The Golden Web

Lady Olive came slowly forward to meet him.

"Mr. Deane is going to make the usual excuses, I know," she declared. "Let us anticipate him, and say nothing about our wait. We won't even ask whether it was a directors' meeting, or a message from the governor of the Bank of England. Stirling, this is my cousin, Mary Elstree, and her husband, Major Elstree—Mr. Deane! The others are somewhere about. What a tiresome person Julia is! She has drifted away over there with a lot of people whom I don't know. That is the worst of taking Julia anywhere. I think that she would discover acquaintances in an A B C shop. Do find her, Stirling. No, don't bother! Here she comes."

A tall, dark woman detached herself from a neighboring crowd, and came up to Deane with outstretched hands. "My dear man!" she exclaimed. "How dare you look so cool and nonchalant! Do you realize that we are all starving? We have been waiting here for you for more than half an hour."

"I am sorry," answered Deane. "You see, you people here have taken to lunching so early nowadays. You make it hard for a man to get through any work at all in the city."

"Early lunches have come in with the simpler life," Julia Raynham declared. "One has so many more hours to look forward to dinner, and so much more appetite when it comes. I suppose we must forgive you," she went on. "At any rate, you are better than my husband, who won't come out to lunch at all. He says that all restaurant food is poisonous, and I can't drag him away from the club. Why a man should put his digestion before our society, I can't imagine. I hope you will never be so ungallant, Mr. Deane. Shall we go in, Olive?"

"If you will excuse me for one moment," Deane said, passing on ahead, "I will just see that the table is all right. I telephoned to Gustave, but even a maître d'hôtel forgets sometimes."

He looked into the room, and nodded to the presiding genius who came hurrying up. The table was there, duly reserved, and covered with the dark red roses which he had ordered. He turned to Mrs. Elstree and the others who were following her.

"I think we can go in," he said. "I hope you people have not lost all your appetites waiting for me."

Lady Olive looked at him a little curiously as she took the seat at his left, hers by unspoken consent as his fiancée. "My dear Stirling," she whispered, "have you had a very trying morning? You look somehow as though you had been worried."

He hesitated. "Well," he answered, "scarcely that, perhaps. I had rather a bad hour or so. Things don't go always our way, you know, in the city, even when one is most prosperous."

"You are foolish to worry," she said calmly. "Half the people in the world spoil their lives by giving way to that sort of thing. I should have thought that your temperament would have saved you from that."

Deane smiled. "Remember," he said, "that I have been in other places when I might have been with you, and excuse me."

"You are much too gallant," she said, with a little laugh, "to argue with seriously."

"By the bye," Major Elstree asked, "has anyone seen a special edition? I wonder if the Rowan case is finished."

Deane set down the wineglass which he had just raised to his lips. "The verdict was given just as I left the city," he answered. "Rowan was found guilty!"

AN IMPERIOUS DEMAND

There was a little murmur of interest. On the whole, although the result of the trial had seemed fairly certain, everyone was surprised.

"Guilty of murder or manslaughter?" Major Elstree asked.

"Of murder," answered Deane. "There was not even a recommendation to mercy."

Lady Olive looked reproachfully at him. "My dear Stirling, you really shouldn't have told us at luncheon time. If I hadn't been so very hungry, I am sure it would have taken my appetite away. He was such a good-looking fellow, and he has been so brave all through the trial."

"Brave or callous, do you think?" Major Elstree asked.

"Brave, I think," Julia Raynham declared, leaning forward in her place. "I went to the trial the first day. He followed every question that was asked, and he was always making suggestions to his solicitor. I think when one understands like that, when one's intellect is working all the time, that you cannot call it callousness."

"I agree with you," Lady Olive declared. "I was there myself, and except that he looked so ill, he seemed quite indifferent, and absolutely free from nervousness. Yet I am quite sure that he realized his position. My dear Stirling, how thoughtful of you to remember the Homard Americaine. I adore hot lobster, don't you, Julia?"

"Delicious!" Julia murmured.

"I wonder," Major Elstree said reflectively, "what must be the state of mind of a man who has gone through a trial lasting four or five days, and suddenly realizes that it is over and finished, and that he has lost. This poor fellow, for instance. When he woke up this morning, he perhaps hoped to be free to-night,—things went altogether his way yesterday. And instead of being free, he has been taken back to his cell, and knows—even at this minute he is realizing—that he will never leave it again until he leaves it to die. Personally," he continued, "I think that the period of time between the pronouncement of a sentence and its execution ought to be swept away. I cannot imagine anything more horrible, especially to a man who has to spend the long nights alone with that one thought racking his brain!"

Lady Olive laid down her fork. "My dear Harry," she declared, "do be a little more considerate. How are we to enjoy our luncheon if we think of that poor man?"

Major Elstree bowed across the table. "I forgot," he said. "Let us enjoy our luncheon, by all means. At the same time, I am going to drink my first glass of wine to a reprieve. We won't discuss the question of whether he deserves it or not. We will talk instead, if you like, of directoire gowns, and Flying Star's chance for the gold cup. But—I drink my toast."

"You are very quiet, Stirling," Lady Olive murmured to the man who sat by her side.

Deane smiled at her. "I am afraid that sometimes when I come away from a maze of figures, my brain, or at any rate my tongue, is not so nimble as it should be. I'll keep pace with you all presently."

A frock-coated, white-waistcoated maître d'hôtel came smiling up and addressed him confidentially. "Mr. Deane," he said, "you are wanted for a moment upon the telephone."

"You are sure that it is I who am wanted?" Deane asked, a little doubtfully.

"Quite sure, sir," the man replied. "The inquiry was for Mr. Stirling Deane."

Deane rose to his feet. "You will excuse me?" he begged, turning to his guests. "I suppose they have found out at the office that I am here, and they have probably something to say to me."

Nevertheless, as he left the room and crossed the hall Deane was conscious of feeling more than a little puzzled. He was quite certain that he had not told a soul at the office of the Incorporated Gold-Mines Association, over which he presided, that he was lunching at the Carlton. He was equally certain that he had not told anyone else. He took up the receiver of the instrument with some curiosity.

"Who is it?" he asked.

"Who are you?" was the reply.

"I am Stirling Deane," Deane said. "Who are you, and what do you want with me? Is it the office?"

"No!" was the reply, in a voice wholly unfamiliar to him. "It is not the office, Mr. Deane. It is someone with news for you."

"News?" Deane repeated. "I should like to know who you are first, and to hear your news afterwards."

"Who I am is of no consequence," was the reply. "My news is that Basil Rowan has been found guilty, and has been sentenced to be hanged. The verdict has just been pronounced."

The receiver nearly fell from Deane's fingers. He restrained himself, however, with an effort. "Well," he said, "what is that to you or to me?"

"That is a matter which we will not discuss over the telephone," was the calm reply. "I rang you up to tell you this because I thought it was well that you should know quickly. I ask you now what you are going to do."

Deane's was the face of a strong man—a man who scarcely knew the meaning of the word "nerves." Yet he felt himself struggling with a sudden sense of being stifled. Something seemed to be hammering at his brain. His breath was coming in little sobs. He answered this mysterious voice almost incoherently.

"What do you mean? How can it concern me? Tell me who you are at once," he said.

"It does not matter who I am," was the reply. "You have no time to think about that. What you want to realize is that Basil Rowan has been found guilty, and that he will be hanged within a fortnight, unless—"

"Unless what?" Deane gasped.

"Unless someone intervenes," was the quiet answer.

"Who could intervene?" he demanded hoarsely. "How can anyone intervene?"

"You know," was the quiet answer.

Deane staggered out of the telephone box with those last words ringing in his ears. He felt dazed, scarcely master of himself. The healthy color seemed to have been drawn from his cheeks, as he turned mechanically back toward the restaurant. Half-way there, however, he paused. For the moment, he felt it impossible to face his guests. He turned into the little smoking-room and sat down. The place was empty. Even the little bar was deserted. He sat in one of the green leather chairs, his hands clutching the cushioned arms, his eyes fixed steadily upon the wall. Slowly it seemed to fall away—to crumble into nothingness—before his rigid gaze. Again he saw the sombre-looking courthouse, the judge upon the bench, his sphinx-like face set in an attitude of cold attention. He saw the barristers, with their wigs and gowns, the few distinguished strangers upon the bench, the crowd of sightseers behind the barriers. And in the centre of it all—Basil Rowan, his pale face and drawn features standing out vividly against the gloomy background. It was no ordinary trial, this. The subtle, dramatic excitement, which only a question of life or death seems to generate, was throbbing through the dreary court. It was only, comparatively speaking, a few days ago that the man who stood there now waiting to hear his doom had found his way down into the city, and sat in his office, and made his passionate appeal. Deane's hands gripped the sides of the chair, and his lips moved. He told himself, as he had told himself a hundred times before, that this act was none of his doing, that not a single word of his had suggested or approved of it. He had spoken of arguments, of influence. Was it any responsibility of his that the man who had listened had gone further—had chosen to gamble instead with life and death? Deane went back through that conversation, word by word. No, he was guiltless! He had not suggested violence! He even told himself that he would not have approved of it. And yet the weight upon his heart was not lightened. The little picture was still there, reproduced with almost photographic exactness. Was it his fancy, or had the trembling man's eyes really turned towards him—had his white lips really framed that passionate, unspoken appeal which seemed to ring in his ears?

Deane rose to his feet with a little stifled cry. He seemed to understand now how men who were left alone with their thoughts might find madness.

LOVE OR INTEREST?

Deane found his little party drinking their coffee in the palm lounge. Lady Olive greeted him with upraised eyebrows.

"My dear Stirling!" she exclaimed. "Have you been telephoning to the other end of the world?"

"I am so sorry," he answered, taking the vacant chair by her side. "I came away from the office feeling that I had forgotten something, and it took me quite a long time to straighten things out. Tell me, what are you all going to do this afternoon?"

"We are going down to Ranelagh," said Lady Olive. "There is some tennis, and Dicky is playing polo in the regimental finals. Don't you think that you could take an hour or so off, and come down with us? You really look as though you needed some fresh air."

Deane shook his head. "Nothing in the world," he declared, "is more impossible. I have an appointment in the city at half-past three, and another at four. After that I have at least a hundred letters to dictate."

"I am beginning to discover," Lady Olive remarked, with an air of resignation, "that there are disadvantages in being engaged to a city man."

Deane smiled. "Let us hope," said he, "that after you are married you will still regard the situation in the same light. Your friend Julia, for instance, declares that she would never have married anyone who was not kept away from home at regular intervals."

Lady Olive leaned a little towards him. After all, he had been very nice. The Elstrees had found him delightful, and there was no man in the lounge half so good-looking. She decided to say something charming.

"Julia," she whispered, "was never in love with her husband, even before she married him."

"And you?" Deane murmured.

She laughed at him and looked away, but he was suddenly insistent, taking her hand, and forcing her to turn again towards him.

"Tell me," he said quietly, "do you really care for me, Olive? Oh! I know you care enough to justify you in marrying me, but I mean something different. I mean do you really care in the great fashion, you know, like the people one reads of,—like Iseult, and Amy Robsart, and those others?"

She looked at him as though he were speaking some foreign language. The earnestness in his face was unmistakable. She answered him with a perplexed little frown upon her forehead. "Ah, I wonder!" she murmured. "What a very strange question to ask me, Stirling, just now! Frankly, I don't know. I can only tell you that there is no other man. You are quite alone."

The others were all discussing some subject of kindred interest. Deane felt curiously prompted to continue his questioning. His engagement had been such a very matter-of-fact affair. To a certain extent it was understood that he was marrying for position, and she for wealth. And yet in all their conversations they had discreetly concealed the fact. They had told each other that they cared, if not with passion, at least in the most approved manner. There had been no suggestion in their many tête-à-têtes that they were about to embark upon a mariage de convenance.

"Tell me," Deane persisted, "if things should go wrong with me, or if you had met me simply as a struggler, with my feet upon the early rungs of the ladder,—tell me, could you have cared then, do you think?"

She looked at him curiously. There was something in his face which compelled the truth. "I do not know," she said. "Let me think."

"Think, by all means," he continued. "Remember that I was introduced to you, even, as one of the youngest millionaires. Forgive me if I seem egotistical, but I have a fancy to put things plainly. There is a glamour about wealth. I came to you with that glamour about my name. I am rich, of course, and wealth means power. How much of your affection, Olive, came out to the man, and how much to the millionaire?"

"You want me to give you a perfectly honest answer?" she asked.

"Absolutely," he assured her. "Don't be afraid of hurting my vanity. I want nothing but the truth."

"At first, then," she told him, "nothing to the man, and everything to the millionaire. This afternoon," she continued, "I rather fancy that the man has the larger share. You are quite a fascinating person, Stirling, when you choose to make yourself agreeable."

"You can't accuse me," he remarked, "of making any special efforts in that direction to-day."

"No!" she answered. "You were rather quiet, but still you were yourself. Personally, I am beginning to find something very attractive about a silent man. You speak quite often enough, and what you say is to the point. It seems always to be the pronouncement of the man who knows. You have what Julia calls an air of reserved strength about you, which I fancy that my sex finds a little attractive. Tell me, why all this questioning?"

Deane looked away—through the cluster of palms into the little smoking-room from which he had issued a few minutes before.

"Even the houses," he said, "which according to the injunctions of Scripture are built upon a rock, are liable to destruction by earthquakes. So, even, the strongest of us in the city have always the hundredth chance working in the world against us. The most amazing collapses have taken place. I was really wondering what would happen—how greatly it would affect you—if my riches were to vanish into thin air."

"What an unpractical person you are this afternoon!" she murmured, looking at him curiously. "Supposing I were to sit here and worry about the fit of the dress which Madame Oliver is sending me home this afternoon for the ball to-night. I could make myself miserable in five minutes without the shadow of a reason."

"Madame Oliver," he declared, "would deserve bankruptcy if she failed to fit a figure like yours."

Lady Olive laughed. "Really," she said, "you are becoming quite a courtier."

"Dear people," Julia Raynham murmured, leaning over, "if we may bring you back to the mundane world, everybody else is dying to start for Ranelagh."

Lady Olive made a little grimace, and rose to her feet at once. "Stirling and I have only been boring one another because you all seemed so occupied," she declared. "Ranelagh, by all means. It is quite time we made a move."

They made their way toward the Pall Mall entrance of the restaurant. Lady Olive fell back once more with Deane.

"It's such a nuisance about this wretched dinner to-night," she said. "I think it was very bad taste indeed of the Duchess to ask us without you. You won't forget to come in and see me for half-an-hour before we go on to the ball? I shall be in my room at eleven o'clock punctually, and I will arrange so that I can take you on to Amberley House."

He bowed. "I shall be with you."

"Where are you dining?" she asked.

"At the club, most likely. I never dine out on Wednesdays, if I can help it. We are always so busy. I shall have a quiet, comfortable evening."

"Au revoir, then!" she said, stepping into one of the two automobiles which were waiting.

Deane made his adieux to the rest of the party and watched them drive off. Then he called a hansom.

"Messrs. Hardaway and Sons, Bedford Row," he told the man. "Drive as quickly as you can."

AN AWFUL RESPONSIBILITY

John Hardaway, although he was a solicitor in a very busy practice, did not keep his friend waiting for a moment. "Come in, Deane, old chap," he said. "Is this business or friendship?"

"Mostly business," declared Deane.

Hardaway glanced at the clock. "Twelve minutes, precisely," he said. "Fire away, there's a good fellow. You are not going to give me the affairs of the Incorporated Gold-Mines Association to look after, I suppose?"

"Not I," Deane answered. "They need a more subtle brain than yours, I am afraid. I have come to see you about the other affair."

The lawyer nodded. "You heard the result?" he asked. "We did what we could."

"Perhaps," Deane answered. "The only thing is that you did not do enough. I am perfectly convinced, Hardaway, that that man did not go there with the intention of murdering Sinclair."

"The evidence," Hardaway remarked, "was exceedingly awkward."

"Do you think," Deane asked, "that there is any chance of a reprieve?"

"As things stand at present," said Hardaway, "I am afraid not."

Deane for the first time sat down. With frowning face, he seemed to be engaged in a deliberate study of the pattern of the carpet. "Hardaway," he said finally, "I want to ask you a question in criminal law."

The lawyer laughed dryly. "Not on your own account, I hope?"

"You can call it curiosity, or whatever you like," Deane answered. "The only point is that I want you to answer me a question, and forget that I have ever asked it you. Your lawyer is like your confessor, isn't he—your lawyer and your doctor?"

"He should be," Hardaway answered gravely.

"Then here goes," Deane said. "I put a case to you. I mention no names. You can imagine, if you like, that I am writing a novel. A man is tried for murder, and he is sentenced to be hanged. All the time there has been watching this case, listening to every word of the evidence, a person who knows quite as much of it as the prisoner himself,—someone who, if it had been possible, could have gone into the witness box and could very likely have induced the jury to have reduced the charge from murder to manslaughter. Never mind the reasons which made that man hold his tongue. Consider only the fact that he did hold his peace, believing in his heart that it was not possible, on the evidence which was submitted, for the man to be sentenced. As it happened, the case for the prosecution was worked up with almost diabolical cleverness, and the prisoner was found guilty—guilty of murder. He was sentenced to be hanged. What can this person do to save his life? The trial is closed. It is too late for him to offer himself as a witness."

Hardaway nodded. "I understand," he said. "The procedure is very simple. He should go to the solicitors for the defence, and they will communicate with the Home Secretary."

"The case cannot be reopened?" Deane asked.

"No!" answered Hardaway, with a shake of the head. "Our criminal law has many anomalies. The only thing that could happen in the prisoner's favor would be that if this favorable evidence were convincing enough, the prisoner might be granted a free pardon, and the facts made known through the Press. Anything more I can tell you?"

"Nothing," Deane answered, rising. "Many thanks, old fellow. You have told me just what I want to know."

"Six-and-eightpence, please," Hardaway remarked, holding out his hand.

Deane laughed, and shook his head. "I sha'n't pay," he declared. "You can run it in with the other account, or I'll stand you a dinner when and where you please,—a dinner and a box at the Alhambra, if you like."

Hardaway smiled. "We can't run our office on such clients as you," he remarked, pressing the bell.

"You should never try to fleece your friends," Deane said.

"Referring for one moment to the other affair—" began Hardaway.

"Well?"

"The only real chance of a reprieve that I can see," Hardaway continued, "is on account of the fellow's health. I believe he is really very much worse than he appears, and I fancy that if we had a medical examination it would give us at least a chance. The trouble is that he really seems quite indifferent. Are you thinking of trying to see him, Deane?"

Deane shook his head. "No!" he said. "I am afraid I must not do that. There are reasons why I dare not let my name be associated in any way with this affair. They may come out later on, but just at present I would rather not tell even you what they are. By the bye, has anyone representing the dead man turned up at all—I mean has anyone claimed his effects?"

"No one," the lawyer answered. "From what I can learn they are very insignificant."

Deane nodded. "Can I rely upon you," he asked, "to let me know at once if anyone should come forward to claim them?"

"By all means," Hardaway answered.

Deane went out into the street, and stood there for a few moments a little aimlessly. Then he called a cab and was driven to his offices, a great block of buildings like a bank, situated in a small court off Throgmorton Street. He passed through the outer offices slowly, asking several questions, and shaking hands with one or two acquaintances. When at last he reached the inner room, his own sanctum, he turned out his secretary ruthlessly, and locked the door. He sat in his leather chair in front of the open table, covered with letters and books of reference. It was before this table that he had built up the fortunes of the great corporation at whose head he was. He sat there now, erect in his chair, with his hands stretched out on the table before him, and his eyes looking through the frosted panes of glass opposite. Was there any compromise, he asked himself,—any possible compromise? Again he was looking into the gloomy court. Again he saw the white face of the man who so short a time ago had sat in this very room, only a few feet away, and had begged so hard for his chance! The whole scene came flashing back to Deane as he sat there. How much of blame, after all, was his? He had not suggested violence. He refused even to admit that it had entered into his head. Yet he had known what manner of men these two were! He had known, and their meeting had been all his making! Never in this world would he be able to escape from the responsibility of it,—never in this world would he be able to hear those awful words without a sense of real and personal guilt,—"And may the Lord have mercy upon your soul!"

WINIFRED ROWAN

The clerk who brought in the little slip of paper was both timid and apologetic. He felt himself between two fires. The young lady outside had been a little more than insistent. The man into whose presence he had come was one who never forgave a mistake.

"You will pardon me, sir," he said. "I hope that I have not done wrong. The young lady outside positively declined to go away until she had seen you. I thought that I had better at least bring you in her name. I remembered that a few weeks ago you saw a gentleman of the same name, although it was one of your busiest mornings."

Deane held out his hand, frowning. "A young lady," he remarked shortly. "Well?"

He took the little slip of paper into his hands, and read—Winifred Rowan. He looked up into the clerk's impassive face, and back again at the slip of paper. "The young lady is waiting outside?" he asked.

"She is outside, sir," the clerk answered. "I explained to her that you were not in the habit of seeing any callers except by appointment, and I begged her to write and fix a time, if she really had business with you. She declared, however, that the matter was an urgent one. Mr. Sawday and I both heard what she had to say, sir, and we thought it best that I should bring you in her name."

Deane nodded slowly. "I daresay you were right, Gray," he said. "Since the young lady is so persistent, you had better show her in. See that I am not disturbed again this afternoon, however. I have a good deal to do."

The clerk departed with a great weight off his mind. It was obvious that he had done the right thing. He left the door ajar, and Deane sat with his hands clenching the sides of his luxuriously padded writing chair. Winifred Rowan! It was a relative, then,—most likely the sister of whom he had spoken. What was he to say or do? How much was he to admit? Perhaps she had brought him a message. Perhaps she could tell him the one thing which he was on fire to know. Winifred Rowan! Half unconsciously he uttered the name aloud. What sort of a woman would she be, or girl, or child? He had no knowledge of Rowan save as a fellow adventurer, a seeker after fortune in a strange land, a brave man, willing always to take his life into his hands if the goal were worthy. Perhaps it might be that she had been with him. Perhaps she was bringing a message.

He heard the murmur of voices outside. The door was pushed open. The clerk stood on one side.

"This is the young lady, sir," he announced,—"Miss Winifred Rowan."

Deane rose for a moment to his feet. The clerk, with a little deferential movement, closed the door and departed. They were alone in the room together. Deane, whose self-control was one of the personal characteristics which had counted for something in his rapid access to prosperity, felt a nerveless exclamation break from his lips. The girl who came so slowly into the room seemed so perfectly to represent what Rowan himself might have become. She was an idealized likeness of the man by whose side he had fought and suffered and rejoiced, the man who only a few weeks ago had stood in her place and made his desperate appeal,—an idealized likeness, perhaps, in more ways than one. She was younger, and the stress of life had only lately set its mark upon her. She was fair, as he was fair, with gray-blue eyes, brown hair, and quivering lips, a figure slim and yet pliant, a manner, even in silence, appealing,—enticing. Deane felt himself curiously moved at the sight of her. Then he remembered suddenly how great was his need of self-control. She was the sister of this man who lay under sentence of death. Perhaps she had come to plead for his help. He must be careful. All the time he must be careful!

"You wish to see me?" he asked, a little brusquely. "I am Stirling Deane. Will you take a chair, and tell me in as few words as you can what you want?"

She ignored his gesture of invitation. She came on until she had reached the table before which he was seated. Then she leaned across, and the light of her eyes, the very insistence of her presence, seemed like things from which no escape was possible.

"Mr. Deane," she said, "I am Basil Rowan's sister. I have come from the Old Bailey prison. I have come," she added, with faltering voice, and a sudden new terror in her face, "from the condemned cell."

Deane had a reserve stock of courage to draw upon, and he drew upon it freely. He looked at her with upraised eyebrows. "You have come to me," he repeated. "Why?"

"First of all, then," she answered, "I will tell you why."

"I think," he interrupted, "that you had better take a seat."

She seemed, indeed, in need of some support. She sank into the chair which he had indicated. It was close to his side, and yet placed so that the light which fell upon her face left him in the shadow.

"You have come from your brother," he said. "Do I understand that he sent you—that he knew you were coming to me?"

"Yes!" she answered. "He told me to be very careful, to be sure that no one else knew, and never to mention your name, but I have come at his bidding."

"Very well," Deane said, "I shall be glad to hear your message."

"He gave me no explanation," she said. "He allowed me to ask for none. He told me to come to you and say this. There is no one," she asked, in a lower tone, looking nervously around, "who could possibly overhear us?"

"Not a soul."

"He told me to say," she continued, leaning forward, and with her eyes suddenly a little distended, "that he had no difficulty in finding the man of whom you two had spoken—the man whom you used to call Bully Sinclair. He spent the evening with him, drank with him, went back to his hotel by invitation. Then he tried very carefully to open up negotiations. Sinclair became at once suspicious. He was very violent, and declined to discuss the matter at all. He swore all the time that he had been robbed, and that he was going to have his revenge. My brother tried to reason with him, and in the end they quarrelled. It was Sinclair who struck Basil. My brother only returned the blow. And then he told me to say that before he could search him, before he could search the room, he found that the man was dead."

"Anything else?" Deane asked.

"He told me to say that any papers which the man Sinclair might have had must be in the room among his effects, which have all been put together, and are still there, locked up, waiting for someone to come and claim them. He told me to say that he had done his best, and that whatever the consequences might be he was ready to face them. If you cared to run risks, the number of the room at the Universal Hotel is 27. It is locked and guarded, but there might be ways. That is what he said."

Deane leaned a little forward across the table. "But of himself?" he demanded. "Did he say nothing of himself?"

She shook her head. "It is wonderful," she said, "but he never thinks of himself. He is more composed, more cheerful, than when I bade him good-night at Southampton, the day he left home. He made me promise that I would tell you these things first, before I uttered a word on my own account. I have kept my promise. You understand what I have told you?"

"Perfectly," Deane answered.

"Then I am going to speak to you now on my own account," she said, raising her eyes to his. "Mr. Deane, I do not pretend to be a clever person, but one thing is perfectly clear to me. Basil entered into this adventure for your sake. Your name was never mentioned in the trial, and they all seem to have believed that it was to rob Sinclair, and for nothing else, that Basil went there that night. Mr. Deane, I don't believe it. His quarrel with Sinclair, and its awful termination, was an accident. You must come forward and say that he went there to serve you, and not for purposes of robbery. It is for you to save his life. You can do it, and he is my only brother."

Deane's eyebrows came a little closer together. The girl who looked at him wondered no more at the hopeless way in which her brother had spoken of this man. His face was as though it were carved out of a stone.

"Miss Rowan," he said, "if there is anything which I can do for your brother, I will do it, for the sake of the days when we lived together, and when we were so near the very heart of life and death. But I tell you frankly that I see very little chance of successful intervention on my part. It takes a good deal in this country to stay the arm of the law, and your brother has grievously offended against it."

She struck the table before which he sat, with the palm of her hand. "If he did," she cried, "it was for your sake! I am sure of it! He went to do your bidding, and you must save him!"

"May I ask," said Deane, "why you are so sure that he went to do my bidding?"

"Yes! Ask, if you will, and I will answer you. I know it because this was the real point of all his message to you. This was what I had to say. This is really why I have come. The document—the document, mind,—he said no more, but he told me to make this very clear to you—the document is in a worn leather case, sewn inside the breast pocket of the coat Sinclair was wearing when he died."

Deane drew a little breath. "Young lady," he said, "it seems to me that you have been unnecessarily prolix. Your brother sent you here to tell me this?"

"Yes!"

"He did not send you here," Deane continued, "to beg for help—to waste my time in purposeless recriminations?"

"No!" she answered faintly.

"He knew very well," Deane continued, "that no mortal man can help him. The trial is over and the case is lost. The only thing to work for now is a reprieve."

"But that is not what I want," she interrupted. "He must be pardoned!"

"That," answered Deane, "is impossible. Neither I nor anyone breathing can work miracles."

She leaned towards him with accusing eyes. "But it was you," she declared,—"it was you for whom he undertook this enterprise!"

Deane shrugged his shoulders. "My dear young lady," he said, "you are mistaken. I cannot explain to you yet the full significance of those various messages which you have brought me from your brother, but believe me, what he did, he did knowing well the risks he undertook, and without any thought or hope of aid from me if he should fail. I will be quite honest with you, if you like. I will tell you the exact truth. Your brother and Sinclair were once friends. Sinclair and I were always enemies. There was a little matter of business open between us, and I thought that your brother might very well arrange it. I had no idea of his quarrelling with Sinclair. I did not encourage him to do so in any way."

"You sent him there," she persisted doggedly.

"I send messengers to every part of the world," Deane answered, "but I do not incite them to enter into murderous quarrels with the people whom they go to see. I will do what I can for your brother, but it must be in my own way."

"You will be able at least to save him from—from—"

Deane held out his hand. "Of course," he answered. "You need not think about that. His health alone would be sufficient to put that out of the question. What I can do for him, I will. I promise you that."

The girl rose up, and held out her hands a little piteously. "Remember," she begged, "I have no one else to go to, no other hope but in you. If I lose Basil, I shall be alone in the world!"

The tears were in her eyes. Every line of her face, every feature, seemed to be pleading with him. Deane led her to the door himself. His tone was unusually kind.

"I will do my best," he promised once more.

AT THE THEATRE

The door had barely closed upon his visitor when Deane was back once more in the throes of business, answering questions, giving quotations, receiving offers. The telephone was reconnected, and rang out its impatient summons every few seconds. He signed half-a-dozen drafts, deputed an understudy to receive some of his visitors who were weary of waiting, and dictated several important letters. When once more the pressure had abated, and the telephone had ceased to ring, he leaned back in his chair with a little exclamation of relief. The visit of Rowan's sister, and her passionate appeal, had unnerved him for a moment. He found himself trying to recall her last words, even at the moment when he realized that she was still in the room, sitting at a distant corner.

"Miss Rowan!" he exclaimed. "Why, I thought that you had left!"

"I went as far as the outer office," she said apologetically, "and then I slipped back again. You were so busy that I did not like to interrupt."

Deane rose to his feet,—he was a little cramped from long sitting. He lowered the blind and turned on the electric light, walking around the room, and casually touching the door to see that it was closely shut. Then he came back to his place, and leaned over once more toward the girl. "Why have you come back?" he asked.

"To ask you a question," she answered.

"Well?"

"Basil went on your behalf to see this man, Sinclair," she said. "He had a commission from you, had he not, and he failed?"

"Yes!" Deane said. "He failed!"

"It was to make an offer for some document, was it not?"

Deane nodded. "Yes!" he said. "It was."

"You are doing your best for Basil," she said, her voice trembling a little. "You paid for his defence, I know. You have promised that you will do all that you can, even now. I thought, perhaps, I might be able to do something in return. Why couldn't I get this paper for you?"

He looked at her steadily for several moments. "You could," he answered, "if you had the pluck."

"Tell me how?" she asked.

"You are his sister," he said. "Presumably you are interested in his defence. The details of the struggle between those two are, of course, important. It makes all the difference between manslaughter and murder if a weight, for instance, be held in the hand or thrown. You know the lawyers who defended him?"

"Of course," she answered. "Go on."

"If they apply to the proper authorities," he continued, "they can obtain an order to re-examine the apartments in the Universal Hotel in which the struggle took place. No doubt you also could find your way there. Supposing I tell you the truth. Supposing I admit that your brother did take upon himself a desperate enterprise, and that that enterprise was to recover from this man Sinclair, by purchase or guile, or any means which suggested themselves to him, the pocket-book of which you have brought me news. Remember I commit myself to nothing. I make no definite statement. I simply tell you that it may have been so."

"It was," she said firmly. "You and I know that. Well?"

"You are his sister," Deane said, "and you have exceptional facilities. If you could gain possession of that pocket-book, you would be doing me a service which I should find it hard indeed to repay."

She rose to her feet. "Very well," she said, "it shall be done. I promise you that it shall be done."

For the first time, when he saw her standing up, and realized how frail a creature she really was, a wave of pity swept away his own predominant sense of self-interest.

"But you are not strong enough for such work as this," he declared. "Better let things drift. I can take care of myself."

She shook her head. "I have made up my mind," she said. "I am going to make my effort, whatever happens."

"You will remember," he said, "that my name must never pass your lips. No, don't look at me like that!" he added quickly. "Don't think of me as a coward, or an utterly selfish person! I am here for what I represent. Welfare in this concern or business undertaking—call it what you like—doesn't mean only ruin or wealth for me. There are hundreds of us, hundreds who are dependent upon the reins I hold. It isn't for myself so much that I care. Try and believe that, will you?"

She looked into his eyes. "I will," she murmured. "I will believe everything, but you must save Basil."

"Whether you bring me the pocket-book or not," he answered, "I shall assuredly do all that a man can do for him."

For the rest of the day, Stirling Deane was his normal self. He transacted business with his usual acumen. He received his callers, and went through the ordinary routine of his position, with no indication of any mental disturbance. He had, indeed, little time to spare for thought. At half-past six he was whirled away westward in his electric brougham, changed his clothes, dined hurriedly in his room, and at a quarter to nine was in the stalls of the St. James' Theatre, sitting between Lady Olive and her mother. The mechanical part of the day's arrangements he had found it easy enough to carry out, but to keep his thoughts engrossed upon his surroundings was a sheer impossibility. He was not even conscious when the curtain went down, until he found Lady Olive's eyes fixed curiously upon him.

"Stirling," she said, "I don't think I like you when you have been at the office all day. Tell me, what can there be about this money-making so engrossing that you carry it about with you after you have finished your work, like a shadow?"

He was at once duly apologetic. "My dear Olive," he said, "if I was distrait for a moment, please forgive me. Consider. It is not my occupation alone which is engrossing. Supposing, for instance, that I were a politician. Don't you think that I should be better employed in thinking over an impending crisis than in listening to an exceedingly dull play?"

"Perhaps," she admitted, "but crises do not occur in political affairs every day. I might even be vain enough to suggest another and a simpler means of escape from your boredom."

"I am very justly rebuked," he admitted, holding her fingers for a moment, "only you must remember that it is new for me to have so delightful a means of escape ready by my side. Give me a little time to realize my good fortune."

"So long as it doesn't become a habit," she murmured. "I am sure I am not exacting, but I should hate to feel that you were always so engrossed in your thoughts that you did not even realize whom you were sitting next."

He touched her fingers once more, and his pressure was gently returned. Then, as if conscious that she had been a little more than ordinarily complacent, she withdrew her hand, and leaning over began to talk with her mother about some people whom Deane knew nothing of. A man from behind touched him on the shoulder. He looked up quickly and recognized Hardaway.

"Come and have a cigarette," the lawyer said. "It is a quarter of an hour's interval, and I should like to have a word with you."

Deane excused himself to his companions, and joined his friend in the foyer. "Well?" he asked tersely.

Hardaway toyed with a cigarette case, and glanced quietly around. He was tall and thin, clean-shaven, with hard, pronounced features and sunken eyes, gray hair parted in the middle, and a single eyeglass suspended around his neck by a narrow black ribbon. He looked exactly what he was—a criminal lawyer.

"I wanted to have a word with you, Deane," he said, "about this Rowan case."

Deane nodded. "Is there anything fresh?" he asked.

"Nothing particular," the lawyer answered. "Come upstairs for a moment."

They found a corner of the refreshment room where no one else was within hearing. Deane lit his cigarette with perfectly steady fingers. There was nothing in his face to indicate the fierce anxiety which was consuming him.

"With reference to that case," his companion commenced, "the facts were all so simple that there was no need for the prosecution to consider any other motive than the obvious one of attempted robbery. Therefore, no very searching investigation has been made into the dead man's papers. Yesterday afternoon, it occurred to me to look them through once more, in case anything had been overlooked. I came across a clumsy sort of document purporting to be the deeds of a gold-mine. I should not have taken any particular notice of it but for the title of the mine."

"Well?"

"It was the Little Anna Gold-Mine," Hardaway continued. "These deeds stated that Sinclair himself was the sole owner."

"A very extraordinary document," Deane remarked. "I suppose you couldn't manage things so that I could have a look at it?"

"It would be quite impossible," the lawyer answered. "Mine was, of course, a privileged inspection, and I am going beyond my duty in mentioning this affair to you. It certainly did seem very singular."

"Especially," Deane remarked, with a faint, hard smile, "since you are in a position to know that I have paid for the defence of the prisoner."

"It is not my business to connect such facts," the lawyer remarked.

"Someone will appear upon the scene sooner or later, of course," Deane said, "and claim this man's effects."

"Naturally," Hardaway answered, "although, except for this rather remarkable document, they do not seem to have been very valuable."

"If you should hear of anyone," said Deane, "I should be glad if you would let me know without a second's delay."

"I will do so," the lawyer promised.

The bell tinkled. The men at the bar finished their drinks, threw away their cigarettes, and hurried off. Deane and his companion rose to their feet.

"Hardaway," Deane said, "some of the papers are talking about a reprieve for this man Rowan. Will it come to anything, do you think?"

"I do not know," the lawyer answered cautiously.

They moved along the passage leading down to the stalls. Deane held his companion back until the little throng of hurrying men had passed by.

"Listen, Hardaway," he said, "I speak to you as one speaks to the dead, because you know the secrets of your profession, and because I trust you. Is there any way in which a man of great wealth, who had the command of money say up to fifty thousand pounds,—is there any way in which such a man could help towards obtaining a reprieve?"

Hardaway hesitated for a moment. "Of course," he admitted, "influence is always a useful thing. Those who have the ruling of these matters are sometimes hesitating between two minds. A very straw might turn the balance."

Deane nodded his head. He looked for a moment behind. His hand rested upon the curtain which led into the stalls. There was not a soul in sight. The play had recommenced.

"Hardaway," he said, "I will give fifty thousand pounds, if necessary, to have that man reprieved. The verdict should have been one of manslaughter. I am convinced of that. I was in court. I heard the sentence. I saw Rowan's face. I saw the judge put on the black cap, and I heard those hateful words. Up to fifty thousand pounds, mind, Hardaway, and I sha'n't have your bill of costs taxed...."

Lady Olive was almost petulant. "What a time you have been, Stirling!" she said.

"Do forgive me," he begged. "I met a man outside who kept me gossiping about trifles. Tell me, do you think that we can persuade your mother to come out to supper?"

"We've nowhere else to go," Lady Olive answered. "Do see if you can talk her into it. It would be very pleasant."

"I'll try," he promised.

AN APPEAL

A morning paper, apparently in lack of a new sensation, suddenly took up the cause of Basil Rowan. An evening paper, conducted under the same auspices, promptly followed suit. This was a case, they both declared, of obvious manslaughter. The evidence clearly pointed to a quarrel between the two men. A prominent criminal lawyer allowed his name to be associated with what rapidly grew to be an agitation. Petitions began to appear. The Home Secretary was bombarded with documents. Everywhere people were saying that the man should never have been put on his trial for murder. The jury had been confused by their instructions. It was a case of manslaughter, pure and simple.

Three days after her first visit, Winifred Rowan sat once more in Deane's office. There were lines underneath her eyes. She seemed to have become thinner and more fragile. Deane himself, save that he was a trifle paler, was unchanged,—carefully dressed as usual, and with unruffled demeanor. He sat in his accustomed place, and guided the destinies of those great affairs which lay under his control. For the moment he had relaxed. He was doing his best to console the girl who had come to him in a sudden whirl of terror.

"My dear Miss Rowan," he said, "I have certain intelligence from my friends. I have gone to great lengths in this matter, and I can assure you that there is not the slightest doubt about a reprieve being forthcoming."

She glanced at the calendar. "But think," she said, "already for three days he has lain there, sentenced to death. Think of what he must be suffering. Oh, it is horrible! It isn't only death," she cried. "Think of the manner of it,—the hideous disgrace, the cruel, cold ugliness of it! Oh, if it should come—"

He held out his hand. She was on the verge of hysteria. "It shall not come," he declared firmly. "I have promised you that."

"If they are going to reprieve him," she continued, "why do they let him suffer these agonies? Why do they not tell him so at once? I saw him this morning. He says nothing. He is as brave as a man can be, but his eyes are awful, and when he tries to speak his voice dies away. Oh! Mr. Deane, do something! Oh! do something!"

She laid her hands suddenly upon his shoulders. He took them gently in his.

"My dear Miss Rowan, I am doing everything that man can do. Believe me that I am. I only wish that your brother had done as he threatened, and walked into the river, before he came to me."

She went away at last. Deane lay back in his chair, feeling absolutely unfit for work. Twice he laid his hand upon the telephone, and twice he withdrew it. Then he turned to his secretary, who had just entered the room.

"Get Mr. Hardaway upon the telephone," he directed. "I want to speak to him."

In a few moments the bell of the instrument by his side tinkled. He put the receiver to his ear.

"Is that Hardaway?" he asked.

"Yes!" was the answer.

"This is Stirling Deane. You remember the subject of our conversation the other night at the theatre? I am referring now to the matter of documents of which you spoke."

"I remember," Hardaway answered.

"In whose possession are those documents at the present moment?" Deane asked.

"In whose possession," Hardaway repeated. "Do you mean—"

"I mean have they been sent to Scotland Yard, or are they still in that locked-up room at the Universal Hotel?"

There was a moment's pause. Then Hardaway answered. "To the best of my belief," he said, "they are still in the room at the hotel. They may be removed to Scotland Yard at any time, though."

"No one has yet claimed Sinclair's effects, then?" asked Deane.

"No one," was the answer.

Deane was on the point of ringing off, but Hardaway suddenly put a question to him. "Shall you be in your office for ten minutes, Mr. Deane?"

"For longer than that," Deane answered.

"I am coming around," the lawyer said. "I hope you can spare me a moment."

Deane set down the telephone with a frown. Perhaps his question had been a clumsy one, or was Hardaway already suspicious? He welcomed the lawyer, when he arrived, a little coldly.

"Five minutes, please," he said. "I have a large mail to go through, and an early dinner-party to-night."

The lawyer nodded. "I don't want to detain you, Deane," he said. "Send your secretary away for a moment, there's a good fellow. What I have to say can be said in half-a-dozen words if we are alone."

Deane pointed to the door. "One moment, if you please, Ellison," he said. "Get everything ready for me that you can."

The two men were alone. Hardaway, who had not taken a seat, deliberately drew off his glove, and tapped the table with his fingertips.

"Deane," he said, "have you any idea of paying a visit to the Universal Hotel?"

Deane met him on his own ground, coolly, and with perfect self-possession. "I have not made up my mind," he said. "It might be worth it."

"It wouldn't," the lawyer said. "There's nothing haphazard about the way these things are conducted. There's a detective watching Number 27, day and night."

"It occurred to me," Deane remarked, "that as there is no mystery about this affair, Scotland Yard would not have thought that necessary."

"It is as I have told you," said Hardaway. "At any time after to-morrow, the man's clothing and documents, and everything belonging to him, will be removed, unless they are claimed. Until they are claimed they are watched. It wouldn't do, Deane, for a man in your position to be seen in this place, especially when one of those papers bears the name of your mine, and Sinclair has just been murdered by a man for whose defence you have paid."

"That's plain speaking," Deane remarked.

"It's what I came to say," Hardaway answered. "Don't do it, Deane. We are not in Africa, you know. Your methods were splendid there. They might spell ruin here. Good-night!"

"The reprieve?" Deane asked.

"A certainty," Hardaway answered, looking back from the door. "It may be a week before it is issued, but it is a certainty all the same."

Deane sat in his chair, looking through the dusty window out into the court,—a dull vista enough, and uninspiring. Of the lawyer's words he took little enough notice. The reprieve would come, of that he was certain, but nevertheless he was beginning to feel the severity of the strain. He was a man who would have been kind-hearted but for the continual pressure of business obligations. He was a great schemer, a man of imagination, and a brilliant financier. There had been little room in his life for the gentler side of his nature to develop. Yet it had been a genuine horror which he had felt, which he had carried about with him since the day he had visited the court and looked into Rowan's white face, and heard those awful words of condemnation amid a silence intense, unnatural, hideous. It was a memory from which he could not easily rid himself, a memory which had penetrated even that splendid armor of indifference in which the man of toil and thought gradually encases himself. The girl's white face, too, and her plaintive eyes, had touched his heart. He felt that this period of suspense was growing almost unendurable!

His secretary entered the room quietly. "Did you wish me to make any arrangements, sir," he asked, "for the journey to Scotland?"

Deane looked at him for a moment as a man without understanding. Then he suddenly remembered that to-morrow was the day on which he was to leave London to join the Nunneley's house-party.

"I am not sure, Ellison," he said doubtfully. "I will let you know in a few minutes."

Once more he was alone. More impossible, even, than the grim monotony of the days in town seemed the thought of that prim country house, with its well-ordered days, its fashionable, easy-going crowd of people. He suddenly lost heart as he thought of Lady Olive and the prosecution of his well-ordered courtship. These things for the moment he felt were impossible. He wrote out a telegram and sent for a Bradshaw. The next day he disappeared from London.

RUBY SINCLAIR

Twenty-four hours later, Deane walked upon a wilderness of marshy sands, glittering here and there with the stain of the sea, blue in places with the delicate flush of sea lavender. In the background, a village of red-tiled roofs. Before him, an empty sea. Behind and around, nothing but this stretch of bare, flat country, empty even of the sea until the tide should come and thrust its long arms of glittering silver up into the heart of the land. A few wandering gulls screamed overhead. From inland, a great silence. Here, too, the sea, flowing in upon the level sands, was quiet and noiseless. Deane felt every nerve of his body at rest. He realized to the full the marvelous joy of solitude. All the strain of those last few days seemed to have fallen away. He looked back upon that passionate chapter of his life as a stranger might look back upon recorded happenings. The tragedy of Basil Rowan, condemned to death amid the awful silence of that spell-bound court, sitting now in his cell with his head turned toward the door, passing through long hours of torture waiting for the reprieve which might never come, appealed to him now only as it might appeal to a million others who read the newspapers. He was almost able to forget that it was he in a measure who was responsible for that episode. He was able, even, to forget the tragical side of Winifred Rowan's visits,—to remember only her gentle, appealing ways, her passionate pleading, her gratitude, tempered still with anxiety, which had triumphed at their last interview over the repugnance which she had at first plainly shown towards him. All these doings and happenings were of another world. Here, trouble and anxiety were like the noxious playthings of a race of children. The sea that rippled in so softly on to the firm sands remained untroubled. The seagulls wheeling above his head in lazy content filled the air with their soothing cries. Everywhere the sunshine lay about the sea-stained places. The green marshes sparkled like emeralds. The wet seaweed, lying about in little heaps, seemed struggling to express new subtleties of color. Down one of the reaches came a brown-sailed fishing-boat, steered by a man who lay at full length upon the deck, his head upon a coil of rope, one hand only grasping the tiller. A few cows were standing about in the drier part of the marshes, swinging their tails, and moving slowly from one to another of the little plots of herbage. The very smoke from those red-tiled cottages went straight to Heaven, unruffled by even the faintest of breezes. To Deane it seemed that he had found an idyll of still life, and with a strong instinct of relief, he felt the desire for sleep, so long denied him, creeping over his hot eyes. The drowsiness of the place numbed his senses. The pain ceased. He was content to forget. He threw himself upon the sands, with his back to a sandy knoll covered with weedy green grass, and with the murmur of the sea in his ears, he slept.

Deane was awakened by a light touch upon his arm. He sat up, and was aware of a girl bending over him.

"I am sorry to disturb you," she said, "but if you sit there for another five minutes, you will be very wet."

The tide was already within a few feet of them. Deane realized the position and struggled to his feet. "It was very kind of you to wake me," he said. "I have come down here for a rest, and I suppose I was entering into the programme a little too thoroughly. After London, the sea air is just a little strong."

She looked at him with interest, and he returned the gaze. She was tall—almost as tall as he was himself—slim, with dark eyes, heavy eyebrows, and complexion burnt brown by exposure to all sorts of weathers. She wore plain tweed clothes, in the cut of which his critical eye quickly detected the village tailor. Yet there was something about her appearance which seemed to remove her definitely from behind the pale of rusticity. Her eyes were long, and a little narrow, her eyelids heavy, her mouth had a discontented turn at the corners, her whole expression was a trifle sullen. He was not in the least prepared for the change in her face when her forehead suddenly relaxed, the corners of her mouth softened, and her lips parted in a dazzling smile.

"You are a Londoner?" she asked simply.

"Very much so, I am afraid."

"Afraid?" she repeated incredulously.

"Why not?" he asked. "I am one of the slaves of the world, a man who sits in his office and toils, year in and year out. We're caught in the Golden Web, you see. The time comes," he continued, "when we find our way into a little corner of the earth like this, and one realizes the gigantic folly of it."

"Your point of view is interesting but unconvincing," she said.

"Why unconvincing?"

"Have you ever thought of the matter from the other point of view?" she asked,—"thought about those poor people, for instance, who have to live in a corner of the world like this, always? All these things, which rest and soothe you here, are beautiful by sheer force of contrast. For a few days—a week or so, perhaps—the contemplation of them would be restful. You would lie about on the sands and in the sunshine and believe that you had found Paradise. And then I think that you would begin to get just a little discontented. The sun doesn't always shine here, you know, and when the sun doesn't shine, all the land is colorless. The sea is gray and ugly, the marshes are flat and dreary, the wind, even in the summer time, is cold."

He looked at her with interest. She had turned inland, walking very slowly, and he somehow or other found himself by her side, her self-invited companion.

"That is rather a pathetic picture," he said. "Anyhow, the solitude remains, and when one has lived with the roar in one's brain, year in and year out, the solitude itself is marvelous."

"And when one has lived," she said, "with the solitude always on one's nerves, lying about one's senses, as though one were the only live thing in a dead and forgotten world, don't you think that one may long for the roar, even as you have come here longing for the solitude?"

"We apparently represent the opposite poles," he remarked lightly. "Tell me, do you live here? I presume, from the feeling with which you speak, that you are a native."

"I have lived here for nine years," she answered. "I live in a small house, which you can see just behind the village there. It is very tiny, but very pretty to look at. I have lived there with an aunt who was a farmer's daughter, and is very domestic, and an uncle who was invalided early in life from the Indian Civil Service, and who has done nothing but play golf and fish and study his constitution for the last fifteen years."

"You don't travel much, then?"

"I have not been out of this county," she answered, "since I first set foot in it, nine years ago. I had almost given up all hope of ever leaving it, until," she added, with a little sigh of content, "a few weeks ago."

He nodded sympathetically. "You are going to travel at last, then?" he asked.

"I hope so," she said. "I have an uncle come home from abroad, who, I believe, is very rich. He wrote to me the day he landed, saying that he was going to send for me to pay him a visit. I am expecting to hear from him now any day."

"He is in London?"

"In London!" with a little sigh. "Fancy," she went on, turning towards him, "I have never been in London! Just say that to yourself, and imagine what it means. The biggest town I have ever seen is King's Lynn. Have you ever been to King's Lynn?"

He shook his head. "I am afraid not."

"Then you can't understand," she said,—"I couldn't make you understand—what it means to me to think that very soon I shall have a glimpse, at any rate, into the world. If I had met you three weeks ago, probably I shouldn't have dreamed of waking you up. I should have let you get wet and then laughed at you. If you had ventured to speak to me, I should probably have stuck my nose in the air and walked away. You see how mellowing an influence even the possibility of escape is."

"What a disagreeable young person you must have been!" he remarked.

She nodded. They were walking side by side now on the top of a tall dyke. On their left-hand side was the creek which flowed into the village from the sea.

"That is precisely my reputation," she declared. "My aunt detests me. My uncle is always irritable because I can beat him at golf. He is out playing over there now," she remarked, with a wave of her hand toward the furthest stretch of the marshes. "Do you play golf?"

Deane admitted that he did not.

"You came here, then, only to rest?" she said.

"Only to rest," he answered.

"Where are you staying?"

He turned around and pointed to the square stone tower which stood on the edge of the sea. "I am stopping there," he answered,—"the old Coastguard's Tower they call it, I believe. It is the queerest habitation I have ever been in."

"You wonderful person!" she declared. "How ever did you get old Pegg and his wife to clear out?"

"I paid them well," he answered. "At least I didn't do it myself. My servant comes from these parts, and he told me about the place and arranged everything. I am hoping to be able to buy it."

There was, as he had remarked from the first, not the slightest reticence about her. She had almost the frankness of a child.

"You have a servant?" she asked, looking at him with renewed interest. "Do you mean that he is there with you now?"

Deane nodded. "I could scarcely be expected to cook for myself, could I?" he inquired. "He completes my establishment."

"I suppose," she said, "you are a rich man."

Deane shrugged his shoulders. "Wealth," he remarked, "is a relative thing."

"Oh! I don't understand those fine sayings!" she declared, a little impetuously. "I only know that to have money is grand, is wonderful. I would give anything in the world to be rich, to have money to spend as I wanted to spend it, and clothes, and jewels, and all the delightful little things of life, to go where I wanted, live as I wished, buy the things I wanted to buy. There's something hideous about being a pauper."

He looked at her curiously. She was certainly, for all her frankness, a new type. Her frankness was more the frankness of a child than the outspokenness of gaucherie.

"Some day," he said, "you may probably have your wish. There is your uncle, for instance."