

"I know. I've seen it."

"Only the outside. But inside it isn't half bad, and there are
two of the rooms very pretty, and it is covered all over with
ivy. Mr. Greatorex was very good to me on my coming here, so some
of the rooms are decent enough, but"--shyly and tenderly--
"hardly good enough for you."

"For me!" Agatha grew softly pink. "It would be heaven!" said she
in a low tone. That he should think otherwise, that he should
imagine she would not be happy with him _anywhere!_ Was there
ever such sweet folly?

"There is quite a nice little room on the south side," Dillwyn
was saying, Agatha's cheek pressed against his--"a very pretty
room. That would be your drawing-room, and the one opposite, that
would be the dining-room. It is very small, certainly; in fact,
the word 'dining-room' seems too grand for it."

Here Agatha sighed heavily.

"What is it, darling?" asked he anxiously. "You don't like the
prospect? Certainly it is small."

"I'll tell you what it is," said she, looking at him seriously:
"it is too good to be true--_all_ of it. It will never be mine.
That drawing-room, that dining-room, that whole lovely cottage,
will never be mine. It would be too much happiness. You forget
Aunt Hilda. She will never give her consent--never!"

"But she is not your aunt really," said he.

"No; but she--Jack, she has been very good to me. But for her"
--she paused, and her charming face grew sad--"I might have
starved. I cannot forget that."

"I shall not forget it either," said Dillwyn. "And if she ever
wants a friend, I'm there. But for all that, Agatha, I've got to
think of you too. You are mine now, you know; and one should
think first of those that belong to him. And, after all, I expect
Mrs. Greatorex is open to reason. Once she knows you hate
Darkham, and that you love me--and you do, darling, don't you?"

"Jack! as if you weren't sure---"

"Well, I am now; and I'll come up to-morrow and tell your aunt
all about it."

"Oh, don't!" cried Agatha. "It will be no use--none at all. She
--she is bent on this marriage with Dr. Darkham. Don't say a
word for awhile."

"And let you be tortured meanwhile? Not likely!" said Dillwyn. "I
shall certainly speak to her to-morrow. We must make the way
clear at once. I shall come up at four. I can't come earlier
because of General Montgomery; but at four."

"You won't see her," said Agatha, with a touch of triumph. "She
is going over to the Monteiths' after luncheon to spend a long
and happy day with them, and won't be back until ten. I'm glad,
do you know. I'm afraid of your speaking to her. I dread it. She
will be so annoyed."

"Better get it over," said he. "But even if I can't see Mrs.
Greatorex to-morrow, I _must_ see you. She will be away, you say.
I can come and see you for all that, can't I?"

"Yes, come at seven. I am afraid I cannot ask you in, however.
She would be so angry. But if you will come to the garden---" She
coloured painfully and looked distressed. "I can't even give you
coffee.... I can do nothing for you," said she, the tears rising
in her eyes.

He smiled. "You can!" said he. "Do you know you haven't kissed me
once of your own accord?" He drew her towards him, and she lifted
her face.

"Agatha!" said  he, in a low tone, "I wonder if you know how I
love you?"

"Oh, I know more than that," said she, with a little happy, shy
laugh. "I know how I love you!"



CHAPTER XXI


It was the next day, and evening was far advanced. The idiot was
sitting in the garden outside mumbling to himself, and stupidly
turning and twisting a sort of white rag between his fingers.
Through the dense mist in which his soul ever sat, one spark of
light had penetrated. The white rag was the medium. Whenever he
looked at the crumpled bit of cambric he held, the idiot seemed
to feel, or to see, or to be conscious of--_something_. And
that something--vague and wild as it was--meant hatred--blind,
unfathomable hatred!

It had taken the place of his idolatry of his mother. She was
gone; he did not know where--it was impossible for him to grasp
that--but she was gone. She had been taken from him. And he
knew by whom! Yes, he knew that, at all events. He could not have
explained it to himself, but he knew his father had taken his
mother away from him, and hatred--that "madness of the heart"
--tore at his breast, crying aloud for vengeance.

He sat there, in the dying sunshine, and twisted the white rag.
Whenever he looked at it, a queer vision rose within his blighted
brain. His mother's room, and the big bed, and her hand hanging
over the side of it. And over there his father....  He used to
grow confused at that point. It was impossible for him to follow
it out to the end, the poor brain got so obscured; but after a
few minutes or so he could see again his father rising, with
something white in his hand, and then--_then_--his mother's
face was under it, and--and--that was all--except his father's
hand pressing--pressing--_pressing down_!

The poor boy had stolen into his mother's sick-chamber during
that eventful evening, and had hidden himself behind the large
bed-curtains. He had, indeed, squeezed himself between the bed
and the wall, fearful lest the nurses should send him away. They
had been a little rough with him in the beginning of the day, and
he distrusted them, believing, foolishly, that they meant to harm
"Sho." He had been there off and on for hours--ever since his
mad effort, indeed, to bring Agatha to his mother's help--
crouching, waiting, beyond the knowledge of things. To be near
her was all he asked: the adoration he had for her was only  the
blind, wild affection of an unreasoning animal, but it carried
him far.

He saw him go back again to his chair, and again rise and
approach the bed, this time with a handkerchief in his hand.

The poor boy had watched eagerly. Into his dull mind the sure
conviction grew that with the wet handkerchief his father was
going to do something to his mother that would enable her to talk
again to him, to caress, to fondle him. He almost betrayed
himself in his delight. He did not like his father, but many
things had taught him that Darkham was clever. The idiot,
watching and waiting, was firmly convinced that a miracle was
going to be performed with the handkerchief, that it would make
the dull, dead figure on the  bed talk and smile again.

After that it was always blurred--his picture. He could not
remember anything more. But there lived with him, like a shadow,
a mad longing to kill his father!

He sat out there playing with the white cloth he held in his
hand. The day was dying down, and it grew a little chilly, as
days will in September. He crept from the  garden-chair to the
stone steps that led to the library above, where his father
always sat.

The father was sitting there now, lying back in his
lounging-chair and thinking. Oddly enough, in spite of himself,
his thoughts ran to his dead wife. As a rule he did not permit
himself to think of her, and it seemed absurd to do it now--now
when he was thinking of taking a second  wife.

He had come in from his round of daily visits a little fatigued.
He was careful now to fatigue himself as much as possible during
the daytime, it was so difficult to drop to sleep at night. He
had seen Agatha for a moment, and had come home full of her--of
the sweet beauty of her gentle face--of her superior air--of
the extreme coldness of the salute she gave him.

The evening was wonderfully quiet. He lay back, and tried to
bring up Agatha's face before him. But somehow she eluded him. He
almost laughed aloud. It seemed so absurd. Her face, that was
ever before him. No! he could not bring it up now--not so much
as a feature. He laid his hands over his eyes, leaning back in
his chair, to compel the vision. In the complete darkness he
might find her.

But he did not--Instead, another face arose--pale, cold,
ghastly! Once again he was staring at his unlovely dead! That
hideous face! Great heavens! and lying there--there, sprawling
on the floor with the mouth half open!

He dashed his hands from his eyes, and stood up, and stared
before him, and then a yell broke from him!

 ....

Over there!.... What _was_ that over there, in the shadow? That
frightful face with a white cloth laid across it. Was it she come
back to torment him?

Again he felt his hand pressing the wet handkerchief upon her
nose, her mouth, and the faint struggle beneath his fingers. Such
a sickening struggle! Again he pressed, and _pressed_, until he
had pressed the very life out of her!

He clutched the chimney-piece and glared at that awful
apparition. Had she come back?  Was he never to be rid of her?
Would she be always at his side, showing herself when--he grew
almost frantic here--when his young bride was at his side?

His horror compelled movement. He loosed his desperate grasp upon
the mantelpiece, and, like a drunken man, staggered forward. As
he did so, the apparition stirred, and a terrible cry sounded
through the room.

"Sho!"

It was like a battle-cry. As it reached his ear, Darkham stood
still. All at once he knew--knew everything; the boy had been
in the room that night, and had seen, and in a strange way
understood.

He laughed aloud. It was quite safe, that secret. The boy could
neither speak nor write, and as for _her_--what a fool he was!
--why, she was too _dull_ to find her way back to earth. He
laughed again at this conceit, so glad he was at the solution of
this ridiculous affair. He must be out of order, in want of a
tonic, to have such absurd fancies.

In the meantime, he advanced upon his son. Sitting out there on
the veranda, the idiot had conceived a splendid plan. He would
lay this white thing over his face and go in and see his father;
perhaps if he did his father would understand, and be frightened,
and give "Sho" back to him. He had certainly taken her away.
Heaven knows how this hope arose! But he crept in noiselessly,
and sat crouching in the comer waiting for his father to see him,
with the handkerchief laid across his mouth and nose exactly as
he had seen it lying across hers. He sat there  a long time,
waiting for his plan to work, before Darkham turned and saw him.

Hatred, too, was in the heart of Darkham--a very madness of
rage. He seized the boy and held him as in a vice, and leant over
him, breathing hard, as if thinking what he should do with him.
The devil of murder once more rose within him. He loosened one
hand and laid it on his son's throat. He tightened his grasp!

In another moment he found himself dashed backwards against the
wall. His head had come against it with astounding force, and for
a second he was half stunned. He stood there panting. That
creature, half his size, was stronger than he! His first thought
was amazement. And the most curious thing of all was that he felt
no resentment. The boy was strong! After all, Edwy could do
something. He could conquer--he could kill!

The idiot had disappeared, but near where he had stood a white
object could be seen. Darkham knew it at once. It was the
handkerchief with which he had helped is wife to heaven. He
stooped and picked it up. In spite of his hardihood, he felt a
sense of strong repulsion as he touched it. Her life-blood seemed
do be frozen into it. He compelled himself to open it, however,
and look at it. Her name was in the corner, coarsely worked with
red thread. It was just like any other of her handkerchiefs, yet
he could have sworn it was _the_ one. The boy must have picked it
up that night. It must have fallen from his breast-pocket as he
bent over the dead form upon the floor.

Well, there was nothing in it to incriminate him; still, it would
be as well to get rid of it. The fire had been laid in the grate,
but not lighted. He dropped the handkerchief on the table, and
went to find some matches on the mantelpiece. With these he
stooped and lit the dry kindling, and soon the fire began to roar
up the chimney.

He turned to the table to get the handkerchief. Once burned, he
told himself, he would forget it--and so, too, would the boy.
But apparently the boy had not forgotten it, even for a few
minutes. When Darkham looked for the handkerchief it was gone.
The idiot had come back for his relic.

Darkham stood and thought for a moment. No, there was no danger;
and it might only excite that fool the more to compel him to
restore it.

Still, he felt disturbed. He went to the window. The evening was
divinely fair. It would rest him and arrange his thoughts to go
for a stroll. He would walk down toward Rickton Villa--not _to_
it, exactly. Her aunt was away this evening at the Monteiths';
but Agatha was sometimes in her garden at this hour, tending her
flowers. There, or through the windows, he might, perhaps, get a
glimpse of her.



CHAPTER XXII


The evening was now merging into night. Far up above in the
darkening sky a pale star or two were shining. Night falls early
in September, and already the flowers in the small garden at the
villa were shutting up their pretty eyes.

It was a charming evening, soft, cool, melodious. The purling of
the brook below was delightful in itself, but other music blended
with it. The wind sighed so sweetly that the grasses in the
meadows beyond bowed to it, in compliment, no doubt,  and thus
made a music of their own.

A clock somewhere struck the hour.

Agatha started to her feet. The tiny summer-house was so small
that her charming head almost touched its roof as she rose.

"Who could have thought it was so late?" said she. "Eight
o'clock! You must go!"

The surprise in her tone was surely complimentary; but Dillwyn
looked aggrieved.

"I believe you want to get rid of me," said he.

"Do you?" She stood and laughed at him. She had always been
charming; but Love, when he came to her, had lent her many
cosmetics, and now she was lovely. "You believe that?" She held
out her hands to him. "What a story!"

"My darling! my life!" said Dillwyn in a low tone fraught with
love. "Must I go now? When shall I see you again?"

"Why, to-morrow at the Poynter's. Now, do try to be there in
time. Get over your cases as quickly as you can. Oh no! _don't_.
Poor things! Of course your patients want you more than I do."

"Still, tell me that you want me too--just as much as they do."

"I needn't!" said she, tears rising in her eyes. She smiled
tremulously. "You know it!"

They had come out of the little summer-house and were strolling
towards the gate where they were to part. The night had fallen a
little lower, and everything lay in a soft dusk.

It was not so dark, however, but that a figure standing just
outside the gate, and hidden by a thick laurel bush, could see
and hear all that was going on in this small garden.

"What a beautiful sky!" said Agatha, stopping to look up at the
exquisite dome above her.

Dillwyn looked up too. Yes, it was exquisite--the glittering
small stars, shining like silver on that pale breast of blue!
Some old lines came to him. He caught her hand and pressed it to
his lips.


"'Look'st thou at the stars? If I were Heaven,
  With all the eyes of Heaven would I look down on thee.'

I don't know what made me think of that. Perhaps because I wish I
had more eyes with which to look at you."

"Would you be the giant of old who had an eye in the back of his
head?" said she. "And after all, I think your verse a little
rude. To look down on me!" She stood back from him, and glanced
at him in the prettiest way. Happiness was developing in her a
tender and joyous coquetry. "On _me!_"

"Do you know," said Dillwyn, a little sadly, "I have often
thought what presumption it was on my part to dream of gaining
you."

"Oh now, now!" cried she, in a little expostulatory way. She ran
back to him and held out her hands. Her face expressed the
greatest penitence. "Presumption--what a word! Do you know,
Jack, I shall be thankful to my dying hour that you loved me.
Oh, you must go!" said she, raising her head. As she did so she
started.

"What was that? Jack, didn't you hear something?"

"Hear something? No," said Dillwyn. He looked towards the house.

"No, no! In there"--pointing to the bushes behind them. She
spoke in a low whisper, and he could feel that she was trembling.

"In there? Who could be there?"

"I don't know--perhaps---"

"One of the servants? Well, what matters--to-morrow I shall
tell Mrs. Greatorex all about it."

"I wasn't thinking of the servants; I was thinking--I suppose
it was foolish--but--I almost felt that Dr. Darkham was
there!"

"Nonsense, darling! Though, certainly"--with sudden wrath--
"it would be like the skulking scoundrel to be eavesdropping." He
spoke loudly--angrily. If Darkham was there he could hear.

"Still," said Agatha nervously, "go now. Do go. I am sure I
oughtn't to have let you come here at all this evening. If Aunt
Hilda hears of it, she---"

"Your Aunt Hilda will hear more than that to-morrow."

"Oh, Jack, must you tell her?"

"My dearest heart! Why not? You know that---"

"Yes, yes, I know. But we are going to the Poynters's to-morrow,
Jack, and we might have a happy day there, if--- Don't tell her
until after that."

"It shall be as you wish, of course. But, Agatha, is it wise?
However--well, then, the day after to-morrow I shall speak to
her. Now are you satisfied, you lovely tyrant?"

They laughed.

"Well, well, good-bye," said she regretfully. She raised her face
to his, and he caught her to his heart.

"To-morrow will never come," said he.

"Oh yes, it will--it will! And it will bring you!"

They clung to each other, and kissed and kissed again. Then he
left her, and she stood waving her hand to him until the scented
twilight hid him from her sight.

She turned back then from the rustic gate, and took a step or two
towards the house. Presently she paused, smiling--thinking
hopefully of all that he had said. He loved her, as she loved
him. Her face was beautiful in its delight, as she so stood
thinking on her love.

Suddenly she turned, as if hearing something, and the smile faded
from her lips. A shadow lay across her path. She knew quite well
who it was, even before Darkham's hand was laid upon her arm!



CHAPTER XXIII


Agatha remained quite still. Her heart was beating wildly, but
she showed no outward sign of fear, and it was too dark now for
him to see that her face was as white a death.

"Take away your hand," she said, presently, in a tone that
startled even herself, it was so calm, and with a touch of
dignity in it not to be withstood. Truly, "courage mounteth with
occasion."

Darkham let her go instinctively, but he still stood facing her,
and through the deepening of the night she felt that his eyes
were on her. At last he spoke.

"You think you will  marry him," he said. His voice was low, not
at all violent; but it frightened Agatha the more perhaps for
that. At all events it rang in her ears for days afterwards.

His hopes were at fever height when he reached the villa. He had
entered the tiny avenue and come cautiously up, hidden by the
rhododendrons, to that small gate inside which the girl so often
at this hour ministered to her flowers.

And then he had seen her--in Dillwyn's arms.

The evening was not so far advanced, and the delicate light of a
first love that lay on her beautiful face was quite clear to him.
He saw her lift her arms, and let Dillwyn take her into his. They
kissed each other.

He went a little mad then. He lost consciousness for a moment or
two, and clung to a tree close to him. So much had been dared and
done, and now was it all to be  in vain?

He recovered himself presently, remembering everything, and a
great oath broke from him. He swore to himself that the one
terrible deed of his life should not lie fallow. Something should
come of it. It should bear fruit.

He withdrew into the denser shadow, and waited, and watched, and
listened. He was not naturally a man of base understandings.
There was nothing small about him, and probably under happier
circumstance he would have disdained to lie there in ambush
watching and listening; but now passion mastered him, and his
love for Agatha--the one pure sentiment of his life--was
unhappily the undoing of him. It _should_ have ennobled him; it
only debased him.

Everything seemed to be falling from him. This girl on whom his
soul was set would not so much as look at him, and Dillwyn--
that affair of General Montgomery's had touched him. In time the
wedge, that now had got in its thin edge, would work deeper and
take from him his practice. A hatred against Dillwyn had always
been in his breast ever since those earliest days when he first
came to Rickton, and now it blazed and grew to monstrous
dimensions.

What! was Dillwyn to "supplant him these two times?" Never! His
courage came back to him. His indomitable will grew strong again.
As Dillwyn passed him on his way home he raised is hand as if to
strike him to the earth, but paused.

"You think you will marry him," said he again. "You think it
possible to escape me." He was quite beside himself, or he would
hardly have dared so to speak to her.

"I don't understand you," said Agatha coldly. "It is late. I wish
to go in."

"Not too late, however, for you to see your lover!"

"Dr. Darkham! This is not the first time you have spoken to me
like this. I must ask you to let it be the last. For you to
dictate to me on any subject is impertinence," she said
haughtily. "I am sure you must see it. I am nothing to you, and
you are, if possible, less to me."

"You are wrong there!" He took a step nearer to her, and the girl
set her teeth hard. If he were to _touch her!_ At this moment the
moon came out from behind a cloud and showed her his face--
dark, determined, passionate. "You are all the world to me. Life
itself! Do you hear? Do you understand? You are my very life! And
a man fights hard for his life. I shall fight hard," he said.

"It is bad to fight for failure," said she. Her hands were icy
cold now, but her face was impassive. "I hope you will go away
now. My aunt, as you know, is not in, and---"

"Did Dillwyn know that too--that your aunt was not in? Do you
think he would have come here if he had not known it?"

"I am sure he would," said the girl. There was a change in her
voice as she spoke of him, a sudden tenderness, a glad delight.
The man listening noticed it, and it maddened him the more.

"You---" He stopped short, as if to complete the sentence was
beyond him. His voice was thick, uncertain. "You will tell me
next," said he, leaning forward and gazing at her threateningly,
"that you love him!"

"Yes; I love him!"

Darkham burst into a wild laugh.

"Him! Love him! A man who courts you clandestinely, who has not
the courage or the desire to do so openly. Has he spoken to your
aunt? Come, what has he done? Has he asked your hand in marriage
of your only guardian? Or is he playing fast and loose with you?
It would not be the first time he had played that game. Why,
there are tales of him in the village."

Agatha made a gesture of contempt.

"There are no tales of Dr. Dillwyn in this village or any other,"
she said. "As for his speaking to Mrs. Greatorex, he would have
spoken to her to-day but that I forbade him. He will speak to her
to-morrow."

"So he says, no doubt. But even if he does speak--what then?
Will Mrs. Greatorex listen to the proposals of a pauper?"

"She will, I am sure, listen to the proposals of a gentleman."

She had not meant this as a cut to him, but it went home. He
writhed under it.

"She will listen to me," said he. "To me only--though I may not
be what you in your arrogance class as a gentleman."

"Dr. Darkham. I assure you--I--" She was shocked at his
reading of her words. Her face, pale and beautiful, turned to him
full of contrition. It seemed terrible to her, to have even
inadvertently hurt the feelings of any one. "I did not mean
that."

This sudden change on her part, from extreme coldness to a faint
kindness, came as the dew from heaven to Darkham. This little
touch of sweetness, what might it not lead to if he pleaded with
her? Pleaded with all his soul--_for_ his soul!

"Agatha!" cried he, "hear me. I beseech you to hear me.
Everything is against me; I know that; but you--if you could
only understand what you are to me!"

"I do not wish to understand." She broke into his stammering
speech with a certain courage, but a courage that she felt was
failing her. For the first time real fear seized upon her.

"You _shall_ understand," said he. "When I tell you that my very
soul is in your keeping---"

He broke off and tried to take her hand, but she pushed him from
her. She felt terrified.

"Your soul! _Yours!_" she said. "Oh, no, no, no!"

There was such horror, such open shrinking, in her whole air that
he stood and looked at her. Had she heard anything? Was there a
suspicion in her mind? Impossible! He dismissed that thought, but
another rose. He felt now that his case was hopeless, so far as
she was concerned. He was abhorrent to her. She loathed him, and
--strongest lever of all against him--she loved another. Had
she been free he might have won her, but he knew her well enough
--and it was this knowledge that had drawn him to her--to
understand that when once steadfastly determined she would be
hard to move.

"You have decided?" said he.

She made a little movement to signify acquiescence.

"You deliberately choose a life of want?"

"I choose the life I wish to lead."

"And Mrs. Greatorex? She has been good to you. You will go
against her? yet you owe her something."

"I owe her more than I can ever repay," said Agatha with emotion.

"But not the selling of my soul."

"You have made up your mind?" said Darkham again. His tone was a
question, and the question conveyed a threat. "You absolutely
refuse me? Think--think again, Agatha--_think!_"

"I have thought."

He broke out then,--

"You defy me?"

She faced him bravely even at this moment, when her heart was
dying within her.

"Yes, I defy you!"

He drew nearer to her, and caught her arm. His face was close to
hers. _Such_ a face!

"To defy _me_"--he spoke below his breath--"you must be mad
to defy me. Now, hear me! You will never marry that fool of
yours. I _shall_ prevent that, even though"--he paused
ominously--"I have to destroy him."

The word "destroy" might have had reference to Dillwyn's
profession, but to the girl's over-wrought imagination it sounded
like a death-knell. Oh, to get away! To  think!

She would have tried to pass him, but something warned her that
such a movement would be unwise. To show cowardice of any sort in
his present excited state would be madness. She held her ground
bravely, and prayed to Heaven for deliverance of some sort.

And Heaven sent it.



CHAPTER XXIV


"That you Agatha?"

A cheerful voice came to her over the gate. It was the voice of
Mr. Browne. Now, Dicky's voice, though good enough of its kind,
had never  up to this been likened to music; to Agatha, however
at this moment it sounded like sweet harmony. She drew her breath
quickly; with difficulty, indeed, she suppressed a sob. She held
out her hand to him.

"Dicky, is it you? Come--come here. Come quickly!"

She did her best to suppress her agitation, but it mastered her;
and Mr. Browne lifted the latch of the small gate, and in a
seemingly leisurely manner was at her side almost immediately. He
took her hand and held it in a good firm clasp. He was very fond
of Agatha, and she was very fond of him, too. Agatha, however,
never said that after that night.

Of course, he saw at a glance that something was wrong. He nodded
to Darkham, who was in the shadow.

"Heavenly night, isn't it?" Mr. Browne raised his eyes
ecstatically to the sky above, now literally besprinkled with the
lamps of heaven. "But there's a dew falling. Mrs. Greatorex not
ill again, I hope?"

He looked directly at Darkham, compelling an answer.

"No," said Darkham.

"So glad!" said Dicky. "Then you came---"

His manner was delightful; not a suspicion in it; yet Darkham
felt he must answer.

"I was merely passing by here, and saw Miss Nesbitt, and came to
ask her a question," said he doggedly. He was quite master of
himself again, and spoke naturally.

"Which Miss Nesbitt, of course, didn't answer," said Dicky
airily. "I never answer questions myself. You always get let in
if you do. Agatha, I hope you stood firm. Always resist the
questioner."

He was making light of the situation. The babe unborn could not
have seemed more innocent than Dicky at this moment. Yet Darkham,
listening, cursed him in his heart.

"Miss Nesbitt, I am afraid, does not follow your lines," said he,
in a suave tone. "She--you came a little late you see--she
_did_ answer."

"More shame for you!" said Dicky to Agatha. "See now how you
encourage Darkham."

He laughed.

There were times when Mr. Browne thoroughly enjoyed himself, and
this was one of them. He could see that Agatha did not understand
him, but that Darkham did. He thought Darkham a common sort of
fellow, with a slight veneer, and he didn't like him.

"_I_ encourage him!" said Agatha.

"Why, of course. To answer the questioner is to lead him to worse
mischief in the future. He will continue his persecution." He
laughed quite gaily here, and brought down his hand with a
resounding slap on Darkham's shoulder. It seemed the friendliest
slap, but Darkham didn't seem to care about it. "Look here,
Darkham, I sympathise with you. I do, indeed. People who ask
questions are bores. Yet a doctor must ask them. About one's
tongue, for example, or one's--better not go into it. What were
you asking Miss Nesbitt about? Not _her_ tongue, I hope. Agatha!
You know I often warned you about it. The tongue is an unruly
member--who have you been abusing now?"

"Ask Dr. Darkham," said Agatha, who had recovered all her courage
on the advent of Dicky.

"My dear girl, I think I should rather ask the rector. He would
be the true physician in this case. An unruly tongue, you know.
You have nothing to do with those, have you, Dr. Darkham? Don't
you think Miss Nesbitt had better see the rector? Come now, your
advice.... Advice is what one wants from you!"

"Miss Nesbitt, I am sure, does not want it," said Darkham slowly,
as his eyes met Agatha's. "She knows all I can tell her. I have
given her my advice."

"Did it include the fact that the dew is falling? Agatha, my dear
girl, you ought to go in, or else get a hat or a shawl or
something. You ought to have warned her"--to Darkham.

"I _have_ warned her!" said the latter, in a strange meaning
tone.

He went towards her and held out his hand. "Good-night!" He so
stood between her and Dicky that the latter could not see that
she refused to give her hand in return. "Remember," said Darkham
in a low tone, "the warning!"

He stepped quietly past Dicky, who nodded to him cheerfully, and
went out of the gate and down the small avenue, and into the road
that led him homewards.

"Now, what on earth is it all about?" asked Mr. Browne, as the
last sound of his footsteps died away.

"Oh, Dicky!" said Agatha. She had a kind of theory that a woman
ought to be above surprises or fears, but lately she had begun to
doubt the truth of it. She enlarged her doubts at this moment by
covering her face with her hands and bursting into tears. Mr.
Browne waited a moment.

"That's right," said he. "It will do you good. Nothing like
tears. But look here: why waste 'em? The weather has been awfully
dry of late; just stand over those asters, will you, and give
them a shower."

It was horrid of him, Agatha told herself, but in spite of that
she began to laugh, and when Mr. Browne had gone into the house
and brought her out a little sherry-and-soda she felt almost
herself again. She was still frightened, however--though not
for _herself_.

"You're awfully done," said Mr. Browne presently. "You ought to
be in your bed instead of out here."

"I couldn't sleep," said she. "I am too miserable. Oh, Dicky, I
am so frightened; and I haven't a single person to speak to."

"That's what a woman always says when she has the person near
her," said Mr. Browne. "Go on"--resignedly. "I'm the person on
this occasion. Start fair, and tell me all about it."

She did. She told him everything.

"Fancy his wanting to marry me, when his poor wife is only three
months dead! Fancy his forgetting her so soon!"

"I feel it brings me within the pale of crime," said Mr. Browne
mournfully. "But I feel sure that I could have forgotten her a
good deal sooner."

"Oh, but, Dicky, you weren't married to her."

"True," said Dicky thoughtfully. "That's a point. There are
things one should be thankful for, after all." He sighed. "And
was it to-night that he laid his charms at your feet?"

"No--the day before yesterday. At least, I think it was the day
before yesterday, but"--dejectedly--"it seems like a century
ago. I've gone through so much since."

"And in the meantime?"

"Jack has asked me to marry him."
She glanced up at Dicky and smiled. He thought he had never seen
her look so pretty. Love had gilded her beauty. There was quite
an air of triumph about her.

"If you expect me to be surprised," said he, "you're out of it.
To ask you to marry him is the sort of thing that any fellow
would want to do in a second. I may as well tell you, now that
hope is at an end for ever, that I myself often had a desire to
ask you that great question myself."

"I wish, Dicky, you would try to be sensible for even a little
while," said she impatiently. "I'm _so_ unhappy. I've told you
that Aunt Hilda has set her heart on my accepting Dr. Darkham."

"I shouldn't do that if I were you," said Mr. Browne.

"No, no, of course not! Nothing would induce me. Not now, when
Jack has told me that he--he---"

"I  know,"  said Mr. Browne confidentially. "You needn't go into
it. I've done it myself. Usual taradiddle. Told you you were the
'only woman in the world.' It's extraordinary how a lie like that
takes, when one has only to look round and see a lot more women
than one wants. But it never fails."

"He never said anything like _that_ to me," said Agatha
indignantly. "Do you think he is so stupid as that?"

"I never thought him stupid till this moment," said Mr. Browne
unabashed. "What on earth _did_ he say to you?"

"Just that he loved me--and enough, too. But, oh! Dicky, I told
you I was frightened, and I am. That dreadful man said that,
rather than see me married to Jack, he would destroy him!" Her
voice began to tremble. "He'll do it, too; I feel he will."

"Nonsense, my good child! People can't go about destroying people
nowadays. There is always the convenient hangman. And besides,
though I can't exactly say I dote on Darkham, still, he seems to
me a most respectable person."

"To me," said Agatha in a low tone, "he seems a murderer! Yes; I
_mean_ it. I am afraid of him, and I really do think, Dicky"--
bursting into tears--"that he will try to kill Jack. His face
was frightful when he said it. Oh, perhaps he is devising some
scheme now--now, this moment! I could not be deceived; there
was meaning in his eyes. Dicky"--turning to him with a touch of
passion--"I want to see Jack--to warn him."

"To-morrow?"

"Oh no! Now--now! Can't I see him now? I shall go mad with
thinking if I have to pass this night without giving him a word
of warning."

"Look here, Agatha! It's late, you know, and Mrs. Greatorex will
be home shortly, and---"

He paused. The girl knew well what he meant. Of course it was
unconventional to go to her--to Dr. Dillywn's house now; but
for the sake of conventionality was she to let the man she loved
be murdered? She was a little unstrung, and at this moment she
firmly believed that Darkham was bent on a swift destruction of
her lover. In the slow, solemn passing of the light to darkness
fears grow thick, and Agatha's became unbearable.

Jack was there, in his lonely house, and unwarned! What fitter
time to take a person unawares? The poor child was weakened by
the events of the past few days, and could see nothing but her
one sole possession cruelly done to death. That man--Darkham--
had looked murderous. Oh, to go to Jack for a second only--to
_tell_ him! What could it matter what the world said, if he still
lived!

"I don't care _when_ she is home--" She spoke vehemently, but
then checked herself. "No, no; she won't be--can't be at home
for a long time. It is only half-past eight now, and she will not
be home till ten."

"But Dillywn's house is half a mile away."

"But if I ran through the wood no one would see me--and--_you
only_ would know of it. I want just to tell him to be on his
guard. It wouldn't take me a moment. Don't you think"--
feverishly--"that I might go?"


"Not alone, certainly. If you _must_ see him, I'll go with you."

"Oh, Dicky, how good of you! Will you, really? Then come--
_come!_"

"Without a hat?"

"Yes. What does a hat matter? And we haven't a moment to lose."

"Well, here goes!" said Dicky. He pulled her arm through his and
together they went out of the gate, and, turning, ran down a
slope that led to the wood on their left. Through this they went
at full speed, the path being well defined, and Agatha's
agitation giving her the speed of an Atalanta.

As they pulled up at the gate of Dillywn's cottage, a tiny
establishment, standing by itself about a quarter of a mile from
the village, Dicky pulled out his watch.

"We've beaten the record," said he; "I don't believe any one ever
did the distance in so short a time. But, talking of time, Agatha
--it's flying. I shall stay here, and give you just five minutes
by this"--tapping his watch--"to rejoin me."

"Five minutes! I shan't be _one,_" said Agatha.

"You had better tell him that I brought you here, and that I
shall take you back. Though"--resignedly--"he will no doubt
shoot me when you do so."

"Dicky! He will be so grateful."

"That"--gloomily--"is not the way of lovers. And I have two
to contend with. Darkham is probably sitting in a tree at this
moment taking aim."

"Oh, Dicky, _don't!_."

"And even if I escape these two, there is still Mrs. Greatorex to
slay me with her tongue. There, go on, dear Agatha. If not here
on your return, I trust you to put up a fitting monument to my
many virtues."

Agatha turned towards the house--he was really too frivolous
for anything.

"I say!" called Mr. Browne after her. "Five minutes, you know--
not a second more."

She ran noiselessly across the grass to the lighted window where
she fancied Dillwyn must be sitting, and knocked gently at the
window-pane. In a  moment the blind was drawn up; there was a
sharp ejaculation; then the window was thrown up.



CHAPTER XXV


"Agatha? You!"

"Yes, yes. I have only a moment--but I _must_ speak to you.
After you went, Dr. Darkham came; he had seen you, and---"

"Wait a moment!" His voice was stern. "Give me your hands. You
must come in and tell me all." The window was very close to the
ground, and she sprang to his side easily.

She was now in the room, but so great was her nervous agitation
that she never once glanced round her to see what kind it was.
Her lover's room. And yet she never looked at it. She thought
only of him.

"Jack! I could not help coming. I felt I _should_ tell you."

"My darling girl! But what---"

With her head upon his breast, she told him all--her hatred,
her suspicions, her fears.

Dillwyn, holding her close to his heart, laughed a little. Her
fears--her sweet, _sweet_ fears!--that were all for _him_.

"You may laugh," said she; "and I am glad you do. Somehow it
makes me feel less frightened. But, still, be on your guard.
_Do_, Jack. I dread that man."

"Say you hate him. That will satisfy me more," said Dillwyn,
"though I don't think even Mrs. Greatorex could make you be false
to me now. My poor, poor little heart! Fancy your coming all this
way to tell me to take care of myself!"

"To keep yourself alive for my sake."
He drew her to him, and for a moment they clung to each other,
heart to heart. Then again he laughed.

"Well, I'll do my best," said he.

Agatha glanced past him. She was now rewarding herself for her
virtuous abstinence on her entrance. She was examining the room.

"What a lovely little room!" said she.

Dillwyn coloured.

"No, no, you must not look at it," said he, taking her face
between both his hands and hiding her eyes against his breast.

"But I must--I must indeed." She drew herself free from him and
looked round. It was a small room, very barely furnished, but
there were touches about it here and there--little remnants
brought from his late home: a picture or two, a tiny statuette, a
large bowl of flowers, a small bookcase, crowded from top to
bottom with favourite writers--that redeemed it from the actual
vulgarity of poverty. A poor man lived here, no doubt, but the
poor man was a gentleman.

A little fire was burning on the hearth, and she went up to it
and looked down at a large arm-chair close to it.

"This is where you sit?" said she. There was delight and love and
humour in her eyes.

He went to her and caught her hands and pressed their palms to
his lips.

"Sometimes," said he, "I have dreamt of you as sitting there--
in _that_ chair, close to _that_ fire. A presumptuous dream!"

He regarded her anxiously.

"A lovely one," said she.

"But the room must not be like this," said he. "No--a better
one--larger--with a bow window, and a little garden outside,
and--You know that house of the Beckets, at the other side of
the village?"

"Too big!" said she. "What I like is this--just this." She
glanced at the wall near her. "What a charming picture!"

"You like it? My father gave it to me a year ago. You think you
could be happy here--even here? You would be content with me?"

"Content!" Her tone was answer enough. "Do not have a doubt,"
said she eagerly. "Do not spoil one single moment of ours."

At this moment a whistle loud and long came to them through the
open window.

Agatha started.

"I must go," said she. "Though I'm certain it can't be five
minutes yet."

"Who's whistling?" asked he.

"Dicky Browne. He brought me here."

"_Browne!_"

"Yes." She smiled at him.  "He said he knew you would shoot him
for it. But he has been so kind. I couldn't have come but for
him. I do so like Dicky, don't you?"

"Yes. But _you_ mustn't like him too much."

"There is only one person in the world I like too much. But you
must confess that Dicky was very good to me to-night."

"I know. But"--impatiently--"I wish there was no need for any
one to be good to you except me. However, I am grateful to him.
And so long as you love me--you do love me, Agatha?"

"You know it."

"Still, it is so good to hear. Forgive me. I'm a jealous fool. I
wish we had never to part again. And soon," said he quickly,
eagerly, "you will be my very own. I shall succeed. I shall
conquer fortune. I know it. I feel strong." Indeed he looked
strong as he stood before her with his hands on her shoulders,
and his dark, brilliant eyes full of life and hope. "Before I met
you I hardly cared for success. My work was sufficient for me.
But now---" He swayed her softly, tenderly, to and fro and
laughed aloud. "What fool said that love ruined genius? I tell
you, you have given me genius--you that are the soul of me--I
shall _win_."

He insisted on taking her out--solely against her will--to
where Dicky was waiting for her. That worthy had retreated behind
a laburnum-tree, and it was only when she called his name
carefully that he consented to show the tip of his nose.

"No blunderbusses, I trust," said he, in a quavering tone. "I'm
an orphan boy, guv'nor. Spare! oh, spare me!"

"Come, Dicky, come," cried Agatha, in a low voice. "Oh, I hope we
shall be home before Aunt Hilda."

"I'm glad you thought of it!" said Mr. Browne wrathfully. "We've
got just twenty minutes to do it in, and I'm not so young as I
used to be. When next you take your walks abroad, I'd be thankful
to you if you'd give yourself decent time to do them in. Twice I
whistled. I am sure I need hardly say, Dillywn, that you did not
try to detain her. On the contrary, I feel certain you did your
utmost to hasten her departure. I hope you gave her a piece of
your mind on the subject of unpunctuality. You ought, you know!
You--as her lord and master."

"Dicky, are you coming?" said Agatha severely. She turned
impetuously, and moved quickly into the shadow of the trees.
Really, Dicky was _too_ provoking! Mr. Browne, after a silent but
most effective farewell to Dillwyn, followed her.

Just as they once more reached the little inside gate of the
villa, the sound of wheels in the small avenue outside told them
of Mrs. Greatorex's return.

"Cut for your life!" cried Mr. Browne in a tragic whisper, and
without waiting for another word from her, he took his own
advice, and bolting through the few shrubs, found himself
presently safe but breathless on the public road, and almost in
the arms of Dillwyn.

"So you followed the dear departed, after all," said Dicky. "What
a thing is love! To tread in the footsteps of _her_ is rapture.
Or"--Mr. Browne paused and drew himself proudly up--"or else
am I to understand, sir, that you distrusted me?"

Dillwyn drew his arm within his.

"You know all about it," said he. "Come back with me and have a
pipe and a whisky-and-soda."

We all know what that meant! But Mr. Browne was of a high
courage. He accepted the invitation.



CHAPTER XXVI


It was the next day, and quite an ideal one for late September,
though that is perhaps the least capricious month of all the
year. Still Mrs Poynter hardly knew what to do with her guests.
When one has been playing tennis steadily from the 1st of May to
the 19th of September, even that best of games begins to pall a
little. And people came so early in September--at half-past
three some of them, because the daylight faded so soon. It was
quite a relief to her when Dicky suggested the houses. But,
unfortunately, the suggestion fell flat. Just a few went, but the
majority remained.

Mrs. Greatorex, indeed, was too comfortable to stir, and Elfrida
was too amused. She had Lord Ambert leaning over her on the left,
and she had enticed the curate into an argument on her right. She
felt perfectly happy. She was never happier than when she was
annoying Ambert, who was to  be her husband in a month or so.

As for Mr. Browne, though he had suggested the grapes, he made no
movement in their direction. He, too, was quite in his element.
He was teasing the children with all his might.

Mrs. Poynter, if she were ever jealous of other people's
possessions, at all events had no occasion to be jealous with
them about their children. Her own were perfect--little
creatures of delight! Their manners, however, were not their
strong point.

Vera, the youngest, sat on Mr. Browne's right knee, and Henry on
his left. They held a book in their hands. It contained the poems
of Dr. Watts. Their mother, who was one of the most thoughtless
people in the world, was evidently determined that _they_ should
think, with a vengeance.

Dicky could see, however, that the little maiden on his knee
hated the book.

"Go on, read us something," said Henry.

"Don't," said Vera, "it's a pig of a book."

"Hold your tongue, Vera," said Henry, whose education was not
altogether completed. He nudged Dicky. "Go on," said he, and
Dicky began:--


"Let dogs delight to bark and bite,
 For God hath made them so---"


"I don't believe it," said Vera, who was on for battle; "God
wouldn't."

"Yes, He would. He's made lots of things that fight. Lions and
tigers and Pappy."

Captain Poynter was a soldier, and had served with some
distinction in the Egyptian War.

"Well _I_ don't want to fight," said Vera, shaking her blonde
head. She wriggled down off Dicky's lap, and ran to Agatha, who
was close to her, and unfortunately very close to every one else,
too. "I want to love peoples. Don't you, Aggie? Do _you_ love
peoples, Aggie?"

"I do indeed--lots of peoples," said Agatha, drawing the child
on to her knee. "I love you for one."

"Oh, me!" It was plain to the public that Miss Vera thought it
would be a poor person indeed who did not bow the knee to her.

"But not all the other peoples?"

"Yes, I love all the other peoples, too."

"That's not true, for mammy says that you're beastly unkind
to---"

"Vera!" cried a shocked mamma.

Mrs. Poynter rose and came forward, but Miss Vera was evidently
not afraid of her mammy. She kicked out her pretty silk-clad
legs, and went on quite calmly:

"She says you're very nasty to Dr. Darkham, but that you _do_
love Dr. Dillwyn."

The little, sweet, shrill voice carried very far--too far. Mrs.
Greatorex looked up.

As for Mrs. Poynter, she was crimson. She was afraid to look at
Agatha, who felt as if her heart was going to stop beating. She
bent over Vera--who was playing with her bangles, all unconscious
of the bombshell she had just discharged--to hide her face. Mrs.
Poynter was speaking to the child: "Vera, how naughty! You are a
very bold child."

"'Be bolde, be bolde, and everywhere be bolde,'" quoted Mr.
Browne promptly. He picked up the small sinner from Agatha's lap
and perched her on his shoulder. "I say let's go down and see
what they are doing on the courts."

Agatha eagerly rose and went with him. When they had reached the
courts the children ran away, and Agatha turned a very distressed
face to him.

"Wasn't it unfortunate?" she said. "I am sure Aunt Hilda heard
her. Why should the child have said just the wrong thing?"

"Give him a hint. Tell him to be sensible for once in his life,
and keep out of her way."

"If I could do that."

"Well, why can't you? When is he coming?"

"He said he would be here at half-past four, and that he"--here
she grew prettily shamefaced and very red--"would meet me in
the little alley behind the rhododendrons over there. You know
there is a gateway in there from the road."

"We've got ten minutes," said Mr. Browne, after a brief
consultation with his watch. "Let us go and sit in the alley and
circumvent Aunt Hilda."

It was quite easy to skirt around the players and enter the
pretty secluded walk that led to nowhere but the high road--a
mere cul-de-sac that made it unpopular with most young people.
But Agatha liked the high road, for that good white winding
ribbon would bring her her Jack.

"Now let us talk about it," said he comfortably.

"There's nothing to talk about," said Agatha mournfully. "Aunt
Hilda is determined I shall marry Dr. Darkham, and I am
determined that I shan't. That is all."

"Far from it. There is the other side of the question to be
considered also," said Mr. Browne, assuming a magisterial air.

"Aunt Hilda is determined that you shan't marry Dr. Dillwyn, and
you are determined that you will. What price the winner? I back
you."

"Well, I shall not give in," said she with a smile. She looked
very sad, however. "I wish I were not under such obligations to
her."

"What nonsense! As if she were not under obligations to you! I
expect it must have been a real treat to her when you got under
her roof."

"Oh no. I have only been a burden."

"Modesty can go too far. I can tell you that the very fact of
your having saved her from loneliness repays all your debt to
her. Don't be down-hearted about your obligations in that
direction."

"Still---"

"You've got too much conscience," said Mr. Browne. "You're
over-ballasted; I'd throw a little overboard if I were you. And
I'd keep clear of Darkham, anyway. He's got a nasty turn of jaw."

"He's nasty every way," said Agatha, sighing. "But, then, what am
I to do? Aunt Hilda is so angry, and poor Jack is---"

"_Poor!_ It's a conundrum," said Mr. Browne thoughtfully. "But
there must be ways of solving it."

Here he turned and caught sight of something--some one--
between the branches of the rhododendrons. Dicky knew him at
once. It was the tall young doctor standing at the gate. Why did
he not come on? Dicky in a moment guessed that conundrum, at all
events. Dillwyn had come there to meet Agatha alone, and was
waiting for him to go away. Mr. Browne felt, with a distinct
acceleration of spirit, that Dillwyn did not know who Agatha's
companion was at the moment. It is sometimes hard to distinguish
people through swaying branches.

It was perhaps a little unfortunate that Nature had endowed Dicky
at his birth with the spirit of mischief. It is so difficult to
strangle Nature's gifts.

"We must wait, I suppose," said Agatha.

Mr. Browne cast a backward glance toward the little gate.

"_He_  must wait anyway," said he sadly.

"We must both wait."

"Oh, not both!"--with a sidelong glance towards the silent
figure half seen through the branches. "It is you who are keeping
_him_ waiting."

"You are wrong, indeed, Dicky," said the girl earnestly. "We
shall wait together. I don't mind that."

"_He_ might, however; especially as you are _not_ together." A
slight movement in the hawthorn bush that stood beside the gate
emphasised this remark.

"That makes no difference," said Agatha sweetly. "We are content
to wait apart."

"Yet Dillwyn doesn't strike me as being a modern Job," said Mr.
Browne, who could see Dillwyn marching up and down before the
gate in a distinctly impatient style. He had not yet recognised
Dicky, and he knew Agatha had by agreement come there to meet
him, and was probably doing all in her power to get rid of her
troublesome companion. There was a "Will he never go away?" sort
of air about him that unhappily amused Dicky.

"I told you you did not understand him--did not sympathise with
him," said Agatha reproachfully.

"I do! I do!" Dicky's voice grew tearful. "Waiting for the
beloved one is melancholy work; it demands all one's sympathies.
I can at this moment,"--here Dicky grew almost tragic--"enter
into all his feelings. I feel with him. It may seem painful to
you, Agatha, but I assure you I can actually _see_ him as he
waits."

"How kind, how good you are, Dicky!"

"But you," said Mr. Browne frantically, "are _you_ good or kind?
Is it not cruel of you to keep him waiting as you do?" Again his
eye peered through the bushes, and again he saw Dillwyn pacing to
and fro.

"But what can I do?"--tearfully.

"Go to him!"--nobly.

"Oh, Dicky! How can I go?"

"My dear girl, the road is open before you."

"That shows," said she, sighing faintly, "how little you know
about it. No, we must wait."

"Wait! It's been a good long wait already," said Mr. Browne, who
really ought to have been ashamed of himself, "How much longer is
it to go on?"

"I don't know," dejectedly.

"Already, I expect, he is beginning to think it a century."

"Poor dear Jack!" said she.

"He's getting jolly tired, you know."

At this Agatha flushed and looked at him. There was indignation
in her glance.

"You _don't_ know," said she. "You know nothing at all about it.
And he is _not_ getting tired. You shouldn't talk about things of
which you know nothing--absolutely nothing."

"Of course you ought to know more about it than I do. I accept
the back seat. I am not your other self--that's how he puts it,
isn't it? But for all that"--with a stealing glance to the rear
--"it seems to me that he is growing impatient."

"Oh, Dicky, I think you shouldn't say such things as that." Tears
rose to her eyes.

"What else _can_ I say?"

"To hint that he is impatient---"

"So he is."

"That sounds as if he were discontented."

"So he is."

"He is _not_"--angrily.

"Well, my dear girl, when one sees a fellow lifting first one leg
and then the other, and craning his neck over a gate until one
fears for the vertebrae of it, one naturally does accuse him of
impatience."

"He? Who?" Agatha started, and sprang to her feet and looked
round.

"Why Dillwyn. I'm certain _he_ feels as if he had been waiting a
century. I'll swear that _he_ is growing impatient. He,"--with
a gentle wave of his arm towards the gateway--"has been dancing
a _pas seul_ there for the last ten minutes!"

Agatha looked at him for a moment only. Then she turned aside.

"I think you might have told me!" said she, her voice quick with
anger.

"I might--I might," said Mr. Browne, with truly noble
acquiescence. "But you said, dear Agatha, that he was not to be
here for ten minutes, and I thought it might be bad for you to
see him too soon."

She was not listening to him, however. She had gone towards the
gate.

Dicky with a resigned smile lit a cigarette, and started for
"fresh fields and pastures new."



CHAPTER XXVII


"At last you are alone," said Dillwyn, advancing to meet her. "I
thought that fellow would never go. I could only see the top of
his head, and I longed for a pea-shooter."

"It was Dicky Browne. And at all events he saw you. And fancy--
he wouldn't tell me you were there, just to tease me!"

"Or perhaps to keep you a little longer to himself," said
Dillwyn, who was too thorough a lover not to be jealous of every
one.

"What a fancy!" said Agatha, laughing. "You must have a brilliant
wit to imagine Dicky in love." She stopped laughing and grew very
grave. "Such an unfortunate thing has happened," said she; and
she told him of little Vera's mistake.

"What does it matter," said he. "The sooner every one learns that
we belong to each other the better. Where is Mrs. Greatorex? If I
could see her, even a word would explain matters."

"Jack, I entreat you not to speak to her, here, before all these
people." She grew very pale. "She is quite sure to say something
dreadful to you. I _beg_ you to wait."

"But for how long?"--impatiently.

"Until to-morrow, at all events. And if you wait for even longer
than that--- Well, well"--seeing his expression--"until
to-morrow. Do you know, Jack, I came here just now only to ask
you to go away, and so avoid seeing Aunt Hilda at all."

"That I won't do," said Dillwyn firmly. "You are mine, and I
claim you. You yourself, of your own free-will have given
yourself to me, and do you think I shall make little of that
gift? No, no; come back with me to the grounds, and let all the
world see how it is with us."

She slipped her hand through his arm, and turned to go back to
the tennis-grounds. It was a most satisfactory answer. Half-way
down the alley, however, a sound behind them made them turn.
There stood the unhappy Edwy, waving his long arms and
gesticulating frantically. He must have followed Dillwyn (for
whom he had a great affection) through the little gate. He was
evidently in a frightful state of excitement. His face was livid,
his eyes staring. He was looking through an interstice in the
rhododendron hedge, and his hands, extended, were grasping the
air convulsively.

"Oh poor Edwy!" said Agatha. "Something is troubling him. Let us
go back."

"He has been growing much worse of late," said Dillwyn, studying
the unfortunate idiot attentively. "His mother's death seems to
have preyed upon him a good deal. Poor boy! I suppose she was his
sole comfort. He has grown more violent and unreasonable, and the
form his increasing mania has taken is a hatred of his father.
Every one is remarking that. He cannot see him without going into
a frightful state of excitement."

"What is it, my poor fellow?" said Dillwyn gently, who always
spoke to him as though he could hear.

He tried to release his hand from Agatha's arm. There was a
difficulty about doing this, the idiot being strong; but Dillwyn
had a strange influence over him. He made a slight gesture, and
at once the boy turned to him, letting Agatha go.

"Sho! Sho!" he growled in his unnatural voice--a voice full of
living anguish, however--pointing through the hole in the
rhododendrons.

Dillwyn and Agatha followed his gaze, and saw Darkham far away
over there, talking to Mrs. Greatorex, who had evidently come
down to the courts.

The idiot pointed again to his father, and lifted his hands and
shook them violently. There was horror and an awful hatred in his
wild black eyes that were so like Darkham's.

"Sho! Sho!" shouted Edwy again, not knowing that he shouted; and
then he turned to Agatha, staring at her, as if to compel her
attention, and pointed again to his father, and suddenly drew a
handkerchief from his pocket.

He folded it, clumsily, it is true, and then, with a weird
movement, laid it across his mouth and nostrils, and pressed his
hands upon it. With all his _might_ he pressed.

She grew deadly pale. Had he--had that man murdered his wife?
Oh no! Oh _no!_ It was impossible.

The boy was still pressing his hands against his mouth, and
pinching his nostrils to keep out his breath. He was growing
livid. Dillwyn went to him and tore down his hands. The idiot
gasped, and then laughed in that horribly foolish way so
distressing in those whose minds are affected.

"Sho! Sho!" cried the poor creature again in heartrending
accents. It was as though the mere sight of his father roused all
his passions within him. He kept pointing frantically to where
Darkham stood, and presently his cry rose into a fierce scream--
the scream of a wounded animal.

Dillwyn laid his hand upon his arm and drew him gently away from
the opening in the hedge through which his father could be seen.
Dillwyn's own face was very pale. For the first time a suspicion
that Mrs. Darkham had been foully murdered entered into his
brain.

He drew back Edwy with a certain force, and the boy fell to the
ground in short but fierce convulsions.

Dillwyn loosened his collar, and soon it was all over. Edwy rose,
looked strangely round him, and with a queer twitching of the
features rushed past Dillwyn before he could prevent him, and
disappeared into the wood.

"Poor fellow!" said Dillwyn sadly.

Agatha struggled with herself, and then burst into tears.

"My darling! What is it? _Agatha!_" The hideous thought that had
come to himself he would not have revealed to her for all the
world, and now a fear that she, too, had entertained it horrified
him. He held her to him, her head pressed against his breast.

"Oh, I knew it! I knew it all through: I _felt_ it," sobbed she
violently. Words of Darkham's that day in the wood came back to
her. 'For the sake of the heaven I have lost!' _How_ had he lost
it? "Jack, he killed her! He murdered her!"

"Agatha, my beloved! Why have such a thought as that? You must
remember that that poor boy---"

"Oh, no, no! It is true. He"--trembling--"he smothered her!
Didn't you see how Edwy pressed that handkerchief across his own
nose and mouth, as if to _show_ something? And you tell me the
poor boy has shown hatred to his father of late. It is plain. It
is quite, _quite_ plain. Oh, poor boy! Jack"--in a nervous
whisper; she was now shaking from head to foot--"he must have
seen it! _Seen_ his father kill his mother!" She cowered as if in
terror.

"Agatha, I entreat you to compose yourself. All this is mere
supposition."

"It is not. It is all the awful terrible truth! And what
frightens me is, that he will kill _you_ too, if he can. You
laughed at me last night. You made light of my fears, but I tell
you to beware of him." She burst into bitter weeping again. "I am
_sure_ he will try to kill you, and you--you will do nothing to
save yourself--not even for my sake. And yet you say you love
me."

"Love seems a poor word," said Dillwyn. "My dear, _dear_ girl,
have pity on me, if not upon yourself. Don't cry like that. I'll
do anything you like--_anything_, if you will only try and be
happy again. Why, look here now, Agatha; it isn't altogether so
easy a matter to murder a person without being found out as you
seem to imagine."

"You, too, then"--eagerly--"think that---"

"It is impossible to know what to think," said he, with some
emotion. He paced to and fro upon the path, his head down-bent,
pondering. Suddenly he lifted it. "Look here, this has got
nothing to do with us in any way," he said. "Why spoil this hour
because of it?"

"It has something to do with me, at all events," said the girl,
who was now deadly pale.

"I have a weight on my heart, Jack! I _must_ tell you about it."
She drew her breath sharply, but with a great courage went on. "I
think now--I hardly understood it then--but I think that
before his wife died he--wished to marry me."

"Well!" Dillwyn's face was hard and cold. But he caught her to
him, and pressed her face down against him. It would be easier
for her to speak like that, where her face could not be seen. His
poor, poor darling! What she had gone through!

"Well"--miserably--"I think now that but for me--he--
might not have killed  her! _Oh, Jack!_"

Jack lifted her face and kissed her.

"Think something else," said he. "That you are my own brave girl,
and that morbid thoughts are unworthy of you. Even if what you
say was the case, Agatha, still it leaves your soul as white as
heaven. There now, beloved! Will you grieve me? Think one thing
more, Agatha. Think of me and of my love for you--my undying
love. If that will not help you, then"--with a tender smile--

"I shall be afraid you do not care for it."

She clung to him.

"I'm afraid, after all, you will have your own way, and that I
shall not be able to speak to Mrs. Greatorex to-day," said he
presently. "Your eyes are sad tell-tales. Come with me into the
wood, and down to the river. There we can bathe them."



CHAPTER XXVIII


They were bathed. And as a fact it took Agatha and Jack Dillwyn
quite an hour to get back to the others. The first two they met
were Elfrida and Mr. Blount sitting _tête-à-tête_ on an innocent
garden-chair.

It struck Agatha as a little peculiar that Elfrida, who usually
hailed her appearance with rapture, now let her go by with the
kindliest, the friendliest of nods. The thought struck her that
Elfrida, knew that she loved Jack, and would for that reason not
detain her, but afterwards it came to her that she merely wanted
to be alone with Mr. Blount.

But Elfrida was superior to criticism. As Agatha went by she
turned to her companion.

"I do love Agatha. Don't you?"

"I like her," said the curate.

"Oh, that!--one likes so many. Why don't you love her?"

"Because I can only love one," said he.

"It would be indiscreet, of course, to ask about the 'one,'" said
she. "No one, not even a stupid person like me, could go so far
as that."

Blount by this time had recovered himself. He showed her quite a
brave front. He was the saddest man on earth at that moment, I
believe, yet he told himself he would die rather than let her
know it.

"Your life!" said he. "Surely it is more valuable than all that
comes to. A question addressed to me by you could hardly endanger
your existence."

Perhaps she was a little chagrined at this sudden strength--at
his calm taking of her question. Certainly her face changed.

"How can I tell?" said she petulantly. "One never knows what
one's life is worth." She turned aside and stood with a frowning
brow, as if thinking. Suddenly she turned to him again. The frown
had gone. The smile was back again. The coquette was once more
herself.

"What is _your_ life worth?" asked she. Her face was radiant now;
her eyes were fixed on his; her little slender figure seemed
quite filled anew with hopeless frivolity.

"Nothing!" said Blount. He spoke the word quite evenly--with a
smile, indeed; but in spite of his effort a terrible sadness
underlay and dominated his intonation. What was life without
love? And love was a thing the Fates refused him. Whom could he
love, indeed, having once seen her?

To-day she seemed sweeter than ever to him--now when he knew
that she was pledged to Ambert.

And in truth there was great character in the small face; great
gaiety, too, some humour, an immense wilfulness, and, alas! too
much ambition.

"Ah! you underrate yourself," said she. She shrugged her dainty
shoulders. "Every one's life is worth something. And one should
prove it. That is the principal thing--to prove one's life
worth something."

"How are you going to prove yours worthy?" Blount asked this
question slowly, deliberately. She flushed crimson.

"Oh! To be rude is not to be argumentative," said she, and turned
abruptly away from him, and crossed to where Mrs. Poynter stood,
surrounded by a bevy of friends.

Blount stood still. He did not attempt to follow her. Why should
he?

Every one was saying good-bye now; Mrs. Greatorex had beamed her
sweetest on Mrs. Poynter, and had accepted Dr. Darkham's arm to
the fly. How Agatha hated that fly! It was full of nothing but
lectures, and scandals, and frowns--if one left out the moths
and the must.

The poor child felt now there was electricity in the air, as,
avoiding Darkham's hand, she sprang into the dingy vehicle, and
seated herself beside Mrs. Greatorex. She had been quite aware
that Dr. Darkham had spent the last half-hour with Mrs.
Greatorex, and she felt certain that a catalogue of all her
crimes during last night had been played upon her aunt's mind,
with variations.

She sat looking as usual as possible until the entrance gate was
passed, and then, by a sudden movement of Mrs. Greatorex's
figure, she knew that wrath was about to descend upon her.

"What am I to understand by this, Agatha?"

"By what, Aunt Hilda?" It was the old way of gaining time.

"You heard that child, I presume. Such an _exposé_. All children
are odious, but that child of Mrs. Poynter's--However, I have
nothing to do with her. It is with you, Agatha, I have to do. Am
I to understand that you are determined to take your own way--
to try your will against mine?"

"Why should you talk to me like that?" cried the girl with great
agitation. "Do I not know what you have done for me--how you
have saved me from starvation? But, Aunt Hilda, what can I do?
Would you have me marry a man I hate?"

"A man, however, whom you will marry," said Mrs. Greatorex with
cold decision. "The marriage is arranged, Agatha. Dr. Darkham and
I have been talking it over, and we have arranged that the
marriage is to take place next April."

"The marriage will never take place," said Agatha.

"You are a mere child, and do not know what is good for you,"
said Mrs. Greatorex. "You have insane fancies that can never come
to anything. I really believe you think yourself in love with
that young man whom Reginald Greatorex has foisted on us, and who
has not so much as done you the honour to ask you in marriage."

"You are wrong there," said Agatha, in a low tone, but such a
triumphant one. "Dr. Dillwyn _has_ asked me to marry him."

"He has!" Mrs. Greatorex turned upon her, her light brown eyes
flashing. "And you never told me. Is this your return to me for
all my goodness?"

"How could I speak?" Agatha was white to her lips. "How could I?
You would have been so angry--you would not listen--you---"

She would have tried to go on and explain, but Mrs. Greatorex
broke into her disjointed, terrified speech in a sort of fury.

"So it is true, then? I didn't believe it of you. But Dr. Darkham
told me of your disgraceful conduct last night. That you so far
forgot yourself as to receive him, alone in the arbour, up to
half-past eight without a soul near you?"

"He did not know your were to be away at first. It was I who told
him. He wanted to see you very much."

"And I want to see him very much." Her voice struck cold to the
girl's heart. "I am so desirous of seeing him that I have sent a
note to him"--she frowned, her brow darkened--"commanding his
presence at my house to-morrow at twelve o'clock, to inquire into
his flirtation with my niece."

"I hope you have not done that," said the girl, turning very
pale.

"Certainly, I have done it. And I wish you to be in, Agatha, at
that time."

"I shall be in," said Agatha. "But to summon him like that--to
insult him--in my presence." Her voice was unsteady, she was
trembling. "It will do no good!" said she despairingly.

"I think it will. At all events I shall try it. This silly
intrigue must be brought to an end at once, and after that you
shall marry Dr. Darkham."

"I shall not do that, Aunt Hilda," said Agatha, in a low but
determined voice.



CHAPTER XXIX


Dillwyn had received Mrs. Greatorex's note with joy. Here was the
meeting he had hoped to gain by a manoeuvre actually given him by
the enemy. He reached the villa next morning so much before the
appointed hour that he had to stroll up and down the road until
his watch told him he might march to the attack. It struck twelve
by Mrs. Greatorex's tiny hall clock as he walked into her house.

She was in the drawing-room awaiting him. She gave him her hand,
certainly, but a very unpleasant glance with it. She looked cold,
calm, determined. The young man regarding her could have laughed
aloud, only that he felt so sad. What was the good of it all? He
knew himself, and he knew the girl he loved, and--who could
part them?

Over there in the window was the girl he loved, standing up
bravely, with a little troubled smile upon her lips--but still
a smile--and all for him. What a stout heart she had, his dear,
pretty girl!

"I am glad you have come, Dr. Dillwyn," said Mrs. Greatorex.

"Agatha refused me her confidence, but I have heard from other
sources of your--you must forgive me if I call them
presumptuous--attentions to my niece. Of course, considering
your position in life, I do not take them seriously; but such as
they are, they rather prejudice her chances of making an
excellent marriage."

"I am afraid you will have to take my attentions seriously," said
Dillwyn, looking at her very quietly, but with purpose on his
brow. "Indeed I am sure of it. I love Miss Nesbitt, and she---"
He hesitated, and Agatha, seeing his uncertainty, stepped bravely
into the breach.

"Loves you!" said she, in a low, frightened, but very clear tone.

Mrs. Greatorex looked at her.

"Were all my words in vain? Have you not yet learned the meaning
of modesty? Stand back, Agatha, whilst I speak."

The girl retreated a little, more from habit than anything else,
and Mrs. Greatorex once more addressed Dillwyn.

"I want just an answer to one question," said she. "If you were
to marry my niece, could you support her--in even such small
comfort as she has been accustomed to?"

"Not now, perhaps. But we have both time before us, and we can
wait a little while"; he looked at her intently. "I shall conquer
in the end. I know that."

"It is probable," said Mrs. Greatorex, in quite a liberal sort of
spirit. "But in the meantime you condemn the girl you profess to
love to certain privations!"

"I don't believe in marriages where love is left out," said he.

"But you do believe in love where a girl delicately nurtured is
exposed to absolute poverty! So you think that to wilfully
destroy a girl's chance in life means love?"

"A girl's chance! There is but one chance for any soul living,
man or woman," said Dillwyn; "and that is to follow the straight
road--the dictates of his or her own conscience. Why should
Agatha diverge from it? Why should she sell all that is most dear
to her--herself--her mind--all--for mere dross?"

"I am to believe, then," said Mrs. Greatorex, "that you have made
up your mind to drag Agatha down with you into the abyss of
poverty. Have you thought of the selfishness of that?"

"I hope it will not be poverty," said Dillwyn slowly.

Mrs. Greatorex's brow grew dark.

"Agatha, come here!" said she, in a tone of extreme anger.
But Agatha did not stir. She was evidently very comfortable were
she was, and her sweet proximity strengthened Dillwyn.

"She is is mine," said he; "I  claim her. Mrs. Greatorex, why
would you part us?"

"For her good--and especially now. You refuse to consider how
you are injuring her. An advantage has fallen into her life, and
you must wilfully deprive her of it."

"An advantage! Darkham do you mean? As for that," said Dillwyn,

"I am not depriving her of an advantage. I am saving her from"--
he paused--"misery. Agatha!" He laid his hands on her shoulders
and held her back from him, and studied her a moment. It was a
sweet study. "You believe me?"

"I believe you always!"

She clung closer to him, and looked with a strange sort of sad
defiance over her shoulder at Mrs. Greatorex.

"The matter is not ended yet," said the latter. "I beg, Dr.
Dillwyn, that you will leave me. And you, Agatha,--you---"

"Oh, do not be so angry with me," cried the girl, thrusting
Dillwyn from her, and running to the woman who had befriended her
so long, and catching her in her strong young arms, and holding
her. She was mistaken--wrong. She would hurry her into a
marriage that meant death to her--but she did not know. Agatha
at that moment assured herself that Mrs. Greatorex _could_ not
know. "Aunt Hilda, think--think---"

"Of what?"

"Of how much nicer Jack is than Dr. Darkham," said she.

"I never spend my thoughts on absurdities," said Mrs. Greatorex.

She disengaged herself finally from Agatha and turned to Dillwyn.

"You, of course, understand that your visits here are at an end,"
said she; "and your acquaintance with my niece also." Dillwyn
bowed.

"My visits shall be at an end, of course; but my acquaintance
with  Miss Nesbitt---"

"What, sir! After all I have said--after representing to you
that you are damaging  her fortune--you refuse to withdraw
your---"

"Claim!" He suggested the word. "Yes; I refuse."

"You are aware that she will not have a penny from me on her
marriage with you or _ever_?"

"How could the consideration of money attach itself to her?" said
he, with a tender smile--his eyes were now on Agatha. "Surely
she herself--How could one think of money?" said he.

He went forward and drew Agatha into his arms and kissed her. It
was the simplest action. He then bowed to Mrs. Greatorex and left
the room.



CHAPTER XXX


"What a heavenly spot!" said Mrs. Poynter.

She looked up through the overhanging trees to the blue expanse
of the sky beyond.

Lord Ambert had chosen this place for his tea with most
consummate care and a very artistic eye. Elfrida told him so on
her arrival--which was late; she was, in fact, the very last to
appear upon the scene.

She was very delightful to everybody during tea, however, and
quite subjugated two young men from the barracks in the next
town. If she was cold to Ambert, it was in such a careful manner
that no one understood it but himself.

After tea the party broke up. Here and there by twos and threes
they disappeared into the wood. When Ambert looked round for
Elfrida, he found she, too, had gone away somewhere with one of
the young soldiers. Certainly she had not waited for him--for
_him,_ the man she had promised to marry!

With a heart soured and enraged he turned away, and, plunging
through a brake, came out into a level bit of ground beyond. He
stood there, thinking a moment. The knowledge that there was no
one near him, that he was quite alone, forsaken, in a certain
sense, and that she was enjoying herself elsewhere, heightened
the sense of vicious anger within his heart.

There was a little rustling among the brambles on his left. Hah!
He looked towards the sound, slunk behind a tree, and waited.
Fellows after rabbits, of course. He waited quite three minutes,
and then a little boy came out, looked eagerly around him, and
then whistled softly.

He was quite a little lad, and delicate-looking; he was whistling
to a companion, whom he supposed to be some yards away, to come
and help him to gather the nuts from some wonderful tree he had
seen just now. The companion, however, had probably seen Ambert,
who was a terror in the neighbourhood, and had taken to his
heels.

But to Ambert just now the boy's guilt seemed sure. And certainly
of late the Ambert woods had been poached persistently for
rabbits. Well, he could teach the decoy something.

He sprang forward and caught the child by the arm and dragged him
into the open. The boy struggled a moment, and then grew very
white. Ambert was well known among his tenantry. The smaller
members were always sure of one thing from him--a kick, a
curse, or a cuff.

He grasped the collar of the boy's coat, and lifted the cane he
held. Down it came, and down and down again--a heavy shower of
blows on the little fellow's thin shoulders. The boy cried and
moaned and wriggled, and every cry and moan gave Ambert joy. It
was delightful to him in his present mood to be able to torture
somebody; for choice he would have made it Elfrida, but as that
could not be, the boy was most convenient.

At length, as the blows grew and grew, the poor little shoulders
grew redder and sorer. The boy's cries at last rose into a wild
shriek. It was at this moment that Tom Blount, who often made
this part of the wood a short-cut to the village when on his
rounds amongst his parishioners, came into view.

He stopped for a second as if stricken dumb with amazement; then
he ran forward. He knew the boy well--little George Robins! He
was indeed very fond of the delicate child. He had a desperately
warm heart--poor Blount!

"What are you doing?" cried he in an infuriated voice. It
maddened him to hear the child's cries. He crashed through some
underwood that lay before him, and, coming up to Ambert, dragged
the boy away from him, and flung him behind him. Such a careful
flinging--holding the boy until he was steady on his feet, then
letting him go.

Ambert turned upon the curate furiously.

"What the devil are you doing here, sir, in my wood? What brought
you here to-day? Sneaking, eh?"

"Run home, George," said the curate to the boy, who was standing
trembling behind him.

"How dare you interfere!" said Ambert. "That boy shall not go. I
have not done with him yet."

"You have done with him! I'll see that you don't touch him again.
Why, you've nearly done for him for ever," said he, looking at
the boy, who was shaking nervously, and down whose face the blood
was streaming from a last cut of Ambert's cane. "To attack a
child like that!" cried Blount, fuming--the blood was sickening
him. "What do you mean by it, _you brute?_" Blount had now indeed
completely lost his temper.

They were both so enraged that neither of them saw Elfrida as she
came slowly from between the bushes. She was accompanied by Dicky
Browne, Agatha, and John Dillwyn. This little party stood silent,
astonished at what was going on. They were behind the two men,
and, standing amongst the tall bracken, could hardly be seen,
even had they been in front. Ambert and Blount were very plain to
them, and the little trembling child too, with the blood running
down his face.

It was here that Ambert, who was a big man, made a movement to
push Blount aside, but the curate, though spare, knew a thing or
two about boxing. He did something or other to Ambert, and then
looked back at the boy.

"Run away, George. Go home; you're all right."

The frightened child, who had been rather stunned at first, now
understood him, and, turning, rushed for his home as swift as a
hound let loose from his leash.

"You think you have got the better of me," said Ambert, white
with rage. His anger raised his voice, and every sound went
clearly to where Elfrida was standing. "But I'll be even with you
yet. I'll have you up, sir, for trespass. What are you doing on
my wood?"

"You seem to know a great deal," said Tom Blount, who was trying
to control himself. "But there is one thing you _don't_ know--
and that is how to behave yourself as a gentleman."

"Do you think you are qualified to lecture on that subject?" said
Ambert, whose rage was now at white heat. "Do you think I don't
see through you, you beggar? Do you think I haven't noticed how
you laid siege to Miss Robinson, with a view to making yourself
comfortable on her fortune?"

"If I weren't a clergyman," said Blount, who was now as white as
death, and whose nostrils were dilated, "I'd thrash you within an
inch of your life for that speech."

Ambert laughed insultingly.

"It is easy to shield oneself behind one's cloth," said he. Now,
this was a little rash of him, but, then, he didn't know it.

"And, of course, I can allow for a little chagrin on your part.
Miss Robinson---"

"Don't bring her into this," said Blount. He drew nearer, and if
Ambert hadn't been a fool as well as a coward, he might have seen
that the man was dangerous. "Look here---" He struggled for words
to express his rage, but they didn't come.

"And why not?" said Ambert, who was a cur of the first water, and
now thought to derive some fun out of the curate. "Of course, I
know it is a sore subject. She played with you, didn't she?"--
he grinned into the other's face--"as a cat would play with a
mouse. But, after all, she wasn't going to throw herself away on"
--he paused with the plain design of making his insult worse--
"on a common fellow like you!"

He knew Blount was of good family, and he thus purposely
affronted him.

"Confound you, sir!" roared the curate. "Say that again, and I'll
knock every one of your damned teeth down your throat!"

Ambert laughed in his usual slow, sneering way. He did not
believe that Blount would make his word good, he had been so
patient up to this--all through his (Ambert's) courtship of
Elfrida. "Are you desirous of hearing it again?" said he. He
laughed. "After all, what is there to be offended at? You _are_ a
common fellow, aren't you?"

Blount took one step forward, and caught him by the collar. Then
he wrenched the cane out of his hand, and--well, he enjoyed
himself thoroughly for fully five minutes. At the end of that
time Ambert was lying on the ground cursing but cowed, and the
curate was standing over him. It had been a great five minutes.

"There, get up!" said Blount.

And Ambert rose slowly, sullenly, to his feet.

"You'll hear more of this, sir," said he; but his attempt at
dignity was sadly spoiled by the fact that he was covered with
dust, and that he had evidently a very strongly-developed desire
to keep out of range of Blount.

"Oh, go home!" said the curate contemptuously.

Ambert took his advice. He limped quietly through the trees
beyond to where he knew of a side-walk that would take him to his
house in ten minutes. He cursed and whimpered as he went. Who was
going to explain his absence to his guests? He found a ray of
comfort in the thought that Elfrida--that nobody but the curate
knew: and he was a big man and the curate nobody; and, of course,
as there were no witnesses, the big man's story would be
believed.

Of course, if Elfrida had really wished to interfere, it would
have been the simplest thing in the world for her to call aloud
to Ambert; that would have checked the fracas before it came to
any serious proportions; but, oddly enough, after her one protest
to Mr. Browne, she had stood looking on, as if spellbound. She
had heard everything--seen everything. She had not even shown
anger when Dicky went into silent hysterics over Ambert's
appearance as he rose from the ground covered with dust and his
coat considerably the worse for wear.

As Ambert slunk away between the trees, Mr. Browne darted forward
and up to Blount and wrapped him in a warm embrace.

"Blount, how I love you!" cried he sentimentally. "Oh, Tom, what
a treat you've given me! You couldn't do it all  over again,
could you?"

"What the deuce am I to say to the bishop?" said he. He looked
quite limp now. The light of battle had died from his eyes.

"Nothing--not a word!" said Dicky. "Do you think that beggar
won't be glad to keep his skinning quiet?"

"After all, I shouldn't have thrashed him, Browne. It--it was
unclerical--unchristian, you know."

"It was the most Christian act of your life," said Mr. Browne.

"It was an act of martyrdom. Because if you hadn't done it,
somebody else would, and so you've saved the soul of another.
See?"

"I don't," said Blount. "I ought to have argued with him--borne
with him."

"And been trampled under foot by him. Not a bit of it. Come along
with me. Elfrida is in here, and she---"

"Miss Firs-Robinson!" The curate grew crimson. "She--she
didn't---"

"Yes, she did. And a good thing too. Come and speak to her."

"Are you _mad?_" said Blount. He gathered up his hat and a few
other things that had come off during the skirmish--and fled
for his life.



CHAPTER XXXI


"Well," said Elfrida angrily, when Mr. Browne got back to her,
"you think him very brave, of course, but why did he run away
like that? You're a most annoying man, anyway." Elfrida made an
irritated movement. "I wasn't thinking of Ambert. _He's_ all
right."

"Well, I'm not so sure," said Mr. Browne thoughtfully.

"At all events, I don't care whether he is or not!" said Elfrida,
with now undissembled wrath. "What I want to know is why Mr.
Blount ran away just now. What was the matter with him? What did
he expect?" Elfrida made a petulant gesture, and Agatha said
gently,---

"It was the last thing Mr. Blount would have liked to be led
into, but I do not think any one could blame him; I am very sorry
about it."

"Well, I'm not," said Dillwyn. "If ever a man got his deserts in
this life, it was Ambert. And how he took it, too!" He laughed
contemptuously. "Not a blow in return."

Elfrida coloured hotly.

"I didn't see. I didn't look," said Agatha. "It was terrible. I
hope he wasn't hurt. You saw Lord Ambert going away, Dicky. How
did he look?"

Mr. Browne considered, and then gave words to memory. "Like a
crushed strawberry," said he, with all the usual grace that
belonged to him.

A little silence followed this, and then Elfrida gave way to
unmistakable mirth.

Presently she felt a little ashamed, and tried to explain herself
away.

"Ah, but you should have seen how Mr. Blount looked!" cried she.
This was, however, the openest subterfuge. She certainly had not
been thinking of Blount's appearance when she laughed.

She drew Agatha away and laid her hands upon her arms.

"It is all over. It is done. You were right, Agatha. I shall
never marry him."

"You mean--Lord Ambert?"

"I mean that beast!" said Elfrida, who seldom studied the
delicacies of the language--"that hateful coward!"

"You will break off with him? Elfrida, it will take courage."

"It will not take one moment." said Elfrida. "I shall be home in
half an hour; it will take me five seconds to scribble a note,
and twenty minutes after that I shall be free again. Free as
air!"

"I hope you are in earnest--that you mean it," said Agatha
gravely, "because he may make an unpleasantness about it."

"Ah, I'm so afraid he _won't,_" said Elfrida.

Dicky Browne, coming up at this moment with Dillwyn, heard her
and understood.

"It was a great run," said Mr. Browne, "and full of pluck--on
one side. I'm glad I was in at the death."

He sank upon the mossy bank next to Elfrida, whilst Dillwyn
gladly accepted the opportunity to get beside Agatha. Agatha
decidedly had the best of it. Mr. Browne was bent on teasing.

"I could see you looking on," said he to Elfrida. "You clapped,
didn't you?"

"No," said Elfrida.

Her brows contracted. She felt so sorry for herself.

"Ah, you should," said Mr. Browne; "such a splendid performance.
Pit and gallery rose to it."

"Where did you place me?" asked she coldly. "Gallery?"

But here Dillwyn interposed, cutting off Dicky's extremely low
joke.

"I tell you what," said the latter, who really had no sense of
decent feeling, and was not even now ashamed of himself, "I never
felt so cheerful in my life as when Blount floored that fellow.
When I saw him lying on the ground in a state of collapse, I fell
upon my own neck with delight."

"When you fell on your own neck"--Elfrida suppressed her smile
--"did  you enjoy it?"

"'Twas poor--'twas very poor," confessed Mr. Browne. "But what
was to be done? If you"--he looked at Elfrida--"had been
there--I could  have had your neck to fall upon."

"Certainly you could not," said Elfrida indignantly.

"What!" Mr. Browne's tone had taken a most reproachful cadence.

"You mean to say you wouldn't have succoured me under such trying
circumstances?"

"Under no circumstances."

"Your cruelty lays it all plain," said he. "Surely it was most
merciful, considering all things, that I had my own neck to fall
back upon."

"I think your own neck must have been greatly surprised," said
Elfrida caustically.

"Why?" demanded Mr. Brown, regarding her with severity. "Do you
think it was the first time it was subjected to such sweet
assaults?"

"What do you mean, Dicky? I am thankful to say that I know very
little of you or your neck."

"Then, I'm sorry for you," said Mr. Browne sadly. "You've been
done out of a real good thing. I must make it up to you later
on."

"Agatha, we ought to find auntie and go home," said Elfrida.

She gave Dicky a short glance, but one full of contempt. It
seemed to delight him. She drew Agatha away with her.

"You are still steadfast?" asked Agatha, who was afraid she
wasn't.

"Quite--quite." She paused, and then laughed below her breath.

"How could I marry a crushed strawberry?" said she.

Agatha did not answer her, but she felt the frivolous Dicky had
his uses.

As they came towards the party in general, they found it already
on the move. Ill news flies apace, and some little tidings, some
faint echoes in the air, had reached the others.

At all events, Mrs. Greatorex, horrified, was sending in all
directions for Agatha. Dr. Darkham was her messenger. These
sudden scandals were so disgraceful. Would he go and look for
Agatha, he who---

There was a last moment, however, when Agatha found herself alone
with Dillwyn. The short, scrubby bushes were thick in this
blessed spot--Dillwyn and Agatha were virtually alone.

"That is all over, I fancy," said Dillwyn, alluding to Elfrida's
engagement with Ambert.

"Yes, I think so. I am sure of it."

"The best thing that could happen to her. Love alone makes
marriage sacred."

"And as for  Ambert--he would not have made her happy."

"I don't believe he could make anybody happy. But don't let us
waste our time over him. We have only a moment--When can I see
you again?"

"To-morrow. By the river?"

"Yes. At four. Agatha, I hope you know how I feel about all this
secrecy--how I detest it. It is always on my mind that our
meetings will be discovered, and that on you the annoyance will
fall. Every evening I picture you to myself sitting dolefully"--
he tried to smile--"whilst Mrs. Greatorex scolds you. I would
to Heaven, my darling, I were a rich man--though I never cared
for money till I saw you."

"You mustn't expect miracles," said she tenderly; "but somehow I
feel sure it will all be right, and very soon, too. Aunt Hilda
will give in--she cannot persist much longer--or else something
will happen."



CHAPTER XXXII


Elfrida stayed awake till twelve o'clock that night. Then she
went to bed and slept soundly until her maid next morning called
her.

She had said last night she would not marry Ambert. She had not
yet, however, said whom she _would_ marry.

She dressed herself and went down to the garden. She always rose
early, and was in the habit of taking a little first breakfast in
her own room. And now she found that the tiny cup of chocolate
and its accompanying roll was as much as she cared for to-day.

She strolled slowly here and there. But presently she left the
garden and strolled idly into the meadow beyond it, and, leaning
her arms upon the stile, told herself it was lovely to be alone
for once, and at this delightful hour, with not a single weight
on her mind, not a creature in sight, and her engagement broken
off!

Engagements were odious! Never would she submit to one again.
They meant waiting and waiting. If ever she were to dream of
marriage again, there should be no engagement. Hateful word!

Suddenly a quick light grew within her eyes. Down there in the
lower field, quite a quarter of a mile away, some one was walking
quickly. A quarter of a mile is a long way for people to
distinguish one person from another, but somehow Elfrida was
equal to the occasion. She knew at once that the man down there
trudging across that field was Tom. She always called him Mr.
Blount to _people_, but to herself of late he had been Tom.

She thought a moment, and then this finished coquette drew a
handkerchief from her pocket and held it aloft.

The breeze caught and swayed it most delicately to and fro, but
it did not seem to be of much use. At all events, the curate held
his even way, and was now nearly across the field without having
glanced once in its direction.

Elfrida was a person hard to beat. She now flung down her
handkerchief, and raised both her small white hands to her mouth.

"Coo-ee."

The old Australian call came sweetly from her lips, and rang as
such a sweet call should, straight to where it was meant to go.

The young man in the field below stood still, glanced to right
and left, and then direct to the right.

Yes; she was there! It was she who had called him.

Blount knew nothing of what had happened after he ran away
yesterday from her displeasure.

He was quite near before he dared to look at her, and then his
spirits went up with a bound. _She had not heard, then!_

She received him sweetly.

"Fancy your cutting me like that," said she.

"Cutting you?"

"Well, yes--down there in the lower meadow. I waved my
handkerchief to you, but, of course, one needn't see a thing
unless one likes."

"I should have liked," said he. "But I didn't see."

"No? And then I called to you. You"--with a glance from under
her long lashes--"_had_ to come then."

"You know very well," said he, with some reproach, "that I was
only too glad to come."

She laughed a little, but she had the grace to blush.

"What made you do that yesterday?" asked she at last, in a low
tone.

"Who told you?" asked he. "But that is outside the matter. I did
it because it was what I have been longing to do for months. Of
course"--slowly--"I could say I did it because he insulted
me, but there's no good telling a lie about it."

"For months! And why?"

"Well--if you will have it," said he desperately. "I half
killed that fellow because you had promised to marry him, and--
God forgive me--I'm not a bit sorry for it."

There was a short silence, then Elfrida looked straight at him.

"Neither am I," said she.

This astounding announcement from the bride-elect of the man he
had just thrashed startled Blount into more immediate action.

"Then, what on earth are you marrying him for?"

"Oh, that's all over," said Elfrida airily.

"_What's_ over?"

"My engagement to Lord Ambert. Didn't you know? I could not
possibly marry a man who had been beaten--and beaten by _you_!"

"You are free now?"

"I don't know," said she softly. Her eyes were again on the
ground.

Tom Blount looked at her. Was she in earnest?

"You don't believe it," she said. She could read him like a book.

"It seems to me"--petulantly--"that you don't _want_ to
believe it. And yet you tell me you half killed  that coward just
because---"

"I loved you," said Blount.

"Ah!" She was not looking at the pebble now; she was looking at
him. "You loved me _then_; I wonder--if you love me now."

"Elfrida!"

"You do?" She laughed again, so prettily, and held out to him her
hand. He took it and held it fast.

"Why don't you kiss it?" she said, coquette to the last.

"I will not kiss your hand unless I may kiss you," said he. "And
I would not kiss you unless you said you would be my wife."

"Wouldn't you?" said Elfrida. All her old audacity had come back
to her. She stood erect, and looked at him defiantly. Her eyes
sparkled; she did not, however, remove her hand from his grasp.
It would have been difficult. "Very well, then, let me tell you
that _I_ wouldn't  kiss you for anything you could offer--
unless you said you would be my husband."

I don't think either of them knew which was the first. It was a
simultaneous rush into each other's arms.

 ....

She took him in to breakfast--she had recovered her appetite--
and told Miss Firs-Robinson all about it on the spot.

Miss Firs-Robinson, who had refused to believe in Elfrida's
determination to break off her engagement with Ambert, was at
first greatly upset. She marched to the window, turning her back
upon Blount--it was beyond question the finest back in Europe
--and there thrummed upon the panes for a minute or so. Then she
came back.

"It is a blow--a blow," said she. "Your poor father meant you
to be---"

"Happy!" said Elfrida, "And I shall be so happy with Tom, and Tom
with me. Won't  you, Tom?" Blount had his arm round her in a
moment. "And I couldn't bear Ambert, auntie, could I now? And you
couldn't bear him, either, could you now?"

She left Blount's dear arms, and went to Miss Firs-Robinson, and
slipped herself into her embrace.

"He was an earl!" said the old lady, in a distinct tone.

"He was a beast," said her niece sweetly.

There seemed something definite about this. Miss Firs-Robinson
let Elfrida recline upon her ample bosom, and Elfrida accepted
the air-cushion very gracefully. Peace with honour seemed to be
restored, when all at once Miss Firs-Robinson spoke again. Her
words were unpleasant, but she for the first time on this
eventful morning addressed them to Blount, which of course was a
good sign.

"Elfrida has a great deal of money," said she.

"I know," said Blount. He was feeling restive.

"Why," said he, looking at Elfrida, "could you not endow a
hospital or an orphanage, or---"

"Certainly not!" said Elfrida, abandoning the air-cushion on the
spot. "Why should we be uncomfortable just because we happen to
love each other?" She ran to him. "I love you, and you love me,
and, auntie"--she looked back and held out her hand to the old
lady--"you love him too, don't you?"

"How can I tell?" said she.

"Well, at all events, you _hated_ Ambert, didn't you now?"
Miss Firs-Robinson struggled with herself and then gave way. She
burst into tears.

"Like poison, my dear," said she--"_like poison_."



CHAPTER XXXIII


One surprise makes many. The neighbourhood of Rickton had hardly
recovered from its astonishment about the fact that Elfrida had
thrown over Lord Ambert and accepted the curate, when a still
greater piece of news descended upon them.

Old Reginald Greatorex died on the very evening of the day that
saw Elfrida's emancipation, and a letter two days later from his
solicitors told Dillwyn that the old man had made him his heir.
Dillwyn went down to the funeral, and heard the will read. It was
all true. There were no near relations, and no entail. Reginald
was at liberty to leave his property as he chose--and he chose
now to leave Medlands and three thousand a year to the son of the
woman who had been the one love of his life.

To Mrs. Greatorex  he left ten thousand pounds, to her immense
astonishment. She had expected nothing from him. It made her feel
quite rich, and on the spot she forgave him all.

Dillwyn, on his return, had an early interview with her. He was
determined to see her even before seeing Agatha, though he wrote
the latter an impassioned note out of the fullness of his heart.
Mrs. Greatorex received him with open arms and without a touch of
embarrassment. She told him in the frankest way that she had
always liked him--nay, _loved_ him; but, of course, he could
see that Agatha must be considered. She had constituted herself
her dear girl's guardian, and was it not her duty then to place
her as well in life as possible? But that was all over now, of
course, and her darling Agatha would be happy and comfortable as
well. When he was going away she kissed him, and told him she was
never so delighted in her life--she knew he was the only man in
the world who could make her dearest girl happy.

He had to go off in a hurry to see old General Montgomery, who
had had another slight attack last night, and who would allow no
doctor but Dillwyn near him. He had chafed greatly at the young
man's unavoidable absence during the past two days.

When he was gone, Mrs. Greatorex sent for Agatha. The girl quite
expected that she would have said something about Jack, but there
was no mention of him for some time; she dwelt largely on the
difference the ten thousand pounds would make in her income, and
then drifted off to Elfrida. She had behaved so wisely, she said.

"That is quite what I think," said Agatha. "She would have been
wretched with Lord Ambert."

"Absolutely so."

"No wonder!" said Agatha earnestly. "Such an odious man!"

"My dear, it wasn't the man, it was the position that frightened
her. A girl like that--of _no_ family, whose people kept a
_store_--to even _dream_ of being a countess was the most
outrageous presumption. At the last, you see, she shrank from it;
she felt she could not with any propriety wear a coronet. Her
brows were not formed for it by nature. It"--solemnly--"would
drop off. Now you, Agatha, you will indeed be a fitting mistress
for--Medlands!"

Agatha sat and stared. Mrs. Greatorex beamed back at her.

"I think," she said lightly, "you had better write a little line
to Dr. Darkham to terminate that unfortunate engagement."

"There was no engagement," said the girl proudly, "except my
engagement to Jack. I have had nothing to do with Dr. Darkham--
nothing!"

"Well--very little, certainly," said Mrs. Greatorex. She
smiled. "He has hardly anything to complain of, really. Hardly
_anything_. I shall send him a little diplomatic, friendly line
at once."

 ....

Under the trees it was charming, though many of them were now
losing their leaves. Agatha and Dillwyn sat beneath a huge beech,
and made sweet plans for their future. It was lovely to be alone,
and to be able to say everything that came straight from their
hearts without the necessity of whispering. Of course they could
not tell that just behind them, kneeling in the shelter of a
thick growth of young trees, was a man--a man whose face was
the face of a devil at that moment.

They arranged that they should live at Medlands, and they named
the day for their wedding. There was nothing to grieve them in
old Reginald's death.

"I feel as if I ought to be sorry for him," said he, with a
little self-reproach. "But somehow I can feel nothing but that I
can claim you now before the world."

"I was yours, whether the world knew it or not," said she.

"I know--I know.... Mrs. Greatorex has written to Darkham?"

"Yes; immediately after you left. He knows by this time that even
a question of an engagement is at an end."

The man behind smiled. There was a look on his face as though he
were jotting down something in his memory.

Dillwyn looked at his watch, and suddenly sprang to his feet.

"By Jove!" said he, "it's just two."

"Well, but that is very early," in an aggrieved tone.

"Too early"--with disgust. "But that poor old fellow is very
unstrung, and begged me to go back at two."

"The General?"

"Yes. I'll pull him through, I think; but he is very shaky and
nervous. I am going to sleep there to-night."

"Are you? Oh, I'm glad," said Agatha quickly.

"Glad! Why?"

"I don't know"--she hesitated. "Don't despise me for it, Jack;
but I do dread that horrible man, Dr. Darkham. Sometimes I think
he is mad. However, at General Montgomery's you will be safe."

Dillwyn laughed gaily, and caught her to him and kissed her.

Darkham kneeling there in his purgatory, had seen and heard
everything.... On such and such a day they were to be married.
All their young lives were to be a dream of joy!

When they were gone he fell prone upon the earth--with his face
to it, and so lay long without moving.

Then he raised himself and got slowly to his feet. He looked
round him for a moment vaguely, as though earth and sky and place
were strange to him. Then he turned and ran, crashing wildly
through brambles and bracken and furze, as though there was a
fiend out of hell pursuing him.... Perhaps there was.



CHAPTER XXXIV


It was the evening of the same day.

A clock somewhere struck five, and Darkham suddenly heard it. It
seemed to wake him from his frightful dream--a dream in which
he had been walking--walking always--he did not know where.

Now as he looked up he knew. He stood at the gate of General
Montgomery's avenue.

He opened the gate and went in. The place was familiar to him.
How often he had been here attending on the old man until this
Dillwyn came! He went slowly onwards into the deeper twilight of
the trees. How cool it was--how green, how quiet! He took off
his hat and let his forehead bathe itself in the dewy stillness.

When he came close to the house he stopped short. Masons were
hurrying in and out of one of the side doors, and a ladder lay
against a wall that led to an upper window. He had heard that
some improvements were being made in the house which was a
hideous structure, but he had imagined they would have been put
back by the General's illness. That ladder--why, up there was
the room in which the old man used to sleep.

Presently a mason came out of the house and towards the spot
where he was standing. Darkham, who was quite himself again, felt
a little ashamed of being discovered here without any purpose.
Going quickly forward, he met the man half-way.

"Surely you are not working here, when the General is so ill?" he
said, in a tone of polite surprise.

"No, sir. We've just got our orders to do no more for some days.
We're collecting out tools, that's all, and are off to another
job."

"I see."

"The General's main bad, I'm told. The doctor's just come and
gone. He--you know him: Dr. Dillwyn--is sleeping here to-night,
it seems, if you can call it sleeping when he only gets two
hours."

"How two hours?"

"Well, I don't know, sir. But that's how it is. I head the
servants talking. And mighty poor rest it seems to me for a man
that's toiling all day. I suppose he'll be up with the old gent
the rest of the night. He wouldn't have another thing done to
that window, either"--pointing to the window against which the
ladder lay--"although he is sleeping in that room, and the
lower sash is out, as you can see. Seems he always sleeps with
the window open."

Darkham nodded to him as a dismissal, and he moved away. Just as
he was turning the corner, however, Darkham called to him.

"You are leaving your ladder?"

"Yes, sir. Hope to be back shortly, and the ladder'll do no
harm."

"No, of course not, unless the doctor objects--he's sleeping in
that room, you say."

"Why, bless you! the ladder can't harm him."

"True. Especially when he has only got two hours to endure it."
Darkham laughed pleasantly. "I hope they will be early ones, at
all events."

"Twelve to two, Maria says. Not so early, either."

Darkham nodded again, and, when the mason was out of sight,
turned and went home. As he walked he thought. And ever his
thoughts grew clearer, more concentrated.

He put his hand inside his coat, and brought out a letter. It was
the "little, diplomatic, friendly line" that Mrs. Greatorex had
sent him. He read it through again, although he knew it by heart,
and when he had finished it his face was not good to look upon.

For the past few weeks he had lived largely on Mrs. Greatorex's
promises to help him. He had believed in her promises about the
coercion of Agatha. To-day he knew what her promises were worth.
The moment fortune flung itself at his rival's feet, she had gone
over to that rival's side! Suddenly the despised Dillwyn had
become eligible and there was an end to all her professions of
friendship.

He was at this moment a far richer man than Dillwyn, but Mrs.
Greatorex had put all that aside as if it were not to be
considered. She preferred that her niece should marry a gentleman
with three thousand a year, rather than a _nobody_ with five. She
had not so much as _hinted_ at it, yet she had managed to convey
her meaning all the same. The little delicately-written, perfumed
missive was full of it!

The oath he had sworn was dear to him. He had told Agatha that
rather than see her married to Dillwyn he would destroy him.
Well!

He began to walk again, and more rapidly. He could not take his
mind off that ladder; with his eyes open, he seemed to see it. It
went along the road before him, now here, now there, with the
sashless window at the top of it.

He turned in the direction of the Red House. He hated going home.
But it would be necessary to put in an appearance there. He
feared lest, with what lay before him, his absence at dinner
to-day might be noticed by the servants.

Afterwards, when the household was quiet, he could slip out
through the library window. He told himself he must be careful to
upset the bedclothes on his return--perhaps, however, it would
be better to do so before starting.

He laid his plans very carefully. It would take, first so long to
get from here to The Cedars, to mount the ladder, to enter the
open window, to--It would not take long to do _that_--and
then so much time to get back again, to see to his clothes--the
spots, the stains.

It seemed quite feasible, quite safe.

It was all so comfortably arranged for him. He felt he owed
Dillwyn a debt of gratitude for the ladder and the open window.
What a truly Christian trust in Providence he showed, sleeping
thus at the mercy of all men! He shook anew with his horrible
merriment. What a gay bridegroom he would look to-morrow. The
early morning light would touch up his face.



CHAPTER XXXV


Darkness had fallen. The wind was sighing heavily, and no star
appeared.

Through the dense shadow of the trees Darkham was hurrying
swiftly, stealthily. Sometimes he ran, but always he made great
haste.

A loose sweeping branch met him, and cut him across the face a
swingeing blow. He felt no pain. When he had broken it he cast it
aside impatiently and went on with even increasing speed.

Suddenly he stood still and listened. _Again_!

It was the second time he had heard that sound, or fancied he had
heard it. A dull unplaceable sound, yet one that suggested itself
to him as the footsteps of a person following.

Once before he had stopped to listen, but nothing came of it,
except the heavy soughing of the wind in the trees as the storm
swept over them. No sound but that. Yet all through his hurried
walk in the wood, it had seemed to him that that sound lay behind
him, as though some strange thing was haunting him.

He went on again, moving cautiously, yet with great speed. Every
now and then he thrust his hand into his inner pocket, and there
felt for something, and patted it with a curious affection.

As he passed the edge of the wood, almost as his foot was on the
road, he started. He looked back. The murky shadows of the wood
told him nothing; but--_that sound!_ Again that sound! He could
have sworn he heard footsteps!

A sudden fear caught him; he turned, and rushed back into the
wood, crashing to  right and left of him. If he was followed,
why, his purpose would be at an end; but he swore to himself, as
he rushed here and there, that if he caught the man who had
circumvented him, he would kill him on the spot.

Then his fury abated. He grew suddenly quite quiet. There was
nothing, after all--nothing.

He wiped his brow and went on.

He tried the latch of the gate, but it was locked. He cared
nothing for small obstructions like that. He climbed it easily
enough, and went on down the avenue.

As he drew near the house, for the first time fear rose within
his heart. But it was a fear that would have made the angels
weep.

Was the ladder there? Or had one of the workmen taken it away?

He ran frantically to the break in the laurels from which the
house could be seen.

The ladder was there!

He thrust his hand for the last time into his pocket, and felt
the knife, and fondled it. Then he went on.

He reached the ladder, put his foot on it, and mounted. He began
to climb quickly, yet with a dogged determination to make no
mistake. There should be no false step.

When he was half-way up he looked down. Beneath was an area that
surrounded the whole house--an area lately cemented. It was
broad and white and clean. In the darkness it made a sort of
light.

He turned his eyes from that and looked up. The window above was
open--wide open; the sash had not been replaced.

He mounted still higher. The sill was almost within his reach; he
put out his hand to grasp it, but it fell short. Another rung or
two, and then---

Suddenly he made a lurch forward and clung to the ladder. The
ladder was swaying to and fro. He made a quick rush upwards and
put out his hand to grasp the ledge of Dillwyn's window--but he
was still too low for that.

The ladder was swaying heavily from side to side; it was now
almost on the very edge of the sill. Soon it would be over.
Something from below must be dragging it--dragging---

He made a frantic dash at the sill--_and missed it!_

Again the ladder swayed, this time _towards_ the desired sill.
Darkham braced himself for a last effort. He made a dash and
sprang on to the sill of Dillwyn's room.

That precipitated the end. The ladder, reaching the edge, toppled
over and went with a crash to the cemented area below.

Darkham, clutching on to the sill, saw the fall of the ladder.
That meant death unless help came soon; and who was to give him
help? _The man he had come to murder?_

He clung on desperately, his nails working into the hard stone.
If he shouted, Dillwyn would hear him, would rescue him; but even
at this last moment his hatred of Dillwyn held him dumb.

His fingers were growing tired--his nails were wearing away and
loosening.... In a moment they would come to the edge, and
then---

Mad despair was in his heart. He clung desperately to the sill! A
minute--could he hold on another minute? There was only a
minute left. Was it so far to fall. Death rather than an appeal
to his rival. So far the strength of the man held out.

But now his nails were loosening; his eyes, mad with fear, sought
the ground below.

He looked--_and looked_--and all at once a fearful yell broke
from him.

What was that thing down there--crouching--with that white
cloth over her mouth? Had she come--_was she waiting for him?_

Great God! have mercy!

His fingers gave way. He fell with a sickening scream on to the
hard cement below.

There was a hideous thud.

 ....

That awful yell had wakened Dillwyn from his sleep--a sleep
that would have been death but for it. He sprang up and rushed to
the open window, but too late! He caught a vague, awful vision of
one falling--falling through the air into eternity--but that
was all.

It was enough, however; he lit a lamp, and rushed downstairs to
the front of the house. There he lowered the lamp and looked
about him. Nothing--nothing to be seen. He stepped down from
the avenue on to the newly-cemented area that ran round the
house, and looked about him with an anxious gaze. Suddenly he
found he was stepping on a little crimson line that ran towards
him sluggishly.

With a sharp ejaculation he stepped aside. A cold chill ran
through him. All at once he knew that it was blood.

Then he went on, following up the red line until he came to---

Darkham was lying on the pavement, smashed almost out of
recognition, yet still alive. Dillwyn knew that by the convulsive
twitching of the fingers.

A figure was bending over him. Dillwyn at once saw it was the
idiot, and even as he watched, the unhappy creature bent lower
and laid a white cloth over the dying man's nose and mouth,
pressing it down with a demoniacal force.

Dillwyn hurried forward, calling aloud as he came, but the idiot
crouching over Darkham could not hear. At last he reached them
and flung himself upon the wretched boy, and tore him from his
prey.

The idiot grappled with him in a sort of frenzy, but Dillwyn held
on. The lamp threw a dull light upon the dying man's face--but
above them and around was gloom.

All at once the idiot desisted from his struggle; he pointed
frantically to Darkham.

Dillwyn followed his gaze. Darkham had risen on his elbow--it
was the last effort before death. Dillwyn went to him and laid
his arm round him, but Darkham pushed him back. Yet it seemed to
the younger man that, though Darkham's hatred of him followed him
to the grave, his last thoughts were not of him.

The dying man lifted his hand and pointed it slowly, solemnly at
his son--the son who sat opposite to him, laughing in his dying
face. There was some awful meaning in Darkham's glazing eyes, as
though he saw something beyond the idiot--something so horrible
that it _kept_ him alive in spite of nature. He struggled forward
as though to address _some one_--some one Dillwyn could not see
--but the struggle was too much for him, and he fell back....
Dillwyn caught him in his arms--he was dead.

A great shout rose from the idiot.

"Sho! Sho! Sho!" yelled he.

His mother was avenged.





*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Red House Mystery - The Piccadilly Novels" ***

Copyright 2023 LibraryBlog. All rights reserved.