THE BORROWED HOUSE (continued 2)

The next part of his story he had secured, I think he said, by sitting on Bagsby's chest down the road, after he had escaped by means of a broken shutter from the rear room where we had locked him. Bagsby had had a puncture, and finding he had no time to go back to Ivry for Daphne and the rest, he went directly to the station. A train had just pulled out, and a man in an ulster and travelling-cap was standing on the platform. He said, "The car for Gresham Place, sir"—which is what he was to say—and the gentleman climbed in. But about two miles out of town he (the passenger) had discovered he had made a mistake, and demanded to be set down. But Bagsby had his orders. He carried him to the door of the Hall on the third speed, and the rest we knew.

"Then," I cried breathlessly, "Sir George was not—Sir George!"

"Far from it," he said cheerfully. "Poor old chap, what a front he put up! It seems that after he got the picture the alarm was raised too soon for him. He cut back over the country to make the railroad at Hepburn, and was overtaken by a storm. He found the Hall, crawled in through a rear window, concealed the picture there—it is still rolled in that carpet in the room where we hid, and waited for the storm to cease. But hunger drove him out. The picture off his hands, he made a break for it, got to Newbury just in time to miss the train, saw the constable and a posse approaching in a machine and bristling with guns, and at that minute Bagsby said: 'Gresham Place, sir.' From that time on he was virtually our prisoner, poor chap. He fell in with the plot because he didn't know what else to do. But what a shock it must have been when Bagsby dumped him back at the Hall, after he had walked six miles to get away from it."

"But you?" I exclaimed in bewilderment. "If you knew all the time——"

"I didn't. I did not recognise him until he took off his mackintosh at the lodge. After that I had two problems: to capture him without alarming you, and to prevent the old-woman constable of the country from discovering us and dragging you and Daphne and all the rest into notoriety. Thanks to your coöperation it will never be known that a Suffragette plot to kidnap the Prime Minister was foiled last night."

"Then—the real Prime Minister"—I could hardly speak. I was horribly disappointed. I had hitched my wagon to a star and it had turned out to be a dirt-grubbing little meteorite.

"His grandchildren at Gresham Place took measles and they telegraphed him not to come."

There was silence for a moment. We were both thinking. Then:

"I am sure you managed it all very nicely," I conceded, "and I am very grateful now that you saved my necklace and—and all that. But if you think you captured him without alarming me you are mistaken. I shall never, never be the same person again. And as for the reward, I don't want it. I shall give it to Daphne for The Cause."

He looked around at me quickly. "To take my place," I amended. "I don't really care anything about voting, and, anyhow, I should never do it properly. They will welcome the money in my place, although doesn't it really belong to you?"

"I have already three rewards," he said, looking straight ahead. "The revolver which you emptied for fear our friend might shoot me, the limp little ball that is your handkerchief in my breast pocket, and this hour that belongs to me—the dawn, the empty world, and you sharing it all with me. Do you know," he went on, "that Daphne has seventeen pictures of you, and that I used to say I was going to marry you? There was one in very short skirts and long, white——"

"Mercy!" I broke in. "What is that over there?"

The mist had parted like a curtain, and on a lower road we saw, moving slowly, a strange procession. We stopped the machine and watched. Daphne was leading. She had the tail of her pink velvet gown thrown up over her shoulders and she was in her stocking feet. She carried her slippers dejectedly in her hand and she was ploughing along without ever troubling to seek a path. Behind her trailed the others. Most of them limped: all were mud-stained and dishevelled. An early sun-ray touched Violet and showed her wrapped, toga-fashion, in the hall banner. The red letters of "Votes for Women" ran around her diagonally like the stripes of a barber-pole. Poppy was trailing listlessly at the end of the procession, her gown abandoned to its fate and sweeping two yards behind her; a ribbon fillet with a blue satin rose that had nestled above her ear had become dislodged and the rose now hung dispiritedly at the back of her neck. Her short hair was all out of curl and lay matted in very straight little strands over her head.

And bringing up the tail of the procession—kicking viciously at Poppy's blue satin train in front of him—came Bagsby, a sheepish Bagsby loaded down with the hamper, a pail, a broom and a double-burner lamp with green shades. Even as he watched he took a hasty look ahead at the plodding back of his mistress, raised the lamp aloft and flung it against a stone. The crash was colossal, but not one head was turned to see the cause. They struggled along, sunk in deep bitterness and gloom.

And so they passed across our perspective, unseeing, unheeding, and the mists of the valley claimed them again.

The man beside me turned to me, his hands on the wheel. "Are you sorry you are not with them?" he asked gently. But I cowered back in my wraps and shook my head. "Take me home," I implored, "and please don't look at me again. If they all look like that I must be unspeakable!"

"We will get there ahead and wait for them together," he said. "And to-night I shall bring Thad and Blanche over to meet you. You—you won't mind seeing me again so soon?"

"Oh, no," I said hastily. "It—it is hours until evening."

"It will seem like eternities," he reflected.

"Yes, it will," I said.

(For it would to me, and if a man likes you and you like him, why not let him know it? And if he liked me the way I looked then, what would he think when he saw me clothed properly and in my right mind?)

He leaned over and kissed my hands as they lay in my lap. "Bless you!" he said. "I suppose you couldn't possibly wear that gown? Will you have to throw it away?"

"No," I announced, "I am going to lay it away. I—I may use it some time."

"How?" He was as curious as a child. "Are you going to make a banner of it, with gold fringe all round and 'Votes for Women' embroidered on it?"

"No!" I said decisively.