VIII
Fifteen tons of gold! Two and a half millions sterling!
Arthur Gwyn stared at the girl incredulously. But she was making no idle statement, and that she at least believed what she said was clear from her flushed face and shining eyes. For a second he was speechless.
“Fifteen tons of gold?” He frowned and smiled at the same time. “You’re mad, Mary!”
“Mad, am I?” She nodded vigorously. “Oh, indeed, I daresay you think so, but you won’t be thinking that very long! I have found the Chelford treasure, I tell you.”
He sat down heavily in his chair, his startled eyes still fixed upon hers. He was for the moment inarticulate.
“Rubbish!” he managed to say at last. “There is no Chelford treasure! Living so long in the same house with Harry Chelford has made you as mad as he!”
She walked slowly to the desk, and, with her palms on the ledge, leant down over him.
“You think that, do you?” she asked in a steady voice. “I was three years Lord Chelford’s secretary, and it’s true I had this treasure stuff dinned into me from morning till night. The sight of a black-lettered book makes me ill even now, and the plans of Fossaway Manor that I’ve studied—well, I don’t like to think of them! I’ve lived with this treasure for three years, Arthur, and there have been times when I could have screamed when it was mentioned. I got so that I came to like Dick Alford, just because he never spoke to me about it. And then one day there came a bundle of plans from London—Harry had a standing order with an old bookseller to send him anything he could find about Chelfordbury or Fossaway Manor. Harry had gone up to town that morning and I had no other work to do, so I went through these dusty old sheets to index them. And on the third sheet I found something that made me open my eyes.”
“What was it?” asked Arthur carelessly.
She looked at him with a quiet smile.
“A lot has to happen before I tell you that,” she said. “Arthur, if I give you this, or your share of this, will you marry me?”
Arthur looked at her steadily.
“If you can put me next to a million, or half a million,” he said slowly, “I would marry you if you were the plainest woman on the face of the earth! Instead of being the bonniest, prettiest little angel——”
“You can keep that stuff for later,” she said practically.
She opened her handbag and took out a paper, and he watched with fascinated interest. If he expected the secret of the Chelford treasure to be laid before him in writing, he was to be disappointed.
“I’m not much of a lawyer,” said Mary, as she smoothed out the paper and laid it on his blotting-pad, “but I think this is binding on both sides.”
He took up the paper with a wry face and read it.
In consideration of receiving one half of the Chelford treasure, I, Arthur Gwyn, of Willow House, Chelfordbury, Sussex, agree to bind myself to Mary Agnes Wenner in the holy bonds of matrimony within one month of the treasure being found and divided.
“Is that in order?” she asked, watching his face.
He put the paper down.
“My dear girl——” he began, in his suavest manner.
“Listen, Arthur.” She perched herself on the edge of the desk. “This is the time for ‘yes’s’ and ‘no’s,’ for ‘I will’s’ and ‘I won’t’s’! I’m not in love with you and you’re not in love with me. But I want a home and a position. I may not be a lady, but I am ladylike, and I have lived long enough with swagger people to make no mistakes. Is it yes or is it no?”
Arthur looked at the paper again.
“Does it strike you,” he said, “that the Chelford treasure is not yours or mine to divide? That it belongs to Harry Chelford, his heirs and his successors?”
“It is treasure trove,” she said startlingly. “I know the law of the country, because I’ve talked this thing over with Harry times without number. Treasure found hidden after hundreds of years has to be divided between the State and the finder.”
He shook his head with a smile.
“Our Mary is a lawyer!” he bantered. “You’re wrong, my dear. That is only the case if the owner of the money cannot be found. In the present instance there is no doubt whatever that the treasure would belong to Chelford.”
He saw her face fall and went on:
“I don’t know that that is going to seriously inconvenience us,” he said, looking her straight in the eyes. “You cannot lose what you never had, eh?”
She drew a deep sigh of relief.
“It is Harry’s, I suppose, but after the way he has treated me, and all that I’ve done for him——”
“Yes, yes,” he said soothingly. “We needn’t worry about Harry. The only question is, have you found the treasure?”
She nodded.
“You’ve actually seen it?”
“No,” she hesitated, “I haven’t seen it. I hadn’t time. But I saw the boxes through the grating. The door was locked, and I was so excited that I had to come out and walk around. And then Dick Alford saw me.”
Arthur was puzzled. He knew this girl well enough; they had been good friends in the days when she was Chelford’s secretary, and she had been a most useful agent of his.
“Now, let’s get down to brass tacks,” he said brusquely. “Where did you see this treasure and when?”
“I’ll tell you when. I saw it two days ago,” she said, to his surprise, for he had thought she was talking about some experience she had had when she was an inmate of Fossaway Manor.
“Two days ago?” he gasped.
“Two days ago,” she affirmed. “And as to where, well, there’s another matter to be settled before we get as far as that, Arthur. Will you sign that agreement?”
He looked at the paper again. His training in the law, his natural instincts against putting his name under any document which bound him, urged him to temporize.
“It is yes or no,” she said, as though she read his mind. “I’m not going to fool around with you unless you mean business. I’ll take it to Harry, and maybe, if I put him in possession of this gold, he’ll do the right thing by me.”
And, seeing that he made no move, she took up the paper, folded it determinedly, and put it in her little satchel.
“What’s the hurry?” he said, in alarm. “Mary, you’re mad to expect me to take a big decision like this without giving the matter a moment’s thought. Don’t you realize what you’re asking me to do? You’re proposing an act of sheer robbery and you’re asking me to become an accomplice. After all——” He shrugged his shoulders.
“If your conscience is hurting you,” she said, “we’ll leave it. I’m not the sort of girl who’d throw herself at any man’s head. I’ll take it along to Harry and see if his conscience is busy.”
She turned to go, but before she reached the door he had intercepted her.
“Don’t be silly and don’t be unreasonable.” He was more than a little agitated. “It’s a big thing you’re asking——”
“It’s a big thing I’m giving,” she said impatiently. “Two million and a half pounds—there’s nothing mean about that.”
He took her by the arm and forcibly drew her back.
“Sit down and don’t be a fool,” he said. “I’ve told you already I’ll marry you to-morrow, and I’ll go farther and say that there never was a time when money was sweeter to me than it is at the moment.”
“Will you sign that note?”
He skimmed it through quickly, making sure that he was under no obligation if the treasure did not materialize, and, picking up a pen, he made a little correction, she watching suspiciously, and signed with a flourish.
“What is that you’ve put into the paper?” she demanded.
“An exit for Arthur Gwyn,” he said with a whimsical smile. “The document reads ‘In consideration of receiving on behalf of my client Lord Chelford,’ etcetera, etcetera.”
At first she did not understand, and then a slow smile dawned on her face.
“I see,” she nodded. “That means that if anything comes out, you’re acting for him and not for yourself. Arthur, there are times when I think you’re clever!”
Arthur Gwyn smiled as he put his arm about her and led her to the window. Below, thick streams of road traffic were passing east and west. A great lorry was under his eyes; he saw an inscription on its side, “5 tons.” It would require three such lorries to move the Chelford treasure, he thought, and for a moment his head reeled.
“I’ll tell you how clever I am when I handle the first bar of the Chelford treasure. And you’ll know how clever you are when I’ve dealt with the last. There’s two millions in this. Now, tell me, where is this gold?”
She looked at him for a second, and then, lowering her voice:
“In the vaults of Chelford Abbey,” she said.
For a second neither spoke, and then:
“Will you see your sister, Mr. Gwyn? She has just arrived.”
Arthur Gwyn spun round, an oath on his lips. Gilder had come noiselessly into the room, his inscrutable eyes fixed upon his employer. Not a muscle of his face betrayed whether or not he had overheard the last words.
IX
Leslie Gwyn’s occupations at Willow House were well defined. Though her brother did not maintain a very expensive or elaborate establishment, he lived in a style consonant with the position he held in the county. There were little dinner parties, an occasional dance, and in the winter, Arthur, who was a good man to hounds and was ambitious to be master of the local pack, entertained on a lavish scale the more prominent members of the hunt. In these amenities Leslie acted as hostess for her brother, and at all times was the real housekeeper of the establishment. For all his extravagance he was a careful and grudging house master, required that the necessities of life should be bought in the cheapest markets, that the best at the lowest price should be found upon his table.
The resolve to go to town that morning had been born of a sudden impulse. The day was her own and she could do as she liked with it. For some reason the idea of lunching alone did not appeal to her. She had a wild thought of going on to Fossaway Manor, but remembered that Wednesday was a day that Dick Alford gave up entirely to visiting his tenant farmers. She did not attempt to explain to herself why the prospect of lunching tête-à-tête with her fiancé was even more distasteful than lunching alone. She had got beyond the point of finding excuses for herself; she felt a certain recklessness; was conscious that her manner and attitude of mind were defiant. Against what and whom?
With a lift of her pretty shoulders she shrugged the matter out of consideration. All that she knew was that the preoccupation of Dick Alford and the unlikelihood of seeing him, made a visit to Fossaway Manor not only undesirable but out of the question.
She would go to town: the decision was taken in an instant, and she went upstairs and dressed hurriedly, whilst the gardener wheeled her little two-seater to the drive before the house. Five minutes later she was spinning along the straight road toward the railway station. She had plenty of time; indeed, there was a certainty that she would arrive at the rail at least half-an-hour before the train left, even if it pulled out on time.
As she entered Fontwell Cutting she thought she saw a familiar form crossing the field toward the road a quarter of a mile away, and her heart jumped for no known reason. The high walls of the cut road shut out her view, but when she emerged and slid down the steep little hill to the village road, she discovered that she had not been mistaken, and brought her car to a halt as Dick Alford opened a field gate and came out.
He greeted her with a wave of his hand and a smile, and, to her consternation, would have passed on had she not called him back.
“You are very jumpy and cross this morning,” she said, and to her surprise he admitted that fault, though she had seen nothing in his manner to deserve the challenge she had made.
“I am very annoyed indeed. If there is one thing I don’t want to see, it is our good farms turned into little residential estates for the City gentry! I sold Red Farm to Mr. Leonard last week, under the impression that the old”—he checked a naughty word—“gentleman wanted to extend his holding, though why on earth he should want to buy Red Farm, which is the poorest land around here, I couldn’t guess.”
“And what has he done?”
Dick was indeed very much annoyed, she noticed now, and was secretly amused. She had a woman’s satisfaction in seeing the man she liked thrown momentarily off his balance and revealing himself in a light that was new to her.
“And what has the old—gentleman done?” she mocked him.
“He has resold the farm to a wretched man in London—though the purchaser is not aware that such a sale is invalid without my signature.”
“A stranger?” she asked.
“Yes; though he has been living in the neighbourhood all summer. He has a cottage somewhere about here.”
“On the Ravensrill?” she asked, in surprise.
“That is the fellow,” he nodded. “I’ve never seen him, but I understood he was only staying here for a few months. And now I find that the beggar’s bought Red Farm and intends putting up something in stucco with bow windows! And I daresay he will dig an artificial pond, start a rosary, and turn God’s productive acres into a forcing house for sickly flowers!”
“Why shouldn’t he?” she asked coolly, and he stared at her. “After all, you said this was the poorest land round here, and if it cannot be useful it may as well be beautiful. I rather like artificial ponds and rosaries.”
In spite of his annoyance he laughed.
“Then probably you’ll go to Mr. Gilder’s house-warming,” he said.
She started.
“Who?” she asked.
“Mr. Gilder. He’s something in the City—probably a deuce of a swell in his own way, but I wish he’d gone somewhere else. And as to Leonard, I’ve already told him that I shall not go to his funeral.”
“Dick, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!” she said indignantly. “Poor old man!” Then, in a different voice: “You don’t know his Christian name?”
“Whose—Leonard’s?”
“Don’t be stupid—Mr. Gilder’s.”
Dick frowned.
“Fabrian,” he said at last. “What a name! It sounds like a secret society!”
She wondered if Arthur knew of this enterprise of his clerk: it was hardly likely that Mr. Gilder would buy property in the neighbourhood without consulting his chief. For the moment she deemed it prudent to turn the subject.
“If you were nice and kind and brotherly,” she said, “you would come along with me to the station and garage my car like a nice man.”
He stood irresolutely, and for a moment she went hot at the implied rebuff. And then:
“I’m wasting my master’s time,” he said, “but there are occasions when pleasure must interfere with duty, and this is one of them. Do you mind if I drive? I have no faith in women drivers.”
“You are very rude,” she said, but nevertheless moved aside to let him take the wheel.
“How is Harry this morning?”
“Fine,” he said sardonically. And then, heartily ashamed of himself: “Harry is trying a new patent medicine. You’ve never been in his bedroom? That is an indelicate question to ask, but have you?”
She shook her head, the hint of laughter in her eyes.
“There are about eight hundred and forty-five varieties of patent medicines in Harry’s bedroom,” he said grimly. “Once every three months we have a spring-cleaning and chuck ’em out! Really, there isn’t very much wrong with Harry, and if he did not read patent medicine advertisements he would be a happier man. Just now he’s trying something for his nerves, and if there’s anything left in the bottle at the end of the week I shall take it myself.”
“Poor Harry!” she said softly.
“Yes, I’m a brute to grouse,” he said, almost gruffly, and seemed to imply in some subtle fashion that she was a provocative party to his brutality.
It occurred to her as strange that he never spoke about the time when she would be mistress of Fossaway Manor. It would have been natural in him to say, “When you’re married I hope you’ll cure Harry of that nonsense,” but he had made no such reference. That was the strange thing about Dick, that he never even suggested or hinted of a coming time when she would be Countess of Chelford. In one way she was glad he did not—especially now.
They wound slowly through the leafy lanes, passed a little wood, all olive, russet, and purple with the decay of autumn, and came to the station ten minutes ahead of time.
“You have had no further visit from your Black Abbot?” she asked, as they strolled on to the station platform.
He shook his head.
“No; the police came last night to make inquiries. I don’t suppose it will go much farther. You read about it in the newspaper, of course?”
She shook her head.
“Servants talk,” she said.
“I really don’t believe in this Black Abbot,” he went on. “It is queer that Harry is scared of this spook. He never goes outside the house when the old Abbot is reported in the neighbourhood.”
“You don’t believe either?”
He pursed his lips.
“When I see a ghost I shall believe it. Until then I am politely sceptical.”
As the train drew out of the station she put her head out of the window and looked back. He was standing stock still upon the platform where she had left him; and although she could not see his face, she felt that he was gazing after her, and thought she detected a certain tenseness in his very attitude—all of which was very pleasing to Miss Leslie Gwyn.
X
Strange as it may seem, she had never visited her brother’s office on High Holborn before she left her taxi at the door and came up in the elevator to his magnificent suite. Her appearance had a prosaic cause. She had left the country without a penny: a fact she did not realize till the ticket collector, working through the train, came into her compartment and aroused her from a daydream to the realization that she had neither ticket nor money to pay for it. She gave the man her card, and a taxi brought her to Holborn.
She was to have another novel experience. A tall, thick-set man, with iron-gray hair and a strong, attractive face, had come into the waiting room to meet her. She remembered him as the solitary fisherman who had sat fishing for hours on the bank of Ravensrill, without, apparently, catching anything. So this was the redoubtable Mr. Gilder of whom Arthur had so often spoken. She was not especially curious about him. He was a head clerk, and, by Arthur’s account, a clever man at his work; but now that she saw him, she was impressed. He was distinctive—outside of type. The average of humanity you may pass in the street without noticing. It would have been impossible to see Fabrian Gilder once without recognizing him instantly after the passage of years. The jaw was almost square, his big mouth was so tightly drawn that he seemed to be lipless; a powerful nose, a pair of penetrating gray eyes, under straggly, uneven eyebrows; this, and the breadth of his shoulders, conveyed an imponderable expression of power.
“You are Miss Gwyn, of course?” he said. “I would have recognized your relationship with your brother even if I had not known your name.”
It was a little shock to Leslie that she in any way resembled Arthur, for Arthur’s good looks were of a variety which she neither envied nor admired.
“He is engaged at the moment. If you’ll sit down I’ll go along and tell him.”
His eyes did not leave her face. She had often seen in stories the word “devour” applied to an intensity of gaze, and she thought that fictional characters must look somehow as Mr. Gilder was looking. He was not staring; it was the concentration, the probing investigation of those bright gray eyes, that made her writhe inside. If he had been impertinent it would have been an easy matter to deal with him, but he was respect itself. His attitude was deferential, his general manner was friendly. He was dressed very well and carefully, she thought, and wondered whether Arthur’s preciosity in the matter of clothing influenced his staff. The gray homespun, the rather solid shoes, were set off by the expensiveness of his linen. With a woman’s eye she saw that in his way this man was something of a dandy too.
“I hear you are going to live near us, Mr. Gilder?” she said, and he was obviously taken aback.
“Why—yes,” he said awkwardly. “I’ve bought a little place near your house. I love that part of the country.”
“We shall be neighbours,” she said with a smile, but felt no pleasure in the prospect.
“Er—yes. I suppose we shall be, Miss Gwyn,” he agreed.
“It will be very nice for Arthur. I suppose it was his suggestion that you should come down?”
He had a nervous little trick of stroking an invisible moustache, for he was clean-shaven.
“Well… no,” he said. “I haven’t told Mr. Gwyn yet that I have bought the property. I thought another time would be more opportune. I bought it for a song—thirty-five hundred pounds.”
She looked up quickly.
“That is an expensive song,” she said, before she realized an error of taste.
This time he was visibly disconcerted.
“Yes; I—er, I borrowed the money,” he said.
She had a feeling that he was going to ask her a favour, and guessed what the favour would be: Leslie had the uncanny gift of reading people’s minds and gathering their surface thoughts, and in those moments when Fabrian Gilder dropped his mask he was rather easy. He opened his lips to speak, thought better of it, meeting, perhaps, the chill atmosphere of a refusal before it was given, and then:
“I’ll see if your brother is disengaged,” he said, and went into the room to Arthur Gwyn, his head reeling with the vision which had emerged through the gray fog of his drab life.
Day after day he had watched her, and she had never known. He had left his rod and line to steal behind trees that he might see her pass. She was romance in excelsis—the perfect realization of thirty years of dreaming.
It took him a second to compose himself before he turned the handle and walked in, and then he stood stricken dumb by the words that came to him.
XI
“My sister?” said Arthur quickly. He looked from Gilder to Mary Wenner. “Come and see me later,” he said in a lower voice. “Gilder, show Miss Wenner out through the side door.”
Gilder opened the private door and followed the girl into the corridor.
“Where are you living?” he asked.
There was such a note of authority in his voice that for the moment the girl was taken off her guard.
“57 Cranston Mansions. Why?” she asked, with a certain archness that indicated resentment but invited a further offence.
“Because I want to see you,” said Gilder. “Can I come round to your flat some evening?”
Miss Wenner was shocked a little at this. There were moments when her sense of propriety was easily outraged. She was curious too; so far from resenting his commanding address, she rather liked it.
“Yes, any evening you wish, if you will let me know that you are coming. I will ask a young lady friend to keep me company.”
Gilder’s hard lips curled.
“Unless you particularly want a chaperon, don’t get one,” he said. “I have much to say to you that I don’t want anybody else to hear.”
He accompanied her to the elevator and on the way extracted a promise to receive him alone. Miss Wenner was almost as curious to know the object of that visit as Mr. Gilder was to discover what was behind the amazing statement he had heard. He passed the closed door of Arthur’s room and heard voices. He would have given a lot for an excuse to interrupt brother and sister, but something told him that it would be wiser if he kept out of his employer’s way until he was absolutely certain that the girl had not betrayed the very carefully hidden transaction which had made him the proprietor of Red Farm.
* * *
“You’re a little goose to come up to town without money,” said Arthur, as he skinned three notes from his pocketbook. “Here is enough to keep you happy for the rest of your life.”
“Would fifteen pounds do that?” she laughed, and was going, when she remembered.…
Arthur listened in amazement to the news she had to give.
“Gilder has bought a house at Chelfordbury? Impossible!” he said. “He would have told me. Why the dickens does he want a house?—besides, he has no money.”
“Hasn’t he?” she asked, in surprise.
Arthur scratched his chin irritably.
“I suppose the beggar has; but a house at Chelfordbury—that is extraordinary! I wasn’t even aware that he knew the place.”
“He is the man who has been staying at Ravensrill Cottage all the summer,” she said.
“The fisherman!” He whistled. “What a close bird he is! Of course,” he went on quickly, “there is nothing wrong in a man wanting to live at Chelfordbury, and there’s no reason in life why he shouldn’t buy a house. But what a sly old fox!”
He was troubled; she saw that he was trying to hide it behind a flippancy that was transparent to her.
“I knew, of course, that somebody had rented the fisherman’s cottage, as they call it, and to think that he’s been down all these months and never once given himself away!”
“He has a car, if he’s the same man who was living at the cottage,” she nodded. “Dick Alford is furious!”
Arthur chuckled.
“Poor old Dick!” he said good-humouredly. “He loathes this residential idea, and when I put forward a scheme to cut up one of his northern estates into residential properties, he nearly bit my head off. Harry would have done it like a shot, and I hope, my dear, when you’re married you’ll persuade him…”
He waited expectantly.
“Yes—when I am married,” she said, and her tone made him glance at her keenly. But he was wise enough to skim over that subject.
“Dick, of course, is a fool,” he said, with good-natured contempt. “He has a blind faith in the future of agriculture in this country, and grudges every acre that’s taken out of cultivation. And yet, if you were to put up a scheme to build huge blocks of cottages to relieve the slum congestion, or something equally quixotic and unprofitable, he would jump at the idea. I can well understand that the mere thought of a successful lawyer’s clerk setting himself up as a country gentleman would make Dick foam at the mouth!”
“He wasn’t foaming when I left him,” she said drily.
“When you left him?” He was quick to take a point.
“Yes, he came down to the station with me.” And she could not account for her momentary feeling of embarrassment.
He was still searching her face, and then, laying his hands on her shoulders, he shook her gently.
“Old girl,” he said, “keep your mind off the Second Son! He’s a good-looking fellow, and side by side with his brother there’s no question of choice! But he’s a second son, which means that he’s next door to being broke. And you can’t live on good looks or——”
She raised her eyes slowly to his.
“What do you mean—I can’t live on good looks?” she said deliberately. “Why do you emphasize the fact that Dick Alford is poor? Amn’t I an heiress?”
He did not speak, and then, with a little laugh, dropped his hands.
“Why, of course, chick!” he said lightly. “Only—well, I want you to do something for yourself. Make a name in the country. It will be something to have the position which Harry can offer you. Dick is quite a good fellow—one of the best, although he doesn’t get on very well with me. But there’s nothing to it with him, Leslie. You might as well marry some poverty-stricken gentleman farmer——”
He stopped under the steady gaze that met him.
“ ‘Poverty-stricken’ again, Arthur—without suggesting that I would rather marry Dick Alford, I wonder why the question of his poverty interests you so much. If you had called him a commoner and a nobody, I could have understood, but you insist upon the question of my possible fiancé’s wealth, and that seems strange to me.”
He laughed long and loudly, but his merriment seemed, to her sensitive ear, lacking in sincerity.
“You ought to be a lawyer, Leslie! Upon my word, I’ve a good mind to have you coached for an examination! You’d look simply topping in a wig and gown! And now, my little girl, you must run away, because I’ve a tremendous lot of work.”
He put his arm round her shoulders and walked with her to the door, and breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the whine of the elevator carrying her down. Closing the door behind him, he rang the bell, and, to the clerk who came:
“Ask Mr. Gilder to come in, will you, please?”
XII
When Gilder had this message he knew that the girl had told her brother; and although he had his fair share of moral courage, it needed a conscious effort on his part to answer the summons.
“Gilder, what is this story of you buying Red Farm?” asked Arthur sharply.
“Why should I not buy Red Farm?” replied Gilder coolly.
“There is no reason in the world why you shouldn’t,” said Arthur, after a moment’s thought; “but it is rather curious you never told me.”
“I thought you might object,” said Gilder. “Business men hate their workaday associates living anywhere near them. It was stupid of me not to tell you. I’ve been living in a cottage at Chelfordbury for three months—was that in itself objectionable? You will forgive me for saying so, but although I have always regarded you with the respect that is due to an employer, I have never quite looked upon you as my feudal lord!”
Arthur grinned for a second.
“Once or twice I thought of coming over to see you,” Gilder went on, “but I’ve always had what I think to be a natural reluctance to intrude myself in a social capacity upon my chief. If you had ever invited me to come and stay a week-end at your place I would have come, and you would have known all about my presence in the neighbourhood. As it was, I felt very much in the position of a servant enjoying himself in his own independent way and feeling no need to consult his employer as to how he should employ his spare time—and money.”
“And money,” repeated Arthur. “I didn’t know you were so well off, Gilder.”
Mr. Gilder inclined his head.
“I have already hinted to you that I have made considerable sums. There, again, it has never seemed necessary that I should keep you acquainted with my bank balance.”
“You have had a moderate salary,” said Arthur significantly. “Not a generous amount, I agree; certainly not an amount from which a man could save a sum sufficient to buy and rebuild Red Farm and maintain it.”
For answer Gilder put his hand in his pocket and, taking out a little Russian-leather note case, laid it on the table. The name in gold letters upon the cover was that of a bookmaker who carried one of his employer’s biggest accounts. With this firm Arthur had lost his largest bets, for Truman’s had offered him facilities which other houses had denied to him.
“Truman?” He frowned. “What has that to do with it? Have you been backing horses?”
Gilder shook his head.
“No,” he said simply. “I am Truman.”
Arthur Gwyn gaped at him. Truman! The bookmaker to whom for weeks in succession he had been paying thousands upon thousands of pounds!
“Then the money you have—is my money!” he gasped.
“Your money?” said the other quietly. “If Truman’s had not taken it, some other bookmaker would have done so. When you won you were paid—have you any complaints?”
“My money!” muttered Arthur.
Gilder replaced the book in his pocket.
“You remember five years ago complaining to me that you couldn’t find bookmakers who would take big bets by telegram within a few minutes of the race? That little talk gave me an idea. I knew you lost steadily, that you were one of those—unfortunate people——”
“Say ‘fools’—that was the word on your lips.”
“ ‘Mug’ was the word,” said Mr. Gilder, with great calmness. “I knew you were one of those people who couldn’t stop betting. So Truman’s came into existence. Their book of rules was sent to you, featuring the important concession that you could wire big sums of money up to within a few minutes of a race. Do you know how much you’ve lost in the last five years?”
Arthur was pale with fury, but, mastering himself, shook his head.
“You have lost sixty-three thousand pounds to Truman alone,” said the other slowly. “And I have won it!”
The colour came and went in Arthur Gwyn’s face. He knew all the time that his rage and resentment were unreasonable. Hitherto Truman had been a name on a telegraph form, an address somewhere in the West End to which his unprofitable telegrams were sent. Who they were he neither knew nor cared; they might have been people infinitely more objectionable than Gilder.
But there was a suggestion of duplicity in the man’s confession. Arthur Gwyn felt that he had been tricked by a servant he trusted, and he was helpless in face of sixty-three thousand facts, all of which balanced on the side of the hard-faced man before him.
“You are not Rathburn & Co., I suppose?” he asked, mentioning another bookmaking firm that had drawn heavily upon his resources.
To his amazement, Gilder nodded.
“I am Rathburn & Company. I am also Burton & Smith. I am, in fact, the three bookmakers to whom you have been losing money at the rate of thirty thousand a year for the past five years. There is no sense in looking like that, Gwyn. I have been guilty of no crime. On the few occasions when you have won money, you have been paid. Your losses would not have been so distasteful if they had been made to an unknown man. I took the risk—my luck against yours. When I started, I staked my little fortune—three thousand pounds, won through the years by scrimping and saving. If you had been lucky, I should have been ruined.”
“Instead of which you were lucky—and I am ruined,” said Arthur Gwyn huskily. He was shaken from his accustomed calm. “You are quite right, though it is a little—bewildering.”
He looked curiously at the inscrutable face of his managing clerk, striving to readjust his estimate of a man whom he had looked upon as little more than a superior servant. Then the humour of the position struck him and he laughed.
“If I’m not careful I shall be sorry for myself, and I should hate that, Gilder! So you’re a rich man, eh? What are you going to do with your money?”
Gilder’s eyes did not leave his face.
“I am going to settle down in the country,” he said, “and I am going to marry.”
“Splendid!” There was a note of irony in Arthur Gwyn’s tone. “And who is the fortunate lady?”
It was a long time before the other replied. He stared open-eyed at his sometime master, and then, very deliberately and slowly:
“It is my desire and intention to marry Miss Leslie Gwyn,” he said.
Not a muscle of Arthur Gwyn’s face moved; his colour did not change. But into his eyes came a glare which was malign and devilish. For a second the imperturbable Gilder was scared. Had he gone too far? Both men were learning something that day. Gilder had a momentary view of something that was very ugly and menacing, and then the curtains were drawn and the inner self of Arthur Gwyn vanished in an enigmatic smile.
“That is very interesting and very—enterprising of you, Gilder! Unfortunately, I have other plans.”
He rose leisurely from his chair, walked round the desk and confronted the other, his hands thrust into his pockets.
“What are you prepared to pay for the privilege of being my brother-in-law?” he bantered.
Fabrian Gilder took up the challenge.
“The return of half your betting losses for the past five years,” he said.
Arthur shook his head.
“Not enough,” he smiled.
“The cancellation of four bills,” said Gilder deliberately, “drawn and accepted by Lord Chelford, the acceptance in each case being forged by you.”
Arthur Gwyn staggered back to his desk, his face white and drawn, and Gilder pursued the advantage.
“You didn’t think it was an accident that I suggested you should get Chelford to back a bill for you, did you? Seventy-five thousand pounds isn’t enough for you, eh? I’ll give you this alternative: five years in Dartmoor!”
XIII
Leslie had spent rather a boring afternoon, and not once but many times she regretted that she had promised to return to Arthur’s office. He was driving her down to Willow House, and, but for this arrangement, she would have returned to Chelfordbury by an early train, for her shopping did not occupy more than an hour.
She rang up her brother to suggest this plan, never doubting that he would agree, but, to her surprise:
“I think you’d better return with me, girl. Come along to the office about half-past four instead of five. By the way, Gilder wants us to go home to his flat to tea. You don’t mind, do you?”
“Mr. Gilder?” she said, in surprise, and he went on hastily:
“We ought to be civil to him. He’s going to be a neighbour of ours, and he—he’s not a bad sort of fellow.”
Her inclination was to plead a headache and be excused an experience which, to state the matter mildly, was not wholly to her taste. But Arthur seldom asked a favour of her, and it was apparent from his tone that he was anxious she should show this act of civility to his head clerk; somewhat unwillingly she agreed.
If he detected her reluctance, he made no comment upon it and seemed in a hurry to hang up. There was no reason in the world why the projected call should make her uneasy, and yet, for some obscure reason, this coming experience hung like a cloud over her for the rest of the afternoon. This time, when she returned to the office, she entered by Arthur’s private door. He was alone, sitting at his desk in a familiar attitude, his head between his hands, his gloomy eyes fixed upon the blotting-pad. She thought his face had less colour than usual; and in his eyes there was a haggard, hunted expression which was startling. He forced a smile to greet her, but she was not deceived.
“Aren’t you well, Arthur?” she asked anxiously.
“Fit as a fiddle,” he laughed; “only I have had a pretty heavy day. I suppose I look a little washed out.”
He did not seem very anxious to discuss himself, but plunged straight into the subject of the surprising call they were to make.
“Gilder has a flat off Regent’s Park,” he said. “Be as nice to him as you can, Leslie. He’s been a pretty useful man. By the way,” he said awkwardly, “he is a bachelor.”
She smiled at this; in her wildest dreams she would not have imagined that this statement had any particular interest for herself.
“I had no idea he was such a—that he was so prosperous,” she said. “No, I don’t mean that bachelorhood is a sign of poverty, but his estate at Chelfordbury and his flat in Regent’s Park are not exactly what one would have expected.”
“He isn’t a bad fellow,” repeated Arthur, as he rang the bell. “I think you’ll like him: he is rather—amusing.”
“Amusing” was not the word he would have used, in all truth, but it was the only word he could think of at the moment. As though he were waiting for this summons, Mr. Gilder came in answer to the bell. He carried a light coat over his arm and a spotless gray felt hat in his hand. Again she was uncomfortably conscious of the man’s scrutiny.
“You know Mr. Gilder, Leslie?”
His uneasiness and apprehension were communicating themselves to her. Try as she did, she could not succeed in shaking off her sensation of disquietude. The atmosphere was electric; she would have been dull indeed if she had not responded to the strain.
Throughout the journey Mr. Gilder talked almost without interruption. He had a deep but pleasant voice, and was an easy conversationalist. Arthur was beginning to know something about the man with whom he had worked side by side all these years, and to regard him in a new light. Hitherto, Gilder had been a cipher—a familiar figure that had appeared from heaven knew where in the morning and had disappeared at the end of a day’s work into the blue. As though unconscious of his employer’s wonder and speculation, Gilder chatted on.
Afterward, Leslie catalogued the subjects which were discussed so one-sidedly in that drive. He talked of aviation, of wireless, of books he had read—Dumas was his favourite—of the war, of Russia, of Italy’s renaissance, of American writers, of the weather, polo—of almost every subject that occupied public attention. She knew that he was trying to impress her, and saw in this no more than the natural desire of a man to look well in the eyes of a woman.
The flat was bigger than she had expected, and was in one of many in the most exclusive apartment house on the Outer Circle. Arthur viewed its expensive appointments with a glum face. One black week of his at Ascot must have furnished three such flats as this, he thought, and the little devil of resentment and loathing grew stronger in his heart.
Tea was served by two trimly uniformed maids, and Mr. Gilder acted the part of host to perfection. He had a library of rare old books which she must see, and he took them to a room the walls of which were fitted with bookshelves and reminded Leslie, though there was no resemblance between the two apartments, of the hall wherein her fiancé spent most of his time.
Gilder was showing the girl a rare first edition when a surprising thing happened.
“Do you mind if I run out for five minutes, Leslie? I want to see a fellow who lives on the other side of the Park.”
Arthur Gwyn’s voice was husky, his assumption of ease a miserable failure. The girl looked at him in astonishment, and then examined the face of the little watch on her wrist.
“If you want to be back at Willow House in time for dinner——” she began.
“I sha’n’t be more than a quarter of an hour gone,” he said desperately. “If you don’t mind…”
Before she could utter a word he had vanished. It was all so unexpected, so strange, that she could not quite realize what had happened, and the last thought in the world she could have had was that Arthur was deliberately leaving her alone with this gray man.
On one point her mind was made up: she did not like Mr. Gilder; and she was fairly certain that her antipathy was shared by her brother. His strange manner in the presence of the man, his awkwardness, and, most convincing proof of all, his silence, puzzled her. Arthur was intensely selfish, would not go a step out of his way either for courtesy’s sake or to save the feelings of those whom he regarded as his dependents. And this sudden desire to oblige his head clerk was contradictory to her knowledge of him. Yet she felt neither alarm nor annoyance, finding herself in that little library, alone with this square-jawed clerk.
As the door closed upon her brother, Fabrian Gilder carefully replaced on the shelf the book he had been examining.
“I shall be in my new home by the spring,” he said, “and I hope I shall see more of you, Miss Gwyn.”
She made a conventionally polite reply.
“My ambition has always been to settle in the country and to follow my two hobbies, which are fishing and reading,” he went on. “Happily, I am in the position of being able to retire from my profession—your brother has probably told you that I am a fairly wealthy man.”
Something in his tone focussed her attention. Her heart beat a little faster, and for the first time she was conscious of being alone with him.
“I am not an old man—fifty I regard as the prime of life—and I think I have the capacity for making any woman happy.”
She met his eyes steadily.
“I hope we shall have the pleasure of meeting your wife,” she said.
He made no reply to this, and she grew hot and cold under the scrutiny of those merciless gray eyes. And then, before she realized what was happening, his two big hands had closed about her arms and he was holding her away from him, peering into her face.
“There is one woman in the world for me,” he said, and his voice was husky with emotion; “one face that fills my eyes day and night! Leslie, all these months you have not been out of my sight or mind!”
“Let me go!” she cried, struggling to free herself.
“I want you! I’ve worked for you, I’ve schemed for you! Leslie, I love you as you will never be loved again! I want you—I want you!”
He was drawing her nearer and nearer, his eyes, like coals of fire, fascinated her to a queer listlessness that was almost quiescence. She found no reserve to combat him, and could only stare helplessly at the hard face——
There was a knock at the door. He pushed her aside, his face convulsed with rage.
“Who is that?” he asked harshly, and the voice of the maid replied:
“Mr. Richard Alford to see you, sir!”
XIV
Dick Alford, waiting in the pretty drawing-room and wondering exactly how he should introduce what promised to be a very unpleasant discussion, saw the door flung open and a white-faced girl ran in.
“Oh, Dick, Dick!” she sobbed.
In a moment she was in his arms, her face against his breast.
“For God’s sake, what has happened? How did you come here?” he asked, bewildered.
Before she could reply, the big figure of Fabrian Gilder filled the doorway. The man did not speak, but the smouldering rage in his eyes was eloquent.
“Well, what do you want?” he boomed.
Dick put the girl gently from him.
“Why are you here, Leslie?”
“Arthur brought me,” she gasped. “I’m awfully sorry to make such a fool of myself, but——”
Dick looked from the girl to the man in the doorway and began dimly to understand.
“Arthur brought you here?” he said slowly. “And left you alone—with this man?”
She nodded.
“Is he a friend of yours?”
She shook her head.
“I only met him to-day.”
Gradually the explanation of her distress was beginning to dawn upon him, and a cold rage filled his heart. An unfortunate moment for Arthur Gwyn to return. Dick heard the tinkle of a bell, quick footsteps in the hall, and saw the white face of the lawyer, made hideous by the smile he forced.
“Hullo, old girl! What’s the trouble?” he asked.
He did not look at his host: this Dick noticed with gathering fury.
“I think you had better take Leslie home,” he said. “I have a little business to do with Mr. Gilder.”
Gilder had recovered something of his command of himself and his feelings; the situation, awkward as it was, had brought him violently into the circle about which so far he had revolved. It were better to be considered as an undesirable suitor than to be denied consideration as a factor at all in Leslie Gwyn’s life.
“May I ask by what right you dispose of my guests?” he demanded, but Dick took no notice of him.
“Look after your sister, Gwyn,” he said, and there was a scarcely veiled menace in the words. “I will give myself the pleasure of calling on you this evening.”
He took the girl’s hand in his; she was still white and shaking, but smiled into his face.
“I’ve made myself rather ridiculous, haven’t I?” she said, in a low tone that only he could hear. “Dicky—perhaps I’m getting a little jumpy, and I may have taken offence——”
He patted her hand gently and walked with her past Gilder into the hall, Arthur following. It was Dick who opened the door, and stood patiently until they had gone, then he turned to face the enraged owner of the flat.
“I had some real business to do with you, Gilder, but that can wait. First of all, I would like to ask, what have you said to Miss Gwyn?”
“That is entirely my business,” said Gilder. His gaze was steady; again he was completely master of himself, if not of the situation.
“My business also,” said Dick, without heat. “You are aware that Miss Gwyn is engaged to my brother?”
Gilder licked his dry lips.
“That doesn’t really interest me,” he said. And then, after a second’s thought: “I’m going to be frank with you, Alford—we may as well clear the air. I have asked Miss Gwyn to be my wife.”
“Oh, indeed?” said Dick softly. “And what had Miss Gwyn to say to that?”
“You didn’t give her an opportunity of replying,” said the other, “but I rather think that there will be no difficulty in the matter.”
Dick did not conceal his smile. A shrewd judge of men, he had rightly understood the situation when he had seen Arthur’s face on his return to the flat.
“You mean there will be no difficulty so far as Mr. Gwyn is concerned? I admit you have an historical precedent. You are not the first lawyer who wished to marry into his master’s family.”
If Dick had not been angry he would not have said this; immediately the words were out he was sorry. But Gilder took up the point quickly.
“I am not a Uriah Heep,” he said, with a grim smile. “I am neither humble nor lowly.”
“I’m sorry, but really I don’t think that matters very much, Gilder. Whatever Mr. Gwyn’s attitude may be, there will be a considerable difficulty in respect to Miss Gwyn—and to me.”
“To you?” Gilder’s eyebrows went up and his lips curled. “Are you the lady’s—er——”
“I am not engaged to Miss Gwyn, but my brother is,” said Dick evenly. “But that is not the point. I am a friend of Leslie Gwyn’s, and even if she changed her mind about marrying into my family, that would not affect the issue.”
Gilder was about to speak, but Dick went on:
“I don’t know what pull you have with Gwyn or what dire threats you are holding over his head.”
He saw the man start, and laughed.
“That went very near the mark?” he said. “But whatever influence you have, Gilder, you are not going to marry Leslie Gwyn.”
Gilder’s eyes narrowed.
“Is that a threat?” he asked.
“You can take it as a threat or as a pleasant compliment, or any old way you choose,” said Dick, with that impish smile of his. “And now, if you don’t mind, we’ll come to business. You’ve bought a property of ours—Red Farm. You’ve paid thirty-five hundred pounds to Leonard. I have come to ask you to call off your bargain and to take five hundred profit.”
“In other words, you want to buy it back, eh? Well, there’s nothing doing!” said Gilder harshly. “I intend living at Red Farm, and there isn’t a law in the land that can stop me. You may not like my presence, but that is neither here nor there. I am not living at Chelfordbury for the pleasure of seeing you every day of my life.”
Dick nodded.
“I wondered why you wanted to live there at all, but now I think I understand,” he said. “The offer I have made to you is without prejudice to any action I may take. Unfortunately for you, Leonard has no power to re-transfer the property without my brother’s consent—which means my consent, for I hold his power of attorney. Leonard may hold the property, but you cannot. You’re a lawyer and it is not necessary for me to explain the intricacies of a copyhold lease, and that was all Leonard was buying. If you decide to fight the case, I’ll take you into court, and you know that I shall get a verdict against you. I am offering you a chance of settling the matter amicably.”
“Which I refuse,” said the other promptly.
Dick inclined his head.
“Very good. You will probably, on considering the matter in a calmer atmosphere, take a different view.”
He walked from the room, swinging his hat. In the doorway he turned.
“As for Miss Leslie Gwyn, you will be well advised to reconsider that question also.”
“And suppose I don’t?”
Again that unfathomable smile.
“You are going to be sorry,” said Dick cryptically.
XV
Not a word did Leslie say about her interview with Gilder, and her brother seemed just as anxious to avoid the topic as she. They drove down from town, and all the time he kept up a ceaseless flow of talk about affairs which he thought might interest her. He was nervous, and once, when she woke him from a reverie with a question, he started and turned red.
“Sorry!” he stammered. “I was thinking of something.”
“And something unpleasant, Arthur,” she said gently.
He was staring straight ahead of him.
“Yes, something damnably unpleasant!”
They were nearing Chelfordbury now, and she put the question that had trembled on her lips throughout that long journey.
“Arthur, do you know what Mr. Gilder asked me?” And, when he did not reply: “He proposed to me,” she said.
Still he avoided her eyes.
“Did he?” he asked awkwardly. “Well, that’s an extraordinary thing for him to do!”
“Arthur, did you know he was going to propose to me when you left us alone?”
“He isn’t a bad fellow,” said Arthur Gwyn lamely. “Of course, the idea is preposterous. But, after all, it is no sin for a fellow to fall in love with a girl and want to marry her—I mean, one can see his point of view.”
Leslie was a little shocked; she was more than a little angry. But she kept a tight rein on her tongue.
“But, Arthur, you wouldn’t agree to that? You know I am engaged to Harry—why, you told me that it was the dream of your life to see me wearing a coronet! Not that I want to wear the beastly thing, but that was what you said.”
Ordinarily, Arthur Gwyn was possessed of a ready tongue and a nimble wit. He had lied his way out of many an embarrassing situation with more worldly wise people than Leslie. But, somehow, in her presence his brain refused to function, and his witticisms were banal and vulgar even to himself.
“My dear little girl,” he said, with an attempt at cheerfulness, “it really doesn’t matter to me whom you marry so long as you’re happy. Gilder is a very solid man; he has a considerable private fortune.”
This time she swung round on her seat and faced him.
“Arthur, why do you insist upon the fortune? Where is my money?”
The question came point-blank and was not to be fenced with. He roused himself to meet a situation which had never before arisen.
“Your money? Why, invested, of course!”
He tried very hard, but he could not produce that convincing note which was so necessary.
“Your fortune is in all sorts of shares and bonds. What a queer question to ask me, girlie!”
“How much money have I?” she demanded ruthlessly.
“About a quarter of a million—a little more or a little less. For goodness’ sake don’t talk about money, my dear.”
“But I will talk about it,” she said. “Arthur, have I any at all?”
His laughter did not carry conviction. And usually people accepted his word. Harry Chelford had asked him only a week before in what stocks was his late mother’s fortune invested. And Arthur had replied glibly enough. It was the Miriam Chelford Trust that had occupied his mind through the journey. Something must be done there. Dick Alford had started to ask questions, and Dick had a memory like a recording machine. As for Leslie and her tiresome questions:
“What a silly kid you are! Of course you’ve got money! I wish to heaven I had half your wad! You’re a very rich little girl, and you ought to be a very happy little girl.”
She shook her head.
“I don’t think I have a penny,” she said, and his heart sank.
With a tremendous effort of will he met her questioning eyes.
“Why do you say that?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t know—in a way I hope I’m poor. I know I had money left me, because you showed me the will a long time ago. But you’ve been handling it, Arthur, and I’ve an idea that things haven’t been going too well with you.”
“Do you mean I’ve stolen your fortune?” he asked loudly, and she smiled.
“I wouldn’t accuse you of that. I think it is possible you may have invested my fortune—unwisely! And it is quite possible that that quarter of a million has dwindled and dwindled until it has disappeared. Is that so?”
He did not answer.
“Is that so?”
“I wish to God you wouldn’t ask such stupid questions,” he said irritably. “Of course it isn’t so!”
For one wild moment he had the impulse to tell her the truth; but vanity, a shrinking from the possible effects the news would have upon the one person in the world for whom he had a grain of affection, inhibited the confession.
Back he came naturally to the one thought present in his mind, as he chattered and as he brooded. His last hope lay in the discovery of the Chelford treasure. If that were found, he could snap his fingers at Gilder, could restore the wasted fortune of his sister, and establish himself beyond assail. Gilder would never dare bring his story of the four bills to a court of law, and if he did, backed by the Chelford fortune, Arthur could face the storm, confident that, if he made restoration to the man he had robbed, no evil consequences would follow. He was grasping at a straw, and knew it. But Mary Wenner was a shrewd little devil, not the kind of girl who, for the sake of making a sensation, would come to him with a cock-and-bull story. She might have been mistaken; on the other hand, she was so brimful of confidence that he could not believe the story was altogether without foundation.
The road to Willow House skirted the grounds of Fossaway Manor, and he saw the crumbling arch, red in the setting sun, standing like a fiery question mark that attuned with his mood of doubt and hope.
Arrived at his home, he went up to his room to bathe and change before dinner, and it was with a positive sense of freedom that he found himself alone. He was a fool not to have told her the truth, he thought. After dinner he would get her in a softer mood and make a clean breast of it. And then, at the tail of this decision, came the recollection of his interview with Mary Wenner. Suppose she had told the truth? Suppose he found these millions of pounds that had lain for centuries in the ground? He formed yet another plan.
XVI
To his unspeakable relief, Leslie was in her most cheerful mood throughout dinner, and the thought of Fabrian Gilder seemed to have been effectively banished.
“Leslie,” he asked, after the coffee had been served, “I want you to do me a great favour.”
She looked at him across the table, doubt in her eyes.
“Do you remember Mary Wenner, who used to be Harry’s secretary?”
She nodded.
“Yes. Dick doesn’t like her very much; he was telling me the other day——”
“Never mind what Dick likes or dislikes,” he said testily. “Great heavens! Are our lives to be run according to his fancies? I’m very sorry,” he apologized with a laugh, “but you’ll have to forgive me—I’m rather nervous to-night.”
“What about Mary Wenner?” she asked.
“I was wondering whether you would like to ask her down here to stay a week-end? I shall have a lot of work to do, and she’s a very excellent stenographer. But I’ll be perfectly frank with you and tell you that that is not the only reason I’d like you to invite her. She’s been in some kind of scrape and I want to help her through.”
Leslie Gwyn was not curious, or she might have questioned him more about this mythical trouble.
“I don’t know why she shouldn’t come,” she said. “If you’ll give me her address I will write to her. I rather fancy that Dick’s main objection to her is that she had some sort of attachment for Harry.”
“She’s almost forgotten Harry,” smiled her brother. “To be perfectly candid, I like the girl. She’s not a lady, of course, but ‘lady’ nowadays is a vague and meaningless term. And there was really nothing in her affair with Harry. I mean it was not serious.”
“I’ve never thought so,” said the girl, and thereupon the question of Mary Wenner was dismissed.
He had, he said, some work to do that night, and left her alone in the drawing-room, and for once she did not find time hanging very heavily upon her hands. Ordinarily the prospect of an evening spent alone would have seemed intolerably dull, but she had so much to think about, so many perspectives to adjust, that she rather welcomed her solitude.
Even at so short a distance of time, her experience with Fabrian Gilder seemed grotesquely unreal. Perhaps she was still numb from the shock of it, for, going over that unpleasant feature incident by incident, she could be neither angry nor amused. Perhaps she was a little afraid—she still felt the pressure of his strong hands upon her, still saw the gray fires that burnt in his eyes. And Dick—how natural it had been to go to him—how safe she had felt! Would it have been the same if Harry Chelford had providentially arrived? She was sure in her mind that she would not have run to Harry, or found comfort in his encircling arms.
She looked at the clock; it was ten minutes after nine. Dick would be back at Fossaway Manor by now, and she went out into the hall and, taking off the receiver of the telephone, gave a number.
Arthur’s study door opened into the hall, and he came out.
“To whom are you telephoning?” he asked suspiciously.
“I’m calling up Fossaway Manor,” she said.
“You’re not going to invite Dick Alford over, are you?” he demanded resentfully.
Before she could reply, he heard the ring of a bell in the servants’ quarters and she ran to the door. Through the glass panel she saw the gleam of a white shirt-front on the unlighted porch, and switched on the lights. It was Dick, and, with an oath, Arthur Gwyn flung back into his room and slammed the door. He had hoped that Dick had forgotten his threat to call that night.
“Enter, Richard of Chelford!” said the girl dramatically, as she threw open the door. “I was just ’phoning to you. I’m bored to extinction and I want amusing.”
Which was not true.
“I don’t feel at all amusing,” said Dick, as he closed the door and hung up his cap on the hat-rack.
She took him by the arm and led him into the drawing-room.
“Arthur is invisible to-night; he is working very hard. He doesn’t approve of you, and you hardly approve of him, so we sha’n’t be interrupted! Dick, it was lovely of you to arrive as you did this afternoon.”