Bertram Mitford (continued 5)

“Now,” he concluded—“now you see I am practically proposing to be Laura’s greatest benefactor; yours, too, in a secondary degree, for the event will render you, to a large extent, free from my bondage.”

“That indeed would be to benefit me,” she answered, with a return of the old, rancorous aversion. “But even now the motive you have given is not above suspicion. It is too inadequate.”

“Not so. If you look at it all round you will perceive it is complete. I am of a revengeful disposition, and now, after half a lifetime, I see my opportunity for taking a most sweeping revenge. But I like my retribution to be as original as it is far-reaching. This one is. In fact, it is unique.”

How unique it was even she could not at the moment fathom. But she was destined to learn it later, in all its grim and undreamed-of horror.

“I hope I may be allowed to change my mind,” said Mrs Daventer, sweetly, as she entered the bureau of the hotel that afternoon. “I wish to counter-order the arrangements I made for leaving to-morrow. It can be managed, I hope?”

“I will see immediately, madame,” said the civil employé, looking up from the pile of letters he was sorting, and which had just come in. “I tink de mules are already ordered. One moment—I will just inquire.”

He went out, leaving Mrs Daventer alone in the bureau. She turned over some of the letters. Among the uppermost in the half-sorted pile was one addressed “Philip Orlebar, Esq.” The handwriting was rather large and bold, but distinctly feminine, and the envelope bore the Zinal postmark. At sight of this Mrs Daventer’s pulses quickened and her eyes dilated. Then she heard the employé’s steps returning.

“It will be all right, madame,” he said. “Another party is going down who will be very glad of de mules.”

She thanked him, entered into a few pleasant commonplaces as to the attractions of the locality, the number of people abroad that year, the fineness of the season, and so forth, and expressing a little disappointment at the man’s reply that the pile of letters just delivered contained none for her or her daughter, she went out.

Philip Orlebar received several letters that afternoon, but they did not comprise one bearing the Zinal postmark, which circumstance, however, conveyed no disappointment, inasmuch as he had never expected they would.

Chapter Twenty Four.

Sir Francis Orlebar.

Claxby Court, Sir Francis Orlebar’s seat, was a snug country box, rather modern in architecture and unpretentious of aspect. A long, winding carriage-drive led up to the front portico, entering which you found yourself in a spacious central hall, lit from above by a skylight. The effect of this hall, with its carved furniture and quaint oak cabinets, its walls covered with weapons and trophies of many lands, was extremely good. A gallery ran round it above, and the dining and drawing-room, morning-room and library, opened out from it on the ground-floor.

The stabling and gardens were of proportionately modest dimensions. The house stood in a park of about fifty acres, and, being on a slight eminence, commanded a charming view of field and woodland stretching away to a line of green downs to the southward. The estate consisted of about three thousand acres, but it was not all good land, and there was always a farm or two lying unlet. The former possessor had been a careful man, but although times were better in his day, he had found it all he could do to steer clear of serious embarrassment. The present one found it hardly less difficult, but he had two things in his favour. He was a man of simple and inexpensive tastes, and, with the exception of one son, he was childless. His liability was, therefore, a strictly limited one.

Sir Francis Orlebar stood in his library window, thinking. It was a bright summer morning—bright and cheerful enough to have exercised a corresponding effect upon the spirits. Yet in this instance it did not seem to.

He was a slight, well-proportioned man of medium height, but his slight build and erect carriage made him seem taller than he really was. There was a look of almost ultra-refinement in his face, and he was still strikingly handsome. His hair and moustache were grey, but his eyes looked almost young. Not in their light-hearted expression, however, for there was a tinge of melancholy never wholly absent from them, but in their wonderful penetrating clearness. It was a most contradictory face, and withal, to the student of physiognomy, a most provoking one, for as a set-off to the high forehead and straight, clear eyes there was a shade of weakness, of over-sensitiveness in the set of the lower jaw. But it was the face of a many-generation-descended gentleman.

As we have said, there was nothing in this bright, mellow summer morning to conduce to depression. Yet the cloud upon the thinker’s face deepened.

It would be safe to hazard a conjecture that the cause of his melancholy was purely subjective. His was just the temperament which delights in retrospect, which is given to tormenting its owner with speculative musings upon what might have been—to raising the ghosts of dead and buried events.

He looked back upon his life and derived no pleasure from the process. With his opportunities—always with the best intentions—what a poor affair he seemed to have made of it! Better indeed for him had those intentions been less free from alloy, since nothing which borders on perfection has the slightest chance in this world of snares, and pitfalls, and rank growths. Best intentions, indeed, had been his undoing all along the line. His own inclinations were rather against the profession of arms, but he had sacrificed them and accepted a commission, in accordance with his father’s strongly expressed wish. He had married his first wife from motives of chivalry rather than affection—out of pity for the life of toil and grinding poverty otherwise mapped out for her. Then had followed disillusion, unappreciativeness, ingratitude, misery, till her early death freed him from the ill-assorted and blighting tie. Caught at the rebound, his too soft heart and aesthetic nature had led him into an intrigue which proved disastrous to all concerned—but, there, he did not care to dwell upon that. Again, in a fit of disgust and sensitiveness, brought about by the éclat and scandal, he had sold out—always with the best intentions—where another would simply have shown a bold front until the nine days’ wonder had abated, and was left early in life without a profession. He had embarked in literature, always of a delicate, not to say dilettante nature; had dabbled in art, and a little in a science or two, but had never got his head above the level of the swaying, striving, pushing—shall we say cringing?—multitude of heads, all fighting for that proud and lucrative pre-eminence. But he had always the interests and occupations of a country gentleman to fall back upon, and perhaps, on the whole, these suited him as well as anything else. And then, after about twenty years wherein to reflect on the scant advantages which he had reaped from his former matrimonial venture, he had suffered himself to be again bound with the iron chain, and his second partner—as is curiously enough not unfrequently the case under the circumstances, presumably through some ironical freak of Nature which decrees that when a man of an age and experience to know better does make a fool of himself he shall do it thoroughly—possessed neither attractions, nor wealth, nor suitability of temperament to recommend her. And having arrived at this stage of his retrospection, poor Sir Francis could not but own to himself—we fear, not for the first time—that in taking this step to counteract the growing loneliness of advancing age he had performed the metaphorical and saltatory feat popularly known as “jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire.”

But there was one bright influence shining in upon the shaded events of his anything but cheerful introspection, and its name was Philip. The baronet’s heart glowed with pride at the thought of his fine, open-hearted, handsome son, upon whom he lavished an almost feminine affection. Here again came in that fatal motor, “best intentions.” Better, perchance, had a little more steel and a little less velvet gloved the hand which had had the bringing up of that sunny-natured youth. But Sir Francis was the last person to whom this was likely to occur, and now, as he thought that the time for his idolised son’s return could not be very far distant, there stole over his features an unconscious smile of pleasurable anticipation.

Immersed in such congenial musing, he hardly heard the subdued knock at the door, the almost noiseless footsteps of the well-trained butler. The latter bore some letters on a salver.

“Put them on the table, Karslake,” said the baronet, unwilling to be disturbed in his pleasant reverie.

“Beg pardon, Sir Francis,” said the man, who was of long standing and privileged—“beg pardon, Sir Francis, but I think one of ’em’s from Mr Philip.”

The change in the baronet’s demeanour was striking.

“Eh—what?” he cried, wheeling round and making what almost amounted to a snatch at the letters. Then, having pushed the others contemptuously aside, he resumed his position in the window, hurriedly tearing open the envelope.

The butler meanwhile was busying himself about the room, putting things tidy that had got out of their places or were otherwise disarranged. A quick gasp of dismay which escaped his master caused him to pause in his occupation.

“Karslake,” said the latter, in explanation, for the old butler was, as we said, privileged, having been in the household almost since Philip’s birth, “you will be sorry to hear that Mr Philip has met with an accident—climbing those infernal mountains,” he added, more to himself than the servant.

“Not serious, I trust, Sir Francis?” said the latter, in real anxiety, for Philip was a prime favourite in the Claxby household, save with one, and that not the least important member of it.

“No, thank God! He got hit by a falling stone, and can’t put his foot to the ground. Confined to his room, he says.”

“I hope he’ll be properly taken care of in them foreign parts, Sir Francis,” said Karslake, shaking his head in John Bull-like scepticism as to any such possibility.

“Oh, yes. There’s an English doctor attending him as well as the foreign one. Thank Heaven it’s no worse. Is her ladyship down yet? But never mind—I’ll find her anyhow,” he added to himself, going to the door. And as he did so it was noticeable that he walked with a slight limp.

Lady Orlebar was up but not down, which apparently paradoxical definition maybe taken to mean that, arrayed in a dressing-gown, she reposed comfortably in a big armchair by her bedroom window. Her occupation was of a twofold character, in that she was assimilating coffee and reading Truth.

In externals she was a large well-built woman of middle age, handsome after a coarse, rubicund fashion, though a purplish hue which had succeeded in her cheeks the roseate flush of youth, would almost excuse the severe verdict of that hypercritic who should define her charms as somewhat “blowsy.” Her temper could not even be described as “uncertain,” for there was no element of uncertainty about it, as poor Sir Francis had already realised, to his sorrow. Her disposition was domineering and exacting to the last degree, and she would do nothing for herself that she could get anybody else to do for her—presumably to make up, if somewhat late in the day, for half a lifetime spent in perforce doing everything for herself. From such a one as this it was hardly likely Sir Francis would meet with much sympathy in the flurry and anxiety into which the news of his son’s accident had thrown him.

“Mercy on us! Is that all?” was her comment as soon as he had given her particulars. “Here you come bursting in upon me regardless of my poor nerves, and I in such pain all night, as I always am. You come rushing in upon me, I say, as if the house was on fire.”

The fact being that Lady Orlebar was as strong as a horse. The only pain she ever suffered from was of that nature, which a daily hour’s walk, combined with a little discrimination at table, would have conjured away like magic. But it was a useful affectation to assume that life was a perpetual martyrdom—a highly efficient buttress to her ascendency.

“And all about what?” she went on. “Merely to tell me that an idle, good-for-nothing boy, who ought to be hard at work earning his living instead of skylarking about the world amusing himself, has sprained his ankle. Really, Francis, I wonder the absurdity of it doesn’t strike even you!”

“Well it’s a pity I said anything about it, I admit,” he answered coldly. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have—but—how would you like a trip abroad, Alicia?”

“What, at this time of year, when you have to sit five a side in a railway compartment, and to make one of a clamouring, struggling rabble, beseeching the hotel-keepers to allow you even a garret at a charge that is rather more than would be required to keep a yacht? No, thank you, not for me.”

“Well, I don’t mind a little of that sort of thing, so I think I shall take a run over myself.”

“Over where—may I ask?”

“Over to Zermatt. I should like to be sure the boy is getting proper care—efficient attendance. An injury of that sort, though insignificant in itself, may become serious if not properly taken care of at the time. And Philip is so reckless.”

The colour deepened in Lady Orlebar’s highly coloured face, and the sneer upon her lips was not pleasant to look upon.

“Did I hear you aright, Sir Francis? It cannot be possible that I understood you to say you purposed to leave me alone here—to leave me all alone in my wretched state of health—while you go rushing off to the Continent to look after this boy, who is surely old enough to take care of himself, and who will probably laugh over you and your fussiness with his friends for your pains.”

“Whatever may be your opinion of Philip, you can at least credit him with being a gentleman,” was the icy reply to this rally.

But ice thrown into a boiling copper produces a mighty hissing, a prodigious letting off of steam. And such was the effect entailed upon the lady by this rejoinder. Of indifferent birth herself she imagined the reply to contain a gird at that circumstance, and rushed into the battle—horse, foot, and artillery.

“Pah! An idle, good-for-nothing scamp is what I credit him with being,” she retorted furiously. “A fellow who allows his parents to pinch and starve themselves in order that he may revel in the luxury of idleness. And, I tell you what it is, Francis, I won’t be neglected in any such fashion! I won’t be left alone here! No, that is a thing I will not stand! Isn’t it enough that I am ground down and forced to live on a mere pittance because you choose to spoil your son? Is that not enough, I say? And now you propose to go away and leave me alone for an indefinite time. But you will find I am not to be so easily shelved. I have my rights, and I know thoroughly well how to look after them. And look after them I shall—rest assured of that! Go—go by all means! But the consequences be upon your own head.”

Of attempting to reason with her in this mood, or indeed in any mood, Sir Francis had long since learned the futility. Indeed, at that moment he felt little inclination to attempt anything of the kind. Apart from the coarseness of her temper, which revolted his more refined instincts, her venomous abuse of his son aroused in him the bitterest resentment. He was no match for an adversary of this fibre, for his refined and sensitive nature shrank with loathing and horror from violent scenes. So now he adopted the wise, if somewhat ignominious, course of beating a retreat. He simply walked out of the room.

This was not precisely what his wife desired. Like all women of her kind, and a good many not of her kind, she dearly loved a battle, and the sort of battle she loved most was that wherein victory was assured. By fleeing at the sound of the first gun the enemy had effected a retreat which was three parts of a victory. She returned to the perusal of Truth—an extra pungent number—with an angry frown, yet she could not quite reconcentrate her mind upon the spicy contents of the journal. The slave had shown signs of rebellion. He must be made to feel that rebellion was not going to answer.

Poor woman! Her grievances were very great—very real—were they not? She had brought her husband neither wealth, looks, nor connections when she had condescended to take possession of him and his position and title, yet her convenience was ever to be uppermost, her word law. She claimed the right to control his every movement. She had, we say, brought him not a shilling, yet to rule his means and expenditure was of course her indubitable right. As, for instance, that he should persist in making an allowance to his own son, instead of turning that fortunate youth penniless out of doors and pouring out the cash thus saved at her feet, was an act of flagrant and shameful ill-treatment of her that cried aloud to Heaven for vengeance. But whether Heaven listened, and looked upon it in the same light or not, certain it was that it constituted the sum and crown of all her grievances, and they were not few.

That a man of Sir Francis Orlebar’s temperament should ever have taken such a woman to wife—rather, we ought to say, should ever have suffered himself to be taken possession of by her—was marvellous, would have been incredible but that we know the same sort of thing happens every day. And having once succumbed he was bound hand and foot. No power on earth could save him. A man more coarse fibred would have held his own, even at the cost of a diurnal battle royal. One less sensitive would have cut the knot of the difficulty by the simple expedient of undertaking a tour round the world, or any other method of separation which should commend itself to him. Or one of slippery principle would have laid himself out to effect an emancipation in the method most approved of by the lawyers and by newspaper editors in want of acceptable “copy.” But to Sir Francis each and all of these courses were equally repugnant—the latter, indeed, not to be thought of. His bondage was complete. He was a slave to that most tyrannical of despots—a thoroughly selfish, domineering, coarse-natured woman.

With an instinctive idea of placing it beyond his wife’s power to renew the last encounter he had taken himself out of the house. As he strolled through the park the limp in his left leg became more pronounced, as curiously enough it invariably did whenever he was vexed or agitated, and now he was both.

But by that evening the resolution he had formed to proceed to his son’s bedside was considerably shaken. He had telegraphed, and the replies had been in every way satisfactory. Perhaps his presence there would be unnecessary after all. This might or might not have been the sensible way of looking at it. But continual dropping wears away stones, which for present purposes may be taken to mean that the tongue of a violent woman is a pretty effective weapon against the strongest resolution formed by an irresolute nature. There had been another battle royal, and the baronet had retreated under cover of the satisfactory replies to his telegrams. It was better to avoid any more violent scenes, and accordingly he had succumbed—had yielded for the sake of peace—that is to say, “with the very best intentions.”

But the violent tongue of his stepmother, coupled with his father’s sensitive horror of the same, was destined to work such woe in poor Philip’s eventual fate as even that vindictive matron little dreamed. Strange are the trivialities that combine together for stupendous results. Had Sir Francis adhered to his first and laudable resolve what widespread ruin might have been averted. But he did not. He abandoned it for the sake of peace, of course with the best intentions.

Chapter Twenty Five.

Taken at the Rebound.

When Philip at length managed to leave his room and hobble downstairs with the aid of a stick and one of the hotel porters he realised to the full that it was high time he did.

He realised further that all thoughts of mountain climbing, for this season at any rate, must be abandoned. Not that he cared about that, however; for after more than a week of confinement to his room, and that in the loveliest of summer weather, all inclination towards the reaping of further mountaineering laurels seemed to have left him. His main ambition now was to get well as soon as possible and move away to fresh scenes. The lovely aspect of mountain and glacier shining in the golden summer sun was now as gall to him, intertwined as it was with recollections of Eden before his wholly unexpected and crushing expulsion therefrom. The bright laughter and cheerful voices of parties setting forth or returning—on sightseeing bent—grated irritably on his nerves, for it brought back to him the time so recent, but now divided by such an impassable gulf, when he himself was among the cheeriest of the cheery. So now as he sat in his comfortable cane chair—his injured foot propped up on another—in a sunny spot outside the hotel, his thoughts were very bitter.

Needless to say they ran upon the subject which had afforded him ample food for reflection during these long days of his irksome and enforced stagnation. To the first blank and heart-wrung sense of his loss had succeeded by degrees a feeling of angry resentment. Alma had meted out to him very harsh measure. She had allowed him no opportunity of explanation, and surely he was entitled to that amount of consideration, not to say fair play. But no. She had condemned him unheard. After all Fordham was right. The less one had to do with the other sex the better. It was all alike. And a very unwonted sneer clouded the beauty of the ordinarily bright and sunny face.

This, no doubt, was very good reasoning—would have been had the reasoner but numbered a dozen or so more years of life. In that case it would doubtlessly have afforded him abundant consolation. As things were, however, he was fain to own to himself that it afforded him very little indeed. However he might pretend to himself that Alma was not worth wrecking his life over, the poor fellow knew perfectly well that were she to appear at that moment before him with but one kind word on her lips, all his rankling resentment and cynical communings would be scattered to the winds. Those wretched Glovers—underbred, shop-keeping adventurers as they were—to come there wrecking his life by their infernal malice! And then as in a mental flash he compared the two girls, the pendulum swung back again, and he reflected that however harsh and peremptory had been Alma’s way of looking at things, he had got no more than he had deserved. But this idea, while it brushed aside the flimsy attempts he had been making to harden his heart towards her, left him rather more unhappy than before.

“Well, Mr Orlebar, I am glad to see you down at last,” said a very pleasing feminine voice, whose owner suddenly appeared round an angle of the house.

“You’re awfully good, Mrs Daventer,” he replied. “But if you’re only half as glad to see me down as I am to be down, why then you’re—you’re—er—still more good.”

“It must be delightful to feel yourself out of doors again, after being shut up all that time,” she went on. “Still, it won’t do to hurry matters. You must make up your mind to have a little patience.”

“Just what I’m doing. Job isn’t in it with me for that quality.”

She laughed—and a very attractive laugh it was. So Phil thought, and he reckoned himself a judge. “A devilish nice woman, and a devilish nice-looking one,” had been his verdict to Fordham, and he saw no reason to retract any part of it now.

“I shouldn’t give you credit for much of the quality at any rate,” she said. “You seem far too impulsive. For instance, just now you were looking anything but philosophical. However, it is slow work being a prisoner, and a lonely prisoner too. What has become of your friend?”

“Who? Fordham? Oh, he’s away for a few days. He and Wentworth have gone over to Chamounix by the glacier route. I miss the chap no end. I believe he’d have put it off if I had wanted him to, but, as it is, I’ve been feeling a selfish dog keeping him in the best part of the day yarning to me, when he might have been having a high old time on his own account. I tell you what it is, Mrs Daventer, he’s a rare good chap is Fordham.”

This was amusing—rich, in fact. She did not even turn away her head to conceal a bitter curl of the lips, for she flattered herself she was past showing the faintest sign of feeling. But a ruling passion is difficult to conceal entirely, especially when it consists of a surging, deadly hatred.

“Is he?” she said vacantly.

“Rather. I see you don’t believe it though. But, between ourselves, he is a good bit of a woman-hater. So I suppose the sex instinctively reciprocates the compliment. But, I say, Mrs Daventer. It was awfully good of you to come and see me as you did—and the other people too,” added Phil, in the half-shamefaced way in which nineteen men out of twenty are wont to express their thanks or appreciation as regards a kindness rendered.

“That was nothing. Mrs Wharton’s very nice, isn’t she? I’m very sorry they’re leaving to-morrow.”

“Are they? I hope I shall see them again before they go. Wharton’s a rare good sort although he’s a parson. Don’t look shocked. I’m afraid I don’t get on with ‘the cloth’ over well. I daresay it’s my own fault though.”

“I daresay it is,” she returned with a laugh.

During the latter days of his captivity Philip had not been without visitors. The British subject, when outside his (or her) native land, is the proprietor of a far more abundant and spontaneous fount of the milk of human kindness than when hedged around by the stovepipe-hat-cum-proper-introductions phase of respectability within the confines of the same. Several of the people sojourning in the hotel had looked in upon the weary prisoner to lighten the irksomeness of his confinement with a little friendly chat, and foremost among them had been Mrs Daventer.

“Are you doing anything particular this morning, Mrs Daventer? Because, if not, I wish you’d get a chair—I can’t get one for you, you see—and sit and talk to me,” said Phil, in that open, taking manner of his that rendered him almost as attractive to the other sex as his handsome face and fine physique.

“Well, I suppose I must,” she answered with a smile.

“It would be a real act of Christian charity. And—”

He broke off in confused amazement, caused by the arrival of a third person upon the scene. “A good-looking girl,” was his mental verdict. “Wentworth was right, by Jove!”

“Laura, dear, see if there are any chairs in the hall,” said Mrs Daventer. “Thanks, love,” she went on, as her daughter returned, bearing a light garden-chair. “Mr Orlebar claims that it is a Christian duty on our part to sit and gossip with him. I suppose one must concede him the privileges of an invalid.”

“I am glad your ankle is so much better,” said the girl, quite unaffectedly, but with the slightest possible tinge of shyness, which added an indescribable piquancy to her rich Southern type of beauty. “It must be so hideously trying to see every one else going about enjoying themselves, while you feel yourself literally chained.”

“That’s just how it is,” assented Philip. “And they say it’s the best climbing season that has been known for ten years.”

“You are a great climber, I suppose?”

“No. A rank greenhorn, in fact. The Rothhorn was the first—the first real high thing—I’ve done, and it seems likely to be the last.”

“We heard about your accident the morning after we arrived. It made quite a little excitement.”

“I suppose so,” said Philip, with a laugh. “‘Terrible tragedy. A cow fell over the bridge and broke one horn,’ as the country reporter put it.”

“Get yourself a chair, dear,” said Mrs Daventer. And as the girl moved away with that intent, Philip could not, for the life of him, keep his glance from following the graceful, lithe gait. She was a splendid-looking girl, he told himself.

“How is it you are not away among the glaciers this lovely day, Miss Daventer?” he asked, when she had returned.

“I don’t know. I suppose I felt lazy. Some of the people near us at table have gone up to the Théodule to-day, and wanted me to go with them. But I should have had to decide last night; besides, they were going to make such a woefully early start. So I didn’t want to tie myself.”

“Quite right,” said Philip. “That early start side of the question takes half the edge off the fun of any undertaking here. Still, once you are squarely out it’s all right, and you feel all the better for it.”

“Always provided you have had a fair night’s rest. But these big hotels are apt to be very noisy—people getting up at all hours and taking abundant pains to render the whole house aware of the fact.”

“Rather,” said Philip. “Every one turns in ridiculously early, but what’s the good of that when just as you are dropping off to sleep somebody comes into the room above you and practices for the next day’s walk during about two hours, in a pair of regulation nail boots? I’ve been having a bad time of late. Getting no exercise in the daytime, I find it hard to sleep at night, and there’s always some one stumping about overhead. I was obliged to ring up the night porter at last and send him up to inform the gentleman overhead that I should take it as very kind of him if he would defer his rehearsal of step-cutting, jumping crevasses, etc, until he could practise upon real ice the next day. Well, the porter went, for I heard his voice through the floor. I asked him in the morning if the gentleman had sworn a great deal or only a little. ‘Gentleman?’ he said, in mild surprise. ‘It was not a gentleman, it was a lady.’”

“Wasn’t she awfully sorry?” said Laura.

“She may have been, but she didn’t seem so. By way of impressing me with the honour I ought to consider it to be lulled to sleep by the tread of her fairy feet, I am bound to record that she made rather more row than before.”

“Who was it? Do you know?”

“I don’t. I had my suspicions, but they were only suspicions.”

“Well, it couldn’t have been either of us,” laughed Mrs Daventer, “for we happen to be on the same floor. But to whom do your suspicions point?”

“I fancy it must have been one of those two grim spinsters who have been keeping me supplied with sacred literature.”

“No—have they?” said the girl, a swift laugh darting from her dark eyes. “I know who you mean, though I don’t know their names. They are dreadful old people. I notice at table they never have the same next-door neighbours two days running. I suppose they force their ideas on that head upon everybody, judging from the scraps of conversation that float across.”

“I ought to be grateful to them,” went on Philip. “Every day I found a fresh tract slipped under my door. The titles, too, were uniformly appropriated to the sojourner in Zermatt. ‘Where are you going to climb to-day?’ or ‘Looking Upward.’ ‘The Way that is Dark and Slippery,’ which reminded me of that high moraine coming down from the Rothhorn the other night. But what really did hurt my feelings was one labelled, ‘On whomsoever it Shall Fall it shall Grind him to Powder.’ It seemed too personal. I felt that they were poking fun at my misfortune, don’t you know, and it didn’t seem kind. But it occurred to me that they meant well. They meant to amuse me, and assuredly they succeeded. By the way, these interesting documents bore the injunction: ‘When done with, pass this on to a friend.’ Wherefore, Miss Daventer, I shall feel it my duty to endow you with the whole lot.”

“I must decline the honour. I couldn’t think of depriving you of so valuable a possession,” was the laughing reply. “But we are wandering dreadfully from the point. Why do you think it was one of those old things who was walking about over your head?”

“It is only bare suspicion, mind, and founded upon circumstantial evidence—acreage, I mean. I have become observant since my enforced detention, and while contemplating the populace—from a three-storey window—I have noticed that nobody else could show such an acreage of shoeleather.”

“Your imprisonment has rendered you satirical, Mr Orlebar,” said Mrs Daventer, in mild reproof, though at heart joining in the laugh wherewith the remark was received by her daughter, as, indeed, nineteen women out of twenty are sure to do whenever a man makes a joke at the expense of another member of their own sex.

Thus they sat, exchanging the airiest of gossip, laughing over mere nothings. Then the luncheon bell rang. Philip’s countenance fell. It was surprising how soon the morning had fled. He said as much—but dolefully.

“Why, what’s the matter?” said the elder lady, as she rose to go indoors.

“Oh, nothing. Only that I shall be left all alone again.”

“Poor thing!” said Laura, mischievously. “But perhaps, if you promise to be very entertaining, we’ll come and take care of you again. Shall we, mother?”

“Perhaps. And now, Mr Orlebar, is there anything you want? Anything I can tell them to do for you—or to bring you out?”

“You’re awfully good, Mrs Daventer. They know they’ve got to bring me something to pick at out here; but they may have forgotten. Yes, if you don’t mind just sending Alphonse here. And—I say—Mrs Daventer—you’ll—you’ll come around again presently yourselves—won’t you?”

“Perhaps—only perhaps!” answered Laura for her mother, with a mischievous, tantalising glance, which, however, said as plainly as possible, “Why, you old goose, you know we will.”

His face brightened. “Thanks awfully,” he mumbled. And then, as they left him, the sun did not seem to shine quite so brightly as before. However, he would not be left alone for long.

What had become of all the dismal and bitter reflections which had been crowding in upon him when he first took up his position in that chair barely two hours ago? Well, the cause of them existed still, but somehow, however reluctant to own it he might be, there was no disguising altogether a sneaking idea that the sting might be dulled. Somehow, too, his anxiety to be able to get about had become greatly enhanced, but not so his eagerness to seek out fresh scenes. That, curiously enough, had proportionately abated.

Chapter Twenty Six.

One Nail Drives Out Another.

“That there are as good fish in the sea as any that ever came out may or may not be a sound proverb, but it’s one that our friend Orlebar seems to believe in—eh, Fordham?”

Beyond a grunt, his companion made no answer, and Wentworth continued—

“Just look at the fellow now. The widow and daughter mean ‘biz,’ if ever any one did. And Orlebar is such an easy fish to hook, provided they don’t allow him too much play. If they do, the chances are ten to one he’ll break away and rise to another fly.”

It was a warm, sunshiny Sunday afternoon, about a fortnight after Philip’s first appearance downstairs. The two thus conversing were strolling along the road which leads to the Zmutt-thal, and in the green meadows beyond the roaring, churning Visp, walked three figures which, in spite of the distance, they had no sort of difficulty in identifying with the objects under discussion.

“Yes, Orlebar is a fish that requires prompt landing,” pursued Wentworth. “They have had a fortnight to do it in. If they don’t effectually gaff him within the next week, they may give it up. Some one else will happen along, and he will think it time for a change. The fair Laura will get left. Do you a bet on it, Fordham, if you like.”

“Not worth betting on, is it?” was the languid reply. “I have done what I could for the boy—kept him out of numberless snares and pitfalls. I’m a trifle tired of it now. If he is such a fool as to plunge in headlong—why, he must.”

In spite of this admirable indifference, the speaker was, in fact, watching the game keenly, and so far it was progressing entirely to his own satisfaction. Did his female accomplice—in obedience to her better instincts, or to a natural tendency to revolt against dictation—show any signs of slackness, there he was, ruthless, unswerving, at hand to remind her of the consequences of failure. She must succeed or fail. In the latter alternative no palliation that she had done her best would be admitted, and this she knew. No such excuse—indeed, no excuse—would avail to save her and hers from the consequences of such failure, and the result would be dire. She was in this man’s power—bound hand and foot. She might as well expect mercy from a famished tiger as one shade of ruth from him did the task which he had set her to fulfil fail by a hair’s breadth. And she judged correctly.

Not by accident was Fordham strolling there that afternoon. The strongest of all passions—in a strong nature—the vindictive, vengeful hate of years thoroughly awakened in him, he watched the puppets dancing to his wires. His accomplice must be kept alive to the fact that his eye was ever upon her, that she dare not do, or leave undone, anything, however trivial, that might risk the game. And now his companion’s remarks only went to confirm his previously formed decision. It was time the curtain should be rung down upon the first act of the three-act drama—time that the second should begin.

“The most susceptible youngster that ever lived! I believe you’re right, Wentworth,” he pursued, in reply to one of the aforesaid remarks. “And the worst of it is he takes them all so seriously—throws himself into the net headlong. Then, when he finds himself caught—tied tight so that no amount of kicking and swearing will get him out—he’ll raise a great outcry and think himself very hardly used. They all do it. And I’m always warning him. I warned him against this very girl who’s trying all she knows to hook him now.”

“The deuce you did. I should be curious to know in what terms,” said Wentworth.

“In what terms? I preached to him; I spake parables unto him; I propounded the choicest and most incisive metaphors. No use—all thrown away. ‘A woman, my dear chap,’ I said—‘an attractive woman, that is—is like a new and entertaining book, delightful—for a time. But when you have got from cover to cover you don’t begin the book again and go through it a second time, and then a third, and so on. Even the few books that will bear going through twice, and then only after a decent interval, will not keep you in literary pabulum all your life. So it is with a woman. However attractive, however entertaining she may be, she is bound to pall sooner or later—some few later, but the vast majority, like the general run of books—sooner. So that in chaining yourself to one woman all your life, as you seem bent upon doing, you are showing about as much judgment as you would be in condemning yourself to read one book all your life. Less, indeed, for, if the book bores you, you can chuck it out of the window; but if the woman bores you, or leads you the life of a pariah dog, you can’t chuck her out of the window, because if you do you’ll likely be hanged, and she certainly will see you so before she’ll walk out of the door, once in it. Philip, my son, be warned.’”

“And how did he take that undoubtedly sound counsel?” said Wentworth, with a laugh.

“Oh, abused me, of course—swore I was a brute and a savage—in fact, he rather thought I must be the devil himself. That’s always the way. Show a man the precipice he’s going to walk over, and ten to one he turns round and damns you for not minding your own business. And as a general rule he’s right. Talking of precipices, Wentworth, did you hear that man’s idea at table d’hôte when we were talking of the difficult state the Dent Blanche was in this year?”

“No. It must have been after I went out.”

“Why, he suggested, in the most matter-of-fact way, fixing a hawser from the top of it to the glacier below. Gaudy idea, wasn’t it, doing the Dent Blanche by means of a hawser? And, just as we had done guffawing over the notion, he added that the only drawback to the scheme was that somebody would be sure to creep up and steal it. Whereupon that sheep-faced parson on the other side of the table cut in with a very aggrieved and much hurt amendment to the effect that he was sure the mountain people were much too honest. We all roared in such wise as to draw the attention of the whole room upon us, including an overheard remark from one of the tract-dispensing old cats that some people were never happy unless they were making a noise—even upon a Sunday.”

Philip meanwhile was assuredly doing everything to justify the observations of our two misogynists aforesaid. The expression of his face as he walked beside Laura Daventer, the tone of his voice as he talked to her, told quite enough. The past fortnight of daily companionship had done its work. Already there was a familiar, confidential ring in his tone—a semi-caressing expression in his eyes, which told unmistakably that he more than half considered her his own property. And what of Laura herself?

She, for her part, seemed disposed to take kindly to this state of affairs. She had tacitly acquiesced in the gradual proprietorship he had set up over her—had even abetted his efforts to glare off any presumptuous intruder who should seek to infringe his monopoly. The present arrangement suited her very well—on the whole, very well indeed.

“Do you really mean, Mrs Daventer,” Philip was saying, talking across Laura to her mother—“do you really mean you are going away at the end of this week?”

“I’m afraid so. We have been a long time abroad already, and we can’t remain away from home for ever.”

“N-no, I suppose not,” he assented, ruefully. “But what on earth shall I do here when you’re gone?”

“Just what you did before we came,” answered Laura, mischievously. “There are plenty more people here.”

“Just as if that’s the same thing! I don’t believe I’ll stay on myself. In fact, I should have gone back before now if it hadn’t been for my confounded ankle.”

“And that same ‘confounded ankle’ would have been a great deal more ‘confounded’ but for us,” rejoined Laura. “You would have used it again too soon—much too soon—only we wouldn’t let you. You would have started up the Matterhorn, or done something equally insane, if we hadn’t taken care of you and kept you quiet at home.”

There was more than a substratum of truth underlying this statement. The speaker had indeed done all she said. To one of Phil’s temperament it was infinitely more congenial to lounge through the days, sitting about in sequestered nooks in the fields and woods with a very attractive girl who chose to make much of him, than to undertake sterner forms of pastime in the company of such unsympathetic spirits as Fordham and Wentworth. And therein lay an epitome of the last fortnight. These two had been thrown together. When Philip’s ankle had improved sufficiently to admit of moderate locomotion it was Laura who had been his constant companion during his earlier and experimental hobbles. Indeed, it is to be feared that the sly dog had more than once exaggerated his lameness, in justification of an appeal for support on the ground of the insufficiency of that afforded by his stick, though somehow, when the said support was very prettily accorded, the weight which he threw upon his charming prop was of the very lightest. So the bright summer days of that fortnight had passed one by one, and it was astonishing what a large proportion of the hours composing each had been spent à deux.

Thus had come about that good understanding, that sense of proprietorship definite on the part of the one, dissimulated, yet tangible and existent, on that of the other, which reigned between them. But if she intended that proprietorship to become permanent—in fact, lifelong, neither by word or sign did Laura do anything to proclaim such intention. Kind, sympathetic, companionable as she was, she could not with fairness be accused of doing anything to “throw herself at his head.” She was a perfect model of tact. When he waxed effusive, as it was Phil’s nature to do upon very slight provocation, she would meet him with a stand-offishness the more disconcerting that it was wholly unexpected. Sometimes, even, she would invent some excuse for leaving him alone for half a day—just long enough to cause him grievously to miss her, yet not long enough to render him disgusted and resentful. But withal she had managed that her presence should be very necessary to him, and now her forethought and cleverness had their reward, for she knew she could bring him to her feet any moment she chose.

“Yes, I should have gone back before now,” repeated Philip. “I sha’n’t stay on after you leave. It’ll be too dismal all round. By Jove! I don’t see why—er—why we shouldn’t go back together. It would be awfully jolly for me having some one to travel with, and I could help you looking after the boxes and things—eh, Mrs Daventer?”

“But what about your friend, Mr Orlebar? He doesn’t want to go back yet; and, even if he did, I think I see him travelling with a pair of unprotected females.”

“Fordham? Oh, he and Wentworth have got together now, and they’ll be swarming up every blessed alp within fifty miles around before they think of moving from here. No; on the whole I think my escort may be of use to you—in fact, I think you ought to have it.”

“I believe ours is far more likely to be of use to you—in your present state,” answered Mrs Daventer, with a smile. “Well, Mr Orlebar, I was going to ask you to spend a few days with us on your return, and if you care to do so, you may as well come straight home with us now—that is, of course, unless you have anything more important or attractive among your plans.”

But this he eagerly protested he had not. Nothing would give him greater pleasure, and so on.

“Ours is a very quiet little place on the Welsh coast,” went on Mrs Daventer. “I don’t know how we shall amuse you—or rather how you will amuse yourself.”

Here again Philip raised his voice in protest. He did not want amusing. He was sure it would be quite delightful. He was tired of the abominable racket of hotel life. Quiet, and plenty of it, was just the thing he wanted. It would do him more good than anything else in the world.

“Well, then, we may look upon that as settled,” was the gracious rejoinder—and Mrs Daventer could be very gracious, very fascinating, when she chose. “If you are half as pleased with your stay as we shall be to have you, we shall consider ourselves fortunate. And now, Laura, I think we had better be turning back. I really must put in an appearance at church this afternoon, especially as I missed it this morning and last Sunday as well.”

The girl’s face clouded. “Why, mother, the best part of the afternoon is only just beginning,” she objected. “Such a heavenly afternoon as it is, too.”

“Let church slide, Mrs Daventer,” urged Phil, impulsively. “Besides, if you’re going away what does it matter!”

“That is a very earthly view to take of it, you unprincipled boy?” was the laughing reply. “Never mind, I needn’t drag you two children back with me; so continue your walk while I go and sacrifice myself to save appearances. Perhaps I’ll meet you somewhere about here afterwards, as you come back.”

“I do think that mother of yours is one of the sweetest women I ever met—Laura,” said Phil, as they turned to resume their stroll.

The girl’s face flushed with pleasure. “You never said a truer thing than that,” she replied.

“Rather not. Hallo! she’ll be late. At least a quarter of an hour’s walk, and there’s that cracked old tin-kettle whanging away already.”

A bell sounded upon the clear, pine-scented air. It was not a melodious bell—rather did it resemble the homely implement irreverently suggested. Then they continued their walk through the sunlit pastures; but Philip, whose ankle was by no means cured, began to limp.

“Stop. We must not go any further,” said Laura. “You have been walking too much to-day as it is. We will sit down and rest.”

“Let us get up on top of these rocks then,” he suggested, as their walk had brought them to a pile of broken rocks overgrown with rhododendrons and bilberry bushes. These they clambered up, and came to a shut-in, mossy nook. One side was riven by a deep fissure through which a torrent roared. It was the very spot which had witnessed that stormy interview between Fordham and Mrs Daventer. Strange, indeed, was the irony of fate which had led these two hither.

“I tell you what it is, Laura,” said Philip, throwing himself upon the ground; “it was awfully jolly of your mother to give me that invitation. We’ll have no end of a good time down there together—won’t we, dear?” and reaching out his hand he closed it upon hers. But this, after a momentary hesitation, she drew away.

“I hope we will,” she answered, and over the dark, piquante face there crept a most becoming flush. Very attractive too at that moment was that same face, with its luminous eyes and delicate, refined beauty. Still to the physiognomist there was a certain hardness about the ripe red lips which was not altogether satisfactory. But this fault he who now looked upon them failed to realise.

He turned round quickly and fixed his eyes upon her face. There was something in her tone, her gesture, that disquieted him.

“Why, Laura! what is the matter? You speak as if you did not believe we would—have a good time, I mean. Why should we not? We shall be together, and I don’t know what I should do if you were to go away from me now—darling.”

“Stop, Phil. Don’t say any more—at least not here,” she added hurriedly. “You are much too impulsive, and you don’t know me yet, although you think you do. Yes, we will have a good time—but—don’t begin to get serious, that’s a good boy.”

Philip stared. But her unexpected rejoinder had its effect. Did she intend that it should? The fervour of his tone deepened as he replied—

“I won’t say a word that you would rather I did not, dear. Not now, at any rate.”

“You had better not, believe me,” she replied, in a tone that was almost a caress, and with a smile that set all his pulses tingling. Very alluring she looked, her dark beauty set off by her dress of creamy white, by the languorous attitude, so harmonious with the sunshine and surroundings. Overhead and around the great mountains towered, the mighty cone of the giant Matterhorn dominating them all as he frowned aloft from the liquid blue; the dull thunder of the seething Visp churning its way through emerald pasture-lands; the picturesque brown roofs of the châlets; the aromatic scent of the pines—all harmonising in idyllic beauty with the figure to which they constituted a frame, a background. Did it recall that other soft golden summer evening, not so very long ago either, when he listened to much the same answer framed by another pair of lips? Who may tell? For one nail drives out another, and a heart taken at the rebound is easily caught. Yet assuredly it was a strange, a grim, irony of fate, that which brought these two hither, to this spot of all others, to enact this scene. But in such cycles do the events of life move.

Chapter Twenty Seven.

The Droop of a Sunshade.

Alma Wyatt was at home again—was once more an inmate of the much-decried semi-detached which was an exact counterpart of all the Rosebanks, and Hollybanks, and Belmonts, and Heathfields, which go to line the regulation suburban road.

The said regulation road was ankle-deep in dust—even the foliage of the trees and garden patches, which fronted each monotonous row of villas, was dried and gasping, and sprinkled with the same powdery substance. The atmosphere was of the stuffy, moist, enervating character inseparable from low-lying riverside resorts. Small wonder, then, that Alma, at home again now, should find herself drawing bitter contrasts between commonplace, cockneyfied Surbiton, and the bounteous glories of the mighty Alps—the thunder of the mountain torrent, and the cool fragrance of the shadowy pine forest; the cloudless skies and the soaring peaks; the sheeny ice-slopes, and the blue, castellated masses of the séracs, and, not least, the bracing exhilaration of the air.

“At home again! At home again!”—as she kept bitterly repeating to herself. At home again, to enact the part of a butt for her mother’s nagging and ever-discontented tongue; at home again, to fall into the old rôle of self-obliteration, to hold herself in readiness to sacrifice every inclination of her own, to devote all her time, all her energies, to the convenience of the family idol, her younger sister, and especially to look for no appreciation of, or thanks for, the same. And such is home!

How her soul sickened as she looked around on the mediocrity of it all—the flat, ditchwater circumstances of life, the stagnation, the deadly monotony. There was the same narrow round, the same bi-weekly run up to Town on shopping intent, the same local gossip and feeble attempts at entertainment, the same evening visits from the same bevy of Constance’s admirers—City youths mostly, all as like each other as the immaculacy of their collars, the sheen of their hats, the lack of expression in their countenances and the inanity of their conversation, could render them. These would redeem the time with some feeble singing and feebler wit, and evening after evening would Alma be called upon to sit it all out and endeavour to make herself agreeable. Constance on such occasions was in her element, but to the sucking Couttses and Barings and Rothschilds Alma was a stumbling-block and a wet blanket.

“Sort of garl, baai Jove, who ought to have a chappie built to her ordar, don’t cher know. Ordinary fellar not good enough,” the principal dry wag of the coterie was wont to remark.

When she had told Philip Orlebar she detested the place and everything to do with it, Alma had spoken no more than the literal truth. But if she detested it then, it strikes her now as ten times more detestable. The suburban mediocrity, the much-belauded river—a mere muddy playground for ’Arry and ’Arriet—pall upon her with nauseous monotony. Never did the hideous Cockney twang grate more offensively upon her ears, never did the obtrusive vulgarity of the low-class Briton—the most irredeemably vulgar animal in the world—revolt her sensibilities as now, when contrasted with the pleasant speech and innately refined manners of the same class of Continental peoples. Assuredly with no feeling of gladness or even contentment did Alma Wyatt return home. This may have been wrong; it was undoubtedly lamentable. But, under the circumstances, it was very natural.

We should be sorry to make oath that apart from this pardonable discontent with her most uncongenial surroundings there was not another phase of canker eating into her mind and destroying its peace. We have, elsewhere, and more than once, emphasised the fact that a certain young reprobate, hight Philip Orlebar, was one of those dangerous persons of whom the opposite sex is prone to become very fond. Now Alma’s opportunities of doing so had been exceptional and many—and, in point of fact, she had so become.

Often now, in the stagnant monotony of her home life, does that bright young face rise up before her, as she first saw it, gazing with scarcely disguised admiration upon her own, as she has so frequently, so constantly seen it since—the sunny blue eyes, with their straight, frank glance, lighting up with a world of welcoming gladness when meeting her for the first time in the day or after a few hours’ absence. She sees it, too, as she saw it in the black, driving cloud, high up on the perilous rock arête of the Cape au Moine, anxious on her account, otherwise fearless and resolute—she sees it, as she saw it in the sinking sunshine of that same day, tender, apprehensive, as its owner hung upon the reply which her lips should frame—but, oh, so attractive! Again, she sees it as she saw it last—crushed, hopeless, despairing, and as it appears thus before her the proud, self-contained nature partially breaks down, and, being alone, she cannot repress a convulsive sob or two, and a few tears damp the handkerchief which she passes rapidly over her eyes.

Does she ever regret—repent of her haste in thus giving him his congé! Does it ever occur to her that she may have judged him hastily, harshly—in fact, unheard? Well, her nature is a fearfully proud, a fearfully sensitive one. Did he not put a public slight upon her, make her the laughing stock of a number of nondescript people? Yet even here she cannot further justify herself in the idea that he had merely been amusing himself at her expense. The feeling was there, warm and genuine—as to that there could be no mistake whatever. Characteristically, however, she proceeds to impale him upon the other horn of the dilemma. He had shown weakness. If that other girl had really any claim upon him, if there was really any engagement between them, he ought to have broken it off definitely and decisively before presuming to offer his affection to herself. Yes, he had been guilty of lamentable weakness—an unpardonable fault in Alma Wyatt’s eyes.

There is even more behind, however, than all this. On hearing of his accident, did she not write him a letter of condolence—a really kind letter of sympathy and interest, asking to be informed how he got on—a letter, indeed, in which it was just possible for any man not actually a born fool to “read between the lines,” affording him, with a little diplomacy, a chance of crying “Peccavi,” and eventually reinstating himself? But how had he answered it? He had not answered it at all!

No, from that day to this he had not answered it. There could be no explanation. She had learned indirectly through those who were in the same hotel at the time, that his accident, though tiresome, was not serious—never sufficiently serious to incapacitate him for writing. And she had been at Zinal long enough to have heard from him over and over again; added to which, every letter which had arrived there for her uncle and aunt, even some time after their departure, had been scrupulously forwarded and safely received. The postal arrangements could not be to blame; clearly, then, he had deliberately and of set purpose elected to take no notice of her letter.

Well, that dream was over. She felt a little hard—a little bitter. It was no easy matter to gain Alma’s good opinion, but of Philip Orlebar she had managed to become very fond—more so, in fact, than she herself had suspected at the time. And sometimes now a satirical smile would curve her lips as she reflected bitterly that after all he had certainly shown no weakness in choosing to ignore her own gracious advance, and the reflection did not tend in any degree to restore either peace or contentment to herself.

Bearing in mind Alma’s character and general temperament, it need hardly be said that concerning this, the great event of her trip abroad, she let fall neither word nor hint. She would, indeed, sometimes smile bitterly to herself as she pictured her mother’s wrath and disgust did the latter become aware that she had refused the heir to a baronetcy—a poor one certainly, but still a baronetcy. Why, life would thenceforth cease to be worth living. It would be the last straw. And for this, in her heart of hearts, she admitted that, looking at it from a strictly mundane point of view, there was some excuse. The chances matrimonial, to a girl situated as she was, were poor enough, in fact they were mainly confined to the City youths of mediocre lineage and strictly limited incomes, who constituted her sister’s sworn admirers, or a delicate handed and mustachioed curate who had for some time evinced an unmistakable partiality for herself. Still she was nothing if not characteristic. She was not going to sacrifice her clearly-formed judgment upon the altar of expediency. So she strove to dismiss Philip Orlebar from her mind, and to fall back into her old groove with what contentment she might.

That Alma did not “get on well at home” was not surprising—indeed, the wonder would have come in had things been the other way. The problematical amalgamation of oil and water was a trifle more conceivable than the existence of any cordiality or even a good understanding between herself and her mother. For the latter was not a lovable person. To start with, her brain power was of the scantiest order, her mind of the narrowest; it follows, therefore, that she was intensely, aggressively obstinate. And in the art of nagging she was a past mistress. She was one of those women to whom battle is as the air they breathe, and she had a knack of starting a fray gently, insidiously, sorrowfully even, as though marvelling herself that there should ensue any hostilities at all. Her younger daughter, Constance, then just eighteen, was an excellent replica of her in disposition—that is to say, had not a single redeeming point in her character; and, pace the gushing philanthropist, there are such persons. But the girl, with her blue eyes and smooth skin, her golden hair and fresh complexion, was extremely pretty; and in stating this we have said all there is to be said for her; for as a set-off against these advantages she was selfish, wilful, and conceited to the last degree, as, indeed, was only natural, seeing that from her birth upward she had been thoroughly and consistently spoiled.

There were those who wondered whence Alma had inherited her fine character. Those in a position to speak—old General Wyatt for instance—declared that she had inherited all her father’s good qualities and none of her mother’s bad ones, whereas in the case of Constance the positions were exactly reversed.

“Alma, I want you to get on your hat, quick, and come along up the river,” cried Constance, bursting in upon her sister one bright summer afternoon. The latter had sought out the coolest corner of the stuffy little drawing-room, and was busily engaged in the—to her in her then frame of mind—very congenial task of sticking a number of Alpine views into an album. She had a touch of headache, and was not in the most amiable frame of mind herself. In fact the above invitation struck within her no responsive chord, and she said as much.

“Of course!” snapped the younger girl. “Isn’t that always the way! Here one has been indoors the whole day, and directly it gets cool enough to move you say you wont. Just because you know I want to. Well—well. One never can get to the bottom of the selfishness of some people.”

“Speak for yourself, Constance!” returned Alma, quickly but quietly. “Does it never strike you that I may now and then feel tired, or disinclined for exertion. And I certainly feel that way this afternoon.”

But the other’s rejoinder was a shrill, jeering, ringing laugh.

“All very well,” she cried, flinging her sailor hat into the air and catching it. “All very well. But that won’t go down with me. Can’t tear yourself away from those old Swiss photos. I know all about it. By the way, which is the place you met him in?” she jeered, going over to the table and feigning a deep interest in the views which lay ranged upon it ready for sticking in the book. “Which was it? You might as well tell a fellow, instead of being as close as Death itself. Which was it, Alma, and what’s he like? You needn’t keep it all so dark. I won’t let on.”

For the life of her, Alma could not restrain the colour which came into her face. She was in a rather unamiable mood just then, as we have said, and now she felt stung to retort.

“Whoever ‘he’ is, or isn’t, which is nearer the truth, I should be sorry to scrape together such a tenth-rate brigade as you seem to delight in gathering round you. And now having shown how intensely and objectionably silly you can make yourself, Constance, how would it be to start off on your walk and leave me in peace?”

“Well, that is a nice way to talk to your sister, I must say, Alma,” said Mrs Wyatt, entering the room in time to hear the latter half of the above remark.

“Pooh, mother. What odds!” cried Constance, maliciously. “Alma’s only mad because I chaffed her about her mysterious ‘mash.’”

“My dear Connie, don’t use those vulgar words,” expostulated the mother, but in a very different tone to that employed when speaking to her elder daughter. The younger went on—

“It’s a fact, mother. Alma has made a mysterious ‘mash’ while she was away. She’s as close as death about it, but I’ve drawn her at last. Don’t you see now why she can’t tear herself loose from her beloved Swiss views? All enchanted land, don’t you know.”

Mrs Wyatt sniffed, and up went her virtuous nose into the air, sure prelude to the coming storm.

“Ah well, my dear,” she said, in her most aggrieved and acidulated tone. “Ah well, we can’t all have uncles and aunts to think that nothing’s good enough for us, to take us frisking round the world. And I’m afraid such changes are not for everybody’s good. Apt to make them return home more dissatisfied, more discontented than ever.” And emitting another sniff, Mrs Wyatt paused and awaited the reply which she expected and ardently hoped for.

But it did not come. More and more repellent to Alma did these almost daily wrangles become. The girl’s fine nature scorned and loathed them, recognising their tendency to degrade and lower the self-respect of all parties concerned; indeed, there were times when it was as much as she could do to keep herself from extending that scorn and loathing to their originator.

Thus disappointed, Mrs Wyatt nagged on, saying a few of the most stinging things she could think of—stinging because unjust and untrue—to move her daughter to a reply; but still it didn’t come. At last, pushing back her chair, with a sigh Alma said—

“Where do you want to go to, Constance? I suppose I may as well go with you as”—stay here to be reviled, she was nearly saying, but put it—“as not.”

“All right, come along then,” was the reply. And this compliance having the effect of damming up the stream of the maternal eloquence, the two girls sallied forth.

At any other time, moved by the sheer and wanton contrariety of her disposition, Constance would have declined to profit by this concession—would have delighted to stand by and deftly add fuel to the fire. To-day, however, she had a reason for acting otherwise. And as they gained the tow-path of the river that reason took definite shape—the shape of a youth.

He who stood there waiting for them was a medium-sized youth of about twenty, a good-looking boy, on the whole, with dark hair and eyes of a Jewish type, but remarkable for nothing in particular, unless it was a full, free, and perfectly unaffected conceit—on which latter account Alma was inclined to dislike him; but among Constance’s galaxy of adorers he held, just then, a foremost place. He rejoiced in the name of Ernest Myers.

That he was there by appointment was obvious. He was clad in flannels, and in one hand held the bow rope of a light boat which he had drawn up to the side. With a half smile, Alma understood now her sister’s disgust when she had refused to come out. She, Alma, was wanted to make a third. Well, she didn’t mind that. If it amused Constance to carry on a harmless flirtation with young Myers—for it was not likely she could think seriously of a bank clerk with an extremely limited salary—why should she baulk her? Besides, what were they but a couple of children, after all. So she was gracious to the young man, and allowed Constance to monopolise his conversation and attentions to her heart’s content, earning a subsequent encomium from her sister to the effect that when she chose she could be the very ideal of a perfect “gooseberry.”

They paddled up-stream in the evening sunshine. Alma, by common consent, was voted to the tiller ropes, but as it was neither Saturday nor Sunday, and the personality of ’Arry was comparatively absent, her skill and attention were by no means overtaxed. There was nothing in the clearness of one of the four and a half fine days, which go to make up an English summer, to suggest it—and she had often handled the tiller ropes since—nothing in the green glow of the emerald meadows, or the droop of the pollard willows, to recall the furious, misty, leaden surface of a storm-lashed lake. Yet the recollection did come back to her that evening, and with unaccountable vividness, of the day when, tossing before the howling wrath of the tempest, they had given themselves up for lost. Even the varying demeanour of the different members of their boat’s crew, when thus brought face to face with death—from the cynical indifference of Fordham, to the abject, craven terror displayed by the chaplain, Scott—rose up clearly before her mind’s eye, and looking back upon it all, and upon the days that followed, she was conscious of a strangely blank feeling as of a want unsupplied.

“Hallo!—By Jove! Look out! Excuse me, Miss Wyatt. But you as nearly as possible took us right bang into that boat.”

It was young Myers who spoke. Upon Alma the warning was needed. In the middle of his words she had pulled her right rope only just in time. But as the boat, which they had so narrowly grazed, shot by she obtained a distinct view of its occupants. And they were two, the one a fine-looking, well-built specimen of young English manhood, who was sculling, the other a dark, handsome girl seated in the stern-sheets.

The boats had passed each other, as it were, in a flash. But in that brief moment the faces of both its occupants were vividly stamped upon Alma’s vision. And that of the man was that of none other than Philip Orlebar.

She had seen him, but he had not recognised her. He was bending forward talking to his companion in that airy, half-caressing, half-confidential tone that Alma knew so well. She had seen him clearly and distinctly, but he had failed to recognise her, and for this the droop of her sunshade might account.

The droop of a sunshade! On such frail pivots do the fortunes of mankind turn! But for the droop of that sunshade the end of this story might, we trow, have to be written very differently.

“Why, Miss Wyatt! You do look startled!” exclaimed young Myers. “We are well out of it now, though, and a miss is as good as a mile when all’s said and done. But it was a near thing.”

He might well remark on her aspect. The suddenness of the interruption, the unexpectedness of the recognition, had startled every trace of colour from her face. Looking back, cautiously at first, and still under cover of the parasol, she gazed after the receding boat, now a long way astern. Yes, it was him. But who was his companion? Well he had not been slow to console himself, she thought bitterly.

“How very stupid of me,” she replied. “It was, as you say, a near thing. I must not neglect my responsible duties again though.”

But while the two younger members of the trio were in high spirits and laughed and chatted, and bantered each other for the rest of the time they were out, Alma was silent and distraite. And an hour or so later when they landed at the tow-path in the dusk and bade good-bye to their escort and chief oarsman it seemed to Alma that that day had somehow drawn down a curtain across her life. For this brief glimpse of her former lover had stirred her heart with a dull and aching sense of void. She recognised now that she had been fonder of Philip Orlebar than she had chosen to admit, had, in fact, loved him. Well, it was too late now for regrets. She it was who in her scorn and bitter anger had sent him away from her, and now he had already begun to console himself.

Chapter Twenty Eight.

”...For His House an Irredeemable Woe.”

“Well, Francis, and what do you think of that idle, good-for-nothing boy of yours now? He seems in no great hurry to come and see his father—in rather less of a hurry than his father was to go and see him.”

Thus Lady Orlebar one evening as she sat at dinner with her husband some few weeks after we last saw them together. There was just sufficient point in the ill-conditioned and therefore characteristic sneer to give it effect. Nearly a month had gone by since Philip’s return from the Continent, but somehow he had not found time to pay his father a visit. He was still in Wales, still staying with Mrs Daventer, where he had been ever since his return aforesaid.

“He seems tolerably happy where he is,” went on Lady Orlebar, maliciously, having failed to provoke a reply. “Of course there is a girl in the case, and that with one of Philip’s temperament can lead to but one result. So make up your mind to hear by any post that you are endowed with a daughter-in-law of the least desirable kind.”

Still Sir Francis made no reply. He was, in fact, very sore, very hurt, by Philip’s want of consideration, and his wife’s gibing sneers were probing the wound. This she failed not to see, and, seeing, enjoyed thoroughly, after the manner of her kind.

“Failing the daughter-in-law I prophesy the outcome will be an action for breach of promise,” she went on, characteristically eager to provoke a battle of words in order to enjoy the triumph of crushingly defeating the enemy. “Philip is just the sort who is sent into the world to constitute an easy prey for rogues and adventuresses. The boy is simply a born fool.”

Dinner was over, and the servants had withdrawn. The dessert was on the table—had been for some time—and Sir Francis was wistfully wondering how long it would be before his wife thought fit to follow the example of the servants. Just then a footman entered bearing some letters on a salver. The evening post had arrived.

Welcoming any diversion, Sir Francis proceeded to open his. But at sight of the contents of one of them, his face changed, and an exclamation escaped him. His wife looked quickly up, then without a moment’s hesitation she stretched forth her hand and seized the letter, which in his first bewilderment he had let fall upon the table. A harsh, sneering laugh escaped her as she ran her eye down the contents, and then proceeded to read them aloud:—

“Capias Chambers, Golden Fleece Lane, E.C.

“September 2 3, 188-.

“Glover versus Orlebar.

“Dear Sir,—Instructed by our client, Miss Edith Glover, we have written to your son, Mr Philip Orlebar, claiming from him the sum of 10,000 (ten thousand) pounds damages by reason of non-fulfilment of his promise to marry our aforesaid client.

“Up till now we have received no reply; but we think it may be in the interest of the young gentleman himself that you should be made aware of this claim against him.

“Trusting that by adopting this course further steps may be rendered unnecessary—

“We are, dear Sir,

“Yours faithfully,

“Swindell and Shears.

“To Sir Francis Orlebar, Bart.,

“Claxby Court, Rushtonborough.”

“Ha-ha! Didn’t I say so?” she cried. “And scarcely are the words out of my mouth than here it is—an action for breach of promise! Well, and what are you going to do now, Francis?”

“Nothing. Take no notice of it whatever. The thing is a mere attempt at a swindle—a clumsy, impudent swindle. I sha’n’t give it another moment’s thought.”

Easily said—far less easily done, especially by a nervous highly strung temperament such as that of the speaker.

“But who is this person?” went on Lady Orlebar, again scanning the letter. “The people he is with now are named Daventer—not Glover. Do you know who it can be?”

“Honestly, I don’t. To the best of my belief I never heard the name before in my life. All the more does it look like a try-on—an impudent and barefaced try-on. On second thoughts, however, I’ll send it up to Stretton in the morning, and tell him to see if he can make anything out of it, or to act as he thinks fit. Yes, that’s what I’ll do.”

“Why don’t you send for Philip himself and make him explain. It appears to me that he would be the proper person to throw what light he could upon the matter.”

“Oh, it’s of no use worrying the boy. He may be here any day now. It’ll be time enough then.”

Lady Orlebar gave a snort of defiance. The above remark was as a direct challenge to her to renew the battle. But her husband looked so anxious, so worried himself, that even she forebore, for once, to worry him further.

There was silence in the room. Sir Francis sat abstractedly gazing upon the table in front of him—in reality seeing nothing at all. His whole mind was filled up with this scrape that his son had got into. It was not the amount of the claim that affected him—on that point he felt fairly secure. Philip was of age, but had not a shilling in the world of his own; out of him, therefore, nothing could be got. But that his name should once more be dragged through the mud, and that at the instance of a harpy, an adventuress, this was where the sting of it all lay. “Once more,” we said. For Sir Francis had very good reasons of his own for avoiding anything that should drag his name into notoriety.

So unpleasantly absorbing were his reflections, so rapt was he in his reverie, that the entrance of the butler was wholly unnoticed. Not until the man had twice drawn his attention to the card which lay upon a salver did he awake from his abstraction, and then it was with a start, for the card was inscribed—“Mr Richard Fordham.”

Fordham!—Phil’s friend, whom he had more than once pressingly invited to make a stay at Claxby Court, which invitation had persistently been declined upon one ground or another. Fordham—the man who had been Philip’s travelling companion, guide, philosopher, and friend during the past year. Surely if any one knew anything of this unfortunate affair, Fordham was the man. True, it would have struck him at any other time that to arrive after dinner unannounced and unexpected was somewhat of an odd proceeding, but Phil had always described his friend as an out-and-out eccentricity. Besides, his visit might relate to this very affair. The baronet saw light. “Where is this gentleman, Karslake?” he said eagerly. “I showed him into the library, Sir Francis. He said he would not detain you long, and his fly is waiting for him at the door.”

The library was lighted only by one shaded lamp in the centre of the table; consequently it was in semi-gloom. The visitor was seated in a low chair with his back to the door, and Sir Francis on entering hardly perceived him. Then, closing the door behind him and giving a slight cough, the baronet began—

“Mr Fordham, I believe—Garcia! Oh, good God!”

And then, with a low cry of amazement and horror, he stopped short, staggered back a pace or two, and stood gazing helplessly at his visitor.

For the latter, as soon as he heard the door close, had risen and wheeled round rapidly to face the other. Now, as he stood there, the light full upon him, the saturnine features wreathed into a smile that was more than half a sneer; the look of triumphant malice upon that dark countenance was positively satanic.

“The name on the card was Fordham,” said Sir Francis, vacantly. “I recognised it as that of my son’s friend. What does it all mean?”

“It means this, Francis Orlebar. Your son’s friend of to-day, hight Fordham, is the same individual as your friend of years ago, hight Garcia. Are you beginning to see?”

The question was scarcely needed. As the whole truth burst in upon him that this man, whose ruthless hate he had incurred—not wrongfully either—long years ago, had been his son’s confidant and constant travelling companion now, the look of horror and repulsion upon the baronet’s countenance was in itself sufficient answer.

“You do!” went on the other. “Quite so—I knew you would. And now you are wondering what on earth was my object in constituting myself guide, philosopher, and friend to your son, for no man can be more certain than yourself that that object was not likely to be to Philip’s advantage. Do you follow me?”

“I do. But Garcia, though I wronged you—wronged you unpardonably, I admit—years ago, you would surely not extend your rancour, just as that may be as regards myself—your revengeful bitterness—to an innocent boy—one who is incapable of harming anybody. Surely even you would stop short at this. We are both comparatively near the end of our lives—his is all before him. Surely even you would shrink from doing anything to poison that life.”

“Did you shrink from poisoning mine, Francis Orlebar? Still, upon my soul, I believe you were more sinned against than sinning. I almost think, if it concerned you alone, I would have let it pass. But in striking you I shall equally well strike her—that she-devil. I had almost decided to bury the whole affair, but I could not let her escape. She should supply the weapon—the weapon I wanted. I forced her to be the instrument of revenge upon herself equally as upon you. That sort of revenge was too appetising, too wholly unique, to be thrown away.”

Never a strong man at any time, when he was unnerved Sir Francis was as weak as water. He was now thoroughly unnerved. His face was as white as death and his voice shook.

“Man—man!” he gasped, “what are you driving at? What have you done? Speak out—or are you too great a coward?”

But Fordham only smiled—the same cruel, satanic smile, which consisted of little else than the droop of the corners of his mouth. He was enjoying the other’s anguished suspense—gloating over these mental writhings—as he had come there intending to do. But before he could frame an answer, an interruption occurred. The door opened suddenly, and there entered no less a personage than Lady Orlebar.

The fact was, she reckoned the time had come for her to bear her share in the interview. There should be no mysteries apart from her cognisance in that house, while she was in it. So allowing sufficient time to float them into the swing of the discussion, she had swooped down upon them, suddenly, decisively, as was her wont. But disappointment awaited. Beyond a stiff bow, Fordham’s attitude underwent no change—nor did he utter a single word. He stood, unmistakably, ostentatiously, waiting for her to go out again.

But this she had no intention of doing. One glance at her husband satisfied her that a stronger spirit was needed to cope with the man before her.

“Sir Francis has not been very well lately,” she began, looking at Fordham. “He is anything but strong, and this news about his son has sadly upset him.”

It was Fordham’s turn to look astonished. To what news did she allude? He himself had certainly not imparted any—not yet.

“Of course it is a very tiresome and disconcerting thing,” she went on, “although likely to prove all sheet-and-turnip—for one can hardly believe it genuine or likely to stand the test of a court of law.”

“I hope you may not be mistaken in that last surmise,” remarked Fordham grimly, and in a tone which implied that he very much hoped she might. They were at cross purposes.

“Well, it’s an annoying thing, anyway. Who are these Glovers, Mr Fordham, and how did Philip manage to get into their clutches? Of course you know they have brought an action for breach of promise against him?”

“I didn’t. I know, however, that they threatened to. In fact, I was instrumental in rescuing him from their clutches. They are an underbred lot, anyway.”

“I thought so?” cried Lady Orlebar eagerly, while Sir Francis started, and stared bewildered at his visitor. If the latter had stood Philip’s friend in this affair surely he had no intention of injuring him. But this world is one of cruel contrasts.

“I am surprised you have heard nothing of this, Mr Fordham,” she went on. “We thought it was upon this subject that you had done us the favour to call. May I ask, then—what is the nature of your business with Sir Francis?”

If Fordham was inwardly bursting with sardonic mirth, he was not going to show it. The unbounded impudence of the woman, practically asking him what the devil he wanted there at all—and expecting he was going to tell her—struck him as the richest thing he had heard for a very long time.

“Pardon me, Lady Orlebar, if I seem rude,” he answered, shortly; “but the nature of my business happens to concern Sir Francis alone. We had only just begun to enter upon it when you came in; but if Sir Francis is not equal to hearing my communication to-night I shall be happy to call again in the morning, or in a day or two.”

But Sir Francis was equal—very much so. The suspense he was undergoing was far too real—sickening in fact. So he turned upon his spouse with an energy that astonished that now irate personage.

“I think, my dear, you had perhaps better leave us. Our business is private and important—in fact, very important.” And going over to the door he held it open for her in such wise as to leave her no alternative.

“Very well, Sir Francis,” she spluttered, fairly beside herself with rage. “I am turned out of the room, mind, and by you! Very well. But I have no wish to hear your secrets. They are sure to be of a discreditable nature, anyhow.”

With this parting shot she disappeared. Fordham, looking after her, slightly shook his head, and reflected that if he had thought to chastise his old enemy with whips, assuredly Fate had elected to do so with scorpions. Anybody under the heel of such a woman as this, had about come to the bottom of the cup of misfortune. Surely he had nothing worse left to fear.

“And now that we are alone,” said Sir Francis, coming back from the door which he had closed after his wife, “perhaps you will er—enlighten me as to the nature of this communication.”

He looked so unstrung, so worn, so piteous in his agony of suspense, that even a ray of ruth may have entered the heart of his implacable enemy. But if so, it was quickly quenched.

“Did it never strike you as odd?” said the latter, “that Philip should have been back all these weeks, and yet not have thought it worth his while running over to see you?”

Just what his wife had said. Sir Francis felt his apprehensions deepening; but he made no reply. Perhaps he could not.

“Well, he is more attractively employed, at any rate—for the time being,” emphasised Fordham. “In proof whereof—look at this.”

He produced a telegram from his pocket; deliberately unfolded it, then handed it to the other. Sir Francis’ face grew deathly white as he read it, and he gave a sort of gasp. He could only stare at the paper, then at Fordham, then at the paper again.

Thus ran the latter:—

“Married this morning to Laura Daventer. Congratulate me, old chap. Phil.”

“Is this a practical joke of yours?” gasped the baronet at length, as soon as he could find words.

“By no means. It is just as I received it. Look at the date of the office stamp—the 22nd. It was yesterday the affair came off. I only returned this morning from a few days’ absence, and found the wire awaiting me in my quarters. Yet it is news to you. Very inconsiderate on Phil’s part, I must say. He might have let you know.”

“Who—what—are these people—these Daventers?”

“Well, the young lady is his social equal, at all events, as you will probably be the first to admit,” answered Fordham, the cruel sneer deepening on his countenance. All the satanic ruthlessness of his implacable rancour had returned. He was pouring out the very life blood of his enemy now. All thoughts of pity, of compunction, had passed away.

“On her mother’s side the girl is undoubtedly his social equal,” he continued. “On that of her father—well, you must be the best judge.”

“I!” echoed Sir Francis, wonderingly. “Who, then, is her father?”

Fordham gazed full at him for a moment. Then his lips framed in a whisper one single word. And, hearing it, Sir Francis dropped back into his chair, his eyes staring, his face white as with the dews of death, shaking in every limb.

“Look well at the date of this,” pursued his relentless tormentor, holding out the telegram. “September 22nd. And this is the twenty-third. They have been married more than twenty-four hours. By the time you can communicate with them it will be forty-eight.”

But the unhappy man could articulate no word. The faculty of speech seemed to have left him. He saw it all now—saw the whole plot in all its diabolical horror.

“I told you once that my vengeance would follow you to the very grave,” went on Fordham. “Did you think because it had slept for years that therefore it was dead? Now you had better wire for Philip the first thing in the morning, for it will be too late to-night. And when he comes give him this. It will save you the trouble of explaining.”

He threw down what looked like a bulky letter carefully sealed and directed. Mechanically Sir Francis clutched it, but of any further reply he seemed incapable. Had his reason given way beneath the shock? It almost looked like it. Then with one more glance at his stricken enemy—a glance burning with hate, and long cherished rancour, and sated vengeance—Fordham left the room—and the house.

Chapter Twenty Nine.

“The Sins of the Fathers.”

The telegram which Fordham had shown Sir Francis told no more than the truth. Philip had riveted about himself that chain which only death can break. He and Laura Daventer were married.

How had it come about—the haste, the secrecy, too? Well, it was all very simple. Given one of Philip Orlebar’s temperament—given three or four weeks of close and daily companionship with a very attractive girl deadly in earnest in her designs upon him; given the accessories of a highly amiable and accommodating mother; of glorious summer weather; of cool rambles beneath shaded rocks, and strolls à deux on the moonlit beach—given all these things, we say, and small wonder is it that Philip’s susceptible heart—then very much at the rebound—should be triumphantly captured, and with it his hand.

Laura had played her cards well—had played them with a consummate coolness beyond her years. She had determined to win him, almost from the very first, yet she would rather risk failure than show herself over-eager to grasp success. Hence she had nipped his too premature declaration in the bud on that last occasion when we saw them together at Zermatt. She had even done this again with equal judiciousness—her point being that he should never think he was going to have an easy walk over—then had as suddenly capitulated, so sweetly, so entrancingly, as to bind him to her there and then with tenfold ardour.

In all of this she had been most skilfully and efficiently abetted by her mother. However reluctant the latter had been when the scheme was first propounded to her, the pendulum had now swung round the other way. It would be altogether to Laura’s advantage, and nothing need ever be known. The girl herself was in complete ignorance, and as for the Mephistophelian originator of the idea, it was not likely that he would disclose the secret. Perhaps, after all, she had judged him too harshly. Perhaps he had really been moved to plan out this in Laura’s interest and, at the same time, to enjoy the sport of, in a measure, turning the tables on his old enemy. And then, again, her mind would be shaken by a great disquietude, or more than misgiving. For if ever she could commit herself to a grave mistake, it would be when she should credit Fordham with motives and intentions otherwise than entirely evil—in his dealings with her and hers that is. Still she would not abandon her share in the plot—in the first place she dared not—in the next she lacked inclination. And meanwhile matters had gone too far.