Here and Hereafter

The other girls had received similar instructions. Cecilia had been told to bring her musical-box as well. They all met in Rose's schoolroom, and at first she did not explain her instructions fully.

"I've got a splendid thing," she said. "First of all, when I say 'Go,' you must all run after me at once, bringing the things with you, and then when we get there I'll tell you the rest."

Rose's governess was with them at tea, but afterwards she made ready to go out into the garden, suggesting that they should come too.

"May we wait a little and then come?" asked Rose. "We want to play in the house first."

"Very well," said Miss Stagg. "Don't get into any mischief."

The moment she had gone Rose said "Go!" In single file, with Rose leading, they ran down a long passage and into the spare bedroom at the end of it.

"Now, then," said Rose, "first of all, we tie clean white handkerchiefs on our heads." It was done. "Now, come and look."

In the spare room there was a very large toilet-table. It was hung all round with pink chintz with thin white muslin over it. When you got under the table the world was shut out by these curtains, and the light came through them in a holy, pink, subdued glow. It was a charming and secluded spot, and here Miss Rose had placed all ready two small coloured candles and a box of matches, and the lid of a box piled high with rose petals, and the green leaf essential to the opening of the temple. All agreed that it really was as splendid as she had said. A conference was held, and the ritual decided. The candles were lighted, and placed one on each side of the temple. The green leaf was waved, the temple opened, and the magic rings taken out. At this point the musical-box was to begin to play. The Priestess had assigned the turning of the musical-box to Two, because, after all, it was her own musical-box, and she had so few privileges. So Two was radiant. The magic rings were to be covered over with the rose petals, left there until the music ceased, and then replaced in the temple. Then everybody was to say, "O magic rings!" three times, and the candles were to be extinguished. The programme was never concluded, because, in the middle of it, Rose's governess, Miss Stagg, came and caught them.

It was Miss Stagg's opinion that they were very naughty, wicked, irreverent children, and that they ran a risk of burning the house down. The first accusation was untrue, but the latter had something in it.

The four children wandered out into the garden, a dejected group. Cecilia was the only one who had actually cried though, and they had all comforted her as well as they could.

"I do hate Miss Stagg," said Rose. "This is the end of the magic rings."

Netta, the make-believer, rose to the occasion with a new myth.

"The magic rings have been insulted. They do not like that. I don't like being insulted myself, and if it had been my governess I should have answered back. Well, I know what the magic rings will do now."

"What?"—breathlessly, from all.

"They will go away. To-night I shall put them in their temple in their usual place. But to-morrow all of you come in the morning after lessons, and you'll see—they'll be gone! They will go right away by themselves, perhaps to the moon and perhaps to the Star of Dolls."

Miss Stagg thought it her duty to inform Mrs Heritage, who heard the story gravely, and thanked her, but repeated it brilliantly, amid a good deal of merriment, to the make-believer's father, when she dined at his house that night.

"Ah!" he said, "I must manage a mysterious disappearance for those rings."

When next morning Netta and her companions opened the temple the rings were not there, but in their place was a slip of paper, on which the word "Good-bye" was written. Not one of the four was more astonished than Netta herself. "It's really happened. I wasn't sure it would, you know."

"I shall tell Miss Stagg," said Rose, triumphantly.

"I wonder if we really were wicked," said Cecilia, with a troubled look in her angel-eyes. "I didn't mean to be."

They never solved the mystery; gradually they forgot it.

Part II.—Further off from Heaven

Forty years passed, and but two of the people of this story were left alive—Rose Heritage and Netta. Rose Heritage had become Lady Mallard, lived in a big house in the country, and had a grown-up family. Netta lived alone in a small house in West Kensington. The two never corresponded, and heard nothing of each other now. The friendship had never been violently broken off. It had perished from time and separation, as friendships will.

Of the others, Cecilia was the first to die. As a child her nurses had said that she was too good to live. As a girl of eighteen she seemed too beautiful to live. It was a beauty so spiritual, so unearthly, that to see it was to feel that it was claimed elsewhere. Netta's father had died with the complaint on his lips that physical pain had so far destroyed his sense of humour that he got no more pleasure out of leading articles. Jimmy had gone into the army, spent his own share of his father's property and most of Netta's, and finally redeemed by a gallant death a life that had been remarkably extravagant and bad.

Netta's hair was grey; her face was worn and ascetic. But one would have said rightly that she must have been a handsome woman in her time. She had never married. At seventeen she had been in love with a man whom she could not marry, a hopeless affair, and horrible enough for her while it lasted. It lasted three years. It was all forgotten now, or only the vague memory of a bad dream. Jimmy had been a care to her, too; she never knew while he lived what might not be the next news that she would hear of him. She had become a learned, lonely woman now, had taken the degree of doctor of medicine, practised a little, and wrote very often. She wrote mostly on her own special subject, but occasionally for less technical and more widely-read journals.

She had been writing for one of them, this afternoon, in her poorly-furnished study upstairs. It was growing dark, and her reading-lamp by her side was lit; but she had not yet had the curtains drawn, and through the windows she could see the white snow falling slowly into the dirty street. She had stopped writing in the middle of a sentence:

"And, whether the sentimentalist—"

She had flung down her pen impatiently. She had been teased all day by an effort to remember something—to explain what was after all a perfectly trivial thing. In turning over a cupboardful of papers, which had belonged to her father and been left practically untouched ever since they had been sent to her house, she had come across three old curtain rings carefully tied together. A label was attached to them, and on it was written—the ink was faded and yellow—"Netta, the Make-Believer." Underneath were a few words of Greek. She remembered vaguely that when she was a child there was something about curtain-rings—she had played with them, possibly. But if that was all, why had her father thought it worth while to keep them? What was it exactly that she used to do with those rings?

These silly questions would keep coming into her head and distracting her attention from her work. She shivered a little—the room was chilly—and took up her pen again. She wrote:

"And, whether the sentimentalist believes it or whether he does not, this religious passion which he admires so vastly in his nuns and martyrs is but a perversion of an instinct which—"

Once more she paused. The room was really too cold. Looking round, she saw that the fire was almost out. She was accustomed to do things for herself, and she set to work to revive it at once. She opened the cupboard where she generally kept a few sticks for the purpose, but this afternoon there was none there. The curtain-rings lay on her writing-table, still tied together. Why, of course, they would do as well.

In a few minutes the fire was blazing brightly She warmed her hands at it, gazing abstractedly into the red embers. Then she went back to her work and wrote rapidly until the article was finished.

THE UNSEEN POWER

Winter walked restlessly about the room as he told his story. He was a slender young man, with very smooth hair worn rather too long, a gold-mounted pince-nez, and an expression which showed that vanity was not wholly absent from his composition. It was the story of a haunted house. The man who owned it, and was now unable to let it, had asked Winter to investigate.

"And the whole point of it is that you've got to come along and help me," he concluded.

"Thank you," said Mr Arden, "but I will not go."

Arden was a man of fifty, white-haired, thin, heavily lined.

"Well, why not?" said Winter, peevishly. "I want to know why not. It seems to me it would be rather interesting. You can choose any night you like, and—"

Arden waved the subject away with one hand. "It's useless to talk about it," he said, "I'm not going."

"But what do you mean?" said Winter. "You are not going to tell me that you're superstitious or afraid?"

"I should say," said Arden, "that I am what you would call superstitious. You, I presume, are not."

"Emphatically not," said Winter.

"Nor afraid?"

"Nor afraid," Winter echoed.

"Then why don't you go alone?" said Arden.

Winter murmured of sociability; it was no great fun to sit up all night by one's self. Besides, in the detection of a practical joke, which was probably all that it was, two would be better than one. Arden must see for himself that—

Arden broke in impetuously. "Look here," he said. "Stop wandering about the room and sit down. I'll tell you why I won't come. Did you ever hear of Minnerton Priory?"

"Of course I've heard about it. I don't know the whole story, and I don't suppose anybody does. A man lost his life over it, didn't he?"

"Two men lost their lives. I was the third man. Now, you know why I won't play with these things any more."

"Tell me about it," said Winter. "I've only heard scraps here and there, and reports are always inaccurate. So you were actually one of them. I should never have guessed it."

"I will tell you the story if you wish. Will you have it now, or will you wait till you have finished your investigation of the house at Falmouth?"

"I will hear it now," said Winter.

This is the story that Arden told.

"In 1871 my aunt, Lady Wytham, bought Minnerton Priory. The place had been uninhabited for the best part of half a century, and was in very bad repair. It was cheap and it was picturesque, and both cheapness and picturesqueness appealed to Lady Wytham. Of the original Priory there was very little left standing. Frequent additions had been made to it at different periods, and the general effect of the place when I first saw it was rather grim and queer. Lady Wytham was very energetic, had the place surveyed, and in a few months had got her workmen down there. In one wing of the house a secret chamber had been found. It was on the ground floor, and it was a small room of perhaps twelve feet square. There was one window to it, placed very high up, and this window had been built up on the outside. Opposite to the window was a small fireplace, and the only entrance to the room was from the big dining-hall. The hall was panelled, and one of the panels formed the door into the secret chamber. I believe this kind of thing is fairly common in old houses dating back to the times of religious and political trouble, when hiding-places were constantly wanted.

"The builders had not been at work many months at the Priory before there was trouble. I cannot say exactly what it was. It began with the unbricking of the little window in the secret chamber. I know that the men refused point-blank to do any work whatever in the great dining-hall. Many were dismissed and new hands were taken on, but the trouble still persisted, till finally Lady Wytham herself went down to interview the clerk of works and a foreman or two. On the following day she wrote to me. She said that an idiotic story was being told with reference to the newly-discovered chamber of Minnerton Priory, and she was anxious to have it satisfactorily knocked on the head. Would I, and any friends that I might care to bring down, spend a few nights in the secret chamber? It would probably be very uncomfortable, but she would send over furniture and a servant to wait on us. The postscript explained that the servant would not sleep in the house.

"The idea rather appealed to me, but being, unlike yourself, a little nervous over the business, I determined to take a couple of men down with me. One of them was an intimate friend of mine, Charles Stavold, a good-natured giant, but a useful man in a row. He and I talked it over together, and finally selected as the third man a young doctor, Bernard Ash. Ash was a remarkably brilliant young man, and we looked to him to supply the brains of the trio. If any practical joke were attempted he would be quite certain to find it out, and both Stavold and myself were quite sure that some practical joke would be attempted. Minnerton Priory lies in a very conservative county. The rustics of the village were quite capable of resenting Lady Wytham's intrusion into the Priory. It had always been uninhabited in their father's time, and that would be quite reason enough to determine them that it should not be inhabited now. There were some objections to our choice. Ash led an extremely dissipated life, and Stavold and myself were a little inclined to doubt his nerves. This doubt, by the way, was not justified by results.

"We reached Minnerton in the afternoon. A large staff of men was busy at work at the place, but the only person in or anywhere near the great dining-hall was Lady Wytham's servant, Rudd. She could not have sent us a better man. He could turn his hand to anything. He had already unpacked the beds and other furniture that had been sent and put them in place, and was at present engaged on getting dinner for us. We went through the dining-hall and into the secret chamber.

"'This won't do,' said Ash at once.

"'What don't do?' asked Stavold.

"'Why, there's no furniture in here of any kind. One can't sleep on these stone flags.'

"'Are we going to sleep in here?' I asked.

"'One of us is,' he said.

"I called up Rudd and gave my directions. He brought mattresses and made up a bed on the floor. Then we went round and examined the walls carefully, for, as Ash observed, where there is one trick panel there may be another. But we could find nothing that seemed in any way suspicious.

"We came back into the great hall, and sat down there and talked the thing over. It was now growing dusk. Already the tapping and hammering of the workmen had ceased, and we had heard them laughing as they passed the window on their way home. Right away at the other end of the hall came the chink of plates and the hiss of a frying-pan where Rudd was busy with his preparations. He had brought four big lamps with him, and these he now lit, but there seemed to be something impenetrable about the darkness of this vast room. The light was still dim, with masses of dark shadow waving in the far corners and in the vaulted roof above us.

"'Who's going to sleep in the haunted chamber?' Stavold asked.

"'I am,' said Ash.

"We squabbled about it, and finally decided to toss for it. Ash had his own way. He was to sleep there that night, Stavold was to sleep there the second night, and I myself was left the third night. By this time we had little doubt that we should be at the bottom of the mystery.

"Rudd gave us an excellent dinner, and had shown wisdom in his choice of the wine which he had brought with him. The wine made glad the heart of man, and before dinner was over we were treating the whole thing more as an amusing kind of spree than as a serious investigation. At ten o'clock Rudd inquired at what hour we should like breakfast in the morning, and asked if there was anything further he could do for us that night.

"'Aren't you going to stop and see the ghost, Rudd?' I asked.

"'I think not, sir,' he said quietly. 'Her ladyship had arranged, sir, that I should sleep at the inn.'

"So we let him go, and I had a curious feeling that with him went the most competent man of the four. Perhaps the same idea had occurred to Ash.

"'He's a perfect wonder,' said Ash. 'Fancy being able to turn out a dinner like that here, with no proper appliances of any kind. I don't call it cooking; I call it conjuring tricks.'

"'Perhaps you'll see some more conjuring tricks a little later,' said Stavold, grimly.

"After dinner we played poker for an hour or so and then turned in. One of the lamps was left burning in the big hall, and Ash took a candle with him into the secret chamber. But he did not propose to leave it lighted. It wouldn't be playing the game, he said.

"Some time after I had got into bed I could hear Ash tapping on the panels and trying them again, and I could see the light under the door. Stavold was already heavily sleeping. I knew nothing more till I was awakened by him early on the following morning. Rudd had already returned, and was preparing breakfast. Naturally our first move was to the secret chamber. We opened the panel door and went in. Ash's clothes were lying on the only chair in the room. The bed had been slept in, but there was no one there now. I noticed that the two candlesticks had also vanished. For a moment or two neither of us spoke, and then I asked my companion what he made of it.

"'That's all right,' he said, 'Ash woke early, and has slipped down to the river in his pyjamas to get a swim. It's ten to one we find him there.'

"It was not impossible, but I was surprised that he had not awakened either of us in passing through the hall. We picked up our towels and went down to the river. We called and got no answer, but we had not at this time begun to be anxious. Possibly after his bath he had gone off for a stroll through the plantations. We took a long swim, lit our pipes, and walked up to the house. The workmen were busy now on the new part far away from the big hall. In the hall itself we found breakfast laid for three.

"'Dr Ash has come back then?' I said to Rudd.

"Rudd looked puzzled. 'I have not seen him this morning, sir.'

"'Drowned himself?' I suggested to Stavold.

"'Not a bit of it. Why should he? This is a little practical joke of Ash's. We'll see if he doesn't get tired of it before we do. Hunger will bring him back at lunch-time.'

"Late in the afternoon he had not returned, and we sent word up to the police-station. The police-station sent us the usual idiot, who made his notes and did his best to look as if he knew what to do. We spent the rest of the day in searching for Ash with no success. At ten o'clock we gave it up, and Rudd went back to the inn. We did very little talking, and I had some curious and inexplicable feelings as I sat there in the silence. My tobacco pouch lay on the table at arm's length, and I found myself thinking that I might have an impulse to take it up in my hand but that as I did not want the pouch at the moment I should resist the impulse. Then my hand shot right out to the pouch, gripped it, and shook it.

"'What the devil are you doing?' said Stavold.

"I flung the pouch down and got up from my chair. 'Dropping off to sleep, I fancy,' I said.

"'You didn't look it.'

"'Well, I ought to know, oughtn't I? Help me to drag another bed into that chamber there. We'll see it through together to-night.'

"'Oh, no, we won't,' said my companion. 'If we did that we should leave this hall here for the use of the practical jokers, if there are any. You will sleep here to-night. I shall take my turn in the secret chamber; only, if I can help it, I shan't sleep.'

"'I wonder where on earth Ash is,' I said.

"'We don't know and it won't improve our nerves to imagine. Yours seem a bit jumpy anyhow. We've done all we can to find him. Leave it at that.'

"I did not expect to sleep that night, yet sleep came to me in fits. I had wakened many times, and at last I determined that I might as well get up. In half an hour the grey dawn would be beginning. I remembered that Stavold had told me that he did not mean to go to sleep. I whistled softly as I slipped on my clothes, so that he might hear that I was moving about and join me. As he did not come I listened at the door of the chamber and heard no sound. In a moment I was standing inside it with the lamp shaking in my hand. The room was exactly as we had found it the morning before. There was nobody there. The bed had been slept in, and was now empty. The clothes lay on the chair. The candlestick had gone. I was horribly frightened.

"I did not wait for Rudd to come back. I went on to the village police-station at once and told my story. There was no doubt that this was a serious matter, and before breakfast-time an inspector had arrived from Saltham. Accompanied by a serjeant and myself he came over to the Priory and into the dining-hall.

"'I think I'll take a look round by myself first,' he said. 'You can wait here.' He went into the chamber, and I could hear his heavy boots on the flags and the useless tapping on the walls. I was confident that nothing could be found there. There were a few minutes of silence, and he opened the door and said, 'Will you come in here, Mr Arden?'

"I went in and saw that the bed had been pulled out from its usual place in the corner. He pointed to a large flagstone which the bed had covered.

"'I should like to show you, sir, a curious optical effect there is in this room. Would you mind standing on that flagstone there?'

"I came round the bed to it, and my foot had just touched it when I was jerked backwards and fell to the floor.

"'Beg your pardon, sir,' said the inspector behind me. 'I had to satisfy myself that you didn't know of the trap. See here.'

"He knelt down beside the big flagstone and touched it lightly with his fingers. It was exactly balanced by a big iron pin through the centre, and it now swung open, showing a dark shaft going far down into the earth.

"'You mean that they are down there?' I said.

"'Not a doubt. Each of them, as is only natural, tried the floor as well as the walls, and moved the bed for the purpose. That finished them. It's the merest chance that I didn't go down the shaft myself.'

"'Well,' I said, 'the sooner we go down there the better. Where can we get a rope?'

"The inspector picked up a small tin match-box and emptied out the matches into the palm of his hand. 'Listen,' he said. He flung the box down the shaft. We listened, and listened, but heard no sound. 'See?' he said. 'That's deep. No use to get a rope there. Anyone who fell down there is dead. That's been a well, I should say.'

"I was angry with the man's cock-surety, and said that I was going down in any case. A rope was brought and attached to a lighted lantern. The lantern was lowered, and in a few yards went out. The experiment was tried again and again, and each time the lantern was extinguished by the foul air. It was hopeless. No human being could have lived for five minutes down there.

"I rose from the floor, put on my coat, and turned to the inspector. 'This explains nothing,' I said. 'On the morning that Dr Ash was missed I went in here with Mr Stavold, and we found the bed placed as it had been the night before, immediately over this trap. If Dr Ash fell down it how did he put the bed back after him? The same thing applies to Mr Stavold; again the bed was left over the trap.'

"'They did not move the bed back again, but somebody else did.'

"'Who?'

"'That is what I hope to find out to-night? Are you yourself willing to sleep to-night in the big hall alone?'

"'Certainly. I don't exactly see what the idea is.'

"'Never mind about that. It may come to nothing. One can but try. You say that Rudd locked the door to this hall when he went out at night?'

"'Yes. A modern lock had been fitted, and the door locked itself as soon as it was shut. It could only be opened from the outside with a latch-key.'

"'And no one but yourself, that you know of, had a key?'

"'No one that I know of.'

"'Very well. I have a few things to see after. I must speak to this man Rudd. I shall see you again before nightfall.'

"I spent a horribly long day. I had to telegraph to the relatives of my two friends. I sent Rudd for books, and tried in vain to read. Rudd was aware that the police had a suspicious eye upon him and was in a state of suppressed fury. While Rudd was away I again examined the inner chamber. The window was too high up to be reached by anyone within the room, and too closely barred to admit of anyone passing through it. The chimney was equally impassable. No vestige of hope was left to me. At ten o'clock the inspector came in and told me that he had given up for the night. He looked thoughtfully towards the whisky decanter. I gave him a drink and mixed one for myself. Then he said good-night and went off.

"I had not expected to sleep, but an insurmountable drowsiness came over me. I flung myself down on the bed as I was, without undressing, hoping that in this way I should wake again in an hour or so.

"When I woke the room was brightly lighted. The inspector, two of his men, and Rudd himself were all there. I was startled.

"'What's the matter? What's up?' I said.

"'Nothing much,' said the inspector, 'but I know who put the bed back in its place.'

"'Who was it?'

"'It was yourself, sir. You did it in your sleep. It had occurred to me that this was just possible, and I had a man watching through the window of the room.'

"'It is impossible,' I said. 'I should know something of it. I am sure I have been here ever since you left me. Your man must have made a mistake.'

"'My man made no mistake,' said the inspector, drily, 'for my man happened to be myself. You came in, set the lamp down, pushed the bed over to one corner, and then went to the chair, where you seemed to be folding up imaginary clothes.'

"The bodies were recovered two days later, and the whole story of course got into the papers. I was away from England for some years after that. It was one of the things that one wishes to forget. You ask me to take part in another of these investigations. In all probability there is nothing to investigate but a practical joke, or a chance noise, or something equally explicable, but you will understand that I will not take the risk that there may be something else."

"But, my dear Arden," said Winter, balancing the pince-nez in his hand, "there is nothing whatever in the story that you have told me. What could be more natural than that your two friends should examine the floor, should do so with too little care, and should reap the consequences? The repeated dream is itself quite natural; I should imagine there are few people who have not had it. At the most it is a coincidence that the dream, accompanied by somnambulism, should have come three nights in succession, but there is nothing supernatural there."

"Never mind that word supernatural. Do you think there is anything inexplicable? You are forgetting that the bed in that chamber had been slept in both nights. The sleeper had been awakened by some sound. What was it? What drew him to the trap-door? What was it that took possession of my will and my body so that my own personality was as blotted out as if I had been dead? But," he added, impatiently, "I do not want to convince you. When you are brought in touch, as I have been, with the unseen power you will be convinced. As your friend, I hope you never will be."

A BRISK ENGAGEMENT

He stepped out of the fashionable bazaar into the crowded street, where the July sun flashed on the ugly and beautiful and on the grey background. He was a young man with the face of a dreamer, but his hair was properly cut and he was as well and cleanly turned out as if he had been a soldier. He wore in his buttonhole a red rose; it was not his habit to decorate himself florally, but these things happen at bazaars; some pretty fool-girl had sold it to him. And Lady Mabel Silverton, who is not pretty but a dear sweet creature, had sold him iced coffee and drunk it for him—she would do anything for a charity—and bothered him to come and sing one Saturday night to her darling factory-girls, who would be so very, very grateful. The hum of many nicely-toned voices and the passionate waltz of the Mauve Hungarians still blended and swam in his ears. He still seemed to smell the scent of the smouldering incense sticks on the stall where Mrs Bunningham Smythe, clad in an Oriental robe of thoroughly Western impropriety, sold penny "Turkish Amulets" at ten shillings apiece to those young men who were sufficiently fond of her for the purpose. He was stupid with it all. He left it, and the long string of carriages at the doors, and wandered out into the Park. And he chose the more deserted part of the Park.

Yes, it was no worse than anything else, as his cousin had said when she had bothered him into going. But the young man was mildly, temporarily, and uncomplainingly bored with most things. There was too much sugar in the cup; he found the taste sickly. This London world in which he lived was too luxurious, too idle, and worked too hard at being too idle. He was weary of the mechanical metallic frivolity of smart people, frivolity without one touch of sincerity and earnestness to give it contrast and effect. It was the end of the season, and he would soon be away in the country—only to find London in the country. There would be the same people with the same bad habits, merely transplanted to a scene which did not suit them.

He stood still and looked around him. There was a man with a crowd before him in the distance by the Marble Arch; he waved his arms and lectured violently. Children chased one another across the grass. Down the path towards him came a girl who held herself well. A tramp under the trees roused himself from slumber, and began slowly and painfully to put on his boots. And the young man thought it would make the very pleasantest holiday if he could change with somebody—even with the tramp under the trees for a few hours and get rid of himself. He chanced to remember that rose in his coat, and did not like it. He raised his hand to take it out. And the girl whose graceful carriage he had noticed stepped shyly up to him.

"It is you then? It must be," she said, in rather a frightened voice.

In a flash he saw that the girl mistook him for somebody else, and—since chance willed it—decided to be for a while that somebody.

"Certainly, it is," he said. "I do hope I have not kept you waiting."

This was more interesting than private theatricals. But even as he spoke it struck him that it would be easier if he knew who he was supposed to be.

She was charming, he thought, and not foolish; the face was full of life and expression. He noted that she looked at him and away from him in quick flashes, as if trying to hide a surprised curiosity.

"No," she said, "I have only just come. I think we are both a few minutes before the time."

"You did not seem quite—well, quite sure of it when you recognised me."

She laughed, showing her pretty teeth. "You did not seem to be looking out for me."

"I was—but in the wrong direction."

"Yes, of course you didn't know which way I should come. And then I thought you looked rather too splendid for a solicitor's clerk. You don't mind my saying that?" she added rapidly.

(So he was a solicitor's clerk in his new impersonation; this was useful information.) "Not in the least. We put on our nicest clothes for these occasions. My firm expects me to keep one good suit—to wear when I have to go and see wealthy and important clients—to—er—take their instructions." (He felt that this was a happy touch; he was falling quite easily into his part). "And, if I may say so, that must be quite your prettiest dress."

She glanced downward at it. She raised her eyebrows, and there was a quaint prettiness in the wilful twist of her lips. She seemed perplexed. "I don't think so," she said.

"And what made you decide that it was really I?"

"You were standing there just at the spot we arranged, and just at the time we arranged. You were wearing the red rose, and you raised your hand as if to call my attention to it. It was beyond mistake. But why did you say in your letter that you were of medium height? You are tall."

"Slightly over medium height, perhaps. I should hardly say tall."

"In many ways you are not what I expected. These preconceived ideas of people are always wrong. But indeed you don't look the part at all."

"Really?"

"No," she said. "I should have taken you for a man of leisure—wealthy—rather bored with life—clever perhaps—certainly selfish." And she would have taken him for very much what he was.

"I will plead guilty to the last item. And now, what shall we do?"

"Do? Just as we arranged of course. We can stroll through the Park for half an hour—talk—make each other's acquaintance. And then I shall see if in any way I can help you in your work and make your life happier."

"Suppose," said the young man, "we change the programme a little. Let me take you down to Bond Street and give you some tea there."

The look of surprise became almost suspicion. She hesitated for a moment. "Very well," she said. "That will be charming."

They had reached the Park gate. The young man stopped a hansom and they got in.

"You are extravagant," she said. "We might have taken a 'bus or the Tube. We might even have walked."

The young man reminded himself that he was now a solicitor's clerk. "True," he said. "But it is only a shilling fare. And Saturday afternoon is our holiday, you know."

"I shall insist on paying half the cab and half everything."

"That must be just as you wish. But if you do it will be a disappointment for me. And it is really not a very serious matter, even for me."

She seemed to think this over. Lady Mabel met them in her victoria, and the young man saluted her.

"Very well," said the girl, suddenly. "I won't pay for anything at all."

"Thanks so much," said the young man.

"But all of this," said the girl, much as if she had been speaking to herself, "is not in the least like what I had expected."

At the shop in Bond Street he took her upstairs to a table in a secluded corner.

"You seem to know your way about this place," she said, as she unbuttoned her gloves.

"I was here once on business. And I never forget places."

"Five times since we left the Park we have met people that you knew."

"Yes. Queer coincidence, isn't it?"

"And they were all wealthy-looking people."

"Clients," he said dreamily. "All clients." Then, with an awakening interest, "Will you have tea or coffee?"

"Tea, please. And they all smiled and bowed to you just as if they had been your personal friends."

"Well, you know, it's like this. I've had to deal with them in some very important family matters—dark secrets. They possibly have the feeling that it is better to be on good terms with me—that I shall be more careful not to talk about their secrets, you know."

Even as the young man said it he was aware of the remarkable feebleness of it. So apparently was the girl.

"But I thought solicitors never talked about their clients' business," she said.

"They don't. Of course. Certainly not. But then I'm not a solicitor; I'm only a clerk. Still, it's a mistaken feeling; I've often wondered how it gets to be so common."

The young man felt that the game, though interesting, was becoming difficult. He reflected that at any minute people who knew him might come in and insist on talking to him. And then—the girl would discover everything and never forgive him. And the more he saw of her the more he wanted to be forgiven when the game came to its end.

He was unable to place her exactly. She was not a typist. She seemed too educated to be a governess. It was even more certain that she was not a fashionable London woman. She might possibly be a student of one of the arts. She was a little imperious in her way, yet she had the kindest and friendliest eyes. She was transparently good, and he guessed that unconventionality was unusual with her. She had not spoiled its effect for herself by making it commonplace. And who on earth was this solicitor's clerk whom this charming person had meant to meet, and why had she been going to meet him? It occurred to the young man that he would like to wring the neck of that clerk (whom he was at present fraudulently under-studying) for his infernal impertinence.

"Now," said the girl, "I want you to tell me why you wrote in the first instance?"

This was a facer. He chanced it. "But I think you know," he said; and it turned out very well.

"Yes, I do, more or less. I know you read my verses, and that you then wrote to me at the office of the paper and said the kindest things."

The young man shook his head. "They were less than the truth," he said.

"But, after all, the idea in the verses—the kindred souls that Fate keeps strangers to each other—that's not a new idea. You must have seen something of the kind scores of times before."

"If I had seen it before I did not remember it. I certainly had not seen it treated in that way. Your poem seemed to come to me like a message." This for a young man who had not read one word of the poem was distinctly good—or, if you prefer it, distinctly bad.

"Well, when you wrote the first letter had you any idea of writing the second, the one in which you asked me to meet you?"

"I had to see how you would take it. I know it was great presumption on my part to hope for anything of the kind; it was most good of you to come."

"I wondered how long it would be before you thanked me."

"A thousand pardons. I see little society, of course. I am shy and awkward. I never say the right thing."

"But you are not shy and awkward. You are not at all what I expected. I have your second letter here. Listen. I leave out the part where you speak of your loneliness."

"There are few lives," said the young man, sorrowfully, "more solitary than that of a solicitor's clerk. You don't know." Nor, for that matter, did he.

"Then the letter goes on: 'If you could make it convenient to spare me a few moments of your valuable time—'"

"Did I really say that?"

"Of course you did. Here it is."

"These business forms ring in one's head. They get into one's blood. One uses them unconsciously and inelegantly."

"I will read on: 'If you could make it convenient to spare me a few moments of your valuable time I should like to have a go at telling you my story. Sympathy in my case has generally been conspicuous by its absence, but I think I could depend on the author of "The Strangers." I am rather a doleful sort, I am afraid, but I daresay you don't care for larking about any more than I do.'"

He had to hear that letter through to the end, and there was a good deal more of it. He had made himself responsible for the personality of a man who described himself as rather a doleful sort, said that he did not care for larking about, and spoke of a thing being conspicuous by its absence. And there was not even the possibility of protest. He had to accept it. He could not even groan out loud. The punishment for yielding to sudden impulses was heavy indeed.

"Now," she went on, "you see what I mean when I say that you do not at all match with the Samuel Pepper who wrote that letter."

His name was Samuel Pepper then! It was almost too much. This, he felt, would be a lifelong lesson to him. He had to say something. "But," he pleaded, "few people write and speak in just the same way."

"That is not my point. You write to me as a humble pleader for a favour."

"Naturally."

"When you meet me, you take something very much like the air of an amused social superior."

"I hope not!" exclaimed the young man with real sincerity. He struggled mentally after a correct Samuel Pepper attitude. "It was quite unintentional, and no disrespect meant. I suppose on a Saturday out, when I come up West, I get a bit above myself and my station. But I never meant to presume." He felt that this had the right Pepperian touch of humble commonness. "In the office or at home—"

"You mean in the Guildford Street boarding-house?"

"Quite so. It's the only London home I've got. In the office or at home I'm quite a different person."

"Oh, please! I don't mention the difference in manner because I care twopence about it, but to point out an inconsistency which puzzles me—perhaps I should say which did puzzle me at first. And why have you not told me that story that you wished me to hear. Why is it that you have not even referred to it?"

"Ah," said the young man, "how often one gets to the verge of a confession and then shirks it! Believe me, it is not an easy story for me to tell. Perhaps even it would be better for me to bear my burden alone."

"Very well. And those poems that you have written—you wished to show them to me, to get my opinion and see if I could help you towards publication."

"My fatal shyness! You, a writer yourself, must know what that is!" He felt that he was quite lost, and that the girl was getting angry, and he wished he could think of some way out of it.

"So I am not to have your verses or your story. But I think I will trouble you to hear a little of my story. You are not Samuel Pepper. With my experience of story-writing I ought to have seen that that was a make-up name, to suit the part of a solicitor's clerk. There is no Samuel Pepper. Your letters then were not genuine. They were very well done; as an artist I congratulate you. The thing that puzzles me is that you could not keep it up better when you had trapped me into meeting you. You cannot act a bit. You have not even dressed the part. You have not even taken the trouble to put a few verses in manuscript in your pocket. I will tell you why you succeeded in deceiving me in your letters. I live with my family, and I write stories and verses. I know they are not very good, but the money that I get for them is a consideration, and I hope with practice to do better. You touched my vanity, it is not often that anybody takes any notice of my work. And you appealed to my compassion. That part of your letter where you spoke of your loneliness among the people at the boarding-house seemed to me to be quite simple and unaffected. It made some impression on me. I was interested in what you said about your writing, and I remembered what a struggle I had at first myself; I thought I could help you. I felt safe because I trusted to your timidity and your sense of the difference between us, so cleverly conveyed in your letters. That was why you were able to trap me; and it will teach me in future not to be vain or kind-hearted. I don't know why you wanted to do it. You have had your joke, perhaps, or you have won your bet. You won't make the mistake of supposing that you have made my acquaintance, or of writing to me again. Now, I am going."

So that was it; she had taken a firm feminine intelligent grasp of the wrong end of the stick. She had also caught up her gloves. Her eyes were filled with tears of rage, and he felt very bad indeed. If he had asked her to stop she would have hurried away all the quicker; he could see that.

"Our meeting was a chance one," he said. "I know nothing of Pepper or his letters except what you have told me. You mistook me for the man you were going to meet. I am sorry I did not correct your mistake since it has pained you. Otherwise I should have been very glad of it."

She sat down again, bewildered. "Chance?" she said.

"Pure chance. I shouldn't like to say much for my taste this afternoon, but really I don't make bets or jokes of that kind. I was at a silly bazaar in Hill Street this afternoon for a few minutes, and some idiot sold me this rose. I don't wear flowers, and I was on the point of taking it out of my coat when you spoke to me. The other man probably arrived after we had gone; you remember you said that we were a few minutes before the time."

The girl leaned her elbow on the table and her head on her hand and looked at him intently. "It is too amazing," she said. "I think you are telling me the truth now. But how am I to know? You have not behaved well. You have deceived me." There were perplexed pauses between her sentences.

"I tried to deceive you, with the intention of undeceiving you in the end. You must own that I failed and that the humiliation is mine. But it is true that I have behaved badly; and it is true that I am sorry for it."

"Why did you do it? I can't think why."

"Do you remember your first impression of me?"

"Perfectly."

"I am not clever, but in other respects you were about right. I was tired of everything and particularly tired of myself. It was a sudden whim. I began it in order to get away from myself."

"But why did you go on with it?"

"I went on with it to be with you."

She looked away from him, and there was a quick flush of colour in her cheeks. "Anyhow," she said, "the mistake is at an end now. I must be going." But she did not speak very resolutely.

"Will you forgive me before you go?"

"Why should I forgive you?"

"Because," said the young man, with some audacity, "I have done you a very great service."

Her eyebrows were interrogative.

"Yes, I have stopped you from meeting this Pepper person. I know your motives. I don't believe in the vanity at all. It is natural to be pleased when one's work is praised; I'm always pleased if anybody likes my music. I do believe that you were actuated solely by your kindness of heart and nothing else. But you were doing an indiscreet thing, and I feel sure from his letters that this man would have misunderstood it. Even if he had not shown presumption in his manner to you, I am sure he would have talked you over afterwards at his disgusting boarding-house and with his fellow-clerks. Why did he propose a meeting at all? Why could he not have submitted his doggerel to you by post, if you were kind enough to look at it for him? Why did he suggest this red rose nonsense if he had not got some romantic ideas in his stupid head? The man's impertinence simply staggers me."

She smiled a little. "You are right perhaps. It was indiscreet. But you are too hard on him."

"I don't think so. I want you to promise me you will not meet him. You can write and say that you have changed your mind; he can post his verses to you, if you want to let him down easily."

"Very well. I think that would be best, though I don't know why I should promise you. Good-bye."

"Already?"

"I live away at Surbiton. I have a train to catch."

"Am I forgiven?"

"Yes; quite."

"Then let me at least take you as far as Waterloo."

She said nothing. But they went to Waterloo together, and in the cab they explained quite a number of things about themselves to each other. He also got into the train with her, and they had the carriage to themselves. And there he told her that he loved her and wished to marry her, and he did it far more beautifully than a bare record of the facts can suggest.

She tried to speak three times and failed. So he understood her perfectly.

And some few minuter after they had exchanged their hearts' love, they also exchanged their names and addresses.

Lady Mabel Silverton says that it is a perfectly ideal marriage. The world thinks that he might have done much better for himself. He is inclined to agree with Lady Mabel. His wife would say that she agreed with the world; but I should doubt her sincerity.

HASHEESH

I

The season was nearly at its end. On the terrace of Shepherd's were many groups, German, American and English, stopping for a few days in Cairo on their way home. In the street in front of the terrace the hawkers displayed their wares—panpipes, fly-whisks, images of the Sphinx, picture post-cards, matches. One offered for sale an inlaid table that he carried on his head. Another handed up an old flint-lock pistol, heavily mounted in silver, for the inspection of a pretty girl from Cincinnati. Every now and then a carriage drove up, and a party of tourists passed up the steps, followed by a dragoman laden with kodaks, and dust cloaks, and bazaar purchases. The bright sunlight flooded a scene of brilliant colours.

At one of the tables—next to that where the pretty girl from Cincinnati was sipping her tea—sat three men of different ages. Mr Nathaniel Brookes, a man of some sixty years and rather distinguished appearance, was discussing total prohibitions with Dr Henson-Blake. The doctor was a man of wiry build, with the face of a hawk, and that indescribable look which comes only of strength and experience. The third man listened and fidgeted. From babyhood he had been precocious and preferred to associate with those who were older than he was. In consequence he sometimes had to sit, as now, rather on the outside of the association. He smoked endless cigarettes and drank something which was cold and not good for him out of a long glass in which the ice tinkled pleasantly. He was a fair-haired young man whom the sun had merely freckled. He wore a single eye-glass, but did not always dare to use it. When you had got to the bottom of his failings you found fundamentally by no means a bad sort of man, by name Percival Lake. This was his first year in Egypt. Both Brookes and the doctor had known Egypt for many years.

It was Brookes who was speaking. "The Fellaheen should be allowed to dig," he said, "and it should be made well worth their while to dig."

"But they do," said the doctor. "They all of them do it in the summer, and they always have done."

"Yes," said Brookes. "Prohibitions which are too strict are always evaded. It's the same thing with hasheesh. But what I mean is that if we succeed in stopping the Fellaheen from digging, the working European Egyptologist will find very little. The native will take care of that, and this is a case where the native has knowledge that the European can get only from him."

"That's possible," the doctor agreed.

"What's that about hasheesh?" the young man asked. "I thought it was the kind of drug that one came across frequently in stories, and rarely in chemist's shops, and nowhere else."

"Nominally," said Brookes, "there is no hasheesh in Egypt. It is not allowed. It is contraband. I forget how many tons of it were seized last year, and I should be sorry to say how much managed to get through."

"Then the natives really use it?"

"Of course they do. There is a common type in all races which requires a nerve alterative and will have it. If religion or sentiment or custom shuts out alcohol, then it will be opium or hasheesh. Egypt goes for hasheesh."

"And the prohibition is of no use?" asked Lake.

"I wouldn't say that," Brookes replied grimly. "If a native has a quarrel with his neighbour, he can—and sometimes does—sow cannabis Indica on his neighbour's land and then report him for growing illegal stuff as soon as the crop comes up. That is useful. Speaking seriously, the prohibition may lessen the amount of hasheesh consumed, and undoubtedly has raised its price considerably—vices are the monopoly of the rich. All the same, I had a boy working on my dahabeeah last year who was an excellent fellow. This year he was impossible, and I had to sack him. That was hasheesh."

"And what is the effect of it?"

"Ask the doctor."

"If you take enough and take it long enough," said Dr Henson-Blake, "the effect is insanity. The given percentage in the asylums is fairly high, and should perhaps be higher. They don't admit that they smoke hasheesh or have ever smoked it if they can help it, and it cannot always be spotted."

"But what is the immediate effect?"

"A sense of bien étre, of the absence of all worry. Sometimes there are delusions. The typical smoker generally gets an excessive vanity—swelled head—and becomes very quarrelsome. That is why Brookes had to sack that boy of his."

"All the same," said Lake, "I should very much like to try it."

"If I thought you meant that—" the doctor began, with the suspicion of a sneer.

Lake was rather angry. "I can assure you I am not talking for effect. There are some people who don't, you know."

"All right," said the doctor, unperturbed. "Keep your hair on. I've got some tobacco prepared with hasheesh upstairs. It is some that I had to confiscate. I'll give you a pipeful and you can try it after dinner. Smoke it in your own room, though—not downstairs."

"Leave it alone," growled Brookes.

"Thanks very much," said Lake to the doctor. "I'll come up with you now and get it."

The three men rose. As they did so the pretty girl from Cincinnati stepped up to the doctor.

"Say, doctor—listen to me. Am I to give that man five dollars and a half for this?"

The doctor took the scarab in his hand and examined it.

"No, Miss Jocelyn," he said.

"Why not? I call that a dandy scarab. White amethyst. Genuine antique."

"It is not white amethyst and I know the man who made it—the day before yesterday. If you want it for a toy, ten piastres is an outside price. The man will take that."

"My!" exclaimed Miss Jocelyn. "Thank you vurry much," and she returned to her negotiations.

The three men passed through into the hall.

II

After dinner, Brookes and Dr Henson-Blake went off to see a friend at the Savoy. They left with grim half-chaffing injunctions to young Lake to take care of himself. Lake, a little sulky, settled himself in one corner of the hall to smoke a cigarette before his experiment.

And suddenly Miss Jocelyn, whom he did not know, came up to him.

She was a dark girl, pale-skinned and red-lipped. She had a little of that jaunty, almost slangy American air of being able to take care of herself. But she also carried the impression that this air was superficial, and underneath it there might be poetry of a rather volcanic order. She sat down quietly on the other side of the table, and said:

"Do you not know me, Mr Lake?"

Lake said that at any rate he was charmed to have the privilege of making her acquaintance.

"But," she went on, "I want you to behave just as if you had known me for some time. My Aunt Esmeralda is watching us from away back, and she's pretty 'cute. Don't smile too much. Offer me a cigarette or order some coffee for me, as if it were an ordinary thing that you had often done before for me. Don't look at me all the time—look away now and then. I'll tell you why I'm doing this directly."

Lake did his best to act the part, and to take things more simply. He was consumed with curiosity, and for that reason he said, as he lighted her cigarette, "It is so nice of you to do this—to take pity on my loneliness—that I feel the reason why does not matter at all. I am unquestioningly contented with things as they are."

"I just want to tell you. I know Dr Henson-Blake—we were on the tourist boat together. He's playing it low down on you. That tobacco he gave you is ordinary tobacco. He wants to make you say afterwards that you got a lot of funny sensations out of it, and then he'll say there was no hasheesh in it at all, and just laugh at you. You needn't ask me how I know, but it's the truth."

"I believe you. The possibility of it had occurred to me. Well, I have only to tell him that I got no sensations at all, and that's all over with this little joke."

"Yes," said Miss Jocelyn, "but you can get back on him. That's better."

"How?"

"Spin him a long story. Tell him you smoked it and it gave you visions. Then when he's finished with his laugh, give him his tobacco back again to prove that you knew his game all the time."

"Excellent." He took from his pocket a little box in which the tobacco was placed, put it in one of the hotel envelopes and sealed it and dated it. "But the triumph must be yours," he said.

She leaned forward seriously. "Listen to me. You don't want to mention my name—you don't even know it, but I'm Irene Jocelyn. I've put confidence in you. See, he's not got to know that I've had anything to do with it. You promise me that?"

"Certainly. But I'm puzzled. Why do you come along to save me from making myself ridiculous? It's very kind of you. I'm very glad you've done it. But why?"

She hesitated and blushed slightly. "For myself, perhaps."

It seemed promising; he was emboldened. "What a pity I have wasted my time by not meeting you before? Have you been long in Cairo?"

"A few days," she said absent-mindedly. "My!" she exclaimed. "If I don't go back to my Aunt Esmeralda right now, there's going to be a deal of trouble. I'll say good-night to you, Mr Lake."

He was rather staggered. "Good-night," he said. "But I hope this is not the last time—"

"It depends. Mind that when he's about you don't know me."

He watched her as she went up the hall. Her bright smile came off very easily. She looked a little tired and hunted.

That night he could come to no satisfactory explanation. He could only decide to do exactly as he had been told, and await events. In the meantime the girl's face haunted him, and always as it had been when she did not know that he could see her—always with that tired and hunted look. What had been her story? What was inside her heart and mind? What cards was she playing? Why had she spoken to him? The questions were endless. His interest in her, strangely powerful, kept him for long awake.

III

The little farce was played out with great success next morning. Lake told a beautiful story, and did it the better because Irene Jocelyn, breakfasting alone at the next table, was listening intently. After smoking the hasheesh he had heard the Sphinx talking. Then a black and limitless ocean had broken over it, and out of the ocean a strange white woman had crept and cut herself with a gold-handled knife.

"Good," said the doctor, with dry triumph. "And the more interesting because you have never had any hasheesh at all."

"No?" asked Lake. "I thought that would be it." He tossed the envelope across to the doctor. "You'll find your tobacco inside—how do you give it that green colour? I think the score is with me."

The doctor was angry, the more so because Brookes was undisguisedly amused at the failure. But he made one shrewd guess. "If I had mentioned the thing to a solitary soul I should have been certain that it had been given away to you. As it is, I can't see how you came to think of it for yourself. It's quite unlike you."

IV

For the next two days Irene Jocelyn successfully avoided young Lake, and thereby drove him to the verge of madness. It even occurred to him to play a bold stroke and ask the doctor to introduce him. But he had the reasonable conviction that that introduction would do him more harm than good with this strange girl. He grew to hate Henson-Blake; it was evident that while he was there Irene would not speak. He invented excuses to get him out of the way.

On the third day she came up to him in the hall with hand outstretched. "I just want to say good-bye to you, Mr Lake," she said. "We leave this afternoon."

"Won't you tell me anything before you go? I can find no reason why you should have interested yourself in my defence. Still less can I find any reason why you should have avoided me ever since?"

"But I wasn't interested in you. You're not—what do you say?—not on in this act. Didn't I tell you that I was doing it for myself?"

"Yes. You are clever—you found out the doctor's trick."

"I know him. I told you that I met him on the tourist boat. I knew what he would do."

"I am stupid—for I also knew him, and did not find out. I'm not vain enough, believe me, to suppose that you did this for love of me."

She laughed and snapped her fingers.

"I wish to God you had!" he added, and the tone and simplicity of the words carried conviction. She changed her manner. She became serious.

"What was done, not for love of you, was done for hate of somebody else! Can't you imagine a woman wanting to hit back, and too proud to let it be known that she wants to hit at all? Can't you imagine her hungering and thirsting to see a certain man fail, if only in some little thing, just for once? Can't you—Oh, you don't want the whole humiliating story, do you?"

"No, no. I'm sorry. Good-bye."

"Good-bye."

"Only you know—that is not for hate of a man. If you hated, there might be a chance for those who loved."

She shook her head and turned away. A minute later he heard her laughing, and talking her best American to a group of hotel acquaintances.

And this is perhaps the primary reason why Percival Lake did ultimately take to hasheesh in sober earnest. His friends have ceased to speak of him. Dr Henson-Blake is interested in the case.